Old Times

My unconscious state of being leads me to dream of him. He's gone astray and angry with himself. He's lost his faith in himself and has neglected his space heart, virtually turned it off. He doesn't want to be found, but someone of significance has already stumbled upon him. Does this mean Quatre's in danger? I'm not sure. I try not to read into dreams too much. There's no science to claim they mean anything crucial to real life.

When my eyes finally open I find myself lying on the bed in the dingy motel room, and Wufei diligently working on my laptop.

"How long have I been out?" I ask.

He answers, "Barely over four hours."

"Amazing," I sigh. I feel invigorated, alert, and energized. It's not a lot of rest, but it's more than I could have hoped for.

"Is that good?" Wufei asks me.

"Yeah, I feel better than I did before."

He grunts, "Then it is good."

I leave him to continue his database searching, maybe he'll find something I missed while I go to the nearest restaurant and get us something to eat. Choosing the easy route, I go to the closest restaurant.

When I get back we eat and debate over where Quatre may be, and consume very little of the food I purchased. Wufei encourages me that we need to start with Earth, even though it seems too simple. Though we should rule out the likely places, so we don't have to back track and palm ourselves in the face for not exploring them in the first place. Still, I can't fight off the nagging feeling that Quatre is some place where he doesn't belong. Rashid assured me that he wasn't with them, but if Quatre asked them to keep his presence a secret they probably wouldn't help me out. It just seems too frank, but I don't want to fight with Wufei. Maybe we are headed in the right direction. One can only hope.

We wait a few hours before departing so he can sleep and I sit in the dark, wondering. Wufei had been searching through the Preventer hacked files and I follow up on his scouring. All of our files deem us hazards to society and highly dangerous. There are no leads on our whereabouts and the files haven't been updated for a few weeks, with the exception of Wufei's. According to his file, he's still arrested. This doesn't sit well with me because I know by now they must have noticed his escape. They would have seen me on the security footage as well, so why hasn't this been included in his and my file? Looking through the rest, Duo is still considered to be on L2 and is labeled as a possible accomplice with Heero's "distribution of narcotics across space colonies". Heero's last known whereabouts were L2 and there is no mention of Wufei's part in letting him leave the colony. They know he's not on that cluster anymore so what's going on? My file states me as being a citizen of L3, and that I haven't left that colony since the end of the war except to travel with the circus. None of this is right.

I go through files, hacking and decoding every possible avenue to find the secondary files the must have on us. The first set has to be frozen or purposefully left un-updated to throw us off. But I find nothing. There is no updated digital file on our actions. This isn't good. If there's no second set of records then they're using a different way of communicating in order to find us. Une is a smart lady who knows our tactics, and how good we are at by passing firewalls and security measures. Great, now we're going to have to be extra careful because we can't see what the Preventers are doing, how much they know, and how close they might be on our trail. I even hacked into Une's personal e-mail account and still found nothing. This doesn't bode well, for any of us.

We have to move fast.

I jump from my seat and wake Wufei up by jostling his shoulder. He's only been asleep for two hours but we can't waste anymore time.

"What? What?" he grouches.

"We have to go. Now!"

"Fine," he grumbles and doesn't ask any questions.

It isn't until we're a block away from the spaceport that we forgot to address the most critical element of our escape from this colony. We don't have a craft and we can't board a commercial flight without raising a red flag with the Preventers.

I turn to look at Wufei and ask, "What are our options?"

"There's really only one," he answers while rolling his brown eyes.

"Hijacking will alert the Preventers and all other law enforcement. We'll be labeled terrorists again, is that what you want to do?"

"We don't have another choice and I have a few tricks up my sleeve that will keep them off our asses," he says with a devilish smirk.

"Alright," I concede, "Let's do this."

We work in tandem like the team we used to be to get inside the spaceport undetected. Wufei disengages the alarm on a side 'employees only' side door. He follows my lead through the maze of hallways to the nearest hanger. Adrenaline kicks in and it's just like old times. We get more than halfway to the closest terminal for small cargo crafts before someone spots us.

"Hey!" a man in a uniform hollers at us. "What are you doing back he-"

Before he can finish his question Wufei attacks like an unhinged animal with the grace and swiftness of a predatory cat. The man falls unconscious to the floor; we look at each other and come to a silent agreement to make a run for it. Bolting through the hallways we reach our destination quickly. We jump into the first spacecraft we see and fight to take it over. Three men in postal uniforms don't know what's about to hit them. I take one out with a hard punch to his temple and Wufei takes care of the other two with his martial arts. Flying his leg through the air, it connects with the jaw of a heavyset worker, and then he spins and deals a vicious uppercut to the other's stomach. Honestly, I wish I looked as badass as he does while dueling. Anyways, no time for praises and envy. We toss them out of the craft, their unconscious bodies rolling down the flight of stairs to the floor.

I jump at the helm, fingers flying over the controls and engage the engines. Upon activating the launch sequence the doors open to the take-off room. Guiding the plane inside, the doors behind the craft close, keeping everyone safe on the other side from being sucked out into space. The radio crackles and a woman speaks, "Flight two-nine-five-X you are not clear for launch. Repeat, you are not clear for launch. Disengage."

Wufei punches the radio, breaking it and takes the seat next to mine. He taps over the controls on his side, effectively opening the final doors for us to fly out into the starry sky. I activate the thrusters just as an alarm goes off, red lights flashing and the system operators override the gate and try to close it. But they're too late. We make it out just as the portal begins to shut, shooting off the colony and into the void.

"Put in the coordinates for L2," Wufei orders me.

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

I follow his command and set the coordinates for the L2 cluster. He brings up a control panel on the main screen and works on reprogramming some specific feature. Ten minutes later he gives me the okay to head in the direction of Earth.

"What did you do?" I ask.

"The Preventers have their own cloaking mechanism for galactic travel to avoid detection from unworthy sources. I just reworked that program so we are undetectable, even to them," he tells me.

We stare eye to eye for a second, sweat drying on our brows and the adrenaline wearing off, and then we laugh. It's just like old times, and now we're wanted men all over again.

Forty-five minutes pass and Wufei falls asleep in his seat after changing into a space suit for safety precautions. I place the craft on autopilot and change into my own space suit.

To avoid boredom, I bring up a window on the Internet feed and play soothing classical music that won't wake Wufei and will keep me entertained. We've got a long while until we hit the Earth's atmosphere and I'm too pumped to sleep, wouldn't fall asleep if I was tired.

Though it's strange to be in the company of an old comrade, it's also pretty exhilarating. I actually want to talk now, I have so many things to say, so many things to complain about. But most of all I just want to find Quatre and make sure he's fine. Be an ally to him in his time of need. I guess I'm hyper focusing on him a bit…but for the first time in a long while I have a goal, a purpose, and I'm also following my heart. Should have done this sooner before Quatre disappeared.

Hours later Wufei directs me to land at an abandoned port in Jordan, and I'm a little surprised that a post war base has zero security, even if it is in the middle of a desert. I hotwire a truck and ask Wufei to drive. I've been awake for far too long and shouldn't operate a vehicle after piloting a craft for over ten hours. My hands are shaky and I chew on my nails nervously as we ride.

After a while Wufei breaks the silence with a question: "Why are you so gung-ho on finding Quatre?"

Biting off my pinkie nail and glaring out the window I say, "Because he's our friend."

"That's a very evasive answer," he mumbles. "What's your real motive for finding him? Are you tight on cash or something?"

"No! I have my own funds saved over from the war! I don't need Quatre's money!" I fume. How can he ask me that? As if I couldn't find another way to get money if I was that desperate for it. No, he seems to think I'd go mooching off a friend. Asshole.

"Then why is this so important to you?" he implores further.

"Why does it matter?"

"It's an honest question that deserves an honest answer," Wufei says softly. "You clearly have something more invested in this than trying to 'help out a friend in need'. So, what's the deal?"

Maybe I should just tell him. He might understand. It might gross him out and displease him to know that I'm a homosexual, but I don't see him turning his back on me now anyways.

"I love him," I whisper. He doesn't hear me and asks me to repeat so I say it louder, "I love him."

"What?!" he exclaims out of shock, turns his head to stare wide eyed at me.

"I'm in love with him!" I shout.

Wufei's stunned silence almost makes me laugh; he stares out the windshield with his mouth agape. When he discovers words again he asks, "Does he feel the same for you?"

"Not sure," I reply with a shrug. "We never addressed it, but I think so."

"So this means you're actually truly, deeply concerned about his welfare."

"Yeah, and I miss him like crazy. It doesn't matter if he cares about me the way I do for him. At this point, it's all about making sure he's safe and happy."

"Winner was a good soldier, I'm sure he's safe but as for happy; would you be happy in his situation?"

That's a good point. I answer, "No, probably not."

Quietness falls between us for a while, almost an hour before my Chinese friend asks, "Has the idea of him not wanting to be found ever crossed your mind?"

"Sure, but why would he try to hide from us? He needs our help." What kind of help, I'm not sure. Just need to find him.

"And what if he doesn't want it? What if he doesn't want us to find him? Don't you think Rashid and the Maganac's will do everything they can to hide him, even from us?"

"Why the fuck wouldn't he want our help?" I yell, losing my cool. Lack of sleep can make a person testy. "That doesn't make sense! We're the best allies he's got, what would be the point of cutting ties that strong?"

"Shame," Wufei says evenly. "If he's embarrassed over his actions then why would he want to turn to the people who expect the most of him?"

"Since when did we expect 'the most of him'?" I sneer.

"Since we used to rely on each other just to fucking live and fight to see another day!"

I don't know what to say to that so I cross my arms over my chest, bite my tongue and shut the hell up. Glaring out the window at the hot desert sunset I begin to wonder if he's right. What if Quatre doesn't want to be found, especially by us? What will happen then? If any of our old communication links were still available I'd use those to send a cryptic message to our lost blond friend, but they've been deactivated and deconstructed for so long. It would be a waste of time to set it up on my end if the one on his side is nonexistent. I guess I can only hope that he won't shy away and hide from me.

Long after sun down we arrive at the Maganac's new base. It looks like an ancient city with the way it's surrounded by walls and has one gate for entrance and exit. The guards let us pass after they make a call to Rashid and verify our identities. We drive up to the palace located at the center of the walled in city and park the truck. Rashid waits for us at the door and he appears confused by our presence.

"What can I do for you Master Trowa and Master Wufei?" he asks in the deep, rumbling baritone voice.

"We're looking for Quatre," I inform, but I think he already knows that.

"Yes, I'm aware of that and I told you he isn't here."

Wufei steps into the conversation with: "We'd like to have a look around to verify that for ourselves."

Rashid frowns and glowers suspiciously at the both of us. "I have no reason to lie to you and I find it extremely rude that you would insinuate such a thing. If Master Quatre were here I would have no problem showing you to him."

"I told you," I say, turning to Wufei. "He isn't here."

"You're just going to take his word for it?"

Rashid clears his throat loudly to get our attention back on him. "You have your little 'look around'. We have nothing to hide. You're not going to find him here," he says more to Wufei than me.

Wufei and I follow behind Rashid's massive body into the palace. My impolite friend walks off to begin the search, or at least that's my guess. I stay behind and talk with Rashid some more. He continues to insist that Quatre is not on the premises and expresses his great concern for him. He's kind enough to offer us a room to stay in, and I take him up on his offering. Wufei and I can share a room so we don't become anymore of an inconvenience to them than we already have. Rashid shows me to the room we'll be staying in and I decide not to join Wufei on his fruitless search. There's no way Quatre is here, we shouldn't have come in the first place.

I lay on the bed after hours of guesstimated searches on my laptop. The ceiling yields no answers, so I just lie numbly and allow my brain to go into zone-out mode. Hours later, I can't say how many because I wasn't keeping track, but suddenly there's a booming knock at the door that causes me to jump to my feet and race to open it.

Rashid's on the other side, and he looks far from happy.

"I'm sorry but you have to go."

"Oh…okay."

"It's not you. If you really want to stay that is fine, but Wufei has to go."

"What happened?" I ask, utterly confused.

He takes a breath and explains, "Your friend and Abdul got into a dispute that led to a fight, and we just can't have him here."

"Where is he?" I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers.

"He's waiting for you outside in that truck you two rolled up in."

"Alright. I'm so sorry. We'll leave you guys alone."

"Don't worry about it, you didn't do anything wrong."

Luckily I only unpacked my laptop and its charger, so I'm out and at the truck in less than five minutes. Stomping up to the vehicle, I yank the passengers' door open and slam it shut behind me.

I turn on him and shout, "What the hell did you do?"

"What does it matter? Quatre isn't here anyways!" he yells back at me.

"Yeah, I told you he wasn't and you didn't fucking listen to me!"

"Sorry for wanting to be thorough!" he hollers, turning the key in the ignition and flying us backwards in reverse.

"There's a difference between thorough and fighting with someone! What did you do?"

"Doesn't fucking matter. We're moving on and that's that."

"Where are we going?"

"To the Peacecraft girl."

"Relena?" I exclaim. "Why would she know where he is?"

"We're going through all the obvious avenues first, remember?"

"Goddamn it, Wufei! You can be so pigheaded sometimes."

"Whatever."

The remainder of the car ride is silent, as is the flight to Europe. When we disembark in Switzerland, which is not the county Relena lives in for your information; we debate on how to finish the rest of our shared journey.

Walking the side streets close to the new hanger we've dumped our spacecraft in, we find ourselves in a run down industrial area.

"So what now?" I ask.

"We can't rent a car," he points out.

Well no fucking shit, asshole! Gah, I've been pissed since we left the Maganac's compound, and I'm taking it out on him, which is where my anger should be directed. Who pisses off and burns the bridge with the Maganacs'? They are a very reliable, worthy ally. "Are we going to steal a car or something?" I ask, sarcastically.

"Not the worst idea," he murmurs. "We've already stolen a spacecraft, so why the hell not add a car to the list?"

"You're not serious," I deadpan.

Wufei gives me a wicked smirk, his dark brown eyes twinkling under the street lamps. Walking around an old blue Honda, he jabs his elbow into the drivers' side window. It shatters under the force of his right arm, and I can't help but chuckle. My Chinese friend can be such a show-off sometimes. He opens the drivers' door and hotwires the car, effectively killing its high pitch alarm. I hop into the car and we drive past the Swiss boarder into Belgium, listening to talk news radio along the way.

Hours later, we park kilometers away from Relena's mansion and discuss how we will reach her. We plot, plan, and debate but it doesn't do us any good. Wufei is tired and I'm a little out of sorts. I tell him to sleep and that we'll revisit the topic when he wakes up. There's no point for me to lie about my own tiredness, and we both know I won't be falling into a deep slumber anytime soon. He was kind enough to offer to do what he'd done before for me – punch me in the head, knock me unconscious so I could sleep, but I'm not in the mood for another possible concussion.

Wufei turns out around five thirty in the morning and I stare out the window trying to figure out a way to get to Relena. Our main obstacle is Heero's security program that he installed and the men trained under him. As of now, our best bet is to hack the system, find its weak points, which all systems have despite who created them, and break in. That is far from most ideal option. Deconstructing Heero's programs will be as tedious and arbitrary as unraveling and disproving Einstein's theories. Back during the war he always left a loophole that the rest of us Gundam Pilots would be able to find. It was so miniscule and hard to detect that even the most highly trained minds wouldn't see it as anything other than basic, rookie error or a simple blip. That was the gift he held, creating intricate programs that could only be broken by the minds that he knew and trusted. But since neither Wufei nor I have been in contact with him for almost two years, and because Relena was his saving grace, we both doubt he'd leave that tiny clue.

Restless and without stimulation, I open my laptop and try to find this maybe existing hint just to distract myself.

Nothing pans out. And I'm not surprised.

By the time I close my laptop it's almost ten o'clock. Carefully placing my jacket over the top portion of Wufei's face, I protect his sleeping eyes from the bright sun. I can't protect his ears from noise, but it's the least I can do. Plus, I need him to be well rested when he wakes. No sense in the both of us being too fatigued to proceed. I keep my mind more or less occupied with Quatre and his current disappearance. It's the not knowing that kills me slowly.

Almost an hour later, Wufei jerks upright in his seat, throws my jacket off his face and hollers, "I know how to get us in!"

Confused and startled, I ask, "What? What is it?"

"I'm going to call her from a payphone!"

Wha-….what fucking good is that going to do? "That's your grand plan?" I ask, disbelieved.

"It's so simple!" he exclaims excitedly with huge, uncommonly large grin plastered to his face. "If I enter the correct number with the corresponding extension, we might be able to reach her and bypass her secretary. That way the call won't be monitored or recorded!"

"Wufei, I've been dissecting Heero's program since you went to sleep. There's nothing to be found," I attempt to explain.

Punching the steering wheel, he yells, "Check again!"

Indulging his – what I hope – brief break from sanity, I get to work on my laptop just to appease him. Searching through the codes, I do my best and…holy shit…it's there. He's right. So fucking right! How could he have known that?! "How in the hell did you know that existed?"

"I don't know! But that's how Yuy operates!"

"Yeah!"

"It's so goddamn obvious!"

"Yeah!"

"It's so in your face that you don't think it's a real lead, but it is!"

"YEAH!"

"So clear as day, it seems like a fucking typo!"

"MAKE THE FUCKING CALL!" I holler, exuberantly.

"OKAY! OKAY! OKAY!"

Wufei bolts from the car like he's on fire and I attempt to rest in his absence, but my excitement has me wishing, hoping, and praying for the best. When he comes back, Wufei informs me that he got a hold of Relena and she's agreed to help us. He didn't have enough time to ask her about Quatre, but we'll be getting to her later tonight.

Ditching the car in a bad part of town, we keep ourselves busy in the area. Sneaking onto her estate is relatively easy for Wufei and I. Our combined understanding of Heero's systematic working benefits our break-in. Standing on her balcony, we wait anxiously for Relena to open the door and let us in.

The door opens; Relena peeks out from between the doorframe and the door, her blue eye spying about suspiciously.

Pushing the door open all the way, she wraps her arms around Wufei and whispers, "Wufei! I'm so glad you're here!" He returns the gesture and I can't help but feel there is something more to it. Relena turns her attention to me, mumbles: "Trowa it's good to see you too," and she embraces me in the same fashion. I pat her on shoulder; it's the only comfortable way I can return the open affection to someone I don't know very well.

We follow her into the bedroom, and Relena plops down on the edge of her enormous bed, buries her face in her hands and releases a shaky sigh and breathes, "I'm so happy you're both here. I don't know what to do about Heero. He won't listen to me. I'm at my wits end."

"Heero?" I ask. "Relena, we aren't here for Heero, Wufei and I are looking for Quatre. He's gone off the grid since being removed as CEO of his father's company."

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I have no idea where Quatre is. I haven't seen him since that banquet I threw a few months back."

"Yeah, that's the last time I saw him in person as well," Wufei adds.

My irritation gets the better of me. It boils up to the surface, producing steam and whistling loudly like a teakettle, and so I exclaim: "Great! Just fucking great!"

"Calm down, Trowa," Wufei scolds me with a placating tone. "We knew this was a long shot."

Pacing the length of the room, I bring my fist up to my mouth and bite down on my index knuckle. The whole point of this mission is to find one simple fucking person, and we can't even do that. And I know I'm being hard on myself because we've only searched two places, but I feel like we should have a solid lead by now and I can't help but to blame myself. Maybe I didn't know him as well as I thought. Clearly, he's better at concealing himself than I originally thought. Clearly I'm not up on my A-game. Clearly, this bullshit is giving me a negative perspective. "No!" I yell. "I won't calm down! It shouldn't be this hard! We should have found him already!"

"That's a ridiculous claim and you know it. Quatre is one person hiding in the throngs of the universe and we don't even know if he's on Earth or not. If you continue to think this way you'll only end up getting more upset and blind to what new assets we have," Wufei lectures me.

Running my hands through my hair in annoyance, I question, "What assets?"

"You're here and now you've got my help," Relena assures with a smile.

"And Yuy, too," Wufei adds. "I'm sure they have resources that can helps us narrow our search down."

"I don't know how much help Heero will be," Relena murmurs somberly. "He's a different person now. He only cares about getting high. He doesn't even look the same. It's terrifying to see what he's done to himself."

Could it really be that bad? "Do you know how he got involved with it?" I ask.

"He won't tell me anything."

After discussing Heero's condition, Relena shows us to a room - the same room Heero's in because she can't afford to have the three of us noticed. That's fine with me, I understand. Who knows what Milliardo will do if he finds out we've done a B-and-E on his baby sisters' estate.

In the room I set my bag down softly as to not wake Heero up. I'm surprised he isn't awake now. Collapsing in an overly lavish cushioned chair, I rest my elbows on my knees and bury my head in my hands.

"Take it easy, Trowa," Wufei demands.

What the fuck?! Is he trying to wake Heero up? "Keep your voice down!" I order in a whisper.

"Yuy's out cold," he proclaims a bit loudly, and punches Heero's slumbering body in the leg.

"Wow, he didn't even stir." I get up and walk over to the bed. Standing over him I can tell that he's totally unconscious and he doesn't even appear to be alive. "Jesus Christ, is he breathing?" I ask, flabbergasted. Leaning down, I place my ear just above his nose and listen closely. I hear his soft long breaths. "Yeah, he's alive," I admit.

Wufei informs, "The drugs knock him out. He's unresponsive to the world."

Turning my attention to the little dresser by Heero's side of the bed, I pull the drawers open and shift through the contents until I find what I'm looking for. A black canvas, roll-up bag with four needles, a spoon, an industrial grade lighter, and a wad of black stuff – heroin – in clear wrapping are what I discover. It's one thing to hear about it, another thing to hold it in your hand as your old friend lies dead to the world. My mind reels as I try to understand how a person like Heero can traverse down this kind of path. This shit will kill him. He's killing himself and his method of choice is a needle. I can't help but think that we're responsible for helping Heero through this point in his life, and the first step we should take is getting rid of his stash. So I say aloud: "We should get rid of this."

"We can't do that," Wufei warns me, shaking his head. "He'll be furious and leave. If we flush his stuff, he'll hunt some more down."

"But we can't let him live this way!" I try to justify. How can he sit back and just let this happen? If we push hard enough he'll quit, right?

"So what do we do when he wakes up?"

"Tie him to the bed?" I guess out loud. Force him to sweat it out, and when he's sober again he'll realize this lifestyle isn't for him. That makes sense to me that he would be willing to change when he's clear of mind.

Wufei snorts, "You really think that will work? The guy can bend steel."

Touché Wufei, touché. I don't have an answer for that, or how we'd handle Heero when he's conscious, but looking at the crap I hold in my hands I can't help but say, "I'm flushing this shit down the toilet."

I hear a barely audible 'fine' from Wufei as I march into the bathroom. Throwing the baggie of black shit into the toilet, I snap the needles and toss them in the trash, and press the toilet plunger. Everything gets sucked down the drain with ease, and the rest of the paraphernalia I leave on the sink counter since it's now useless.

Walking back into the bedroom I see Wufei has made himself comfortable next Heero in the bed, and I know that I'm not going to be getting any rest tonight, again. Sometimes I feel pathetic for the way I worry over Quatre. Everyone points out to me that he is just fine on his own, but a large part of me needs to know that for sure, see it with my eyes, and not assume he's fine and dandy based solely on the fact that since he was a Gundam pilot, he should be able to handle anything. Most of the night is spent by me indulging in fantasies wherein I find him, or he finds me, we tell each other how much we've missed and love one another, and then the relationship I've always wanted with him begins from there. I'm not sure if he likes me that way, or if he's even gay or bisexual, but I always got a hint of something when we were close and alone. My senses can't be that far off can they? Even if he only sees me as a friend I need to know he's okay and doing all right…better than Heero. If he's gone down that sort of path then I don't know what I'll do. But I can't imagine Quatre having a drug problem like Heero, or a drinking issue either. Guess gambling is his thing, and I hope it's the only thing he has. It's high time we started to look into to some less obvious places. Originally, I was thinking that we might check out some old safe houses, but places like Los Vegas are probably a better fit for Quatre.

I'm so lost in my own mind that when a soft, "Why are you here?" startles the shit out of me, making me lurch in my seat. Looking over towards the bed I find Heero's blue, sleepy eyes gazing back at me. I guess I was so wrapped up in my head that I didn't even notice the sun rising.

"Wufei and I are looking for Quatre," I say quietly. "You wouldn't happen to know where he might be, would you?"

His dark haired head lulls back and forth lazily. "Nnn-no. Um, I saw 'im on TV when I wuz in the hospital. He lost his job," he garbles unclearly.

He sounds drunk. I wonder if that's a side effect of the drugs. "Why were you in the hospital?" I ask. The idea of him going to a hospital willingly doesn't coincide with the Heero Yuy I knew. He used to take care of his own wounds and do all he could to nurse himself back to health, only accepting help when absolutely necessary.

His brows pinch together, lids flickering over his sad eyes, and he looks away as he murmurs, "It was nothin'."

Not pushing the matter, I ask, "Will you help us search for Quatre?"

Heero responds while picking at the bed comforter, "I dunno, maybe. Why iz it so im'ortant tha you find him?"

"I think he needs our help. Being forced to step down from his career couldn't have been easy."

Heero replies, "I'm sure he can ta'e care of hi'self." He reaches over to the nightstand, yanks open a drawer, and my intestines tighten with anticipation. I know what he's looking for, and I tossed that crap away. Watching him, I see the befuddled expression cross his face as he finds that hollow box empty, his hand banging around in the drawer.

His head snaps up, eyes wide and fearful. He asks, "Where's my stuff?" I sit stock still in my seat and say nothing. The wildness of his eyes terrifies me, but I don't regret my actions from the night before. Yet.

"Where the fuck is my shit?!" he screams, his pale, hallow cheeks gaining a bit of red. I know Wufei is awake, he moved to the further edge of the bed when Heero began to yell.

To answer his question, I simply state, "I flushed it."

"You what?!" Heero shrieks, eyes full of rage. Leaping from the bed, he storms into the bathroom only to find the non-lethal paraphernalia I left behind.

"What the hell gives you the right to go through my shit and throw it away?!" he screams louder than I've ever heard him before. It's terrifying for many reasons. He's a well-controlled person, for one. Two, he's always mildly spoken. And three, I've never had his rage directed solely on me.

"I was doing you a fucking favor by throwing that crap away!" I roar after jumping to my feet. "That shit's going to kill you! How could you even do it in the first place?"

In the span of nano-seconds Heero eyes set me a blaze, he crouches in a sprinting stance, and then launches himself across the room in my direction. I barely have time to pull my hands up to defend myself when he crashes into me, his fists connecting with the sides of my head and chest. The blows aren't as fierce as they once were, but he's still really fucking strong. Placing my hands on his chest to shove him away does me no good as it leaves my neck open for grabbing. We tussle into the bookcase and thick bound books fall on the both of us as Heero's hold on my throat tightens. Wufei comes to my rescue and hinders Heero's attempt to kill me by kneeing him in the balls.

I rub my sore neck as Heero screams, "What the fuck is the matter with you?! Now I'm going to have to find another hook. That shit was suppose to last me awhile." His voice gets all choked up and I can't fucking believe he's on the verge of crying over this.

Kneeling down, I grip his shoulder and assert softly, "You don't need drugs, Heero. Once we get you clean you'll realize that."

He smacks my hand away and hollers, "Fuck you! It's my life! I can do whatever the fuck I want now that the war's over."

"You saved the world from extinction!" Wufei yells. "And now you want to spend the rest of your life in a drug induced daze? What kind of loser are you? You of all people should be proud of your accomplishments!"

Heero retorts with a broke sob, "Should I be proud of the innocent people I killed too?"

A knot forms in my gut and I can tell Wufei is overcome by his outburst as well. There's no easy way to deal with this kind of pain.

"We all killed innocent people, Heero. That's what happens in a war whether it be by accident or a necessary casualty, it happens. We're all dealing with it," Wufei explains kindly.

Heero scowls up at us from the floor and seethes, "No, we're not all dealing with it. I was supposed to be better. I was trained to be the best. I wasn't supposed to make mistakes!"

"You're only human," I say slight stunned by the level he holds himself up to.

"Yeah, well this human I am and this body that holds me together needs some fucking H to function," he shouts.

"You don't need heroin to make you whole!" I yell back at him, as if raising my voice to his volume will make him change his mind.

"It's my life! This is my fucking life now! Nobody tells me what I can and can't do! So just fuck off and leave me alone!" Heero jumps up from the floor and throws his clothes on, in an apparent hurry to get out of here and buy more drugs.

Wufei interrupts the silence by stating the obvious: "You can't leave."

"Why the fuck not?"

"If you're seen you'll cause a lot of problems for Relena. You don't want to do that to her, do you?" I ask, hoping that his emotions for Miss Peacecraft still run deep.

"Shit," he groans and rubs his forehead. He's silent for a moment before he looks at the both of us and demands, "Well, then you two are just going to have to help me. I can't stay here like this. I need a hook and then I'll be good again."

"What don't you understan-" Wufei begins to holler but is cut off when the heavy bedroom door is violently kicked in.

All the intruders are Preventer Agents, and the three of us bolt for our only available exit: the balcony. Heero's grab first but he puts up one hell of a fight, and it takes four Agents to subdue him. I barely make it past the door before I'm yanked backwards by my shirt by two people, and my arms are quickly pinned behind my back. If Heero and I were in the same shape we'd been in during the war, we'd been out of here like bats flying out of hell. Wufei gets the furthest, reaching the balcony edge and just before he's about to fling himself over the edge, three Agents grip him and pull him back. I expected him to struggle more, but for some reason he's calm, collected, and compliant. They drag us back into the room and Zechs emerges from the crowd of Preventers.

Relena! That fucking bitch sold us out to her brother!

The three of us are silent, unmoving as we wait for Zechs to do something. "We're taking you in and sending you to a special program," he starts, pulls a syringe from his pocket and sticks it into Heero's upper arm. He struggles for a few seconds, tries to speak but the words come out gargled, and then he slumps in the arms of his captures', unconscious.

"What did you put in him?" I yell. "Let us go! We've done nothing wrong!"

"Oh, you did nothing wrong until you helped that one escape," Zechs says with a cheeky half smile as he approaches me. Striving to break free is futile, but I give it my all anyways. Feeling the prick of the needle sticking my skin I try to throw some curse in that blond bastards face, but my tongue is thick and heavy and before I know it everything disappears.

When my eyelids peel open, I find myself lying on my side on the dirt. A person beside me opens his eyes. A light sky-blue that is the most beautiful shade of blue that I've ever seen.

It's him.

"Quatre," I whisper.

His eyes are soft and sleepy for a moment before they go wide, and he asks, "Where are we?"