Disclaimer: I don't own the GW characters – am just borrowing to torment for my amusement

Warnings: Swearing, yaoi, violence, general angst, possible OOCness (ages since I've written fanfiction so may be a little bit rusty) m/m sexual relations, slight sap, Duo abuse

Pairings: 1x2 , 3x4, 5+2

A/N: Song is Rescue Me by You Me at Six & Chiddy – only the chorus though but I just love this song.

Chapter Fifteen

Rescue Me

The room was tiny. There was the smallest amount of light coming through the gaps between the door and the doorframe – enough to let me figure out a little about my prison but not enough to see much. I shakily got to my feet, using the support of the shelves that used to contain all the medication to stand up. The door was heavy and had a mechanical lock that didn't work (no power) as well as the normal lock. I guessed that people stealing medication was the main issue with a hospital in the District so this was as secure a place that they could put me in.

I felt the door and made a stupid attempt to kick at it and see if it could be moved. I fucking knew that even in top Duo Maxwell condition I sure as hell couldn't move it… in my current state it just sent juddering pain through my limbs and I slid back down to the floor away from my own sick and Lance's blood. No lock picks. No way of getting out. Damn it, really looks like I'd done it this time. My eyes could just make out Lance's body.

"Sorry, buddy, really didn't mean to get you killed, kid."

My voice already sounded harsh and deep. My throat was a scratchy and I was already coughing up stuff that I couldn't see in the dim light. It felt thick so I'm going with blood. I leaned my head back against the empty shelves and moved my legs out in front of me and tried to breathe normally but each breath created this weird rattling in my chest that sounded really, really bad. Huh. So this is dying.

You'd think I'd be prepared for it, you know, being that death had been following me around like a shadow since before I can remember. That I would just go into that sweet night or whatever the hell it was meant to be… but I felt fucking cheated. This was not how I was supposed to go – this was not the right death for me. I'd not saved anyone just been a dumb fuck who didn't know when to quit. I coughed again and felt it rip through my body, I drew my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around them and waited for the only thing that would save me.

The unshakeable faith I had in Heero.

It was then I raised my wrist to my near my mouth.

"Heero," I began, my voice weird and shaky. "I don't know if you can hear me. Please delete this after you hear this, whatever happens, I don't want my guts being publically broadcastable to the Preventers and the others. This is for you."

I stopped for a second feeling ridiculously stupid. I was sat talking to my wrist – my dying words to the world and him and it all felt so laughable. I wondered if I was gonna start hallucinating soon. I'd seen that happen when some of the kids had got near the end. That was usually the sign to leave them behind. Solo had hallucinated. About being caught and trapped. His fear, I suppose, always was that his kids would be separated, trapped and end up in the worst kinda homes and juvenile "facilities." If I hallucinated about my fears what the hell would my mind conjure? Whatever it was, it would be bad and that was not gonna be fun. I had too many ghosts. Too many regrets. Too much shit.

Would it be Father Maxwell disapproving of the life I'd lived – becoming the cold blooded killer, screwing around with guys, taking the Lord's name in vain on a daily basis? Would it be Solo, dead, and covered in blood and all zombiefied and shit? Hell, would it be Heero dying, dead or alive and rejecting me, hating me, disgusted with me… fuck I really didn't want to hallucinate.

I pushed that cheerful thought to the side and spoke quietly into the darkness.

"I don't get you. I never have. And I'm in a lot of trouble." I stopped again. I didn't know why the fuck I was doing this. "I know we have this thing… if I survive, which right now is kinda a big if, I want you to know that I… oh shit, I don't know if I love you or not. All I ever wanted from you was… nope, that's wrong. It was never just fucking. Even in the beginning. You were just like my, Jesus, kryptonite – that's a pop culture reference, look it up… Ah, please promise me you'll delete this. I'm rambling and it sounds so shitty in my head that I can't imagine what this sounds like on a recording."

I blinked in the darkness and hugged my knees tighter to my body. It was cold in the medication storage. I guessed it was kept this way as it used to house medication but I couldn't tell if that was the only reason I was cold. I'd been hot, my clammy skin was now drying and now I was shivering again. Ugh. Hated my body being weak.

"If you don't save me…it doesn't matter. You don't have to save me. You don't have to be the hero for me… be the hero for the others – be the good guy. Save Quatre. Start those weird telepathic conversations with Trowa again. Marry Relena. Shit, do anything but… you have to tell Wufei. Tell him none of this is his fault… and shit, don't go crazy and don't beat the shit outta him or anything but… but say I cared about him in my own way. That maybe if it wasn't for you... that… that we might have been good together. Aw, fuck it all, 'Ro. Don't hurt him. He was there for me when you weren't…"

My brain was seriously fucked at this point. I felt like I could see him but it was him during the war. It was me in that cell and him with that gun pointing at my head. Those intense eyes. My weak body. Looking death down the barrel of a gun – waiting for the bullet. I'd totally believed he would kill me despite everything. There wasn't any affection then. Maybe after… but then, nope and I accepted that. I knew looking into his eyes that I could see death and I guess, I would have welcomed it from him, you know. The boy with cold blue eyes and the Gundam with wings and all… I closed my eyes against the darkness and the image disappeared.

"I think I love you but I'm not really sure what it means. I think I maybe always did, you know." I coughed harshly. "Damn, such a sucky way to go, Heero… such a lame way to die."

I laughed shakily – it sounded hollow and awful in my own ears. I leaned my head back against the shelves uncomfortably and drifted into uneasy sleep knowing the awful feeling of being helpless and being a failure.

My head span as the door slid open and light flooded my deprived senses. I kinda thought that whatever the hell the super-virus was had fried my brain totally or maybe the one too many knocks to the skull had done that. It took a few moments to register that it was Heero. And it took a few more for me to realise this was not Barge and he was not pointing a gun at my face and I was not welcoming death…

I wanted to say something amazingly sarcastic and witty but that meant engaging my brain. I wanted to say something like "just like old times, babe" or just say "you're really gonna shoot me, aren't ya" and take us down the screwed up memory lane of this thing we called a fucking relationship but I blinked, I coughed and I said one word.

"Heero."

Then he was there next to me and I saw Wufei behind him in full Preventer get-up. I had no idea of the time span or how long I'd been in the goddamn medical closet and I had no idea what the virus had done to me and I kinda wished Heero didn't have to see me like this… so goddamn weak. And damn, I was like a breathing ball of contagion and virus strains, a biological weapon of coughing and puke.

"'m infected…" was about all that I could manage as words were really difficult.

I was beginning to think how the hell did my tongue fit in my mouth as it felt like a weird piece of muscle too big and my throat was a raw surface of knives.

"I'm vaccinated."

"…cool…"

"I have the anti-virus. I am going to inject it into your neck. You must not move, understand?"

I nodded finding the whole talking thing was hard. Heero gently moved some stray strands of hair away from my face and neck and I could see in the dim light another needle, another set of drugs and I coughed.

"S'rry."

"I only need one second."

The line had set me up for some kinda sex joke if I was in normal condition – not that Heero had any problems with staying power – but I gave another small nod and turned to the side as he injected into my neck and then his lips met my cheek in the softest kiss I'd ever felt. I turned back to his eyes and wanted to know what had possessed him to do that considering the shitty state of me and I couldn't tell what he was thinking but I think… I scared him.

"Can you stand?"

"You should wait for the paramedics, Yuy."

I saw Heero's head turn and I guessed 'Fei got the full extent of the Death Glare, patent pending, and he must have backed off at least a little. Heero's eyes turned back to me and my incredible patheticness. I answered him weakly.

"Think so… need help, though."

He nodded and hooked his arms underneath mine and I felt the world go all spinny and weird but I was on my feet with my head resting on his shoulder. One arm was slung around his back as tight as I could while he pretty much took all my weight. I could take steps but was totally reliant on Heero's strength. Huh. Old times. Seems like he was getting used to carrying my dead weight around.

"Took y'r time."

Wufei humpfed. "We lost your signal and we assumed the worst."

I blinked and my gaze turned to Heero's face. He looked strained – he looked for all the world like a man who hadn't slept, who was wound so tight that he was all coiled muscles and anger. Jesus. Almost wanted to say sorry for not staying with him. Wanted to say something to get rid of that… rigidness. He was holding everything in. And if they lost my signal… they would only lose contact with the communication chip if I was dead or somehow the signal had been blocked. They worked using the heat and movement of a body that was alive… and if there was no signal. I knew where my mind would go if he was in the same situation I'd been in. I'd see that rag doll body after his self-destruction. I'd see the blood.

"Can't kill death, y'know."

Wufei just shook his head. "Get him out of here, Yuy."

I leant on Heero, feeling that steady solid body carrying me, my head on his shoulder as we walked down the dully lit corridors of the hospital. A few Preventer agents clocked us but didn't do anything – guessed 'Fei's team knew to expect a couple of undercover operatives and I think between my grossness and Heero's death glare, we were gonna get out without anyone giving a shit. I realised I felt drunk without the fun of drinking – my head hurt, the world was fun and spinning and I couldn't walk properly in a straight line. Huh. Least with alcohol you usually have the night before and deserve the feeling.

We arrived out, it taking double the necessary time with my general weakness and taking steady steps. I didn't feel any better after the anti-virus. Things like that need time to work, you know, and plus I needed sleep. Food. A bed. A shower. Conveniences I'd been denied for too long.

"Let's get a hotel."

Heero glanced at me in my shitty state. "You need medical attention."

"No, I need sleep… food…"

If my brain wasn't fried and my body wasn't a complete wreck, I would've added sex into that equation but I was far too gone for being even remotely horny even though I was in his arms. Even though I could smell that weird clean smell he always had, even though I could feel the warmth of his body against my clammy cold skin and he was holding me so goddamn tightly to his side like he was kinda never gonna let me go again. I wanted to suggest that as I was able to walk on my two legs, with much support, but still my own legs, that I was not a weak moron that needed to be hooked up to machines and quarantined. I didn't want a Preventer safe house. I didn't want doctors in white coats and shit and debriefings and psyche evals. I was trying to persuade him to be rebellious – to abandon protocol and just do something but I didn't have the mental capacity to do so and I couldn't use my body which would be my other technique of Heero persuasion. I was covered in dried blood and puke – I'm surely the least seductive I've ever been. He must really like me if he's willing to hold onto me.

My argument would've disintegrated anyway as then my body decided to erupt in a massive coughing fit that seemed to rip parts of my insides out and made me hunch forward. Think I might've been on my knees without Heero. He just did that look – I'm gonna call it "the look" as it was the slight raise of one eyebrow accompanied by a little smirk. It was the I-know-better look that meant I was being an idiot. Think he might get a lotta use out of it if we work stuff out.

Wufei had caught up with us as we got outside the building and threw some car keys in Heero's direction which he caught – always so goddamn perfect – and I was glad the light was fading and it was like, late afternoon from the day cycle's light. My eyes hurt. Jesus. Everything hurt.

"I'll rendezvous with you at the safe house tomorrow, Yuy."

"Roger."

Ha! Mission speak. He still talks like that. God, he so needs to spend more time around me. My interior monologue was going but actual dialogue was tricky so we started to walk away and then I stopped, stalling a few metres from the exit of the emergency room. There were a lot of Preventer vehicles and a lot of Preventers around but no gang. Unless they'd arrested them before I was freed from my itty-bitty prison then it meant that they were gone. I stalled as I overheard shit I was not meant to be listening to – as a Preventer, a guy older than Wufei but knew how to defer to the mission commander, reported to him.

"The entire morgue has been emptied of vials, Agent Chang."

"You're kidding?"

My words were kinda hoarse and scratchy but 'Fei and said agent looked over at us. Heero was trying to get my ass moving but realised without doing an inappropriate and damn near embarrassing fire man's lift, I had the tiniest bit of strength and stubbornness in me to ask questions that I didn't need to ask. They call it extraction for a reason. You are extracted. Mission is over. Finite. Complete. Off to the "real" world and life again.

Preventer agent looked at me like I was shit on his shoe. Being that I was gross and tatted up and looked like a gang banger he probably had reason. Plus I was being held up by another dude who looked vaguely bad ass if not so much gang banger. Heero still looked too straight to be a criminal. Though not straight in other ways… straying off subject. Fuck my brain is not working right.

'Fei decided to ignore us and talk to Mr Normal Preventer Agent.

"Explain, Agent."

Considering how the agent had looked at me and 'Ro, he was freaking terrified of Wufei. Ha. Most of these agents were twice his age. Gotta love the intimidation factor of one quite short Chinese dude.

"The morgue draws were all open and there are no signs of the vials. The gang must have taken them before we –"

"You've searched the entire hospital."

"Not yet, sir – but-"

"But nothing, Agent. Return to team alpha and continue searching the lower floors. Instruct team beta to conduct a thorough search of the top floors."

The guy nearly cowered. He wanted to say something back to Wufei. I'm pretty sure he did but he was getting the coldest glare I'd ever seen and considering I've been on the end of many of Wufei's angry looks, I can say it's bad. I was immune to them but his underlings? Not so much. Agent Terrified left back into the hospital.

"I thought I ordered you to go."

"You did," Heero responded.

"Get to the safe house, Maxwell. This is none of your concern."

"You haven't got the gang or the vials."

I managed to say that sentence but then started coughing again and Wufei was clearly giving Heero some kind of signal that now he was truly pissed we were still here.

"That would summarise the situation, Maxwell." His eyes were goddamn scary when he looked at me and my pathetic coughing fit. I was going with the fact that him and his Preventer team were all vaccinated but he wanted my diseasedness out of the way and safely locked up. His eyes looked up to meet Heero's. "Yuy. Safe house. Now."

I didn't say anything just let myself be dragged away a little by those arms that bend metal and pop bones back in. I had no energy to argue, no energy to say what I wanted to say… keep me in the game. Let me find Dallas. Please, 'Fei, this is not over for me. But I had nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Well, shit.

The slow walk towards the graveyard of cars to a car that was working seemed to take forever and the world was suspended in a sort of peace for me. Maybe this was meditation. Maybe I needed to be so whacked out on chemicals and shit to feel some semblance of peace. But I guess I'd figured something. Solo's death. Not my fault. Maxwell Church? Still my fault but hey, you can't win them all.

For some reason, I glanced back towards the hospital, my head doing that weird spinning thing – drunk without the fun, remember? – and I saw that sugar skull graffiti and its diamond eyes seemed to be winking at me and then the world did stop. At least for a few moments.

I heard a crackle of static on the air and realised Heero had a communicator with him that previously had not been working. In hindsight, you know, I would've figured a few things out. Heero would've. 'Fei would've. We weren't teenage terrorists for nothing. My signal had been cut off but all communication wasn't working. No cells. No walkies. No communicators. All communication systems jammed.

Plus we'd had traps set for us before. I bet New Edwards was still hung around Heero's neck like the symbolic albatross.

There's a moment in situations like this when everything goes quiet. Where the air seems to be sucked outta everywhere – your lungs, around you and the air in a colony is stilted and weird anyway. Then the hospital went.

The explosion ripped through the building, a moment of complete silence before the eruption of debris and glass and shattering and kaboom…

I'd seen enough explosions, the glittering moment of beautiful destruction and in my drug-addled and diseased state I just watched before the aftershock… before the shards of building and glass begun to rain down. Heero had me on the floor before I knew what was happening. His body was entirely on top of mine, my face in the dirt, and his weight on my back. I moved my head slightly as the world caught on fire around us and I saw his hand on mine on the ground… his tanned fingers around mine.

There was a second I felt like we were suspended in time as the air around us vibrated with the aftershock of the explosion and the deafening roar had rendered me deaf for a few seconds. Then it was over, the weird ringing in my ears as alarms and sirens could be heard through the heavy fog in my brain and Heero's dead weight was off me and I managed to bring myself to my knees.

His hand was on my shoulder, our eyes met, his mouth moved and I couldn't hear but I just nodded. I knew the word was "status" so I just nodded. I was fine and but I could see blood… his blood. Oh fuck. Where was -

"Wufei."

Heero got me to my feet and I could see a large gash through his clothes, some glass, some debris – fuck knows but his back had taken a beating. We staggered like a coupla of drunks as the fire raged through the hospital and we scanned for a particular person on the ground… not a fucking body… not a body.

Wufei unsteadily rose to standing, swaying on his feet and holding his arm awkwardly against his chest, he made a motion to move towards the building but Heero was there to stop him… God knows, there could be more explosions… the fire could spread….

We were Gundam pilots. We didn't need to say anything to each other as we knew there was danger the entire building was unstable, we had done enough of this shit ourselves to know that you don't go running into a burning building that's just gone up with a shitload of explosives. Wufei knew that, knew that he had to wait for the goddamn first responder team – had to wait for fire rescue but I could see the conflict in his shaking body.

There had been two Preventer teams inside under his command.

Per Preventer extraction team? 15 souls.

There was nothing to say. We'd fucked up. And the biggest post-war terrorist act had just happened in front of our eyes.