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Disclaimer: You people do know that I don't own Gundam Wing... right?
Caribol.
My newest enemy, and one I couldn't afford to underestimate. It wasn't because of the fact that I might as well be a vegetable.
No, I didn't really care about that. Not compared to the real concern.
“Duo?”
I winced at the sound of his voice. More than ever, I wished I had chosen a different path. But when before I'd wished I hadn't
returned, I'd begun to wish I'd never left to begin with. All of these problems wouldn't exist. And moreover...
“Come on in, Heero.”
And of course there was food on a tray in Heero's hands. I didn't let my sadness show in my eyes, knowing Heero would pounce
on it. It had been two days since Une had called us to her office and told Heero to get moving, but I knew without a doubt
that he was getting ready to go. I'd feigned injury just to keep him here for a bit longer. Pathetic? Yes. But it gave me
a couple more days to fuel my reserves. I wouldn't let him go alone.
He sat the tray on the nightstand beside me and, as usual, sat on the edge of the bed. “How are you?” he asked,
continuing the ritual he'd started.
I didn't shrug, though I thought I could without too much pain. I didn't want him to know yet just how far I'd progressed.
“I'm fine,” I told him, knowing very well he equated those words with pain and stoicism. Underneath my fear, I
felt like a bastard for using him.
“How are you really?” he continued, checking my forehead for fever. I scowled at him, not liking the kiddie approach.
“Fine,” I muttered. “I'm fine.” I hadn't gotten any sores from being in Une's office, though the pain
had been bad enough that sores were completely unnecessary at that point to get the point across. I wasn't recovered. Not
by a long shot. And because of that...
And then my fears came to life. I saw the change in his expression immediately, because I'd been terrified of its eventual
release for over forty-eight hours. His face got all pensive. A slight pucker was forming in-between those brows, just enough
to make my heart go double-time. He was going to say it. He was going to leave me. To face an enemy of mine, one he
shouldn't have to worry about defeating.
“Please don't,” I whispered.
As soon as I said it, I knew it was unfair. Heero went still on the bed, not even breathing. I felt worse than I had by using
him. In that one sharp instant, I hated myself.
I mean, what was wrong with me? Heero went on missions like this all the time. Sure he had Wufei, but he'd gone on solo missions
during the war and he'd come out without a fucking scratch. I was being a baby. A controlling baby. The kind of boyfriend
that didn't let his love interest go out without him knowing where he or she was every minute. I was deranged.
So I backpedaled. Heero was still as a statue, unable, I think, to move yet. I took advantage of his continued silence. “Sorry,”
I blurted first. “Sorry, I'm sorry. I know it's your job. It's not like I doubt your abilities or anything. I'd have
to be stupid to doubt those... well, maybe I am stupid, but I don't doubt them and I'm sure you'll be perfectly fine...”
But that was a lie, and we both knew it. If I was sure he'd be fine, I wouldn't have just begged him to stay. Jesus I was
such an ass.
I charged through. “And, uh, I know you're a Preventor and that it's your job. And I have no problem with that. It's
just that... I wish... I mean, knowing Wufei's there, that he's got your back... it makes me feel... easier.” Like that
made any sense.
Heero still didn't move. “You don't trust me to come back,” he murmured, as if talking to the air. I didn't even
see his lips move. But of course Heero The Perfect Soldier could speak without moving his lips.
I couldn't hide the flinch his words inflicted. Not because of the truth of the words – I'd already acknowledged that
– but because of the image they placed in my head. I didn't want to imagine Heero in a puddle of blood. “That's
not quite it,” I whispered. “But... even if I had no injuries... wouldn't you be afraid, if I were the one going
in alone?”
The silence was absolutely maddening. I wished I could just crack open Heero's skull and read the thoughts inside his brain.
It would probably be entertaining enough to start a sitcom.
Finally he sighed and moved out of that stone-frozen stance. “Yes,” he admitted. “I would.”
I sighed, too, in relief. Yet my heart was burdened. “But you're going.”
“Yes.”
I shivered and was oddly thankful that I didn't flinch in pain. I couldn't make him wait any longer. But at least I could
stand up – probably. “You won't go alone,” I said firmly.
“Duo-”
“No,” I said quickly. “I mean, even though Quatre's not allowed around me, and I highly doubt Trowa would
like being away from him just in case he tried to come see me again, wouldn't it be okay if he went with you?”
Heero blinked at me. “Duo, Quatre is a representative of the colonies. He can't go near a-”
Fuck that,” I snapped. “It's better to go together, right? Trowa can tag along and Quatre can have all the protection
in the Universe.” I was certain I was sounded like an asshole. “I don't care what it takes, Yuy. You're
coming back safe.”
Heero imitated a deer for a moment before smiling brilliantly at me. Almost too fast for me to follow, he leaned forward and
kissed my forehead. “I love you, too,” he breathed, warming my skin. I shivered.
Then the subject was dropped and Heero lifted me up and helped me eat. He quirked me a brow when I gave up and simply grabbed
the spoon on my own. I blushed furiously and didn't meet his gaze. There was another sigh, but Heero's eyes were smiling,
so I knew I wasn't in trouble.
When I was done and laid back down and Heero had left the room with the tray, I found myself staring up at the ceiling and
wondering what the hell I was going to do. Heero was about to enter a battle he shouldn't have to fight. Scratch that; another
battle he shouldn't have to fight. And I couldn't stop it because I was too weak to fight it myself.
Moreover, Caribol was apparently taking fighters and warping them via engineering and possibly technology. Who was the man
who had said he'd killed me? What was he like? How hard had he been to defeat? Heero had said they'd needed to work together
to defeat him, but that could be Heero being modest, trying to explain away why they'd all thought someone had killed me.
But no, Heero didn't exaggerate an enemy's strengths or weaknesses. No, usually he was disgustingly blunt.
So Caribol had an unknown number of incredibly strong superhumans at its beck and call, and we were trapped with two Preventors
agents and an invalid. And maybe, if Trowa saw fit to grace our presence, a couple other fighters who were estranged from
the others.
If I were a weaker soul, I would have wept for the hopelessness of it all.
Instead I planned.
I knew I had maybe a day at most before Heero went jumping off into the battle. The next visit from Wufei would be longer
than usual. I shortened that expectation to that night, knowing Heero would be hyped to go now that he and I had completed
our not-fight over it. That gave me only a few hours.
I couldn't do much. I was trapped in a bed, for God's sake. But still there was one thing I could do.
I'd already thought of doing it, but Heero might have a cow if I touched his laptop. I considered for a moment, then shrugged
and sat up.
Need I describe the pain of using muscles that were stitched up? Maybe I was a masochist.
I dragged my sorry ass over to the door and opened it, knowing Heero would have already heard my footsteps padding across
the floor. I ignored the sound of his own footsteps pounding below me and continued my little trek to his room. I wasn't at
all surprised to see his laptop by his bed, open and waiting. I managed to sit down and put it in my lap before he slammed
into the room. “Duo!” he snapped. I didn't even look up from the screen and I knew he was glaring murder at me.
“Hi, Heero,” I said tiredly. My stomach hurt.
“Dammit, Duo, how many times are you going to-”
“I'll be leading you,” I informed him primly.
That stopped him short. “You'll... what?”
I sighed, already typing away, hacking with all my might. “I'll be leading you through,” I repeated.
I expected him to order me off his laptop. I expected perhaps a little sputtering or a speech about my recovery rate being
entirely dependent on me not being stupid. I did not expect a sigh that sounded suspiciously like acceptance. “All right.”
I almost dropped his precious laptop. I stared at him. “What?”
He came further into the room, hand trailing lightly on the door. “All right. I would feel better if you were watching
over me,” he admitted, though I couldn't tell if he would feel better about his safety or my sanity. It didn't matter
either way.
It was stupid to need to kiss him, but suddenly I did. I couldn't explain it to anyone if I tried. All I knew was I needed
his arms around me. I needed to feel him. I think he saw, but I don't think he understood fully; he came over and kissed
me lightly on the lips, just a small peck, and backed away. I didn't demand more.
“I'll go, then,” he murmured, watching me.
How could I say what I was feeling then, right at that moment? That his kiss couldn't assure me of his reality or his strength.
That seeing him standing there in front of me would torment me over the next hours as I waited to see him return to me safe
from harm. That I didn't know if I had the courage to wait for someone I loved to die again, leaving me alone. That I wasn't
as strong as he thought I was.
“All right” was all I said.
As soon as the door closed behind him, I had to focus to remember how to breathe.
<*>
I led him through, just as I'd said I would. As soon as Heero's car had disappeared down the drive, the door had opened and
Wufei had introduced himself to the house at large. I'd called to him from Heero's room and had ignored him after that.
He sat beside me, silently watching, helpless as me. I didn't know what to do with him; he had, after all, gone farther than
me in the relationship with Heero – at least physically. But he was still a trusted friend, someone who could, if not
completely empathize, then at least understand my fear. Wufei was also oddly good at being silently companionable. There were
times I took no notice of him other than a vague feeling of security, and other times I could feel his presence and could
be nothing other than extremely grateful.
Speaking through some Preventors' equipment, I led him through a side entrance, then through a crack in the defenses and past
about ten guards. I didn't bother asking Wufei why it was suddenly legal for a Preventor to go undercover in Caribol Headquarters
when it hadn't been before. I had no time. I had to call up schedules, maps, codes. I skipped back and forth almost too quickly
to comprehend, fingers flashing across the keys. I gave Heero clipped, terse directions and he gave me clipped, terse responses.
I still couldn't breathe correctly, but I didn't have the time to try to remind myself how.
I don't quite know how it had happened. Everything was going smoothly, and I was moving on to the final code that would get
Heero into the laboratories. According to the ID scanners, no one was inside this storage room at the moment. Yet as soon
as I heard that last keystroke being entered into the system-
-BAM! BAM!
My heart seized in my chest. Breathing stopped altogether. I said nothing, knowing I could give away Heero's position if he'd
managed to dodge and hide. Knowing also that I could give away information if he was captured. My hand hesitated over the
link, wondering if I should cut it, remembering the unspoken rules during the war.
Wufei's hand covered mine. I turned to him, desperate, only to see him shake his head. His eyes were worried, though not as
traumatically as my own. 'Liability,' I mouthed, as close as I could get to saying that I knew the old rules.
Wufei shook his head again. 'Not anymore.'
My hand shook in relief. We didn't have to worry about abandoning comrades anymore.
I stared down at the screen. It couldn't tell me anything, whether Heero was safe or whether he was... I clenched my eyes
shut. Not Heero. He was fucking invincible. Nothing could...
But I could still plainly see him lying dead on the ground, his Gundam in pieces around him, and I knew that wasn't true at
all.
There was no sound from over the link, but t wasn't dead and I was eternally glad. That meant one of two things: one, Heero
hadn't been caught yet, or two: they were trying to get a wire back to us to find out where we were. I had no problems with
either. If Heero was fine, I was fine; if Heero was dead, so would they be.
I felt my lungs burned and reminded myself to breathe.
The silence continued for a few minutes more. I was completely still, afraid that any move I made might somehow give away
Heero's position.
Then the silence exploded in sound. Three more gunshots sounded; suddenly I could hear Heero's breathing, harder than necessary.
My fingers locked over the keyboard.
I was so thankful I might have cried when Wufei took the laptop and communicator from me. I clutched my stomach. Please, please
don't let me throw up all over Heero's bed.
“Yuy,” Wufei hissed, making me jump, “if you don't want Maxwell to do something stupid, win.”
I turned a horrified stare at him as two more gunshots spilled over the speakers. What the hell kind of risk was that?
“I don't care,” he muttered lowly to me. His eyes stared pointedly at my stomach. I couldn't even work up the
energy to grin sheepishly at him.
Another gunshot, then two more. I cringed at each. I stared at the laptop desperately. Was there anything worse then sitting
back and not knowing?
“Sorry about the wait,” I heard Heero murmur, and I sagged in on myself. I shook with relief, almost so badly
as to be likened to palsy. My breath sucked in so quickly it hurt.
“Yuy, you bastard,” Wufei snapped good-naturedly, “what the hell were you doing?”
“You won't believe this,” Heero muttered, “but I found... what I suppose would be a drop-off of... I suppose
rejected experiments.”
Wufei hissed. I cursed loudly. “Dammit, I should've seen that,” I muttered. “Of course they would have fucked
up first.”
“How many?” Wufei asked grimly.
“Six. How's Duo?”
Wufei turned to me and cocked an eyebrow. I gave him a defiant look and straightened myself from my position. And winced.
“Idiot,” Wufei snorted, “how do you think he is?”
Heero was silent for a moment. I took the chance to glare at Wufei. “I see,” he said finally. “Duo, don't
overdo it.”
I scowled and snatched the communicator from Wufei's ear. “What the fuck are you talking about, Yuy?All you're letting
me do is sit here on my ass. What could be more strenuous?”
“Just watch your stitches.”
“Shut the fuck up, Mama-Yuy.” I held my hand out for the laptop; with a stifled chuckle, Wufei handed it over.
I clicked on the thing for a few moments, searching through until I found what I was looking for. “Heero, there are
supposed to be twenty-three of what they call Defects within Storage Areas. Your gunshot probably set off internal alarms...”
I ran through a couple links. “There. I've turned them off, called it in as a false alarm. You should be able to proceed.
I'll give you as much of a berth around those areas as possible.”
“All right.” Silence. Then, “you know I'm coming back to you, right?”
I flinched. Such words should never be said in the middle of a mission. Things could turn sour, and then what? You'd be leaving
the other with nothing more than a broken promise. “Just be ready for the worst, Heero.”
He just sighed, not saying anything more.
I kept Heero strictly away from Storage Areas on the maps I pulled up and led him to the laboratories through an intricate
little set-up that included four different access codes. Heero didn't utter a word of protest. We were back to the clipped
answers and responses.
Heero plugged in the last set of codes for the lab. “Entering.”
“Understood,” I murmured. My palms were sweaty on the keys; I rubbed them on my pants leg in fear of somehow oiling
up Heero's laptop. There was silence on his end, silence I wasn't very confident in. I waited tensely for something to happen.
“Jesus.”
“What?” I asked quickly, leaning into the laptop as if Heero's voice was coming from there and not the communicator.
“What's going on?”
“Jesus,” he said again. “I can't even count them all...”
“The enhanced humans?” Wufei asked, aghast.
“Yes,” Heero whispered. I wished I could see what he was seeing. I wished I knew just what he was up against.
Wished I could do something. “Some are adult men, some just... pieces. Some are no more than infants...”
“Jesus,” Wufei echoed.
I couldn't even imagine what he was seeing. Infants? Pieces? Like what? I imagined those old science fiction movies, the ones
with hands and feet and eyeballs in jars. Was that what Heero was seeing? I tried to imagine cyborgs sleeping in tubes and
shook my head. It was too bizarre to imagine.
I began typing for information, trying to find out just what was in those laboratories. I hadn't managed to start on the first
encryption before my screen started flashing. An alarm broke out over the communicator. “Heero.” I backed out
of the encryption files and tried to turn off the alarm, but it wasn't a normal alarm. “What's going on?”
“Shit!”
Heero never cursed on a mission.
My heart went into hyper-mode again. I forgot once again how to breathe. “Heero?!”
“They're waking up!” he snapped. “The tubes are draining – I have to get out of here.”
His voice went from desperate to emotionless. He was the Prefect Soldier. And I was freezing up. I glared at the monitor.
The exits would be blocked off. A new code would be needed. I needed to find it. Now.
“I'm getting the codes,” I told him. “Do whatever you have to to live. Do you understand me?”
I was asking him to slaughter. I felt my hands tremble. “Understood. I won't break my promise, Duo.”
And I heard his gun fire once, twice, three times. I turned off the silent alarm almost before it turned on. If the alarm
continued going off, things would get bad. But for now...
“Come on, come on,” I muttered. Another gunshot. Heero was silent again – he was always silent when he fought.
It always managed to terrify me. How could anyone know whether he was alive or not?
Gunshots were coming more rapidly now, and I knew that somehow at least one of the tubed people had gotten hold of a weapon.
Heero was still silent as a tomb. I strained my ears for sounds of his breathing, maybe a sound of a grunt or short cry that
would tell me what I was praying I wouldn't be told.
I finally hacked into the code. “Heero – 15B7GJ81B. I repeat – one, five, Beta, seven, Gamma, Juliet, eight,
one, Beta.”
“Understood.”
Then I could only wait tensely for the gunshots to end, for Heero to come back to me, safe and sound. I could only sit down,
useless as a lump of clay, and wait. “Through the northeast exit. Ten meters down, a window to your right-”
But I didn't get the chance to finish; something smashed into the room through Heero's window. Wufei snatched me up, still
holding the laptop, and threw us into the hallway. A second later, the world exploded.
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