Part 1

The mission was over; the munitions dump was completely eliminated. The base was destroyed beyond rebuilding. The initial assault had generated a desperate defense that had crumbled rather quickly to our superior firepower. The enemy had retreated in total, abandoning everything to our mercy. We had shown none. Now we were on the long trip back to base. Wing was unscathed, though Trowas Heavyarms had taken some slight damage to its hydraulics on the left side and was unable to move that ‘arm’. We flew close; I stayed on his left, guarding the weak side. But there was nothing out here with us, hadn’t been for a day. Barring any complications, we would make touchdown tomorrow at eighteen hundred hours. I could not wait. I don’t think either of us could. It was a very odd feeling. It had never mattered to me before; the long treks through space used to be something I treasured, the solitude and time without fighting, without killing. But I had never had something to go back to before. I wanted to see Duo. I wanted to touch him, to know he was all right. The timing of the mission had been horrendous, following right on the heels of Duos attack. When I closed my eyes, I still saw him hanging limply in Wufeis grasp, blood smeared across his lips I needed to see him as much as I needed to breathe.

I had managed, with the help of Wufeis oath to me, to block all the worry out of my mind for the time it had taken to get through the mission. But once it was done and over with and we had begun the long, quiet flight back, all my concerns had come rushing back and now, a day and a half later, my gut was in knots thinking of all the possibilities. Wondering where he was, what he was doing. Was Wufei with him? Had he figured out I had changed his access code to Deathscythe again? How mad was he? Was he doing his exercises? Was he eating? Sometimes he forgot to eat. I hoped the others were keeping him company, he needed people; needed contact. He got lonely.

What in the hell was the matter with me? I was starting to make myself nauseous. The tight band comm crackled to life, and I jumped in my harness like a kid that had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

‘Yuy?’ Came Trowas voice, calm and amused.

‘Yes?’ I managed.

‘If you get any closer, you’re going to set off the proximity alarms.’

I was thankful the vids weren’t up and he couldn’t see my utter consternation. I had not even realized. I eased back, pulling Wing to a more reasonable distance and muttered an apology. Thinking about Trowas damaged Gundam and worrying about Duo had gotten all muddled together in my tired brain and I had unconsciously been moving protectively closer. I imagined Trowa laughing uproariously at me.

After a bit, he spoke again. ‘It gets easier, if that’s any help.’ His voice was gentle behind the amusement.

I grunted in surprise. Here was somebody, out of only a tiny handful of people in the universe, who could possibly understand what I was going through. I wanted to kick myself for not having realized sooner; for having wasted all this time.

‘Gods, I hope so.’ I muttered, ‘Because it sure as hell can’t get any harder.’

He laughed, delighted, and I glowered. They were all enjoying my wrestling for the first time with all these emotions and it was getting a little irritating.

‘Yes,’ he sounded a little melancholy, ‘It is a bitter sweet thing, isn’t it?’

Gods, he did understand.

‘Do you…worry?’ I asked, it made it easier, not having to see each other. I was able to bring myself to speak of things I might not have been able to, had we been sitting across a table from one another.

‘Constantly.’ He sighed.

‘How do you…how can you function on a mission?’

He chuckled, ‘It’s not always easy.’ There was a moment of silence, utter and complete out here between the stars, ‘I can’t tell you how to put it aside for yourself, Heero. I only know what works for me.’

Maybe he needed to talk a little too.

‘What?’

There was a hesitation, ‘I make myself believe that Quatres life depends on every single mission.’

I grunted. Damn. I turned that over in my mind for a minute thinking about it; don’t deny the feelings, embrace them. Twist them to your own ends; make them work for you instead of against you.

‘Damn, Trowa, it’s a wonder you don’t have an ulcer.’

He chuckled wryly and then sobered after a bit. ‘Heero, have you thought about the other half of the coin? What it’s like when they’re the ones going out and you’re the one staying behind?’

I sighed, ‘I’m trying very hard not to.’

‘Sooner or later, it will happen.’ And I felt the weight of personal experience behind his words.

‘I know. Gods...I know.’

There was another long silence, and for a while I thought the conversation was over.

‘Heero. You have to trust him. Don’t make the same mistake I almost made. I tried so hard to protect Quatre, and he wound up thinking that I doubted him. It almost destroyed us.’

It shocked me to hear this much private information coming from Trowa; he did not speak of these kinds of things any easier than I did. I remembered several occasions, looking back over the last several months, when I had thought he wanted to say something to me but then left it unvoiced. Maybe this odd, blind, conversation was making things easier for him as well. I realized what a gift he was trying to hand to me, what a sacrifice he was making to speak so plainly to me, and I could do nothing but speak plainly in return.

‘I am being over protective, aren’t I?’ I finally admitted.

He actually laughed out loud and I was glad he couldn’t see my face burning. ‘Heero, one would think he were made of spun sugar and air.’

I sighed, ‘I just came so near to losing him, before I’d even properly found him…’

All trace of amusement left his voice, ‘I know. Gods, what he came through…’ there was the gust of a sigh, ‘I still can’t quite believe he came back alive.’

I shuddered, suddenly cold. ‘Tell me about…that night.’

‘When he came back?’

I grunted an affirmative, ‘I got it from Wufei, and he…tends to puts things in their best light.’

There came an understanding chuckle and there was a pause, maybe he was considering his words, maybe he was collecting his thoughts, or maybe he was thinking that he shouldn’t tell me. I waited, and eventually he did speak again.

‘Wufei and I both thought he had died in the accident, but I couldn’t convince Quatre to give it up. He spent every waking hour on that damned radio, monitoring the emergency frequency. We were all up in the radio room at the safe house that night. I was trying to talk Quatre into shutting it down and going to bed. He was so tired…between Duo and you…’

He stopped for a minute, but I didn’t speak. I wanted to hear this, and I literally had days. I could let him tell it in his own time.

‘Wufei was with us. I think we all just wanted to be together. Everybody was…hurting.’

Mourning Duo, watching me fade. We wouldn’t discuss this part.

‘Then we heard this little sound in the hall. We never heard him come in the house. I don’t know how he got up the stairs; hell, I don’t know how he did any of it.’

Had we been sitting at a table together, he would have leaned forward and met my eyes.

‘I’ve never seen a living human being look like that. I don’t know how he was on his feet.’ His voice was getting intense, ‘We couldn’t go near him. Quatre tried to help him…but…’ there was another pause, ‘Heero, he scared me.’

He stopped again, lost in memory, or searching for words, I’m not sure which. I had to reach to turn the heat up in my cockpit; I had started to shiver.

‘It was like he was on autopilot. His face…I can’t imagine the fall that did that to his face…but the look in his eyes; this desperation…this need…’

I was hanging on his every word, I could see Duo in my mind; the picture wasn’t too hard to paint, I had seen him in the hospital afterward.

He seemed to want to get the next part told, and his voice became almost clinical, ‘He was just standing there in the hall when we got out there. His left hand was limp and black, just hanging there. You could tell there was something wrong with his knee even through the pants, it was swollen that bad. We didn’t know about the broken ribs at the time, but he was all hunched in on himself, holding his ribs with his good arm. He was covered with these horrible abrasions, and his throat…when he tried to talk…it didn’t even sound like Duo.’

I winced. I had done that to his throat, he had surprised me in my sleep and I had…tried to strangle him.

Trowa let the minutes tick by while he considered his next words; I could hear tiny sounds over the open comm.

‘He could barely speak, and when he did, all he wanted was to know if you were all right.’

‘Gods.’ I murmured, the first I had spoken through this story.

‘Heero…I think, maybe, you’re all that brought him back to us.’

I glanced at the chronometer, I wanted it to say eighteen hundred, I wanted it to be tomorrow, but there were still hours to go.

‘He’s strong, Heero. He’s come through more than the rest of us combined. He’ll come through this too, you need to believe in him.’

I put my face in my hands and rubbed at my tired eyes, ‘I know. I know. If you could have seen him, that trip…I’d never seen that side of him before. Gods he’s gotten under my skin.’

There was the sound of a faint chuckle, ‘In case you haven’t noticed, he’s gotten under all our skins.’

‘I think Wufei would argue that.’

‘Don’t let Wufei fool you; he’d wade into the pits of hell for Duo.’

I grinned, ‘Calling him a fool the entire time.’

‘Absolutely.’

The silence stretched, and I realized that the conversation was done for now. We had both reached a point where we didn’t want to talk any more.

‘Thank you, Trowa.’ too little to convey my emotion, but all I had.

‘You are welcome.’ And his comm snapped off with a certain finality.

I reached up and turned mine off as well, and we finished the flight in silence. I had enough thoughts swirling in my head to occupy my time.

The first thing I noticed after we landed, shutdown, and disembarked, was the hatch on Deathscythe standing pointedly open. As if to say, very loudly, ‘Fuck you, Heero Yuy’. I sighed. I guess, somewhere deep inside, I had hoped that he hadn’t tried to get into his Gundam in the last week, and didn’t know what I had done. So much for that pipe dream.

Quatre was in the hanger, waiting for us, and I made an effort to not look his way, trying to allow the two of them a moment of privacy for their reunion. But it wasn’t Trowa he was looking at, it was me. I felt my heart convulse in my chest.

‘What’s wrong?’

Quatre is a good pilot, he’s organized, and thorough, and could be counted on in a pinch, but he is not a good poker player. Whatever he was thinking was written across his face in flaming letters. I knew something had gone wrong the moment I laid eyes on him.

‘Duo…?’ I could hardly breathe waiting for his answer.

‘He’s Ok. Everything’s all right.’ Quatre’s eyes were wide; ‘I just need to talk to you before you go up to the house.’

I thought I would scream and had to take a calming breath, waiting for him to spit it out.

Trowa went over and put his arm around Quatre’s shoulders, and I realized I was probably doing that frightening thing I do with my expression, and I tried hard to stop.

‘What happened?’ Trowa asked him gently.

‘He ran into a couple of those guys from the park.’ Quatre was able to tell Trowa, not looking at me, ‘There was a fight. They hurt his knee and the doctor ordered him to stay off it for a couple of days.’

That was enough to turn my stomach over, but there was more, I could tell. I bit my tongue and let Trowa pull it out of him.

‘What else?’ he prompted, and Quatre looked away from both of us.

‘One of them had a knife…’

That was all I heard. I couldn’t wait any longer to hear the rest of it. He had said he had to talk to me before I went up to the house. That implied that Duo was up at the house. I broke and ran up the path, my heart in my throat. Damn the waiting, I had been waiting for days. I wanted to see Duo, and I wanted to see Duo now.

How the hell had he run in to anybody? Wufei had sworn to me that he would keep him safe. What had gone wrong? A knife? What about a knife? My emotions were running the gambit from fear to anger and back again. I wanted to see Duo and I wanted to knock Wufei on his ass.

I slammed through the kitchen door and headed straight for the stairs. Quatre had said he was supposed to be staying off his knee; that meant bed. I heard their voices before I was half way up the stairs.

‘Maxwell! You are not getting out of that damn bed!’

‘So stop me, God damn it!’

‘Don’t try me, you idiot!’

‘Will you just freaking leave me alone for five damn minutes! I can’t take any more of this!’

‘You can’t take anymore?! If I don’t turn you over to somebody else soon, I am fucking going to kill you!’

‘I am not a damn baby! You don’t have to turn me over to anybody!

‘I swore a stupid, stinking, idiotic oath, you moron!’

‘I am not a God damned mission!’

I slowed my steps, there was dead silence coming from the bedroom for several long moments, and then softly,

‘Please, ‘Fei? I need to go down to the hanger.’

There was the sound of Wufeis frustrated sigh, ‘Duo, damn it, you’ve pulled the stitches again.’

I was rooted to the spot, not ten feet from the door. Just the sound of his voice was making the blood sing in my veins. He was all right, really all right. Wufei wouldn’t be yelling at him like that if he weren’t all right.

‘Just a little; it’s barely bleeding. Come on, man, I need this, Ok?’

A defeated, disgusted growl; ‘All right, damn it, but you’re going to let me help you and you are staying off the knee.’

‘All right, all right.’ There was the sound of movement, the creak of the bed. I have no idea why I just stood there. The whole thing was so bizarre, hearing them argue and them not knowing I was there.

‘Wufei…I’m sorry, man.’ His voice held a weeks worth of frustration.

But, so did Wufeis, ‘Maxwell, will you please stop apologizing?’

They came into view finally, and I thought my heart would stop in my chest. He looked thin, and tired. Dark circles under his eyes making him seem like some fragile waif. He was leaning heavily on Wufei, and his ribs were wrapped in gauze and my eyes sought and found the trace of blood they had mentioned. Wufei caught sight of me first, and the expression on his face went from a grim frown to one of sheer relief.

‘Oh, thank the Gods.’ He breathed, and Duo’s head snapped up and he saw me.

The look I got from him melted me where I stood, and I strode the last few feet to sweep him into my arms even as he was pulling free of Wufei and launching himself at me. I knew nothing for a precious few minutes other than the scent and feel of him crushing himself against me as if he could merge us into a single being.

‘You’re all right. You’re all right.’ He kept murmuring against my neck, and I knew exactly how he felt; as though I had not been able to draw a clear breath in the last week.

Over his shoulder, I could see Wufei, face gone gentle and warm, and I opened my mouth to start the questions that were burning inside. But he shook his head and held up a hand.

‘Later. Just… be with him, for now. It’s been…a hard few days.’

And he just walked away, calling over his shoulder at the last minute, before disappearing down the stairs, ‘And keep him off the damned knee!’

We were alone, standing in the middle of the hall, wrapped around each other like Armageddon was coming. I was still in the stinking flight suit I had lived in for the last week, but he didn’t seem to care. He’d never held me like this before; hard and desperate, and all but trembling.

‘Duo, what’s wrong? What the hell happ…’ I began, but he cut me off.

‘Later; we’ll yell and we’ll fight later. Not now. Just hold me. Let me know it’s all over. Let me know you’re safe.’

I didn’t answer; how do you answer something like that? I stroked his braid and rubbed his back and finally bent and picked him up in my arms. He’d lost weight, I could feel it. In just a week? What in the hell had happened while I was gone? The questions wanted to spill out, but I couldn’t press him. He didn’t argue with my lifting him, and I carried him gently back to his room. I stopped in the doorway, what in the world? There were medicine bottles and water glasses on the night stand, pizza boxes and empty pop cans lying abandoned on the desk, a pile of dirty clothes a foot high in the corner, and mattresses all over the floor. I had to bite my tongue.

I took him to the bed, and couldn’t even untangle him long enough to lay him down. I wound up being drawn down with him, almost falling on top of him.

‘Duo, love, I don’t want to hurt you…’

‘Don’t give a damn.’ He growled, pulling me in with him, ‘I need you here. I want you here. I get this, this one thing. For me. Because this week has sucked. Five fucking minutes, that’s all I’m asking.’

I would not have denied him in that moment if he had asked me for my head on a silver platter. I stretched out beside him and he curled around me, close as he could get.

‘I’m yours, love; you know that. For as long as you want me, as long as you need me.’ I kissed his forehead, his temple, the sweet curve of the bridge of his nose, ‘Gods, I missed you.’ I breathed in his ear, and he began to relax against me, making me aware of just how tense he had been.

I ached to ask him what had happened, what was wrong. What had happened to his knee? Why were his ribs bandaged? Why did he look so tired? What was going on? But I kept it all to myself and just held him, and let him hold me. I let my hand stroke gently up and down his back, feeling the stress flowing out of him like water, until, suddenly, I realized he was asleep. Had I not been so consumed with questions, I might have dozed off myself.

It probably wasn’t an hour before Wufei peeked quietly in at the door and smiled gently, ‘I didn’t think it would take long.’ He said softly, and came to sit on the side of the bed, tenderly brushing a lock of hair away from Duos eyes.

‘Wufei,’ I was forced to speak softly, though I wanted to grab him and shake him and make screaming demands, ‘What is going on?’

I expected him to get defensive, I expected him to white wash things and blow me off. I did not expect him to drop his head into his hands; elbows braced on knees and tell me,

‘I’ve done a miserable job, and I failed you.’

My mouth worked, and I struggled to hold on to the anger, but it just washed away at the sight of him slumped beside us, obviously frustrated and exhausted.

‘You didn’t fail me.’ I found myself saying, ‘Just tell me what happened.’

His head came up, and he met my eyes with a surprised expression.

I raised an eyebrow at him, ‘I’m not going to kill you.’

The corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-hearted attempt at a grin, ‘You might want to hold off making that promise until you hear the whole story.’

I gave him a beseeching look, ‘I just want to hear the story, Ok?’

TBC