If you recognise it… I don't own it.

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"Gundam Wing" – Start

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Wufei's POV

Internally I was torn. Was what I was doing Honourable or Dishonourable? Spying on a Comrade was Dishonourable. Yet checking on the well-being of a Friend was Honourable.

In some ways I did not care. He had been missing for over six months.

Finding him had not been easy. And I was alone simply because I had not trusted that I had been successful.

Better that only my hopes had been raised simply to be dashed again, than for my Friends also run the gauntlet of changing emotions.

But now as I watched the owner and sole inhabitant of the small holding, I knew it was him.

The weight that rolled off me was significant. In some small manner I was partially responsible for his current state.

I was also still worried.

Why had he run so fast and so hard?

Why had he hidden so well and so firmly?

Why had he cut himself off from all civilization?

It had taken myself a good day and a half to trek from the nearest road to this wilderness. Possibly one of the few so deserted places left in the Sphere.

I dreaded to think how long it had taken him, given his state the last time I had seen him.

Even now I could tell that his broken leg hadn't healed properly. He limped slightly in his movements. He knelt awkwardly while tending his plants. He sat awkwardly on a slightly off-kilter three legged stool as he milked a goat.

Some might think he was at peace. Calm and serene.

Certainly I had… At first.

But there were little clues that things were not as they first appeared.

He had a gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers.

Despite the hot and humid weather surrounding us, he had completely covered his skin leaving only his hands and his face free.

Scarily it fitted with some of the memories I had of him right before he vanished.

It was my fault. Nataku! It was my fault! I should have been the one to take the consequences. I should have been the one so maltreated and abused so.

It had been a simple mission for the Preventers. Simple and easy. I had gone in with him as my partner. Not my choice. A decision forced upon me from higher up. Commander Une had decided we were the best combination for the mission.

I had not agreed. Yet could not protest. It was the decision of my superior, I had no choice but to accede.

I believe he made his objections known. Yet they were dismissed.

Commander Une should have listened.

Yet he had been the perfect partner. Deferring to my preferences. Never once acting out of turn.

I had been the one to cause our mission to fail.

During the infiltration of a building, I had seen one of our secondary targets up ahead. A prominent member of the Criminal World. A Dishonourable Scum who made his living profiting off the lives of women and men he tortured and broke into little more than living dolls.

He had not seen us. There was no chance of him raising the alarm. Nor any risk from his guards, lazy, slovenly creatures that they were.

Yet I still moved to engage them. Leaving my partner behind, still working on the computer system gaining the evidence we would require for Justice to be achieved.

I should not have left him.

I was only gone ten minutes.

I was gone ten minutes.

To this day I do not know what happened in those ten minutes it took me to disarm and restrain the secondary target.

All I know is that when I returned to the room, my partner… My friend was gone.

All that was left was his USB drive, still plugged into the computer, a message flashing that the files were downloaded.

I had left him.

And someone had taken him.

It took all four of us nearly two months to find him again.

And when we did… When we did… Nataku! He seemed broken.

Locked in a lightless, featureless cell. A shattered leg preventing him from even standing. No bed. No blankets. No toilet. Not even a bucket to relieve himself in.

He was huddled in a corner of the room, desperately trying to keep himself warm.

I don't know if he saw or heard or simply sensed our presence. But he knew we were there, before we realized it was him.

"Don't touch me!"

That was all he said. He used his arms and one whole leg to force himself further back his corner, hiding from us as best he could.

He must have mistaken us for his abusers. Yet I could not blame him for his assumptions. It was clear that he had been through a great deal of pain in the two months.

Nataku! Who knew what cruelties and Injustices they had inflicted upon him. There were no records left behind. And no personnel.

Just our friend in a tiny cell. Revealed to us by an anonymous tip-off.

Clearly one of his captors had developed a shred of human decency. Though clearly they did not have the Honour to accept the consequences of their actions as they also fled, whether alongside the others or alone we did not know.

The only resource we had to learn of their future plans… And all he could see were his tormentors.

He calmed when the medics came in. Clearly cowed by their presence. He allowed them to move him to a stretcher.

However the moment we approached he flinched away.

"Don't touch me!"

It was all he said.

In the ambulance. In the hospital.

Nothing more. Just three words.

No matter what we asked him. No matter what we said. No matter what we did.

He would not let us touch him.

Not so much as a fingertip.

He stayed in the hospital only five days all told.

Then he got up and left. He should not have been able to walk. We never left him alone either.

But he still managed to walk away.

And six months later I had found him.

In a single bed cabin, in the middle of nowhere. He didn't even have running water! There was an outhouse and a dilapidated shed that looked like it was going to fall down any moment.

I could no longer simply watch him. I climbed down from my tree.

"Maxwell." I called out softly.

He spun to face me. His arms shooting up into a defensive postion.

"Don't touch me." Those thrice damned words again.

His eyes were wide and staring at me. As if he couldn't quite believe I was real.

I moved towards him.

He backed away.

Then before I could say anything else, he spun and lurched away.

I followed, but more slowly. There was nowhere for him to run. And if I ran after him, he would feel as if he were chased. It was better for me to take my time. I would catch up with him eventually.

It wasn't as if he was going to harm me. He had yet to move to pull his gun.

To my surprise he didn't head towards the nearest point of safety, his cabin. Instead he struggled past it to the shed.

It didn't matter. There was still nowhere for him to run to.

I opened the shed door. He hadn't even locked it.

What I saw froze me in my tracks more firmly than anything I have ever seen.

He was standing in the centre of the shed, on top of a pile of stacked wood and kindling. He was dripping wet. His gun firmly pressed against his forehead, while his other hand held a burning candle.

For a moment I hoped that if he dropped the candle the moisture he was drenched in would give me time to drag him away from the fire with minimal damage to my friend.

But then the scent caught my nose. I glanced above him.

This wasn't a spur of the moment thing. This was planned! Nataku! It was planned! His last way out.

Above his head were several gasoline cans, rigged up to pulleys. All of them in the tipped position.

He had poured gasoline over himself.

If the candle was dropped he would go up in smoke before I could do anything to save him.

If he pulled the trigger he would die, the candle would fall and his body would be burnt before I could do anything.

There was nothing I could do to stop him.

"Wufei…"

Finally… Finally he spoke something other than those three hated words.

"Just walk away." Maxwell was begging me with his eyes.

But I couldn't. I couldn't leave him.

I took one step forward, entering the shed.

His finger started to tighten on the trigger.

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Yes, I do like Duo-torture. Sorry, but they say the first step is acknowledging it.

Anyone know what the second is?

Please Review.