Note: Heero's POV
Erasure Part 10
Duo wasn't there when I woke up. Quatre explained that Duo had an urgent mission- he'd been called out and had to leave immediately. I felt bad that I hadn't woken up in time to say goodbye to him, but Quatre had assured me that he'd be back in two days.
I hoped he would be... I was supposed to be able to leave the hospital in three; I wanted Duo with me when I left. I wanted him to take me to that lab and show me the machine. I wanted to try and figure out how to undo the mess I had made. I wanted to remember.
Maybe if I did, then Duo would want to stay with me. He'd been very kind so far, but I wasn't the person I had been... the person he was in love with... How could I... or rather the other me have been so blind? Duo loved me... him... I could tell it with every word he uttered, every look he gave me... I could see how much he missed the other me, how much he blamed himself for something that hadn't been his fault...
I was almost jealous and that was just ridiculous. How could I be jealous of myself?
But I wasn't the man Duo was in love with. The one he searched my face for. The one he wanted back with him. His lover, his partner...
If I hadn't done whatever it was I had done to myself, I could've gone with Duo. I wouldn't have to wait and worry about him... I could've made sure he was okay, watched his back... instead of feeling stupid and useless for doing something that I didn't remember...
Something that might lose me Duo forever...
Why had the other me just given up? Why hadn't he... I... grabbed fast to what Duo offered and refused to let go?
Though... even now, if Duo would be happier by himself, I'd let him go...
~*~
It surprised me the next morning after Duo left when the doctor finished examining me and said that I was healing faster than expected and I could go... though I saw the look that Quatre gave Dr. Po- it didn't look like he was surprised. I wondered why. Dr. Po went to get me some clothes and Quatre asked me what I wanted to do. Did I want to stay on L1? Did I want to go home and wait for Duo there?
When I told him that I wanted to go look at the machine, he just nodded and said he'd take me.
I didn't know Chang was coming with us until I got into Quatre's car.
I didn't know what to say to him... I knew he didn't like me, well, the other me... and he had tried to take Duo away from me.
But that had been because he loved Duo and wanted him to be happy... Duo had said I had made him happy, but maybe...
Damn it. I wish I could remember.
None of us spoke on the drive to the lab. I was surprised when we stopped outside of someplace that looked like a junkyard.
"It was a hidden lab," Quatre explained, seeing my confusion. "During the war the doctor who created it was hiding from the people in power. You helped him."
I just nodded. My head was starting to hurt and I wanted to be out of the heat. I followed Quatre through the junkyard, Wufei behind me, and wondered what I had done in this place.
My head hurt worse when we found the door, but the darkness beyond it soothed the pain for a moment- until we stepped into the lab.
"Here's where the doctor kept his notes," Quatre indicated a data screen near the door. "The machine we found you in was back there." He pointed and I walked towards the ruins of the machine.
It was ruined. I could smell smoke still, see where the panels had been pulled off...
There was something I had to do here...
"Heero?" A warm hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay? You're pale..."
My head was pounding now. I shrugged off the hand and stepped past the machine, placing my fingertips on the wall.
Without my direction, my hand moved, tracing a pattern on the metallic wall, and a part of it swung open, revealing another data screen, a headset and goggles.
"What the hell? How did you?" Wufei exclaimed from behind me.
"I don't know." I sat down at the chair and picked up the headset. My headache was fading. "I think this is where Dr. J kept his real notes..."
TBC...
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