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Deliveryman Two Part 8

"Great, mobile dolls, and we only have a shuttle. We're toast." I swore as the blips on the screen showed them moving closer to us.

Trowa had one hand on his headset and was rattling off coordinates into the microphone. Did he have an ace in the hole?

Or was he telling Quatre where they'd find our space dust?

Heero leaned over my shoulder and pointed to the radar. "Another group of suits is approaching from below."

I increased our speed with a sinking heart. Trowa finished his coordinates and turned to look at me. There was a smile on his face and I wondered if he had snapped.

If I was the only totally sane person in this shuttle, we were in trouble.

"Relax." Trowa told me. I stared at him. Maybe I was the only sane person here...

"Relax? We've got two groups of mobile dolls after us!"

"No we don't." Trowa smirked. "Quatre told you he was sending some back up. Lucky for us they were almost here. Look."

He popped up another screen and showed us a close up of the suits that were approaching from below.

"The Maguanac corps!" I took in a deep breath as I recognized the suits. "But, how?"

"Quatre didn't think it would be wise to get rid of all the mobile suits after the last war. He took the Maguanac suits and a few others and hid them away on a resource satellite. Lucky for us they weren't too far away. Rashid left almost right after we did and went and got them. Quatre was hoping to use them as a threat of force against the doctors."

"Quatre saved the suits? But he was all for destroying them!"

"No, he was for destroying the Gundams." Trowa corrected me. "And even then, after we discovered what the doctors were doing with you, he realized that we might need some sort of..." Trowa paused.

"Army." Heero said flatly as the Maguanacs reached the mobile dolls and began slicing them to ribbons.

Wait. How the hell? "Those suits are superior to the old Maguanac Corp suits..." I started, then stopped, not sure if I was accusing or admiring.

"We made some modifications." Trowa replied. "To think that we could just keep the old ones and not upgrade them would be foolish."

"Agreed." Heero nodded.

The Maguanacs made very short work of the mobile dolls. Apparently Quatre's tech was superior to the doctors. That was comforting- in a way.

I wasn't sure what to think. On one hand, I could not deny that discovering that Quatre had his own private army of suits was disturbing- to put it mildly.

On the other, we faced not only the doctors, but also whoever was controlling them. Whoever was a part of Relena's New World Order. Having a friend with his own private army would be very useful.

The last mobile doll destroyed, the suits moved to group around our shuttle.

"Quatre wants us to meet him at the satellite. He and Wufei are on their way there. He has discovered the probable location of J's transmissions and quite a few other things." Trowa fed the coordinates into the computer and we changed course. "It's not too far away. We should be there in a couple of hours."

"You could just brief us now," I told him.

"No, that's all he told me too. He said he wanted us to focus on reaching him first before he filled us in." Trowa smiled wryly. "Apparently we're going to be very angry."

"Great," I sighed and leaned back in my seat, exhaustion clouding my senses as the adrenalin finally began to wear off. "Not like I'm not already..."

I yawned. Heero leaned over my seat.

"You are exhausted," he said, still in that perfect soldier tone.

"Can't imagine why," I countered.

"Sleep Duo," Trowa advised. "You need it." I turned and looked at him, raising one eyebrow as I cocked my head a slight bit at Heero. Not safe.

Trowa shook his head slightly. It's fine.

I hoped he was right. Weeks of little sleep and the past hours had completely done me in. I reached back and tugged on Heero. "You need to rest too," I told him, hoping that if he went and strapped himself in, Trowa would have some kind of warning. "Find a comfortable place and sleep too, okay?"

Heero simply moved around the seat and dropped to the floor in front of me, wedging himself between the control panel and me, leaning against my legs, his head on my knee. It was uncomfortably like having a faithful guard dog sitting at my feet. Why couldn't he use a chair?

However, hopefully I'd feel it if he moved. Maybe that's why he sat there.

I was asleep moments later.

~*~

I awoke to find that all was well. I half feared to find that Heero had done something bad while I was sleeping, but he was still leaning against my knees.

Trowa looked over at me as I sat up and stretched. "Good timing," he said. "I was trying to figure out how to wake you. We're here."

The shuttle was approaching what looked like a highly dilapidated old resource satellite. Trowa took us into one of the docking ports as our suit escorts vanished below the satellite.

As we exited the ship, some of the Maguanacs were waiting. Master Quatre was not here yet, but he wanted us to relax while we waited they told us. Trowa nodded and headed off in one direction while Heero and I were led down a very shiny and pretty damn new looking hallway and ushered into a set of rooms.

There were clothes that there we were welcome to use, and there was plenty of time for a bath, our escort told us, and I realized what a mess Heero and I still looked. Heero at least had the dignity of his spandex, but me? Clothes were on my list.

We were told to call if we needed anything and then we were left alone.

It was like staying at one of Quatre's houses. What a complete trip. Even on a secret satellite housing illegal mobile suits, the guy still made sure all the niceties were followed.

The rich are different from us.

Heero hadn't said a word the whole time. He had just followed along, like a faithful...

Oh no. Not going there again.

He was standing in the center of the room, his eyes traveling over the walls and fixtures, scanning- I realized.

"All okay?" I asked.

"Yes." The soldier turned and looked at me. "You are still not at peak efficiency yet. You need more rest."

Then the soldier changed, and my Heero looked chagrined. "You don't look like you've slept for days." The concern and worry in his eyes was familiar, his voice faintly chiding...

I went to him without thinking, and put my arms around him, pulling him close. "I missed you," I told him. "I couldn't sleep without you there. I kept looking for you and we couldn't find anything..."

"Oh Duo...I'm sorry. It must have been awful for you." His arms tightened.

"Worse for you. Quatre said you were in pain, and I knew you were in danger, and then J sent us a tape of you screaming..." I didn't realize that I was crying until I felt his fingers on my face.

"I'm here," I heard him sigh. "Even if I'm... damaged now."

"Do you think that matters to me?" I held onto him tighter. "I told you that we'd fix you and we will."

"And if we can't?" A whisper.

"Then we learn to live with it- just like we have with all the other stuff the bastards dumped on us."

We held on tightly to each other for a long time, before Heero pulled away and reminded me that we needed to shower and change before Quatre arrived.

I couldn't let go of him. I guess somewhere it had finally sunk in, now that I had the time, that Heero was back with me. So I made him get into the shower with me. He knew that I needed him close and he was careful to stay in an arms reach of me. We showered, dried off, found some clean clothes and then settled on the bed. Heero brushed my hair for me and braided it.

All of the little things that I had missed. It was so good to have him back with me, to forget for a little while all the crap we'd be dealing within a few hours.

The phone rang while Heero was reaching the end of my braid. It was Trowa calling to tell us that Quatre would be there in a few more hours, advising us to sleep some if we could.

So, we curled up together on the bed, and I put my head on his chest so that I could hear his heart beat as I slept.

It was the last little bit of peace we enjoyed for a long time.

The phone rang a few hours later, waking us up. Quatre and Wufei had arrived and were waiting for us.

TBC...

 

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