Note: Quatre's POV
Erasure Part 12
I had a bad feeling.
A really really bad feeling. It started when Heero had gone up to a blank wall and somehow made it open revealing a secret room. It intensified when he'd lifted up a headset and told me that Dr. J had kept another set of notes.
Wufei had argued that we needed to call Sally, get her to go over the notes. She was the doctor after all. Heero had said that he was going to listen to the notes- Wufei could call Sally, that was fine, but he wasn't going to wait until she got there.
Both of them had looked to me for support, but I didn't know what to do- I doubted listening to J's notes would hurt Heero- but then there had been a lot of acting before thinking lately that hadn't worked out well.
I leaned against the wall and sighed.
Wufei had gone to call Sally. Heero had sat down to listen to the notes, putting on the headset, goggles shading his eyes. I was supposed to be watching him, making sure he didn't start to show signs of bad things happening. That was the compromise the two of them worked out...
I didn't want to tell them that if bad things started to happen I more than likely wouldn't know until it was too late to do anything.
So I leaned against the wall and tried to will the bad feeling away. But it just kept getting worse.
I tried to think about Trowa. Thoughts of him were usually calming and reassuring, but this time they just made me feel worse. I didn't like the thought of him out on that mission with Duo. I knew Duo wasn't going to be as focused as he should be...
I should've called Une, told her what was going on. She tends to think of us all as near invincible, able to ignore the other things in our lives and focus on what we need to- and usually we could... but this time...
It was just a bad feeling. I was being stupid. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to banish the bad feeling, telling myself I was being stupid. Trowa and Duo would be fine.
Don't think I'm going to make it back to you this time love...
The words dropped into my head, the tone warm and loving... It was if Trowa had spoken in my ear.
But the words themselves increased the bad feeling... Trowa couldn't be in trouble....
No. No. He had to hang on. He couldn't give up...
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I had to be imagining this. I couldn't have heard Trowa. My spaceheart didn't work like that...
"Quatre?"
Heero stood in front of me, his hands on my shoulders.
"You okay?" He asked. "You don't look good."
"I just... I have a bad feeling, that's all." I shook myself.
"Duo says you can feel things." Heero frowned. "What are you feeling?"
I leaned back against the wall. "I just have a feeling that the mission isn't going right." I tried to smile for him. "I'm sure it's nothing. Just me being stupid..."
Heero's frown deepened. Before he could say anything else, I asked: "What did the notes say?"
"It wasn't notes. It was a message for me." Heero shook his head. "Somehow he knew I'd come back here and use the machine- or want to use the machine. I guess I was supposed to listen to that recording first."
"What did he say? Is there a way to get your memory back? Does it say how to fix the machine?"
Heero turned to look at the wreck of the machine. "That one won't work again. He has another one."
"What does it do?"
"It has my memories saved on it up until the point that I left this lab-" Heero stopped as Wufei came rushing in.
"Quatre- Sally is on her way here. I have to go."
"What happened?" I demanded.
"Duo and Trowa never checked in." No... "There's been no communication from them at all. Une wants us to go get them- if you are willing."
Damn it. Of course I was willing!
Heero swallowed hard. "Do we have ten minutes?"
Wufei gave him an odd look. "It's going to take Sally 15 to get here. Why?"
Heero left the room at a run, heading back towards the lab. Wufei and I followed. He was pulling the sheet off another machine; eerily similar to the one we had pulled him out of a few days ago.
"You can't be serious." Wufei said to him as Heero's hands flew over the keyboard, powering up the machine.
"You need me- the other me- the old me. This machine will help me get those memories back." For a moment relief flooded me- we'd do much better with three, but then I realized something...
"But the doctor said he only saved up until you left here-"
Heero nodded.
"Then you won't have all of your memory back... you'll be the person you were during the war!" I wasn't sure that sounded like the best option at the moment.
"And that's who you need right now." Heero snapped. He opened the capsule and started attaching wires to himself. "The machine will take 10 minutes to finish. Wait for me."
"What if it doesn't work?" Wufei asked. "What if the doctor was tricking you?"
Heero smiled grimly. "He sounded very blunt in the recording. If it doesn't work, I'll be dead."
"Heero- get out of there right now!"
"Duo needs me." Heero met my eyes. "If you stop the cycle, I'll die." He slammed the cover shut and the machine began to hum.
Wufei swore. "This is not good."
"No kidding." I pushed my bangs off my forehead and glared at the machine. Then I whirled around and headed towards the secret room.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to listen to the recording. Come and get me when the machine stops."
Wufei muttered something else, but I missed it.
I sat down in the chair and put on the headset and goggles.
Dr. J sprang to virtual life in front of me.
"Hello, Heero. I knew you'd be back." He laughed. "Don't ask how, but I knew you would be. You want to use the machine, don't you? Things have gotten too stressful- memories from the war too bad- you'd like to soften them all wouldn't you? Or maybe it's something else? I know it's tempting, it helped you once before after all, right?" He shook his head. "And since I'm one of the ones that made you what you are it is only fair that I help repair the damage I've done.
You'll have to decide how bad things have gotten for you. I had to change my notes, hide what I've done- the original machine is now a trap- don't use it unless you want to have all of your memory wiped- and in a pretty ugly way." Dr. J's smile wasn't so nice now. "I made the thing look pretty tempting in the notes the Ozzies will steal from me- but I made a few modifications to it. But it still gives absolution- still grants the user peace of a sort."
I shivered.
"But for you, for you there is another machine here. One that will take the edges off your memory... or..." J paused. "One that will return you back to the same person you were before you left here. I caution you against that setting, though..."
Something shook me. I pulled off the headset and goggles. Wufei was leaning over me.
"What is it?"
"Can't you hear it?" He asked.
There was a weird rhythmic noise in the background, and a faint scent of smoke in the air.
I got to my feet and pelted back down towards the machine, Wufei on my heels.
The burned smell got worse the closer we got to the machine. The floor was vibrating, the noise from the machine making it thrum.
"This is not good. How long has he been in there?" I had to nearly shout to be heard over the noise.
"Eight minutes." Wufei shouted back.
"What the hell is going on in here?" Someone yelled. I turned as Sally joined us. She was early. "Please don't tell me Heero's in there!" She glared at us.
"He's in there," I told her.
"Why the hell did you let him do something like that?" The noise from the machine grew louder and smoke began pouring out of the sides. "We have to get him out!"
"He said ten minutes!" Wufei looked at his watch. "One more!"
"That machine is not going to last one more!" Sally moved to the controls, reaching for the keys, but then pulled her hands away. "It's burning hot."
The machine began to make a wheezing sound. That was Not Good. I grabbed Sally's arm and dragged her back down the hallway, Wufei right behind us.
A muffled boom rang through the room behind us and the hallway filled with smoke.
Coughing we pulled ourselves out of the hallway and into the fresh air.
"What the hell were you two thinking!" Sally turned on us the minute she caught her breath.
"He didn't give us a lot of time to discuss the situation with him," Wufei snapped. "He knew Trowa and Duo were in trouble. He knew we needed him."
Sally shook her head. "And so you let him kill himself?"
The smoke seemed to be thinning. I left Wufei to argue with Sally and I ducked back into the lab. Maybe... I didn't let myself hope too much... but there was always a chance.
The smoke was still heavy in the air, making my eyes water and my throat sting. But the door of the capsule was open. I moved closer, trying to see inside.
"04."
I whirled around. Heero stood behind me.
"Heero? You okay?"
"Well enough." I recognized the tone- cold, sharp and precise- I hadn't heard Heero speak like this since the war. "We have a mission, correct?"
"Yes. Sally's here, we can go..."
"Good." Heero turned on his heel and headed out.
I followed behind hoping that we had not just made the situation worse.
TBC...
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