Notes: The beginning of the recovery! And Heero says those three magic words! And they're NOT omae o korosu, or Duo you baka! Don't you just love it when Heero's all mushy? Enjoy and review!
It was nearing dawn when the nightmare took him. I'd begun to foolishly hope that maybe the nightmare wouldn't happen. I should've known better. Duo jerked suddenly and I rolled out of the bed as the first scream burst from his throat. He struggled, twisting and turning and thrashing, clawing at the air, screaming all the time.
"Duo, calm down!" I urged. "You're dreaming, Duo. Wake up. Come on, Duo, just wake up. Please!"
He didn't seem to hear me. His screams echoed so loudly in the silent room, cutting at my heart like knives. It was all I could do to keep from touching him, trying to comfort him, but I knew that if I did, he would try to hurt me, and I might have to hurt him to stop him. I didn't want to hurt him. So I was forced to just stand by and watch, utterly and completely helpless. I felt like screaming myself.
"I'M SORRY!" Duo screamed, sitting up and looking around wildly, searching for something, I think.
"Duo?" I asked softly, taking a hesitant step forward. Duo's gaze swung to me and whatever he saw, it wasn't me and it wasn't good. He screamed and scrabbled off the bed, flinging the door open and running away.
"Shit!" I cursed, following him. But he was fast, faster than normal, and I couldn't catch him. He ended up outside, just outside the barracks, when he collapsed, shaking, sobbing, and screaming.
"Go away!" he screamed between sobs. "Please! I'm so sorry! Just go away!"
"Duo?" I stepped forward, and when he didn't scrabble away, I knelt down and embraced him. He clutched at me like he'd been doing so much in the past, Gods, was it only two days?
"Make them go away, Heero," he sobbed. "Make them all go away. Make the pain stop. Please."
"I'm so sorry, Duo." I felt so fucking helpless! Dammit, he was falling, falling so fast, and I couldn't do a thing! I wanted so much to make them go away, make the pain stop, and I couldn't. All I could do was hold him, and it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. But it was all I had.
I felt eyes on me, making my skin itch, and I looked up to find that about two dozen soldiers had come out of the barracks, probably because of Duo's screams, and were staring at us. I glared at them, and wished desperately for my friends. As if on command, my friends appeared, all slightly out of breath. They looked at me and Duo, then at the soldiers, and moved to block us from view.
"Alright, get the fuck back to your beds before we kill you all." Surprisingly, this wasn't from Wufei, it was from quiet and calm Trowa. His voice was still quiet, but it wasn't calm, it was shaking with anger.
".... Is that kid alright?" one soldier asked, trying to peer around the wall made by Quatre, Trowa and Wufei, to look at me and Duo.
"He has issues. If you'd been through what he's been through, you'd have issues, too. So leave us all the fuck alone."
Some of them left, but about ten of them stayed. Wufei slid the safety off his gun and fired a shot into the ground. As he'd had the safety on, he'd probably brought the gun just for this purpose.
"There are fourteen bullets left in this clip, and only eleven of you. Now fuck off, before I have just three bullets left and not fourteen."
The soldiers fled. I turned my attention back to Duo, though it had never really left him. He was still crying, but he wasn't sobbing or screaming any more. But I was still helpless. In desperation, I turned to the one person who knew partly what was going on in Duo's heart.
"Quatre, what can I do?"
"I don't... I don't know. He's... he's so lost... he's trying... to find us... to find the world... but it's so dark... oh, Gods, it's so dark."
Trowa embraced him gently, and Quatre clung to him, much like Duo clung to me. Only, Trowa's embrace seemed to help Quatre, and I'm not sure my embrace was helping Duo.
"It is," Quatre gasped. "Your touch is the only thing keeping him from being lost forever. Lost in the cold, in the darkness..."
"Hush, little one," Trowa murmured. "Stop reading him. You're hurting yourself."
"I can't help it. He's screaming at me. Oh, Gods, Trowa, it hurts so much."
"Trowa, get a sedative," I ordered. "As strong as Duo's body can handle without too strong side-effects."
Trowa nodded and walked away, his footfalls echoing in the still air. I looked at Wufei, and tried to think up a plausible errand for him. I needed a couple of minutes alone with Duo. But before I could speak, Wufei took Quatre's shoulder and led him away.
"We'll return in five minutes," he said quietly, and I just blinked at his back. Well, damn. Sometimes that guy amazes me. I looked down at Duo and drew away enough to look into his shining, haunted eyes.
"Duo, can you hear me? Do you know who I am? Say my name, Duo. Please."
"H-Heero."
"Good. That's good. Do you know who you are?"
"K-Killer. Shinigami. So evil."
"No, Duo, you're not evil. You are the...." Okay, I know that this is probably a seriously bad idea, but I have this feeling that... if I tell him how I feel... it'll help. "You're the only person I have ever loved." There, I admitted it.
Duo blinked at me, and some of the... whatever seeped out of his eyes, and he just stared at me.
"D-Do you?" he whispered. "Do you love me?"
"With every breath in my body."
"W-Why?"
"Because you're beautiful, and strong, and brave, and kind, and warm, and funny, and you never let anyone break you. If they say scream, you refuse to even whimper. If they say stand up, you sit down. And I love you for all of that and more."
"D-Do you think I'm evil?"
"No. You could never be evil, Duo."
"T-They were so innocent, Heero, so little. And I killed them. Oh, Gods, I killed them."
"I know. And I can't erase what you did. But you had to do it. You just have to... put it behind you."
"W-Will you help me?"
"Always." I said it with as much sincerity as I could muster, and Duo, apparently, believed me, because he actually smiled, a smile that made his eyes light up, and then fell unconscious. But he wasn't shaking, and he wasn't crying, and he wasn't screaming. He was just asleep, and maybe, just maybe, it'd be peaceful.
We left the base at lunch. Screw our orders. Duo needed to have what he knew, who he knew, around him, not dozens of strangers in a strange place, giving him strange looks, and asking strange questions. He was still asleep when I carried him into the van. Someone had emptied it off the clutter that had been in the back when I'd stolen it, and put some blankets down for comfort.
"You guys aren't supposed to be leaving yet," a familiar voice said. We all turned around from lying Duo down on the blankets to look at Sally Po. She smiled. "I was called in as soon as you guys were. Took me a while to get here. Is he alright?"
"He's better," I replied. "Just needs time."
"You're all supposed to stay for psych evaluations."
"We don't need our heads examined. We just need to help Duo."
"Heero, I appreciate that you guys are very... protective, but we have doctors here who know what he's going through possibly better than you do."
I just snapped. "Really? Have they killed over a hundred civilians, including little children, to make sure OZ didn't track one guy? Have they had ice consume their heart? Have they been coated in blood, so fresh it was still warm? Have they gone through thirty bullets in a handful of minutes, and not waste one shot? They have no fucking idea what Duo is going through. But we do. We can help him. We are the only ones who can bring him back from the dark place he's in."
Sally hesitated for a moment, but then sighed. "Alright. I'll trust you with him. But call me, if you need help?"
"Sure. Quatre, get us out of here."
"Right." Quatre, Trowa and Wufei jumped out of the van and shut the doors. A moment later, Quatre was behind the wheel and starting the engine. Duo murmured something, hands reaching for me, and I laid down beside him, letting him spoon against the side of my body, head resting on my shoulder.
"... loves me..." he murmured, almost inaudibly, and I smiled, brushing his bangs out of his closed eyes and gently kissing his forehead.
"Yes, Duo," I whispered back, "I love you." Duo made a little 'mmm' sound, snuggling closer, and I smiled again. In that one instant, I forget all about the war, all about the pain and suffering and death that was my life, our lives. There was just me and Duo. I'd never felt so... peaceful.
Duo was still asleep when we stopped the van outside the forest. I carried Duo, and my bags. Wufei carried Duo's bags. Trowa carried Quatre's bags. Quatre drove the van back into the town.
The safe house was just as we'd left it, down to the half-filled coffee cup sitting on the coffee table in the living room. I laid Duo gently on the sofa, brushing his cheek with my fingertips, and quickly secured the house, checking closets and under beds, until I was certain that the house was empty.
Trowa had already put the kettle on. I think we all needed something strong inside us at that time, and since Duo had yet to smuggle us some more alcohol-Quatre doesn't like us drinking, so we have to hide it from him-coffee, was all we were going to get. Wufei sighed, falling into one of the armchairs and looking at Duo, with something odd in his eyes, something that I couldn't decipher.
"I never realized before," he said quietly, "How much he hides. I saw the grins and the jokes and didn't look any further, didn't even realize it was a mask, let alone try and break it. He carries so much inside, yet doesn't show it. He jokes and he laughs, because he knows that... we need it. We need him to be the clown, to get us through this war. He knew it and he accepted it. And I didn't question it. I was a fool."
"Duo didn't want us to see past the mask," I assured him softly, leaning against the wall with my arms folded across my chest. "He didn't want anyone to know... how much he hurts. Don't blame yourself. None of us noticed."
"We should've. All those times, he's gone on... horrific missions, and come back grinning, I just called him a baka and dismissed him. I didn't see... the pain in his eyes, the loneliness. I can see it now, though, in my memories. And I curse myself for not seeing it before."
"He didn't let us to see. Duo is a master at running and hiding, so good that he was doing it, and no one knew. We see only what he lets us see. And unfortunately, that's not much."
Wufei growled in frustration, scrubbing at his face with his hands. "I feel so fucking helpless," he nearly shouted.
I laughed bitterly, and he looked at me. I watched the thoughts fly across his face and then he grimaced.
"Sorry. You must feel worse than I do."
"Hai. But I think he's getting better. I think.... Oh, hell, Chang, I'm not sure. Duo's always been such a mystery to me, and... I just have no idea what to do. Quatre knows him better than I do."
"You're wrong," Trowa said quietly, walking in with a small tray and handing us both a coffee, sitting down in the other armchair and sipping his own drink. "Quatre knows his emotions, but he doesn't know Duo. He doesn't know what to do. You do."
"No I don't! That's the fucking problem!"
"Heero, just think about it. What do you want to do, right now?"
I answered without thinking, "Hold him." I blushed and looked away from his soft, knowing smile.
"Your first instinct is to hold him, and it's right. The only thing that's kept Duo sane these past two days, is you holding him. You are exactly what he needs."
"I am?"
"Yes. I don't know if he needs your strength, or your love, or both, or if he loves you as much as you love him, but he needs you."
I glanced at Duo, and caught him frowning slightly, hands flexing. It didn't take any thought. I went to him. It took some manoeuvring, but I managed to get behind him, and he smiled, curling against me.
"See?" Trowa said quietly. "You're exactly what he needs."
"Medicine for his soul," Wufei murmured. "I have checks to run on Nataku." Then he got up and left. I looked at Trowa.
"Do you love Quatre?" I asked bluntly, and he blinked at me. Then he smiled.
"Yeah, I guess I do."
"Loving someone is dangerous, especially for us. We can't let emotions get in the way of missions."
"They don't. When we go on missions, we're Gundam pilots. But off-duty, we're just boys. Boys who live very weird lives, granted, but still boys. I won't jeopardize a mission for Quatre and he won't for me. But being in love, it's also good. Because we know what we're fighting for, what we're trying to protect. If we completely cut ourselves off from everyone and everything, how do we know what we're trying to save? Loving Quatre means that I have a reason to fight. I'm going to fight to protect him, to make he sure he survives, and to make sure that sometime in the future, we can have a normal life together. I don't care about anything else. I'm fighting for Quatre." He stood up and walked upstairs, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Trowa was fighting for Quatre, Quatre was fighting for peace, Wufei was fighting for justice, Duo was fighting for revenge... but what was I fighting for? I was fighting for Duo. I was fighting to make sure he didn't have any more nightmares, no blood on his hands, no more... icy darkness. The Colonies didn't matter anymore, not to me. I was fighting for Duo.
It was nearing dawn when the nightmare took him. I'd begun to foolishly hope that maybe the nightmare wouldn't happen. I should've known better. Duo jerked suddenly and I rolled out of the bed as the first scream burst from his throat. He struggled, twisting and turning and thrashing, clawing at the air, screaming all the time.
"Duo, calm down!" I urged. "You're dreaming, Duo. Wake up. Come on, Duo, just wake up. Please!"
He didn't seem to hear me. His screams echoed so loudly in the silent room, cutting at my heart like knives. It was all I could do to keep from touching him, trying to comfort him, but I knew that if I did, he would try to hurt me, and I might have to hurt him to stop him. I didn't want to hurt him. So I was forced to just stand by and watch, utterly and completely helpless. I felt like screaming myself.
"I'M SORRY!" Duo screamed, sitting up and looking around wildly, searching for something, I think.
"Duo?" I asked softly, taking a hesitant step forward. Duo's gaze swung to me and whatever he saw, it wasn't me and it wasn't good. He screamed and scrabbled off the bed, flinging the door open and running away.
"Shit!" I cursed, following him. But he was fast, faster than normal, and I couldn't catch him. He ended up outside, just outside the barracks, when he collapsed, shaking, sobbing, and screaming.
"Go away!" he screamed between sobs. "Please! I'm so sorry! Just go away!"
"Duo?" I stepped forward, and when he didn't scrabble away, I knelt down and embraced him. He clutched at me like he'd been doing so much in the past, Gods, was it only two days?
"Make them go away, Heero," he sobbed. "Make them all go away. Make the pain stop. Please."
"I'm so sorry, Duo." I felt so fucking helpless! Dammit, he was falling, falling so fast, and I couldn't do a thing! I wanted so much to make them go away, make the pain stop, and I couldn't. All I could do was hold him, and it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. But it was all I had.
I felt eyes on me, making my skin itch, and I looked up to find that about two dozen soldiers had come out of the barracks, probably because of Duo's screams, and were staring at us. I glared at them, and wished desperately for my friends. As if on command, my friends appeared, all slightly out of breath. They looked at me and Duo, then at the soldiers, and moved to block us from view.
"Alright, get the fuck back to your beds before we kill you all." Surprisingly, this wasn't from Wufei, it was from quiet and calm Trowa. His voice was still quiet, but it wasn't calm, it was shaking with anger.
".... Is that kid alright?" one soldier asked, trying to peer around the wall made by Quatre, Trowa and Wufei, to look at me and Duo.
"He has issues. If you'd been through what he's been through, you'd have issues, too. So leave us all the fuck alone."
Some of them left, but about ten of them stayed. Wufei slid the safety off his gun and fired a shot into the ground. As he'd had the safety on, he'd probably brought the gun just for this purpose.
"There are fourteen bullets left in this clip, and only eleven of you. Now fuck off, before I have just three bullets left and not fourteen."
The soldiers fled. I turned my attention back to Duo, though it had never really left him. He was still crying, but he wasn't sobbing or screaming any more. But I was still helpless. In desperation, I turned to the one person who knew partly what was going on in Duo's heart.
"Quatre, what can I do?"
"I don't... I don't know. He's... he's so lost... he's trying... to find us... to find the world... but it's so dark... oh, Gods, it's so dark."
Trowa embraced him gently, and Quatre clung to him, much like Duo clung to me. Only, Trowa's embrace seemed to help Quatre, and I'm not sure my embrace was helping Duo.
"It is," Quatre gasped. "Your touch is the only thing keeping him from being lost forever. Lost in the cold, in the darkness..."
"Hush, little one," Trowa murmured. "Stop reading him. You're hurting yourself."
"I can't help it. He's screaming at me. Oh, Gods, Trowa, it hurts so much."
"Trowa, get a sedative," I ordered. "As strong as Duo's body can handle without too strong side-effects."
Trowa nodded and walked away, his footfalls echoing in the still air. I looked at Wufei, and tried to think up a plausible errand for him. I needed a couple of minutes alone with Duo. But before I could speak, Wufei took Quatre's shoulder and led him away.
"We'll return in five minutes," he said quietly, and I just blinked at his back. Well, damn. Sometimes that guy amazes me. I looked down at Duo and drew away enough to look into his shining, haunted eyes.
"Duo, can you hear me? Do you know who I am? Say my name, Duo. Please."
"H-Heero."
"Good. That's good. Do you know who you are?"
"K-Killer. Shinigami. So evil."
"No, Duo, you're not evil. You are the...." Okay, I know that this is probably a seriously bad idea, but I have this feeling that... if I tell him how I feel... it'll help. "You're the only person I have ever loved." There, I admitted it.
Duo blinked at me, and some of the... whatever seeped out of his eyes, and he just stared at me.
"D-Do you?" he whispered. "Do you love me?"
"With every breath in my body."
"W-Why?"
"Because you're beautiful, and strong, and brave, and kind, and warm, and funny, and you never let anyone break you. If they say scream, you refuse to even whimper. If they say stand up, you sit down. And I love you for all of that and more."
"D-Do you think I'm evil?"
"No. You could never be evil, Duo."
"T-They were so innocent, Heero, so little. And I killed them. Oh, Gods, I killed them."
"I know. And I can't erase what you did. But you had to do it. You just have to... put it behind you."
"W-Will you help me?"
"Always." I said it with as much sincerity as I could muster, and Duo, apparently, believed me, because he actually smiled, a smile that made his eyes light up, and then fell unconscious. But he wasn't shaking, and he wasn't crying, and he wasn't screaming. He was just asleep, and maybe, just maybe, it'd be peaceful.
We left the base at lunch. Screw our orders. Duo needed to have what he knew, who he knew, around him, not dozens of strangers in a strange place, giving him strange looks, and asking strange questions. He was still asleep when I carried him into the van. Someone had emptied it off the clutter that had been in the back when I'd stolen it, and put some blankets down for comfort.
"You guys aren't supposed to be leaving yet," a familiar voice said. We all turned around from lying Duo down on the blankets to look at Sally Po. She smiled. "I was called in as soon as you guys were. Took me a while to get here. Is he alright?"
"He's better," I replied. "Just needs time."
"You're all supposed to stay for psych evaluations."
"We don't need our heads examined. We just need to help Duo."
"Heero, I appreciate that you guys are very... protective, but we have doctors here who know what he's going through possibly better than you do."
I just snapped. "Really? Have they killed over a hundred civilians, including little children, to make sure OZ didn't track one guy? Have they had ice consume their heart? Have they been coated in blood, so fresh it was still warm? Have they gone through thirty bullets in a handful of minutes, and not waste one shot? They have no fucking idea what Duo is going through. But we do. We can help him. We are the only ones who can bring him back from the dark place he's in."
Sally hesitated for a moment, but then sighed. "Alright. I'll trust you with him. But call me, if you need help?"
"Sure. Quatre, get us out of here."
"Right." Quatre, Trowa and Wufei jumped out of the van and shut the doors. A moment later, Quatre was behind the wheel and starting the engine. Duo murmured something, hands reaching for me, and I laid down beside him, letting him spoon against the side of my body, head resting on my shoulder.
"... loves me..." he murmured, almost inaudibly, and I smiled, brushing his bangs out of his closed eyes and gently kissing his forehead.
"Yes, Duo," I whispered back, "I love you." Duo made a little 'mmm' sound, snuggling closer, and I smiled again. In that one instant, I forget all about the war, all about the pain and suffering and death that was my life, our lives. There was just me and Duo. I'd never felt so... peaceful.
Duo was still asleep when we stopped the van outside the forest. I carried Duo, and my bags. Wufei carried Duo's bags. Trowa carried Quatre's bags. Quatre drove the van back into the town.
The safe house was just as we'd left it, down to the half-filled coffee cup sitting on the coffee table in the living room. I laid Duo gently on the sofa, brushing his cheek with my fingertips, and quickly secured the house, checking closets and under beds, until I was certain that the house was empty.
Trowa had already put the kettle on. I think we all needed something strong inside us at that time, and since Duo had yet to smuggle us some more alcohol-Quatre doesn't like us drinking, so we have to hide it from him-coffee, was all we were going to get. Wufei sighed, falling into one of the armchairs and looking at Duo, with something odd in his eyes, something that I couldn't decipher.
"I never realized before," he said quietly, "How much he hides. I saw the grins and the jokes and didn't look any further, didn't even realize it was a mask, let alone try and break it. He carries so much inside, yet doesn't show it. He jokes and he laughs, because he knows that... we need it. We need him to be the clown, to get us through this war. He knew it and he accepted it. And I didn't question it. I was a fool."
"Duo didn't want us to see past the mask," I assured him softly, leaning against the wall with my arms folded across my chest. "He didn't want anyone to know... how much he hurts. Don't blame yourself. None of us noticed."
"We should've. All those times, he's gone on... horrific missions, and come back grinning, I just called him a baka and dismissed him. I didn't see... the pain in his eyes, the loneliness. I can see it now, though, in my memories. And I curse myself for not seeing it before."
"He didn't let us to see. Duo is a master at running and hiding, so good that he was doing it, and no one knew. We see only what he lets us see. And unfortunately, that's not much."
Wufei growled in frustration, scrubbing at his face with his hands. "I feel so fucking helpless," he nearly shouted.
I laughed bitterly, and he looked at me. I watched the thoughts fly across his face and then he grimaced.
"Sorry. You must feel worse than I do."
"Hai. But I think he's getting better. I think.... Oh, hell, Chang, I'm not sure. Duo's always been such a mystery to me, and... I just have no idea what to do. Quatre knows him better than I do."
"You're wrong," Trowa said quietly, walking in with a small tray and handing us both a coffee, sitting down in the other armchair and sipping his own drink. "Quatre knows his emotions, but he doesn't know Duo. He doesn't know what to do. You do."
"No I don't! That's the fucking problem!"
"Heero, just think about it. What do you want to do, right now?"
I answered without thinking, "Hold him." I blushed and looked away from his soft, knowing smile.
"Your first instinct is to hold him, and it's right. The only thing that's kept Duo sane these past two days, is you holding him. You are exactly what he needs."
"I am?"
"Yes. I don't know if he needs your strength, or your love, or both, or if he loves you as much as you love him, but he needs you."
I glanced at Duo, and caught him frowning slightly, hands flexing. It didn't take any thought. I went to him. It took some manoeuvring, but I managed to get behind him, and he smiled, curling against me.
"See?" Trowa said quietly. "You're exactly what he needs."
"Medicine for his soul," Wufei murmured. "I have checks to run on Nataku." Then he got up and left. I looked at Trowa.
"Do you love Quatre?" I asked bluntly, and he blinked at me. Then he smiled.
"Yeah, I guess I do."
"Loving someone is dangerous, especially for us. We can't let emotions get in the way of missions."
"They don't. When we go on missions, we're Gundam pilots. But off-duty, we're just boys. Boys who live very weird lives, granted, but still boys. I won't jeopardize a mission for Quatre and he won't for me. But being in love, it's also good. Because we know what we're fighting for, what we're trying to protect. If we completely cut ourselves off from everyone and everything, how do we know what we're trying to save? Loving Quatre means that I have a reason to fight. I'm going to fight to protect him, to make he sure he survives, and to make sure that sometime in the future, we can have a normal life together. I don't care about anything else. I'm fighting for Quatre." He stood up and walked upstairs, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Trowa was fighting for Quatre, Quatre was fighting for peace, Wufei was fighting for justice, Duo was fighting for revenge... but what was I fighting for? I was fighting for Duo. I was fighting to make sure he didn't have any more nightmares, no blood on his hands, no more... icy darkness. The Colonies didn't matter anymore, not to me. I was fighting for Duo.