Bourn on White Wings

Chapter 2

Back At Last

By: Miguela

Heero and Duo stashed their Gundams in the same place as before, the glade just off of the school's property boarders. Heero returned the Zero to its mobile form and landed beside the black Gundam in the deep woods, flicking off the main power source. His leg was throbbing slightly, probably because he had forced himself to walk back to the landing site from the base. Then it had only been a minor annoyance as the muscles would spas and cramp every once in a while, making it somewhat painful, though nothing more. However, after sitting so long and not moving the muscles in so long, they had cramped up solid and were adamant in their protests at the movements now as he tried to stand. He knew right then that he wouldn't be walking back on his own without some help in the form of a stick.

A gentle breathing had filled the small cockpit as Mia had fallen asleep next to his chair curled up in a small ball with her wings folded on her back; they would rise and fall rhythmically as she breathed.

He felt a small twinge of guilt as he contemplated waking her from her deep sleep in God only knew how long, but as he watched, her golden eyes opened slowly, and blinked in confusion. He mentally kicked himself for turning off the main light before she was safely on the ground.

"Where am I?" she asked softly, rubbing her eyes groggily.

"Back at the school Duo and I were hiding at," Heero replied softly. "We'll be staying here until you regain your strength and get some food into you."

She snorted. "Even the rations that Dr. J used to give us seems like a luxury compared to the stuff Oz fed me," she said, and got to her feet as the hiss of hydraulics sounded inside the confined space and the hatch fell and became the platform yet again. She crept out and crouched on the hard metal, the sun's first rays catching her golden hair and making it shimmer, despite the fact that it looked like it hadn't been washed in weeks and it was probably true—Heero shivered at the thought.

She cocked her head to the side in amusement. "Are you coming or are you going to sit in here all day?"

He snapped out of his reverie and realized that he had been staring at her and that Duo was yelling at them from the ground. "Who in the Hell's up there with you Heero?" Duo asked from the ground.

Heero pulled himself up using Zero's control board as his support, and wobbled his way onto the platform, hanging on to the edge of the door to keep from pitching off the small landing headfirst. "It's not important Duo," he called back. "She's a friend."

"It's a she?" his friend called back in wonder. A sly grin crossed his features that Heero was able to make out even at that height. "Pick up a whore at the base or what?"

Heero paled visibly. "Of course not!"

Mia giggled into her hands at his frustration. "My name's Mia Hiten," she called down to Duo. "I'm one of Heero's old friends."

Duo scratched his head in confusion. "I thought he had no friends," he retorted.

"I was listed as dead for a year and a half," she said simply. "I was with Oz."

This simple statement caused an almost panicked reaction from the Gundam pilot below—Duo pulled his gun out of his holster and trained it over the girl on the landing, all in under five seconds. "Why in the Hell did you bring back an Oz soldier with you man?" he demanded his friend angrily. "I thought you were one of us!"

"I am," Heero replied icily, "and she was the one I was trained with during my time with Dr. J—she was something like my training partner."

"And why was she with Oz?" Duo asked, still sceptical.

"I was taken a year and a half ago off the streets by an Oz soldier, thinking that I was a whore that could be paid," she said in disgust. "When they did a background check, they found that they found—by some fluke—that I had been trained as a skilled assassin and a Gundam pilot-" Duo shot her a strange look, "-and they decided that I could become their test subject." She spread her wings in demonstration as tears began to cascade down her face uncontrollably. "I'm a freak of nature!"

Heero felt his heart constrict at hearing the agony in her voice—her rights as a human being had been stripped away and she had been used in many possible ways.

Duo lowered his gun hesitantly. "So, you're on our side then?" he asked in uncertainty.

"Yeah, I have always been and always will be on your side," she replied, wiping her tears on the back of her hand hastily. "Why in the Hell would I side with Oz after they did this to me?"

Duo shrugged, "Donno…"

Heero hissed in pain as agony raced unexpectedly through his right calf as he attempted to try and walk on his own. The bullet must have been lodged in the bone in his calf to cause this much pain, by his assumption.

Mia looked over at Heero when he hissed, surprised to say the least—Heero, in all the time she had known him, had never let another person see his pain, let alone hiss as loudly as he had. Something must really be hurting him, she thought, frowning to herself.

"Are you all right Heero?" she asked when another loud hiss escaped his lips.

"Fine," he growled and, intent on proving that he was fine, began to climb down from the cockpit of the large mobile suit on his own, since he knew that jumping like he usually did would be very bad on his injury. Grabbing the tow cable protruding from the ceiling above his head, he dropped off the side of the platform, letting his weight be supported by the cable.

Mia watched him descend to the ground, worry etched in her golden eyes. It was normal for him to be quiet—it was abnormal to hear him hiss and groan and pain as he had. Her eyes traveled over his descending form, and finally rested her gaze on his right calf, where a large reddish stain covered the whole muscle at the back of his leg. She cursed quietly to herself and slowly climbed down the side of the Gundam after him.

Heero landed below, next to Duo, who was gaping up at the girl as she made her way down to them.

"Are you sure she's on our side?" he quarried yet again, looking at his partner sceptically.

"I'm positive," Heero replied, slowly putting weight on his injured leg, a motion Duo was sure not to miss. "I've known her since I was nine."

Duo nodded, slowly beginning to circle around his friend in the hopes of finding out what was causing him to be so sluggish and uncertain in his movements. The answer soon came as Mia dropped down to the ground. He caught her out of the corner of his eye and watched her drop gracefully to the ground, landing on all fours, with her wings spread wide. Looking back to the back of his friend's leg, who was now giving him a very questioning look, he said, "So, who got lucky enough in their aim to nab ya?" He said it in a teasing manner, though he was internally hoping that what he had just said wasn't true, that he hadn't really been shot.

Heero seemed to fidget as Mia came over as well, glaring disapprovingly at him from under her long, greasy bangs—he knew right then that she had also spotted the growing red patch on his calf.

"It's nothing," he lied quickly, shifting out of Duo's range of sight, though that only caused the two of them to frown in disapproval at him.

"What happened Heero?" Mia asked sternly. "Tell me or I will find out, and it will be very painful on your part."

A momentary shiver coursed down Heero spine at the tone in which she spoke. He remembered when they were kids, when the doctors would beat on him to bring up his endurance and torture him if he failed a mission simulation, he would always be sent back to their joint room bloodied and bruised, sometimes with broken bones. She would become very worried at the sight of his rugged appearance and would demand if he were hurt. He would always say that he was fine and would lay down on his bed with his back facing her. She would always know when he was hurt and would instantly find the spot and poke it roughly. He would screech in pain and pull away, though he had already shown that he was hurt seriously. It was part of both of their training to know how to take care of injuries, with little to no medical equipment on hand to use. The scientists weren't so cruel as to kill the two kids by leaving serious injuries unattended, though they wanted them to use their training to its fullest and would only treat the injuries after Mia or he had assessed them. Nine times out of ten her prognosis had been correct and he was treated with the next hour, but she had never missed an injury, knowing when he was hurt. Looks like she hadn't changed over the passed two years.

"Its just a graze," he said, snapping out of his reverie after staring off into another dimension in time for God only knew how long. Duo looked doubtful and Mia's glare deepened.

"You can't lie to me Heero Yuy," she said, "the whole back part of your calf is soaked in blood."

He cursed himself quietly for not taking care of his wounds before coming after her, though he supposed that she would've found out anyway—she always does.

"Fine," he growled. "The bullet's lodged in the muscle."

That answer seemed to satisfy her for the time being. "Sit down," she ordered after a few minutes of contemplating their next move.

"What, here?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yes, right here," she said, pointing to the grassy glade in which they stood. "You shouldn't have been walking around on that leg in the first place."

He sighed and decided that this was one fight that he just wasn't going to win at this point, so he sat down on his rump in the middle of the glade. Feeling the tense muscles continually pulse to the beat of his heart as he tuned back into the conversation between Duo and Mia that he hadn't been aware of.

"Get me a bottle of water—I'm sure you have some somewhere—and a first aid kit," Mia said, kneeling down beside Heero.

"Why do you need water?" Duo asked in confusion. "Won't the antiseptic in the first aid kit be enough to clean his wound?"

"Yeah," she replied, and then she smiled innocently, "but I'm thirsty."

Duo mentally smacked himself. Of course she would want the water to drink—God only knew when the last time that she had clean water had been. He headed off to do as she requested while she turned to the injured Gundam pilot who was attempting to massage the knots out of his calf muscles.

Heero winced involuntarily; continuing to work at the tight muscles despite the pain it caused him. He would let Mia remove the bullet—she was better at it than he was—though he would try to do something on his own, like determine the gravity of his wound just to show her that he was also capable of taking care of himself. He determined in the short span of time that he had to work with that the bullet had indeed been lodged in the bone and had probably chipped some of it away, considering the distance that he had been hit.

Duo returned a few minutes later with the first aid kit that he kept stashed in his Gundam just in case of emergency, a packet of food, and a litre of bottled water. She took the supplies with a gracious bow of her head and a courteous 'thank you'. Then she set to work on Heero's injuries, working systematically and swiftly.

"I take it that you've done this many times," Duo said, rather embarrassed that he had doubted her in his own mind, though, thankfully, he hadn't voiced the comment aloud. She had cut away the bottom part of his companion's jeans with the small pair of scissors supplied by the first aid kit without hesitation. Then she had made Heero lay on his stomach to gain easy access to the bullet to remove it, and had done so with a pair of tweezers.

"I've only removed bullets a couple of times before—Heero can attest to that—and this is the only time where it went right to the bone and splintered it," she said, placing the ball of steel in a tissue and tucking everything back inside the kit. "I was Heero's personal nurse when we were in training together." She wrapped bandaging around the wound s tight as she dared. "That'll have to do until we can get you to a hospital or something."

Heero groaned as he sat up; the muscles were loose now and he was wishing that he could be back in his dorm room sleeping since he was exhausted by the night's events. He rolled onto his back, feeling the grass cushion him somewhat.

"And what about you?" Duo asked. "Those gashes on your wrists just aren't for looks, are they?"

Mia looked away, frowning. "They're not that bad," she said. "They'll heal on their own."

Heero glared at her in disapproval. He took her wrist in hand before she could pull away, seeing her wince. "Let Duo tend to that Mia before it gets infected," he said gruffly, trying to sound anxious, but it came out sounding like a command. Mia pouted, glaring in return, but allowed Duo to use the remaining gauze in the first-aid kit to bind both wrists and both ankles. He was gentle, but she winced and whimpered every once in a while in pain.

Meanwhile Heero was still trying to stand on his own, but with little success, his leg unable to move.

"Come on Heero," Duo said after watching his friend struggle to try and stand, though he failed miserably and fell back down on his back. "Let's get you back to our room before someone notices that we're missing."

Mia rose as well, folding her wings. "And where in the Hell am I supposed to go?" she demanded. "I can't very well stay in the boys dorm—that would look suspicious!"

"Well where else can we go?" Duo demanded impatiently.

She shrugged, anger fading as she stared at her bare feet scuffing the ground. "I don't know…" She didn't really know what to do now that they were at the school. She could just say that she was a new transfer student and create some fake transcripts to get her in, though she would need some clothes other than the rags she was wearing right then. "Isn't there another place close by that we could go until I find some clothes or something else to wear?"

Heero thought while Duo and Mia talked. Mia did have a point—the things she was wearing right now would not look good to get her into such a high end prep school such as the one that Duo and he had been hiding in for that last couple of months. He racked hi brains for a place that he knew was useable in the immediate area and one of the safe houses that Quatre had gifted them with instantly came to mind. It was a farmhouse in the country about thirty kilometres south of their current location. It would take about twenty minutes by car and ten by Gundam, but, by the light in the sky at that moment, their best option right now was probably the car and there was an unlimited supply of cars on campus at that instant.

"Duo," he called from the ground, "we do have another place we can go for now."

Duo looked back at his friend sprawled on the ground, "There is?"

"There's one of Quatre's safe houses not far from here," he said, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "Find us a car and we can go there; I know where the key is."

Duo scratched his head. "And what about the Gundams?"

"They're good here," Heero replied. "No one's going to steal them, I'm quite sure."

Duo shrugged, "You're the boss…"

I'm updating this story every sunday from now on. The whole thing should be writen within the next week or so. I need reviews though