Chapter Six

We took Quatre's personal shuttle so we could get there faster and not attract much attention. I sat next to Triton, he'd tried to keep Quatre from coming, but had received a gun locked in between his eyes as a response. If it hadn't been so serious a situation I would have laughed out loud.

The three of us sat in silence. After a while, I saw Quatre place his pale hand on top of Triton's, causing him to turn his head to his fiancé. Quatre smiled and squeezed his hand. "I talked over the proposal with Asabi, Iria's twin. She, Umali, and Maia think the executive logistics can be divided among us to reduce my workload by about sixty percent."

When Triton didn't say anything, Quatre forced a smile. "I want to start spending more time with you. I'm sorry I've been so stubborn about it." Triton nodded and faced forward again. I turned to look out the window. In the reflection, I saw Quatre reach up to wipe his eyes. Triton started petting his hair, trying to comfort him. When that didn't seem to help, he finally scooped Quatre out of his chair and carried him to the back of the shuttle. I sighed, thinking of the life I wish I had with Duo. I knew he valued me as a friend, but for once I couldn't read exactly what he was feeling. I was so jealous of Triton, he had the affections of the one he loved, and of the one I loved.

The shuttle arrived a little past midnight Earth time. Duo's bodyguard picked us up from the port, saying he'd been instructed by Wufei to take us to the filming studio. Quatre jumped in the front seat and assaulted the guard with questions about Duo. The agent said he'd been sworn to secrecy by Duo under the threat of a slow and painful death. We leapt out of the car when it pulled up to the studio, Quatre breaking down the door as Triton and I took surveillance. Trowa lead us down a long hallway toward the main studio. I veered left to a smaller hallway, thinking I'd heard something. We continued in silence until I felt Trowa's hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see Quatre frozen to the spot ten feet behind us, his right hand clutching his chest and his face looking as if he'd been shot.

Trowa retrieved the gun that was violently shaking in Quatre's left hand and helped his lover to stand. Quatre looked at me and then the door to his right. I dashed to the door, wondering why I hadn't felt Duo's presence like I'd been able to during the wars. I opened the door and followed a narrow hallway toward a set of rooms that looked like offices, Trowa and Quatre close behind. As I neared the largest door, my heart clenched when I recognized Duo's voice.

Although I'd tried to ignore the sounds, what I saw confirmed the one thing I'd hoped to never find besides Duo as a corpse. The man, apparently Cohan, pulled away from his desk, wrapping his robe around himself. Before he could say anything, Trowa had him on the ground unconscious. I ran over to the table to find Quatre checking Duo for a pulse. Duo was laying across the table with his legs bent up and his feet on the edge. My eyes ran over his naked skeleton, we knew he was alive simply because he was shivering and sweating. Someone had raped, beaten, and drugged my loved one. As I stared, Quatre wrapped his coat around Duo's lank form and carried him out of the studio. Triton caught my attention, he looked as if he wanted to stay to kill Cohan, but I think he knew that I should do it. He looked at me and let out a breath,

"We'll take Quatre's shuttle and get Duo to Sally." He motioned to the man, "I'll leave him to you, but take the quickest shuttle back, in case these are our last moments with him."

When Triton left, I stood in the office over that horrible man. I remembered standing like this before, holding my gun at a fallen man that had caused the world so much pain. Before, I had said that I didn't want to fight anymore, that I didn't have to. And here I am again, after awakening from my silent death, realizing that war does not end in this life. No matter whether you chose to face it with a full scale battle or let it run freely, greed and corruption will continue to abuse others and cause misery. For the ones in this life that choose to care, the only thing you can do is try to bring an early death to others until yours is taken. Fight your hardest, and when you die, call it a good life.

The anger burning within me had wanted to revive the man and slowly torture him to death, but with a shuddering breath I knew I had to get back to Duo so that he could die in my arms. Adjusting my silencer, I fired shot after shot into him, the bouncing body reminding me of my nightmares several months ago. After that I looted the office and was able to find some cash and items that would get us a few thousand dollars on the black market. If Duo was willing to sell himself for those kids, then I was willing to kill the entire world.

I didn't hear from Quatre or Triton for the entirety of my flight back to the colonies, so I assumed it was still hectic and Duo was not awake. I arrived at Wufei and Sally's residence and charged into the house. Even though it was the middle of the night, Wufei was in the kitchen, washing dishes. Not even bothering to turn around, he said,

"In the study, Heero."

I ran down the hall and into the room. Duo was laying in a reclining hospital bed, hooked up to several IVs and a heart monitor. They had given him a large t-shirt and shorts, and Quatre and Triton were gently dabbing cloths up and down his legs and arms. Sally was sitting in a wheelchair next to the bed, her pregnant belly protruding almost out to her knees. She turned to me,

"Heero, you're here. Duo has been injected with a lethal amount of ecstacy. From what I can tell, his body has been exposed to it for several months to a year, and that is why it didn't kill him immediately. He slipped into an epileptic seizure the minute Quatre and Trowa got him into the house, but he has not had a fit since then. We've been trying to stabilize him for the past two-and-a-half hours, but it looks as if he's not going to stabilize."

Sally turned to instruct Quatre and Triton as Wufei came into the room. "I suggest you three continue to cleanse him and try to remove as much of the drug from his pores as you can. Monitor his temperature and if it gets too low, call Wufei. Now I must get back in bed, or four more lives will be joining our poor friend."

Wufei wheeled her out of the room. I dimmed the lights and came up to touch Duo's cold shoulder. Trowa handed me his towel and began rummaging in the medical supplies for lotion to put on his skin. Quatre spoke low in almost a whisper,

"Iria's flying in a couple of hours." With a hesitant look toward Triton, he continued. "Sally seems to think Duo won't last another twelve hours. He's got an irregular heartbeat, and the seizure almost finished him right then and there."

I nodded, "We'll make him as comfortable as we can for the next few hours and help him to let go."

Quatre hissed and Trowa stopped to look at me. I returned them with a glare. "Would you want him to return to this life? To face a broken world where everyone wants something from him and he has to give until it kills him?" I rubbed the towel up to his neck and looked at my lover's face. "…I just want him to be free, to be able to fly freely, away from all of this."

We worked tirelessly for four hours until Iria arrived and did a full examination. Duo had internal bleeding, a hole in his stomach and a tear in his heart that was causing the irregularity and loss of oxygen to the brain, along with muscle and bone damage due to his anorexia and abuse.

Iria, who had been informed of Duo's plight by Quatre over the last months, didn't even attempt to suggest that we should have known something like this was going on, but I think all of us were running that through our minds. Duo's temperature seemed to come close to normal and he calmed down quite a bit. Iria left for the local hospital after calling to request a unit of blood and some more IV fluids. We'd been going over a day without sleep, so Quatre went into the room across the hall to rest for a couple of hours and then give either Trowa or myself a break, although I knew neither of us wanted one. I pulled a chair close to the bed as Triton sat down, tossing the rag he'd been wiping Duo with into the pile by the door. He mimicked me and scooted close to our friend on the other side and stroked his hair.

"He's so beautiful." Triton murmured.

"Yeah." I finally managed a small smile.

I looked at Triton and hesitated for a moment. "I still can't see how you guys dated when I was in the coma. I can't see why you would leave him."

Triton snorted and brushed Duo's bangs out of his face, eyes glazed over and a small smile on his lips. "I had his engagement ring in my pocket the day he came back and told me to return to Quatre. He's so easy to love, Shoibi, the whole world is in love with him. You may think they just desire him, but when I went with him to various premiers and he met his fans, it was different. Everyone wants to be strong like him, they want his energy."

"They want him to save them." I grunted out. "They're so busy thinking about their own wishes that they don't notice the people suffering around them."

Trowa looked at me, smiling. "And Duo does. That's what he's good at. Same as Quatre, Duo just doesn't have the same power to help people that Quatre does. He has to do it his own way."

We both chuckled at our crazy friend's antics. Triton sighed and looked back at Duo, "I really think he'll pull through Shoibi, Duo's not one to give up on something like this."

I nodded and we sat in silence for a moment.

"What kind of flowers does Duo like?"

Triton laughed, arranging Duo's collar so it hung more loosely around his neck. "He likes black roses, Sho'. On the anniversary of the Maxwell Church Tradgedy he had the entire cathedral full of them. I've never seen so many people and kids pray."

Triton looked down at Duo, deep in thought. When he finally decided to speak, it was in a soft and pained voice. "It took the longest time for him to come to love me. He accepted that you were gone, but I don't think he tried to stop loving you."

"Love me?" I looked at him funny, "In the war we were just friends."

Triton scoffed, "Quatre notices things, Heero. One day when we had a mission together he came to me and said, 'You know how Heero calls us by our pilot numbers? Well, he calls pilot 02 'pal' instead'." I scrunched up my face, not really remembering showing much bias. Triton pushed on, "Shoibi, do you remember how much Duo obsessively loved Deathscythe, and how much it killed him when it was blown up? Do you remember what he used to say to refer to his Gundam?"

I nodded and smiled, "He called it 'my buddy.'"

Trowa leaned forward. "And do you remember how Duo always addressed us, much to our annoyance: 'Tro-, 'Quat-, 'Wu-, 'Sal-, '-Lena? Do you remember how he addressed you, and ONLY you?"

I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to remember something so subtle from a past blocked by chemicals and nightmares. When I didn't respond, Triton sat back in his chair and looked at me,

"'Buddy', Shoibi. Besides Deathscythe, you were the only one he called 'buddy'."

I sat there in silence, looking at Duo. "… I didn't know…"

For the next hour, Triton took the liberty of telling me everything he had learned about Duo from their relationship, things I'd missed and hadn't had time to learn in the wars. We shared a laugh over the time Trowa had found Keiichi Sei's big blue wig and some kinky longerie in the bedroom and thought Duo was parading as a drag queen at local bars. He was telling me about the times Duo'd played pranks on the former gang rivals at Forsaken when he both stopped instantly.

The heart monitor had beeped twice in rapid succession. Trowa was checking the IV needle when Duo made a loud hiss. I jumped up from my chair and watched as his back arched off of the hospital bed and then he began convulsing hysterically.

Trowa leapt toward Duo, pinning his shoulders down and bellowed for Quatre. Quatre raced into the room and saw what was happening. He flipped open his vid-phone, "Iria! Duo's having another seizure!" His eyes were wide and I heard Iria command through the phone,

"Get someone to hold his head! Quatre, get in my bag and take out the suppressor -"

I hurdled onto the bed, grabbing Duo's head in both of my arms and clutching him to my chest. Quatre climbed up to him and tried to force his mouth open. There was no succeeding. As Duo fought against me, Quatre burst into tears and screamed, "OPEN YOUR MOUTH DUO OR YOU'RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE, YOU STUPID IDIOT!" We managed to get the suppressor into his mouth and free his airway. Without any warning, Duo completely relaxed, the heart monitor taking a moment to go back to its steady pace. Quatre removed the instrument from Duo's mouth and collapsed on the side of the bed, sobbing for all he was worth. Trowa finally released Duo's limbs, and we both stared numbly at our friend, his cries permeating the deathly silence of the room, expressing our emotions for us.

Trowa finally took Quatre by the shoulders and led him out of the room, leaving Duo and I alone. I curled around the love of my life, still holding his head to my chest, prepared to spend my last night with him. I thought of the time we'd spent together since I came back, "Heero, sing me something". I smiled, I would sing to him all night, tell him about all of the beautiful things in the world, all of the things I wanted to share with him for the rest of our lives. I looked down at my angel and stroked his sunken cheek, thinking of one of my favorite songs I'd heard him sing.

"I didn't mean to leave you hanging on
I didn't mean to leave you all alone
I didn't know what to say
Didn't know what to say.
Merry Christmas, baby
Merry Christmas."