Chapter 4: L'âme d'Or

(ch rewritten)

:male:

Wufei found the next time he came to consciousness that there was something about waking up into a dream from a dream. The kitchen floor under him was hard and his arm hurt from falling backwards onto it.

He knew he had fainted. It wasn't that he wasn't cognizant of what had happened before. Still, for that moment, he felt that he could have easily remained unconscious just a little longer. He needed time and he didn't have it yet.

With a groan Wufei sat up. Duo was leaning over him. The other Duo that was. Worry on that beauitful face and Wufei felt somewhat guilty for having been the cause of it.

He gave a wan smile and turned to the shadow at the other side of him. Heero.

"You okay?" Heero was calm as always, but since when had Heero touched him at all and looked at him like that. A horrifying thought struck him. This was the wrong Heero too. Just like the room, just like Duo, just like the katanas.

"Nn.. yeah..." he nodded slowly so as not to upset his throbbing head.

"You sure?" Duo asked, warm hands on his upper arm.

Wufei looked down at those hands, so alike, yet unlike. They were strong, slender, a fighter's hands with scars on them and, most of those scars he was familiar with. There were a couple though he didn't recognize. He could almost accept things when he looked at the simplicity of hands.

With a soft breath and a sense of surrealism, Wufei touched the hand on his arm. It was strange, how silent everything was. The clock in the other room ticked and that sound was something he usually attributed to early mornings. Was it midnight and he just was used to it being dark? Just how different was this world, this place, these... these... people?

Wufei didn't notice Duo holding his breath as he picked up that hand, turning it over. He stared at the inner palm with the expression of an innocent, lifting his other hand he traced a scar through the fleshy part of Duo's palm that cut just under the thumb joint.

"I don't know this one," Wufei's voice sounded off in the silence of the room.

"I-"Duo choked and wasn't able to continue.

Beside Duo, Heero frowned. "That was last year. When the two of you took out the Middlesex man."

"Yeah," Duo managed. "Cut it while I jumped over a fence. You don't remember that? Y-you were so mad at me because I got blood all over the jerk when I caught him." There was pleading in that voice.

Wufei looked up, surprised at the fear he saw on Duo's face. It made sense in a way. Duo was the same no matter what. These hands proved it. That Duo had probably been made to feel guilty for destroying the evidence of a man's body with his own blood made sense. It was - he had to admit - something he might have said, would say.

"Of - of course, yes. Of course I remember," he hastened to assure. Panic rose in him. His sanity would be called into question if he told them they weren't the right ones, he wasn't the right Wufei. "I - I think I might be ill..." he hedged and gripping Duo's arm, pulled himself up. Surprised to find his waist encircled, he turned to look and discovered Heero helping him to rise. The warmth at side added to the alien feel of the world around him.

"Thanks," he muttered and gave the pair of them a weak smile. "I'm sorry. I really am. I just - just had this really strange dream and it's... it's making everything..." he couldn't continue. It wasn't a real excuse. He'd have to think about it later.

Turning, he backed away from the silent ex-pilots. Was he friends with them both? Was he more? Some things were familiar, so familiar in a world that wasn't making much sense and he felt dizzy, caught between what he knew and what he didn't know.

Duo licked his lips with a careful motion of his tongue. It was a movement that Wufei recognized and he felt the tears backing up behind his eyes. "S'okay, Wu-man," Duo smiled.

"Would you like to lay down?" Heero again. It was strange to see Heero worry too. "You said you had nightmares. Maybe you could sleep in our room?"

Wufei blinked. "Our?" his voice soft as his mind rushed to make connections. He noticed now, though he might have noticed before and just didn't realize it, how Heero's hand was on Duo's back, how the worry wasn't just for him but for the unusually silent Duo as well. In a rush to cover the flush of horror at the realization, Wufei pulled away. "Oh! No. No, that's okay. Thank you though... I, er - I have to lay down is all."

He turned back to the doorway and stumbled up the stairs. At the landing, he swallowed down the feeling of unease in his throat. Feeling of detatched unease, he turned, going through the house that was his and very much not his. There was the bathroom and over to the left, the old plant that Duo insisted on trying to keep alive yet always looked as if it were on the way out. And over there, the pictures of all of them, Duo's desire to make them as normal as possible. "Every house has a picture wall," the braided pilot had insisted.

He stopped before the photos, letting his eyes trail over the sameness and the changes. There were pictures he didn't recognize, but most of them he did. There was a decided lack of faces in some of them; relationships, he supposed, which had never come to be in this... whatever it was. This Somewhere Else.

A gentle hand on his shoulder made him jump. It was frightening, being here. But in a way, it felt strangely wonderful. He smiled uncertainly and Duo smiled back.

"What's wrong, Wuffie?" Duo asked. "I'm sorry to push but I feel like maybe I'm responsible. I shouldn't have pushed or something. Or maybe I shoulda -"

"Shhh.." Wufei couldn't help the breathless laugh as he turned and touched that beautiful face. For the second time that morning, the normally loquacious Maxwell stilled, caught his breath, and was silent. "Duo, you did nothing wrong. Believe me. Just something happened last night. I'm... I'm not sure how I could ever explain it. I don't know if I want to." He couldn't help the fact that his thumb brushed over that cheek, catching the slight stubble from the night before. How many times had he touched Duo's face? But never before had he felt anything on that skin but smooth.

"Ah.." Duo breathed and then flushed suddenly. "Kay, I mean, look, I know you got this thing with staying with two guys, but Hee-chan and I would be more than willing to put in the cot. It's not like you haven't had to share a room with us before. And if it will help the dreams?"

Wufei let his hand fall and felt a stab of pain in his chest. Heero and Duo. Handed his dream on a platter only to find out again, that it was the wrong table. "No," he managed another smile and shook his head. "No, I won't have it again, I'm sure."

A day spent in meditation wasn't as helpful as usual, but it did aid him somewhat. He found the small journal he had begun to keep after the war as per a suggestion of a trauma counselor. It helped him piece together what things he might have had to know. Everything from the moment Duo had told Heero he loved him (strange, calling Duo a "he") and their subsequent relationship, to the decision to write the letter only a day before this.

There were, he found, subtle differences as well as larger ones. There remained a certain desperation to the other Wufei's writings he could not recall in his own. It seemed at times that the other Wufei hadn't laid certain demons to rest, demons he, himself, had put aside years before. But that hadn't debilitated him, or his other self, as he had thought it might have. He had never wondered what might have happened to him had he never received pardon from Treize. But then, neither had this Wufei had a relationship with the dead commander. There had been no love lost between the pair of them. It was strange how things that he'd always thought were small, could have such a large effect on the outcome. And yet, things weren't that different either. He still worked at the Preventers, still had partnered with Duo, and still lived with his two closest friends. The sleeping arrangements were slightly changed, but that wasn't such a bad thing.

Spending the afternoon pouring over the belongings, reading the writings, and generally poking around gave Wufei a firmer handle on the situation. With a breath of preparation, he stood and wrapped a robe around his body. After taking in the room he stood in, he nodded and spoke aloud. "Well, I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind, whoever you are, but I'll do my best." And with that said, he entered the world he had never known.