I just lay on the damn floor; Duo sprawled across me with one hand clinched on my belt in a death grip. The machine gunner finally stopped firing and we were flying through the dark with just the sound of the roaring blades.

‘Status!’ I yelled over the noise when I had my breath back.

‘Heero; will you fucking grab hold of something!’ Duo was screaming at me, and I realized that my legs were still dangling over the edge of the deck. I drug myself around and sat up against the wall behind the pilot’s cabin where there were straps to hang onto. Duo had himself already anchored there, and I finally figured out why he had his hand permanently glued to my belt.

‘Sorry, love.’ I mouthed at him with a grin, and he just glared, not moving his hand.

‘Status?’ I yelled again, looking around at our little group and waiting for the replies to come.

‘Clear.’ Quatre was the first to reply, and it meant he had come through completely unscathed.

‘Clear.’ Coming from Trowa, who was bending over Wufei’s leg.

I got a hesitant, ‘Not in danger.’ From Wufei, indicating wounded, but non-life threatening.

There was a moment’s silence, and I felt Duo finally let go of me and then he grunted a dismal ‘Unsure.’ that brought me around in a panic. He was looking down at blood-covered hands, and when he saw me looking at him, slowly turned his back to me. His shirt was blood soaked across his shoulders, and I felt four pairs of eyes on me waiting for my assessment. I just grabbed his t-shirt collar in both hands and ripped it off. It was a bullet crease. Clear across his shoulder blades, bloody and ugly, but not bad. I had to clear my throat.

‘Not…not in danger.’ I managed to choke out and my hands were suddenly shaking. Why in the bloody hell was it always Duo? He turned back to face me with a faint grin, ‘You?’

‘What?’ I grunted, confused.

‘Status, Heero; what’s your status?’

I had to stop and think about it, looking down at myself to be sure, and finally, Duo was shoving me first one way and then the other checking me over thoroughly, before pronouncing me ‘Clear.’

Duo glanced up then to the opposite side of the transport where Mama-Marion was sitting and watching us quietly.

‘Mama-Marion?’ he hollered at her, ‘What’s your status?’

She flashed him a smile and ducked her head a little before telling us almost sheepishly, ‘Uhmmmm…not in danger?’

It’s a wonder the pilot didn’t lose control of the chopper from the sudden shift in the weight as Trowa and Quatre both scrambled to her side. She turned out to have a bullet in her right arm and sat quietly smiling around at us while Trowa cleaned and bound it up. Quatre stayed with her when they were done, while Trowa came with the med-kit and set to work on Duo.

I helped him strip off the remains of the shirt and Trowa cleaned out the wound before applying gauze padding and wrapping bandages around Duos torso. Then he returned to Wufei so that each of our wounded had someone with them.

The door gunner sat in his harness, perched almost outside the choppers side, eyes on the ground and hand on his guns, but there wasn’t another attack. I didn’t envy him his exposed position. Had he not been sitting there; a stranger in our midst, I would have had Duo in my arms, and I think he would have been there. He looked tired, and I could tell from his slow movements that his muscles were painfully cramping and stiffening up. We sat side by side, though I was leaning against the cabin wall, while Duo sat hunched forward, protecting his back, we let our legs touch, the best we could manage.

Wufei lay with one hand draped in a harness strap, his injured leg stretched out on the deck, eyes closed. I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not. Trowa hovered over him. Quatre was just sitting with Mama-Marion, lightly holding her hand and letting his eyes wander across the group much the way I was. While Mama-Marion just sat and smiled around at us, simply happy, I think, that we had all come out alive. It took several hours, and it was full dark, before we got to a base and the chopper finally landed.

We got our wounded out and on the deck, both the gunner and the pilot coming to give Mama-Marion a hug as though they knew her, before vanishing into the hanger. Trowa supported Wufei and I supported Duo and we walked out of there under our own power. We could have waited for the medics and the fuss, but that’s just not the way we did things. We were soldiers just like everyone else on this base, but we were Gundam pilots and that set us off somehow; we never quite fit in. You walked into a mess hall where they knew what you were, and the conversation would stop. Tended to make us hang together.

Mama-Marion walked just ahead of us, Quatre at her elbow, smiling around the base as though she was coming back to place she knew well, but hadn’t been in awhile. She greeted more than one person with a ‘sweetling’ or a ‘pup’ or a ‘bright-eyes’. Those people so graced, would grin and come hug her, and call her ‘Mama-Marion’ and fuss over her bound up arm. She just waved them off and led us into the depths of the base toward the infirmary. We were met half way there by a puffing commander Worthington and a grinning Lt. Noin.

Worthington looked relieved to have caught up to us, looking rather like a man who had opened a box of chocolates only to find it full of shit. I wondered if this was the man who had determined that we had been ‘at the end of our ropes’.

‘Marion,’ he seemed genuinely happy to see us all in one piece, but I scowled at him anyway just on general principle and the fact that he was slowing down my efforts to get Duo and Wufei medical attention. ‘So glad to see you made it.’

‘Not unscathed, however, Bertie,’ Mama-Marion patted his cheek as she breezed by, catching his arm and dragging him along, ‘You wanna talk; walk with us. I want my boys in the sick-bay.’

Duo had to lean his forehead against my shoulder to stifle his laugh, and we bowed our heads together pretending it was a sound of pain.

Commander Worthington glanced at us and matched his pace with Mama-Marion’s, ‘Of course.’

Duo didn’t raise his head until the man’s back was turned, and then the look he got from a near giggling Noin almost made him lose it again. We were getting close to our destination, and I swept Duo up in my arms, careful of his back and let him bury his face in my shoulder where he could grin all he wanted.

It really was rather funny; the man seemed such a pompous ass, and Mama-Marion was treating him not like a base commander, but like another one of her brood of children, almost as though she ran things around here and not him.

When we barged into the infirmary, it was just as though she did run things. She started throwing orders around, and people jumped like she was using that rifle still slung over her shoulder to threaten them.

She had ‘her boys’ deposited on beds in a matter of minutes, directing the medics and nurses like a five star general. I caught Trowa’s eye, and we moved in on either side of her. I took the rifle away and passed it to Quatre and then we turned her away and headed her toward an empty bed, ‘Enough, Mama-Marion. I think they know how to do their jobs.’

She grinned at us, patting first my face and then Trowa’s, ‘Of course, Poppets.’ And meekly let us settle her, her pack still clutched lightly in her good hand and when Trowa tried to take it from her, she resisted a moment, before passing it to him with a soft, ‘Keep an eye on it for me, won’t you Angel?’

Somewhere in there, Commander Worthington vanished, and once he was gone, Noin was pushing passed us, grinning from ear to ear and hugging Mama-Marion for all she was worth.

‘Hellcat? Is that my little Hellcat?’ Mama-Marion beamed at her and finally had her attention diverted and the medic was able to move in and start to work on her arm. Trowa and I faded back, leaving them alone.

The nurse was unwrapping Wufei’s field dressing and I finally got a good look at his wound; fairly clean, through the calf, missing bone and major blood vessels, thank the Gods, but bleeding still and obviously damned painful, Quatre was by his side, trying to comfort, while Wufei was busily not needing comfort. I didn’t think Wufei would ever change. Trowa stayed with them, and I moved on to check on Duo.

He was sprawled on his stomach, head pillowed on folded arms, grinning from ear to ear while he waited his turn to be poked and prodded.

‘Hellcat?’ He snickered, watching Mama-Marion and Noin deep in conversation

.

I squatted by his bed and smiled at him, ‘Don’t laugh; you’re Kittling.’

He blinked and blushed lightly, ‘Oh yeah, that’s right…Cub.’ And his impish grin was back.

I grunted and let my fingers brush lightly across his arm. The intensity of his grin faded to a warm smile meant just for me, and his eyes told me he wanted much, much more than just that small touch.

The medic came then and he hissed in irritation, as he looked Duo over, ‘What the hell did you do?’ He questioned me, ‘Drag him here?’

I grunted again and resisted the urge to explain to this man that it was hardly my fault; I had not been the one to throw my partner off a stinking cliff. Instead, I moved back and gave them room as a nurse came up and began helping.

One look at his battered body, and they sent him to x-ray and then ran an ultrasound. I heard mutterings about Gundam pilots being made out of gundanium, and Duo was finally settled in a bed, sprawled on his stomach, pumped full of pain killers and pretty much passed out cold.

Wufei had endured stitches and was ensconced in the bed next to Duo, an IV in his arm, asleep as well.

Trowa, Quatre and I sat on a couple of the nearby beds, the place was empty except for us, and waited for Mama-Marion to come back from surgery. The doctors had left, either to surgery or to their beds, and there was one lone nurse on duty, but she gave us a wide berth. I fully intended on sleeping in here tonight, and was relieved to see that I wouldn’t get any trouble from her. She came near our end of the room only when her job required it.

A second nurse wheeled Mama-Marion back into the room about a half an hour later, dressed in one of those ridiculous hospital gowns, with her upper arm swathed in clean, white bandages. She directed the nurse to the bed she had chosen for herself and insisted on climbing into it unaided even though the three of us and both nurses were hovering there to help.

‘I’m old, sweetlings,’ She informed the room at large, ‘Not helpless.’

She settled herself and directed us around with a certain amount of glee; after all, she had been waiting on us for…for…a while.

She retrieved her pack from Trowa with a slightly relieved look, sent one of the nurses for water, sent Quatre to fetch an extra pillow and had me adjusting the head of her bed. We were delighted to attend to her.

After a bit, the extra nurse left the room and the on duty one returned to her desk across the room.

‘Come here, Cub.’ She said and had me come and sit on the edge of her bed. Trowa and Quatre stifled yawns and she waved them off to sleep.

‘Go on, little ones; go to sleep.’ Trowa just chuckled and shook his head. At his normal height, he towered over her small frame. They each came and gave her a soft peck on the cheek, looking almost surprised at themselves, then went to find beds near Wufei and Duo.

‘So, tell me, my little wolf Cub;’ she asked once they were gone, ‘How is our Duo?’

‘He’s Ok.’ I smiled at her, ‘Damned sore; but Ok.’

She patted my hand, ‘And my little Dragling?’

I grinned; Duo was going to get so much mileage out of these pet names. ‘Resting. Bullet missed anything major.’

She nodded once, in seemed satisfaction, and then looked at me critically, ‘And you, Cub?’

I snorted, ‘I’m fine.’

‘Don’t look fine.’ She retorted, ‘Look damned tired.’

I shook my head ruefully and repeated, ‘I’m fine.’ With a little more emphasis.

‘You’re not responsible for everything, wolfling.’ She gave me a mock glare, ‘Stop taking the whole wide world on your shoulders.’

I quirked an eyebrow at her, ‘Oh? You have room to talk.’ I grinned, ‘Or did you think I wouldn’t know why you picked the bed between us and the door.’

She had the decency to blush slightly, ‘Hmmm, busted, huh?’ she grinned, then gave me a calculating look, ‘But then, I just realized you took the bed closest to the door back at the house. Some reason you recognized what I was doing?’

It surprised both a laugh and a blush out of me. Yes, I always took the bed by the door. I put myself between my partner and any possible danger whenever I could. I did it without thinking about it. I don’t think Duo even realized why I always ‘liked’ that side of the room.

‘But then,’ I returned, on sudden inspiration, ‘That’s why your room was the first one at the top of the stairs.’

If anything, her grin got wider, ‘Guess we’re just two of a kind, Heero; always on point.’

We chuckled together for a moment and then she shooed me off to bed as well. I gave her that same peck on the cheek, hardly believing I did it and went to make my rounds one more time, finding Trowa and Quatre sprawled, asleep in the two beds next to Wufei, who was still sleeping soundly as well. I found Duo with a slight frown on his face, struggling to return to the depths of sleep.

‘What’s the matter, love?’ I murmured softly, so as not to disturb the others.

‘S’cold.’ He muttered and I pulled a blanket off a nearby bed to add to the one he already had, tucking him in as gently as I could manage, and after a moment, the frown cleared away and he drifted back to sleep. I sought the bed next to his, not bothering to do more than kick off my shoes.

I thought about what she had said; always walking point. Always on guard. It was true. Everything that meant anything to me was in this room, and these feelings of…caring…were new and precious enough that I felt a constant, gnawing fear that they would be stripped away from me. Every hurt they suffered was a wound on my heart. How could I not be on constant guard? How could you ever relax when you suddenly found yourself with so much to lose?

I slept fitfully, waking several times in the night to make my rounds, checking on all that was mine to protect. Once, finding Quatre curled in a tight ball, I found another blanket and covered his chilled frame. Another round found Wufei awake and wanting water he wouldn’t ask for, but I could tell from the hoarseness of his voice. A third round, in the small hours of the morning, and Mama-Marion cracked an eye-lid and called me an idiot and told me to go back to bed.

Finally, morning arrived, bringing a shift change and the doctors back to poke and prod some more. By mutual assent, we made ourselves ready to go, informing the medics we were leaving as much as we were released. It got us frowned at and fussed over, and bottles of painkillers and antibiotics were pressed into my hands, but by mid-morning, we had the lot of us dressed and ready to move out. Mama-Marion had somehow disappeared during the brief time that I had slept and we waited around for a while, hoping to be able to tell her goodbye. Finally, we had to go, and made our way to the transport bay somewhat reluctantly. Wufei on crutches, and Duo not even complaining when I shouldered his backpack. A truck would take us to a yet unknown address, where we would wait to receive orders before moving on to the next safe house, and we shared a mutual hope that it was better accommodations than the place Duo had dubbed ‘the house of fleas’.

Our gear had already been thrown into the back of the truck, and we were standing there trying to figure out how to get Duo up there without tearing open the wound across his back, when Lt. Noin came dashing into the bay, panting and glaring at us.

‘Oh…you are gonna be in so much trouble with Mama-Marion if you don’t stop right there.’

‘What’s up, Hellcat?’ Duo grinned at her, leaning against the tailgate, trying to pretend he wasn’t standing there because he couldn’t haul himself up into the back of the truck by himself.

‘She sent me to find you, Kittling. Said to not let you leave until she got here.’ She grinned back at him and Duo repressed a grimace.

Further banter was cut short when Marion breezed into the transport bay, in uniform with her arm in a sling, her pack over her shoulder and a wide grin on her face.

‘There you are, sweetlings!’ She greeted us, ‘Don’t tell me you were going to leave without saying goodbye?’

Trowa, who had been in the back of the truck stowing gear, jumped down and we clustered around her, for all the world like the little children we had been while under her care.

She smiled around at us, and I could feel her affection in the weight of her gaze. Noin faded from the circle, giving us this bit of almost privacy. Marion pulled Quatre into a bear hug, ruffling his pale hair and then reaching to include Trowa as well.

‘You two take care of each other, you hear me?’ She had to tilt her head up to look at Trowa, and he leaned down to kiss her cheek, just as I remembered doing each night at bedtime. It was strange having these memories, distant and yet not.

Wufei required a sharp tug on his ponytail to get him to unbend and hug the woman; I suspect he was having a little trouble reconciling some of his new childhood memories with his current state of mind. I seemed to recall several somewhat undignified images of our stoic partner. But hug her he did, with a faint blush, and even kissed her cheek and finally smiled at her.

‘Ah, my little Dragling,’ She gave his hair another tug, ‘Loosen up a little bit. I swear to the Gods; it won’t kill you.’

He actually snorted a little laugh and gave her another hug, whispering something in her ear that made her smile.

She turned to me then, and I opened my arms without hesitation, and she graced me with one of the misty eyed smiles that told me when something had touched her. She hugged me fiercely and said close to my ear, ‘Let it go, sometimes Wolfling; let someone else take the point position now and again.’

I kissed her cheek, ‘I’ll…try.’ Was the best I could tell her, because I didn’t want to make promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. She laughed outright, shaking her head at me and turned at last to Duo.

She was pulling something out of her backpack as she stepped up to him.

‘Little Kittling.’ She said, looking at him, just looking into his eyes, and he let the jesters mask fall away for her, smiling one of his sweet, real smiles; heart on his sleeve.

She hugged him, careful and gentle and kissed his cheek, then pressed a manila envelope into his hands before turning to find Noin and start across the hanger.

Duo, puzzled, watched her go for a second, and then bent to the envelope and opened it. He pulled out a small stack of pages, and I suddenly realized what this was. They were the sketches that Mama-Marion had made from Duo’s memories, and from the look on his face, she had gotten it right.

He gasped, staring down at the top picture. She had arranged the figures of the twelve children as though they had posed for a group picture. The background was vague, but obviously squalid, the children in the picture were thin and scraggly. There was Duo, right in the center; his arms folded defiantly across his chest, a little older than I remember him being when the drawings had been worked on. Beside him was an older boy, his arm thrown carelessly across Duo’s shoulders. The others arranged around the two of them; leader and co-leader. Like a pack of wild dogs. She had pulled no punches, but drawn it just the way it had been. This was Duo’s childhood I was looking at.

He couldn’t do anything but stand there and stare for just a bit, eyes blinking rapidly, mouth working almost soundlessly.

‘…Py…’ I heard at length, and suddenly he was looking after Mama-Marion, his eyes bright and round.

‘Here.’ I said gently, and took the precious bundle from his hands. He surrendered the stack of papers to me oh so carefully, and then ran after Mama-Marion as fast as he could manage. She heard him coming, and turned around to meet him in the middle of the bay, in a hard hug that had to be hurting the both of them. Words were passed; he to her and back again. Her eyes did more than mist, and she didn’t care, hugging him again and patting his cheek and then he was standing there alone in the middle of the bay staring after her, looking so small and vulnerable that we were all moved to go to him.

He looked down at the sketches in my hands almost reverently and said, ‘Py…how could I have forgotten?’

Then his eyes came up and he was looking at me with that same wide-eyed awe, ‘She said…she said you did this?’

I flushed and smiled at him softly, wanting so badly to take him into my arms and not able to in the middle of the damn base, ‘I only made the suggestion.’ I told him, and the look that I was graced with was like a touch against my soul.

‘Thank you, Heero.’ He looked back at the pictures, ‘Oh Gods…thank you so much.’ Then his face changed and he looked a little panicked. ‘Where can I keep them…’

I knew he was remembering that mad scramble out of a safe house that turned out to be not so safe and losing almost everything he owned.

‘That,’ Noin interrupted gently, ‘has been taken care of. That’s where Mama-Marion was this morning. She had copies made. There’s a set in your personnel file, she has a set and uhmmm…I have a set. Don’t worry.’

The look they gave each other was surprisingly gentle for the two long time sparing partners, and then she turned and followed Mama-Marion back into the daylight.

‘Come on,’ I told him, ‘let’s get the hell out of here.’ We moved for the truck and found that someone had placed a small step stool by the tailgate that allowed Duo to climb up on his own without flexing his back muscles and pulling his wound open again. Wufei insisted on using it as well, handing his crutches up and climbing to the top step where Trowa could lean down and haul him the rest of the way in. Quatre and I scrambled aboard, Trowa slapped the back of the cab to let the driver know we were ready, and the truck lurched away.

Duo was sitting with his back to the cab, carefully not leaning on his wound, and staring down at the pictures clutched firmly, but gently in his hands.

Away from the prying eyes of outsiders at last, I went to sit beside him, slipping an arm around him and hugging him to my side. He tilted his head up for a kiss that bordered on feverish.

‘Heero…I can’t tell you what this means…’

I smiled at him, seeing just a little of the pain that always lived at the back of his eyes cleared away, ‘I think I know…a little.’

We looked at the sketches together as he slowly paged through them. I couldn’t believe she had captured so much, and obviously, from Duo’s reaction; so well. When he came back to that first group picture, He laid his head on my shoulder and heaved a heavy sigh. I felt a little tension go out of him. I let my fingers touch the edge of the picture and softly said,

‘Tell me?’

There was a long silence, during which I wasn’t really afraid he wouldn’t speak, I somehow knew he would share this with me, but just a small wait while he gathered his thoughts. Then he looked up at me, eyes asking for a kiss that I readily gave him, and it turned into something deeper. Something fell away between us and I knew in that moment we were about to take another step together. He was going to share this with me, this and much more. And in my turn, I would share things with him I had never told another living soul. It wouldn’t be all at once, but it was going to happen, and he knew it as well, pulling back from the electric touch of our lips and looking up at me with eyes so full of love I felt a shiver run up my spine. He curled against me, his finger brushing the portrait,

‘This…’ He began, ‘is Solo…’

~ End of ‘Sanctuary’ ~