Chapter 84

Duo was flipping through television channels trying to find something to dull the boredom when someone knocked softly on the door.

"Hey, Duo, how is she this morning?" Quatre asked as Duo let him in.

"Still out, Quatre." Duo wasn't sure what Quatre expected. Kiri wasn't popping back as quickly as any of them had hoped.

Quatre sighed. "I was hoping that she'd be a bit more responsive today. Trowa's really worried about her."

If anyone could tell that Kiri was close to waking up, it would be Quatre. Duo looked at her. She still looked unconscious to him.

"Yeah," Duo said slowly. "Other than that, how's he doing?"

"He's healing all right," Quatre admitted. "Those two shots he took to the shoulder might give him some trouble if he doesn't rest, though. Sally's had to threaten to give him a tranquilizer."

Quatre was a little worried about how Trowa might take it if Kiri didn't get better soon.

"I don't think he'll relax until he knows she's all right," Duo commented. He hadn't missed Trowa's unusual restlessness, either.

"Probably not," Quatre said. He walked closer to Kiri's bed. Maybe he would be able to "feel" better if he was closer. He'd been sure that she was going to wake up today.

"Still, I wouldn't be surprised if it took her a while longer," Duo said. "I mean, blood poisoning isn't exactly something you just jump right back from."

"Yeah, and her bad reaction to the antibiotics didn't help anything either," Quatre answered as he gently brushed Kiri's bangs out of her face. She felt calm, which was good. She also seemed more alert than asleep to him, which got his hopes up. "I'm glad that Sally was able to save her foot. I'm not sure Kiri could have handled that after her eye."

Kiri's eyes cracked open and she looked at him. Quatre smiled down at her. He loved that he'd been right. Now Trowa would relax and let his shoulder heal properly.

"There you are. How are you feeling?" he asked gently.

"Tired," Kiri mumbled.

Duo came over and stood next to Quatre. "Hey, kid!" he greeted enthusiastically. He was happy she was awake, too.

"Duo, go get Sally."

Duo practically ran to the nurse's station to have Sally paged. She'd said to let her know as soon as Kiri woke up.

"Can you stay awake for a few minutes?" Quatre asked as Duo ran out the door. "Sally will want to see you."

Kiri nodded. Quatre could feel how tired she was but he figured that it wouldn't take long for Sally to check Kiri and then she could sleep some more.

Sally and Duo came back and Quatre got out of Sally's way.

"How are you feeling, Kiri?" Sally asked.

"Wanna sleep," Kiri slurred.

Sally nodded. "I'll let you sleep in a minute. I need to check a few things first." She carefully felt Kiri's ribs. It felt like they were healing. "Does this hurt?"

"Yes," Kiri said with a slight grimace.

"On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is no pain and 10 is the worst pain you've ever had, where would you rank this?"

"Six."

Sally moved to Kiri's foot and gently prodded it. "Same question."

Kiri flinched and jerked her foot away. "Eight and a half."

Sally wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Pain meant that the nerves hadn't been damaged too much but if the pain wasn't going away, it was possible that the infection was still in her system. If that was the case they would need to address it immediately.

"Okay, Kiri. I just need to check your temperature and take a blood sample. Then you can sleep," Sally promised.

She took Kiri's temperature. It was normal. That made Sally feel better about things. She wrote the information down on her clipboard and decided to adjust Kiri's painkillers. Kiri's eyes shut as Sally made adjustments to the drips.

"Kiri?" Sally wanted to explain what was going on so that Kiri wouldn't stress over it.

"Hm?"

"I'm going to adjust these drips. One is a nutrient drip and the other is a painkiller that should help to dull the pain so you can rest a little better."

Kiri nodded, but it seemed to Sally that she was falling asleep again.

Sally took the blood sample that she needed. "Kiri? Are you asleep already?"

Kiri didn't respond.

"Is she okay?" Duo asked.

"I think she'll be fine," Sally told him. "I'm doing another blood test just as a precaution but her temperature is normal. She's tired because her body is trying to heal multiple things at once. The best thing we can do is let her sleep and her body will work on the rest."

"Is there anything we should be watching for?" Quatre asked.

"If she seems to be having issues sleeping or looks like she's in pain. Or if she wakes up and complains about pain, let me know immediately. I'll be checking in on her a little more regularly now that she's starting to come out of it but it will likely be a few days before she's fully ready to wake up and interact like she did before."

"Okay," Duo said.

"Any other questions?" Sally asked.

Both pilots shook their heads.

"Well, then I'd better be going. Don't worry. I really think she's over the worst of it now," Sally assured them before she left.

"Well, I guess that's good news," Duo said.

Quatre nodded. "Maybe now Trowa will be able to relax."

There was a soft knock on the door. Duo opened it and let Trowa in.

"Sally said she was doing better," Trowa said as he took a seat.

"She woke up for about two minutes," Quatre told him. "Sally said that she's still healing but she should be waking up more now."

"Good."

"Which means that you need to start resting more," Duo told Trowa.

Trowa raised an eyebrow. Duo wasn't usually so serious.

"I mean it, Tro. You're flirting with disaster by not taking that shoulder seriously. If you go back to the circus and your shoulder doesn't work right you could end up really hurt."

"Did you tell Cathy about my shoulder?" Trowa asked.

"Are you crazy? I don't have a death wish. And if someone had told her, she would be here," Duo pointed out. "Honestly, I think it would upset Kiri if she knew how reckless you're being right now."

Trowa frowned as he thought that over.

"I know that when I was hurt, Heero didn't take very good care of himself," Duo continued. "When I realized how hard he was pushing himself it scared me. I don't know if you guys even noticed it because he was kind of in "mission mode" but I could tell he wasn't in a good place as soon as I came to. I almost had to have him hospitalized because he wasn't eating or sleeping. I was afraid he was going to collapse in the middle of something important. He only started taking care of himself after I threatened to break up with him because I couldn't handle the stress of worrying about him. Kiri's going to be under enough strain from what she went through without worrying about your health, too."

The room was quiet for a few minutes while Trowa absorbed what Duo said.

"You're right," Trowa admitted quietly. "I need to take better care of myself. For Kiri's sake."

Quatre felt a load lift off his shoulders. He hadn't wanted to force Trowa to rest but it had been getting to that point.

"That's right," Duo said with a smirk. "Anything for the one you love."

Trowa glared at Duo. "You shouldn't say things like that where the wrong people could hear you."

"What? You don't love Kiri? Could've fooled me."

"If it became common knowledge that I had feelings for Kiri, someone might hurt her to get to me. That can't be allowed to happen."

Duo raised his hands in surrender. "You're right. I should learn when to shut up."

"Got that right," Trowa mumbled.

Duo grinned. "You didn't deny how you feel," he teased.

"Why should I?"

Duo shrugged, still grinning. "It's just nice that you've finally noticed."

Trowa rolled his eyes. "Quatre, I'm going back to my room to rest. Let me know if Kiri wakes up enough to have a visitor."

Once Trowa was out of the room, Quatre turned to Duo. "While I appreciate you guilt-tripping Trowa into resting, you shouldn't tease him about Kiri. You might end up hurting Kiri's feelings by mistake."

"Hadn't thought of that," Duo mused. "I'll back off, at least until Kiri's doing better. I'm pretty sure she can take a little teasing."

"Do you want to give Heero an update on Kiri's condition or shall I?" Quatre asked, changing the subject.

"I'll do it!" Duo said as he got to his feet and headed for the door.

Duo made his way up to the temporary office that Heero had created on one of the upper floors of the hospital. It was in a back room on a floor that was really only used as overflow and hadn't been used since the last pandemic had happened more than a hundred years ago. Duo thought about that as he rode the elevator up. There had been a plague on L2 when he was a child. What would have happened if that plague had been let loose on Earth instead of a colony? The colony had suffered but at least it was somewhat contained. On Earth, that virus would have run rampant. Duo shuddered as he thought about the various plagues he'd read about in history books. It was one thing to read about something that happened a long time ago and another to live through it.

Duo shook off the macabre thoughts as the elevator door opened. He grinned as he entered the office. Heero was concentrating on his computer and Duo couldn't help but think about all the times he'd seen Heero with that same look on his face as he concentrated on mission specs during the wars.

"Hey, Heero," Duo said to get Heero's attention.

Heero looked up. "What's up?"

"Kiri woke up. Sally checked her over and thinks she's going to start waking up more now," Duo reported.

"Good. Maybe now Trowa will relax and let that arm of his heal."

Duo nodded. "I hope so. He said he would."

"Hm."

"You don't think he will?"

"I think he'll try," Heero said. "But I don't know how well he'll succeed if Kiri doesn't wake up like he wants her to. He's not as patient about some things as others. Now if it was a lion on the mend…"

"He'd wait until doomsday for it to get better," Duo finished with a grin. "I hear ya. Trowa's so far in he can't even see it."

Heero bent over his computer to add this new information to his report when his phone rang. "Yuy."

"Sir, I have some new information."

"I'm putting you on speaker. Maxwell is here as well. Report, Cooper."

Heero put the phone on speaker and set it down on the desk.

"It appears that Commander Chang's hunch about the connection between the brothel locations and the suicide rate has some validity. In every brothel location suicide rates are almost double what they are in the surrounding areas," Cooper reported.

"So it's possible that some of those suicides aren't really suicides," Duo said.

"Exactly," Cooper agreed. "That's what I think, too. There are also a higher number of unsolved missing persons cases in those areas."

"That makes sense if Decart and his men are kidnapping people in those areas to fill his brothels and disposing of the bodies like we found at the chateau," Heero said with a frown. "But the living girl we found was sold by her parents. I wonder how many of his other victims were purchased instead of taken off the streets."

Duo frowned as he thought about the girls on L2 that he hadn't been able to save. How many of them had been kidnapped and how many had been sold? L2 was not a prosperous colony for the most part. The majority of people didn't have the luxury of knowing where their next meal was coming from. Selling a child that probably hadn't been planned on to begin with wouldn't be considered out of the ordinary. He also wondered if any of those girls had sold themselves.

"Duo?"

Duo looked up sharply. "Huh?"

"Are you alright?"

Duo nodded. "Just thinking."

"I've told Cooper to get a small group together and see if there's any way to get inside information from those closest to Decart. He'll report back when he gets more information."

Heero waited for Duo to nod before adding, "Care to share your thoughts?" He could tell his boyfriend was troubled by something.

"Just wondering how many of those girls on L2 had been sold instead of kidnapped. Or if they sold themselves and spent the money on something like clothes or food or maybe gave the money to younger siblings."

Heero pulled Duo into a warm embrace. "I don't want you to think about those things. We may never know and thinking about it upsets you."

"I know," Duo said with a sigh. "I can't help but wonder. And I hate that things are still so bad on L2 that selling your daughter wouldn't raise any red flags."

Heero frowned. "What if…"

"What if what, Heero?" Duo prompted.

Heero took a deep breath. "Well, the precinct on L2 is really corrupted. What if they knew but they just didn't do anything about it?"

Duo sighed. "You're probably right. That Larkspur guy really screwed things up out there and I don't know if his replacement can or will even want to fix it. If the kickback was good enough, it would be hard for anyone who grew up on L2 to refuse. Growing up with nothing and then being offered a nice handout for looking the other way would be tempting to anyone."

"I'll have Une look into it. Who was that agent that helped you out before?"

"Agent Cresswell."

"I'll have Une assign her to the case. She seemed competent."

Duo nodded. "Yeah, I'd trust her to do a good job. But…"

Heero waited patiently for Duo to finish his thought.

Duo took a deep breath. "But I have to wonder if she's able to resist the bribes. And I feel bad even thinking that. It's just…I know what it's like up there. Things are hard."

"I understand, Duo. I'll pass your concerns on to Une and suggest we send a neutral party up to investigate as well. I'll analyze the numbers for the other locations of Decart's brothels and see if there's a similar pattern. It will help to determine if L2 is the only department taking bribes."

Duo nodded. "Good idea."

Heero let Duo go. "You okay now?"

"Yeah. Hey, what do you say we get a pizza and rent a movie tonight?"

Heero grinned. "Sure. I'll be home after I take care of these reports and talk to Une."

For the next few days Kiri drifted in and out of consciousness. Trowa hovered around her room constantly. He was starting to drive the other pilots crazy.

Nothing any of them said or did could calm Trowa's nerves longer than a few minutes. His frazzled emotional state was the most draining on Quatre, who was trying to monitor Kiri to see if she was about to wake up.

They decided to sic Heero on the Heavyarms Pilot. If he had to, he could pull rank to get Trowa to rest.

Heero managed to corner Trowa in his room so they could talk without disturbing Kiri's rest. "How are you doing, Trowa?"

"Fine, Heero."

Heero raised an eyebrow. "Why don't I believe that?"

Trowa scowled. "I said I'm fine. If you don't believe me, ask Sally."

"I did. She said that you're not taking it easy like she told you to and you're agitating your shoulder. What's going on?"

Trowa sighed. "Kiri's still in critical condition. It's our fault. And I don't know how to fix it."

"This isn't something we can fix," Heero told him. "We just have to be patient and let this run its course. Sally's done everything she can. The rest is up to Kiri."

Trowa scoffed. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"You think I don't understand what you're going through?" Heero demanded. "How dare you. I've been through this before in case you forgot. And Duo was in way worse condition than Kiri is. He was on a ventilator and they told me that even if he woke up he might not be anything more than a vegetable. Did you know that? I spent weeks wondering if he would ever wake up and once he did wake up I wasn't sure he'd be able to function again. Kiri's only been out for a couple of days. You haven't been told to consider pulling the plug on her yet so don't even pretend that this couldn't be worse than it is."

Trowa wasn't surprised that Heero knew about his attraction to Kiri. Duo had probably mentioned it. What surprised him was that Heero was so open about what he'd gone through when Duo had been in that bombing fiasco. He always seemed so unconcerned about the whole thing; as if there was no doubt that Duo would be fighting fit in no time. He'd never complained about the numerous skin graft surgeries and months of physical therapy that he'd taken Duo to. Not once had he ever hinted that Duo might be impaired in any way once it was all over.

"I'm sorry, Heero. You're right. I'm blowing this out of proportion," Trowa said softly. "I've never had to deal with this before. I've never had someone in my life that I cared about like this and I don't really know what to do other than worry. And I never knew Duo was that bad off because you never told us anything other than he was fine and would pull through it."

"Yeah, well…sometimes you've gotta have a little faith in people," Heero said. "Duo taught me that."

Trowa didn't have a response to that. Heero had never let on that he was afraid of losing Duo before. Duo's admission that Heero's reaction scared him made more sense now that Trowa knew Heero's side of the story. Heero had been scared shitless and thrown himself into his work in order to avoid dealing with what might happen. Clearly their relationship was deeper than Trowa had ever given them credit for and it made him feel a little guilty for not being more supportive sometimes.

"Now will you please do as Sally says and rest? Quatre's going to have kittens if you don't quit freaking out about Kiri. He says she'll be fine but you getting worked up is driving us all nuts."

Trowa couldn't help but smile at that. "I'm sorry. I will rest and be patient."

"Good. I'll let Quatre know that you've promised to behave. Again. But if you don't this time, I'll tell Sally that you can't see Kiri until your shoulder heals. Understood?"

Trowa nodded and settled back in the hospital bed, resigned to bed rest for a few days at any rate.

"Maybe I can bring you some of the tapes to look over. It isn't like you've got anything else to do," Heero said thoughtfully.

Trowa frowned. "You don't think that will get me worked up?"

Heero shrugged. "Depends on what's on the tapes, don't you think? We'll be focusing on the feed from the chateau where we found Kiri. So I guess if you want to know what happened to her, this is your chance."

Trowa nodded. "Bring me the tapes. If they piss me off too much, you'll know."

"Hn."