Okay, I know it may seem like I'm determined to make a 5x2x5 of every possible genre, but trust me, that's just how they keep coming to me. This one came to me in a dream, and despite my best efforts, it kept insisting to be written.

Title: Accidents

Author: Ah Hael

Rating: PG

Pairings: 2x5, 1x3, 1x4

Summary: Wufei and Heero are killed in an accident and are brought back to life with some minor complications.

Warnings: Gender switching, lots of sap with heavy doses of fluff.

Archives: On my bio page

Disclaimer: The following story is based on the TV show Gundam Wing, which I do not own, so I don't get a dime for my efforts.


Accidents

I don't remember much about the accident. I remember looking at Heero in confirmation that the last of the civilians had been evacuated from the damaged station, and then it was as if all my senses were overwhelmed. Blinding light, a deafening roar, and searing pain. For about a millisecond before everything went black, I swear I could even smell my own flesh burning.

And then, there was nothing. No light. No sound. Nothing. And I knew I was dead.

Then, my interfering friends had to go and save me. Damn them.

Awareness drifted back to me slowly. My aforementioned overwhelmed senses began feeding me strange, disjointed information that blended with my nightmares, making them even worse.

It got to the point where the only sense I trusted anymore was sound. A beautiful, sweet rumbling hum that seemed to drone on in the back of my awareness. Soothing me, nurturing me, enveloping my very being, and chasing away the nightmares that threatened to drive me mad.

Eventually, the sound started to evolve into something a little more tangible. I could make out voices, but my mind wasn't ready to process who they were, or what they were saying. The one time I tried to open my eyes before my mind was ready, I was rewarded for my efforts with a painful assault on my optic nerves.

The first sound I was able to fully recognize was my name.

"Wufei? Wufei can you hear me? Squeeze my hand again if you can hear me." I knew that voice. I searched my mind for the owner of that voice. Sally. It was Sally talking, and she wanted me to squeeze her hand.

Where the hell was my hand? I felt a brief moment of panic when I thought I'd lost my hands, but then logic came back. How could I do as she asked without them? It was hard to focus my concentration and find my hands enough to flex them. As least, I think I did. I got a lot of positive sounds for whatever it was I did.

I tried to open my eyes again. This time, the light wasn't so painful, and I could make out hazy moving shapes that had to be the people around me. Exhausted by my efforts, I faded out after that.

That same sequence of events repeated itself several more times before I could do anything more.

"Wufei? How are you doing today?" Sally asked me. She'd been coming in to check up on me every day, and Duo, Trowa, Quatre or all three were with her when she did. Today, it was Duo.

"Sorrr thoat," I croaked. Was that weak sound my voice? I had tried to speak a few times before, but this was the first time I managed to coordinate my mouth enough to get words. At least this time, it almost sounded like what I meant to say.

Her eyes flew to mine with a delighted smile. "Your throat is sore?" I nodded. "Duo, can you get him a cup of water and a straw?"

I heard my friend exit the room at top speed. While he was away, Sally tried to coax me in to talking again with questions about my physical state. It was still inexplicably difficult for me to manage more than an affirmative or negative sound.

Duo reappeared and put his hand on my shoulder. "Hey, Wufei, try to drink some of this," he said, holding the straw to my mouth.

The cool water felt like paradise on my tongue and throat. Now, maybe I could finally get the answers to the questions that had been running through my mind since I'd begun to wake up.

I wanted to ask what happened. All I managed was "Wh… hap…nd?"

Duo gave me a look filled with surprise and concern. "I should have known you'd ask that," he grumbled. He looked back at me with one of his most artificial smiles pasted on his face. "Look, 'Fei, there will be plenty of time to talk about what happened later. You should rest right now," he answered, doing his best to sidestep the question.

Considering I just recently woken up in an obviously incapacitated state, I figured it was a fair question. His avoidance sent all kinds of alarms off in my head. He might as well have said 'I'm hiding something from you, and you're not going to like it'. I gave him the best glare I could manage under the circumstances.

"…mplosin?" Ugh. I meant to say 'did an explosion put me here?' Now, I'm reduced to talking like a toddler. Should I have been amused that Duo could understand me?

"Oh, you remember the explosion, do you?"

I gave him a nod. It was all I could manage. He looked at Sally. "Hey, Sally, maybe you should get the others in here." He looked back at me cautiously, and I instinctually braced myself.

"You and Heero were evacuating some scientists and their families from an observation satellite that had been damaged, do you remember that? Shortly after you'd done that, there was and explosion and the both of you were caught in the blast."

Well, that much I had already guessed myself. Now, to the parts I really wanted to know. "Heeerrrohh?" He smiled at me.

"He's alive. He was badly hurt, but alive."

What about me? How badly was I hurt? Is the reason I can't speak or move properly is because I've been so badly damaged? I had to focus very hard to speak "Status?" Yay me. I said a whole word. How humiliating.

Duo's expression changed from concerned to stubborn, and I was afraid he wasn't going to tell me what had happened to me. At that moment, Sally came back with Quatre and Trowa. The blond pilot beamed at me.

"Wufei! It's so good to see you awake!" He grabbed my hand warmly.

Trowa came up behind him. His smile wasn't as blinding as Quatre's, but no less warm. What ever had happened to me, it was easy to tell my friends were glad to have me alive. "Hello, Wufei. You called us, Duo?" the taller man asked, turning his attention away from me and onto the man sitting beside me.

"Yeah. We finally get him awake for more than ten minutes, and already he's being stubborn. He wants to know what happened."

"He's talking already?" Quatre asked. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the tone in his voice. He seemed surprised, but almost disappointed. By the looks of them, both he and Trowa were perplexed by this turn of events.

"Yeah, and already he's demanding answers."

Their talking over me like I wasn't there started to rake on my nerves. "Status?" I said, quite firmly. Either they answered the question or got the hell out of my room. I was not going to lay there and be treated like a coffee table.

"See?" Duo said, before looking at me a little regretfully. "Okay, you remember the explosion. At the time, the both of you were wearing standard headgear and body armour, which protected your heads and most of your internal organs. Without it, you never would have survived." He broke off with a choked sound. I was touched again to know that they were happy I was alive.

But, I was also hearing what he wasn't telling me. Whatever was not covered with protective gear was badly damaged or destroyed. That meant both my arms and anything below my waist. I couldn't stop the knee jerk panic reaction. I tried to sit up and look at what was left of my body, but my muscles wouldn't cooperate any better than my mouth had. Instead, I just thrashed wildly, getting myself nowhere.

Immediately, hands were all over me, trying to calm me.

"Hey! Hey! Take it easy. It's there. It's all there," Duo said to me soothingly. He must have understood what I was trying to do, but now I was confused. How could it all be there when it was destroyed? Duo tilted me up to survey my body, allowing me to lean on him for support. I was covered by blankets, but there were indeed two arms and two legs there.

Quatre took up the explanation. "You weren't expected to live, but we'd had a stroke of luck. Two of the people you evacuated were a mother and daughter that were injured previously and were going to be sent to the L3 regeneration facility."

Ah. Regeneration. One of the few good points about war was the medical breakthroughs. Nanite technology fused with cloning technology to help people repair and re-grow lost or damaged limbs. But, the process was still in its infancy stage. To date, I had only heard of it being used on people who had only lost one limb, not all four.

"Worrrkd?" Oh, damn. I was wearing out just as I was started to get answers. Sally answered.

"Yes, it worked. We had to re-grow all new arms and legs for you, as well as some other tissue, including nerves and skin. That's why it's so hard for you to move right now. Most of your body is new, and you have to re-learn how to use it."

That made sense. I would have left it at that, but there was something in their collective faces that made me sure they were still hiding something. I tried to say so, but I was already fading. "Hyyyyyydnnnnnnn."

"Shhh, 'Fei. Rest now. We'll talk later," Duo said, still holding me. By the time he'd laid me back down, I was out.

I have no idea if it was hours or days before I was awake enough again to confront them. They were all wearing different clothes so it stood to reason it had at least been a day.

At first, I woke up alone in the room. I surveyed my surroundings. It was clearly not a hospital room, regardless of the equipment present. It had modified Winner guestroom written all over it.

Now, to assess what was really concerning me. Pushing my concentration to the limits, I moved my hand enough to get it to rest on my thigh. Yes, the leg was there. It felt tingly and very sensitive. I guess it must have been a side effect of regeneration. I got my hand to twitch its way up to my belly to test the skin there, but a new more alarming thought blotted out all others.

WHERE THE HELL WAS MY DICK? My hand should have passed it in the way up, but I was certain didn't feel anything.

Yes, women may laugh, but we men are rather fond of our genitals, and take their loss rather badly. In fact, the loss of both arms and legs didn't affect me nearly as much as the loss of this appendage.

I was completely unaware of how my panic was registering on the machines monitoring me. Duo came speeding in, followed closely by Trowa and Sally. Duo put his hand on me once again and started muttering soothing words to calm me. As if I could be calm at a time like this.

"Gone!" I said, alarmed. At first, they all seemed confused as to what was gone, until they all took note of where my hand was and gave each other rather significant looks. What did that mean? They were willing to re-grow my legs but overlooked my manhood? What kind of friends were they?

"Shhh. It's not gone. It's… First, I want to say this can be fixed, okay? We just need to wait until the rest of you gets better," Duo said. I nodded, letting him know they had my full attention and I was trying very hard to remain calm. Sally sat down at the edge of my bed and started what I hoped would be a damn good reason as to why a rather significant portion of my anatomy was missing.

"Wufei, I don't know how much you know about regeneration technology, but essentially it works like this: nanites assess damaged areas, and then use cloning technology to repair and re-grow the damaged tissue. The problem is the amount of damaged you sustained. It uncovered a flaw in the system," Sally said quietly.

A flaw in the system. This didn't inspire my confidence, but I let her continue. "Since it involves cloning, damage has to be assessed at the genetic level. There is a central system that controls and monitors regeneration. The same system that was monitoring you and Heero was also monitoring the mother and daughter you rescued."

"It mistakenly read your 'y' chromosome as damage and corrected with extrapolations from the mother and daughter's 'x' chromosome. It… It remade you into a woman," she finished quickly.

They all had matching expressions of guilt and nervousness although I don't know why they were all so nervous. I was too weak to extract revenge yet. No, my revenge would have to wait until later. Yes, my-rip-them-all-apart-and-put-them-back-together-wrong revenge would have to wait. In the meantime, I passed out again from the strain I'd put myself under.

To say I was not the best company in the following weeks would be an understatement. Not that you could blame me. It seemed like each day tore another strip from my pride, and it took some time to fully realize the extent of my humiliation. The only thing that kept me from going mad was Duo and Sally's reassurance that this could be reversed.

I needed someone to feed me, bathe me, and take me to the bathroom. With my new nerves, I even had to re-learn how to go to the bathroom. I'd even suffered the embarrassment of having a few "accidents" in that area. Did you know that bladder control is far more difficult for a woman?

The cherry on top of it all was that Duo was almost always present for each dent in my dignity. He was there in the morning when I woke up to feed me breakfast, to help me exercise my limbs during the day, and even to read to me at night.

His never ending patience and calm demeanor irritated me. He and I didn't do patience and calm. We had battles of cunning and wit. This somber version of Duo felt too much like pity. Perhaps that was what inspired my juvenile behavior.

"Don't you have anything better to do than watch me make a fool of myself?" I yelled at him. I smacked the bowl of soup he was feeding me, effectively dumping it all over my braided nursemaid and the floor. Instead of one of our legendary arguments, he just quietly left the room, returning a few minutes later with clean clothes, a mop, and a bucket. I watched in fascination and disappointment while he silently cleaned up the mess, never once complaining.

Duo always complains. He's a virtually a professional complainer, so maybe you can get a small idea of how out of character he was acting.

It wasn't until he was done cleaning up the mess I'd made that he said anything, and it wasn't to me. He looked up at me, his eyes became extremely round, and then he leapt to the house phone and screamed for Sally to get her butt into my room.

Okay, I'd been killed, brought back from the dead, and remade into a woman. It is safe to say I've been through a great deal. When Duo screamed like that, my first thought was 'what now?', and I couldn't stop myself from looking down at my body.

I was covered in blood.

Sally barged in, saw the blood, and demanded to know what happened.

"I dunno!" Duo answered in a semi-hysterical tone. "I just looked up, and there was all of this blood!" He proceeded to dance around behind her while she pulled back my covers and examined me for a few seconds.

"Duo, you can relax. This is normal."

"Normal? How can this be normal?" Duo demanded. His voice was pitched way too high.

Yes, I wondered how this can be normal. People just don't start bleeding.

"It's normal for women to have menstrual cycles," she stated plainly.

What? I'm what? "I'm what?" I squeaked in a very unmanly fashion. No. Kill me now. Anything but that. This was not happening.

Duo, the coward, quickly fled the room. Typical man, running away at the first sign of anything that relates to feminine hygiene.

I had to put my foot down. "No. I refuse. I am not having menstrual cycles. Take everything out if you must, but I am not doing this," I stated firmly.

"Oh, stop being such a baby. I've been going through this every month since I was thirteen. I even fought a war like this, so you'll forgive me if I don't think you can't handle a few months of it," she said waspishly. Over the past few weeks, her gentle concern had waned a little. According to her, I was being unreasonable. Yeah, right. Let's see how well she would come back from the dead with a new gender.

Duo came back in carrying a bag full of stuff. "Hey! Hilde packed this emergency kit just in case this happened."

Now Hilde knows that I'm a woman with menstrual cycle? I looked over at the table and seriously considered stabbing myself to death with my forgotten soupspoon.

Curious, Sally peeked into the bag and inspected its contents. After a moment, she made an approved sound. "Good idea, although I wouldn't recommend these for Wufei just yet. I'd rather he start off with pads until he gets the hang of it." I could literally feel the blood drain from my face as she extracted a box of tampons.

Notice how they still call me "he"? At least, they were all smart enough to avoid ever referring to me as "she".

Duo went over to the ensuite bathroom and prepared what ever it was he was preparing for me while Sally gave me a quick and very embarrassing refresher course in the human reproductive system from the female perspective. She was just finishing when another thought hit me.

"Sally, can I get pregnant?" Don't ask me why I asked that. It's not as if I was ever going to allow it to happen, but for some obscure reason, I blurted out the question. Damn my insatiable curiosity.

"I'm not sure. Although your uterus looks like it works perfectly fine, it doesn't look like your ovaries are producing viable eggs. I doubt you could get pregnant without medical help."

I have a uterus and ovaries? EW! EW! EW! Regardless of my body, my mind was still male and was revolted at having those foreign organs inside me. Duo kept my mouth from spouting any more stupid questions by bundling me up in my blood soaked sheets and carting me off into the bathroom.


Part 2 is already written, just needs to be betaed