Disclaimer: The boys and the girls aren't mine, but the madness is mwoohahahahaha!

Key – A line denotes change in POV

-denotes thoughts or inner speech-

Chapter 14

Ground Zero in Paradise

So I'm going to die. How interesting. How very, very interesting. I knew that I was coming back for something, but I didn't know what...guess this was the "what".

I could almost smell the trap in the air when we walked into the warehouse, but I ignored it. Why? Because I really didn't care. I didn't care what happened to me. I had decided that after I came back, after I sought out Quatre, after I realised the dark in me was too strong. It was probably the dark that decided for me. Everyone had inner demons, but my own are beginning to take me over. So it doesn't matter, none of it, not really. I just regret that I won't get to tell Trowa, tell him how I'm sorry for ruining...everything.

I guess that good mood I had been inn earlier had been, well, all crap.

The pain isn't so bad, I've had worse anyway. Bullet wounds, big deal. Try having you're entire body blown apart, being thrown to the ground at an unbearable speed and snapping almost every bone in your body, the skin torn from your limbs. Now that's painful, though of course I don't mean to brag. I would have laughed if I didn't think I'd rupture something.

I wish that they would leave me alone, these doctors, wish they would let me die at least in some semblance of peace. I was always fighting, am always fighting, and there's never any silence. Those were the moments I cherished the most, when we were hiding, or undercover, and it was just quiet. No guns, no bombs, no smell of charred flesh and burning metal; just quiet. I had spent the last two years growing steadily sick of peace and quiet, yet when it came to the end...that was all I wanted. I wanted to die like that, wanted to die in peace and quiet, knowing there was nothing to be done, nothing to be sorted, that I wasn't leaving anything unfinished. I wanted to die knowing my mission was done. Now however there was noise, all around me. I could hear people shouting, no matter how far off they sounded, I could feel the needle for the blood IV being slid under my skin, feel the burning in my chest and my leg where the bullets ate at my flesh. I didn't want this, not this...had to tell...

"Trowa..." I moaned a little deliriously, hoping that someone would take the hint and go find him, "...I need to speak to..."

"Don't talk," I heard a gentle voice command, even though I could hear the worry running through it. I recognised that voice...

"Duo?" I croaked, choking on the blood that rose in my throat.

"Heero, don't worry buddy, you'll be fine," I heard him reassure, but he was slipping, could hear him getting further...

"Get Trowa," I pleaded as best I could before I had to let him go, couldn't stay awake any...longer...this isn't...good...

"Oh god! Heero stay with me!" I cried, shoving back mercilessly as the nurses tried to pull me from him.

"Please sir!" the nurse strained holding me back as the stretcher and Heero were pulled out of my grasp, "we have to get him into the operating theatre now! You've done all you can, now let us take it from here."

Her eyes were pleading, but I could see the sympathy behind her desperation. I nodded dumbly, letting my body go limp, proving to her I wasn't going to resist.

"Just save him, don't let him leave," I breathed, panting heavily from my run down the corridor, "please."

"We'll do everything we can," she reassured me, squeezing my arm and then running full speed round the corner after the mess of doctors and blood.

I stood where she left me, panting and listening to the sound of her receding footsteps, echoing along the now empty corridor. I heard the swing doors bang open and then thump together again as they closed, leaving me in silence. Then I let go, let myself fall to my knees, and began to shake almost uncontrollably. I couldn't stop it, I couldn't stop my heart from racing, or the sobs that threatened to choke from my throat.

"Not after all this," I pleaded with no one in particular, "not after all this time, all we've done, been through! Don't let this happen! Please!!"

"Duo!" Even that panicked shout didn't pull me from my pleading, the sound of running feet seeming now completely insignificant.

I felt nothing, only that pain, that pain I had hoped I would never have to feel again, and the one that threatened everyday to raise its ugly head ever since he'd come back to me, ever since I'd been born...

"I never wanted to lose anyone," I tried to explain to my hands, "never again. Please..."

"Duo, are you alright?" I felt a hand on my shoulder, pressing hard as its owner drew heavy breaths, fighting to regain their composure.

"He's going to die isn't he?" I tried not to sound melodramatic, "All my fault..."

"God Duo! Don't talk like that!" I heard Wufei hiss, "no one is going to die!"

"Can't protect you all the time..." I began to ramble to myself, "not there all the time. Stupid! IDIOT!"

I clenched my hands in my hair and pulled and pulled until I thought I would rip my head in half. I wanted that pain, wanted to feel it burning, wanted it, and wanted it more than that horrible hollow feeling that was digging away at me now. Oh why does he still have to do this to me? Why can't he just leave me alone?

"Get Trowa," I said suddenly as I heard Wufei take a breath to speak, not wanting him to say another word, "Heero wanted Trowa. Go get him, NOW!"

"Right," I heard him say, trying not to sound confused, only to focus on a dying mans last wish.

Dying man. Ha, who was the dying man? Heero or me? Maybe it was both of us. Maybe I am dying right now, it felt just as bad. What a way to go, this is too much like a soap opera. Oh god, oh god, oh god...

-I just don't want to lose him- I thought, trying to force my mind into some sort of order, -just don't let him leave me again. Don't want to be alone...-

"Quit being so selfish, you bastard!" I spat at myself, "this isn't about you!"

I took a deep breath, but it didn't help. I tried to hum something, focus on the sound of my own voice, force myself to focus, and slowly but surely I started to clam down. Now that I look back on it I must have looked like such a mental case, sitting in the middle of the corridor humming to myself and trying to tear my hair out. That really isn't the image you want to give yourself, but it helped nonetheless.

"Oh Heero, why does it hurt me so much," I asked the same no one in particular, "how can you still do this to me, after all this time..."

AN: It's short and unsatisfactory and Duo sounds like a wuss, I know, but I had to write it sorry! Please R&R you lovely people!