Author: Sunhawk

Pairings: 1x2x1, 3x4, 5+S

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Yaoi, angst/sap, OOC, language, and a couple of OCs, Duo POV.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this series.

Thanks to Christy and Ash for beta reading and Aya for encouragement.

Dedicated to Ebonydove.

Feed-back is a dream I have...

Ion Series Part 7
Absolution

It was not as difficult as it probably should have been to convince Wufei that my nightmare had been a fluke. The man had a life, after all. An apartment. A girlfriend. A cat, for cryin' out loud. That one still got me; Wufei... with a cat. Anyway, the point was; he had a life and he wanted to get back to it. He needed to get back to it.

It took me a couple of days to get my feet back under me, but I finally managed to pull my head out of my ass and got back to the business of taking care of Heero. Wufei stayed with me a second night, and I was truly grateful... at the same time that I was extremely embarrassed. Once I got some decent sleep again, that run to L3 and back started to fade a little and I realized that I had once again demonstrated my incredible sense of timing. Or lack thereof.

Out there, between the stars, with all my fears knocking at my airlock, I had listened to Neo talk and I had let his fears feed my own until I'd had this blood-inspired piranha frenzy on my hands. I completely panicked. I should have come back and concentrated all my attention on Heero. I should have used the last of my funds to 'dry-dock' my ship and just left her there until Heero was recovered and I was able to spare the time for what I should have known was going to be a mind-bending task.

I still don't think I was wrong in the choice I made. I am not a slow individual. I like to think I'm a fairly quick study... stubborn maybe, but quick. I had it very dramatically demonstrated to me on the trip to L2 just how screwed up I was. Being a stubborn individual, I made the trip to L3 just to verify the results of my 'I can do this if I just push hard enough' experiment. All the test results were in, and they were pretty damn conclusive; Duo Maxwell was no longer a pilot. There was no need to continue the experimentation until somebody got killed. I would not be another Neo. So I stand by my decision, since it was the only one left to me, but I suppose I kinda have to take it on the chin over the timing issue.

I will say it now to all pertinent parties. I was stupid. I am sorry. I am done for now. Nervous breakdown all over; we now take you back to your regularly scheduled program.

I had managed that first night with Wufei, despite the small interruption in the wee hours, to get a decent amount of rest. Wufei hadn't dared leave the room again after returning from the bathroom to find me struggling with unseen attackers and refusing to draw breath. I think he woke hours before I did, that second time, but he just stayed until I woke on my own. I honestly don't even remember what time it was when we went to bed, but I'd be willing to bet I slept for over twelve hours... not counting the brief intermission. I was just fucking exhausted.

I woke to find Wufei sitting in bed beside me, leaning against the headboard and smiling at me in a way that made me blush all the way to my toes. He led me gently through that first day like I was made out of eggshells. Fixed me breakfast and wheedled until I ate. Helped me with the laundry so I had clean clothes. Took me back to the hospital. Led me around like a puppy, and that first day I was more than willing to be led. I was just still too damn wrung out to work up the large amount of irritation it would have taken to argue with all of them

It had been afternoon by the time we had gotten to the hospital. I was surprised at first that neither Trowa nor Quatre mentioned the fact that I hadn't been there when they arrived that morning. Surprised until I thought about it, and realized that it only meant that they had been briefed on my little stress related... incident. So I got to go through the rest of the day with the knowledge that the whole damn world knew what a screw up I was. Joy.

That day was rough. Not, I suppose, as rough as the day before it... but rough all the same.

Wufei left me alone with Heero for part of the early evening while he went home to feed his cat, shower and change clothes, but came back to the hospital in time to take me back to the apartment again at the end of visiting hours. Hours that we were being pushed to observe now that it had been demonstrated that Heero could be a good boy and stay where the hell he was supposed to.

Those few hours were... sweet, quite possibly the salve on my soul that got me through the day. Heero was very... gentle with me; not bringing up the day before, not trying to make me 'talk about it'. I was there for one of his forays up and down the hall, and got to be the one to support him and hold his arm. I had bathed him again, afterward, doing my best to put everything I couldn't say into my touch. We talked a little bit, nothing really heavy, just some reconnecting. I sat on the side of his bed and he rested his hand on my hip. We just sat for a while and... oh hell; we did the whole gazing into each other's eyes thing, ok? Shut up about it. I think LeAnn had to go lie down somewhere from a sugar overload, because I didn't see a whole lot of her during that period. But by the time Wufei showed up to get me, I felt... grounded. A little more centered.

Heero had insisted, before I left, that LeAnn fetch his car keys from his personal belongings and give them to me. It was a lovely gesture, so much so that I didn't have the heart to tell him that for the last three years, all my travel had been inter-planetary. I'd never bothered to get myself an official driver's license. I just took the keys and gave him a smile and a kiss. I've never understood his problem with public transportation, anyway.

Wufei stayed with me again that second night, fixing us dinner and helping me put a couple more boxes worth of stuff away. That stopped when he ran across my box of pictures, and we spent the next hour going through them while I spun stories to go with the faces. He laughed in all the right places, and I think he thought he was doing a good thing for me, in getting me to talk a little bit. I had been... somewhat quiet that first day. But the majority of the pictures were either from the war, or from my years just starting out in the trade... two time periods I was not all that eager to think about right then.

There were pictures of Smitty, Bernie and Havers. Some taken at McMurphy's, and a couple from a day I had popped up at their office to surprise them, taking pictures of them in 'their natural habitat'. There were some pictures of Hayden and me. Then Hayden and Toria; I was able to get a couple of laughs out of Wufei with stories of how Toria and Hayden had met. There were pictures of the kids from the home, and those made me pause a moment, guilt taking a nibble as I worried about my finances.

Then Wufei pulled out a picture of me with Hayden and Toria, taken in the cargo hold of my ship the day I took possession of her. We had set the camera up with an automatic timer and laughed like little kids, trying to get all three of us in the picture at the same time. It's the freakiest damn picture; we were in zero-g and the camera was just floating there; we might have been a little drunk as we careened around the cargo bay, trying to get in front of it as the shutter clicked. I'd thrown away half a roll of pictures of blank walls and people's feet. Only one picture had really come out; Hayden is dead center and he has one arm out, snagging his wife as she had drifted by and drawing her, giggling insanely, into the frame. His other hand had stretched out at the last minute and grabbed my braid, pulling me down into range. We are twisted every which way, all laughing uproariously. It was probably one of the happiest days of my life.

Looking at it, I knew my grinning mask slipped just a trifle, but I was relatively helpless to stop the expression that must have crossed my face.

Wufei carefully took the pictures from my hands and slipped them back in the box, putting the lid back on my life.

'I'm sorry, Maxwell,' he grunted. 'Sally tells me that sometimes I'm not the most sensitive person in the world.'

I just snorted, letting him take my memories away and put them in the drawer. 'It's ok.' We stopped unpacking for the night.

I showered and we went to bed. That is a decidedly weird statement... 'we went to bed'. Since one half of that statement was Wufei, and not Heero. It didn't help matters much that I was feeling... physically lonely. Heero has a way of... of using those hands and that body of his and taking me places that allow me to forget. Allow me to set everything aside while he's touching me. I missed him.

After the lights went out and the goodnights were said, there was a bit of silence before Wufei ventured, very softly, 'You remember you have therapy tomorrow... right?'

I think I sighed; I had kind of pushed it out of my head. I had missed two or three sessions now, I'm not even sure, and would have been more than happy to just quit. Though some part of my head knew that was a bad idea. Some small part of me was quick to point out the little signs that told me my body was feeling the lack of those sessions. I knew I needed to get back. Besides, Wufei wouldn't have reminded me unless Heero had reminded him. If I showed up at the hospital tomorrow when I should have been at the clinic, Heero was going to throw a flaming fit.

'Yeah,' I muttered and heard a slightly surprised sounding grunt. He had been putting that reminder off for some time, obviously, because he had been anticipating a fight. I sighed again. 'I'm not a total idiot.'

'I didn't say you were,' he grumbled.

I was feeling drowsy and yawned before mumbling, 'Your grunts are as expressive as Relena's little sniffs.'

He chuckled, 'That dismissive one she does?'

I laughed, delighted that someone else had noticed those. 'With her nose tilted in the air just so?'

'That's the one,' he confirmed. 'I've been on the receiving end more than once.'

I blinked into the dark for a second. 'You mean I'm not the only person in the world she would like to see boiled in oil and served to rabid dogs on a platter?'

'With soy sauce.' I could hear him grinning.

'Oddly...' I said around another yawn, 'that makes me feel better.'

He was quiet for a minute and sleep began to creep up on me. 'I didn't mean to imply you were being... an idiot,' he sighed. 'But... we weren't sure if you were intending on quitting all together... you didn't go the other day...'

He let that hang there in the air and I thought about it for a minute. 'Didn't really mean to,' I mumbled, voice feeling thick. 'But erasing your life is kinda an all day job.'

There was a shocked little grunt and I repressed a chuckle.

'That'n was your 'upset' grunt,' I told him, barely able to get the syllables out.

Warm fingers touched my shoulder. 'Go to sleep, Maxwell.'

'I'm tryin',' I mumbled, 'but s'body keeps talkin'.'

He snorted, but shut up. All I remember after that was willing myself to stay on my own side of the bed. Reminding my sleepy brain that was not Heero over there, and that rolling over to seek the warm body next to mine would be an incredibly bad idea.

I managed to wake first the next morning and fixed breakfast for him, for a change. It seemed to signal to him that I was getting my shit together. Either that, or he was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that I had gone the night without a nightmare. No one had realized, despite my fears otherwise, that I couldn't sleep alone. Wufei had only been spending the night with me because of the... breakdown I'd had at the hospital. Now that I didn't look quite like a cast member of 'Night of the Living Dead', he seemed to be relaxing his vigil. Which was fine with me. Sure, it was going to put me back with my 'where the hell am I going to sleep?' problem, but I was heartily sick of being hovered over.

To be honest, I was more than a little surprised, but pleased as all hell when he headed off to work after breakfast. I got the little reminder of therapy again just before he left, but then he really did leave. I could have danced for joy.

Of course, it didn't take ten minutes before I had to turn the stereo on to combat the silence.

I spent the couple of hours before I had to leave working around the apartment. Half the dishes Heero owned were stacked in the sink, and I still had a couple boxes full of stuff to put away. I did what I could before heading off for the bus stop. I tossed Heero's car keys in the dish by the front door on my way out.

I walked into the clinic with guilt-beast in tow and having trouble keeping my head up. I could already hear the tongue-lashing I was gonna get from Jean. I had actually considered trying to wear a long sleeved shirt to hide the gauze, but it was an ironclad cinch she was going to find out sooner or later anyway, so I just wore my regular workout clothes; running shorts and a t-shirt. My only rebellious act being the message on the front of my t-shirt; 'Due to budget cuts... the light at the end of the tunnel has been shut off'. Jean would appreciate it.

I signed in and took a seat, waiting for Jean to notice I was there and wave me into the gym. I figured she wouldn't do much more than glare at me before turning me over to the dreaded Dan... as she had promised to do if I 'screwed myself up again'. I hadn't had to work with Dan all that much, but he seemed like a guy who enjoyed his job a little too much.

She finally caught sight of me and grinned, giving me the sign to enter her domain. I could see her say something, through the big front window, but didn't think to start lip reading until I noticed her say my name. I saw several of the other patients that I had come to know over the months, stop what they were doing and turn to watch me walk through the doors.

I felt my shoulders hunching as I made my way across the room, and tried to relax. I saw her notice the bandage and waited for the explosion. I wasn't prepared for the wide grin.

'Do I know my Duo, or what?' she chortled and I heard a collective groan from the rest of the room. 'Pay up ladies and gentlemen.'

I should have been shocked that the lot of them had been betting on me... or against me, depending on how you wanted to take it. But, Jean made close to a hundred dollars from the other ten people in the room and it put her in such a good mood that she didn't even abandon me to Dan.

Of course, the gauze had to come off so she could examine the wound. There were questions and I gamely pulled out fairy dust and my patented self-deprecating grin, spinning my story again. Jean wasn't suspicious at all and I spent the entire session enduring cracks about 'stripped screws'.

She did ease my mind, somewhat, by opining that she thought I would get full movement back in my arm once the cut healed. I trusted her judgment more than any doctor's; she had more experience with the aftereffects of things. Doctors, if you ask me, can be overly optimistic sometimes. Therapists are a little more realistic.

She ran me through my workout like a damned trained dog, setting me to do an exercise and going off to start somebody else off on their routine, returning in the nick of time to make absolutely sure I didn't have time to rest before starting me on my next task. She pushed me through my entire two hours and then some, taking the time to make me work with my arm to evaluate its condition. Her parting words were, 'no more trips for you... at all. Ever. Don't even think about it.'

I didn't have the heart to tell her that she had nothing to worry about; trips were a thing of my past.

By the time I got the hell out of there, I was sweat-soaked and shaking and needing an aspirin for my throbbing arm. I had not realized how much I was favoring it until Jean had forced me to actually use it. I sat on the bench outside the clinic waiting for the bus and thought of my old afternoon naps with some fondness.

It was already after lunch, and I debated going straight to the hospital, but I knew I really had to stink. So I made a run back to the apartment for a quick shower and a change of clothes. I took a few minutes to set my laptop up and boot it, logging into the net to see if I had any nibbles on the ship.

My picture of Sisyphus greeted me after my system finished playing its 'happy music' and finally booted. I couldn't help but grin at the poor guy. 'I know just how you feel, man,' I muttered.

The two extra vacuum suits had sold. At my asking price, no less, but there were no messages about the ship yet. The income from the suits, though, would be enough to let me send some money off to Octavia and the kids. That went a long way toward making me feel... a little less like a loser.

Then it was back to the bus stop and off to the hospital.

Therapy had left me feeling washed out and I was just as happy to get to Heero's room and find him alone. I didn't want to have to make small talk with the other guys or have them looking at me like they were afraid I was going to spontaneously shatter where I sat.

Heero's face lit like Christmas morning when I walked into the room. I felt strangely light-hearted myself; I had done nothing today that I had to keep from him. The thought almost made me laugh. I had gotten a full night's sleep. I had gone to therapy. I hadn't gone down to the port. There wasn't a thing I was going to have to lie about... for the first time in a long time, I was going to be able to tell him about my whole day and not have to worry about leaving things unsaid. I was eager for a day like I'd had with him the day before. His gentle words and soft touch, his eyes on me so warm and loving.

'Did you have trouble getting the car started after it sat for so long?' he greeted me and I repressed a groan. Oh yeah... the car. Ouch. Perhaps not a day like the day before.

'I had no trouble with the car what-so-ever,' I grinned at him. Since I never went near it.

'Where'd you park?' he queried. 'Did you need money for the garage? I think they charge...'

I snorted at him and rolled my eyes. 'The car is out front.' Of the apartment. 'They don't charge if you park on the street.'

'What did you have for lunch?' he continued with his third degree and I actually frowned at him.

'The same damn thing I had yesterday!' Nothing. 'Heero... what in the hell is with the interrogation?'

He had the decency to blush and ducked his head, looking away from me. 'It's just... driving me nuts. Being stuck here and not being able...' He ended in an inarticulate mumble and I went around the bed and sat on the edge, leaning down to give him a gentle kiss.

'Can we start this over, love?' I grinned at him.

His eyes flicked up to meet mine, and he smiled sheepishly in return.

'Ok, then,' I chuckled at him. 'Hello, Heero... how are you feeling this afternoon?'

'Better,' he informed me, and I laughed.

'You've been saying that since the day I got back,' I chided. 'By your account, you ought to be feeling better now than before you got shot!'

A corner of his mouth quirked up. 'I just want the hell out of here.'

I tapped the end of his nose and then soothed it with a tiny kiss. 'Not yet, oh husband-mine. It's your turn to endure.'

His hand came up to cup my cheek tenderly. 'I just want to be able to come home and take care of you,' he whispered, voice sounding melancholy.

I sighed and shook my head ruefully. 'You've got that a little backwards, don't you, love? You want to go home so I can take care of you.'

I knew damn well he had meant exactly what he had said, but I chose to ignore it.

He caught my hand in his when I reached to stroke his hair away from his eyes. 'You scared me,' he said softly.

I guess I had just gotten the previous day because he'd thought I was still... emotionally fragile or something. Now I was going to pay for the good day with a bad one.

I dropped the feeble attempt to lighten things up and just sat looking at him for a minute, collecting my thoughts. He'd obviously been sitting here alone for some time, with nothing to do but think. 'Look, Heero... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have...'

He cut me off with a pained little sigh. 'Don't apologize. There's nothing to apologize for. I tried to tell you; you haven't dealt with the accident yet...'

I couldn't help a small chuckle. 'Heero... I think it's been dealt with. I got back in the saddle. The horse kicked the shit out of me. End of story.'

He frowned darkly and his fingers squeezed mine. 'No... that's not the end of it...'

I didn't growl, ok? It flitted through my head, but I did not growl. 'What in the hell is driving this?'

He looked vaguely guilty and glanced down at our hands, still linked together. 'Wufei... told me about the nightmare.'

I had to count to ten. Forward... and then backward.

'And did he report to you how many times I peed?' I asked him, rather proud of the level tone of voice.

He flushed, but I could see his jaw get that set to it that told me he was going to get stubborn, and I jumped in again before he could speak.

'Are you telling me you never have bad dreams?' I gritted. 'I had a fucking nightmare... find me somebody who doesn't now and again. What in the hell is the big deal?'

'He said... he said you stopped breathing,' he whispered, looking at me with wide eyes. 'He said... he said your damn lips were turning blue.'

Wufei had failed to mention that part to me. If he hadn't been there, would I have started breathing again on my own? Would I have woken myself up? Could you actually kill yourself by simply believing you didn't have any air?

I repressed a shiver that would have told him how much that revelation had shaken me. I didn't know how to answer that. I didn't know what to say to him.

Frustration danced in his eyes and suddenly he had hold of me by the shoulders, pulling me down against his shoulder where he could wrap his arms around me.

'Heero!' I yelped. 'Be careful!'

He ignored me, his fingers seeking the back of my neck and holding me against him. 'This is making me crazy,' he told me. 'I want to go home. I want to be there with you. You need me and I... I can't... I'm not able...'

He was still struggling with words that he either couldn't find, or was afraid I wouldn't hear.

'Damn it, Heero,' I growled, relaxing against his shoulder since he wouldn't let me go anyway. 'You've been taking care of me for the last stinking seven months! I am fine.'

'Fine?' he whispered, very near my ear. 'You're trembling... I can feel it.'

I sighed in exasperation and pulled back again, this time he let me sit up. I looked him squarely in the eye. 'I hadn't been to therapy in a week. Jean worked me like a trained monkey, ok? Yeah... I feel a little shaky; it will pass.'

He looked like he was choking on the knot of words trying to find their way out of his mouth.

'How in the hell would you feel?' I blurted, before he got the knot untangled. 'If our positions were reversed? Damn it, love; you scared the holy crap out of me, too. When I saw Trowa and Quatre at the dockyard, I thought... I thought...' I bit it off and looked away, eyes stinging and gut clenching in remembrance of that day.

'I'm sorry,' he murmured, reaching to touch my cheek.

'You're... you're all I have left, Heero.' I blurted, catching his hand in mine and squeezing again. 'I want to take care of you, too... I just want you safe and well... I...'

Frustration flickered across his face again. 'You're keeping something from me,' he said then, voice thick and intense. 'I can tell... even after you promised. I'm just so damn worried...'

I heaved a sigh and sat up straighter, deciding to come clean on the one point. Perhaps it would ease his mind enough that he would stop digging for the other points. 'If I freakin' tell you, will you not try to 'fix' it?'

His eyes looked so... hopeful, that guilt-beast just fucking appeared out of no-where and nailed me in the ass before I even knew he was back. Heero nodded and then amended it with a tiny little, 'I'll try.'

I snorted and glanced away from that piercing gaze. 'I don't have a driver's license.'

'What?' he murmured, blinking in surprise.

'I never fucking needed one, ok?' I said and knew I sounded defensive. 'I couldn't afford a car and the ship, too. It wasn't practical, so I never bothered with it.'

'So...' he hesitated, confused. 'How did you... I mean...'

I sighed, frustration getting the better of me. 'I did not drive the damn car illegally. I took the bus. It is no big deal... or it wouldn't be if you stopped making it a big deal. There is this lovely thing called 'public transportation' that is just a wonderful invention, maybe you've never heard of it? Great big vehicles with lots of seats inside? Somebody else does the driving?'

I shut up and looked away.

'Why didn't you just tell me?' he asked gently.

'Because,' I grumbled. 'You would have made one of the guys come all the way down here just to chauffer me around and I'm sick to death of being a pain in everybody's ass!'

'Duo!' he blurted, sounding shocked. 'You are not... '

'I am,' I said firmly. 'Before that damn accident, I was a relatively self-sufficient person. Now I'm just this blood-sucking leech...' Oooops. There went the mouth again. I felt like my thoughts had just made an end-run around my brain.

'You are not!' he scolded, suddenly looking pained. 'Don't talk like that.'

I couldn't meet that pain in his eyes, and looked away. In that instant, I wished I were free to run away. I wished that I still had a place I could run to. It hit like a damn blow, suddenly, that I was totally dependent on him now... I had no home of my own anymore. We'd been living together for over six months, but I'd always had that bolthole... that place I could retreat too if I really had to. I felt like I'd made the leap out of the airplane, and then decided to check my chute.

'Why shouldn't I?' I sighed and let my head drop back down onto his shoulder so I didn't have to look at him. 'It's the God's honest truth.'

I wanted to give in and lean. I needed to be strong and support. I wished... for a damn nap.

His hands stroked over my hair and I felt him sigh. 'You are not a... leech. They're your friends... we are all your friends... we love you and we just want to help. Let me in...'

'What would you have me do, Heero?' I asked him, and was surprised when he had a ready answer.

'Stop hiding. Stop lying. Talk to me.' He had a lot of ready answers. 'Stop trying to bear everything alone. Tell me what you're feeling... I can't read your mind, you know.'

I couldn't help a dark chuckle. 'Never thought I'd hear you admit to that one.'

There was a small silence, and then, 'They took my crystal ball with the rest of my belongings.'

He won a snicker and I raised my head to smile for him and suddenly found my lips covered with his. There was a desperation to the kiss, a voraciousness. If he had been whole and well, he would have pinned me to the bed and ravaged my mouth while he ripped the clothes off me. My body was flooded with heat and I moaned, shifting to deepen the kiss since he couldn't. We speak better with touch than we do with words. I could feel his love like a solid thing under my hands and it was something I had needed to anchor me.

When I drew back I was surprised to find his face swimming before my eyes.

'I. Love. You,' he told me forcefully while I sat and blinked my sight clear.

'Then let me do the things I have to do,' I whispered. 'I'm... feeling like the biggest damn loser on the face of the planet right now. I need this... to not fail you on top of everything else.'

'Oh, love...' he breathed and I stilled him with a soft kiss, nothing like the first one.

'Please?' I said, trying not to let it sound pleading. 'The worst is over... I know my timing wasn't the best, but it had to be done. And it is done.' I tried to quirk him a grin but only ended up blushing furiously. 'I promise; no more hysterical venting.'

'I wish you hadn't done that... to your ship,' he said softly, touching my face tenderly. 'It was too soon... you should have waited and not made the decision while you're still recovering.'

I heaved a sigh and met his eyes. His were so full of... belief in me. Full of love and... faith. I'm sure mine just looked bleak.

'Listen to me, Heero,' I told him intently. 'Physically, I will recover... some day.' I couldn't contain the discouraged sigh, wondering just how in the hell long before that happened. 'But... mentally... it's in my damn bones. That... fear has soaked in and it's not going away. I am not going to get over it. No amount of talking about it is going to make the panic stop. If we were talking about...' I wracked my brain, looking for an analogy. 'If we were talking about falling off a horse... yeah; maybe I could cope with it and eventually go on. But there's no margin for error in what I do. If I freeze or I panic on the job... somebody dies. Maybe not even me. I won't take that chance.'

His fingers tightened on my arms almost painfully. 'It... it just... tears me apart, thinking about you... going in there, all alone. I wish you had waited for me.'

I flashed on the horrendous mental picture of Heero witnessing the insane, screaming attack I had made on the room from Hell, armed with a paint stripper and fez-sporting hamsters. I shivered. 'I don't want to talk about it. It's over.'

He graced me with a pained little frown and opened his mouth to speak.

'Damnit,' I said. 'I came to spend time with you, not to get lectured!'

He relented. Praise God and Allah and little winged Cherubs; he backed the hell down. Which was a damned good thing because I was about two minutes from running out of the hospital screaming at the top of my lungs.

I busied myself for a bit, changing his water and straightening around his area. Someone had pushed his table so far over he couldn't reach it and I repositioned it. He was out of Kleenex and I found some on a cart in the hall.

He finally got around to telling me that the last of his external staples had been removed that morning. He showed me the wounds for the first time and I found that I had to sit down when my knees felt suddenly weak. I discovered his hand in mine and had to make myself not crush his fingers. It had been... a very near thing. A God damned near thing.

'It's all right,' he whispered gently.

'I know,' I whispered back, and he pulled his gown back down and let me sit in silence for a minute, holding tight to my hand.

'What you're feeling...' he said, very softly, 'is what I've been feeling for months. Only you don't have any freshly healing scars to reassure me with.'

I tore my gaze away from his abdomen and met the intense glitter of his steely blue eyes. That had been a cheap shot. One that I hadn't seen coming. I opened my mouth to speak, not knowing how in the hell to answer that. He gently stroked his thumb over my lips to stop the words that weren't coming anyway.

'Don't,' he told me. 'Just... keep it in mind, all right?'

I nodded, the most I could manage.

Dinner came then and I could have kissed LeAnn. I used her mercilessly to alter the conversation and the mood. Used the meal to head us toward our nightly routine. He ate his dinner and I gave him his bath, even washing his hair. Everything I could do for him, I did, in an effort to keep the conversation from wandering back where I didn't want to go.

Finally, it was time for me to leave and that thought hit me hard. 'Finally'; God, but I didn't want to feel that way.

We said our goodbyes and I was shocked as hell when he let me go without any admonishments over the whole stupid lack of transportation thing.

I caught the bus back to the apartment, reflecting that sitting with him through the night had been easier. I was going to have to go straight to the theatre to get any sleep at all; the showings only ran to eleven on weeknights. I wouldn't have the matinees to fall back on. I would have to get my couple of hours in immediately and then go back to the apartment and... work crossword puzzles for the rest of the night or something. I had been entertaining the idea of trying to sleep alone before Heero had informed me of Wufei's 'turning blue' comment. I somehow didn't think I'd be dozing off by myself anytime soon. I wondered idly how long before Heero was released from the hospital. That would make my damn life so much easier. At least I didn't have therapy tomorrow.

The French flick was gone, replaced by some epic historical thing. I bought my ticket, delighted to find that being a different shift, there was a different usher. I think the other guy had gotten to the point where he recognized me. I settled myself in 'my' corner seat and was asleep before the lights even dimmed. On a weeknight, there weren't a lot of people in there with me... but there were enough. There was the soft murmur of voices and the rustling of shifting bodies. It was enough.

I blinked awake when the lights came back up and my subconscious informed me the movie was over. I sat up and was suddenly aware that someone was sitting very close to me. Not three seats away. That kicked my defenses into high gear; it scared the holy shit out of me that some stranger had gotten that close to me while I was at my most vulnerable. But then the person spoke.

'Duo,' Trowa's soft voice asked. 'What in the hell are you doing?'

Three hours of sleep is not really enough. It is, in fact, just about enough to let you really sink into a good, deep sleep. So waking up from a three hour 'nap' kind of leaves your brain going, 'what the hell?' in a very blurry manner.

'Sleeping,' I told him before I had a chance to edit it. Sleep deprivation is an interrogation method, in case you didn't know that.

'Why?' You gotta love Trowa; he is such a man of few words. I resisted the urge to answer 'because'.

I realized that my mouth was on autopilot and so just shut up while my brain had a chance to blink owlishly and stagger around looking for a gear to be in.

'Duo?' Trowa prompted.

I fell back on that ages old evasion method. 'What are you doing here?' Answering a question with another question.

'I believe that is the question I asked you; what are you doing?' Guess Trowa knew that game.

I was waking up a little bit and I dared try a different tactic. 'It's been kind of a long day and I thought the movie would help me unwind... but it was kind of boring,'

There was the ghost of a sigh, a sound I don't think he had meant to let me hear. 'I've been here the whole time. You were asleep before the movie ever started.'

It was my turn to sigh, and I didn't fucking care if he heard me. 'Then what in the hell are you asking me for? You obviously know what I'm doing here.'

He frowned and started to speak again, but there was the sound of someone clearing their throat and we both looked up to find the usher standing there. The kid looked God awful uncomfortable.

'The theatre is closing,' he mumbled and we didn't have much choice but to follow him to the exit.

Outside in the cool evening air, I turned my steps toward the apartment and sighed again when Trowa fell in beside me.

'Trowa,' I asked, 'why are you following me?'

He glanced at my profile as we walked across the street. 'You have Quatre tied in knots,' he said bluntly. 'I promised that I would make sure you were all right. Quatre and Wufei... had a small disagreement about whether you were ready to stay on your own tonight.'

I growled. I gave in to the urge I'd been harboring all evening and I just freakin' growled. 'Do you have any idea what a major pain in the ass it is to have you guys acting like I'm an escaped lunatic from the dangerous criminals' asylum?'

He chuckled lightly and I was glad it was too dark for him to see the blush on my face.

'Yeah,' he agreed in a companionable manner. 'I can kind of imagine. But can you tell me why you went to the movies to sleep?' We had reached the front walk of the apartment complex and started down it.

'Honest to God, Trowa,' I told him. 'As much as I like you guys... it's really nobody's damn business.'

We were at the steps leading into the building and I hesitated, wondering if I could get him to just go away.

'You can't sleep without someone else around, can you?' he asked gently.

I whirled to look up at him. 'Is it just fucking tattooed on my damn forehead, or what?' I blurted, remembering how easily Neo had figured me out as well.

Trowa chuckled merrily, and his fingers flicked at my bangs as he pretended to scrutinize my forehead. 'Nope. Doesn't appear to be.'

I found myself sitting on the steps and after a couple of minutes, Trowa sat down beside me.

'Duo,' he said patiently, 'it's not all that surprising to anyone because it is so understandable.' He didn't touch me, but he was sitting close enough I could feel his body heat and it made me shiver. He was looking off at the streetlights or the stars or something... I'm not sure what. 'I know you weren't there on that mission when... when Quatre...' he floundered for a minute and I quietly supplied,

'Zero-system?' When Quatre had almost killed him.

He nodded sharply and we both had to take a second to shove old memories away. 'I was adrift for... hours,' he fairly whispered, and I couldn't help turning to look at him. His eyes were wide, lost in the past. I found my hand reaching to rest on his arm and he glanced at me gratefully. 'Only a couple of hours...' he repeated and I knew he was comparing his time with mine. A shiver wracked me and his hand closed over mine where it rested on his forearm. 'All the same... I couldn't bear it. I completely broke... I didn't even remember who I was when it was all over. It took me... months before I could even begin to... to...' He broke off and looked away.

'I know,' I told him. 'You don't have to tell me any more.'

He glanced at me. 'Duo, we can't understand how in the hell you've managed as well as you have.' He gave me a rueful smile. 'You have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about.'

I withdrew my hand to rub across tired eyes and blew my breath out in an exasperated sigh. 'I just feel like a total moron,' I confessed. 'Like some kind of pathetic... helpless idiot.'

'You shouldn't,' he soothed.

Sitting with him in the near dark was too much like talking to my ghosts and he was pulling more from me than I had meant to say. 'I just can't fail Heero, Trowa. Everything he's done for me... all the sacrifices he's made... he needs me now and I'm doing such a bad job of handling things.'

'Don't let what Wufei said, get to you,' he grumbled angrily. 'He had no right to say that.'

As much as he's given up for you... where the hell were you when he needed you?

I thought about that, my fingers rising of their own accord and brushing my still sore jaw. 'It was true... what he said. I should have been there.'

He snorted and glanced sidelong at me. 'You're going to stop living your life so that you can be around on the off chance that Heero is going to do something stupid?'

I found my hands curled into fists and had to stop myself from hitting the concrete steps. 'I didn't need that last job to tell me I'd lost my damn nerve!' I burst out. 'I had it rather forcibly demonstrated to me on that stupid trip with Relena! It was just my own Goddamn stubbornness that wouldn't let me face it. If I'd just been a big boy and sucked it up the first time, I would have been here. Heero wouldn't have been so stinking distracted that he let himself get shot!'

I wrapped my arms around my knees and shut up. There were a couple of minutes of quiet, and then Trowa's hand came to rest on my back. I wondered about these guys who, during the war, had been so standoffish. When had they learned to be so open? When had they learned how to be such good friends?

He rubbed gentle circles for a minute before offering, 'You wouldn't be our Duo if you didn't keep throwing yourself at impossible odds.'

I couldn't contain a snort of laughter. 'Wufei says I'm a tenacious bastard.' I was oddly proud of that.

Trowa chuckled with me. 'It's... apt.'

'I just... if I can just get by until Heero's out of the hospital,' I told him in a hushed tone. 'Everything will be all right.'

His hand stilled, coming to rest on my shoulder. 'I don't know that that's true...'

I turned to look at him, wanting to convince him that I knew what I was doing. 'No... listen, Trowa,' I told him vehemently. 'Once Heero's back, I won't have any trouble sleeping. I'm handling everything else... that's the only sticky point. I just have to get by until then. It'll fade with time... I'm sure of it. I just have to tough it out a little longer...'

He didn't look reassured. He only looked troubled. I wanted to scream; could these guys not listen to anything I said?

He didn't speak immediately, just sat beside me with his arm curled around my shoulders until I started to feel uncomfortable.

'Sometimes...' he said very softly, when he finally did speak. 'Sometimes it doesn't fade, it just lies in wait for a weak moment.'

I didn't ask, and he didn't say more. I probably should have, but I honestly just didn't want to hear about it right then. It was easier to believe that I only had to struggle through a couple of tough weeks, not that it could be a struggle I might not be able to win.

The look on his face told me he was speaking from personal experience and I felt bad that I couldn't bring myself to ask him about what he meant. Guilt-beast joined us on the steps and I had to suppress the urge to move over and make room for him.

Trowa cleared his throat after it became apparent that the conversational ball had fallen rather flat on my side of the net. 'How about we go upstairs and you pack some things and come home with me?'

I blinked up at him stupidly. 'What?' I suppose I should have seen it coming, but I hadn't.

'Quatre will be thrilled to have you,' he smiled. 'And if I'm the one who convinces you to come stay with us, maybe he'll forgive me for dragging him out of the hospital that first night.'

I didn't answer him right away, mulling it over.

'Come on, little brother,' he chuckled teasingly. 'Quatre will turn it into a party. You'll make him happy.'

I snickered. 'Little brother?'

'Well,' he grinned back. 'If you're Quatre's 'brother'... that makes you mine by default.'

My grin widened into something a little evil. 'Isn't that... incest?'

I took him by surprise and he laughed out loud, quickly cutting it off with a nervous look around at the dark apartment windows. 'Brother-in-law then,' he amended. 'Come on... let me take you home.'

He meant his home, and I knew that, but I still had to fight the urge to tell him I didn't have a home anymore... I'd destroyed it with my own two hands.

I thought about his offer and saw it for the two-edged sword that it was. Yes, in a house full of people, I could probably find a place that I could sleep without the screaming, breath-snatching nightmares. But... it would be admitting to a weakness and allowing Quatre to throw himself into full-fledged No-Holds-Barred mother-Hen mode. But I suppose I had seen on a rather personal basis that this group of guys did not keep a hell of a lot of secrets from each other. Trowa had already ferreted out my somewhat unorthodox sleeping arrangements and I was pretty sure the rest of them would know all about it before morning. I glanced at guilt-beast and turned my head to hide the smirk.

'Hope Quatre doesn't have a problem with pets,' I muttered.

'What?'

'Nothing,' I sighed. 'Ok... what the hell; why not?'

He smiled at me as though I were the one doing him the favor. I couldn't help but roll my eyes, but rose to my feet and led the way up the stairs.

I let us into the apartment and he followed me into the bedroom. 'Let me get my duffle bag and a change of clothes and I'll be ready to go,' I told him and opened the closet door.

Cold, cold hands were closing on my arms, reaching for the air tank... pulling... wrenching.

'Shit!' I wailed, confronted by a member of the Derry crew in broad fucking daylight. I staggered backward, trying to get as much space between me and the closet as I could manage. An inarticulate scream was forming on my lips. I came up hard against a warm body and I clung to that realization; a warm body. Not dead. Not a ghost. Not after my air. Warm. OhGodohGodohGod...

Steel strong arms closed around me and spun us away from the sight in front of me. Distantly, I heard the closet door slam shut. 'It's all right! It's not real! It's all right...' Trowa was calling to me, the same message over and over. When I stopped struggling to get away, he loosened his grip enough to turn me in his arms.

'Hold on to me,' he commanded, and I didn't need to be told, my hands were reaching of their own accord before he half had me turned.

His arms enveloped me, holding me tight enough to bruise. My brain was firing off sporadic commands, sending out confused little hamsters who couldn't make up their minds if this situation fell under 'fight', 'flight', or 'cling'. I finally decided to listen to the thought-hamster who only arrived with a banner that read; 'holyshit!'.

I felt light-headed, almost like I couldn't breathe. My hands were fisted in Trowa's shirt and some small part of my functioning brain was mortified about the position I found myself in.

'You're all right,' he kept telling me, his voice calm and soothing. 'You're in your room. I'm right here with you. Everything is all right. Stop panting...'

I didn't know I had been until he pointed it out and I struggled then against instinct to make myself quit. My heart was hammering so hard my chest hurt.

One of his hands shifted and pressed the side of my head against the center of his chest. A stray hamster took a moment to stop his hysterical skittering to point out to me how damn tall Trowa was.

'Calm down,' he said gently. 'Listen to my heartbeat... concentrate on the sound of my heart.'

I could feel it, slightly quickened, but not the mad pounding of my own. It was... soothing. It gave me a grounding point.

'Take a deep breath,' he ordered. 'Hold it... hold it... now let it out, slowly.'

When he felt me complying, he eased off on his tight grip. 'Again,' he commanded, and, 'again.' Until my own heart began to slow and calm. Until I could breathe without every inhalation catching in my throat.

I felt myself breaking into a cold sweat, having only a moment to register it before I began to shake.

It seemed to signal something to Trowa and his embrace became more gentle, his mantra less exact. 'It's ok... it's ok now. I've got you... I'm here.' Just vague nonsense that he continued until I was able to force my hands to let go.

How stinking mortifying.

'I... I'm sorry,' I choked out.

'Hush,' he reprimanded, ignoring my efforts to pull away. 'Duo... why the hell is there a vacuum suit in your damn closet?'

I... giggled. I couldn't help it; it just burst out. I managed to stop it though, along with the next thing I had wanted to ask; you mean it's real? You saw it too? I was terrified that it would turn into one of those hysterical sobbing routines again.

'I... I couldn't let it go... with the ship,' I managed to gasp. 'It was almost... almost my damn final resting place... it didn't seem... right to sell it.'

His hand stroked over my hair. 'Damn it,' he muttered.

'I forgot it was in there,' I confessed sheepishly, and it was his turn to stifle an odd little chuckle.

He turned us and walked me slowly toward the little adjoining bathroom. I wanted to protest, but I was still shaking like a leaf and felt like my legs were made of something unpleasant... like gummy worms, maybe. When we got there, he turned on the cold water and I didn't have to be told to splash my face with it. When I finally raised my head and confronted my own dripping reflection, I looked wide-eyed and pale as a ghost. I met Trowa's worried gaze in the mirror over my own shoulder and I had to fight not to let myself seek shelter in his arms again.

'I am so sorry,' I muttered. 'It just took me by surprise... I completely forgot the damn thing was in there.'

He opened his mouth to say something and then seemed to think better of it. 'Let's just get out of here,' was what he ended up saying.

I nodded and he stepped back to let me out of the bathroom. I don't know what he was expecting, but it obviously wasn't for me to stride back across the room toward the closet.

'Duo!' he yelped and came after me, certain, I think that I was about to trigger another... daymare. Hallucination. Trip to the land of weird.

I took a deep breath and jerked the damn door open before he could get to me. The little kid in my head squeezed his eyes shut.

My vacuum suit was in my closet. I regarded it for a moment, but it didn't have the insignia of the Londonderry on the breast. There was no flash-frozen corpse in it. It did not want my air. I reached passed it and grabbed my duffle bag. I remembered to breathe.

When I emerged, head and psyche intact, Trowa was regarding me with a slightly frightened expression. 'You don't waste a hell of a lot of time getting back on the horse, do you?'

'Why waste time?' I joked ruthlessly and it might have actually gotten a laugh if my voice hadn't been shaking so bad.

He moved out of my way while I went to the dresser and packed up a couple of changes of clothes and some toiletries with trembling hands.

'Ready?' I asked when I was done and he just came with a grim little, exasperated shake of his head and took the bag from me, ignoring my protests.

'Yeah...' he sighed. 'Let's go.'

By the time we got to his and Quatre's place it was almost midnight. But at least I had stopped shaking like a kitten in an icebox. Trowa even let me walk up the front steps without a hand under my elbow, something he hadn't done on the way out of the apartment.

'I don't suppose,' I speculated without any real hope, 'there's any point in my asking you to keep that... awkward little incident to yourself?'

He snorted, not without a certain amount of sympathy, 'the lot of us learned a long time ago that secrets only cause trouble.'

Ouch. Well, wasn't that a prettily stated reprimand? I flushed to the roots of my hair and couldn't think of a thing to say in return. This was promising to be a long damn visit; I already doubted I'd made the right choice and we weren't even in the front door yet.

Trowa opened that front door and ushered me inside. Within seconds, I heard the sound of rushing footsteps. 'Trowa? Did you find him? Did you get to talk to him? Is he all right...?'

The blush I was suffering with deepened to a hitherto unknown shade of red. Quatre came into the foyer then and his face lit up with a bright smile, his eyes taking in the duffle bag that Trowa had relinquished back to me. 'Duo! You've come to stay with us?'

I sighed and cast a glance up at Trowa, who was smiling amusedly. Whether at my discomfiture or Quatre's obvious relief... I'm not sure. 'Well, Trowa here seemed to think it would... be a good idea.'

They shared one of those annoying damn glances while I looked around and tried not to notice. Then Quatre came and gave me a fierce hug. 'I'm glad you listened. Come on, and we'll find you a room...'

There was the sound of Trowa clearing his throat and Quatre glanced at him. I felt the tingle of communication, and signals passed. I sighed heavily.

'Can we not do this?' I blurted.

'What?' Quatre blinked at me, looking tense.

'This whole dance,' I said, struggling to keep the irritation out of my voice. 'Trowa is going to take you off to the side and explain things to you and then you're going to come back and try to act like you don't know, while you figure out how in the hell we're going to get through this mess.' I looked from one of them to the other and was gratified to finally see Trowa blush. 'Here's the deal, Qat; I can't sleep in a room by myself. That's why I'm here. I have wake-the-dead, screaming nightmares every time I try.'

I wondered idly what my blood-pressure reading was. I thought about asking for hamster food, because the little guys were starting to file in with their waving thought-banners.

'Loser!'

'Psycho.'

'Failure.'

'Dinner?'

'Wimp.'

'Shower?'

And my personal favorite, George; the bearer of the all-purpose exclamation banners. Tonight, his simply read,

'Fuck.'

I liked George; he was starting to grow on me.

Quatre was looking at me with that wide-eyed, misty expression that always makes me want to turn and run away. He'd worn that expression a lot during the first month after the accident. Thinking back, I realized it was darn familiar from the period of time when I flash cooked my hands, too.

'Oh, Duo,' he said gently and I watched the guy do the most amazing transformation. One minute it was just sweet, little Quatre looking at me like he wanted to wrap me in a baby blanket and cuddle me on the couch, and the next he turned into some sort of domestic Major General.

Servants were summoned and terse orders were issued. Someone was directed to see that a dinner was put together and brought to the 'green room'. Another one was instructed to 'run a bath' in that same room. Yet a third was told to run ahead and prepare said room with 'fresh linens'. I was relieved of my duffle bag and it was sent off with servant number three.

I realized pretty quickly that I was going to be spending the night with Quatre. Somehow it wasn't what I had expected, but should have been. I guess I'd had some vague notion of a Maganac bunkhouse or something. How silly of me.

I looked back at Trowa once, as Quatre was shepherding me off to the 'green room', with a somewhat forlorn look. Trowa only grinned at me and waved good night.

Quatre did, at least, dismiss the servants after their errands were complete and I was very grateful. I'd had a couple of scary damn visions of Winner employees stripping me buck-naked and scrubbing me pink in a bathtub full of scented water.

I found the bath to be... weird. I'd always used showers or, at the orphanage, washed out of a pot of water heated on the stove. It seemed strangely... counterproductive to wash while sitting in the dirty water. How could you really be clean? I could hear Quatre moving around in the bedroom, arranging things the entire time I was bathing. It was tempting to just stay in the stupid tub, I felt too damn worn out to deal with him. And yes, the damn water was scented. Some kind of lavender thing.

The room, thank God, sported a pair of twin beds, and I at least was not going to have to endure another night of sleeping with somebody who wasn't Heero. Wufei's presence the last few nights had been... somewhat welcome for the obvious reason, but had only served to rub my nose in my loneliness.

When I emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in several towels, I found a borrowed pair of pajamas laid out neatly on the bed that had obviously been designated as mine, judging from the presence of my duffle bag on it.

Quatre was already dressed for bed and was working at a table across the room, with his back discreetly turned. I quickly donned the silly pajamas with a sigh; when in Rome and all that. Suppose there was no point in telling him that if I wore anything to bed at all, it was just a pair of underwear. When I was done, I turned my attention to what he was doing and found him setting out a meal that would have fed a family of five for a week.

'Good God, Quatre!' I blurted. 'Please tell me Trowa and half the Maganac corps are eating with us!'

He flashed me a totally unabashed grin. 'Just you and me.'

I dropped the damp towels on the end of the bed and moved around to the little table in the corner, feeling ridiculous in the burgundy nightclothes; I felt like a little kid. Though I doubted many kids outside the Winner family wore silk pajamas.

Quatre sat down in one of the straight-backed chairs, and I had little choice but to sit down opposite him. I eyed some of the stuff on the table dubiously; not even able to identify it.

'Quatre...' I began, not at all sure what I wanted to say to him, but a glance up at him showed me the most heart-breaking, crestfallen look, and I had to gift him with a warm smile. 'It all looks so good, I don't know where to start.' His smile was back instantly and I almost sighed; he was still that same, old Quatre after all these years. Everything he felt was written right across his face. I never had gotten around to teaching him to play poker.

He began to dish things onto my plate since I couldn't seem to make up my mind 'where to start'. The only thing I even recognized where the steamed vegetables. I nibbled at those until he took a bite of his strange oblong shaped, breaded something or other so I could at least see what in the hell to expect. I mimicked his method of cutting into it, having seen that it was full of some sort of sauce and pieces of what looked like chicken. It wasn't bad, though I would have been just as happy with a nice ration bar. It might not have been hot, but it would have been a hell of a lot easier to clean up after.

I was so engrossed in trying to figure out what was on my plate, that I guess an uncomfortable silence ensued.

'Duo,' he asked gently. 'Is something wrong?'

I had to flash him a rueful smile. 'Qat... have you ever even had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?'

He blinked at me. 'No, but I'm sure the cook would know how to make one... I'll call for...'

'No!' I laughed out loud despite myself, raising a hand to keep him from leaping to his feet. 'This is fine! I just... I mean... Just what in the hell is this stuff?'

He looked at me as though I had just walked in and asked him why the sky was blue. 'Chicken-cordon-bleu... don't you like it?'

There had been an 'of course' in that pause, I was sure of it, and again resisted the urge to sigh.

'It's fine, but I'm a fairly... simple guy, you don't have to have anybody go to all this trouble just for me.' I ate another fork-full of the stuff just to prove to him that the meal was all right.

'The cook just heated up some of what she served for dinner this evening, Duo,' he reassured me. 'It was really no trouble.'

I reflected that the peanut butter would probably have given her more trouble; I'd be willing to bet there had never been a jar of the stuff in the house.

One of my thought-hamsters jogged out long enough to point out to me how worlds-apart Quatre and I were when you got right down to it.

We ate in silence for a few more minutes and then Quatre, his attention carefully on his plate, said, 'What happened to us?'

'What?' I blinked across the table at him, trying to squelch the fish imitation that I tend to do when people blind-side me with these sudden, personal questions.

'We used to be able to talk about anything,' he sighed remorsefully, his eyes seeming to see something other than his... weird chicken stuff and vegetables.

'There was a war going on, Qat.' I smiled at him. 'Emotions... run pretty high when you could get your ass killed at any minute.'

He looked very sad, stirring his food around. 'Are you saying that... do you mean you don't...'

I laughed at his floundering, taking the opportunity to lay my fork aside. 'I thought you made your living doing political maneuvering? Handling delicate negotiations in the board-room?'

He blushed, his eyes flicking between me and his plate. I struggled with the overwhelming desire to stand up and flee. To just run out the door, burgundy damn silk pajamas and all, and not look back. He didn't answer the teasing and I knew the verbal ball was still in my court.

'Quatre... a lot of time passed, that's all,' I told him with small sigh. 'We all moved on... drifted apart...' I hesitated, understanding that the truth of that statement lie mostly with me. They hadn't drifted. They had moved on... together. I had missed out on that. I had been so... tired and scared, so raw and hurt that I had just run. I had run far and fast, and tried my damnedest not to look back. While they had all been there to support and help each other, I had... struggled through all the after effects of losing my youth fighting in a war... with only the support of my sad little ghosts and my own, damned self.

Wow. That sweet, chocolaty coating that is Duo Maxwell covers up a nice gooey center of bitter, bitter crap, doesn't it?

I was completely unaware of the fact that I had stopped talking and was just sitting with my head hanging, my hands dangling between my knees until Quatre took me by the shoulders.

'Allah... I am so stupid,' he murmured and I'm not even sure how he had gotten around the table without my noticing. 'You don't need this right now... I am so sorry, Duo.'

I muttered something that didn't even make sense to me, and didn't fight it when he pulled me to my feet.

'I just miss you,' he told me simply. 'I miss having my 'big brother' to talk to.'

I think if I had tried to answer him I would have burst into tears, so I held my tongue, managing only to return the hug he was suddenly giving me. After a few moments, he guided me over to the bed and helped me climb in. I shivered, remembering Sister Helen tucking us in at night, and only thanked God he didn't try to kiss my forehead.

So... there you have it. That was my life for the next while. Nights at the Winner-Barton household, afternoons and early evenings at the hospital, alternating mornings at therapy. I wasn't fighting with quite so much on my plate, having only to deal with a handful of tasks.

I closed the deal on the two spare vacuum suits and made the arrangements for their delivery. That allowed me to send some money off to Octavia, and I finally sat down and wrote her the little note I had been avoiding, explaining sketchily about my sudden lack of employment, apologizing for the slow-down in funds and promising to send what I could. They did not rely entirely on me, of course, but I knew what a difference the supplement had made.

Quatre insisted that one of them take me wherever in the hell I had to go in the mornings, to either the hospital or therapy. I was a little surprised that they allowed me to get myself from therapy to the hospital on my own, but I was seldom left to return to the Winner estate in the evenings by my own devices. Trowa usually arrived at the hospital an hour or so before the end of visiting hours, spent some time with Heero and then took me back to his place.

I stopped equating myself with Sisyphus so much, and started thinking... plow mule. With those little blinder things that they put on them to keep them focused on the path. Yep. I had this row to plow; just strap me in the old harness and set me on my way. One step in front of the other... just keep going. Slow and steady. No problems here.

After the first couple of days I thought I was going to self-destruct. If someone had handed me one of those old detonators, I think I would have howled with glee and punched that damn plunger down without a second thought.

By the third or fourth day, I was losing track, I was desperate for some damn privacy and connived to get to therapy early. Jean was able to work me in and then I turned on every ounce of charm I ever even thought I had, until she turned me loose, cutting the session short. I fairly ran out of the clinic, not wasting my precious time waiting on the bus, but flagged down a cab and fled back to the apartment with a maniacal grin on my face. Free! Free at last! Well, for a couple of hours. It was probably all the privacy I was going to be able to bear anyway, before my irrational fears started kicking in, but for the moment... it was pure bliss.

I think that was a large part of what was making me nuts; all of my wants were warring with all of my fears. I wanted my ship back. I was afraid to pilot. I craved the feeling of zero-g. I was terrified of hard vacuum. I was more than used to having privacy and time to myself. I was suffering with isolophobia. It was like some kind of cruel, cosmic joke. Like the horse chasing the carrot on the stick only to discover it was poisoned. Or at least really damn bitter.

At first, I fully intended to throw myself down on the sofa and just spend my few hours listening to my music, but my guilty conscience wouldn't let me. Once I had the stereo going and was sprawled bonelessly across the couch, the time began to feel like it was trickling through my fingers like sand. So I thought about everything I'd been missing. I cranked up the music and went to the kitchen to fetch a bottle of soda and a ration bar. Then I went to shower in a real shower, with my own towels and my own shampoo. I walked around afterward buck-ass naked, letting my hair air-dry a little bit before I braided it.

With all my indulgences out of the way, I thought hard about what needed doing, and booted my laptop to check my messages. I had the receipt from my money transfer to Octavia and a query on the ship. I had to swallow down the lump in my throat before I was able to answer the guy's series of questions about the ship's history and specs. I fired off my response and filed the original message where I wouldn't have to look at it in my in-box, staring at me accusingly.

After I cleared the junk mail, the only thing left was a message from Toria and Hayden, which I opened with a grin, eager to hear what was going on with my two friends.

Hey Buddy-boy! What the fuck is going on! The boards show your Goddamn ship is up for sale! What do you think you're doing?! If that rat-bastard Heero is making you sell your baby, you tell him I'm coming after him, and I'm gonna kick his ass! I never was sure about him, not after he refused to call the damn medics when you passed out at the expo. This isn't funny, Duo Maxwell; I want to know what's going on and I want to know right now!

We love you,

Toria and Hayden

I blinked at the screen of my laptop for a minute and then just shut it down. I couldn't answer her right now. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I didn't think either one was a good idea right then, so I just didn't think about it.

The receipt had made me think about the money that I wasn't going to be able to send to the home, though. So I thought about that instead. Before the accident, the funds that I had supplied had accounted for most of the extras those kids ever saw. If there was any one thing that I could point to that was eating away at me; that was probably it. That I was letting Octavia and the kids down.

That made me think about my stupid vacuum suit in the closet. It was completely irrational for me to hang on to the damn thing. I no longer needed it. It was worth a hell of a lot of money. The kids could use that money and I was being a total jerk for hanging on to it when I could sell it.

I left my laptop and went into the bedroom. There was a moment of hesitation when I got there, remembering the weird... flashback thing that had happened the last time I had opened that closet door. But I hadn't been prepared then; I knew what was in there now and wouldn't be taken by surprise again. My hand shook when I reached for the knob anyway.

I didn't give myself a chance to think about it, but grabbed hold of the damn thing and hauled it out into the light of day. I needed to go over it, make sure it hadn't been damaged, make sure it had been cleaned to specs. I'd been stuck in it a little longer than the regs stated was... recommended. I would salve my guilt over not being able to send as much money to the kids, by selling the suit. I would salve my unease over getting rid of the suit by sending one hundred percent of the profits to the kids. There... neat little solution, if I do have to say so myself.

I dumped the thing on the floor and began by checking the seals. I tried not to think too hard about being on the inside of the damn thing. I tried not to think... period.

When my thought-hamsters began their parade, little thought banners flying, I snarled, 'Shut the hell up!' to no one in particular, and they ran off to regroup. George was the last to go, dragging a 'what the hell?' banner without much enthusiasm.

My fingers were on automatic, checking filters, inspecting seams, opening all the flaps on the utility belt. Then my fingers found something... unexpected.

Something stowed in the main carrying pouch. Something hard and oblong. I pulled it out.

'What the hell?' I muttered and thought I heard a hamster giggle.

My trembling hands twitched in a violent shudder and the book fell from my fingers. A book. It took me several long seconds to figure out what it was, where it had come from, and how it had found its way into my pouch.

The journal of the Captain of the Londonderry. He of the flash-frozen blood crystals. The very man who led his crew through my nightmares on a fairly regular basis.

Another long moment's thought told me the rest of it. The book whose retrieval had cost me the precious final moments I had needed to get off the Londonderry before he had parted ways with the Randy Wench.

The little thing lay on the carpet on the floor of my room in Heero's apartment and looked... very innocent. The thing had actually been my damn downfall, when you got right down to it. If I hadn't gone back for it, I would have made it off the ship before the accident. I would have been on the right side of that tether when it broke. It never would have happened. I looked down at the unassuming thing and didn't know what to say... what to think. I wanted to be angry, but it just wouldn't come.

George left his brethren behind for a moment to scamper out and present me with a thought; 'son of a bitch'.

So I obliged him. 'Son of a bitch,' I said, but it didn't really help. I shrugged at George and he shrugged in return and trotted off to try again later.

I found my hands reaching for the journal. I just sat on the floor and held it for a bit, but my little thought-producing buddies deserted me for a change and I couldn't quite make up my mind what I should do with it. There was a momentary urge to fling it across the room, but it was too short-lived to come to fruition. I finally decided that I didn't want to be sitting in the same room with both the suit and the journal, and so wandered with it out to the living room. I ended up curling into the corner of the couch and eventually I ended up opening the cover.

Captain James Lyle Camden.

I read the name on the title page and closed the book again. Captain half-face had a name. I shivered again and wondered about why it seemed so cold of a sudden. James Lyle Camden. Had his friends called him Jim? Jimmy? Or maybe JC? Had he even had any friends? Had he been a good Captain? He'd gone down with his ship, that said something, didn't it? I suppose the answers to a lot of the questions running around my head were right there in my hands.

Captain Camden. The Captain of the Londonderry. The man whose ship I had defiled. One of the ghosts who kept me from sleeping when no one was around to guard my rest.

I couldn't believe that I had forgotten the damn thing. It had been stuffed there, in the 'pocket' of my vacuum suit for... months now. Ever since that moment that a piece of space debris had found its way, in all the vastness of space, to that tiny little place occupied by my steel, twenty-four gage, tether line.

This book had cost me my life and I was afraid to open it again. What if there wasn't even anything in it? What if it was just the guy's duty roster? What if it was just his damn inventory? Did I really want to know that I had given up everything I was and everything I had dreamed, for... what now lay in my lap?

I couldn't get my head out of that moment. When I had turned back down that dark corridor, my flash beam bobbing ahead of me as I returned to that room after that damn, damn book. I could still see the body, hanging in 'mid-air'. I could still see the dark red crystals dancing about, adding to the weird undersea imagery.

If I had just gone on. If I had just left the damn thing. I could, quite suddenly, pin the end of my life down to one defining moment. The second that I had stopped on my flight from the ship and gone back after Captain Camden's journal. It was like his ending his own life had left a trap waiting across all those years until I had blundered into it, and it had ended mine as well. My fingers moved to open the cover of the book so many times that I lost count. I was so cold.

I balanced the journal on the arm of the sofa and curled up tighter, drawing my legs up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. I lay my head down next to the book and stared at it. Did I really want to know? I couldn't say, so I just stared at it.

'Duo?' a voice was calling and I jerked upright as the apartment door swung suddenly open. I blinked up with gritty feeling eyes, and found,

'Wufei?'

'Maxwell!' he snapped, and looked oddly uncomfortable. 'Are you all right?'

'I... I guess so,' I told him, feeling terribly confused. 'What's wrong?'

He came across the room to stand over me, where I still huddled in the corner of the couch, but he seemed oddly reluctant to really look at me. He kept trying to meet my gaze, but his eyes kept sliding away.

Maybe I could get Wufei to look in the book for me? Maybe... maybe he would sit here with me and read some of it to me, if I asked him? Maybe he wouldn't even mind if I leaned against him a little bit... he was terribly warm and I was still so damn cold. They kept telling me that they were my friends and that they wanted to help me. They kept offering me their touch... kept insisting that we were all brothers, in this together. Was it... acceptable to ask? Was it ok to reach out and tell one of them that I needed to be held for just a tiny little minute?

I looked up at him, raising a hand, looking for a way to ask for what I didn't know how. Then he frowned, looking confused.

'Maxwell,' he chided gently. 'What in the hell are you doing? You scared Heero to death; he was expecting you over an hour ago. And... and where are your clothes?'

George darted out and did his job, supplying me with my next line;

'Shit!'

I scrabbled after the afghan and felt myself spontaneously combust. I was sure of it; I was about to burst into flame. Wufei looked just about as red and I growled something incoherent that caused him to turn away while I ran for the bedroom, and more importantly, my clothes.

Well... that probably left a lasting impression. God, where in the hell was my head? The short answer to that would be... the asteroid belt.

I dressed in a clean shirt and jeans and went back into the living room, still braiding my hair. I started to tell him to call Heero, but he was already on the phone.

'... on the couch.' I heard. 'Must have dozed off... No... No... He's awake now. Let me check.'

Wufei turned his attention to me, and while my face was still flushed warmly, his seemed to have returned to his normal color.

'Heero wants me to tell you that if you're tired, you should just stay home today.' I could tell from the tone of his voice that he knew damn well there wasn't any point in even asking, so I just rolled my eyes at him and he smirked back. 'He's fine, Yuy,' he said into the phone. 'We're on our way.'

'Tell him...' I suddenly blurted, not sure what moved me to do it, 'it may be a few minutes.'

Wufei quirked a questioning eyebrow in my direction, but relayed the message to Heero and then hung up.

'Duo,' he asked gently. 'What is going on?'

'Listen,' I began earnestly, trying to get it out before I had too much chance to think about it. 'Can I ask... Would you mind... I...'

He looked oddly amused, which wasn't helping things much, and I dropped my eyes. 'Never mind. I need to find my boots.'

I fled back to the bedroom, grabbed my boots and a clean pair of socks and threw myself down on the side of the bed to put them on. Stupid. What had I been thinking?

I was aware of Wufei's presence in the doorway before I was half done. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him taking in the sight of the vacuum suit sprawled out on the floor and his expression was doing the strangest little dance. I'm sure he'd heard all about my... incident with the suit earlier in the week.

I stood when the boots were on, and headed toward him. 'You ready to go?' I asked brightly.

'No,' he said gently, but firmly. 'Not until you finish what you were going to say.'

I stopped, but he wasn't budging, I could tell.

'I'm sorry,' he told me. 'I'm just not used to you struggling with words, you've always been... terribly eloquent when you wanted to be.' He smiled softly. 'Please... whatever you wanted to ask me... it's yours.'

My hand started to reach out and I turned it into a nervous brush of my fingers through my hair. He seemed serious enough. He seemed like he meant it. Maybe...?

I found myself looking at my toes. 'When I got stranded... I was on my way out. I was leaving... I'd already downloaded the data and I was... damnit... I was leaving...' I stopped for a minute because my voice was getting... strained, already. 'The Captain of the ship... he opted to... he decided to go with his ship... he shot himself. In his cabin.' There was an uncomfortable minute while I picked through words. 'At the last minute, I realized that a man who... that a guy who would do that would probably have left... something. I went back...'

'You went back,' he repeated, as if he needed clarification. I nodded, miserable.

'Yeah... I was... almost out, and I went back.' I blinked and dared a glance up at him.

'Ah hell, Duo,' he murmured and then answered the need I had been unable to voice, and pulled me carefully into his arms. He did it slowly, as though afraid he might spook me, but I'd been alone all morning and the little boy who lived in my head was crying out desperately for someone to hold onto. It was the little kid who threw his arms tight around Wufei's neck and clung with bruising strength, not me.

His breath went out in a tiny little gasp, caught by surprise, I think.

It was easier to talk somehow, with my head buried in his shoulder, 'The Captain had a journal. I took it... was just getting ready to leave his cabin again when... when it happened.' He stroked a hand up and down my back and made tiny, soothing little sounds, but I barely heard. 'I forgot about the thing... can you beat that?' I choked on a laugh. 'Sold my life for that damn book and I forgot about it... I just found it this afternoon. Wufei... I'm afraid to look in it. I don't know what in the hell I'll do if... if that stupid thing... if I killed myself for nothing.'

His arms tightened around me. 'Stop saying that,' he commanded almost angrily. 'You did not kill yourself. Don't say that.'

All I could do was nod against his shoulder.

'Where is it?' he asked then, his voice much gentler.

'In... in the other room,' I told him with a shiver. 'I was trying to make myself read it.'

'Come on,' he said calmly. 'Show me.'

I lead him back to the couch and we sat down together. I didn't lean against him, as I had thought about earlier. But then... putting clothes on had gone a long way toward alleviating my chill. I felt myself flushing again, thinking about the picture I must have presented when he had burst into the apartment. I picked up the journal and held it in my hands.

'Quatre makes me wear pajamas,' I muttered, by way of explanation, but I doubt he had a clue what I was talking about anyway.

He either followed my thoughts, or didn't care. 'The silk ones?' he grinned and I nodded.

'They're... hot.' I grumbled while my fingers toyed with the edges of the book.

'I don't like them either,' he commiserated, and gently pulled the thing from my hands.

'James Lyle Camden,' I said.

'What?' he asked, a puzzled frown gracing his features.

I nodded toward the book he now held. 'I... got that far. Captain James Lyle Camden.'

He opened it. No more trouble than that. I almost laughed, but was more than well aware where that would lead. Contrary to my earlier thoughts, I found myself leaning against the arm of the couch, away from him, where it was impossible to see the pages.

He was silent. He turned some pages. He read. He turned some more pages. He read some more. I found the end of my braid in my hand for lack of anything to shred into confetti.

'Come on, Wufei,' I croaked, after what seemed like a half an hour, but probably wasn't five minutes. 'What the hell is it... his damn laundry list, or what?'

He jerked guiltily. 'I'm sorry Duo. No... this is most definitely not just a manifest list. This is the Captain's diary.'

I let out a breath that I hadn't known I'd been holding. I opened my mouth to speak, but found my throat too dry to manage it, so I just nodded again.

Wufei carefully closed the journal and I suddenly felt the need to be elsewhere. Was flirting like hell with the ragged edges here, and I didn't trust myself all of a sudden. I was not going to have another one of those damn humiliating breakdowns. Especially not in front of Chang Wufei... again.

I rose, rather abruptly, and went off to the kitchen. I pulled a bottle of my soda out of the fridge with slightly trembling hands and downed half of it right there, with the door still open and a cloud of frosty air billowing around me. The thought of a beer flitted through my mind, but honest to God? I had been kind of afraid to touch any alcohol at all recently... afraid that I might find that it helped and I wouldn't be able to stop.

The Captain's diary. Well, that was something, at least. Some small consolation, that I had not sold all my dreams for Captain Camden's little black book or something.

That almost produced a chuckle, but I knew better than that and bit down on my tongue until the urge passed. I shut the refrigerator door and turned to lean against the counter. Wufei was in the kitchen doorway, watching me try to cope. He must have decided that I wasn't coping well, because he came across the room toward me.

'Don't, Wufei,' I whispered, but he didn't listen. Wufei never listens.

He caught me by the shoulders and forced me to meet his eyes. 'There are messages in there, at the last, to his wife and children. A dying man's last words to his family... it was worth the effort to try and retrieve it.' I choked down a sob and he pulled me against his chest. 'I won't say it was worth the price you've paid... but it wasn't 'nothing'.'

He let me hang on until I could breathe without it hitching in my throat. I was shaking with the effort of not letting it turn into full-blown tears.

'Can we go to the hospital now?' I asked when I could manage it. I really needed to go to the hospital. To Heero.

He nodded against my shoulder. 'But you're coming home with me tonight, or I'm coming here with you. We're going to do some reading; there are some things in that book that you really need to hear.'

He left me in the kitchen to finish my soda, and when he came back to get me, he was carrying Heero's duffle bag. Packed with things for me, presumably. Guess that meant I was going to his place tonight. I was starting to feel like a foster child.

He drove us to the hospital and we walked up to Heero's room together, I don't know what his intentions were, but I suspected they involved me and the word 'glue'.

Heero, of course, was worried as hell and while I would have been more than happy to tell some pretty, soothing little lie about falling asleep on the couch after therapy, I suspected Wufei would not. Sure enough, before I could open my mouth he jumped in and told the whole damn thing right down to the naked part. I glared at him, for all the damn good it did.

I wondered, sometimes, about that whole 'truth and nothing but the truth' thing they did with each other any more. I didn't remember any of them being so damn tight assed about the honesty kick during the war. In fact, I remembered being teased a couple of times about my own code of not lying. It had been a pretty childish whim of mine, I guess. I had tried for years to maintain that code, in honor of Father Maxwell, until reality had risen up and shown me the impracticality of it.

'But you're all right?' was Heero's main concern when the story was told.

'I'm fine,' I reassured him with a sigh. 'I just lost track of time.'

A strange little frown crossed his face and he gave me an appraising glance. 'Why in the world were you... I mean...' His eyes flicked in Wufei's direction and he flushed slightly. I suppressed - see how good I'm getting at that? - the urge to pull my hair out by the roots. I'll bet there wasn't a one of these guys who could pass a can of worms and leave it unopened. I spared a scathing look in Wufei's direction that I hoped imparted my extreme happiness with him in that moment.

'Look,' I growled. 'Quatre is a sweetheart. I adore him. He is wonderful. But... he is making me insane. He supplies me with these ridiculous, miserably uncomfortable pajamas and fully expects me to sleep in them. He keeps feeding me shit I couldn't identify if I was given the cookbook it came out of. I don't think there is such a thing as a soda in the entire damn estate. The man has people who... who run his damn bathwater, for Christ's sake!' I had warmed to the subject matter despite myself and had to force my voice down to a more normal level. 'I needed a break. I conspired to get a couple of hours to myself and I hid out at the apartment, where I proceeded to use a shower, in water that was not scented with something weird, ate a damn tasty ration bar, swilled Mt. Dew and sat around buck-naked just because I could. Ok? I was not aware that anyone else had a key to your apartment. I was not expecting company.'

Wufei was chortling insanely, trying to control it and failing miserably. Heero... somehow, just managed to look even more upset.

'What,' I snapped, before I could stop myself, 'the hell is wrong now?'

Pain washed across his face and he whispered, 'When did you stop thinking of our apartment as your home?'

Whoa. Sucker punched. I felt the need to sit down, but wasn't anywhere near the chair. But, damn, did it serve to shut off Wufei's hysterical chuckling.

When did I stop thinking of it as my home? Had I ever? Yeah... I think so. When had things changed? I wasn't really sure.

The look on Heero's face made guilt give a half-hearted nibble at my ankle, but to be honest, I think the poor beast was getting tired; he just wasn't gnawing with his usual vigor. There's a thought; could you wear out guilt?

'I...' All I could do was stare at him. I didn't know what in the hell to say.

There was an odd little sigh from Wufei and he mumbled some remark about lunch, getting up and leaving the room in something of a rush.

Heero stretched a hand out toward me and I went to settle on the side of his bed, taking the offered touch.

'You feel so far away from me,' he breathed, his fingers wrapped tight around mine.

I just felt like the weight of all the last few months was settling over my shoulders all at once. 'Only because you're pushing me,' I told him gently and watched him blink at me in shock. 'Heero... love, I am at the very end of my endurance... please... just stop. I'm on a... a path... a very narrow path. I have to walk it. You can't do it for me, but your pushing is just... unbalancing me.'

His eyes looked haunted and frustrated, his fingers were hurting mine.

'Why can't you stop trying to handle so much... why can't you let yourself rest... let yourself heal?' His tone was pleading.

'What would you have me do?' I sighed. 'Stop coming here? What do you think that would do to me... to not be here with you at a time like this? Do you think I could just forget about you? Forget I was failing you?'

'You're not taking care of yourself,' he accused. 'It's killing me that you're putting me before your own welfare.'

'Your well-being and mine are tangled together, love.' I chided. 'I'm taking care of myself the best that I can.'

'You look so tired...' he said, tracing his fingers over my face.

'I am tired, Heero,' I admitted. 'But that isn't going to change as long as you're in here. I need you well... I need you out of here. That's the first goal on the path... stop fighting me and start working with me.'

He frowned darkly. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

I quirked a sudden grin at him. 'It's a mission, ok? We're down, behind enemy lines and we're both injured. I... I need you to help patch me up, but you can't until we get back to the safe house. You see? You have to let me help you now, so that you can help me later.'

A corner of his mouth twitched at the analogy, but he tried not to show it; he didn't want to encourage me. But then his expression went all serious again. 'Duo... you still... I mean, you...' He was blushing darkly.

'Don't you do this to me,' I growled. 'You've not doubted me for a second from day one; don't you dare start doubting me now.'

He looked vaguely sheepish and glanced away. I stroked a finger under his chin to get him to lift his face and then brought my lips down to seek his. 'You know I love you... we promised each other forever, didn't we, husband-mine?'

He returned the kiss, and I could feel his fears and his doubts, could almost feel him trembling beneath me. When I drew back, he looked troubled.

'I thought we were making a home together... I thought...'

'Not now, Heero,' I sighed. 'That's not in the mission parameters yet. Later... the path is just too narrow right now.'

'Then... will you please just let me hold you for a minute?' he said softly and I was able to smile.

'I think that can be worked in to the plans.' I squirmed around until I could lay my head on his shoulder and he was able to curl an arm around me. It wasn't near what either one of us wanted, but as much as we could manage until he was better.

We were quiet for a few minutes and I felt myself starting to relax for the first time in days.

'So,' he ventured softly after a bit. 'What are the mission goals?'

'Long or short term?' I grinned against his hospital gown.

He made noises to indicate he was pondering it. 'Long?'

'That's simple,' I murmured. 'Happily ever after.'

He snorted. 'Short term?'

'Even simpler,' I snickered. 'Get you out of here so we can fornicate like bunnies.'

That won me an honest laugh, serving to show me that he really was getting better when he didn't clutch instantly at his stomach. Though the laugh faded rather quickly.

'You sure you can get us to that safe house?' he murmured then, twisting enough to kiss the top of my head.

'Yeah... I think I can,' I smiled. 'If you'll stop dragging your damn feet and insisting I don't know the way.'

'Your sense of direction has never been all that great,' he told me and I smiled happily, it was so sweet to be talking about... nothing at all.

'Well, my sense of direction doesn't suck nearly as badly as my sense of timing,' I confessed, and he chuckled, but refrained from comment.

Wufei appeared in the doorway then, hesitating on the threshold until he was sure it was safe to come back in. 'You two all finished yet?'

Heero grumbled unhappily when I sat up.

'With the arguing and the yelling?' I quipped. 'As finished as we ever get.'

Wufei snorted and came on into the room with a wide grin plastered on his face. 'Hungry, Maxwell?'

The strong scent of food wafted to me as soon as he got close enough.

'Oh God, Wufei,' I groaned, 'is that what I think it is?'

He produced the bag from behind his back with a flourish and grinned a little wider. 'Well... let's just say it's not anything you're likely to find in the Winner kitchens.'

'Normal food,' I intoned reverently. 'Wufei... you are my new best friend.'

'Hey!' Heero growled and Wufei actually smirked at him.

Wufei and I drug Heero's little rolling table around to the side and sat down across from each other to share our dinner. The bag proved to hold the wonderfully simple fair of hamburgers and chips, with small side salads.

'Look at this,' I grinned between bites. 'I don't need a culinary dictionary to identify anything! This is a hamburger. There is nothing weird on it; no bean sprouts or unidentifiable sauces. This is a chip. Hot oil was used in its production. This lettuce came from a grocery store; it was not flown in from Romania. It is green, not purple.'

Wufei chuckled at my running monologue, looking terribly pleased with himself.

'I hate the both of you,' Heero groused, his arms folded across his chest and eyeing the food with the air of a starving man.

Wufei laughed at him. 'At least you graduated from the liquid diet,' he commiserated in a... not very commiserating tone.

'Graduated to paste,' Heero complained, but when I looked at him a little closer, his eyes were positively glowing, watching me eat.

It somehow made things taste better. How pathetically weird is that?

I made a point of eating every bit of it, even though I was pushing a little, there at the end. But, my God, did I feel guilty as hell about it when LeAnn delivered his dinner a little while after that, and we had to sit and watch him eat... I'm not sure what it was; do they still make gruel?

He took his walk after dinner, he was taking several a day now, and I could not have begun to explain to him how that simple trek up and down the hall made me feel. With his hand on my shoulder and my arm around his waist to steady him, guilt-beast didn't even bother to hang out with me. I felt... needed? Wanted? Useful? All of the above?

LeAnn changed his sheets while he was out of the bed and when we got back to the room, informed us that Heero could try a shower if he wanted to give it a shot. It was a progress, for which I was pleased. But... I was oddly saddened by the loss of the sponge baths. When I looked at Heero, I thought I saw some of the same feeling behind his eyes. I smiled at him encouragingly.

'It's another step down the path, love,' I murmured and we went and he took that shower.

It was a real chore, fighting with the IV lines, and by the time we'd gotten him through all that, he was exhausted and barely able to keep his eyes open. Wufei and I got him tucked back into bed, and Wufei leaned down and told him,

'Duo's going home with me, all right?' And Heero nodded; sleep creeping inexorably up on him.

I kissed him goodbye and I think he was off to lala land before we were out the door.

Wufei has a ground floor apartment, with a little patio. It wasn't at all like I had expected it to be. I had envisioned him living in little more than a bare dojo, sleeping on a pallet on the floor and with katanas displayed on all the walls. Well... maybe not that bad, but austere at the very least.

It was surprisingly warm and inviting. The furniture was dark and overstuffed, the décor an elegant but bizarre mix of oriental and renaissance. There were plants. A lot of plants. But the most disconcerting thing was the catnip toy lying in the middle of the living room floor. I just stood and blinked at it while he moved around me.

'The bedroom is down the hall to the left, so is the bathroom. It's the first door,' he was telling me as he moving around, dumping my duffle bag on the couch and wandering over to check for messages on the answering machine. 'I called Quatre earlier from the hospital to let them know that you were coming home with me tonight.'

I winced guiltily. 'Damn, Wufei, thanks. I didn't even think about it.'

He grinned at me. 'Wouldn't want Quatre to skin us both alive.'

I chuckled and dared to move a little further into his sanctum. I felt... odd about being in his home.

'What would you like for dinner tonight?' he asked lightly. 'I can order out or cook. It doesn't matter to me.' Then he smiled. 'And be honest.'

I laughed with him over the shared joke. 'Honestly? I don't normally eat more than two meals a day; lunch was more than enough.'

He turned from where he had been sorting the mail and gave me a strange, almost sad look. 'Maybe a little something later, then,' was all he said.

I felt uncomfortable again, and he seemed to sense it. 'I packed your laptop and your art supplies when I got your clothes... if you're looking for something to do,' he said, a little too casually.

'Thanks,' I murmured and went to sit on the couch beside my bag.

There was the sound of a moderately heavy sigh. 'Duo... relax. I don't bite. My cat might... but I don't. Make yourself at home. I have a bottle of wine in the kitchen, would you like a glass?'

I cringed. 'No... no thank you.'

'Duo?' he asked gently, and I glanced up to find him regarding me quizzically. I guess he'd seen me drink before and knew that I really didn't have a problem with it.

'I've been... avoiding alcohol,' I muttered, looking down at my hands and not at him. 'I'm kinda afraid... I... just don't think it would be a good idea right now.'

There was a soft little, 'ah,' of understanding. 'Probably... a wise decision.'

I didn't know what to say to that and was floundering around trying to think of something witty, when Wufei's cat finally made an appearance and turned his attention away from me.

'There you are, you mangy beast,' Wufei addressed the animal with an oddly affectionate smile. 'We have company, come and introduce yourself.'

I didn't know whether to gape at him or laugh. It was the most mind-bending thing I had seen all day; Chang Wufei talking to a cat. I managed to contain it to a snort. The cat went from twining between Wufei's legs to sitting on the coffee table. I never saw him jump, I think he teleported. The animal sat for a moment, and gave a half-hearted lick at one paw, the picture of nonchalance. But I could see his nose twitching in my direction as he investigated the thing that had dared invade his realm. I couldn't help but grin at him.

Then he opened his mouth and let out a God-awful yowl. I jumped in surprise; I would not have thought a creature that size could have produced a noise like that. Wufei laughed and nudged the cat in the ass.

'Stop your complaining and just go say hello.'

Did you know that cats could be very disdainful? I didn't. I'd never seen a cat up close before. There were some that lived around the docks, they kept them there to keep the mouse population down, but they were all feral and would run if they saw you within a hundred yards.

The cat responded to Wufei's little push by getting up and strolling across the table as though he'd meant to do that anyway. He stopped at the edge and stretched his neck out to sniff at me suspiciously.

I couldn't take my eyes off the damn thing. I felt like one of those small town kids in the big city, gawping at the skyscrapers and picking hayseeds out of their hair. 'Can I... can I touch him?' I breathed, afraid of scaring him away.

I had a feeling Wufei was smirking at my obvious fascination, but I couldn't spare him the attention.

'Of course,' he said gently. 'He likes to be scratched behind his ears and under his chin.'

I stretched out a hand and waited while the beast sniffed at me. But before I could make any further move to pet him, he stretched his head up and began to rub it against my fingers. I laughed with delight, then stifled it quickly lest I scare him off.

'What's his name?' I whispered.

Wufei's voice, when it came, was from a different part of the room as he went about his business. 'Beowulf,' he told me with a certain ruefulness in his voice.

'Hell Wufei,' I grinned. 'The name's bigger than he is!'

I dared to turn my hand, scratching Beowulf carefully under the chin and had to chuckle at the way he stretched his neck out. Then I suddenly had a cat in my lap. I blinked down as the animal calmly turned around three times and settled across my thighs as though he napped there every night.

There was a sudden flash of light and I jerked my head up just in time to see Wufei sheepishly lower a camera. 'I'm sorry,' he grinned. 'But the look on your face was just too priceless. I take it you have never... seen a cat before?'

I shook my head and looked down again as Beowulf yawned hugely and began to take a bath. 'Not... up close like this. I've seen strays at the docks, but they won't come near you... not even if you put out food.' I flushed slightly at that inadvertent admission. 'I've never gotten to touch one before...'

'Well,' Wufei moved to put the camera away. 'He'll lie on you all day if you let him. When you get tired of him, just shove him off.' There was an odd tension in the air and I looked up to find Wufei regarding me with that tiny crease between his eyebrows that told me something was bothering him.

I tilted my head and looked back at him with a quirk of a grin. 'Spit it out.'

He dropped his eyes for a second and the frown cleared into a wry smile. 'I'm trying to figure out how to discreetly ask you if you'll be all right if I go take a shower.'

I laughed. 'Well... that was subtle. Yes, Wufei... you may shower. I promise not to self-destruct while you're gone.'

'Just don't sit there like that the whole time,' he teased. 'Relax. Make yourself at home.'

Then he was gone.

Beowulf finished his bath and spent a little time sniffing my pants leg. I stroked a finger down his back and watched his skin shiver. I scratched behind his ear as Wufei had suggested and he twisted his head in this impossible angle to aid me. I couldn't help a chuckle. They have such... small frames under all that hair. I suspected that shaved of all that fur, he would resemble nothing so much as a snake with legs and ears. I suppressed a snort and I swear to God the animal read my mind, because he gave me a disdainful little sneeze and jumped off my lap. Every move he made was with this slow deliberateness. He sauntered off toward the kitchen, I watched him for a minute, then scrambled for my sketchpad. I didn't get Astra's portrait done... maybe I could manage Beowulf.

Pencil and pad in hand, I stalked the cat into the kitchen where he ate a few bites from a food dish. He gave me a glare that indicated he was not impressed with my following him around, so I backed off a little until he was done. Tail held regally in the air, he swept passed me as though I wasn't there, making his way back into the living room, where he curled up under an end table and regarded me as if to ask just what in the hell I thought I was doing. I sat down on the floor and flipped open my sketchpad. Beowulf scrunched himself into this little, compact form and sort of... huddled. Kind of. With his tail wrapped around him like he was covering his own paws with it. I ended up stretched out on my stomach next to the coffee table. Distantly, I heard the water turn on in the bathroom, but I was already lost to the flow.

I decided that evening that cats are pretty damn cool. Stop laughing at me; L2 street rats don't exactly get to visit the zoo on a regular basis. And Beowulf was being very accommodating, sitting like a true artist's model, still as a statue, only his ears moving occasionally as he caught some sound. Until Wufei finished in the bathroom.

'Oh my God!' I suddenly heard. 'Duo! Duo, are you all right!'

Beowulf laid his ears back and took off like a shot, startled by the yell and disappearing into the back of the apartment somewhere.

'What?' I said intelligently and pushed up on one elbow to look at him. 'What the hell's the matter, Wufei?'

He was looking at me wide-eyed and frightened. It took me a minute to realize what I probably looked like, and I was caught between embarrassed and... damned amused.

'Chill, man,' I grinned up at him. 'You guys have got to stop being so damn jumpy.'

He looked a little chagrined as the fear faded from his eyes. 'What... are you doing?' he ventured at last.

'Well,' I drawled. 'I was sketching your cat until you scared him away.'

That peaked his interest and he came around the table where he could see the partially finished portrait. His eyes widened and he breathed, almost reverently, 'Maxwell... that is incredible! You've totally captured him; it looks more like Beowulf than... Beowulf does!'

I had to laugh and he stretched out a hand to pull me to my feet. 'Well, it would look better if you hadn't made him run away before I got it finished.'

'I'll go find him,' he said, and there was the strangest emotion in his voice. I couldn't quite place it... but it seemed to hold a hint of longing.

I watched him walk away; realizing that his hair was down and he had changed out of his work clothes into a rather well worn pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I settled myself into a corner of the couch and waited for him to hunt up my suddenly reluctant model.

He tried, when he returned with the somewhat miffed Beowulf, to get him to sit on the coffee table in front of me, but the cat was bored with the whole thing and kept jumping down.

'Just hold him,' I finally suggested. 'I just need to get his ears right, and can't quite capture it... he keeps moving them.'

Wufei curled himself into the chair across from me and Beowulf immediately settled down on his lap. Wufei quirked an affectionate smile down at the animal and muttered something about 'mangy beast'.

I finished the portrait as fast as I could and flipped the page when Wufei wasn't looking. I was not going to let this moment slip through my fingers.

Wufei's hair, still down and wet from the shower, framed his face, softening the usually stern features. His fingers were almost unconsciously scratching behind Beowulf's ear and the cat wore an expression of utter contentment. It was a wonderfully peaceful scene. It tugged at me somehow; this man was my friend. My friend. He wasn't just watching out for me for Heero's sake. That had been genuine fear in his eyes when he had come out of the bathroom and he had thought he had found me passed out on the floor. He tried so hard to be the calm, reliable one. The level headed one. But... sometimes, like when I'd scared him, you could see a hint of the guy who wasn't any more sure than the rest of us that he knew what the fuck he was doing.

I sketched as fast as I could, getting it roughed in so that I could finish it later if I had to. He didn't seem to know anything at all about drawing, because he sat patiently for a very long time considering he thought I was only fixing Beowulf's ears.

'Are you having trouble?' he asked at length. 'Should I try to get him to sit up straight again?'

I almost laughed, as I captured the tiny smile on his face as he looked down at his housemate. 'No...' I muttered, 'he just keeps flicking his ears around.'

'Whistle,' he said.

'What?' I muttered, blocking in the shadows that his hair cast on his face.

'If you can whistle, he'll point his ears toward you,' he explained.

'I'd rather he were listening to you,' I said, quickly following the line of his arm down where it curled around the cat.

'Oh,' he said, confused, but obligingly began to murmur to the cat in his lap and, as promised, the delicate little ears flicked in his direction. Perfect.

He gave me another ten minutes before he finally started to lose his patience. 'Duo...' he dared. 'Aren't you done yet?'

'Yeah,' I grinned at him in triumph and Beowulf lost his lap when Wufei stood up and dumped him rather unceremoniously on the floor. I flipped the pad closed and tossed it negligently on the coffee table. 'You got any juice?' I asked and started for the kitchen.

'Sure,' he said off-handedly, his eyes on the sketchpad. 'The kitchen light switch is on the left.'

I managed to get to the kitchen door before he got the pad picked up. I sneaked a glance when I heard the surprised intake of air. His eyes were wide and his hand flew up to touch his loose hair. I ducked on into the kitchen to hide the maniacal grin. Wufei doesn't look a thing like Wufei when he isn't concentrating on it. I found some orange juice and gave him a minute.

The sketchpad was back on the coffee table when I returned, but Wufei's face was still tinged pink. I smiled at him warmly, but didn't say anything. He didn't speak of it either. Beowulf just looked bored with the whole thing.

'It's getting late,' he muttered after a brief pause to clear his throat. 'If... if we're going to look over that journal, we should be getting to it.'

I sighed; I had forgotten about it somehow, had pushed it out of my head. I wasn't sure I wanted to 'get to it'.

'I really think it will help,' he said gently and I found myself nodding. I let him fish it out of where he had packed it in my duffle bag. We just stood and stared at each other for a minute. I didn't know what in the hell to do. Should we sit down side by side and read it together? Should I read it while he sat and... and... watched me? Should he read it first?

'If you would like,' he ventured, looking uncomfortable. 'I could... read some of the entries to you.'

I flushed, but found the idea not all that repellent. 'I feel like a raving moron,' I told him flatly.

It won me a grin and he gestured to the couch. I sat down on one end and he moved my duffle bag before sitting down in the other corner. As soon as we were sitting down, Beowulf joined us, seeking my lap when he found his owner's occupied with the journal. I found his warmth to be oddly comforting. I nursed my glass of orange juice and Wufei read to me. I couldn't remember anyone reading to me outside of my dreams since the orphanage.

It was the journal of a man. Just a man. He happened to be the Captain of a ship in the Oz fleet. He happened to serve during the war. But he was still just a man.

He had a wife and he had two children. A boy and a girl. The perfect little family... except the part where Daddy went off to battle one day and didn't come back. The entries started out almost mundane;

'Left port from L3 today. I think I'm going to have trouble with my new second in command. He's a real go-getter and eager to prove his loyalty to anybody who will listen. Makes me think he's protesting too much. I don't trust the man.'

There was a lot in that vein, talk of this or that crewmember; things a Captain worries about. Things that a Captain... with a crew, has to deal with.

'Had trouble getting resupplied when we docked at L4; I think some of the colonists were deliberately making things more difficult. When will they learn that it's just easier when they cooperate? You can't fight something the size of the Oz federation.'

Wufei read easily, I was kind of surprised. I had expected him to have trouble with the idea of reading to me like a little kid. His voice is strangely calming; I could imagine him with several children clustered around him, listening in rapt attention. I sat my glass aside and curled Beowulf into my arms; he seemed to like the extra warmth and rewarded me with a purr.

'I was able to ship a birthday present home for Jimmy's birthday. I hope it arrives in time. I feel so bad that I won't be there for it. Especially since I missed his sister's last month, too. They're not even going to remember who I am by the time this damn war is over.'

Wufei read for a bit, occasionally skimming or skipping bits and pieces when it became too mired in personal references to make much sense. His voice began to get a little hoarse, but I didn't think either one of us was ready to stop. It had become oddly impossible to put the book down, even knowing how it was going to come out. After almost an hour, I uncoiled myself from my corner of the couch and quietly reached for the journal. He looked up at me in surprise but seemed grateful.

I'm afraid my voice wavered a bit when I first started, but I forced it to steady. Beowulf left my lap when Wufei's became available and I felt... abandoned.

'Things seem to be heating up. Not that high command would let a poor foot soldier in on their plans, but orders are starting to have a desperate feel to them.'

Some of the entries, like that one, were fairly short and to the point. Sometimes days would pass with no entries at all. Sometimes Camden made several entries in one day.

'We've been ordered out to the asteroid belt. Command won't even tell me what for. We're simply to take our position and await further instructions. I wouldn't say it out loud for the world, especially not in the hearing of that idiot Williams, but I think something is seriously wrong with upper command. Orders seem to contradict themselves almost from hour to hour. Sometimes it seems like the same people aren't in charge from one day to the next.'

Williams. I didn't recall the name from the list of the dead that I had gathered. A survivor then?

'We docked today and were able to pick up messages. I got a note from Anna that said Jimmy got his present a day late, but loved it all the same. She said he wanted to know when I was coming home. I might have felt worse if Myers hadn't gotten the news in the same batch of messages that his brother had been killed in battle. The man had been a Taurus pilot. I think Myers had been expecting the news for some time. The crew doesn't talk about it out loud, but it's a well-known fact that mobile suit pilots are sold cheap in these times. Sometimes it feels like this will never be over.'

The next couple of entries were worse than mundane, detailing supply problems and grousing about deep space rations. But then the tone changed of a sudden and the time period was brought into hard focus for the both of us.

'Treize is dead. I still can't believe it. I thought the man was immortal. The rumors are that he was killed by one of those damn Gundam pilots. I supposedly saw one of them at our last dock; they had him in irons and he was scheduled for execution. I personally don't think they had the right guy. He was just a damn little kid. They beat the holy crap out of him too.'

I had to stop and Wufei and I both just looked at each other for a minute. I could see him warring with himself. His conscience was telling him to take the book back from me, but he didn't want to be reading this part out loud any more than I did. Wordlessly, I scooted down the couch until I was sitting where he could read over my shoulder and we finished reading the entry together in silence.

'There's just no way that kid could have been one of those ruthless Gundam pilots. Fighting like that would break a kid. Good God; he couldn't have been much older than my little Leia! We shipped out before the execution was scheduled and I was glad of that. It made me sick to think they planned on televising it. I sent a message to Anna and warned her to make sure the kids didn't watch it when it happened. I didn't want my kids seeing something like that. I was actually kind of glad when I heard the kid got away. I'll always believe they had the wrong person.'

I shivered and felt Wufei's hand fall on my shoulder to squeeze gently. I looked up at him and he looked as... haunted as I felt.

'Maybe we should stop for the night,' he said, and couldn't seem to get his voice above a whisper.

I shook my head. 'No... I just want to get it over with.' Then I looked at him again. 'Unless... unless you want to stop?'

He gave me a sad little smile. 'I'll keep going as long as you do.'

I wasn't sure how to take that, and felt a little uncomfortable with it. Like I was forcing him to read through this stupid thing with me.

The next several pages were more griping about that Williams guy, who appeared to be the much-maligned second in command. Williams seemed to have a fanatical streak a mile wide, and a thirst for power. He was out to make a name for himself and didn't care whose corpse he stood on top of to get the attention he wanted.

I think Camden was starting to feel the presence of his maker toward the end; he began to talk more about his kids and about his fears of not being there to see them grow up. He talked about things he wished he'd said to his wife. He talked about how they had met and Wufei and I both had to put the book down for a little bit.

'Wanna stop?' I whispered.

'We... we only have a couple more pages to go.' Wufei whispered back.

Beowulf looked up at us as though we were nuts.

'I feel... weird,' I told him with a little shiver. 'Like some kind of voyeur or something.'

He nodded. 'I know what you mean. I didn't get this wrapped up in it this morning, just skimming through it. I... I think I'm sorry I suggested this.'

I left the book in his hands for a minute and shifted away to get my glass of orange juice, finding it warm and drinking some anyway. Wufei traded me the book for the glass and swallowed some too. He grimaced at me and then we turned our attention back to the journal.

It got ugly after that. Williams, apparently, had a grudge and a half against the Gundam pilots. All Gundam pilots. The Londonderry had been sent to the asteroid belt to back up one of the all out, no-holds-barred assaults on... us. The Londonderry had not been a destroyer level ship. It hadn't been much more than a courier. They were only supposed to be there to ferry wounded or move supplies. During Camden's off-shift, the second in command took the helm and chose to interpret his orders in a very... loose manner. By the time the assault had awakened Camden, the damage had been done and the Londonderry had been 'sinking'. Camden had little choice but to order an abandon ship.

Williams had attacked a Gundam with the Londonderry; the poor dumb son of a bitch. He had as much as committed 'ship suicide'. And then blamed the breach in orders on his Captain.

My hands began to shake so bad we couldn't read the damn book.

'Duo... Duo,' Wufei murmured. 'Let's stop.'

'I... I knew there was a possibility that... that one of us had something to do with that ship, 'Fei.' I told him and my voice was shaking as bad as my hands. 'Most fighting out there had something to do with us... I gotta finish it...'

He nodded and took the journal away from me and began to read again.

'Williams was one of the first ones off the ship. He took an escape pod with only one or two of his cronies. Two of the other pods were damaged in the attack and he left us short. The bastard saved his own hide and condemned sixteen of his shipmates to death. Though I suppose he can't be blamed for all of the deaths. At least Myers, White and Nelson died in the assault.'

Wufei said something nasty in Chinese, stopping for a moment to look off at nothing. 'Dishonorable bastard!' he muttered, and returned to the journal, reading with a little more fervor.

'The battle has moved off and we are left here. Our distress calls have gone unanswered; we can only assume that there are just too many disabled ships and not enough rescuers. We don't even know who is winning out there. I'm not sure why I am bothering to put this down; it's unlikely that anyone will ever find it. We are walking dead men now. Men and women. I guess I am showing my age in that; it bothers me more about Thomson and Reeves, the two women. Williams abandoned women to die in cold vacuum. If he rots in hell for nothing else, he will rot for that, I have no doubt.'

I had to draw a shuddering breath, lost in memory and Wufei's voice stilled. I looked up at him and he looked distraught to find tears standing in my eyes. I couldn't help it. I had to mourn for those people whose fate I had almost shared. Whose fate I might well have had a hand in.

'Don't stop,' I whispered and he hesitated. 'Please 'Fei... don't stop.'

He stretched out his free arm and let me lean against him. It eased the shivering.

'I should be out there with what is left of my crew, but instead I'm hiding here in my cabin. I've even taken my vacuum suit off. There is air left in some of the inner rooms... it won't last. I won't die like that, going slowly as the air runs out. Of all the ways in the damn world to die, that very idea has always filled me with sick fear. I can't. I won't. I think that makes me a coward, but I don't care. I think that I would shame myself before it was over. And somehow, that would be the final indignity.'

Wufei drew a quivering breath of his own, giving my shoulders a squeeze almost without seeming to notice, before plunging on.

'I hope someone finds this someday. Anna, my dear Anna. I am so sorry. So very, very sorry. I never meant for this to happen this way. I had planned on coming home after the war and spending forever with you, just like we promised...'

Wufei's voice cracked and I broke at the same moment. Beowulf laid his ears back, sensing the tension in the air, and jumped down to go find someplace else to sleep.

Wufei shut the book. 'That's enough, Maxwell,' he said gruffly. 'You may be able to deal with this... but I cannot.'

I carefully kept my face, now awash with tears, turned away from him. I pulled away and stood, keeping my back turned, and walked across the living room to the sliding door that lead out to his little patio.

'Duo?' he called after me and I raised a hand in that stupid military sign that meant stay here, and slipped outside, shutting the door carefully behind me.

The evening air was cool and once I walked a few paces away from the building, I could look up and see some of the brighter stars. I just stood there and waited for the tears to stop.

I had been way too raw for that. Entirely unprepared. I wondered why that was. I had pretty much known all afternoon what I was going to be faced with tonight. When had I gotten to the place where I could push unpleasant things out of my head so far that I completely forgot them?

Could I have been the one who destroyed that ship? Was mine the Gundam that Williams had attacked? Was it possible that I had set the trap all those years ago that I had caught myself in? That was such circular thinking that I almost got lost trying to unravel it.

'It would'a been damn funny,' Solo would have said, while he snickered at me.

'Shut up, rat-boy,' I snapped and wiped rather ineffectively at my leaking eyes.

'What'na hell is with you lately?' he groused. 'Bawlin' like a baby all'a time.'

I just sighed, not able to think of a suitable comeback and he faded from my mind.

George wandered up, pulled his fez off respectfully, poked me in the ankle to get my attention and produced a banner that simply said, 'shit'. Guilt-beast lolled at my other side and looked up at me with weary eyes as if to say, 'I'm getting too fucking old for this.'

'Oh... you guys are a lot of help,' I muttered and looked back up at the stars. The few I could see. I was filled with a sudden pain that started in my gut and washed up through my chest, an aching need to go home to the those stars. To see them as they are meant to be seen, sharp and steady and clear and bright. Constant and as beautiful as shards of crystalline ice. Stars don't twinkle; did you know that? It only looks like they do down here on Earth because of the atmosphere.

Those things in the journal; to Anna, to Camden's wife... so close to what I had almost said to Heero when I had thought I was going to die on that trip to L3. They left my heart feeling cold and hollow. Ate at me from a different angle than all the rest of it. Made me feel that man's agony right down in my bones.

I sat down on the ground, right at the edge of the patio. I felt bad for guilt, not up to doing his job, and thought it might be easier on him if he could just crawl in my lap. His expressive, blood-shot eyes rolled my way disdainfully.

It had been near the end of the war, sometime after Treize had died. What would that make it, three years ago? I had fired a shot three years ago and been struck down by it across all that time? I'd... I'd fucking killed myself. That's what it boiled down to. If it had been me. Despite how much Wufei didn't like to hear me say that. Wasn't that just too damn ironic for words?

'Ok, king-rat.' I chuckled. 'Ya got a point... it is kinda funny.'

'I don't lie,' he snickered near my right ear, ruffled guilt's furry head and disappeared.

Funny for me. Not so damn funny for Camden. What a motherless bastard that Williams had been. And clearly gotten away with it. I hoped his damn escape pod had... had imploded. Or something else really, really bad.

Guilt got his second wind and bit down hard on the first piece of anatomy that came to hand.

Fuck if Williams was going to get away with it. The hell if little Jimmy and Leia would grow up thinking their father was a traitor and an idiot.

I leaped to me feet, dislodging guilt and leaving my hamsters in my wake. I drug my arm roughly across my eyes, wiping them clear. When I turned back toward the apartment, I found Wufei leaning in the doorway, regarding me with an uncertain expression on his face. He blinked at me apprehensively when I came determinedly back toward him.

'Duo?' he asked softly, when I got closer. 'Are... are you all right?'

'Fine,' I told him rather flatly. 'Do you have an internet jack?'

He gave ground, looking at me almost fearfully. 'Right here in the living room,' he said, pointing the way.

I went and fished my laptop out of the duffle bag, where Wufei had packed it, jerking angrily at the zippers. I set it on the end of the coffee table and strung the cable with shaking hands, booting the system after it was plugged up.

'What are you doing?' Wufei questioned me, voice trying to be calm and soothing.

'I'm gonna get that son of a bitch,' I growled, watching impatiently as my laptop came up. 'Damned if he's going to get away with abandoning all those people. I won't let Anna think her husband died a traitor. I'll be damned if I let his kids think that...' my voice was rising and I seemed powerless to do anything about it. 'That their father was the bad guy. He's not gonna get away with it...'

'Calm down, Duo,' Wufei said gently and suddenly his hands were on my shoulders. It felt like he was the only thing keeping me from flying off in a dozen directions. 'No more tonight. We're not going to change anything tonight. You have to calm down.'

I could feel myself quivering with almost out of control emotion, too many to name, too much to deal with. 'Can't let him get away with it!'

'I agree with you,' he continued to try to placate me. 'We're going to check into this. But tomorrow.... You need some rest... you need to calm down.'

I sighed heavily, rather proud that it didn't escalate to a moan. 'I'm sorry... you're right. You're right; I just can't help it. I just keep seeing them... drifting there. I can close my eyes and see them all and I know how they died and I know they didn't have to die. There was room in that pod if that bastard had just taken the survivors. I know how they felt... I know how each damn one of them felt! I felt it and for awhile I was one of them... just drifting... and they all had families too and they didn't have the time to leave their messages or maybe they did and I just didn't find them but God there's just so much you want to say and maybe those two women were mothers and they left little kids behind and that means I made orphans like me and the others and...'

'Maxwell!' Wufei snapped and the hands on my shoulders gave me a sudden harsh shake. He turned me around so abruptly I stumbled. 'Stop it!' he barked at me and pulled me into his arms. 'Just... stop it.'

'I'm sorry...' I breathed, when I could.

'God,' he murmured. 'All that's holding you together is glue and band-aids!'

I let out with a snort of harsh laughter and told him, 'I... I'm a little tougher than that; bailing wire and twine.'

His arms crushed me close against his chest and I could feel the hammer of his heart against mine. He was scared. I was honestly frightening him; he thought I was totally losing it. Guilt-beast sighed heavily.

'It's all right. Underneath the twine, I'm slowly puttin' the pieces back together, ok?' I tried to reassure him.

'I know, my friend,' he said softly. 'And I'm sorry... this was such an incredibly bad idea. I didn't realize how much... how hard... I just didn't realize.'

In that moment, if he had been Heero, I think I could have let go. If Heero had been healed and whole, if those had been his arms around me... I think I could have just given in to the need to collapse. I would have answered any question he might have asked me... I wouldn't have evaded. I wouldn't have lied. I would have told him every damn thing I had ever felt... ever thought. Anything he wanted.

But this was Wufei. And while he was my friend... he was not the home my soul sought. It was the vague unease that I might just answer anything he would ask that drove me to pull away and offer up a watery smile.

'I'm getting real tired,' I admitted, so that I might not admit to anything more. 'Do you think we could call it a night?'

'I think that would be a good idea,' he agreed and showed me the way to the bedroom.

As uncomfortable as I had felt sleeping with him at the apartment, it was nothing compared to how miserable I felt on his home turf, crawling into his bed.

We said our goodnights, then lay and stared into the dark. I think he was having trouble falling asleep too, but neither one of us wanted to be the one to admit it. Thoughts of the asteroid belt whirled around in my head. Memories surfaced and sank, piloted by little thought-hamsters. I wished I dared go for a walk. I wished, oddly, for a beer. I wished for someone to hold onto. I began to fear I would lie there, staring up at a ceiling I couldn't see, all damn night. Then Beowulf joined us in bed. I gave a startled little gasp when he just appeared on the side of the bed and gave a plaintiff little yowl almost in my ear.

'Beowulf!' Wufei snapped, and I could tell from his voice that he had not been asleep.

The cat ignored him, coming to poke around my face with a slightly wet nose.

'Get down, you mangy beast,' Wufei commanded. 'Sleep somewhere else tonight.'

He received only a disdainful 'mrrrr' of complaint.

'Does...' I ventured, 'does he usually sleep here?'

It took Wufei a moment before he sheepishly admitted, 'Yes... the damn animal insists on sleeping on the bed. But he can survive sleeping elsewhere, just push him off.'

'It's all right,' I murmured as Beowulf decided that he might just share his space with me, curling up next to my stomach. He was warm. I found my arms winding around him. 'I... I don't mind at all.'

The comment was greeted with silence. I shifted the cat up higher, closer to my chest, curling toward the heat... toward the contact... toward the soft sound of breathing. Beowulf began to wash my chin; I decided I probably shouldn't let Wufei know that or he would banish the poor animal.

'Good night,' I said softly into the dark.

Fingers brushed my shoulder. 'I'm... here... if you need anything,' he told me hesitantly.

'I know,' I whispered back.

We went back to staring into the dark.

It was the stupid cat that finally let me sleep. His washing my face with his sandpaper tongue distracted my thoughts. His warmth and the sound of his quiet purr helped me relax. I drifted off, at long last, with my knuckles rubbing absently against the soft fur.

Did you doubt that there would be nightmares? After sitting there all evening pouring over that damn journal? That was most of the reason I had so much trouble falling asleep; somehow I had known that Wufei's mere presence wasn't going to be enough to keep them at bay this time.

It started just like the last time; back aboard the Londonderry. I was trying to get away... trying to run in zero gravity. It was as though I had forgotten how to navigate in free-fall. I could feel the corpses gaining on me as I fled, moving like stereotypical zombies in some bad horror movie. They could walk, where I could not, and even though they moved with shuffling slowness, I couldn't gain any ground on them.

I rounded the bend that hadn't been there, just like the last time. And just like before, came face to... face with the Captain. With his head half gone and his blood-soaked clothes.

Captain Camden. Anna's husband. Leia and Jimmy's Dad.

I didn't bother to scream for Solo... I knew he wouldn't come. I didn't bother to scream for Heero... I knew he couldn't come. Things seemed to... freeze. I didn't fight against them and there was some hesitation on their part. Cold hands did not immediately reach for me. I didn't find myself struggling for air.

'I'm sorry...' I whispered into the cold emptiness that surrounded us. That would surround them... forever. Sorry for it all. Sorry for the deaths. Sorry for living. Sorry for the whole damn war.

Camden seemed, suddenly, to have an eye where none had been before. It was brown; warm and kind if you could ignore the face that wasn't quite all there around it.

For the first time, in those long months of haunting my nights, he spoke. 'Anna.' It was a whisper... a prayer... a plea.

I blinked. I nodded. I understood.

The crew of the Londonderry quietly turned and retreated to their cold graveyard, leaving me alone in the dark corridor. My hands clutching unnecessarily at the air tank that some part of my mind knew I didn't need any more.

It wasn't about Williams. It wasn't about revenge or justice or even about injustice. It was about love and family and bringing home the words he had left behind. It was about absolution. It was about forgiveness.

I woke with a start and a gasp of breath and found that I was holding Beowulf just a little too tightly. When I eased the grip, he expressed his displeasure by swatting me in the face and jumping off the bed. I imagined him swaggering off with his tail waving contemptuously in the air.

I lay still and concentrated on getting my thundering heart to slow, on not gasping for the sweet, clear air. My hands found their way to the warm spot on my chest that was rapidly cooling now that my security blanket had abandoned me, trying to hold the warmth in.

Wufei seemed to still be asleep, and I slipped silently from the bed, making my wobbly way to the bathroom. A little cold water served to wash away the last of the lingering stench of a vacuum suit that has been used way too long. I wondered sometimes if that scent would stay with me for the rest of my life. Phantom smell, or not... it never failed to make me shiver in sudden, harsh remembrance.

It didn't feel as though I could go back to sleep and when I finished in the bathroom, I went on silent feet to the living room. I had never gotten around to shutting down my laptop, and the room was lit faintly by the soft glow of the screen and allowed me to navigate the strange surroundings without falling over something.

I passed by my system and brushed a fingertip over the touch pad to kill the screen saver, further brightening the room. I shook my head ruefully; I had been so damn far gone last night I didn't even remember plugging up the power cord. I took a moment to glance at the system time; I hadn't seen a clock in this place yet. Wufei probably had the same unfailing time sense that Heero did. It was almost five in the morning. No... it was a sure bet I wouldn't be going back to sleep now.

I wandered over to the patio door and stood looking out at the faint glow of false dawn. I thought resolutely about sunrises and birds. Clouds and butterflies. Earth had a very lot to offer, even to a homesick child of the colonies. I sighed; so much for my resolve not to think about unhappy things. It seemed all my thoughts came, rather quickly, around to unpleasantness.

I left the doorway and went to sit on the couch in front of my laptop, nodding a courteous good morning to Sisyphus. He didn't pause in his rock pushing to acknowledge me.

For lack of anything better to do, I pulled up my e-mail and checked for messages. There was only one and it was from the guy who had made the inquiry about the ship. He must be serious... he wanted to see it. I closed my e-mail and sat back. Later... I would think about it later.

Beowulf did that strange levitation thing he does again, and was suddenly sitting on the coffee table looking at me as if hoping for something, but I wasn't sure what. When I just stared back, he huffed a sigh and meandered over to sniff at my laptop. I braced my elbows on my knees and let my head hang.

God... I was so tired. Just so very damn tired. I couldn't help but wonder if the dream at least signaled an end to the damn constant nightmares. If I had believed that there was a God up there somewhere answering prayers, I might have sent one his way with that hope. I think... I think that would go a long way toward getting me through this; if I no longer had to fear sleeping at night. If I could have that solace again, those few hours of rest and forgetfulness. I shook my head at my own damn dreaming and snorted a quiet little laugh. My braid slid from my shoulder and dangled between my knees, swaying with the gesture.

Beowulf was off the coffee table in a heartbeat, on the floor between my bare feet, lying on his back with the end of my braid caught in his outstretched claws.

I jerked involuntarily and my hair pulled from his grasp. Front legs somehow seemed to almost double in length as the cat stretched up after his prey. I suppressed a chuckle and deliberately dipped my head to let the tuft on the end of the braid bop him on the nose. He went after it with all four feet.

I let it all go away to that new place where I seemed to be able to put things that I didn't want to think about, and just played with the stupid cat. The little kid in my head finally opened his eyes and laughed with delight, for the first time in quite a while.

We were quiet, though I had to make some effort toward it a couple of times. I didn't know Wufei was awake until the flash on his damn camera went off again. Beowulf and I turned an irritated eye in his direction. I blushed. Beowulf licked nonchalantly at a paw. Wufei grinned.

I suppose we did look pretty stupid. I was sprawled across the coffee table on my belly, wearing nothing but my boxer shorts, with my somewhat bedraggled looking braid dangling over the edge. Beowulf was lying under the table on his back, all four legs splayed in an undignified manner, stretching wildly in an effort to reach the offending 'cat toy'.

'Wufei,' I said archly. 'I'm not even dressed.'

He smirked at me, completely unrepentant. 'I kept your ass out of the frame.' And then he went to make breakfast.

Beowulf abandoned me again, scrambling after his owner; I can only guess that it was breakfast time for him as well. I took the opportunity to go get dressed, dragging my duffle bag to Wufei's bedroom and digging through it to see what my lover's partner had packed for me to wear. I was a little surprised to find a red turtleneck pullover that I hadn't worn in ages and a pair of black jeans. I dressed and re-did my hair, then went to join Wufei in the kitchen.

He gestured me to the table and settled a plate laden with fruit, toast and scrambled eggs in front of me.

I looked up at him with eyes that had to be bugging from my head. 'Is there some reason you guys all seem to think you have to turn every meal into an opportunity to stuff me until I burst?'

He chuckled as he sat down across from me. 'Because you're scrawny and you don't eat properly on your own.'

'Hey!' I told him in mock indignation, 'my diet is probably more well balanced than yours.'

He snorted with a terribly superior air. 'You eat gravel masquerading as cardboard.'

I almost spit eggs out on the table trying not to laugh. It still kind of amazes me the sense of humor that the Brothers Grimm had developed while I was away.

'Yes... but its very nutritious gravel,' I replied haughtily and all he could do was shake his head at me.

He needed to leave for work before seven thirty and he offered to let me stay at his place until visiting hours started, but I felt awkward about it and packed my stuff up to leave the same time he did. I could see him warring with his sense of 'honor', or whatever in the hell it was that made it hard for these guys to get in a car and drive somewhere while I was waiting for a bus.

'Do not even start with me,' I warned him. 'We are going in opposite directions... it doesn't make sense.'

He sighed heavily. 'We can't help but worry...' he began and all I could do was roll my eyes.

'You know, it absolutely makes me crazy the way you guys act like I'm made out of glass.' I grumbled, hefting my duffle bag up higher on my shoulder.

His eyes looked sad for a moment before he gave me a small half grin. 'I truly wish I had taken some damn video footage of you right after we got back, and maybe you would understand why we act the way we do.'

I just stood on the sidewalk and blinked at him, there wasn't a lot I could say to that. He turned and started to walk toward his car but stopped at the last minute, calling back, 'It's true what they say... you don't appreciate what you have until you almost lose it.'

I stood there like an idiot with my mouth hanging open and watched him pull away. George wandered up with a little thought balloon that simple read, 'damn' in very small letters.

'No shit.' I agreed and we made our way to the bus stop.

I decided that perhaps my luck really had taken a turn for the better when I arrived at the hospital and managed to get there early enough to be present when Heero's Doctor came around. He announced that, if Heero managed well on solid food, they would be releasing him either the next day or the day after. It was all I could do not to leap up and hug the man.

I'm not sure if it was the change in menu, or my own delight communicating itself to Heero, but he seemed in much better spirits. Before he could ask me about the evening and the damn journal, I pulled my sketchpad out of my duffle bag and showed him the picture I'd sketched of Wufei and Beowulf.

We had another one of those sweet, sweet mornings where we just sat together and talked of nothing at all. I found out that Beowulf had started out in this life as Muffin and had been Sally's cat. He had made his preference for Wufei's company known very early on and Sally had finally moved him, lock, stock and cat dish into Wufei's apartment in disgust and gotten herself a fish tank.

I sat by his bed and worked on the sketch, adding the details that I hadn't had the time for the night before, and told him about Wufei taking my picture... several times.

He laughed and told me about Wufei driving all of them crazy when he had first taken up the hobby, but that he had surprised them all by becoming damn good at it. He looked at me wistfully and told me that he would be very glad to be able to add Wufei's pictures of me to the collection he had already.

Mid morning, we took his walk and I could tell that he didn't need my support near as much as he had. Which was a good thing... that made me feel oddly melancholy. Am I just fucking weird, or what? He still walked with his arm around my shoulders, but I kind of suspected that it might have just been because we could walk like that together without anyone thinking anything of it. I caught an odd little smile on his face at one point that all but confirmed it for me. I couldn't help but echo the stupid, sappy expression and that made him chuckle. Soon we were hiking up and down the hall, not able to even make eye contact without laughing like loons. It served to wear him out faster than usual though, and I had to help him, somewhat reluctantly, back to bed.

'God, I love you,' he whispered next to my ear as I tucked him in, made sure his IV stand was back in place and the lines were arranged out of harms way.

'If I didn't know better,' I smiled down at him, 'I'd say you were drugged out of your mind.'

'You just seem... better today,' he ventured. 'It does more for me than any damn medicine to see you smiling again.'

There was no answer to that other than a long, deep kiss, which was cut short when Aaron showed up with lunch. Heero ate the solid food with much less grousing than he had the liquid diet and I could hardly blame him.

He slept for a bit after that, though he fought against it, and I sat and worked on my picture of Wufei. Then the comment that my subject had made about video taping me in the hospital came back to me and I found myself sketching Heero.

That's what I was doing when Trowa and Quatre showed up in the afternoon. Trowa moved immediately in behind me to see what I was doing, while Quatre went through his daily ritual of checking Heero's chart.

'Solid food?' he noted with a smile, 'Is he doing all right with it?'

'Seems to be,' I whispered and focused all my efforts into capturing the gentle expression on Heero's sleeping face. I figured it wouldn't take long before all the talking disturbed him. 'It's only been two meals so far though.' Then I had to grin up at them. 'The Doctor says if he doesn't have any problems, he'll release him tomorrow or the next day.'

Trowa barely seemed to be listening, his eyes flicking back and forth between Heero and the sketch in my lap. 'Wufei said you were good. Duo... you realize you could hang your work in any gallery in town, don't you?'

'Yeah... right,' I snorted and rolled my eyes up at him. 'And what would they call the exhibit? 'Street Rat Graffiti'?'

'I assume from the way everyone is looking at me,' came Heero's quiet, slightly groggy voice. 'That he is sketching me now, and not Wufei?'

'Wufei?' And of course I had to show them the portrait I was privately starting to think of as 'A Boy and His Cat'.

They continued to comment on my 'artistic ability' until I was feeling miserably uncomfortable and I stuffed the pad away in my duffle bag.

'You know that Wufei is green with envy over your talent, don't you?' Trowa commented blandly and I looked up at him.

'What?' I blurted with my usual wit and aplomb. I was really going to have to have a talk with my thought-hamsters about better lines.

Trowa chuckled lightly, 'I think wanting to paint was what led him to take up photography.'

Quatre let out with an odd little chuckle. 'He did try those art lessons a year or so ago, didn't he? I'd forgotten.'

They talked around me in that vein for a bit and I mulled the information over. I suppose it did explain Wufei's reaction whenever he caught me drawing or was in a position to look through my stuff. Who would have thought?

Before I quite knew what was happening, a phone call had been made to Wufei at work and the four of them were making arrangements for me to go home with Trowa and Quatre for the night. I didn't know whether to object or not. On the one hand, Quatre was making me insane. But on the other, Wufei had been getting a little too... close to some of the things I just didn't want to talk about. I had kind of hoped that I might go back to the apartment and try things on my own, but I suppose that had been a rather ludicrous idea with this group around. It was only going to be for another night or two anyway, so in all reality, it just wasn't worth fighting over it.

We won't even talk about how it made me feel to have them making plans for me without a one of them even asking me what I wanted. That had just become a given. Something to be expected. I was getting numb to it. Really.

So when they were done with their discussion and informed me that Wufei had to work late trying to make up some of the paperwork that wasn't getting done because Heero wasn't there, and that I was going home with them again... I just nodded. Smiled and nodded.

They left after an hour or two, with assurances that Trowa would be back to get me at the end of the day. I didn't even bother to point out that I was pretty sure a cab driver would be able to find their damn place.

I couldn't recapture the morning's mood after they were gone, no matter how hard I tried and it didn't take long before Heero noticed.

'Duo?' he asked gently. 'What's wrong, love?'

I sighed and found my fingers rubbing carefully over the still healing cut on my arm; it was starting to itch like a son of a bitch. 'I... didn't have a particularly bad night last night... and I guess I'd just hoped I could go on home tonight.' Yeah... I used the word for his benefit. Home. I had become aware of the fact that I didn't use it anymore and was making a conscious effort to reassure him. I think he could see through that, though.

He looked at me pensively. 'I thought... I didn't think you had bad nights as long as you were with somebody?'

Well, the mood was already shot anyway, right? So I went ahead and told him a little bit about the journal. Mostly stuff about Camden, Williams' mutiny, and the messages the man had left to his family. I didn't expound on the details of the battle and the involvement of a Gundam in the destruction of the Londonderry. But I did tell him about the dream. About the fact that I hadn't ended up fighting for my life all night with a bunch of flash-frozen corpsicles. When I was done, he was struggling between worried and hopeful.

'You want to find this Anna Camden?' he asked hesitantly.

'I have to,' I told him with a wry grin. 'I think it's contingent on the good Captain and his living-dead crew leaving me alone at night.' Heero frowned at me fearfully and I had to roll my eyes. 'For God's sake, Heero... I'm not telling you I think I'm being haunted by the ghosts of the damn Londonderry. I just think my own guilty conscience isn't going to leave me alone until I do this.'

He reached for me, making me move to sit on the side of the bed instead of the chair, where he could get hold of me.

'What in the world have I done,' I asked him, choosing my words carefully. 'To make you guys keep acting like I'm going to need a straight jacket fitting any day now?'

He flushed darkly and his fingers wrapped tightly around mine. 'You... you seemed to... You talked, quite a bit...' He was floundering around like a drowning man, his eyes flicking to meet mine and then dropping away, and I considered just letting him go, to see if he would ever get it spit out. But I couldn't stand watching him struggle so hard, and finally took pity on him.

'Husband-mine,' I grinned down at him. 'I've talked to my dead for as long as I can remember. That predates the trip I made to the anti-chamber of hell. But I'm gonna let you in on a little secret...' I couldn't help grinning widely and leaning down to whisper conspiratorially, 'they don't really answer.'

It was something of a shock to see the relief wash up and fill his eyes until I thought they would spill over.

'Heero?' I murmured, not quite believing the fear I was seeing behind that expression. 'What are you telling me? You think... you think I'm nuts?'

'Quatre's Doctors...' he told me, as he tried to school his emotions. 'They warned us over and over... that no one could come through that... unharmed. That the amount of time you spent out there was just too much. Hell; Trowa wasn't adrift a... a... tenth of the time you were, and he completely lost his memory of the entire incident! He didn't even remember Quatre!'

I worked very hard to keep all the irritation out of my voice. Really damn hard. 'Trowa got his ass blown up by his own lover. Right after seeing said lover destroy an entire colony! I think the damn circumstances were a little different.' He didn't look convinced. 'Heero, that's like... like comparing a car accident and running out of gas! Yeah, they're both events that involved a damn car, but that's pretty much where the comparison leaves off!'

'Don't belittle what you went through,' he growled.

'I'm just trying to forget what I went through, damn it!' I snapped. 'But it's a little damn difficult when I have four people more than willing to keep dredging it up and rubbing my God damn nose in it!'

Oooops. Those fucking little thought-hamsters had done another end-run around my brain.

I was suddenly feeling a rather frantic need to... be somewhere else. I managed to untangle myself from his hands and slipped from the bed. I meant to calmly tell him that I was going to walk down the hall to the soda machine and that I would be right back in just a minute and to please stay where he was and give me just a little space. I'm not sure what actually came out of my mouth.

I fled the room with guilt-beast latched onto one ankle, dragging along all the way down the hall. The glow of the soda machine was like the light at the end of the tunnel, beckoning me with the lure of caffeine and the sharp bite of carbonation. I dropped my coins in and hit the button a little more violently than was necessary, snatching the bottle up to open it and gulped down three huge swallows without pause.

I'm not nuts. I want that on the record. I may be a little... odd. I may have a slightly more active imagination than a lot of people. I have, perhaps, not led the most orthodox of lives. I may have had a somewhat less than stable background. But... I. Am. Not. Crazy.

Was it really all that damn much to ask that they let it go? I was so tired of my entire life revolving around that one stupid piece of shit job to the asteroid belt. I was in the salvage business for a long time. All on my own. I had hundreds of jobs to my credit. I had one go bad. Count them; one. So now every breath I drew had to have something to do with the Londonderry and the damn belt? Every time I sneezed for the rest of my life, was somebody going to try to blame it on that damn accident?

I'm really sorry to have to report this... but I was pretty screwed up before hand. I talked to myself before I'd ever heard of the Londonderry. I painted ghosts and cut my own arm once a year, before Howard ever even got that job offer. I embodied inanimate objects with personalities before... hell; before the Maxwell church. That's just... who I am.

I pushed away from the soda machine, took another long swallow, girded my loins and turned back toward Heero's room. Only to find him making his unsteady way down the hall toward me, using his IV stand as an impromptu walker.

I thought for a split second that I just might scream.

'Heero!' I yelped and rushed to his side. 'What the hell are you doing? Didn't I tell you I'd be right back?'

He looked at me, rather stricken. 'No... you just said something about damn hamsters and took off.'

I repressed the urge to laugh out loud, deciding that would not do my 'I am not crazy' argument a lot of good, moved up to offer him my support and determined that trying to explain what a thought-hamster was, would... probably be a really bad idea.

He latched onto me like he thought I was going to disappear on him and we headed back for his room.

'I was thirsty,' I murmured, when I couldn't find anything that rhymed with 'hamster' that I thought he would buy.

He frowned, recognizing an evasion when he saw it and switched his irritation to something he could at least see. 'You drink too much of that crap... it's not good for you.'

'Just be thankful it's not whiskey,' I ground out and then immediately was sorry when his look went from stricken to... horrified. I sighed, feeling worn down to the bone. 'Heero... you're pushing. You're pushing so damn hard I can't hold on much longer. I thought we talked this out yesterday. Please... we're so close to being through this. Don't do this to me now...'

We got to the side of the bed, but instead of climbing back in it, he sat down in the chair, letting his hand slide from my shoulder, his fingers trailing down my arm until he could catch my hand in his. As though he were afraid to let go of me. I sat down on my heels in front of him.

'I love you,' he whispered softly. 'But I don't know how to make it be enough.'

I smiled sadly at him, 'It's not that you're not trying hard enough, love; it's that you're trying too hard.'

We stared at each other. I didn't know how to vanquish his fears, how to make him stop tearing himself apart over this.

'I want this morning back,' I found myself whispering. 'Why can't it just be like it was this morning?'

He blinked at me, reaching with his free hand to stroke a finger along the corner of my mouth. 'You... lost your smile.'

It was my turn to blink, and I couldn't help turning my face into his hand. 'I'm sorry,' I told him. 'I just get so frustrated. You guys treat me like... like a child who can't make their own damn decisions.'

'Nani?' he blurted and I sighed, suddenly so weary I could have wept. I didn't want to fight any more. I didn't have the strength to argue any more.

I found my head lying in his lap and was not at all sure how it had gotten there. His fingers came hesitantly to stroke over my hair. 'Nobody even asked me where I wanted to go tonight,' I told him. 'Do you realize that?'

There was a bit of a silence while his hand continued to caress the side of my head, brushing through the wisps of hair there. 'We didn't, did we?' he said at last. 'Please... tell me what you wanted? We'll call Trowa...'

'No,' I said calmly. 'What I want doesn't matter. It only makes everyone worry. It's only another night or two... leave it alone.'

His hand stilled. 'Don't say that... of course what you want matters.'

I didn't even need a hamster to supply the next line; to who?, but I didn't say it out loud.

'God, Duo,' he burst out suddenly. 'I just don't know what to do.'

'Stop trying to fix everything,' I told him, surprised at how flat it came out, how worn I sounded, even to my own ears. 'Just trust me and stop treating me like a damn child.'

We just sat like that for a little bit, until his dinner came and then I helped him back into bed. He ate mechanically, not because he was hungry, but because it was required if he wanted out of that place. I tried to tease him about the food, tried to talk to him about nothing in particular but he wasn't very responsive and I just gave it up. He dozed, or pretended to, after dinner and I retreated to a chair with my sketchpad.

I didn't know what in the hell to do, and he didn't seem to know either.

His silence was like a knife in my gut. I suppose, when I thought about it, it had only been a matter of time before this happened. Before we couldn't hold it together any more. When I tried to look forward... I couldn't see my way clear. Hell, I wasn't even sure any more which one of us was right and which one of us was wrong. I wasn't sure it mattered... if I continued to try to make my way through this; I only stood to lose him. To lose the last thing I had left. But it felt like I was losing myself otherwise. When did what I wanted, what I thought, cease to matter?

For the first time since I'd made the decision to make the leap and take a chance on letting myself love again, I wasn't sure I hadn't made a mistake.

He was going to hurt me again. He... wasn't going to wait forever for me to get my head together. And why should he? What was there in me that was worth all this damn effort? I... I wasn't going to make it through this. I knew that above and beyond anything else. I had known that from the moment I had lifted the lid on the box of broken dreams. I couldn't go through that again. That rejection... that pain. Especially not now, on top of losing everything else. There just wouldn't be any point any more. I couldn't even work up to being upset about that. I was just too tired.

Something made my eyes focus on the page in front of me and I all but gasped at the picture my hands had made without me. Sometimes I wondered if those damn little hamsters really did exist and they sometimes crept out when my attention wavered and they left these little gifts for me.

It was another damn self-portrait. In a surreal landscape that I don't even want to admit had to have come out of my own head. I was walking that path of my analogy. Or standing on it. It wound away behind me into the distance before it crumbled and fell away into nothingness, making retreat impossible. It narrowed as it twisted and turned ahead of me, until it was hardly as wide as my foot. I was dressed in the ragged clothes of my youth, barefoot, my hair loose and whipping behind me, evidence of the winds that buffeted me. I looked emaciated and weak, shoulders slumped and hands wrapped hopelessly around my own thin body. I looked cold. I looked hungry. I looked... desolate.

A pace ahead of me, the path had become laced with shards of broken glass, and I was left with no choice but to tread on it, because there was no place else left to go.

'Shit.' I hissed and slapped the cover closed on the damn thing. I raised shaking hands to rub at gritty eyes and wondered how long I'd been sitting there, drawing.

With a sudden start, I dropped my hands and stole a glance at Heero, but he seemed to still be sleeping. I hurriedly shoved my supplies back in the duffle bag, wouldn't do for him to see that little gem. Wouldn't do for anybody to see that little gem.

I sat and watched him sleep for awhile and ached clear down to my bones to be able to crawl up there in bed with him and rest my head on his shoulder. But he was so angry with me... it seemed like a less than stellar idea.

George jogged by, madly waving a banner that said 'asshole', but I'm not sure which of us he was referring to.

We were still sitting like that when Trowa showed up; me in my chair, staring at Heero. Heero in his bed... sleeping.

It was Trowa who bent to wake him, when I hesitated.

'Heero,' he said gently. 'Visiting hours are over... I came to get Duo.'

I don't know if it was just my imagination that made me think that Heero didn't look very groggy when he opened his eyes, or not. I'll be the first one to admit I was feeling a little... sensitive.

I moved up to the side of the bed, within reach and waited to see if he would do so. But there was no reaching... he didn't. I didn't. It was awkward as all hell. Trowa was staring at us. LeAnn started to come in for some check-up or other and hesitated in the doorway, probably deciding she had picked the worst place in the whole hospital to be in that moment. I felt like my chest was imploding. I saw Trowa's attention waver as he turned toward the intruder in the doorway and I took the opportunity to lean down, and whispered fiercely into Heero's ear. 'I'm sorry... I'll... be stronger. I swear.'

Then I turned, grabbed my bag and fled the room. Trowa caught up to me at the elevators and I just avoided eye contact for a bit. He didn't speak, just kept stealing glances at me out of the corner of his eye.

My head was pounding and my back ached from sitting in that hard chair all afternoon. I was drifting and I knew it. I needed to get myself together and figure out what the next step was. That thought made me flash on that new stupid portrait and I determined I should probably destroy it at the first safe opportunity.

The ride back to the Winner estate was just about as uncomfortable as I've been in a long while. Awkward is a word that does not even begin to encompass the atmosphere in that car. Trowa asked if I was all right about half way there and I just told him I had a headache. Then I stared out the side window and thought I made it pretty damn plain I wasn't in the mood to talk.

When we arrived, he did two fairly predictable things. Fetched me a bottle of aspirin and took Quatre off to the side for a small, private discussion. Wanna take bets on what the topic of conversation was? Didn't think so.

While I tried to work up to the resignation I knew I was going to have to be feeling to get through whatever Quatre came up with, I hauled my laptop out and went into the study to jack into the internet. I still had an e-mail to answer.

I pulled up the message, trying very hard not to think of the poor guy as 'the man who wants to take my ship away from me', and composed a quick reply. I suggested a time tomorrow morning for the walk through of the ship and tried not to cringe when I hit the send button.

Then my eyes fell on the message right above it. Shit. Toria, I had completely forgotten about her little 'death threat to Heero' message.

I pulled it up and read it again. She was going to kill me for making her wait this long for a reply. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten about this, it had been... over twenty-four hours since I'd seen it. Guilt gave me a toothy grin and began debating body parts.

I began to type.

Hey spacer-girl! Listen hon, there's been a couple of changes since we saw each other last. The chief one being, I'm not a pilot any more. Surprise! Please do not come and kill my boyfriend; he had nothing to do with it. In fact, I shocked him with the 'for sale' sign as much as I shocked you.

Toria sweetie... I just finally faced up to the screaming case of spacer's-disease that I caught out there in the belt. I'm sorry I didn't send you a message when the ship went up on the boards, so that you wouldn't worry. I just can't do it any more. Don't worry. I'm fine. Give Hayden my love.

Duo

It took me the better part of a half an hour to compose the damn thing. I had it typed three times before deleting it and starting over... and over...

When I finally hit the send button and sailed that one off into the ether, I was surprised to find I had another new message. An answer already from my potential buyer. Joy. Seems the guy had a day job and would prefer to look at the ship in the evening. This evening to be exact. Double joy.

I checked the time. I stared at the e-mail. I looked around the room and found myself still alone. What the hell? I didn't need to ask anyone's damn permission to make an appointment. I fired off another message and asked if the guy could meet me at the dock's main office in an hour. He had to have been sitting over his computer; the answer was an immediate 'yes'.

I would have smirked at my laptop if I hadn't been hating this whole idea so damn much; the guy wanted the ship bad. He was not a great negotiator; he'd already shown me at least part of his hand.

I went to the desk in the corner of the study and used the phone to call a cab. I was not going to haul Trowa back out at this time of night just to take me down to the docks.

Then I did the whole deep breath thing, plastered on a grin and went to find my keepers.

As expected, Quatre was less than thrilled to hear that I had 'an appointment' at this hour and even less so that I had already summoned a ride that would be there any minute.

'When will you be home?' he questioned me nervously and even Trowa had the grace to snicker at him.

'I'll try not to be too late, Mom,' I teased him and made him blush bright red. I didn't tell him that I wouldn't be home in the foreseeable future since I didn't have one anymore. I'd destroyed it and was now about to go engage in what felt like a little corpse selling.

The cab honked then, in the front drive and I fled before he could grill me any more.

'Duo!' he yelled after me. 'What about dinner?'

'I'll grab something on the way back!' I hollered, and climbed into the waiting cab.

I'll spare you all the icky, boring, almost-like-selling-real-estate, details. I don't honestly want to talk about what it was like going back aboard that ship. It was weirdly like walking through a stranger's ship with most of the walls stripped. The guy was all eager and excited... looking to buy his first damn ship. I was ready to throw up just doing the walk through. I ended up making him go stand outside when we got to the talking part; I couldn't stand to be in there for one more minute. I was afraid I was going to break down and run the son-of-a-bitch who wanted my damn ship, off into the night. We did the haggling. We agreed on a price. He had to do the loan paperwork and would get back to me. I agreed to take the ship off the boards for the price of a small retainer while he got his approval. We shook on it and he walked away. I locked the ship down and I walked away.

Somewhere in the back of my head there was a bell tolling a dark, solemn song. I found my shuffling footsteps matching the slow knell as I made my way off the grounds. Damn. That had been a little rougher than I had anticipated. Like some kind of really bad dream; everything so familiar and so alien all at the same time. I blinked when I looked up from my walking to find myself at the bus stop, and cursed. What the hell? Was I on autopilot? If so, I'd set the wrong damn coordinates. I would have felt like an idiot going back to the office at that point and so walked another block until I found a pay phone where I could call a cab. Bus doesn't run to the Winner estate.

All in all, I was delivered safe and sound back at Quatre and Trowa's in just under two hours. They'd left the porch light on. I stood in the drive for a minute after the cab pulled away and just looked at it. I had to chuckle; I don't think anybody has ever left a light on for me before. What an odd feeling.

While I stood there like a moron, the front door opened.

'Duo? Are you coming in?' Quatre called to me, holding the door wide.

I stood and blinked at him for a moment longer before starting the hard climb up those five or six steps. The whole thing seemed oddly surreal; it didn't feel like I'd been gone five minutes, it was hard to get my head around the fact that I'd just sold... the ship. Not 'my ship'. Not 'my Demon'. The ship. Keep it impersonal, Maxwell.

He looked... hesitant. Which may sound odd, but I don't know how else to describe it. He just looked like he had a hundred things he wanted to say and was about to choke to death trying not to say any of them.

Trowa appeared behind him and ventured, 'Everything go all right?'

I tried to fathom what was going on with them and replied, 'Pretty well.' I was left foundering when neither of them pressed me about where I had been. Well... wasn't this another odd little trip to the Twilight Zone?

'Are you hungry, Duo?' Quatre asked carefully, glancing at Trowa with an odd expression, almost seeming to search for approval in his eyes.

'Actually,' I dared, 'I forgot to stop somewhere... but please don't make anybody get up just to fix me something.'

'Would you like to just go into the kitchen and poke around?' Trowa smiled at me and I couldn't help a grin.

'If that huge woman who cooks for you guys won't kill me for invading her domain,' I snickered and Quatre flashed me a smile. I cannot remember the woman's name, but she just freaking towered over me. I felt like a damn dwarf in her presence.

Trowa led the way and Quatre took a step to follow, hesitated and I wondered again what was up. 'Coming, Qat?' I called, and watched him smile in obvious relief, before he started after us.

They actually let me dig around in the refrigerator until I found the makings of a fairly simple sandwich. Well, as simple as it was going to get in the Winner household. This kitchen had probably never seen a loaf of Wonder bread, but I found the strange Italian bread to be not all that bad, and the meat was good even if I couldn't identify its source.

Then Trowa went to the second refrigerator, the one that was apparently reserved strictly for drinks - can you believe this place? - And fished me out a soda. A lovely green bottle of ice-cold Mt. Dew. They didn't even make me pour it over ice, letting me just drink straight out of the bottle.

Ok. Armageddon had apparently come while I was out of the house.

Quatre suggested we go sit in the study while I ate and I was more than happy to oblige. I couldn't help but imagine Amazon-cook coming in, catching me eating her food without her explicit permission, and gutting me where I sat. Bet she could turn me into an interesting side dish; Maxwell over noodles, perhaps.

The study is a fairly small, cozy little room, compared to most of the rest of the massive rooms in the house. I found I rather liked it in there and settled on one end of the small couch with an almost weary sounding sigh. My laptop still sat there on the coffee table and I had a moment of shock when I realized that I had just walked off and left it lie there.

'Sorry about that,' I murmured to the two of them. 'I guess I forgot to put it away.'

'It's not hurting anything, Duo,' Quatre was quick to assure me.

'Who's the guy on the wallpaper?' Trowa asked casually and I took a moment to glance up at them while I chewed a bite of sandwich. There was the oddest feeling in the air that I couldn't quite put a name to.

I flashed Trowa a smile after I had swallowed. 'Sisyphus. Greek mythology.'

'Doomed to push his rock up the same hill for all eternity?' Trowa supplied.

'That's the guy,' I agreed with an evil grin. 'Got damned to hell for tricking Death! Is that just not the most ironic thing?'

Trowa actually did chuckle, but Quatre only looked... kind of ill.

I went back to eating my sandwich. It was quiet while I chewed and swallowed for a few minutes.

'Hamid found a plumbing problem in the room we've been using, Duo,' Quatre said warily and I had to look up at him. He and Trowa were pointedly looking... elsewhere. 'I had our things moved to another room... it's a little smaller, but there's a shower.'

Click. I heard it, right in my head. Click. As the gears engaged.

I very gently set the rest of my sandwich back on the saucer. 'You always did lie like shit, Qat. Which one of them called you? Heero or Wufei?'

He went this funny shade of... pale, and tried to do my fish imitation. I would have to remember to give that impersonation up; it wasn't very attractive.

Trowa handled it better. 'Actually, they both did.'

I snorted. 'So, what the hell did you guys do while I was away these last years? Drink some nasty 'I must tell every single thing I know to my comrades' potion? Get cursed by some vagrant witch to spew every tiny bit of information that comes your way, to each other?'

Quatre managed a look that almost bordered on frightened, but Trowa laughed at me. 'No; we just spent a very miserable year trying to hide things from each other before we figured out that... a little support was a nice thing.'

'Sometimes that total honesty thing can border on rude,' I told him flatly. 'I am a guest in your home... there is no reason I can't eat what is put in front of me and drink what is available.'

'You are our guest, and there is no reason we can't provide things that help you feel more at ease.' He gave me a shrewd glance. 'You didn't expect Relena to eat what was put in front of her on that trip to L2.'

I blinked across at him, 'Heero told you about that?' I was rather incredulous; what in the hell would they care about something like that for?

Quatre finally dared to enter back into the conversation, though his voice was rather subdued. 'Heero came to get my help to make the... supply list.'

'You know,' I ventured tentatively. 'This is a large part of why I don't feel like I can talk to you guys... every word I say is repeated like I've been recorded. What the hell happened to confidentiality?'

Trowa gave me a very penetrating look. 'Our confidentiality is ironclad. Among the five of us.'

'And what if there are things I don't necessarily want to tell Heero?' I asked him point blank.

'Why would you keep anything from Heero that you could tell one of us?' he chided gently. 'Heero should be the one person in the world you share everything with.'

I felt myself blushing and looked down at my hands. 'He's in the fucking hospital. He doesn't need to be worrying about me at a time like this.'

'And what if your evasions are only worrying him more?' Quatre said logically. 'What if his imagination is painting in far worse things than the actual reality?'

I sighed and dropped my head into my hands. 'It doesn't damn well matter now anyway... he's so pissed off at me...' I let that trail off and had to wonder about those damn thought-hamsters. It was like they lay in wait for me to forget they were there so that they could sneak messages passed my brain to the outside world.

There was movement in the room and I suddenly found Quatre kneeling on the couch next to me. 'He's not... mad at you,' he soothed gently and opened his arms to me. I don't know where in the hell Trowa disappeared to, but it was all at once just the two of us.

I sighed heavily and just let myself lean into the embrace. Who would ever have pegged this group of hardened soldiers as a bunch of huggers? 'You didn't see him tonight. He was wicked pissed. He... he didn't even kiss me goodbye.'

I let my cheek rest on his shoulder and stared at Sisyphus on the screen of my laptop where it sat in front of me, quietly mocking.

'He loves you very much, Duo,' Quatre told me quietly and I could feel my face burning. 'He might get upset with you, but he's never going to get so angry that he doesn't get over it.'

He was gently rubbing his cheek against the back of my head and I had to snort bitterly. 'I think he's... given up on me, Qat. I think he finally ran out of patience.'

'You don't honestly believe that?' he murmured, sounding almost exasperated with me for daring to think it.

I held up the bottle of soda to the light. 'What the hell did you do? Drug this stuff?' I accused, marveling at the crap that was slipping passed my defenses.

'I'm just here,' he chuckled. 'And willing to listen. I think you very much need someone to talk to right now.' His hand began to stroke gently over my braid. I wondered what it was that drew them all to touch my hair when they wanted to comfort.

'I just tried to talk to him today... about him treating me like some damn little kid that can't make their own decisions.' I suddenly found myself giving in to the urge to dump some of this crap out of my head and was appalled to hear my own voice telling Quatre these things. 'He acts like I need protecting all the time... like I'm not capable of taking care of myself.'

Quatre laughed. I was rather shocked and stiffened, sitting up to look at him. His expression could only be described as bemused.

'What do you find so funny about that?' I asked coldly, but if anything his grin only widened.

'I just think it's a darn ironic comment coming from the guy who threw himself into the middle of a squad of Oz soldiers to keep them from finding my hiding place.' His grin turned into an almost smirk as he watched my eyes widen and my mouth drop open.

'That... that wasn't the same thing at all!' I blurted, and knew it was pretty damn lame.

'Oh?' he chortled. 'You wouldn't have done that for anyone else on the team, big brother. You would have trusted any of the others to get themselves out of there on their own.'

'Well... the other guys... I wasn't...' I didn't know what to say. I had leaped out of the underbrush during that mission gone bad, because I had seen the soldiers only minutes away from flushing Quatre out of hiding. I had been captured by those bastards once already and had gotten the crap beat out of me. I had a half a dozen damned scars from that lovely little encounter. I wasn't going to sit by and let them get their damn hands on my baby brother. I had made that mad dash into the midst of the bad guys fully intending to take his lumps for him. It had been a freakin' miracle that I had managed to get the hell away again. I'm still not real sure how in the hell I did it. In all my years on the street, I have never run so far so fast. It had seemed my feet had wings.

I found my fingers rubbing absently at the place on my thigh where I had taken a bullet that night and made myself stop, but not before Quatre noticed and his smile faded.

'I never got to properly thank you,' he said quietly.

I gave him a sudden grin. 'I rather thought you gave me your thanks when you decked Heero for daring to suggest I'd led Oz back to the hide-out.'

He burst out with a sudden laugh and blushed bright red. 'I still can't believe I did that!' he whispered as though someone might overhear the confession. 'I've never been so mad in all my life!'

'Hell... I was scared and you were defending me!' I chuckled lightly with him.

'I've never quite understood what kept him from killing me,' he said wryly, still looking embarrassed.

'Uhmm... I think that would probably have been Trowa standing right behind you with a look on his face that would have made a charging rhino pee his pants.'

There was an odd little snort from the vicinity of the doorway and we looked up to see Trowa standing there. 'And you, Duo, standing right beside me... barely on your feet but still looking like somebody's 'mother bear'.'

I opened my mouth to retort, but he was coming across the room toward me, holding the cordless phone out. 'It's for you,' he said with a small smile and was taking Quatre's hand to pull him from the room even while I was still putting the phone to my ear. I hadn't heard the phone ring, which should have told me just who in the hell was on the line, but didn't.

'Hello?' I said hesitantly into the receiver.

'Duo?' It was Heero's voice, of course, sounding concerned.

'What...?' I delivered that old standby line while my brain did the processing. Then I had another one of those clicks. Trowa had called him. 'Shit! They didn't wake you up, did they?' I was irritated as hell with the both of them all of a sudden and heartily sick of all the damn butting in.

'No,' Heero soothed, sounding a little sad. 'I... couldn't sleep anyway. Duo-love... what happened this afternoon?'

I deflated immediately and sighed heavily into the phone, 'I don't know... I just don't know.'

'You told me not to doubt you, baby,' he said softly. 'You can't doubt me either.'

'I'm sorry,' I breathed. 'You were so angry... I thought you'd... given up on me.'

'Never,' he told me fiercely. 'Don't you ever think that. I wasn't angry... I was just frustrated and confused. I don't know how we got to where we are and I don't know how to get us back again.'

'I got... sick and you got shot,' I told him with a dark smile. 'That's how we got here. We just have to hang on until you're well. That's all. I'll do better... I promise.'

He didn't speak for a minute and the silence on the phone was punctuated with the soft sound of his breathing. I could have curled up around that sound and gone to sleep. 'Duo... it isn't about you 'doing better' or 'being stronger'. You are already shouldering more than your fair share. Maybe you're right about my needing to heal... but you have other people now. People who love us, and you need to let them help us. Help you.'

'Can you repeat that?' I grinned at nobody in particular.

'What?' he questioned.

'That part about me maybe being right?' I snickered.

It earned me a grunt. 'Baka,' he said tenderly.

'Asshole,' I murmured.

'I can't wait to be home with you,' he blurted suddenly. 'I miss you so much it hurts.'

I found myself lying down, curling around the phone as though it were his hand in mine and not just a damn piece of cold metal and plastic.

'Soon... soon,' I soothed. 'Maybe tomorrow.'

There was an odd little, uncomfortable moment. 'Uhmm... don't get your hopes up too much, but I have reason to believe that tomorrow is a good possibility.'

I perked up instantly, 'Oh? You gonna share your sources?'

'Well, apparently, the phrase 'if I handle solid food ok' means... if afore-mentioned solid food... follows its natural course without incident.'

I laughed out right. 'You mean you get to go home as soon as you take a dump?'

There was the sound of a soft growl. 'Well... if you're going to use the technical term for it; yes.'

I snickered some more. 'So how's it looking?'

'Mission accomplished,' he informed me dryly and I almost fell off the couch laughing.

'I'm so glad to be a source of amusement for you,' he snorted and it took me by surprise to hear him using my own line on me. 'The mission wasn't that damn easy.'

'Ow,' I commiserated. 'You... all right?'

'I'll live,' he mock growled at me. 'For all you care.'

'I care,' I told him, managing to tone the mirth down to just a wide grin.

'Tell me,' he suddenly said, voice gone all serious and breathless.

'I love you.' I couldn't not respond to the need in his voice.

'Tell me again,' he commanded, voice sounding thick.

'I love you more than anything,' I told him intently.

'God,' he breathed, 'tell me again.'

'I love you, Heero Yuy, you are my whole world.' I chuckled softly. 'Are you doubting me?'

'I've missed your laughter,' he whispered, his voice so intimate that I could almost close my eyes and imagine him right there beside me.

'You?' I wheedled gently.

'What?' he teased.

'Prick,' I groused.

'Oh, my Duo,' he murmured, relenting. 'You know I love you.'

'Don't always,' I let slip.

'You should,' he whispered. 'I'll see to it that you never doubt me again.'

Somehow, all the tension of the evening was washing away and I was taken by surprise by a jaw-popping yawn.

He chuckled softly at me, 'It's pretty late, love. Getting tired?'

I couldn't help sighing. 'Seem to be tired all the damn time any more.'

'We just need to get you home, in our own bed. You'll sleep better then,' he soothed gently.

'I'll sleep better when you're back where you belong,' I grumbled.

'We're almost there, my heart,' he told me, voice a gentle caress. 'Just a little further. You can make it... I know you can.'

'Heero?' I asked hesitantly.

'What is it, love?' he responded, and I thought I could hear weariness in his own voice.

'Tell me too?' I whispered, not as steady as I had meant to be.

'Yes,' he breathed. 'God yes... more than breath. I love you, my Duo... more than anything.'

'Thank you,' I murmured sleepily. 'Good night, husband-mine.'

He snorted affectionately. 'Good night, love.'

I didn't push the disconnect button until after he'd hung up. I think I could have just drifted off to sleep right there, but Trowa appeared not long after, and I imagined him sitting over the cordless base unit, watching for the active light to go out.

'Come on, Duo,' he prodded gently and got me on my feet.

'I gotta clean this mess up,' I resisted, reaching for the dirty dishes.

'Leave it,' he chuckled. 'That's what Quatre has employees for... I got used to it; you can get used to it.'

'It do'sn seem right,' I complained thickly. 'I made th'mess.'

'And someone else is getting paid damn good money to clean it up,' he explained patiently and took me by the shoulders and steered me toward the door.

The 'blue room' was just two doors down from the 'green room' I'd used last time. Another bedroom with two twin beds and Quatre already ensconced in it, fussing with turning the comforters back. I reflected, on a sudden bubble of thought, that Trowa was probably just as eager to get my ass out of his house as I was. He'd been doing a lot of sleeping alone since I came to visit.

I did note, with a strange mixture of happiness and guilt, that there were no silk pajamas lying out waiting for me on my bed.

Trowa delivered me up to Quatre's tender mercies, gave his lover a quick kiss good night and then retreated.

'Did you want a shower, Duo?' Quatre asked solicitously and I had to give out with a low chuckle.

'I'd love one... but I'm 'fraid I just might fall sleep in'it,' I told him and began losing clothes. 'Sorry, Qat.'

He just smiled at me. 'Nothing to be sorry for... it's been a long day.'

I resisted the urge to say 'no shit?', managed to get myself stripped to my shorts and just threw myself on the bed. He looked, from what I could see through blurry eyes, a little disappointed, but only came and pulled the sheets up over me.

'Good night, Duo,' he said, voice full of amusement.

'Night,' I got out, and it was the last thing I remember.

I'm not sure if it was the morning light or the sound of their soft voices that woke me.

'... hasn't moved a muscle since he laid down,' Quatre whispered, his voice laced with concern.

'The whole night?' Trowa responded, confirming my suspicions as to who Quatre was talking to.

I heard nothing from Quatre and had to guess that he only nodded.

'He'll be stiff then,' Trowa sighed. 'When he wakes.'

I could attest to the truth of that statement without even trying to move. What in the hell had I done, pass out?

There was a soft sigh of frustration and a bit of silence. It was rather unnerving, having them sitting behind me somewhere staring at me.

'Why does he fight so hard against us?' Quatre wondered, his voice so soft I almost didn't catch it. 'Why can't he let us help him?'

'He's here, isn't he?' Trowa scolded gently.

'You know what I mean,' Quatre grumbled. 'Why didn't he come to us?'

'You can understand that, if you think about it, my light,' Trowa said softly, his voice sounding amused. 'He's in that place that we were all in... right after the war.'

'Oh Trowa,' Quatre breathed. 'That's so awful! He was the one who taught all of us what it meant to be a... a family. It's not fair that he went all those years all alone.'

There was the softest of snorts from Trowa. 'Life isn't fair, my heart, you know that as well as I do.'

'I know,' Quatre sighed and there was a bit of silence. I was really starting to wish they would go away. This was damn awkward, and I didn't know how to go about 'waking up' without them knowing I'd overheard them. 'I just feel like I have so much to make up for. There were times, during the war, that I thought I just couldn't go on... but he really was there for me like a big brother back then. I feel like... I'm failing him somehow.'

Trowa's next words were muffled slightly and I imagined him with his lips pressed briefly to his mate's forehead. 'We can't force him to trust us, love. All we can do is love him. It'll be enough... just give him time.'

I wondered if the blush I felt on my face was traveling anywhere visible to them.

'I just worry about the way he is,' Quatre whispered, his voice lowering even further and I had to concentrate to hear him. 'In the old days... before... he and I were both so...' he was struggling for words and it made me wonder; eloquent Quatre struggling for the right words? 'We were so lonely... we touched all the time. Just a punch on the arm, or... a hug, sometimes. He's closed himself away. He never initiates anything. It's like he's afraid to... reach out.'

There was a rather tense silence and I thought about pretending to wake while there was a break in the conversation, but then I heard Quatre sigh rather heavily and grumble, 'What is it... you're thinking something.'

It took Trowa a second to answer, 'Part of that is your own fault.'

That was met with an icy silence and it was Trowa's turn to sigh softly. 'You... you've made him so aware of his... scars. He's afraid to touch you with his scars.'

I almost stopped breathing, but realized that would very quickly give me away. I focused all my concentration on keeping the rise and fall of my back even and steady. I really wished that I could just make myself melt into a puddle and seep away through the damn floorboards. I didn't know how in the hell to get my ass out of what was becoming a God awful uncomfortable situation. They would have a cow if they realized I had overheard them now.

There was another silence, followed by the rustle of material. I imagined that Trowa had just taken Quatre in his arms.

'Oh Trowa,' He sighed and I missed part of what he said, with his face most likely buried in Trowa's chest. '... so guilty. He did that to himself to save me. He stayed in a building that was going to blow up any second to search for me. No one had ever... ever...'

'Loved you so unconditionally?' Trowa said gently and there was a sudden sharp noise from Quatre.

I pounced on that noise with a wave of relief. I couldn't lie there and listen to any more of this. I'd be weeping into the pillow in another minute. I let my arm twitch, as though disturbed by the sound, and waited while their voices stilled. After a hand full of seconds ran, I twitched the hand again and then attempted to shift. I didn't have to fake the moan that found it's way out between my lips. Ow. It really did feel like I'd passed out and lain as still as a stone all night.

I spent the next minute acting like a groggy individual rousing from sleep just a little before they were ready. Finally rolling over and 'noticing' my observers for the first time.

I blinked at them, I hoped, not too owlishly and grinned. 'Do I do something incredibly interesting in my sleep? I keep waking up with people staring at me.' I only hoped that any residual blush would be explained by that admission.

Trowa smirked back at me, already dressed and sitting on the side of Quatre's bed. 'Actually we were trying to decide if you'd died and rigor mortis had set in.'

Quatre seemed to suddenly need to go into the adjoining bathroom and I pointedly didn't look at him too hard, allowing him the moment to save face and cover his upset. I flopped back on the bed and just looked up at the ceiling. 'Feels like it,' I told Trowa with a groan. 'What the hell hit me? A bus?'

'Just a little emotional stress,' Trowa drawled and I felt my face flame.

All I could do was grunt at him.

'Why don't we get out of here, Trowa,' Quatre called brightly from near the doorway. 'And let Duo shower and get dressed. He has therapy in less than two hours.'

I moaned piteously and Trowa laughed at me. Quatre told me to come down to breakfast when I was done and then they were gone.

I heaved a sigh of relief and spent the next couple of minutes trying to convince my poor, stiff body to get the hell out of bed. The lure of the shower finally did it, but when I made my way into the bathroom, I almost fell over laughing. 'Shower' he called it; it was more like a fucking spa. Four separate showerheads, adjustable to everything from a stinging spray to a pulsing massage. I'm afraid that my fifteen-minute rule that I had fallen back on while visiting the Winner household, went right out the damn window. Luxuriate does not half describe what I did in there. I felt almost human by the time I was done. When I finally made my way down to breakfast, I wasn't walking like a zombie any more.

They were in the smaller dining room at least, and not the huge one with the table that would seat six thousand and still have room left over for a large wedding reception. I hated eating in that one; it made me feel like I should be whispering or something. I had to walk around the end of the table to get to the seat that was obviously for me and as I passed behind Quatre, I carefully reached out and tousled his hair.

'Mornin' Qat,' I said and pulled out the chair next to him.

I busied myself with arranging my napkin across my lap, but I could see the absolutely beauteous smile on his face out of the corner of my eye. I could also see guilt-beast leering up at me from where he suddenly appeared under the table, peeking at me under the tablecloth, licking his chops and contemplating where to start. Such a simple thing, that touch, but I could see what it had meant to Quatre. I really needed to work on this whole center of the universe thing. When had I stopped looking past the end of my own nose?

We ate with nothing more than companionable chitchat and I could have blessed them both. That poking and prodding everybody did, trying to get me to 'open up', was wearing at me an unbelievable amount. It was... nice to just sit and talk about nothing important. Soothing.

I packed my stuff up, in hopes that I wouldn't be coming back to the 'green room' tonight, and let Trowa drive me over to therapy.

'Duo,' he called through the open car window after I had gotten out, 'thank you.'

I blinked at him, unable to formulate an answer and he only smiled at me. It took me three whole minutes of standing there on the sidewalk watching him drive away to put it together and realize that he knew I'd heard everything they'd said this morning.

Then I went up to therapy to let Jean work me over, only to get worked over in an entirely unexpected way.

I'd been there for over an hour, running through my paces, bantering with Jean and some of the other patients that I knew from sweating beside them for the last several months, when a new kid came in.

I felt my throat tighten and my gut clench in the second that my eyes swept over them as they came across the lobby. A little girl in a wheel chair, being pushed by a man, presumably her father. She was missing a leg. It took me back to my childhood so damn fast I had a moment of not being able to breathe. It was the absence of a noise that had been steady and rhythmic that brought me back to the present and I realized that I had stopped pushing against the weight bar in front of me. I blinked; unable to remember what repetition I had been on and started over with a sigh.

We all have tables that are 'ours' for the duration of our stay in Jean's torture chamber, and I watched with no little dismay as the new kid was assigned the one next to mine, were my duffle bag lay waiting for me to finish.

I have a lot of trouble dealing with... injured kids. With dead kids. With kids caught in a war that they didn't start, but who lose everything anyway. Hollow-eyed kids who look up at you with large chunks of their souls missing, who...

I cursed under my breath and decided that I'd probably done enough on the damn weight bench and moved off to the leg press, where I would be turned around facing away from the row of work tables. I realized my hands were shaking when I tried to adjust the pins on the leg weights and had to take a couple of deep breaths.

This was obviously a kid with a fresh injury. This was not a war injury. This was not a war orphan. That looked like her damn Dad with her. Get a grip, Maxwell. No way in hell could this kid have possibly, ever even thought about being anywhere near a Gundam or a Gundam battle or anywhere else where I might have been the cause of what was wrong with her. No way. Damn it... Could. Not. Be. Get a fucking grip, Maxwell!

I could absolutely have taken Jean out back and beaten her to a pulp when she brought the kid over and settled her in the leg press next to mine.

'Helaine, this is Duo,' Jean teased the little girl as she disconnected the weights on the girl's press so that she was working with just the resistance of the machine itself. 'He's my worst patient,' she added in a conspiratorial undertone and the kid giggled behind her hand.

Helaine. Could this day get any damn better? I thought about moving off to some other exercise, but I had a good twenty minutes left on the leg press and Jean and the girl both had seen me just start.

'Hello,' I ventured gamely and the kid grinned at me.

'Hi!' she chirped brightly. 'Duo's a funny name. What'd you do to your arm?'

'Cut it,' I told her and tried to make eye contact with Jean but she just smirked at me.

'Honey, your Dad said he'd be back to pick you up in an hour, ok?' Jean said, voice falsely cheerful and I watched the kid's smile falter, her eyes flicking toward the lobby.

'Ok,' was all she said.

'You see if you can lift that bar twenty times and I'll be right back.' She moved off then to check on the other three patients she was juggling, and left the two of us alone.

The kid was probably seven or eight, it's hard to tell at that age, and with her sitting right beside me, I started to notice other things as well. She was wearing a pair of shorts, just like we all have to in therapy and her good leg was blotched with a handful of what I easily recognized as burn scars. Judging from the healing rate, I would have to guess that's what happened to her other leg. I shuddered.

'I don't understand why I have to exercise this leg,' she whispered to me, as though afraid that Jean might hear her.

'I suppose it's easier than exercising the other one,' I said without thinking and then froze, weights hovering in midair, and held my breath. Where in the hell had that come from? What in the name of God was wrong with me today?

Helaine burst out laughing a heartbeat later, as though it took her a second to think it through. 'You're silly!' she blurted and covered her mouth with her hand to try and stifle the bright laugh when several people looked our way.

'I've been told that before,' I sighed, relief flooding through me and I resumed my lifting.

'How come you got to do therapy on your legs if you cut your arm?' she wanted to know.

'Oh, the cut's new,' I told her. 'I'm in here just because Jean likes to have someone to make fun of.'

She smirked at me and then got all serious, 'I'm here because our house burned down.'

I looked across at her and she had her lower lip caught in her teeth as she concentrated on raising the bar.

'Oh,' I said softly. 'I... I'm sorry.'

She shrugged and stared down at the bar some more and then blurted, 'Mommy died.'

My weights crashed back down so suddenly that the noise made everyone stop what they were doing and look our way. 'Ooops.' I muttered to Helaine and she giggled again, blushing when she realized that everyone was staring.

We both took up our exercising again. 'I'm sorry.' I murmured after a minute of not finding anything else to say.

She smirked across at me. 'You're sorry a lot.'

I snickered, 'I've been told that too.'

She got to twenty and stopped, looking around and found that Jean was busy.

'She'll come back in a minute,' I reassured the kid. 'She's actually very organized... though you wouldn't know it the way she flits around like some butterfly from person to person.'

Helaine grinned at me and watched Jean moving around, getting the ACL guy going on one of the stationary bikes.

'My Mommy was like that...' she murmured. 'Always doin' a bunch of things at once.'

'She sounds nice,' I said neutrally.

'She was pretty too,' she smiled in remembrance. 'Daddy says I'm gonna look like her when I grow up... but I don't think so.'

'Well...' I ventured, not sure what moved me to pursue this conversation. 'Did she have blond hair like yours?'

'Yeah,' she grinned. 'Only hers was long and all soft and wavy.' The grin turned into a funny little smirk. 'Not as long as yours though!' And she had to giggle at her own daring.

'Well...' I said, 'I've been growing mine for a long time.'

Jean came and moved her off to another machine and I found myself unable to concentrate enough to do much more. I was nearing the end of my session anyway and I found myself watching Helaine wherever she was in the room and before I knew it, I was sitting on my table with my sketchpad in my hands.

The muse was just adamant that something needed to come out. Now. Right this minute. Jean came by once to admonish me for sitting out when I still had my arm routine to go through, but moved off when she didn't get any response from me.

I got sucked down that vortex that takes me where time doesn't happen and place doesn't matter. I watched that poor little kid moving through whatever Jean set her to doing without complaint and I tried to imagine what she was going to look like in another fifteen, twenty years.

When the 'art' let me go, I became aware of someone close beside me and looked up into Wufei's almost awed face. Then I glanced back down and had to blink.

It was Helaine and her mother, sitting side by side on something that looked vaguely like a porch swing. Mother was reading to daughter, and daughter was leaning against her mother's side. There was a cat that looked suspiciously like Beowulf curled beside them. It was a very peaceful scene. There was just a hint of some hanging flowers framing the picture so that I could almost smell the ghost of trailing roses. I shivered.

'What... what are you doing here?' I murmured to Wufei, trying to get my head back in the here and now.

'Heero called,' he told me gently. 'He's been released. I came to get you so we could... take him home.'

I smiled up at him, where he leaned against the table beside me. 'Oh, thank God,' I breathed.

Wufei's expression became an affectionate little smile, but before he could speak, Jean appeared at my other elbow and I thought for a minute she was going to cry.

'Is it done?' she whispered reverently, and when I nodded she took the pad from my hands to look at it.

'Duo,' she sighed. 'It's beautiful.' Then she looked up at me expectantly. 'Are you going to give it to her now?'

I flushed and ducked my head; I hadn't gotten that far yet. 'I don't know... you don't think it'll upset her?'

'Of course not!' she frowned. 'Duo... the family lost everything in the fire. All their pictures... everything. This is probably the only portrait the kid will ever have of her own mother.'

My eyes threatened to grow wide enough to take over the majority of my face. Without thinking, I pushed the sketchpad toward her. 'I... I don't even know if I got it right. Would... would you do it?'

Jean absolutely looked like she was going to smack me on the side of the head, and I unconsciously leaned toward Wufei. Without a word, she whirled away and headed across the room toward Helaine. I gnawed on my lip and didn't know what to do.

'Maxwell?' Wufei questioned, confused as hell.

I was trying to figure out how in the hell to explain the whole, bizarre-ass thing, when there was a squeal and a bright call of 'It's my Mommy!'

I raised my eyes and could see the kid grinning from ear to ear, Jean standing over her with tears washing unabashed down her beaming face. I let out a breath I hadn't been aware I'd been holding.

'Guess I got it right,' I whispered and saw Wufei's head whip around to look at me. I could almost see him piecing things together.

A couple of the nearby patients had moved to lean over and look at the picture in Helaine's hands. She was burbling happily about her mother and how she looked 'just like that' and loved flowers and they used to read together and they didn't have a cat but they had a puppy once but her Mommy loved animals and...

I wasn't aware that I was trembling until Wufei slid a hand up to rest on my shoulder and squeezed gently. 'I... don't think I half understand what's going on here. But, I'd venture to say you did good.'

My body leaned slightly, without my provocation, toward him... toward what was becoming a familiar source of comfort and support. I had to think for a minute before remembering where that word had come from. Trowa.

Across the room, the words were winding down and Helaine looked up to find me. In my mind's eye, I saw a whole and healthy child leap to her feet and run across the room to throw her arms around me. I could see the ghost of the gesture in her eyes. I shivered again.

Wufei nudged me gently. 'You should go over there.'

'I know,' and I turned pleading eyes up at him. 'Come with me?'

'Of course,' he smiled and stepped away while I slid off the table.

I got that neck-grinding hug when I got there and I swear to God there wasn't a dry eye in the little group that the kid had accumulated.

'You knew my Mommy?' she blurted, looking from the sketchpad to me.

'Nope,' I grinned. 'You told me. And... your Dad's right... you will look like her when you grow up.'

I thought the grin was going to split her face.

I remembered the comment she had made about the cat, and offered to change the cat to a puppy. She was ecstatic and babbled on about what the puppy had looked like and I sketched it in. The audience was making me damned uncomfortable, but there wasn't a one of them that seemed like they were moving until this little scene had played itself out. Not even Jean.

The kid's eyes were on fire by the time I had the cat changed to a sleepy puppy and she whispered, 'Can you put a little necklace on my Mommy? She always wore a little locket that had mine and Daddy's pictures in it.' More description, more sketching and there was a tiny, heart-shaped necklace peeking out of the collar of a shirt.

'And... and can my hair be like it was before it was burned?' she whispered.

'Of course,' I choked out. 'How long was it?'

She pointed and I altered. Jean had to leave the circle of watchers to go blow her nose.

When that was done, I cleared my throat and looked down at her where she sat beside me on the workout mat. 'Anything else?'

She cocked her head and studied the picture intently. 'Nope.' She looked up at me with shining eyes. 'It's just right.'

Wufei plucked the sketchpad from my fingers then, delicately removed the picture and rolled it for Helaine, producing a spare hair tie from somewhere and deftly slipped it over the tube her drawing had become.

'In that case,' he smiled down at the kid, handing her the drawing. 'Mr. Maxwell needs to be going, he is late for... his next appointment.'

'Shi... crap!' I muttered and scrambled to my feet. Helaine giggled uncontrollably at my slip. I flashed her a shaky grin as I gathered my stuff up. 'See you next time, 'Lainey!' I told her and Wufei took me out of there. I didn't even object when my duffle bag somehow found its way onto his shoulder.

When the elevator doors had closed and blocked out all those eyes and all that attention and we were finally alone, I sagged against the back wall of the elevator and just shook with reaction. Damn... I just can not deal with little kids in pain. I can't.

Wufei let my duffle bag slide to the floor and before I quite knew what he was about, had reached over and hit the button that stopped the elevator between floors.

'I thought you dealt with her just fine,' he said softly and pulled me away from the wall and into a tight embrace. Shit; I'd said that out loud. It felt like something was drawing all my muscles as tight as a bowstring. I couldn't stop shaking.

'What the hell is wrong with me 'Fei?' I whispered. 'Why the hell can't I handle anything anymore without falling apart?'

'It's just been too much too fast,' he soothed. 'You're too raw. Its... its like a... a thin scab forms over the hurt... but it's not healing, and every little thing starts it bleeding again. Give it time, my friend... just give it some time.'

He held me for a few more minutes until I stopped shaking so hard that we weren't sure if I could walk across the parking lot or not, then he hit the release and took us out of there.

My mood lightened in the car a little bit as I let it soak in just where we were headed. I was going to get to take Heero home. He was well enough to leave the hospital. He was going to be all right. I wasn't going to have to leave him each evening. I wasn't going to have to be ferried back and forth between the Winner and Chang households like a... strange foster child.

Wufei glanced across at me as he drove, 'Better?'

'Yeah,' I muttered, embarrassed. 'Sorry about that.'

'Don't be,' he admonished gently. 'I'm not at all sure I understand what just happened, but it was very... affecting.'

I snorted. Affecting. Nifty little word for 'rip your heart out and stomp the shit all over it'. God, but I just couldn't handle kids in pain. It offended something deep down in my soul; kids should not hurt. Kids should not be in pain. Kids should not suffer.

'What exactly happened to her?' Wufei asked softly.

I ended up telling him the whole damn thing, everything I knew and everything I had pieced together. Finding my own arms wrapped around my chest before I was done.

'You drew the child's mother that accurately without ever having seen her?' Wufei asked, when I was done, his voice incredulous.

'Lainey told me what her Mom looked like, a little,' I explained. 'Then I just tried to imagine what she'd look like when she grew up.'

Wufei gave me a look that was hard to read. It was odd and intense, but he didn't speak and I let it ride.

Heero was fairly vibrating with tension by the time we got there, dressed, packed, sitting on the side of his bed and more than ready to go home.

'What took so long?' he questioned, the instant we were through the door. 'Is everything all right?'

'You did not bother to tell me, when you asked me to pick Maxwell up from therapy, that he had a fan club,' Wufei chuckled breezily and moved to take Heero's bag. I was rather shocked that he didn't immediately relate to Heero every damn thing that had happened the moment he was asked. Hell... I was rather shocked that he hadn't spilled his guts without being asked. But I was willing to take the gift, however small.

I glanced around, more than familiar with how one leaves a hospital, and as if on cue, Aaron appeared in the doorway with a wheelchair. I raised a hand at the first sign that Heero was going to object.

'Do not even start with me,' I glared at him. 'I wasn't given a choice... you aren't being given a choice. Get in the chair, Yuy.'

He snorted disdainfully. 'You didn't have a choice because you couldn't damn well walk,' he informed me, but he got in the chair anyway.

I chuckled. 'Well, you can't walk far, so stop your whining.'

'I didn't say anything,' he pointed out logically.

'You were getting ready to,' I growled.

'Now you're a mind-reader?' he grumbled.

'Learned it from you,' I returned with a cheeky grin.

Heero snorted.

Wufei groaned, 'God help me.'

Aaron couldn't seem to stop giggling.

It washed a little bit more of the morning away. Enough so that guilt-beast rode in the front seat with Wufei, his head stuck out the side window, tongue lolling in the wind.

Heero and I sat in back and Heero leaned against me, letting me take some of his weight.

'God, I'm so glad to have you back,' I whispered next to his ear after a couple of blocks of driving in a certain, companionable silence.

He tilted his head and smiled up at me. 'I love you... I don't think I've told you that yet today.'

I snorted softly, but couldn't keep the smile off my face. I practiced the line three times in my head, to make sure I wouldn't falter over the pertinent word, and then told him, 'It'll be good to get you home.'

He fairly beamed up at me. I leaned down to kiss the top of his head where it rested against me.

'If you two don't stop it,' Wufei informed us from the front seat. 'I'm going to gag.'

'Then you'd better stop watching for a couple of minutes,' Heero drawled and shifted up to deliver a sudden, hungry kiss. I was lost in it in a damn heartbeat.

Neither of us was showing any sign of breaking away until Wufei suddenly snapped, 'If you do anything back there that stains the upholstery, I will kill you both.'

The laughter served to break the mood.

There was a... small altercation when we got to the apartment about how to get Heero up to our floor. His instructions were explicit that he was not to climb stairs for at least another week. Wufei and I had planned on simply carrying him up in the old standard, two-man fireman carry. Heero, of course, objected strenuously to my being half of the two-man part.

He insisted that it wouldn't hurt him to walk up a couple of flights of stinking stairs and I thought for a moment that we were actually going to have to fight with him over it. I started to panic, overcome with a foreboding understanding that here we were at the end of our damn journey and he was going to end up hurting himself trying to protect me. He would wind up back in the hospital and it would be my fault because I had failed to be strong enough to do for him what needed doing. A frustrated scream was boiling around in my chest looking for a way out. I could feel my hands starting to shake.

'Yuy!' Wufei suddenly snapped and went and got right in Heero's face. Terse, almost angry words were exchanged. I think I'm glad I couldn't really make out the nearly whispered exchange; I'm not at all sure I want to know what Wufei said to him. Heero glanced at me and his face did something odd. The next thing I knew, he had relented, let us carry him up without so much as a whimper. I won't lie and try to say I wasn't feeling it by the time we got clear up to the apartment, but it wasn't all that bad and I was pretty sure a soda and five minutes of sitting down would be all it would take to settle my faintly fatigued muscles.

We settled him on the couch and then Wufei went back to the car for our bags. As soon as his partner was out of earshot Heero couldn't contain a worried, 'you're sure you're all right?'

'Yes dear,' I told him sarcastically with a roll of my eyes. 'I'm just fine. Being the one of the two of us who does not have bullet wounds in his damn stomach.'

He suddenly gave me an odd little smile. 'I believe that we are finally in that 'safe house' you referred to. Doesn't that mean that I am now allowed by your own analogy to hover and overprotect?'

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream. I was still trying to decide when Wufei came back into the apartment, my duffle bag over his shoulder and Heero's in his hand.

'What the hell?' he snapped, seeing us staring at each other. 'I wasn't gone five stinking minutes!'

'He started it,' I muttered in a deliberately petulant voice and went to the kitchen to fetch drinks.

I could hear them talking while I was out of the room and just let it go, actually hoping that maybe Wufei could talk some sense into my mate. Not that there was any real guarantee that that's what he was doing, but he had been on my side in the argument over the stairs. I took a couple of extra minutes selecting the bottles from the fridge before taking a deep breath and going back into the lion's den. I handed the drinks around, setting my own soda on a coaster on the coffee table, before taking the minute to deliver my bag to my room, well aware of the picture that was in the sketchpad inside that bag. I hadn't found a place to dispose of it yet and didn't want to take any chances on Wufei deciding he wanted to look through my drawings.

I decided when I about gave myself a heart attack, to pick the vacuum suit up off the floor and stuff it back in the closet. I'd deal with it later.

Then I joined the guys in the living room, curling into the corner of the couch that had become 'mine', picking up my soda to sip at it while I waited to see if one of them would speak.

It was Wufei who finally broke the silence, and good God did he speak.

'I have just about had all I'm going to take out of both of you,' he growled, and glared at Heero. 'There is nothing physically wrong with him, he is not in pain, trust him to know his own damn limits and get that 'I am Superman' stick out of your ass.'

I took a swig of my soda to stop the grin from appearing on my face and waited, I had no doubt that my turn was coming next, and he didn't disappoint me.

'You,' he jabbed his finger in my direction. 'Have been living for this damn moment for the last week. Enjoy it. Don't let him bulldoze you... you know when you're right; trust yourself.'

I glanced at Heero and could only hope I wasn't wearing the same, sheepish, hangdog expression, but knew that I probably was. Which meant that we both looked pretty damn stupid.

'I have to get back to work,' Wufei continued. 'I will call you later, and I expect to interrupt you... cuddling or something else disgustingly sentimental, not to find that you've locked yourselves in your damn rooms!' Then he took his bottle of juice and he left. I could hear him grumbling to himself all the way down the hall.

I'm not sure which one of us chuckled first, but it didn't take long before we were both giggling like children. It got out of control enough that Heero ended up with a pillow clutched to his stomach.

We settled down rather quickly after that, then he surprised me by easing himself down on the couch and laying his head in my lap.

'You've really been living for this moment?' he whispered as he settled against me.

'Well, Superman,' I grinned. 'More like the way I envisioned this moment, not necessarily the way it turned out.'

'I'm sorry,' he breathed and I could feel the warmth of his breath clear through my pants leg.

'Hush,' I chided. 'We're getting to the part I dreamed about.'

I stroked my knuckles over his hair and at length, he murmured groggily, 'This is nice.' Then he fell asleep and I just sat for the next hour and grinned down at him.

We settled into a routine that got us by. Don't get me wrong, we still had our fair share of arguments; it made him crazy when I hiked to the grocery store, even though it was only six blocks down, because he didn't want me carrying things all the way back. He completely refused his pain medication and that drove me nuts. But we managed not to kill each other.

We saw one of the other guys almost daily, a thing that bothered me at first. I felt like they didn't trust me with Heero's care, but I figured out after a while, that this was just something they did. And their being there to help with the mundane chores helped things slowly begin to turn around. The constant tension I had been under seemed to ease and I could sleep at night knowing he was there beside me. Things got so much better, in fact, that guilt-beast took the hamsters and headed off for the Bahamas on a well-deserved vacation. It was a... blissful time.

It lasted about a week; then I got the notification that the sale of the ship had gone through.

Nothing like a dose of toxic reality.

'You're not going down to that closing by yourself,' Heero said, voice unsteady and eyes showing disquiet.

'Heero,' I told him tiredly, 'you're not supposed to be climbing up and down stairs.'

'You know damn well that's only for a couple more days,' he said firmly. 'A day isn't going to make any difference one way or the other...'

I faltered in my resolve and hated myself. I wanted him with me and I couldn't tell if I was considering letting him come for selfish reasons, or if I really believed it wouldn't hurt him.

'I... I don't know...' I stammered and he sat down beside me on the couch, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

'Trust me to know my limits,' he told me softly. 'I can do this. I want to be there with you.'

'It isn't going to take five minutes to do the damn paperwork, Heero,' I tried. 'It's no big deal.'

He snorted. 'It runs deeper than that and we both know it. Don't try to gloss over it.' Hesitantly, he pulled my head over to rest on his shoulder. 'Let me have this, please?' he said softly and I knew I'd lost.

'We're taking a cab,' I informed him, voice tight. 'You're not driving... you're not supposed to be driving.'

'Fair enough,' he pounced, more than happy to make the small concession to win the larger one.

So he went with me. He was very careful on the stairs, taking them one at a time, as much to ease my mind I think, as any thought of his that he shouldn't be doing this. We took a cab to the bank and I sat down across the table from some bank rep, elbow to elbow with the kid that was buying... the ship. I was calm and cool and collected and signed all the papers. I was charming and witty and blasé and shook hands all around. I didn't start the trembling until we were in the back of a cab on our way away from that place. There was very little in my head but white noise. Heero hung on to me with both hands and got us where we needed to be.

The cab driver couldn't seem to decide whether he should be disgusted by the sight of two men holding each other, or scared by the state I was obviously in. He must have been leaning toward disgusted because Heero seemed angry with him when we got back to the apartment and didn't even tip the guy.

I set the pace on the stairs, making sure that he went slowly, one tread at a time to minimize the stretch on healing muscles. He didn't argue, just moving a step behind me, with his hand on my arm.

'Duo...' he began, once we were back in the apartment, but I didn't let him really get started.

'You need to rest,' I told him firmly. 'That's the first time you've been out since you got out of the hospital.'

I could see him warring with what to say, while he studied my face and tried to decide if I was really all right or not.

'Park it, mister,' I grinned at him, pointing to the couch. 'I'm going to fix you something to eat.'

He seemed unsure of his ground and let me bull my way forward. I went off to the kitchen and put together a quick sandwich, finding him on the couch where I had bade him sit when I left the room.

'Good boy,' I smirked and handed him the saucer. 'You're learning to do as you're told.'

'Duo...' he tried again, his hands moving automatically to accept the plate from me.

Again, I didn't give him the opening. 'I am going to go get a shower while you eat your lunch!' I chirped brightly and moved away before he could object.

I don't know what it is about me, showers and crying. Maybe it's because you can pretend the tears are just water. Maybe it's because it's the one place that my voices seldom follow me. Maybe it's because the sound of the shower could drown out a hell of a lot of noise.

I ended up braced against the wall of the shower, my head hanging and the water beating down on the back of my neck, bawling like a damn little kid. I hated it. I hated myself. I hated that I had no more control than this. There had been a day, a thousand years ago, that I had prided myself on almost never crying. It had taken a hell of a lot in those days. I had known that tears didn't help. I had known that in a lot of situations, tears only made things worse... it was a sign of weakness that would bring the predators down on you in a heartbeat. But lately... since that damn accident that was slowly stealing everything I had ever been, everything I had ever hoped to be... it seemed all I could do was cry.

She was gone. Really, irretrievably gone. The 'Maxwell's Demon' was no more. That kid would register his new ship with some other name and he would go off to make his fortune. If I ever chanced to see her again, I probably wouldn't even know her. He would decorate the inside of her the way he saw fit, might even destroy Neo's butterflies. Might paint over my stars and not even realize that he was wiping out L5 all over again. Had Wufei seen it? Had he realized that I had put it back in the midnight sky for his sake? If he hadn't... he never would now.

My ship. My Demon. I ravaged her and I killed her and I sold her damn corpse. What kind of a motherless son-of-a-bitch was I?

Had I not already been bawling uncontrollably, that would have made me laugh until I was.

'Oh dear God... what did I do?' I murmured through the sobs.

Then strong arms were turning me around under the spray of warm water and enveloping me in a tight embrace. 'Damn it,' Heero murmured softly. 'I knew it... damn it, Duo...' He cut that off fairly quickly though, well before he got to the I told you so part, and it changed to gentle offerings of support. 'I'm here... I'm here, baby. It's going to be all right... let me hold you...'

I stiffened, aware of his still healing body... aware of the very real possibility of hurting him.

'It's all right... please don't fight against me. Lean on me, just for a little bit... let me be here. I swear to God I won't let you hurt me.'

There was a tiny, rather inconsequential war that went on in my head and when it was over, pride was dead on the floor of my brain and need was firmly in charge. I wrapped my arms around his neck and begged him softly, 'don't let me hurt you... don't let me hurt you...'

I let him hold me. I held him. I cried until my throat hurt and there were no tears left. I hurt. I was humiliated. I felt adrift and groundless. I didn't know who or what I was, or where in the name of God I was going. What in the hell was I going to do now?

He stroked the heavy, water-soaked hair from my face and held me wrapped as close as he could in those strong, sure arms of his. He whispered and murmured, reassured and calmed.

When I tried to apologize, he kissed me until I shut up.

When the water started to cool, he got us out of there.

When he found me shaking with exhaustion, he took us to bed.

When I tried to object, tried to pull myself together somehow, he just smiled tenderly down at me. 'We both need some rest, love. Just let me lie with you...'

Oblivion claimed me swiftly, when I let myself rest my head on his shoulder. It was as much a running away as it was a need for sleep. I just didn't want to think any more. Didn't want to remember the smile on that damn kid's face as he signed the papers that made my dream his own. Is there a special place in hell for people who whore out their dreams?

When I woke, the light told me that some time had passed. My head was pounding and my throat was mildly sore, pointed reminder of the fool I had made of myself... just in case I had forgotten.

'Awake, my heart?' Heero's voice whispered near my ear and I turned to find him watching me intently. I flushed darkly and looked away.

'Oh God, Heero...' I blurted. 'I feel like such an idiot.'

'Hush,' he scolded, voice so laced with emotion, I couldn't even name it. 'You needed to get it out. You can't hold that kind of pain inside... you can't hide from me.'

'I just don't understand what in the hell is wrong with me,' I told him, reaching to rub my hands over my face, as much to hide from his piercing gaze as to ease the headache.

He caught my hands and pulled them away. 'What is wrong, is that you are trying to pretend that your world hasn't crashed down around you. You are trying to force yourself to carry on as though nothing ever happened.'

'What in the hell do you expect me to do?' I whispered up to him, some part of my heart hoping that he had an answer that might lead me out of this awful, awful place.

'You can't keep running away from these... feelings.' He soothed, stroking his fingers gently over my face. 'You have to let your heart and mind heal along with your body. Come to me when you feel like this... when you reach the end of that rope. Just... let me love you.'

I didn't know what to say to him and just curled toward his warmth, wishing I could flee into the forgetfulness of sleep again.

He sighed softly and curled an arm around me, stroking his fingers through my damp hair.

I struggled with something to say to him, I'm fine. I'm ok. I'll be all right. They all seemed... lame.

'Duo?' he asked softly after a bit of silence.

'What?' I prompted, a bit timidly.

'Can... we talk about something?'

I thought my heart would stop in my chest. Poor George appeared on the bed beside me, teleported fresh from vacation, his fez askew and wearing a little Hawaiian shirt. He was struggling with his banners, trying to decide between 'holy-shit!' and 'oh hell!'. I blinked at the both of them and could only nod.

Heero took a deep breath and I tried to prepare myself for the pain I was pretty sure I was about to face. The little kid in my head closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around his head and began keening quietly to himself.

'I've been thinking about this for a while,' he said, looking up at the ceiling and not at me. 'I wanted to wait a little bit before I brought it up... but somehow this seems like it might be a good time.'

The blood was rushing through my veins so loud, I had trouble hearing him for a second.

'Have you made any plans for the money that you... that you got from that sale?' he asked it very carefully, obviously thinking hard about the wording, his voice hesitant.

'Not... not really,' I choked out and even George seemed shell-shocked, sitting on the bed with his eyes wide and not an appropriate banner in sight.

'I've been thinking about some things,' he continued, seemingly oblivious to my distress, dealing with his own disquiet. I determined that when he finally got done dumping me, that I would pack my things and move out with absolutely as much grace as I could muster. It was hardly his fault that he was tired of dealing with my sniveling and my weakness. He deserved someone better than me, someone who could be there for him and who wasn't such an emotional cripple. I would - so help me God - not fall apart until I was far, far away from here.

'What would you think of the idea of looking for a house together?' he suddenly blurted.

George and I stared at each other and the poor little guy just gave it up and left me on my own. The best I could come up with was a barely squeaked, 'W... what?'

Heero stiffened where he lay by my side. 'I... I'm sorry,' he stammered. 'It was too soon... I should have waited. I just thought it might help. You don't feel at home here... I started to notice things after I realized. You've never... you don't change things... you aren't making this your home. You act like a guest here and I don't want that... I thought, maybe...' The words were slipping out faster than he seemed able to control them and I thought about offering him the services of a thought-hamster or two, but then I reflected that they hadn't done my verbal editing process a lot of good and forgot about it. 'I'm sorry, forget I said anything,' he finished and suddenly grew quiet.

I blinked up at the ceiling. 'You're not... you're not asking me to move out?' I whispered.

'Nani?' he exploded and finally turned to really look at me. I'm sure he found my face as white as chalk and my eyes as round as saucers. I was fairly certain my blood pressure had done something really freakin' interesting. His hands were suddenly on either side of my face and I was being forced to meet his fierce gaze. 'No,' he told me firmly. 'I am not. This... path of yours... I'm asking you to make a home the next goal down it. I am asking you to pool your resources with mine and for us to move out of here... together. I married you, didn't I? We tease each other with that, but damn it; I meant it. We are in this together, heart and soul and all that damn shit. Forever. You promised me forever and I mean to collect on that.'

There was no mistaking the strength of the possessive, loving look he was giving me. No mistaking his resolve. His confidence that we would come through this.

'Heero?' I sighed, unable to shift away from that gaze even if he had let me.

'What?' he responded, eyes searching mine intently.

'Do not ever again start a conversation with 'we have to talk' or any other variation on that theme, ok?'

He snorted and couldn't help quirking a small grin. He had the decency to look slightly chagrined. His hands stopped holding my face and I found his fingertips tracing over my own smile as it echoed his.

'So,' he prodded after a moment. 'What do you think?'

'Are you sure?' I had to question. 'You've lived here a long time.'

'Doesn't matter,' he smiled. 'This place isn't right for you, so it isn't right for me. I want someplace to call our own. Someplace with a bit of a yard, and... and a room with a lot of light where we can make your studio.'

He was looking at me with his damn heart right there in his eyes and in that moment I wondered how I could ever have doubted him.

'I have to take care of this thing with the journal first,' I had to warn him. 'I can't concentrate on anything else until that's off my shoulders.'

'Of course,' he said, and I could see something truly bright and beautiful being born right in front of my eyes. 'Wufei has already started searching for Mrs. Camden.'

I grunted in surprise, though I suppose I should have realized with his Preventer connections, he would have already started the research.

Heero's fingers trailed up and down my arm and he smiled at me wistfully. 'What shall we look for, love?'

I thought about it for a moment, 'I think I'd like something... a little secluded. Someplace quiet. I'd like... a garden... and... and a fireplace.' I found my chest growing tight as I thought about something that I had never let myself think about before.

I could almost feel the weight of his eyes on me, watching me explore a house that didn't exist outside my head. 'You?' I asked softly.

'I think,' he whispered, as though afraid of breaking some spell. 'I would like for you to paint our bedroom... with stars.' He seemed to be almost holding his breath, watching for my reaction.

I blinked up at him. 'I... I would like that.'

His breath went out in a sudden gust and he gathered me against his chest in a fierce hug. I settled against him, though I knew we were going to have to get up soon, and continued to explore the house in my head.

'Hey,' I grinned, on a sudden thought. 'You ever stayed in Quatre's 'blue room'?'

'I believe so,' he said hesitantly, as he thought about it. 'Why?'

'I want a shower like that!' I chuckled.

'Anything you want, love,' he said huskily. 'Anything at all.'

I decided to wait before I brought up the cat. Might not do to spring too much at him at one time. Besides, I needed to talk to George and the boys first... they might object.

'What are you thinking about?' he ventured after a moment.

'How much I love you,' I told him and the smile he graced me with reminded me where my true home lie.

OWARI

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