Please Don't Let me Fall Part 3
Heading Home
Heero was elated to hear Duo's voice over the two-radio, but once they cut connections, whatever constituted excitement for Heero Yuy gave way to painful despondency.
With the penlight, he checked himself over, pulling off the top half of his G suit and flight suit to check the tank top underneath. He had known they would be fighting in cold country, so he reluctantly donned a G suit and flight suit over his customary tank top and workout shorts; he was grateful for it now.
He could tell by the way the bones grated together that he had at least two broken ribs, and he had a shrapnel wound in his left thigh. His right wrist felt broken as well. He pulled the shrapnel in his leg out, taking advantage of the numbing effect the cold was having on him. There was semi-dried blood all over him; his tank top was no longer forest green but a brownish-maroon color in most places. He couldn't find a spot on him that wasn't covered in blood, scratched, scraped, gashed or bruised.
He grabbed the survival pack from under his cockpit seat and took a bandage from it, the only one he had left. He wrapped it around his leg--G suit, flight suit, and black workout shorts. The injury of his left leg seemed to be one of the worst of his superficial wounds, except for his head. As much as he hated to admit it, he was afraid to touch his head again. The pain was excruciating enough without touching it. There was nothing he could do about the broken wrist or ribs, but he wasn't hurting too badly--yet.
He gathered his survival pack, radio, and penlight. Leaning back in the cockpit seat, he tried to sit up again. He was wrong about the pain; the world suddenly spun and he leaned over, throwing up into his helmet. (1) Coughing, which hurt his chest even more, he laid back down across the seat, breathing hard. The adrenaline in his system was definitely wearing off. His head throbbed viciously, and his thigh and chest shrieked with agony.
He held his broken wrist perfectly still at his side, listening in case the radio beeped again. Despite how cold it was, sweat trickled into his eyes and mouth, dripping off the end of his nose. He could taste the salt in it. He tried to keep his breathing shallow and rapid, but every heave of his chest drew the broken ribs against his lungs; he bit his lip, refusing to cry out, blinking away involuntary tears of pain.
Every muscle ached from the blows he had received; his harness had snapped inside the cockpit on impact and as his Gundam tumbled across the ground, he had been thrown around the cockpit like a rag doll, slamming into dashboard, window, and controls. More damage had been done to the cockpit by his flying body than by the crash itself.
Suddenly, the radio flashed and beeped. "Heero?" Duo's voice crackled out of the speaker. "Are you still conscious, Heero?"
Heero reached over and flicked the radio to transmit. "Hai... Duo... I hear you. Over."
"We're almost to your location, so if you hear us thrashing around out here, radio me, alright? It's snowing pretty damned hard out here, Wing is probably snowed over good by now."
"Hai." He closed his eyes; he knew he should be checking all of his onboard systems to see how badly the Gundam was damaged in the crash. He noted this fact and dismissed it, opting for sleep on the grounds that it seemed his body had obviously deemed it more vital. He felt himself trailing down the deep, dark well of unconsciousness.
Duo was worried about Heero. Yes. That was all the Japanese pilot would say, and his voice sounded strained, forced. He continued in the direction of the fallen Gundam. He estimated another five minutes had passed, and he spoke into the radio again. "Heero?" No answer this time. He waited half a minute, then tried again, holding the speaker close to his ear.
"Hai." A forceless, drained whisper.
"Have you heard us yet?"
"... think so."
Heero had been pretty vague when asked about his injuries. "How badly are you hurt, Heero?" The American pilot waited desperately for an answer. And waited. Maybe Heero hadn't heard the question. Maybe he had passed out. Why wasn't he answering?
"My ribs are broken."
Duo forced back the urge to scream in frustration. Broken ribs! Heero was obviously not telling the whole truth about how badly he had been hurt. If Heero was willing to admit he had been hurt as badly as that, he had most certainly almost been killed in the wreck. If OZ got to him before they did, there would be no way he could hide from them, fight back, or even try to run. Duo tried calling him again. No answer. He tried a few more times as he moved closer to the wreckage site, but all he knew was that Heero was seriously injured and no longer answering his radio.
Suddenly, he saw a gleam of metal in the distance.
"That's it, that's it, guys! Follow me! Wing's ahead!"
Duo jumped out of Deathscythe and ran to where Wing was lying on its side like a fallen soldier. The cockpit orb was shattered and the inside was dark, but Duo could see a still form lying in there. He couldn't tell whether Heero was dead or alive.
"Heero! Heero!"
Duo trudged through the thickening snow and ducked his head into the chest of the Gundam. Heero lay across his cockpit seat, right arm curled up against his body, the two-way radio in his left hand. His head was gashed almost from the top of his head to the nape of his neck.
Heero's eyes were closed and his lips parted slightly. A dark bruise ran from his temple to his jaw, like the shadow of a crow's wing. Duo touched his cheek cautiously. It was still warm. Heero's beaten chest was moving.
// Dear God, he's alive! Thank you thank you thank you... //
He tried using the comlink from the Wing cockpit, but it wouldn't respond. Duo then leaned over Heero again, moving the Japanese boy's head back and forth carefully, rubbing his cheeks. "Hey Heero! Heero! Wake up, man! It's Duo!"
Heero's eyelids flickered a little, but didn't open. He moaned almost soundlessly. The sound of Heero moaning under Duo in any other circumstances would have thrilled him to death, but it wasn't the time to think about things like that. Not now. (2)
Duo tried harder. "C'mon, man! Get up!"
The eyelids flickered again, then opened. His beautiful colbalt eyes were gazing and distant for a few seconds before Heero brought them to rest on Duo's face. Slowly, his eyes focused.
" Duo... Duo?"
"I'm here, buddy. I'm here to take you home. The good guys found ya and the bad guys didn't. You're safe now, man. You okay? Gonna ask you some questions. What's the name of your Gundam?"
"... Dammit, Duo, I don't have amnesia..."
"Just answer the question."
"Wing."
"Who does Quatre have a crush on?"
"For God's sake... Duo..."
"C'mon, man. I've seen them do this on all the movies."
"Trowa."
Duo grinned. "Alright, you must not have hit your head too hard." He looked at the right side back of Heero's head and the grin faded. Heero's hair was soaked in blood. He put his hand on Heero's forehead, partly to wipe away the sweat there and mostly just to touch him. He saw that Heero's right eye was dilated.
"Get me out...of this fucking...cockpit," Heero snarled weakly.
"Moving you might hurt you worse, Heero," Duo replied, scowling. "Wouldn't do any good to die just trying to get out, would it?"
"We all... have to go... sometime... Shinigami... now... get me... the fuck out of here."
Duo moved down Heero's body, undoing his makeshift bandage and pulling his G suit and flight suit off. "Man, you got yourself into a hell of a fix this time, buddy..." but Duo saw that Heero had passed out again. Duo pulled out the one bandage he carried in his pocket and held it gently to the back of Heero's head as he picked him up, trying not to press down too hard. Once he had Heero moved to the kneeling Deathscythe, he got into the cockpit himself, opening a comlink to the others.
"Somebody pick up Wing when we leave. I can't do it and we can't leave it here for OZ."
"I'll do it," Wufei volunteered, moving to pick up the wrecked mobile suit with Natacku.
Once they were headed back towards the safehouse, Duo turned his attention back to Heero. "Wake up, you sonuvabitch, wake up!" he said. He snapped his fingers beside Heero's ear. Nothing. He took his water bottle and poured some water in his hand, piloting one-handed and sprinkling water in Heero's face with the other. Heero opened his eyes.
"Duo... what the fuck... are you doing? Baptizing me... or the Last Rites?"
"You stay awake, my man. You can't go back to sleep with that concussion."
"You can't... keep me awake... and fly... at the same time." That monotone voice, full of contempt, may have been wounded but was still formidable.
"Wanna bet?" Duo asked, smirking. "Sounds like a challenge to me." He began to sing off-key:
"The rolls in OZ prison, they say they're mighty fine, but one rolled off the table, and killed a friend of mine! Oh I- don't wanna go to OZ prison! Gee, Doc, I wanna go, but they, won't let me go, gee Doc, I wanna go fight some more! (3)"
"... Baka."
"Oh yeah? I got a million of 'em. The water in OZ prison, they say it's mighty fine, but if you drink it you'll agree it tastes like turpentine! Oh I- don't wanna go to OZ prison! Gee Doc, I wanna go, but they, won't let me go, gee Doc, I wanna go fight some more!"
"Duo... shut up... let me sleep..."
"I love you, you hate me, let's chase Khushrenada up a tree with a great big bang and Treize on the floor, no more Neo-Nazi rose-scented bore! (4)"
"Shut up with your baka American songs..."
"This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends, some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they continued singing it forever just because--"
"SHUT UP! I'LL STAY AWAKE WITHOUT YOUR DAMNED SINGING!" Heero shouted, and then moaned as the loudness of his voice hurt his head.
"Alright, then," Duo said calmly. They headed back to the safehouse in blissful silence.
TBC...
(1) Concussions suck, by the way. They make you very nauseous every time you move your head. No joke. Which is why I added Heero yawning in technicolor (a very cool name for something really gross! ^_^) because I've had a concussion and I know what it feels like to wake up to one. Imagine the worst hangover you've ever had... add it to being hit by a fast-moving Mac truck, and multiply it by a thousand. There ya go. I also made Duo ask Heero all those dumb questions because that's what my friend did to me. Of course, I wasn't so out of it from the blow to the head that I didn't fake amnesia for about five minutes. *wink* Oh yeah, and if you have a concussion, they wake you up like every hour. (Heh, finally getting some sleep and I got stupid bakas trying to wake me up.)
(2) ^_- I told you this will be 1+2 eventually, and I do not lie, ne? *winkwinknudgenudge*
(3) This is actually two verses of a long song I made up (with help from friends) in summer camp for a talent show about five or six years ago, but at the time it had nothing to do with OZ prisons. It was a beautifully written camp-bashing song (by me) and I'm happy to report it ended up driving the counsellors bugshit for years to come, and in all likelihood the kids are still singing it there after lights out now. A couple verses were clever, most were stupid, and a few of them were obscene. ^_- Now it's an OZ-bashing song. I just changed some words to fit this fic.
(4) *snicker* I know it's absolutely idiotic, but I just could not resist. Besides, they don't call him baka for nothing.
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