Chapter Twenty Three

I

He found the base quieter than expected, all but completely deserted outside and looking almost as desolate as the production base in Spain. None of this mattered to him. He realized carelessly, as he stumbled toward the shadowed building, that all of this had ceased to matter.

The pain in his arm, in his chest, had worsened with the cold as he again drew near to the ocean. He was acutely aware of it now, every cut, every stretched muscle, every bruise. Funny how he hadn't been aware of these injuries when they occurred.

The door — one of many side entrances — opened slowly, squeakily, announcing his stumbling presence to the silence of the woods, and shut immediately behind him.

After all he had seen in the course of the evening that seemed now to have no end, it was not noticeable, not to him, at least, that he cried out when the hand fell upon his shoulder.

His shrill, panicked voice fell to a hush. "Sakura."

He was turned around like a lifeless rag doll and found himself looking up into the strangely knowing eyes of Odin Lowe.

"What the hell happened to you." It was not a question but a calm statement. Heero stumbled and Odin caught him, holding him up as he had not needed to do since Heero had been a newly-orphaned child called Takeru and Odin had been his mother's lover.

"How did you–"

Odin began to guide him down through the corridors. "You've not had much luck with security cameras, have you? You passed another one upon entering the premises."

The only response he could muster was a groan.

"Are you certain you weren't followed?"

He nodded.

Odin, without pause, glanced down at him. "I trust the problem was eliminated then," he said. "I will not ask how you accomplished that."

He gave a slight nod and fell into full submission.

They at last, after several minutes of silent walking, came to a room deep within the bowels of the base where Odin stopped and knocked quietly upon the door. It was opened only a moment later, not to his surprise, by none other than Yuan-Chen. He was vaguely aware of some horribly cynical thought forming in his mind at the sight of the Chinese man's familiar smile.

"I did not expect you so early, Takeru," he said, studying the torn, bloody clothes and his bruised wild-eyed countenance. "Likewise I did not expect you to be this badly in need of medical attention." He stepped away from the door and ushered him in. Odin, after giving a slight nod to Yuan-Chen, left to attend to other business.

He allowed himself to be led into an adjacent room, too weak and now too apathetic to protest. Yuan-Chen switched on a lamp and instructed him to stand by it. It was not until then that he became aware of the other man lying on the sofa, only a few feet away from him.

He was not much older than Heero, perhaps only nineteen or twenty, the epitome of the young Northern European male. His eyes were closed in sleep and his boyish face bore no explanation other than a slight upturn of the mouth, and the sight of him was altogether so serene that Heero, dazed still after all that had befallen him, was inexplicably drawn to touch him.

He drew his hand away as Yuan-Chen returned, having silently left a moment ago to retrieve an assortment of medical supplies.

The Chinese man laughed softly upon seeing what he had interrupted. "He does not wake easily. Our voices will not disturb him."

"Who the hell is he."

"Are you inquiring his name or his function in the counteroffensive?"

He repressed a grunt.

Yuan-Chen opened the black bag and began rummaging through its contents. "His name is Rhyn Tolkien," he said without glancing at either of them, as behind him the man on the sofa began to speak.

Heero immediately jumped aside as Yuan-Chen gave another soft laugh. "He sings often when he sleeps," he said, smiling almost endearingly at the form of the sleeping boy. "Pay no attention to him, unless you would like to hear him. He has quite a pleasant voice." From the bag he extracted a roll of bandages and a spool of surgical thread. "He, along with yourself, Takeru, is one of the top computer analysts of the organization. Almost every piece of information on the Gemini that you have used was supplied by him."

"Military training."

Yuan-Chen plucked a needle from the depths of the bag. "No."

"Then what kind."

"Opera." He smiled and instructed Heero to remove his tattered shirt. "His mother was an opera singer. She taught him well before her arrest. You met him once, Takeru, though you were too young at the time to remember. His parents were great followers of Sakura."

"Hn." That name, that blessed, accursed name, that face of an angel, not again—

An image of that face, smudged with dirt and streaked with blood. The permanent hint of a smile upon her mouth twisting into a scowl of pain.

The faint singing had stopped. Heero glanced back down at the sleeping Rhyn and found him no longer asleep at all but struggling to wake, blinking his eyes rapidly to force them to remain open. His eyes, he saw, were his only feature that lessened his face's boyishness; such solemn, aware eyes.

"Do you want me to leave you two alone, Chen-love?" he asked thickly, his tongue weighed still by sleep. He glanced at Heero's shirtless body. "Or can I join in too?"

Heero stifled the faint expression of disgust that threatened to come upon his face.

Yuan-Chen seemed to take no notice of the perverse innuendo as he continued to inspect Heero's numerous injuries. "I did not think you would be awake so soon," he said to Rhyn after a moment, reaching for the needle and the spool. "Do you recognize who this is?"

The initial sting of the needle's entrance behind his ribcage. He had not been aware of receiving a wound there.

Rhyn stood up from the sofa and studied him as closely as Yuan-Chen had. "It would appear to me," he said in a heavy British accent that Heero only now realized was natural, scratching his chin in mock scrutiny, "that the specimen we have here before us is a young male of obvious Oriental descent, approximately seventeen to twenty-five years old, dark hair, blu–"

"This is Takeru," Yuan-Chen interrupted, drawing tight the next stitch.

Rhyn was silenced at the name. For a moment his only reaction was an open-mouthed stare, then he bowed and knelt dramatically on the floor. "Well, lovely-chan-love, may I then worship at your feet?"

Another sting from the needle. The boyish face, those solemn eyes staring up at him, and now the sound of his own name echoing in his clouded mind, not the one he had for so long masqueraded under but the one given to him at birth by one who had commanded the hearts of so many, whom so many had loved, but God he could barely remember her, God he could not—

"Ugh…ugh…" He stepped back once, twice, and unable to keep his balance now, he could feel his legs giving out beneath him, and suddenly he could see the shadowed walls falling in around him, upon him, and now with one last fleeting thought he realized the walls were not falling, he was the one falling, even as the hands caught him before his head could graze the floor.

He saw as his vision clouded, a quick image of Rhyn's face, much closer now for it was Rhyn who held him, and he heard a voice, so distant and yet so very much like his own—

"Please don't ever say that name again."

The words faded into silence as he lost consciousness.

Author's Notes: Ah, more Heero torture. It's occurred to me rereading this chapter that the brief scene between Heero and the sleeping Rhyn is slightly homoerotic, but I suppose I couldn't resist. It, too, was intended as another surreal moment in what is possibly the worst night of Heero's life, without any sexual over- or undertones, but if somebody out there wants to read more into it, feel free to do so. Rhyn is quite a pretty boy, after all.

There is only one chapter left, followed by the epilogue. I have decided to post Remnants on this site, so it should be appearing here soon. Everything will be explained in the following chapters.