Notes: You guys didn't honestly think I was going to kill Heero, did you? *laughs* He's my narrator... or a reasonable facsimile thereof....
"Love is whatever you can still betray ... Betrayal can only happen if you love."
--- John LeCarre
"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."
--- Alfred Adler
"Vicious loneliness and recent memories of happiness;
I look over all that's left, and despair is all I find..."
--- Laura Bailey
Requiem for the Sinners Part 5
Sorrow of the Saints
The only thing Heero heard when he regained consciousness was the sound of his own heartbeat, his own breathing. He was in a room full of fuzzy white light, blindingly bright. At first, he thought he was dead.
And his second thought was that he didn't care.
His eyes slowly moved druggedly down from the ceiling and fell on a figure sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed.
~~~"Welcome back to the land of the living, Yuy."~~~
/ Wufei? /
The Chinese man was sitting cross-legged, his Preventers jacket thrown over the back of the chair, an open book in his lap. He gazed at Heero with a strange expression on his face; Heero couldn't decide if it was relief or something else. Maybe pity.
"You're awake."
Heero lifted one arm weakly, moving a hand to feel at the plastic oxygen mask over his face. Wufei's eyebrows bowed sharply as he scowled. "Don't take it off, Heero. I can hear you with it on. Heero's eyes moved to Wufei slowly, then back to his hand.
There were dark bruises in the back of his hand and on the inside of his wrist, where two different IVs were inserted. One dripped with a clear liquid, the other with a dark reddish fluid.
/ Blood and glucose, / the Soldier intoned flatly in Heero's mind. Two years after the last War was over, and that voice had never faded. Not once.
"Wufei..." Heero spoke. Nothing but a whispery rasp came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Wufei..."
Wufei closed his book gently and sat it on the floor. He raised his eyebrows when he heard Heero speak. "Do you know where you are?"
Heero let his eyes wander around the room. So white.
::Give me your knife. I'll cut it down the middle.::
"...Hospital."
Wufei nodded. Heero closed his eyes wearily, lowering his hand to rest against the rough, starched white hospital bedsheets, then asked the first question that came to his mind.
"Who's dead? How many?"
Wufei's eyes widened slightly. He looked again, not meeting Heero's eyes. "Sylvia Noventa. Lady Une, Iria Winner. Mariemeia." He sighed softly. "Most of the World Nation Council."
"What happened to Quatre?"
Wufei's dark eyes relaxed a bit, as if he was finally glad to be able to pass on some good news. "He's alive. He had a collapsed lung. He's in ICU, too, so he's just down the hall from you. Trowa is with him now, but he's been sleeping a lot."
Heero felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his chest. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, not caring how much it hurt his chest.
"And Relena?"
Wufei closed his eyes and bowed his head, pressing his thumb and forefinger against his nose lightly, as if he had a terrible headache. "She's dead, Heero."
Heero turned his face away from Wufei fiercely, silent for a few moments. The relief he had felt a moment before dissipated into despair. When he could speak again, he whispered, "...Was she shot?"
"Stabbed." Wufei reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper, although it was obvious it had been crumpled before. "We found this wrapped around the hilt of the knife." He leaned over and offered it to Heero.
There was a brownish stain flecked across one edge of it, and Heero tried to push the thought that the stain was Relena's blood as far from the front of his mind as possible. He looked down, reading the familiar, flowing script.
~*~
Consider us seceded.
~ Shinigami
~*~
Heero viciously crumpled the piece of paper in his hand, then let it drop indifferently to the floor.
"Where... where was Nagia and the others? Where were my men?" Heero asked, his voice rough.
"Your men were the first ones killed, Heero. How else do you think they got in?" Wufei smiled, but the expression was bitter. "It was a very clean, professional job, Heero. Executed by a professional leader."
Heero closed his eyes again. / Duo... /
"They were killing shots, Heero. I can see you trying to lie to yourself. But don't. Face the facts. He was trying to kill you, and he tried to kill Quatre, the same way he killed everyone else. If he had known I was there, he would have tried to kill me, too." Wufei's voice was blunt. The Chinese man's eyes flashed furiously.
Heero thought about that for a moment. How had Wufei been there without him knowing? And then he remembered the sirens outside the conference halls, right before he had been shot. Shot by Duo.
/ Preventers. /
"If he tried to kill me, then why aren't I dead?" Heero whispered. "Duo doesn't make mistakes."
"Because of the fact that you're a lucky bastard. There's that, and there's this." Wufei reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of round medal on the end of a chain. He tossed it at Heero without warning.
Even weak and wounded, Heero's reflexes wouldn't let him down. He reached one IV-ridden hand, catching the necklace on the fly.
Wufei raised his eyebrows. "Good to know you haven't lost your touch. This was his shot for the heart. If one of those bullets hadn't bounced off this, they'd be burying you too."
Heero looked at the slightly dented circle of medal for a moment, rubbing its familiar relief thoughtfully with a callused thumb. It was slightly worn, showing that the rubbing had always been something of a habit for him.
He turned it over, where he could still almost make out the inscription on the back.
Cowards die many times
before their deaths.
The valiant never taste of death
but once. - Love, D
After a few moments, he laughed quietly, his voice cracked and hoarse.
"Something funny?"
Heero closed his eyes, shaking his head.
"What is it?"
Heero sat up in the bed carefully, wincing. "It's a gundanium medallion. St.George, patron saint of soldiers. It was a gift."
"From who?"
Heero raised his eyes to Wufei, something dangerous sliding through them. "Who do you think?" he asked softly.
Wufei dropped his eyes.
They were both silent for a moment. A freezing winter rain ticked and sheeted on the window, throwing the city beyond into flowing, distorted surrealism.
"I shot him, Heero."
A small movement shook Heero like a jolt. His eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open a little, but the words he wanted to say wouldn't form. It felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water down the back of his neck.
"He... is he..."
Wufei shook his head. "I... I couldn't do it, Heero. I couldn't kill him." Wufei raised his gaze again, and his eyes were hard and self- criminating. "No. That's not right. It's not that I couldn't kill him. I could have killed him easily. But I didn't."
"Why?"
Wufei shook his head again. "No. It will sound stupid."
"Dammit, Wufei, just tell me."
Wufei smiled a little, but it was a terrible one. More of a grimace. "I had a memory of him. I had a memory of him eating that awful pasta stuff out of the can with a spoon. Do you remember what I'm talking about?"
Heero leaned his head back on the pillow. He was exhausted and his mouth was dry. He remembered the day Wufei was referring to as vividly as if it had happened the day before.
"Yes. Spaghetti-O's. He called them Spaghetti-O's. Some American thing, I don't know."
"Yes, those. I remembered him holding out a spoonful of that awful stuff under my nose with that shit-eating grin on his face saying, 'Try it, Wufei Try it '" Wufei shook his head again and raised his hands in a sort of hurt, helpless gesture. "I...couldn't kill him. Even when I thought he had killed you and Quatre. I still couldn't do it. "
Heero swallowed hard. "Neither could I." He looked the Chinese pilot square in the eye, daring Wufei to judge him. "I sat there and let him shoot me. And I listened to him shoot Mariemeia. It was my job to protect her. It was my job to protect them all. And I failed, Wufei. I may as well have pulled the trigger myself."
"Why didn't you shoot him?" Wufei asked softly.
Heero tried to think of an answer. "He saved my life," he said softly.
"He saved Relena's life once. That didn't stop him from killing her." Wufei's voice was flat and accusing. "That's not a good enough reason, Heero, and you know it."
"It was better than yours."
"You were closer to him. It-"
"What? What?! It was my job? Because he was my partner, I was supposed to shoot him?" Heero snarled suddenly, sitting up straight and forward with a jolt. Wufei flinched back a little, not expecting the Wing pilot to be able to move so quickly after being so terribly wounded. Heero felt something in his bandaged side twist and scream in pain, but he gritted his teeth and bore it.
"Fuck you, Wufei." The words were vicious.
Wufei turned away.
"What do you want to hear? That I don't know why I didn't shoot him?" Heero's voice was coarse with pain, but he ground the words out furiously. His hands were clenched in the bedsheets. The heart monitor beside the bed began to beep more and more quickly.
"That I failed to kill him, even to protect a nine year-old girl? Another girl, Wufei, like the one before?! That I made the wrong fucking choice? If I had the chance to do it again, I'd do it the same way. Is that what you want to fucking hear?!"
"Calm down, Yuy, before you hurt yourself," Wufei said wearily, looking back at him.
Heero felt the rage leave him in a rush, leaving him feeling hollow and tired, like a husk of himself. His eyes stung and his vision swam. He ripped the IVs from his wrist and hand, pulled the oxygen mask from his face, and pulled the EKG pads from his bare chest, causing the monitor to scream and flatline.
"What in the hell are you doing, Heero?" Wufei asked sharply, standing up.
Heero's voice was choked and strange. "Going to Quatre."
Heero swung his legs over the side of the bed, steadying himself against the wall. His legs were jerky beneath him. A red stain was soaking through the gauze on the right side of his chest. There was a deep purplish bruise over his heart. The blood drained from his face, leaving him pale with pain. But he stood.
Reacting on instinct as let his hands run over the EKG machine, Wufei searched for the power button. He found it, pressed it, and the shrill mechanical shriek went silent.
The abrupt silence of the machine's scream reminded Heero of Mariemeia, the way her screams had been cut off by Duo's damning shots, remembered feeling her blood soak into the front of his uniform and mix with his, soaking it in a warm crimson rush.
He buckled and fell to his hands and knees, dry-heaving violently.
One of the nurses ran into the room. As soon as she saw that Heero was standing, and not in cardiac arrest, she said, "What is going on in here?!" Wufei shot her a withering look. "Out, woman. Everything is fine."
The nurse, a young woman who looked as if she had barely upgraded from candystriper (Why the hell is she answering a blue code? Wufei wondered idly) looked chagrined and retreated.
Wufei turned back to Heero, and he was on his knees, his arms were around the Wing pilot, steadying him.
"What's the real reason, Heero?" Wufei asked softly, whispering into the curve of Heero's ear, whispering even when there was no one else to hear.
/ I love him, Wufei. I hate him and I love him. I don't know how that can be true. But I feel it. And it hurts me worse than any bullet ever could. /
Heero didn't say this. He just looked the other pilot in the eyes, then leaned his forehead against Wufei's shoulder wearily. It was the only submission he knew. He had no excuses for what he had done.
His heart hurt. He wished he could cry, just break down and sob exhaustedly in Wufei's arms like a child that was long lost and is finally found.
But he couldn't remember how, and the Soldier would not let him try.
Wufei supported his weight, lifted him up, and shifted him gently back to the hospital bed, lying him down again. The Chinese man put a hand on his shoulder for a moment, but Heero wouldn't meet his eyes again. Heero closed his eyes and turned his head away.
Wufei left wordlessly when he thought that Heero had fallen asleep again.
But Heero did not sleep for a long time.
He turned over towards the window, and watched rain drown the world.
TBC...
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