I was tired to the bone and honestly wasn’t sure I could. I must have hesitated because he had a chance to think about it, ‘How does Heero…?’

I almost laughed. Heero had taken me aboard his Gundam on a couple of occasions now but I was not about to suggest to Trowa Barton that he give me a ride out of here on his damned lap.

‘Behind the seat is fine.’ I reassured him and if he wondered what I was blushing about, he didn’t mention it.

We found some straps that I was able to hold on to and I braced myself with my legs wrapped around the base of the seat. It would have to do. I sat and said a little prayer to whatever Gods might be listening while Trowa belted down and then we were blasting clear of that place. I imagined Heavyarms coursing skywards, wrapped in the camo netting and dropping tree branches as he went.

It was one hell of a ride and I don’t recommend it in any way, shape or form. Imagine riding in the worst roller coaster you’ve ever been on; blindfolded…without the safety bar.

I heard Trowa contacting base on the emergency channel, hands tapping over the keyboard, sending the encrypted codes that reported our safe house had been compromised. I heard him scrolling through the encrypted instructions when they finally came back. Then there was just a hard, rolling, gut-wrenching ride. I think Trowa kind of forgot I was in there with him and I would have paid somebody to tell me where we were and where we were headed and just what was going on as the Gundam pitched and dove. By the time he brought us in, I would have collapsed on the damn floor of the Gundam if I could have uncurled my cramped fingers from around the leather strap I had been clinging too for the last few hours. I hurt all over and just wanted to lie down somewhere that didn’t have bolts sticking me in the ass. My right knee was swollen and twitching and I figured that as soon as I got my hands worked off the strap, I would have to use them to force my leg out straight again. It crossed my mind that if I just stayed quiet maybe he’d forget I was there.

I only got the few minutes it took him to run through his shutdown sequence and pop the hatch. His voice held concern when it finally came, ‘Duo…? Are you all right?’

‘Ducky.’ I grunted and really, really tried to convince myself to put some effort into getting out of the cockpit.

There was the sound of a quiet chuckle and I heard him getting down to squirm close enough to get to me.

‘I’ll wash your Gundam if you just let me lie here.’ I whined and only got another chuckle. His hands came to rest on mine and began working the stiff fingers free. There was a stinging pain and I realized that I had cut my palms on the leather.

His breath hissed through his teeth.

‘I’m serious.’ I told him, just to keep up the banter, ‘I’ll wax it too…top to bottom.’

He only grunted, getting my hands free and turning to work on my legs, ‘You’d do a crappy job…wouldn’t be able to see if it was streaked.’ He said drolly and won a sharp laugh from me.

Behind him I heard the sound of a shocked gasp and Quatre’s horrified, ‘Trowa!’

I grinned in the general direction I thought Trowa was in, ‘Was that the sound of the Easter bunny dying?’ I asked quietly.

He laughed outright and I joined with him; it felt good.

‘Relax, Sunshine!’ I called to Quatre and began to crawl out from behind the pilot’s seat, letting Trowa guide me through the maze of equipment. At last he had me mostly on my feet in the hatchway and I heard another gasp from Quatre, ‘Oh Gods; Duo! Trowa what happened to him?’ His hands were clutching at my free arm on the opposite side from Trowa and I could feel him shaking.

‘Quatre…’ I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him, ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

‘It’s all right.’ Trowa told him gently, ‘It’s not his blood.’

Ah. I should have remembered; I must be covered in the stuff.

‘Can we get the hell out of here?’ I asked and my voice sounded tired even to me.

‘Of course, Duo.’ Quatre told me and I sighed. There was that damned pitying tone of voice. He meant it to be gentle but I could ‘hear’ that look I had known he would give me.

Quatre went down first and while Trowa was running the winch cable back up, he leaned in close and whispered, ‘I’ll talk to him.’

‘Thanks, man.’ I murmured and we shared a grin. At least I think we did; I was grinning anyway.

I took the line from his hands when it was back up and he didn’t even make me ask to ride it down alone. My landing wasn’t all that graceful; Quatre didn’t think to warn me when the ground came up. I hit a little hard and my knee threatened to buckle under me. I hollered my all clear and stepped away. Quatre was right there with his hand on my arm, trying to maneuver me. I sighed again and just endured it. I made sure not to let him see my hands; he would have smacked Trowa for letting me ride the cable down alone.

The air felt crisp and cool; I suspected a higher altitude. There was the faint smell of pine and car exhaust. I wondered where we were going to be heading and how we were getting there. I truly was bone tired and just wanted a bed somewhere; anywhere. I opened my mouth to ask Quatre where we were but was interrupted by the sound of Trowa touching down next to us.

‘Here, Quatre,’ Trowa was saying, ‘Let go of him.’

I could feel that same electric current in the air that I had felt when Heero and Trowa had tried to talk around me without words. I sighed softly to myself and decided there was just no getting around some things.

Trowa took my hand and guided it to his shoulder, letting me stand just off to his left and behind a pace.

‘There’s a car down the path.’ He told me, ‘gravel pathway, narrow but well tended. Slight incline. Maybe a hundred yards.’

I imagined the look he was getting from Quatre who was probably half expecting him to carry me and grinned.

‘After you.’ I smirked and he chuckled in return.

We headed out and things would have been fine if I had done a better job of hiding the limp.

‘Duo?’ Trowa questioned, his tone all worry and concern and then full of sudden realization, ‘Damn. Your knee.’

‘Just a little swollen.’ I reassured them but knew I was in trouble when they stopped walking.

I jumped at the sudden feel of Quatre’s hands on my knee; it had to be Quatre because I still had my hand on Trowa’s shoulder.

‘A little swollen?’ He growled at me and then to Trowa, ‘Get him off of it.’

‘Come on, you guys!’ I snapped but it did me no good. The next thing I knew, Trowa had me swept up in his arms and he carried me the rest of the way to the car.

‘You’re allowed to lean sometimes, Duo.’ Trowa murmured to me and mentally, I just threw my hands up in disgust. The hell with it. I let them do with me as they pleased. What they pleased consisted of loading me into the back seat of a car I didn’t recognize and driving me to a safe house I didn’t know. I was taken to an unfamiliar bathroom and left blessedly alone for a half an hour to shower. I was given strange clothes to change into and eventually carried to a room that had a bed in it. Aspirin was administered and my knee was packed in ice.

I didn’t argue; I was just too damn tired. I declined food and just burrowed into a set of sheets I could only guess the color of on a bed I had never slept in.

The imp in my head, who had been relatively quiet for the last week, was back with a vengeance. I fell asleep listening to the sounds of him chortling happily in my head.

I woke. I had no idea what time it was. My bladder told me it had been a long while. I tried to think what time it might have been when we had arrived here. Where ever the hell ‘here’ was. Probably late afternoon or early evening. So it was most likely some Gods awful hour of the morning. I had no idea where I was in relation to anything else in the house. I thought hard, remembering the previous evening. We had gone up some stairs after my shower. So I was on the second floor but the bathroom was on the first. Bloody hell. I found myself wishing to be back in that damn little cabin and almost laughed at myself.

‘Son of a bitch.’ I muttered in disgust and reached to throw the covers off. Wandering around a damn strange house trying to find the bathroom without waking up the whole rest of the world was going to suck.

‘You’re awake.’ Came a quiet voice and I jumped so hard I cracked an elbow on the wall.

‘Shit!’ I growled and would have glared at Wufei if I’d had more than a general idea where he was.

‘Sorry, Maxwell.’ And he really did sound contrite.

It took me a heartbeat to get over the irritation enough that it really sank in that Wufei was there with me. I rose unsteadily from the bed with every intention of finding him.

‘Fei? Where are you?’ I hadn’t seen him since the crash. Hadn’t gotten to talk to him since he saved my stinking hide.

I heard the creak of bedsprings and realized the room was a double, ‘Here.’ He said. But then he came to me, not making me find him in the dark.

‘I’m right here.’ He said when he was near and his fingers came to touch me arm.

Once he was there, I didn’t know what the hell to say and I probably looked like a damn carp gaping at him. I was moved to reach for him but found I couldn’t bring myself to without being able to see his face; without being able to judge his frame of mind. I wanted to impart to him more things than I had the words to say.

There was the ghostly feel of his fingertips brushing across my bandaged eyes and soft as a sigh, his voice sounding pained, ‘Oh, Duo…’

Then he shocked the holy-ass hell out of me by embracing me.

Something unlocked inside me and I threw my arms around him to return the tight hug, ‘Thank you.’ I breathed, ‘Gods…’Fei…I couldn’t have…I never would have been able…’

‘You’re welcome.’ He stopped my flow of words brusquely, squeezing hard and then gently sliding away from me, ‘What are you doing awake?’

I grinned sheepishly and ducked my head, ‘I have to go the bathroom…and I don’t have a clue where it is.’

He chuckled lightly, ‘They just dumped you in here?’

I let the grin quirk wider, ‘Dumped in foreign territory without a bloody map.’

He took my arm, ‘I’ll lead you down.’ And his voice sounded oddly warm.

I started to follow but hesitated on a sudden thought, ‘Let’s get one thing straight first.’ I told him firmly, ‘I am going to limp. My knee hurts. But if you even hint that you are thinking of trying to carry me, I’m going to throw the biggest temper tantrum that you have ever seen.’

I won an almost chuckle, ‘Understood.’

He led me then and I did limp like hell but no comment was forth coming. We made our way slowly, Wufei letting me feel my way so I could learn it and giving me concise descriptions as we went. We were in the mountains somewhere in Colorado in a house belonging to one of Quatre’s sisters. Said sister was not in residence. It was as big as any of the Winner estate houses we had stayed in however and I groaned thinking about how long it was going to take me to learn my way around.

He waited for me until I was done and then helped me back upstairs.

I fell back into bed, relieved to get off the knee again, ‘Thanks, Wufei.’ I sighed, crawling back under the covers.

‘No problem.’ He told me and it took him a minute to return to his own bed, ‘I’ll be here if you need anything.’

I was a little surprised at how quickly I fell back asleep despite all the aches and pains.

The next few days were rough. The house was monstrous and it was taking me forever to learn my way around. Quatre blatantly hovered and I had to wonder if Trowa had lost his nerve and never spoken with him about it, or if this was actually toned down from what I would have dealt with if he hadn’t talked to him.

Wufei wasn’t quite as bad but was never far and somehow, between the two of them, Trowa just seemed to fade away all together. I missed his calm acceptance of my need to do things for myself. With Quatre around, I was lucky I got to shower alone.

I knew that part of my agitation was stemming from the fact that I was quickly closing on the date when the base medic had said they wanted to see me again. That terror of being permanently blind that I had thought I had squelched completely was back and gnawing holes in my stomach lining.

My focus had become not biting anybody’s head off.

The only good thing was that the swelling in my knee went down after a day or two and it seemed I hadn’t done any real damage to it after all. I had to wonder if the damned thing would ever stop bothering me. The cuts on my hands were fairly superficial and bothered Quatre more than they bothered me.

That last day, I was a bundle of tension just looking for a place to explode. Quatre was absolutely on my last screaming nerve and all I wanted was a little solitude. I wished Deathscythe weren’t off in Howard’s scrap yard in hiding while he was being repaired from the crash; I would have gone and crawled in and locked the damn hatch behind me. In desperate fear that I was going to rip Quatre a new asshole, I fled to the shower in the middle of the afternoon and spent an hour washing my hair. It was the only place in the whole house that I was allowed a modicum of privacy. Even that was subjected to a tap on the door and Quatre’s calling, ‘Duo? Are you all right in there?’ After he felt I had been holed up too long.

If Quatre’s sister hadn’t been a teetotaler, I would have been tempted to go hunting for a stiff drink. Or two or three. Instead, I had Quatre lead me to the living room where I proceeded to lie down on the couch and pretend to take a nap. It relieved Quatre’s mind and made him go away and leave me alone so as not to disturb me. I just had to get through the rest of the day and in the morning I would get dragged off to face the music at the base hospital. Lying here pretending to sleep was getting me a touch of the solitude I so desperately wanted but was leaving me with nothing to do but stare at the inside of my eyelids and wonder if that’s what the world was going to look like with the bandages off…for the rest of my life.

My mind was running in tight little corrosive circles; my body craving some sort of activity. But I knew as soon as I admitted I was awake, my little mother-hen society would descend again and I truly didn’t trust myself not to explode all over them. A line from an ancient song ran through my head, ‘…livin’ in a powder keg and givin’ off sparks!’ It was just how I felt.

‘Duo.’ I heard Wufei’s amused voice near the doorway, ‘I know you’re awake.’

‘Don’t tell.’ I stage whispered and he chuckled softly and I heard him coming closer.

‘Trowa was telling us about you…’ He hesitated, ‘Working out, at the cabin.’

I felt myself flushing and elbowed myself over in an effort to hide it.

‘Not much else to do.’ I muttered.

‘We’ve found a place here…’ Again that strange hesitation, ‘That we thought suitable…’ He trailed off and I raised my head so I could better hear his body sounds. He was shifting uncomfortably.

‘What kind of place?’ I ventured.

‘Large open space…level ground.’ His voice was hesitant and I realized that this was probably Trowa’s idea and that Wufei didn’t completely believe him.

I sighed, ‘I need some sort of…’ I thought about it, remembering the rougher bricks that bordered the patio, ‘edge…something to tell me when I’ve gone too far.’

‘We’ve taken care of that.’ He said and it moved me to sit up, ‘Would you...like to go…?’ He stopped himself before he said see it.

I smirked to let him know I had caught that almost slip and imagined him blushing.

‘It beats the hell out of lying around here waiting for my head to implode.’ I grinned and allowed him to lead me there.

It was outside behind the house somewhere, because he took me out the backdoor. Trowa and Quatre were there and I sighed, wondering if they expected me to work with them watching me like some sort of trained monkey.

Trowa came and took my arm away from Wufei and offered me his shoulder. I put my hand there and followed him out onto a hard surface. I stopped and kicked my shoes off, crouching to find the edge of the concrete and set them in the grass out of the way. Then I let Trowa ‘show’ me around.

It was some sort of tennis or basketball court or something, level and relatively smooth. Trowa led me to where I could feel the tape they had put down for me. I grinned up at him and he patted my hand where it rested on his shoulder, taking me into a corner and letting me orient myself.

‘It’s approximately a fifteen foot square.’ He told me, ‘The tape is a foot wide strip, so you shouldn’t miss it when you hit it.’ He lowered his voice, ‘Will it do, Daredevil?

’

I grinned again, ‘That’s Mr. Murdock to you.’ And we laughed together. I wanted to ask him where the hell he’d been for the past four days.

He left my side then and I paced out the square. It’s fine for someone to tell you fifteen feet; but you need to feel the distance. I counted it out, learned the surface beneath my feet and found the center. I took a couple of deep breaths and then tilted my head in the direction I knew they were in.

‘Quatre?’ I called quietly, half hoping he wouldn’t answer, that they had gone back to the house.

‘What is it, Duo?’ I guess a little privacy would have been too much to hope for.

‘I’m gonna fall on my ass.’ I told him, ‘You know that; right?’

He made a noise that let me know that he hadn’t realized that fact but Trowa said something to him that I couldn’t hear and he subsided.

I wished they’d just go away

I rolled my shoulders, took a deep, calming breath and took my stance. In my head, I tried to bring back the thunderstorm. Tried to just let it all wash away and forget tomorrow, forget that they were standing there staring at me, forget how much I wanted Heero to come back.

I began the kata, slowly at first because I hadn’t taken the time to stretch and made it through the first six moves before I lost my balance and fell. There was a sound from my right that I just freaking ignored; counting on Trowa to keep Quatre from coming out to help me.

I climbed to my feet, found the tape, traced my way to a corner, paced out to the center and started again. I was a little looser this time and more in tune with what my still stiff knee would bear and I made it farther. Not falling until I was almost through the first set. There was no noise from the sidelines and I tried to convince myself that they had gone in the house. Tried to convince myself that I was truly alone out here.

Another quick reorientation and I began again, determined to get through the entire set without falling.

It felt good; giving my body something to do was pulling my mind out of the yipping, panicked circle it had been running in. I could feel myself relaxing a little, could feel some of the tension easing away.

I made it through without falling on the third try but it was sloppy so I went back and did it again. I was able to concentrate a little more on the details of the moves, a little less afraid of falling and I could feel myself smoothing out. I ran through the first set four times clean before I allowed myself to move on to the second set.

The second set is harder, naturally and requires several sudden turns and a couple of kicks that give me trouble. Leaving the ground completely is a little disorienting. It took me six tries to get through it without falling on my butt. I wanted four clean, consecutive passes of the second kata before I put the two together. Consecutive became the key word. Eventually, I managed it and looking back; I realize that I did manage to completely block out the rest of the world in there somewhere. I forgot the watchful eyes, forgot to listen for Quatre’s hissing breath whenever I fell, forgot to worry about one of them rushing out to help me to my feet. There was just nothing but the feel of the wind and the warmth of the sun and the dance.

I started over with the first kata, determined to get through both sets without falling all over myself. Time seemed to lose its flow, things just seemed to hold still and I wasn’t even aware of the feel of the wind anymore. It just came down to movement.

When the kata came to its close, I found myself in the world again, heart pounding, skin slick with sweat but blessedly free of the anxiety that had been worrying at me all day.

I heard the scuff of a footstep and turned to meet Wufei as he came out to make me stop.

‘Pretty pathetic, huh, ‘Fei?’ I grinned and found a towel pressed into my hands. If I had surprised him by guessing it was him before he spoke, he didn’t let me know. There was a long silence while I wiped my dripping face and when he did finally speak, his voice held something strange.

‘You never cease to amaze me, Maxwell.’

All I could do was grunt in surprise. He didn’t take my arm as he had before but guided my hand to his shoulder as he had seen Trowa do and led me off the court. We stopped long enough to retrieve my shoes and I realized that the two of us were alone. I wondered how in the hell Trowa had gotten Quatre to go back to the house, or maybe Quatre had just gotten tired of seeing me skin my elbows and knees. I couldn’t help but grin. For the first time that day I felt like we might actually get through without coming to blows.

‘How the hell long did it take you guys to tape that off, anyway?’ I asked on the sudden realization that they had done it on Trowa’s say-so alone, because I knew as sure as the Gods had made bunny rabbits and rainbows that Chang Wufei had not believed I could do it.

I was more than a little pleased that I had pulled it off; if for no other reason than that I had backed Trowa up. I knew I had probably looked like a drunken ox out there; but by the Gods I had done it.

‘Maybe an hour.’ He told me, voice a little subdued and I couldn’t hide a tiny smirk, though I was slightly behind him and he might not have seen. I waited until I was able to suppress it a little before I told him, ‘Thank you…it helped.’

He grunted and then surprised me again, ‘We…I’m sorry. We don’t mean to treat you disrespectfully…’

I honestly doubted what my ears were telling me and had the wind picked up in that moment, it might well have blown me over.

‘I…I know you guys are just worried.’ I told him and wondered which of us was blushing harder, ‘I appreciate that. I really do…it just…’

He laughed, ‘Makes you crazy?’ He finished for me and I laughed with him.

I could smell dinner cooking when we went into the house and guessed that was how Trowa had connived to get Quatre away from me for five minutes.

Things were a little easier the rest of the day. Dinner was an uncomplicated affair that Trowa had obviously put some thought into in an effort to make things easier for me. After the work out, I needed another shower, though I didn’t wash my hair again.

I spent the rest of the evening listening to Trowa and Wufei play a round of chess and I made them call the moves so I could follow it. I grinned to myself when I realized that I could see the game in my head well enough that I saw Trowa lose two moves before he realized it.

Quatre put some music on toward the end of the game, just a little background music; something instrumental. I liked it but it brought to my attention just how long I’d been without my music. The cabin, with its single outlet, had been without song the entire time we were there. I hadn’t thought about it since I’d been here. It rather jolted me how much it jangled my nerves. I relied on my hearing for almost all of my input now and the stereo interfered with that. Not a lot…I could still follow the game, could still talk with Quatre but it kept me from hearing the subtle undercurrent of sounds that I had come to unconsciously count on. I didn’t notice, for instance, when Quatre left the stereo and was suddenly speaking to me ten feet from where I had thought he was. It made me jump. I excused myself not long after and sought the quiet of my assigned room.

I sprawled out across my bed and let myself feel the misery that wanted to envelop me; it was just one more thing I had lost. One more thing that would never be the same. I wanted with all my being to lie and bawl like a baby, wanted to howl out my frustration and my despair, wanted to scream with the terror that was eating me alive.

I heard the soft sound of Wufei’s tread. It had surprised me when I had realized I could tell them apart from the way they walked.

‘Maxwell?’ He asked softly and I wanted to laugh; only Wufei could make my last name come out sounding like a pet name, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’ I told him and rolled over so he didn’t have to talk to the back of my head.

‘You left rather suddenly.’ He observed, moving a little farther into the room.

‘The stereo…makes it difficult to track sounds.’ I sighed and pushed up on one elbow to turn my blind eyes his way.

‘We…we didn’t realize.’ He apologized, ‘We’ll turn it off if you…’

I chuckled and it came out sounding a little edgy, ‘Don’t worry about it. It won’t matter one way or the other after tomorrow.’ I almost bit my own tongue as soon as it was out of my mouth but it was too late.

He came the rest of the way across the room and sat down beside me on the bed, ‘What do you mean?’

I flopped back and let out a gust of a sigh, ‘Come on ‘Fei. Either I’m blind or I’m not. If I’m not; it won’t matter…things will go back to normal. If I am…it still won’t matter; I won’t be staying with you guys. I’m…kind of a huge liability.’

He didn’t know what to say; the truth was the truth. I felt bad for opening my damn mouth, ‘Sorry.’ I muttered and rolled to face the wall so my back was to him and he couldn’t see me frantically trying to piece my mask back together.

His hand came to rest on my shoulder, touching hesitantly at first and then gripping more firmly. It was a surprise what a comfort that simple touch was. Just a little human contact. I felt tight muscles relaxing a little under the warmth of his hand. Neither of us spoke; I didn’t trust my voice and I suspect he still just didn’t know what the hell to say.

Then I heard a stride on the stairs that wasn’t Trowa or Quatre’s. I jumped and sat up, listening harder. I didn’t trust what I thought I was hearing. I wanted it too much, was afraid my ears were telling me what I needed to hear.

‘Who…?’ I breathed and Wufei rose from the bed, understanding that I wasn’t sure whose step that was. He hauled me up by one arm and shoved me behind him and I could feel the tension in his muscles. And I also felt when that tension melted away.

‘Yuy.’ He confirmed with a sigh, letting go of my arm.

End part 7