Chapter 7: Ghosts and Dreams

Trowa sighed as he followed his blond lover through the hallway of the hospital. Even after the violent episode he had had a few weeks ago Quatre still insisted on coming to check on Heero every day. The taller man was convinced that it was causing him tremendous pain just to get close to the door. The toll of going there day after day for hours at a time was beginning to take its toll on the normally cheerful Arabian. It was apparent in the dark circles that were ringing his aquamarine eyes.

After the normal and futile attempt to get Heero to talk to them or to step out of the room Trowa got up and pulled his companion out into the hall. Once the door had shut Quatre leaned back against the wall and sighed in relief. It may not have been much better with only a door separating him and Heero's pain but at least he couldn't see the anguish on his friend's haggard face. Trowa pulled him into a comforting hug and buried his face in the top of Quatre's silky hair.

"I know how you feel love but it's not helping any, he doesn't even acknowledge that we're there."

Quatre pulled back so that he could look into his boyfriend's emerald green eyes. "I know it helps him, I can feel his pain lift a little knowing that we come each day."

"Look Quatre, we have to do something. He won't eat hardly anything at all, he only sleeps when he can't stay awake any more, and I don't think I've ever once seen him take one step outside of that room. If we don't find some way to pull him out of this he's going to be lying in a bed right next to Duo."

The sandrock pilot hung his head trying to think of something, he could feel the Japanese man's thoughts returning to self blame and despair. "Why don't we try to get him out of the room for a while, take a walk around the hospital so that he can get away from this room for a bit."

Trowa smiled and ruffled his hair. "Good thinking cherub, now we just have to find a way to get him to leave for more than a milli-second."

Going back into the room Trowa laid his hand softly on Heero's shoulder as Quatre stepped in front of him, effectively cutting off his view of the immobilized shinigami. A small frown crossed Heero's face as his thoughts and endless staring were disturbed by a pair of khaki shorts. Looking up he saw that the pants were attached to a short blond with determined blue eyes. After a second his wayward brain finally registered that it was Quatre that had interrupted his most recent list of reasons as to why this was his entire fault.

Quatre's eyes softened as he knelt down in front of his weary friend. "Heero, you need to stop doing this to yourself. None of this was your fault, Duo chose to go after you by himself and we weren't careful enough to stop him. But if anything the blame should be on Relena."

Heero shook his head and just stared at his lap. Trowa's hand tightened on his shoulder and he looked up to see the taller man staring right through him.

"Heero, Quatre's right, none of this is anyone's fault but that she-demon's. But more importantly if you don't start taking care of yourself Duo is going to wake up to find the man he risked his life for nearly dead from starvation. Is that how you want to thank him for what he did?"

The weary perfect soldier dropped his head fighting back tears as the realization of what he had been doing was thrown at him like a sack of rocks. The man he loved had done something like that for him and he was acting like a petulant child that had been denied his favorite toy. How could he have done something this selfish?

Trowa grabbed Heero's chin and brought his face up so that they were looking each other straight in the eye. "The thing that you need to do now is to get yourself back to normal so Duo doesn't think he's dead. And that's what he'll think if he finds you looking like the living dead."

Heero nodded and squeezed Trowa's hand in silent appreciation.

Quatre grabbed Heero's free hand and started tugging on his arm. "C'mon the first thing that you need to do is get out of this room for a while, take a walk. Then after that you need to get some food in you and take a shower."

Heero allowed himself to be pulled to his feet blond and led out of the room by the exuberant little blond.

Thankfully for Heero, Trowa intervened and said that it might be better if someone stayed to watch Duo just incase anything happened. After agreeing that course of action would be best, Trowa and Heero were finally free to walk in silence down the hall. The taller man loved his hyper mate but he knew that Heero needed to be able to think things out for a while.

About ten minutes later the two were walking in a comfortable silence through the small garden the hospital had outside. Heero had been walking with his hands crammed in his pockets and staring at the ground the whole time, and then he suddenly stopped as if an important piece in a puzzle had finally fallen into place. Trowa stopped and waited for Heero to say what had been on his mind. He didn't have to wait long.

"Trowa, that entire time I've been in that room, I never once thought about turning on the TV to see the news, it just seemed unimportant."

Trowa nodded, understanding what had been consuming Heero's attention until earlier that day. He waited for his friend to put together what he wanted to ask about the outside world he had missed.

"Did the police ever catch Relena to take her to trial?"

He had been waiting for that question to come along and he dreaded what he was going to have to tell the man. That selfish bitch deserved to pay for the hell she had put them all through, but retribution didn't seem like it would be very soon in coming.

Just as he was opening his mouth to explain what had happened two things caught his attention. One, a flash of blond hair coming straight at them as fast as it could, alerted him to Quatre's incoming arrival, and two he caught a glimpse of Heero's eyes rolling back into his head as his knees started to buckle. Reaching out he grabbed hold of the limp Japanese man before he could hit the ground. Trowa was taking Heero's pulse as the gasping blond bent over with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. Before Quatre could find out what had happened the lanky man had scooped up a comatose perfect soldier and was running towards the emergency room entrance.

(X)(x)(X)

Everyone was gathered once more, coffees in hand, in the waiting room of the hospital anxiously awaiting the news from Sally.

Wufei growled low in his throat as he paced, getting more impatient with each complete circuit he made. Sighing Zechs stood and grabbed the irate Chinese man and pushed him into a seat.

"And stay there. You're making us all jittery with that infernal pacing of yours!"

Wufei glared at the silver haired man before grumbling something about slow onas and pushy lovers. Crossing his arms over his chest he looked away and glared at a poor vending machine that nearly melted from the superheated gaze.

Zechs sunk back down into his seat and scrubbed his face with his hands. The last couple of weeks had been tense on everyone, especially him. Everyone expected him to find his sister and haul her in for her trial. The truth was that he'd been working around the clock to do just that and so far he hadn't had any luck at all. His seemingly limitless resources were almost completely exhausted. He still had plenty of money, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he had tried every contact, every safe house and mansion, and every private detective he could get, and yet he still couldn't find where the hell his sister had managed to escape to.

Treize's warm hand rubbing his back brought him out of his reverie and he gave the other man a weak smile of thanks. Wufei walked over and sat down on the other side of the defeated Peacecraft heir and wrapped his arm around his shoulders, anger long forgotten at the lost look he had seen on his lover's face. Treize leaned over and placed a soft kiss on Zech's cheek and brushed an escaped lock of silver hair back behind his ear.

"Don't worry beautiful, we'll find that banshee and we'll drag her back here by her hair. She won't get away with what she's done."

Wufei nodded in concurrence, deciding it best to keep his mouth shut so as to avoid one of his tirades. No one was in the mood for that right then and he knew the value of silence. He contented him self with mirroring Treize's earlier move and leaning over to brush his lips across Zech's other cheek. This got a tiny bit bigger smile from the down hearted man in the middle. Knowing that he had the love of two wonderful men always made him feel better; he had no idea what he would do without them.

At that moment Sally finally came in the room with a weary look on her face. Quatre sat up from lying on Trowa's lap and everyone seemed to come to attention as well.

Sally smiled a bit, glade to see that so many people cared for the health of their friends. "Well the bad news is that Heero is going to have to stay in the hospital for about a week. The good news is that he only passed out from exhaustion and hunger. I can't believe that the nurses didn't make him eat this entire time he's been here and if he wasn't the perfect soldier I'd be surprised that he made it this long without collapsing."

A collective sigh rose from the group as she told them Heero would be ok. Sally could see their expressions change from anxious, to relieved, to cold almost as one with the progression of their thoughts. Everyone was now wondering if the status of Duo's condition was going to get any better within the near future.

(X)(x)(X)

Duo's pale form laid in the hospital bed with IV's in his arm and tubes coming from his nose looking like nothing more than a ghost. The body in the bed next to his didn't look any better for that matter. If anything it looked more haggard because of the longer abuse on the body. At least Duo had been receiving nutrients via a feeding tube but Heero had been fully conscious and hardly anyone had thought to see if he had been eating.

Duo's eyes moved under closed lids as if seeing something only someone in his state could see. His thin hands twitched slightly as his unconscious mind dreamed of something. The movement was so small though that someone would've had to been staring at his hands just to think that something had moved. Event then it would have been questionable as to have been a trick of the light.

His hands ran along a wall trying to make sense of where he was going. He had been going so long in this dark place that he didn't know how much time had passed. The only thing he knew was that he had to get back to Heero. His beautiful Heero would be worried sick about him if he didn't get back soon.

'Back? Back where?'

He shook his head trying to think of where it was he was supposed to be. He had been here so long he was starting to forget, but as his memory faded a growing sense of urgency had been slowly increasing, rising up and trying to take over his senses. All he knew now was that he needed to do something important before he made the man he loved sad forever.

As he was thinking this a light grew around him and he suddenly found himself in a rundown section of a city. He groaned knowing what was coming. The dark tunnel was broken by these sections of memories. Except something always happened to make them different, they became horrific nightmares that he couldn't escape. All he could do once they came was run like hell and wish for the tunnel to come back.

He caught a glimpse of a person walking down the street and realized what memory he was in. Fear seized his as the memory of what happened made him panic.

'No!' his mind screamed. 'Anything, anything but this! Don't make me relive this one. I won't be able to handle it.'

His body was forced into motion as the dream took over, he was taking the same route he had the day this terrible memory had happened. After passing through the city in a blur he stopped at the edge of a forest and looked to see if anyone was following him. His mind silently screamed at his body to stop, just as it had so many times before. Just like all the other times though his body didn't listen and the memory progressed.

His slim form passed silently through the forest hardly making a noise as he continued on to the place his gundam was hidden. In an hour he was supposed to be clear of the colony and into space to rendezvous with Heero for a joint mission.

The dream sped up, bypassing the uninteresting time it had taken to get to the specified meeting point. What he saw when he got there was the part that still haunted him.

Heero was in the midst of a battle, mobile dolls had surrounded him and a battle cruiser was advancing fast. They were either trying to capture him or they were just going as back up to take out the target if the dolls failed. Heero finished off the last of the dolls and was turning when one snuck up behind him and restrained the Wing Gundam as the cruiser powered up. Duo watched as Heero's suit started to glow. Quickly measuring the distance between the approaching cruiser and Heero, Duo realized what the crazy Japanese man was going to do. By then it was too late and Duo had no time to do anything other than scream as he watched the love of his life self destruct. Tears poured from Duo's horrified violet eyes as he sat and watched the explosion disperse. The only man he had ever loved had just died before his eyes and he hadn't done anything.

'He didn't know, I never got the chance to tell him that I-I…'

His eyes widened when he saw a white flight suit floating amongst the wreckage. Throwing his gundam into motion as fast as he could, he reached the form and jumped out as fast as he could. The body was close enough, he could lightly push off and grab it and then pull them both back to the Death Scythe in a few seconds. Once back inside of the machine he pulled the helmet off and his glove, reaching for Heero's neck to find a pulse. He almost broke down in gratitude as he felt a weak one, but it was there, there was still a chance that he could save him.

This is when the memory changed to a nightmare. The Death Scythe wouldn't respond as Duo set a course for Earth. No matter what he tried the gundam wouldn't move an inch.

Heero's eyes fluttered open while Duo sat there clutching onto him for dear life. Tears streamed down his face and violent sobs wracked his body. The touch of Heero's warm hand made Duo pull back and look at him. Heero just smiled at him like he knew what Duo was feeling. Then his hand slipped away and his eyes fluttered shut once more. The desperate shinigami grabbed Heero's face and begged him to open his eyes again. He stopped and watched in horror as his love's soft lips parted and a breath so content, it sounded like a sigh, slipped out. But his chest didn't rise to take another breath. Heero's limp form stayed still. Duo's breath came faster as panic took hold of him once more. He shook Heero's shell as hard as he could but there was no response. As the tears flowed freely and unrestrained once more a space shattering scream broke loose. So powerful was it that the empaths of the colonies all stopped to clutch at their chests, feeling as if their hearts had just shattered for no reason at all. The Death Scythe finally began to move but Duo didn't even notice. Heero was dead, his Heero was gone and nothing could bring him back. Not even Shinigami.

Duo pulled Heero's body to him and curled around him burying his face into Heero's neck. He cried until nothing was left, no tears would come but his body still shook with grief stricken sobs. All he had to do now was wait for the pain in his heart to explode, and for death to take him to meet the only man he would ever love.