Disclaimer - do I even need to say it? Of course they don't belong to me..

Note - I want to thank everyone who helped with this one; Kaeru Shisho, for editing, beta-ing, providing suggestions, ongoing support, and the occasional line (and all in such pretty colours); Snowdragonct, for reading and getting back even after flying across a continent; Wolfje for - ahem! - conducting the primary research on stun guns; and Wolfje's sister, for the noble sacrifice of a cookie……

Pairings - 1?2

Chasing Rainbows:

He was awake.

I'd half-expected him to be punching holes in the locked bulkhead door but he was sitting just where I'd left him, lifting his head slightly when I walked in so I could see the bewildered pain in his eyes.

'Heero, I'm sorry. I am really, really sorry. Tro got a message from Quat and I…'

'I see.' Oh, God. That horrible, dead tone. 'Of course, Quatre would have to come first. I assume you only agreed to come out with me so I couldn't interfere with whatever Trowa was planning.'

'No! It was nothing like that.'

'Hn.' Fuck. He didn't believe me. OK, I guess in his place I probably wouldn't have either.

'I swear. I didn't know anything about this! I mean, I did sort of know Tro was planning something, but not today.'

'You actually expect me to believe that? That you just found out? Don't insult my intelligence, please.'

'I'm not lying,' I snapped back at him. 'Listen, I swear, until we were in that café place and I talked to Tro, I didn't know what he was doing; I figured it out from something he'd said, and I only had a short time to catch this shuttle.'

'It never occurred to you to tell me any of this?'

'Um.' I twirled the tip of my braid between two fingers. 'The thing is, I thought you knew about it. That the you'd asked me out just because you didn't want me going to L4 and you wanted to keep me out of the way. I just talked to Trowa and he said you didn't know anything about it,' I hung my head, giving the floor tiles a thorough scrutiny, and giving the little speech I'd prepared on my way up from the cargo bay.

'I'm sorry, Heero. It was a stupid thing to do, but I just lost it, you know? It really hurt when I thought you were only with me because you were trying to stop me doing this. That is was all a set-up. I know now it wasn't and that wasn't why you'd asked me to spend the day with you.'

And I think I'm just starting to believe that you actually do care about me. I didn't say that bit out loud, though.

'It damn well would have been if I'd had any idea what idiocy you were planning,' he said crisply. 'I can't believe even you would do something this stupid!'

Oh, that was just charming. OK, I knew I'd screwed up but I had apologised. Well, maybe I'd been wrong about the whole caring for me thing. Maybe Trowa and Lucca had it all wrong. Maybe he'd totally forgotten he had my photos in his wallet.

'Really?' I said flippantly. 'That's odd. I thought you had a higher opinion of my capacity to be stupid.'

'This isn't a joke, Duo.'

'Yeah, I kind of got that part of it when my best friend vanished and three people got killed.'

'Why the fuck can't you take anything seriously?' he yelled at me.

Oops. Raised voice, swearing. Not good signs for Duo.

'Do you have any idea how much trouble you're could be in over this? You haven't even the faintest clue of what this little stunt is going to do to your case, have you? Do you actually want to end up institutionalised for the rest of your life?'

'Why don't you listen to me for once in your life? Yes, I do know precisely how serious this is. You won't know any of this, but after I was discharged from hospital, I was in a clinic for months. I was in a locked ward for the first two, 'cause they thought I was a danger to myself. I was in a locked room by myself, under observation 24/7 and when I tried to get out, I was kept in restraints. You know me; so you might have some idea what all that did to me, if you just think about it a little bit. But you don't know this because you'd washed your hands off your crazy ex-boyfriend so you never bothered to visit.'

'Only because you'd made it brutally obvious that you didn't want me anywhere near you.'

'Only after it was pretty clear that you didn't want to be anywhere near my wreck of a life.'

'God, Duo. I tried. I tried calling you, I tried writing and you never replied. What did you want me to do? Get arrested for stalking and harassing you?'

I shook my head, remembering how badly I'd wanted to talk to him, knowing he was only calling out of pity, or charity, or some twisted honour thing.

'That's not the point! The point is I do know how serious this is, but I can't see why you care. What's it to you, anyway? You just didn't want me running off to L4 because you were supposed to be watching me and it'd make you look incompetent or something.'

'You actually believe that?'

'I don't know! I don't know why the hell you do anything, do I? I don't know what any part of today was about, except you obviously got some sort of kick out of messing with my head. You wanted to see if you could get me to admit I still cared, was that it? Fine; I said it, I said I missed you, so now you can just shag off out of my life.'

'Is that what you want to think? That it was just some sort of game for me?'

'Since when has it mattered what I want? Fuck off, Yuy. You got what you wanted, didn't you?'

'It's so much easier to believe that, isn't it? That I'm out to wreck your life for the fun of it? Why the hell can't you consider for one second that I might care about you too much to let you run off on this crazy quest. You have no idea what any of this is about; you don't know if it's some sort of trap; you don't even know if Quat's still on L4. Why can't you just let the professionals handle it?'

'Because it's Quat,' I said wearily. 'I had to. Look, I'm sorry, all right? It was a stupid thing to do. I just assumed you knew what Trowa was going to do and you were keeping it from me and that if I did say anything you'd stop me going after him.'

'How was I supposed to do that?'

I shrugged. 'Call the police. The Preventers. Look, I can see why you're mad at me; if you get me arrested when we land, I'll understand. Please, just don't stop Tro, OK? He needs to do this. Don't take it out on him just because I've messed up.'

'Messed up?' he demanded. 'Is that what you're calling all of this?'

'I don't care what you bloody well call it. You'll do whatever you want, like always, so what's the point in talking about it?' I stood up, flicking my braid over one shoulder. 'I'll be in the cargo bay. Your 'phone's on the table, so if you want to call your buddies in Preventers, go ahead.'

'You're not going anywhere until we've talked!' He grabbed the end of my braid as I stalked past him, yanking me back bodily.

'Ow!' I yelped. 'That's my hair, you asshole, not a dog leash. Let me the fuck go!'

'No! For once in your life, you are actually going to face up to something, instead of running off like you always do. Now, you are staying here, Maxwell, until we've talked.' He gave my hair another jerk. 'Got that?'

'We've got nothing to talk about!'

Shit. I should have shaved my bloody hair off years ago. Then he wouldn't have been able to hold me like that. I should have worn a nice pair of steel-toed work boots and I could damn well break both of his ankles. Hand stitched Italian leather wouldn't quite have the same effect.

'What happened to your rule about not lying?' He shoved me bodily onto the nearest bench. I rubbed my poor, abused, mistreated scalp, glaring up at him. Bastard. If he kept this up, shooting him was going to be a positive pleasure. Serve him damn well right.

'What happened to you not ripping my head off my shoulders, you bastard?'

His face softened very slightly. 'I'm sorry I hurt you. But we do need to talk. And I'm starting to think that the only way to get you to do that is either to lock you in or tie you up.' He crossed over to the cabin door, turning the key in the lock and pocketing it.

'You've studied law, you should know it's illegal to hold people against their will!'

'You've abducted me. I don't think you've got a leg to stand on, have you?'

'Screw you,' I muttered. 'In case you haven't noticed, Yuy, I'm not fifteen years old any more, And you have no right to try to control my life! None! I put up with it because I was too fucking stupid to know any better and I was stupid enough to think it meant that you cared about me.'

'Oh, don't start. This me you're talking to, Duo. Not Chang or Quatre, so stop making yourself out to be the poor little victim, when we both know that's not true.'

'I do not make myself out to be a victim!' I snapped. 'Maybe I wasn't perfect and I screwed up sometimes but at least I was faithful to you! You're the one who freaking left, not me!'

'Maybe I got tired of you pushing me away all the time! Come on, Duo, you were miserable, you'd stopped talking to me, every time I tried getting you to confide in me, you jumped on me, and dragged me off to bed.'

'Oh yeah? I don't remember you ever complaining! Why the hell would you? You'd make an effort to do the whole caring touchy-feely stuff and you still got laid. That was all you wanted, wasn't it? You had Relena and Wufei for nice intellectual discussions and you had me whenever you wanted a fuck?'

'Don't say that!' He'd stopped yelling; I knew him well enough to know that the quiet voice was even more deadly. He was getting really pissed off, crossing the room to lean down over me, eyes flashing blue lightning.

'Don't ever say that again. What we had was more than just sex and you'd know that if you could stop lying to yourself for one second. I loved you and I tried so damn hard to be what you needed and it was never good enough. Fuck, Duo, do you have any idea how much I used to dread coming home and not knowing if you'd even be there? That you'd have managed to blow the house up, or wrapped that bloody car of yours around a lamppost because you'd had too much too drink, or you'd picked a fight with the wrong guy?'

'I never asked you to stay around. You could have left any time.'

'What was I supposed to do, Duo? We were together, and yes, maybe I made mistakes, but I was trying to help you, because you sure as hell weren't trying to sort yourself out, and you never for one second considered actually talking to me about any of this, did you? That maybe I'd be able to help?'

'What was the freaking point? I knew all along that you'd get sick of me eventually and walk out and I was right, wasn't I?'

'I tried so hard, and all you did was get farther away from me,' He straightened wearily, shoving his hair out of his eyes.

'So now it's my fault that you ran off with Relena?'

'It's your fault that I never knew what you wanted,' he said quietly.

'You never fucking cared enough to ask, did you? Oh, yeah, you were always trying to get me to talk to you, but you never really cared what I said. You just went the hell ahead and did whatever you wanted anyway and I just had to fall in with it.'

'You didn't have to,' he told me. 'You could have actually told me what you wanted to do, instead of making me second guess all the time, and blaming me for getting it wrong.'

'And then you would have left.' I shrugged. 'So the only thing that would have changed would be that it happened sooner rather than later.'

'God, Duo. Did I ever, in all the time we were together, say anything about wanting to leave you, about wanting to be with someone else?'

'You didn't need to say it. I'm not that stupid that I couldn't tell how unhappy you were. Be honest, we were together for nearly a year, and I could count the amount of time we actually spent together on my fingers. Even when you were home, you were usually focussed on your next job, and you couldn't tell me about any of it 'cause it was all top secret.'

''When did we stop being able to talk to each other?'

I flipped my braid back. 'I don't know, honestly. You were so…obsessed with work all the time, like you'd got Preventers to be the centre of your life, and I was just this…little diversion between missions. It was like…. you had all these plans for how you wanted your life to be. You had your Preventers thing and then your law studies and your nights with Wufei and your cosy little get-togethers with Relena; there was so much of your life that I just didn't belong in.'

'Of course you did!'

'Be honest, 'Ro. I didn't fit. 'Fei thought I was a waste of space back then, and Relena thought I was just some crazy phase you were going through and they both thought that at some point you'd come to your senses and ditch me. They never thought it would last.'

'I did.' He said it very quietly. 'It was the only thing I wanted. To be with you.'

'Yeah. I wanted that too, once,' I whispered. 'But it didn't happen, did it? We tried and it didn't work out and it's over.' I pushed myself to my feet, very carefully not looking at him. 'It's over. There isn't really any point to this conversation; the horse is seriously dead by now, flogging it isn't going to achieve anything. I'm sorry for screwing everything up, OK?'

'Sit down.'

'Make me.'

'If I have to.'

I made it over half way to the door before he caught me, managed to get in a few good moves that he hadn't been expecting, thanks to six years of training with 'Fei, and then my right fist connected with his left side and he went down like I actually had shot him.

'Heero! Heero, fuck, I'm sorry! Are you all right? Say something!'

Oh, God. I hadn't killed him, had I?

I crashed to the floor beside him, pulling his head into my lap, frantically feeling for his pulse.

'Please, 'Ro, talk to me. I'm so sorry, I never meant to hurt you.'

His lashes fluttered slightly, just enough to let me see the narrow shards of brilliant blue. 'Did you hit me with that damn stun gun again or what?'

'No. I, ah, think, I might have hit you in the place where I kept zapping you, though.'

'You think so?' he wondered, shifting slightly. 'What the hell did you use anyway; an elephant prod? It hurts like hell.'

'You should have said something.' Damn, I'd somehow managed to forget that of course he'd be in pain. I've been on the receiving end of one of those before and the effects hadn't worn off for days. Headaches, nausea, feeling like I'd been battered by the business end of a gundam.

'Why? So you could be careful to hit me somewhere else? How many times did you zap me with that bloody thing?'

'Um, a few,' I admitted. 'I was so pissed with off you when I thought you'd manipulated me into the whole dating thing.'

'You're calling me manipulative, after what you did, kissing me?' He snapped at me. 'Get real, Maxwell. You never even considered for one second that it might hurt me, did you?'

'I wasn't thinking, not really.' Oh, shit. I'd gone and screwed everything up, hadn't I? As per usual.

'And that makes it better? It was cruel, Duo. I thought you meant it; I thought I'd finally managed to do something right. I thought we were getting on, that maybe I actually had a chance, that we had a chance.'

'It wasn't real, Heero! The whole date was just like some sort of dream and I knew I'd have to wake up.'

'I thought it was real. I thought it was real right until you knocked me out and I woke up.'

'I did mean it,' I whispered, flinching at the sheer pain in his eyes. 'The kiss. I swear, I wanted it. I've ruined everything, haven't I? I'm so stupid,' I said suddenly, leaning down to rest his my forehead against his. 'And I'm so sick of us fighting. Can we just - stop for a couple of minutes? Just between rounds? Please?'

'We could do that,' he reached his right hand up to catch my braid, holding it loosely.

'You really weren't faking the kiss?'

'Really, truly.' My hand slid up to cover his. 'You know, I had this crazy thought that maybe I could sort of convince that you'd become allergic to me and you'd passed out.'

'I think that would have been worse, What was your story; that you taking me to L4 to see a specialist in allergy treatment? A Duologist?'

'I hadn't really thought that far ahead,' I admitted. ''Ro, I know I keep apologising, and I am sorry, really I am, but I have to do this. I mean, if I hadn't called Fei, where would I be now? Stuck back on Earth with you while Trowa would have to do all this by himself.'

'Oh, you'd be stuck with me, watching an incredible sunset before dinner and possibly breaking another of those second date rules. Would that be so terrible?'

No. It wouldn't be terrible at all. It would be - I couldn't think of anything that I'd like more. Although, in all honesty, having him sprawled on me wasn't bad either.

'That isn't the point. How am I supposed to trust you if you won't even let me make my own decisions?'

'You can trust me always to want to keep you safe.'

'That's not fair. How the hell do you manage to be overprotective and sappy and charming in one sentence?'

He laughed. 'Am I charming you?'

'Maybe I don't want to be charmed.' I grumbled.

'No?' He slid his fingers up my braid, pulling my head closer slightly, and skimmed his fingertips over the back of my neck.

'I'm serious! This is my life, Heero. I've spent six years trying to get over you, and it's scary, OK? The idea that it mightn't work and - and I don't think I could survive losing you again.'

'I know. It's scary for me too. Just give me a chance. Please?'

'God, I want to. But - this is just chasing rainbows, isn't it?'

'What's wrong with that? You like rainbows. Remember the first one we ever saw?

You don't get rainbows in space. Heero and I had seen our first rainbow from the Sweeper ship - a dazzling arc of colour flung against a delphinium blue sky.

'We should have had this conversation six years ago, don't you think?' he asked. 'I know you thought I was being incredibly selfish about what I wanted, and you were right, but I didn't know what to do, love. I wasn't supposed to survive the war; none of us were, you know that. I thought if I had a job, a mission, everything else would somehow fall into place around that. And instead it all fell apart, didn't it?'

'Was it really that bad; what you said about every time you came home to me? That you dreaded it?'

'The worst thing was never knowing if you'd be gone. That you'd meet someone else, or you'd realise how unhappy you were, or you'd decide you'd had enough.'

'Baka. There was never anyone else apart from you,' I murmured, watching one corner of his mouth quirk slightly. Damn, his smile could still suck me in and turn me into a great big puddle of goo, even when I was supposed to be mad at him. Focus, Duo! 'I am still pissed at you; saying you'd have tried to stop me doing this.'

'It probably wouldn't have worked. I suppose it was stupid of me, even to think I could try to keep you away from Quatre.'

'Yep. Stupid Heero. And if that was meant to be an apology, it didn't work. I'm still mad.'

'I'm still mad at you. Considering you knocked me out and abducted me. Doesn't that make us quits?'

'Not even close.'

'You did half-kill me. I'm going to be black and blue for days. And it hurts like hell.'

'Stop with the guilt trip. It's not like you've never been hurt before. I've seen you set your own broken bones, remember? And I've said I'm sorry.'

'Make it up to me. Let me show you I'm serious about us?'

Damn, but it was hard to summon up logical arguments with him oh-so-gently caressing my hair. 'I want to. Really. But, come on, we just tore great bloody strips off each other.'

'Six years' worth of arguments in less than an hour doesn't seem too bad. And you wouldn't be still here talking to me if you thought this was such a waste of time.'

'You did lock the bloody door, remember?'

'Oh, Duo! Like that could stop you for a second!'

Valid point. It was a half-assed little lock I could have picked with my eyes closed. OK, maybe I had wanted to talk to him. Maybe I did think that it could work this time.

'What did you expect it would be like?' I asked, suddenly remembering what Trowa had said, that he'd been scared too. 'Going out with me again?'

'Truly? I didn't know. I was terrified that I'd do something wrong and you'd never want to see me again? It was wonderful, just the two of us, but this - this feels good too. Real.'

'What? Us yelling at each other?'

'Baka,' he said affectionately, fingers threading gently through my bangs. 'You were being honest with me, not just saying what you thought I wanted to hear. You do know that people can argue and still care about each other?'

'Yeah.' I lifted my head a little, letting his fingertips stroke down my face. 'I know that now. When Wu and Zechs first got together, I used to freak out every time they had a fight. I thought it meant they'd split up.'

'Oh, love. That was the hardest thing, you know, that you just wouldn't confide in me. I thought you trusted me; we used to tell each other everything during the war.'

'It was - kind of easier then,' I muttered. 'I mean, come on, who ever thought we'd survive?'

'I know,' His grip on my wrist tightened for a second. 'I used to be terrified, every time you went on a mission without me. When it was all over, I thought I had everything I'd ever wanted.' His fingers laced through mine, curling over my palm. 'And you just stopped confiding in me; it was always Quatre you went to. That was so hard, Duo. He was my friend and I was hating him for being so close to you.'

'You were jealous of Quat? There was never anything like that between us!'

'Oh, I know it wasn't about sex. In some ways, that would have been easier to understand. But he was the person you trusted with everything. Not me. It was like I was just the one you had for sex and Quat was there for everything else.'

'No!' I twisted around, squeezing his hand. 'I was so screwed up, 'Ro. I thought there was no way you'd want to be with me if you knew just how much.'

'Duo..'

'Just let me say this, OK?' I swallowed, finding a nice stain in the paintwork that I could stare at. Sort of shaped like Australia. 'You guys were all coping so well. You each had a purpose. You knew all this - stuff - that I didn't. Stupid stuff I hadn't a freaking clue about. C'mon, 'Ro. I knew how to be a terrorist, I knew how to live on the streets, that was it. I didn't know how the fuck to do normal. I'd never even slept in a real house 'til one of the safe houses we stayed in.'

'You weren't the only one who had nightmares, love. We all had such problems; we were just too good at hiding them. Quat tried to kill himself, remember? We all thought he was doing so well, taking over WEI and he slashed his wrists. And Trowa gave up any chance of his own life to be with Quat. Wufei and I? The only way we managed was to treat the whole thing as another mission. We were obsessed with every operation.'

He kissed the top of my head, gentle as a breath. 'But I'd spent my whole life being trained to blend in, to pretend I belonged. Sometimes, I thought you were doing better than any of us; you were trying to make a home and friends and a life that had nothing to do with the war.'

'I just had this stupid idea that if I could pretend to be normal it would make it happen.'

'Oh, sweetheart. We're both so stupid. I think we've grown up a little since then, don't you? We're not kids anymore. Maybe we can learn from what went wrong? Can you trust me enough to give it a try?'

I squeezed my eyes shut. Damn. It was so tempting not to say it. To pretend it had never happened. Just to agree with him, and not bring up all that past stuff.

'I was dying. After the - accident. Everyone thought I'd was going to die and you never came to see me.' I had to open my eyes then, just to see his reaction.

Genuine bafflement.

'Of course I did. I was there every night. You know that.'

'No,' I was sitting up suddenly, shaking my head so violently my braid whipped around us both. 'You weren't. Don't lie to me. After you had that - argument with Quatre, you left. And you only came back when I was conscious again.'

'No!' he snapped at me, looking hurt. 'That isn't true. Of course I visited you. You knew I was there. Long before you woke up, you squeezed my hand. The doctors said you seemed to respond to my voice.'

'I thought I'd imagined you,' I whispered. 'That was just a dream. Why did you never tell me?'

'God, Duo, all this time you've been thinking that I just…abandoned you? I'd never have done that!' He twisted upright to face me, wincing slightly. 'I thought you knew. I can't believe no one told you. I mean, Trowa knew, all the medical staff knew.'

'I don't know about Tro,' I said slowly, 'but I think Quat pretty much bought up the whole hospital over the five months I was there. The staff were probably scared they'd lose their jobs if he found out. They all knew how he, um, felt about you. Heero,' I asked quietly. 'That time Quat wanted to kill you? You weren't going to stop him, were you?

'The doctors said you were…clinically dead. They didn't think you'd survive. I didn't care about anything else. God, Duo, it was the hardest thing I've ever gone through, that night at the hospital. We all thought you were dying, Quatre was hysterical; God knows what the empathy was doing to him. Trowa was trying to calm everyone down, I think if Quatre hadn't lost it with me, Wufei would. And I understood why he wanted to do it.' He took a deep breath, not even trying to command the tremor in his voice.

'I thought I deserved it. You tried to kill yourself because of something I'd done.' He slumped back against the wall, one hand holding his side, bangs obscuring his eyes.

'I didn't! Heero, there's still things I don't remember about that night; I freaked out, you know? After I saw you and - and Relena. I just wanted to get away and I saw that damn MS and it.. seemed like a good idea at the time. But most of the controls had been disabled, and it just wasn't responding. The only thing I could think of was to try to get away from the palace and crash land somewhere where at least no one else would get hurt.'

He swept his hair back with one hand, looking straight into my eyes. 'I still can't believe you're alive sometimes, you know?' He touched his fingertips to my face in a gentle caress. 'I - I talked to your surgeon afterwards. He said I was listed as your next of kin, so technically it was my decision who visited you, that if I wanted to, I could just order the others out.' His lashes fluttered closed, the little furrow in his brow deepening.

'I - would never have stopped Quat from seeing you. You do know that, don't you? I knew what you two meant to each other, back then. We arranged a - schedule. Quatre was told there were times you couldn't have visitors, and I could be with you. He said - it would take a miracle for you to regain consciousness. And even if you did, given the extent of your injuries…that you…you would never fully recover. They wanted my permission to - to terminate.' His face screwed up with remembered pain. 'To kill you.'

I nodded, a bit uncertainly, and took one of his hands, feeling his fingers fold tightly around mine. I'd never known the bit about him speaking to my doctors, but I'd known there were various highly placed individuals who would have been quite happy for the inconvenient Duo Maxwell never to have regained consciousness.

Hell, Une would probably have pulled the plug on me herself and thought all her birthdays had come at once.

'I'm never letting you go again. I don't care what stupid arguments you come up with or what you tell me, got that?' His free hand gave my braid a sharp tug. 'I never should have let you go in the first place. I wouldn't if I hadn't thought you were better off without me.'

'Never,' I whispered, wondering why my vision was suddenly a little bit out of focus. 'I've missed you so much. And it wasn't all your fault.'

'Hush, love,' he soothed, pulling me into his arms. 'It's all right. I've got you now.'