Title: Mission 2?

Author: sankekorafi

Pairings: 2+5?

Warnings: Depression, Mentions of Insanity

A/N: Thanks to everyone who responded! Again, anyone interested in betaing this please e-mail me. Thanks!

… Disclaimer… I own NOTHING!

Wufei returned to the camp late that night. It had rained even more on his return, and he could feel the damp cloth of his tank top fluttering behind him. It made a quiet but strong clicking sound as the wind forced it against his back over and over again.

Although he had ignored the rain easily during the mission, the wind and falling temperature made him wish he had thought to bring some sort of water resistant device. His hour-long hike back to the tents had left him shivering violently for several minutes before finally subsiding to a gentle tremor that was centered in his frozen heart and radiated outwards through his bones. Each time a foot touched the ground, his head pounded once more, the pain escalating with each step. Although he was soaked, his thirst was immense. Once he had tried sucking on his tank top, but the taste of blood made him nauseous and he was unable to quench his thirst. The drizzle above him made him mad with the need to drink, but the canopy of deciduous leaves deterred the rain, making it fall to the ground in unpredictable buckets as though squirrels were trying to drown him with their acorn's hats as cups.

Finally he saw a light beyond. This would be the fire. Duo had insisted on it, despite its being conspicuous, because he said the lack of a fire would seem stranger if an Ozzy were to stumble upon them. Certainly that would put Wufei on guard, so he understood and backed down.

Dancing flames greeted him as he entered the clearing, two tents set up to look like a pair of unfinished books lying on a green carpet. The mud around the camp could almost be the coffee of the giant reader that had yet to return to their place. As he approached the fire, he noted his teammate's absence. No chatter from the camp. This did not bother him much, Duo was probably sleeping at this time of night.

Sitting next to the fire, he tried to get warm, but the wind stole the heat downwind, where the smoke was impossible to bear. The fire was now more smoke than flame, so Wufei reached to the kindling and put a few logs and sticks on to encourage the flame. Soon the fire was bright again, but still not warm enough. He shivered violently.

"Hey 'Fei," whispered a voice in his ear, startling him from his morbid thoughts of the incomplete mission that still raged in his mind at its failure. He glanced up at his strange companion, all catlike stealth until he decided to talk your ear off, and then be on guard, for he never shut up. Ever.

"Ah, didn't go well then? Oh well, t'least your alive, ne? You got back here in one piece. I remember one time Heero-kun came back late from a mission and he was wearing his mission. Yeah, that's right," he continued, purposefully mistaking the withering glare the Chinese pilot sent for disbelief. "He came back with the guy's guts all over him. God, I couldn't even look. He's crazy, you know. Nothing like you."

He has no clue, thought Wufei, thinking about The Mission. I'm far more insane than Yuy.

"S'what I like about you ne way… you're so much more down to earth… you see…" And the words started to break apart. The words themselves made sense, but had no connection to one another. First the word "safe" which was something they never were, then a few minutes later there was "no one", which was who Wufei was. Then "the mission" which was the ego that had wanted the general destroyed, had almost shot him. Then, after an even longer pause of incomprehensible chatter, "sword" which he supposed was his clan's sword that he had left in the general's house in his haste to retreat. He was a coward for….

"Wufei?"

But he could not move. He tried to open his eyes, but they were sealed shut against so many tears. His arms could not move and his legs did not rise. Instead, the gibberish became concern, and the concern became silence. Then he was floating through the air, supported by two uneven bars.

And he knew no more.