Notes: My big thank you goes to my wonderful beta Lucid Nightmare.
I want to thank all the wonderful people who reviewed. I'm so incredibly happy that you like the story *huggles you all*
In this part... well, I was rather cruel to Mill... sorry! ^_~
On the Run Part 3
With a frustrated sigh, Heero listened to the clock in the inn's main room striking at the half hour again. In just a couple of minutes, he would have to get up since Duo's next dose was due in half an hour. The Enforcer heaved tiredly, then turned to his side and rested his head on his bent arm. From his bed, which was closer to the door, he now faced the sleeping lifebearer. He listened to his silent breathing and closed his eyes to at least try to take a nap.
When the clock struck fifteen to, an even more frustrated Heero just gave up. He sat up on the bed, swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled his tall boots on again. Then he bent forward, rested his elbows on his thighs and looked at the sleeping Duo. In the dim glow of the fireplace he couldn't see much, but it was enough to recognize the gentle rise and fall of his love's chest. Some time ago, he would have never believed that a simple thing as watching somebody sleep would fill him with such innermost peace. And with such a worry too...
He was not used to caring so much and it scared him almost out of his mind when he realized that should the most precious thing disappear out of his life... he wouldn't be able to continue living on his own. He had been with Duo for only a couple of weeks, but the lifebearer had lived in his heart since they were children. And now that it seemed like his wish for happiness could become true, their life offered them no peace or safety. First Duo's child, then the village and now his illness... and he feared that the miscarriage might have damaged something inside Duo and that even though he got his monthly bleeding, it might still be impossible for him to have children. He didn't ask Trowa for he was afraid to hear the answer. If it was true... it would kill Duo for sure.
Heero reached over the narrow gap between the beds and took Duo's left hand in his. He stroked the knuckles with his thumb gently and smiled when the lifebearer responded instinctively and squeezed his hand a bit. Duo's skin was still a little warm but the high fever he got after the first dose of Trowa's medicine was slowly ebbing. Heero was glad because he knew that a high fever could do just as much as the bleeding did.
The clock struck for the next hour. The Enforcer lifted his mate's hand to his lips and kissed it, then laid it back on the bed. Heero smoothed the wrinkled bedclothes, then got up. It was time for another dose of Duo's medicine. He walked to the fireplace, placed another piece of wood on the dying fire, then headed for the door. There should still be some chicken broth left in the kitchen if he remembered right. Then he smiled. They were stuffing Duo so full of it that he would probably never want to see another bowl of chicken soup for the rest of his life.
With a last glance to the sleeping lifebearer, Heero opened the door and stepped outside the room. Closing the door again, he headed down the corridor. While walking past the room next to theirs, he could hear a ragged, painful moan that turned into a muffled cry of pain. In answer to this heart wrenching sound, an irritated voice snapped something that the Enforcer couldn't decipher through the barrier of the door.
Heero frowned, then remembered what Trowa told him. The aristocrat's pregnant mate. What idiot would take a pregnant lifebearer near the end of his pregnancy out in such weather?! But then a small voice whispered in the back of his mind: The same who took a sick, bleeding lifebearer out in one of the worst blizzards he had ever seen. The Enforcer sighed and acknowledged the truth in the small voice's words. He didn't know why the aristocrat did it, but sometimes, it couldn't be helped.
For the last time Heero looked at the closed door behind which a lifebearer was bearing a new life, then continued down the corridor.
~*~
Duo wasn't actually sure what woke him up but as soon as he opened his eyes, somewhere in the house a door slammed shut with a loud bang. The lifebearer frowned, then turned his head to the side to look around. The fire was burning brightly in the fireplace and in its light, he noticed that the room was empty.
Duo's frown deepened. Where were Heero and Trowa? He thought harder about it and some half forgotten memory surfaced in his mind. Didn't Heero say something about a rescue party the last time the Enforcer woke him? The lifebearer's eyebrows knit together and he tried to remember more, but wasn't sure what was truth and what were only half-remembered dreams. The potion they poured into him was really powerful and robbed him of the ability to think properly.
Suddenly, there it was again. A silent moan that hid a world of pain in itself. Duo's heart ached just listening to it. Where did it come from? When the sound came again and ended with a desperate sob this time, Duo squirmed. Someone was in pain and nobody was obviously doing anything about it. He couldn't just lie there and listen to it. If Heero had been there...
But he wasn't and so Duo slowly, carefully sat up on the bed. The simple motion brought a moan to his lips. The pain wasn't as bad as it had been in the past week, but it still lay deep in his belly. It concentrated under his belly button, shooting painful cramps to the area around his kidneys. Duo took a deep breath and tried to ride the pain out as Trowa taught him during their escape when no medicine they tried seemed to ease the constant pain that haunted him. It took a bit but finally the cramps stopped.
Duo threw aside the layers of warm covers and immediately the chilliness of the room attacked him. He shivered. Obviously, not even the brightly burning fire in the fireplace could really warm up the inn's room when an ice cold wind was trying to break through the shutters. He raised himself on his arms and slowly moved to the side of the bed. To lower his legs to the ground was not an easy task and when his feet touched the cold floor, he shivered again. For a moment he just sat there, breathing heavily, sweat running down his face. Even such a simple act tired him out quickly. Another pain filled cry that rang through the walls propelled him to move though. He propped himself on the small nightstand with one hand and on the bed with the other and with all his strength, he got up. For a little while he just stood there, swayed a bit and hugged his middle to relieve another cramp that seized his lower body. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe again. The coldness of the room started to seep through his knee length white shirt that was the only clothing he had on. He was not sure if his moving out of the bed was such a good idea, but his pondering of the reasonability of his actions was interrupted by another gut wrenching moan.
Taking a deep breath, he hunched over and started to move around the bed. His steps were short and unsteady and by the time he reached the door, he was shaking like a leaf. For a moment he rested his forehead on the hard wooden door and once again wondered where Heero was. It was not like him to leave Duo alone. Hopefully, nothing bad happened. But then Duo pushed his worry about the whereabouts of his love to the side, knowing that no matter what, Heero would not leave him behind or alone. Though feeling sick to the bone, the lifebearer smiled at the thought of his mate.
Finally, Duo gathered enough strength to open the door and walk into the corridor. The long and narrow and very dark room was even colder. The lifebearer's feet were freezing from the icy cold floor. Standing in the corridor, shoulders slumped and hugging himself tightly to get at least a little warmth back in his body, Duo wondered what to do now. He had no idea where the moans had come from, only that his whole being ached to help the person in pain. That was the nature of lifebearers. Inability to help a hurting being brought them almost physical pain.
Another moan reverberated through Duo's soul. Locating the source of the painful sounds in the room next to theirs, Duo slowly padded the few steps down the corridor, touching the wall with one hand to keep balance. Finally, he reached the door he was heading to and knocked silently.
"Hello?" he called quietly, but except for another cry no answer came. Taking a deep breath and knowing that Heero would probably be angry... no, furious at him for doing such a thing, he touched the doorknob and turned it, opening the door a crack. "I'm coming in, okay?" he called out again, his voice still a little rough, but loud enough to be heard in the room behind the door.
Duo opened the door wide, revealing a room that was almost identical to theirs, except that there was only one large bed. The coldness here was even more biting, though. Duo looked around and what he saw made him gasp in horror.
There, on the bed, between twisted bedclothes lay another lifebearer. He was dressed only in a thin white shirt that rode up high over his belly that was heavy with child. The stranger's body glistened with sweat and his platinum blond hair was sticking to his forehead. But that wasn't what horrified Duo so. It was the fact that the other lifebearer was tied to the bed with heavy ropes that bit deeply into his wrists and ankles. His legs were spread and bound to the bedposts, but there was enough slack in the ropes so that he could bend his knees but not close them or anything else. His arms were tied above his head and he was gagged with a white scarf that was tied around his head and he was biting into it with pain. From the shivers that ran through the stranger's body, the taut belly and the painful cries, it was obvious that he was in the throes of labor.
"Gods..." Duo whispered and as quickly as possible, he crossed the room on his unsteady feet. As soon as he reached the bed, he bent down to untie the scarf gagging the lifebearer. The blond man's eyes were tightly shut and before Duo actually touched him, he hadn't been even aware of the braided man being in the room. "Shhh, I won't hurt you," Duo whispered when the stranger tensed even more and his eyes flew open, revealing panic and pain filled blue orbs.
The whole time Duo tried to untie the knot that got tangled into the long blond mane, the pregnant lifebearer was watching him warily and hopefully at the same time. And when the knot finally came undone and Duo rid him of his gag, the stranger swallowed painfully and gritted his teeth, hissing as another contraction ripped through him. "Help me!" he screamed, almost lifting himself up from the bed as he strained against his bonds.
Before Duo could move, there was the sound of running feet on the stairs. The braided man turned around just in time to see a short, hardfaced man whose watery eyes were filled with rage burst into the room through the door Duo left gaping open.
"What are you doing here?!" screeched the man and rushed to the bed. "Don't touch him!" With this sharp, angry order he pushed Duo to the side so brutally, that the sick lifebearer stumbled.
Crying out in shock, Duo fell to the floor, pain ripping through him as he hit the ground hard. Blackness clouded his sight but even through the fog that surrounded him he saw how the pregnant stranger recoiled from the angry man's touch, moaning just as much in fear as in pain.
The short man turned to Duo again, fury written all over his face. "How dare you!" He stepped closer to the fallen lifebearer and Duo instinctively curled up, covering his head with his arms. The man raised his hand to strike again and shouted. "You little..."
When silence suddenly filled the room, Duo risked a quick look through his arms. The short man stood now frozen in the middle of the room, hand still raised, but the fury in his face was now replaced with horror for there, on his throat, a sharp blade of steel glistened in the light from the fireplace.
"Heero..." Duo whispered. His voice quivered with relief and pain.
The Enforcer looked down at his mate, his eyes full of concern. "Are you all right?" he asked.
Duo tried to move, but froze immediately when suddenly, a strong cramp seized his lower body. "I...I don't think... so," he stammered through his clenched teeth and closed his eyes tightly.
Heero's eyebrows knit together, a murderous look in his eyes, when he saw his mate in so much pain. He pressed the knife tightly to the short man's throat, drawing blood. The Enforcer felt a strong urge to cut the man's throat for what he did to Duo and... he threw a glance at the tied lifebearer on the bed, who was now almost sobbing with pain, straining against his bonds... He increased the pressure on the blade and the man in his hold whimpered as a small trickle of blood started to run down his throat.
But before Heero could do more, a shocked voice came from the door. "By the gods, what's going on here?"
TBC...
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