Disclaimer. Oh, you know, the usual. I don't own anything to do with GW...

On the Proper Care and Feeding of Nightmares:

Orchids aren't something you'd expect a Gundam Pilot to grow, right? Some tropical plant to cultivate for poisons maybe, or a big, spikey cactus that you could use as a weapon.

Well, I grow orchids as a hobby. For nearly three years now. Zechs gave one to Wufei when they first started dating, but Wu's not really interested in plants unless they can be cooked to provide some sort of nutrients, so I ended up taking care of it, and then I got hooked. They're so incredibly beautiful and exotic and fragile-looking; like some sort of fantastic insect frozen as a flower.

I even have my own terrarium now. OK, I guess you could call it a greenhouse or a glassed in potting-shed or what have you, but apparently a terrarium is an artificial area that recreates the natural habitat of plants, and that's what I've tried to do.

I have a beautiful specimen of Cymbidium Traceyanum that I'd been meaning to move to a bigger pot for a while, but had never quite found the time. It's a bit of a time-consuming process and the roots also needed some serious trimming. I was shaking the last bit of soil from the rootball when I heard the door opening and closing, wondering which of them had drawn the short straw this time to baby sit poor Duo.

Ignoring whoever it was, as I took the out the little knife I use for this and somehow it slipped and slashed across my right palm instead.

Wufei was beside me before I'd even registered what hat happened.

'It was an accident, Wu! I didn't mean it.'

'I know. I know, Duo.' I have a little sink unit in one corner, and he held my hand under the tap under the bleeding slowed. It wasn't really deep, one of those shallow, surface cuts that bleed copiously, and I was mesmerised by the sight of bloodied water swirling down the drain. If bled to death, would Quat even care? Would Heero?

Wufei produced a clean handkerchief and wrapped it up, then he wrapped his arms around me.

'You do have a right to be angry.'

'What's the point?' I asked wearily. Objectively, I knew I should be feeling furious or sad or betrayed or something, but emotions just seemed like too much trouble at the moment. 'It's not going to change anything, however I feel. He didn't say anything that wasn't true, really.'

'Oh? Winner was right in saying that you've been plotting to split up himself and Trowa? That you are harbouring some deep, dark plan to split up Mil and myself and seduce him? '

'No! Wufei, dear God, you know I'd never...'

'Duo, if I thought for one second you seriously believed that I could ever think that about you, I would kick your ass all over the house. Understood?'

'Yeah. Sorry. It's just...it's just...'

He was silent while I tried to arrange my thoughts, one hand stroking my back very lightly, just letting me know he was there with me.

'If he could say those things, he must have been feeling them. About me.' I swallowed. 'I know he doesn't really make much effort to stay in touch, but I thought he still liked me. That we were still there for each other. But he must hate me, really, don't you think?'

'Oh, Duo...I don't know what to say. He is ...very upset right now over Trowa, but there is no excuse, none, for the things he said to you.'

'I know.' I was having to make a huge effort to stay in some sort of control, with Quatre Winner's words, crisp and clear and wholly contemptuous, slicing through my brain. Never pleasant to have every part of your soul and heart and memory laid bare by vivisection. Especially when you'd trusted the person wielding the blade.

'Wufei only lets you stay with them because he feels sorry for you. You do know that, don't you? Well, he'll be sorry when you move in on his boyfriend next...'

'Heero only stayed with you, that first year after the War, because it was convenient for him. An easy, casual fuck whenever he was back from assignment.'

'You just can't bear to see anyone else being happy, can you? I know you've wanted Trowa for years. Oh, he was too innocent to see it, but I knew. I always knew how jealous you were, that you wanted to split us up..'

'Heero thought it was funny, you know; your ridiculous little fantasy about the two of you being a proper couple. That you actually believed someone like him would settle for a cheap little L2 whore.'

'Trowa doesn't give a fuck about you, not really; he's just confused at the moment but he will come back to me. What could he ever want with someone like you?'

'You can't seriously have thought Heero would ever want to stay with you, surely? Oh, you were very useful to him during the War, a good way to work off all that tension between missions. That's all you ever meant to him...'

'I can't believe you ever thought we'd stay friends after it was all over. You don't belong in my life anymore. You're not exactly a suitable friend for now, are you?'

'Heero should have killed you, when he was supposed to. You always were the expendable one. Do you ever wonder if he regretted it?'

'You couldn't even kill yourself properly, Duo, could you? You couldn't even do that one thing right.'

God, it always seemed...surreal listening to Quatre swear. He'd once said 'shit' during a mission, and I swear, he spent the next week expecting Allah to smite him with a lightning bolt.

'Duo! Duo!' That was Wufei, squeezing my arms hard enough to hurt. I don't think he realises his own strength sometimes. 'You're bleeding again. I think we should get a bandage.'

'OK.' He was right, the handkerchief was soaked in blood and it was dripping to the floor. 'I should stand and bleed over the grape-vine; it's supposed to be good for them.'

I did actually start to move over, but only managed a couple of paces before I had to sit down.

It all got a bit hazy after that. Trowa and Zechs were suddenly there as well, and I couldn't work out quite why they both looked so terrified, and then I was somehow on the couch. Trowa was talking about shock and Zechs was trying to pour brandy down my throat and Wufei was saying something about sedatives...

Zechs was asleep in the recliner when I woke up on the couch. Four am. I'd slept for most of the night. He's usually a pretty light sleeper so I obviously hadn't cried out during the nightmare. I was still shaking though. No way I could just lie there and calmly go back to sleep.

I was as quiet as possible going up the two flights of stairs to the studio. We converted the attics when we first moved in and now there's one huge room that runs the whole length of the house, and there are more windows than walls.

I'd started a still life of one of my orchids a week or so ago, and never got around to finishing it...it's a pink Phalaenopsis with a few pebbles around the base of the pot. Zechs' paintings are all about turmoil...mine are exercises in control, finicky line drawings as precise as the illustrations in a botany textbook. No way in hell I could hold a pencil with both hands shaking, even if my one of them hadn't been swathed in bandages, like a Mummy. Slight overkill there, I thought; the cut hadn't been that deep.

Instead, I wandered around to look at what Zechs had been doing. There was a half-finished charcoal sketch leaning against the wall. He'd drawn Wufei doing Tai Chi, but it could have been the personnification of harmony, of serenity between body and mind. He's the still, strong centre of our household, Chang Wufei, the rock around which Zechs and I orbit.

The only other painting I hadn't seen before was one of his massive oils, and he'd obviously modelled it on my still life.

His orchid looked like my dream of an orchid, as if it might take wing at any moment. All around the edge of the canvas he'd painted a kaleidescope of purple and indigo and violet - but so far the flower itself was untouched by the chaos of colours.

'It's beautiful,' I said softly. I wasn't quite sure when he'd come up, hadn't really heard anything, but I knew he was there. 'Can you not do your deconstruction thing on this one? Please?'

'You'd better have it then.' He came and stood behind me, not quite touching, just tall enought to look over my shoulder at his painting. 'I still owe you an orchid, don't I?'

'I suppose you do.' It seemed incredible now, that a couple of weeks ago we'd actually had a major fight over a handful of flowers. Over Zechs deciding it would be a romantic gesture to scatter orchid petals in the bath he was running for Wufei, but he'd stripped two of my favourite plants of every single bloom and I'd been furious. Wufei usually lets us fight without intervening, but I think he got worried when I'd threatened to castrate Zechs with my pruning scissors, and thought he'd better step in before I tried to carry it out.. It all seemed a very long time ago.

'What was the nightmare about?'

He's probably the only person I can really talk to about my dreams, because he has his own, and sometimes I've been the one to comfort him.

'Heero dying. Me dying. Gundams self-destructing all over the place.' I shivered convulsively. I'd watched Heero die. God, it was ages since I'd had those particular nightmares. Heero self-destructing at New Edwards...

'I saw him die...it was so real, Zechs. I was watching and there was nothing I could do'

I always have a problem, when I first wake from a dream, to distinguish between dream and reality. Oh, it had probably only taken a minute or so for me to wake up properly, but it always seemed like a lifetime. A lifetime of a world without Heero.

'You couldn't even kill yourself properly...'

Stop it!

'He's not dead, Duo.' I wasn't sure which of us had moved but Zechs was holding me, just a little too tightly, maybe trying to make sure I wouldn't run off.

'I know.' I did know it, really, in whatever small rational part of my mind that was still managing to function, but he had died in my dream and I'd seen him and it had been so vivid and so real. I'd always thought I'd lose him to death. I lose everyone to death.

'Duo, breathe. Just try to calm down, OK? Heero's fine. Do you need to call him?'

Bloody Zechs, opening Pandora's Boxes all over the place. Of course, I fucking wanted to call him. I'd wanted to from the moment I'd woken up, known that all I had to do was press two buttons on the 'phone to hear his voice, even if it was just a recording.

But I didn't think I could cope with one of those godawful, stilted, polite, laboured conversations that were how we communicated these days. On a good day, I could just about cope by dredging up my hyper-Duo persona and shaking the mothballs off. I'd never be able to manage it in this state. And I did so not need Heero feeling sorry for his poor, screwed-up ex-boyfriend who was incapable of getting on with his life.

'Heero thought it was funny, you know; your little fantasy about the two of you being a proper couple.'

'No. I know he's alright. And he's starting his new case on L4 today anyway. He'll be busy.'

'I'm sure he'll have time to talk to you.' Zechs' voice was very gentle. Shit. he must be worried about me if he was actually encouraging me to contact Heero.

'I don't want to, alright?' I snapped at him. 'You can't seriously believe he'll want to hear from me? From - what was it Quatre said he'd called me - his L2 whore?'

'I can't seriously believe you're paying attention to anything that bastard Winner said. He's pissed off, and he thinks you're somehow involved in Trowa walking out on him and he knows exactly what strings to pull to hurt you! Duo, did Heero ever call you anything like that?'

'No. Of course he didn't. Not while we were together. But... he still left, didn't he?'

Not a lot, really, that anyone can say to that. He just hugged me even closer; I know he meant it to help; he's incredibly tactile but it just reminded me of how Heero used to hold me. Of course, it wasn't really the same; Zechs is too tall and I could feel his hair tickling my cheek and he doesn't do the humming thing Heero used to, but I still suddenly needed to step away from him.

'Come downstairs with me, Duo. You probably should eat something and we still have leftover sushi from the other day.'

'Sushi only reminds me of Heero.' I said dolefully.

Exasperated sigh; he means well but he doesn't have huge reserves of patience.

'Duo, no offence but sometimes everything reminds you of Heero. Look, I'm sorry. Is there anything, anything at all, I can get to make you feel better? Even a little bit.'

Of course, the one thing that occurred to me was the one thing there was no way of obtaining. I do love living in the middle of nowhere but it does limit some things, like fast food deliveries.

'I'd like a doughnut. A really fresh, squishy jelly doughnut.'

He was daunted for a couple of heartbeats, I could see him trying to work out logistics and the fact that it wasn't even morning yet and nowhere would be open.

'Right. I'll make you some.'

The next time I woke I was scrunched uncomfortably in our biggest armchair, trying to work out why my hair smelled of smoke. It was mostly unravelled and the strands lying over my face were crusted with powdered sugar.

Oh, the doughnuts. Of course. We'd hadn't had much jelly (or jam as Zechs insists on calling it) so we'd experimented with different fillings; honey and peanut butter, melted chocolate and apricot brandy. Afterwards, we'd taken the brandy bottle and watched TV. We hadn't been able to agree on whether to watch the Home Decorating Makeover Channel or the Home Make Your Own Explosives Channel so we'd compromised on some weird soap opera. I'd fallen asleep in the middle of the hero explaining how he was actually his own illegitimate son, courtesy of a time-travelling alien.

Zechs was asleep on the couch; he always ends up on the couch, citing his longer legs. He always looks ready for a photo shoot; I'm not sure whether it's due to his royal genes, or Academy classes in personal grooming. His hair had fallen over his shoulders in one smooth, shining swathe, the blue silk pyjamas were totally unwrinkled and spotless, and even the little smear of chocolate on his cheek looked like it had been left there on purpose. And he was wrapped around what looked like a scaled-down rocket launcher.

Vanity Fair meets Guns 'n' Ammo.

'Do I even want to know how you two started a fire in the kitchen?' That was Wufei coming in fully dressed and holding two cups of tea. He kissed the little chocolate smear off Zechs' cheek and sat down beside me.

'Probably not. And we did put it out. And it needs repainting anyway.'

We both sat in silence for few minutes, sipping tea and watching Zechs. I love the guy to bits, but he can be a bit….overwhelming when he's awake. It was a novelty to watch him still and silent, the way Wufei must have seen him millions of times.'

'Is he planning to invade somewhere?'

'He said he wants to protect me.'

'I know you're both staring at me.' Zechs grumbled, stretching, fumbling for the channel changer. It's an automatic reflex with him. Open eyes, shake back perfect hair, turn on TV. It drives Wufei insane.

It's hard not to look at a moving screen. There was some sort of news programme in progress and I think we all just froze in place, listening to the reporter…

'….and there is still no update on Quatre Raberba Winner, who has just been airlifted to the Green Oasis Clinic on L4. Hospital sources have revealed that Mr. Winner is believed to be in a critical condition but nothing more is being said at this time….'