Author: Sunhawk

Pairings: 1+2, implied 3x4

Rating: R

Warnings: Yaoi, angst, OOC, language, slightly bastardized characters, Duo POV.

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

Thanks to Christy for beta reading above and beyond the call of duty!

Thanks to Aya and Yume for opinions rendered.

Feed-back is a dream I have...

Ion Series Part 3
Revelations

So is there anybody out there who didn't guess that I would end up in the salvage business? I mean, what the hell else was I going to do? Run back to L2? I don't think so; if I never saw that place again as long as I lived it would be entirely too damn soon. The Preventers? Seemed perfect for Heero and Wufei, but when the war was over, that was the last thing I wanted; more intrigue, more fighting, more pain. I couldn't handle it. Quatre had offered me a position on his staff, working as a consultant to his security team, but I knew he'd only done it to be nice. I loved the little guy like a kid brother; but charity is still charity and damned if Duo Maxwell needed any handouts.

So off I went, running back to Howard and the Sweepers. I worked with them for a while, taking various second jobs at night until I accumulated enough money to buy myself a small ship, then branched out on my own. For a time, I threw myself into the task of building my own reputation apart from the Sweepers, letting it be my whole focus. I christened my ship 'Maxwell's Demon' and set out to take on all the jobs that nobody else would touch with a ten-foot pole. I didn't bother with an apartment, but lived on my ship and spent every waking moment that wasn't taken with the job working on her.

It allowed me no time to think beyond the moment, allowed no time to reflect on the past.

I worked with Howard's crew sometimes, when the job was bigger than my small ship could haul. There were no hard feelings between the Sweepers and me when I left to start out on my own. I wasn't taking business away from them after all; the jobs I took were ones that Howard wouldn't touch anyway.

***

It took me a couple of years of throwing myself at suicide jobs but I finally developed a reputation as the pilot who could bring back anything. So, in those years that things were getting lean for most salvage operations, I was still doing all right for myself.

That's what brought me to Howard's office one fine day, contemplating a job that my former mentor was calling insane. Calling insane even as he was trying to figure out how to accomplish it. As I said... times were lean.

'That's a hell of a job offer, Howard,' I told him, my eyes drawn to pick out all the strange little pictures on his horrendous Hawaiian shirt. Was that a picture of a flying pig in a grass skirt?

'If I was nuts,' he retorted, passing me a bottle of beer from the little fridge he kept in his office.

'Well,' I drawled, accepting the bottle with a grin, 'we've both been accused of that before.'

'I'm not sure even I'm that crazy.' He sighed; opening his own bottle and dropping wearily back into his creaky, old desk chair, the one with duct tape holding the stuffing in the arm rests.

'Then, do you mind explaining what I'm doing here?' I smirked. It was him after all, who had called me.

There was another heavy sigh and he tilted the bottle back and took a long drink. 'The business is in trouble.'

I glanced back down at the specs that lay on the desk in front of me, oddly intrigued and knowing what an asinine thought that was. 'And...?' I prompted.

An almost angry look crossed his face, not directed necessarily at me. 'I guess I just wanted another junk man to tell me how crazy this job is. I need somebody else to tell me how stupid it is so I can stop thinking about how I could keep from going out of business if I took it,' he snapped.

He was being tempted to take an incredibly lucrative, totally suicidal job as a last minute, desperate act... and wanted me to tell him 'No.'

I swallowed a gulp of beer and looked at him soberly, 'I could do it.'

Howard does not have the kind of face that should ever gawp, it isn't pretty, but that's just what he did. That and spit beer.

I laughed from the sheer fun of watching him. That and seeing the hope begin to glimmer that he might be able to pull this off and save his ships and his yard from bankruptcy. I did, after all, owe this man and his crew a couple of times over.

'Duo...' he muttered, wiping beer off his front, 'don't be an ass.'

'Not with my 'Demon',' I told him, setting down my beer and picking up the papers to leaf through them again, 'But if you could supply the ship...'

That was generally how we worked together on the occasions when we did; he brought the equipment and the manpower to the table and I brought the piloting skills and the... total lack self-preservation tendencies.

'The fuel alone...' he murmured and I grinned at him, knowing that he'd started considering it despite himself.

'I was thinking about that,' I prompted. 'If we used a slingshot launch...'

He cut me off with a scowl, 'That would add two weeks to the out trip...'

'So?' I leaned back in my chair and tilted it on two legs, propping my feet up on his desk; I knew I had him. He would end up letting me do this; I would save his business, clinch my reputation and make a tidy profit to boot. Assuming I pulled it off.

'That would make it four weeks in space, total. The target is in a damned dangerous area, in an erratic orbit. It's crazy Duo...' I could tell he was trying to convince himself now, though, and not me.

Yeah, it was a nasty looking little job. One of the last left over from the war. You could say that much about wartime, it had made a damned lucrative pastime out of salvage. But the pickings were getting lean with almost three years gone. This one had lain untouched all this time because nobody had been inclined to go after it with easier spoils available. But there she was, a small command cruiser abandoned in the asteroid belt when her engines had been damaged in battle. There was more than just scrap metal there; there was data as well. That was what prompted our soon-to-be client to offer the hefty salary for bringing her back. They didn't care about the ship itself, which meant the material salvage would be pure profit.

I shrugged off Howard's concerns, 'What's a month in space?' I asked, 'I don't have plans for the weekend and dangerous territory is what I do.'

He gave me that look that tells me he'd like to smack me up the side of my head. Howard has a tendency to treat all his men like adopted sons.

'You won't have a lot of contact,' he informed me. 'No real backup; the communication window is only going to be about an hour a cycle.'

I tilted the beer bottle up and drained it to cover the grin that was trying to spread all over my face; I'd won. I heard it when he went from 'could' to 'would'. We were about to cut a deal. 'You know I work alone,' I told him when the beer was gone.

In the end we agreed on a fifty/fifty split, though Howard didn't want to take that much. He outfitted his best ship and agreed to dock my 'Demon' until I got back, with the understanding that she was his if I didn't.

So, a week after our little talk, I packed my books, my music and my own vacuum suit and climbed aboard Howard's primary ship, the 'Randy Wench'. I more than felt the weight of the hopes of the entire Sweeper gang on my shoulders. My success or my failure would mean their futures in the business. Howard's second, Kurt, was the last man out the lock before lift off. He paused there, his face hesitant and embarrassed. I'd learned a lot of what I know about ship repairs at this man's elbow.

'Duo,' he muttered, fidgeting with something in his hands, 'the guys and me... we want you to know that... well, we appreciate...'

Appreciate... and felt guilty as hell that none of them could bring themselves to make this run with me. But that was what I was here for, damn it; they all had families and responsibilities to go home to. If something happened to me, there wouldn't be any hysterical widow or orphaned children left behind. Not even an abandoned dog. So I cut him off with a grin, 'Hey, man; I'm getting a cut of this profit too.'

He ducked his head and only cleared his throat; I apparently didn't have any of them fooled about the real reason I was making this run. That was another lesson I had learned from this group of guys; the value of friendship and that you did what you had to when people needed you. Suddenly he was thrusting something into my hands.

'We wanted you to have this... for luck.' He was gone before it quite had a chance to register what it was he had shoved into my hands. Howard and his men had served during the war, maybe not as full-fledged, commissioned enlisted men, but kind of behind the scenes; as far as I was concerned, where it really mattered. Kurt had lost a leg not six months before the damn war was over. Dangling from my fingers on a leather thong was his special service award. He wore the damn thing like I wore my cross; I'd never seen it off him. I felt cold standing there holding it in my hands; it was like some kind of damn sacred trust. His way of assuring himself that I'd come back in one piece I supposed. I slipped the medallion around my neck and tucked it inside my shirt beside Father Maxwell's gold cross and vowed to bring it back to him.

We had settled on the slingshot launch, using gravitational fields to send the 'Wench' outward, toward the asteroid belt that was my final goal. It would save on fuel costs but cost more in time. The trip was a week on boosters, but three using this method. I really didn't care. It's not like anybody was racing me to the salvage site. I had all the time in the universe and then some.

***

For the first couple of days, the communications channels were just fine and I talked to Howard or one of the guys fairly frequently. Spacers don't like the idea of a man on his own for extended periods. Some guys just couldn't take it; drove 'em stark raving mad. Free-fall fever they called it, or vacuum disease, or spacers madness. Used to be worse in the early days of space travel, when the trips between the planets took freaking years instead of weeks and months. You never went by yourself; every ship had at least a pair or trio of partners. I think it unnerved the guys that when I had gone out on my own I'd never picked up a second. But then, I don't suppose they ever stopped to think about the rarity of personality types that could stand being cooped up with me for extended periods of time. Ask any of the guys who used to share safe houses with me; I am apparently... an irritating sort.

Howard would continually give me last minute pointers and little reminders of things to watch out for. Kurt, at least would play games of chess with me. He had a board set up and would call the moves as he made them, moving my pieces as I called my moves. He thought I had a board set up on the ship; I didn't tell him I was just doing it in my head. That kind of thing sort of unnerved them even when we were all living together. I figured out early on that you just kept some things to yourself. The fact that I could comp a launch trajectory in my head was not something they needed to know, so when I wasn't by myself, I used the computer to do it. Maybe that was one of the reasons I didn't want a partner; it was kind of nice not having to worry about people watching me. I didn't have to keep up appearances out here. Nobody to fool meant I didn't have to keep up the grinning façade.

I'm honestly fairly used to spending my time alone; I have my books and my music after all. So I let them think that I slept a lot more hours than I actually did so that I had some time to prowl over the 'Wench', learning all her secrets. A ship really is like a lover. If you want to be able to count on them in a pinch, you have to expend some effort building the trust. The 'Wench' is an... interesting ship. Mechanically as sound as anything in space; all of Howard's ships are. But her innards showed the hand of a group of very diverse guys. The galley, for instance, is painted the most God-awful shade of canary yellow. What? You were expecting austere steel gray? Come on; when you may have to stick a crew in a ship and leave them there for weeks or months at a time they need those little things like color. The galley on my 'Demon'? Since you asked, it's painted like a cloud scudded blue summer sky and the floor is green so that every meal is like a picnic. Well, that was the intent anyway. The effect might be better if I spent the funds to stock it with more than military ration bars.

So I spent the out trip getting to know the 'Wench', listening to Howard advise me on how not to get my ass killed, and playing chess with Kurt. Until the communications window began to fade and I was down to that hour, then the chess games stopped.

When it wasn't my designated hour of check-in, I had my music on the speakers and it flowed through the whole ship, with me where ever I went. I don't mind the being alone part, but I do mind the quiet. Voices come to fill the silence if you don't fill it with something else first. So I played my music and talked to the 'Wench' and read my books and sailed on. I can't wait until they advance things enough to make a voice response system for ships. Like in that old vid-show. I will program in the most kick-ass, sexy voice I can find and record the most smart-ass remarks. I entertained myself for an entire quarter cycle thinking up tag lines for different situations:

Proximity alarm?

'Wake up, sunshine! We're about to hit the biggest damned asteroid you've ever seen!'

Course correction?

'You call yourself a pilot? Watch where you're going!'

Gauge readings?

'What do you mean we ran out of fuel!?'

Maintenance reminders?

'The stuffy air you are noticing would be because somebody needs to clean the air filters.'

But then I started think about who the sexy voice would actually sound like and all the comments started to have the word 'baka' in them. I quit that game.

After I'd been over the ship pretty much from end to end, I spent most of my time reading. I was working my way through the classics; had just finished everything written by Dickens and was starting on Poe. The contrast was rather amusing; though by the time I got through the 'Tell Tale Heart' I was starting to long for something a little more... lightweight. Poe was a seriously deranged man.

Howard laughs at me and my books. Doesn't understand why I don't just use electronic copies like everyone else. But I like the feel of the books in my hands; it reminds me of growing up in the orphanage. Any material that passed through there had to be real, bound books. Father Maxwell could never have afforded anything as expensive as a computer. He and Sister Helen treated anything that came to them with a certain reverence; books were a luxury and very few of them came our way. I had devoured whatever I could get my hands on, determined to learn everything I could of the world outside the hellhole I lived in.

I bought my books in batches, as I could afford it, but you can't keep a lot of that sort of thing when you live on a space ship. As I finished them, I packed them off and donated them to several orphanages on L2. Shipping was a bitch but it made me feel better thinking that I might be giving some little kid a window on another world. I had sent off the Dickens collection just before I had lifted off. The collected works of Poe was with me, and aboard my 'Demon' waited Rudyard Kipling and Lord Tennyson. After a week of Poe, I was starting to wish I had brought the Kipling.

The last couple of days before I hit the turn-around point and began my deceleration, I think that Howard was starting to regret the whole thing. His voice when we talked sounded strained and I think if he could have aborted the job, he would have. I didn't get to talk to anyone else during that hour anymore. Howard was on the whole time and spent most of it making sure I didn't forget anything crucial. I usually had a headache by the time the window closed.

'You're sleeping ok, right?' he questioned. 'You have to be at a hundred percent when you get there... there's no room for mistakes.'

'Yes Daddy.' I tried teasing but most of it went right passed him.

'She's a soft touch on the boosters, did I tell you that?'

'Only about fifty times so far.' I tried to just lay back and let it wash by me; I really didn't need him making me nervous right now.

'You retest all the tether lines, you hear me?' I could always tell when the hour was almost up from the faint rise in his voice.

I resisted the urge to say, been there... done that, and gave him a hearty, 'I'll get right on that.'

It was two days to target; there would be only one more communication window before it all came together. Howard was not handling the strain of this very well.

'Duo... you be damned careful; you hear me?' He sounded really upset. 'I... I shouldn't have told you about this damned job... I wish I'd never...'

I was shocked; this didn't even sound like the Howard I knew. The last minute was ticking away. 'Howard. Calm down, I'm fine. What the hell's wrong? We speced this all out together... everything is going to be...'

The clock told me that he probably didn't hear anything after everything. I sat in the pilot's seat for a while, too stunned to move. What in the hell was going on with him? Howard is a worrier, sure, but this seemed a little extreme. Yeah, it was a dangerous job, but that had been my specialty for the last three years. Even when I was still with Howard's crew full time, I had been the prime pick for the delicate jobs. The guys used to tease me about my 'gentle touch' on the controls. I found that I was not looking forward to tomorrows talk with Howard.

I spent the rest of the cycle making sure everything was stowed and battened down; wouldn't do to have one of my books come sailing through the cock-pit at some critical moment. I went to sleep a little early, just to appease Howard, and ate a decent breakfast when I woke. I sat down in the pilot's chair at the designated time with a heavy sigh and a pouch of strong coffee.

It wasn't Howard's voice I got when the window came clear though;

'....Duo?' It was Kurt, sounding... a little strange.

'Hey buddy!' I almost crowed, relieved that I might escape the hour-long lecture I had been expecting. 'What's up?'

He chuckled, 'What's the matter?' I could hear the wide grin even through the static and across the miles, 'Expecting Howard?'

'Well...' I chuckled in return, 'he has been dominating most of the conversations.'

'The guys and me, we thought we'd... rescue you.' I could hear that there was an underlying story here.

'What have you done?' I queried in mock severity.

'Drugged Howard's beer.'

I laughed so hard I almost spit coffee all over the controls.

'You have to be kidding! He's going to kill you!'

His reply sounded rueful and I could imagine the hangdog look on his face. 'I know. But he's making himself crazy worrying over this.'

The laugh wound down to a chuckle and I sighed, 'Tell me about it.'

Howard would throw a fit when he woke up. Tools would be hurled. Curses would be delivered. I knew Kurt would take sole blame, because he's about the only one of the crew that Howard wouldn't fire over it.

'Thanks, man,' I told him and tried to put the warmth in it. 'But... what in the hell has him so damned edgy?'

There was the slightest hesitation. 'He's been having nightmares. He feels guilty about letting you go.' I could almost hear the shrug, 'He found out that we aren't the first crew to go after this wreck.'

For a minute I thought he meant I was racing someone else to the job site but then the tone of his voice hit me and I knew what he meant.

'Why the hell didn't he just tell me?' I blurted.

Kurt sighed heavily. 'He knew he couldn't convince you to call it quits and was afraid it would just make you nervous.'

'Who was it?' I asked, most of the people in the business know all the other people in the business.

'Sanderson,' he told me; a small, family run team that had folded and gone under about a month ago.

'Was this the job that took them down?' I knew even as I was asking, that it had to be so.

'Yeah,' Kurt confirmed. 'Lost the oldest and the youngest son. The old man just didn't have the heart for it anymore.'

'Damn,' I muttered, the Sanderson crew had been a decent lot. Had beaten me out of a couple of jobs early on. Old man Sanderson was a hell raiser from the word go but had been proud as hell of those boys. That would have left him with just his daughter. I didn't envy her.

'Listen Duo,' Kurt was saying, 'me and the guys want you to know that we'd understand if you turned back...'

I snorted. 'Hell Kurt; I'm almost there. Might as well at least scope it out.'

He sighed again; he wasn't surprised. 'Well, don't tackle it if things look too bad. Just walk away from it, understand?'

His voice was gruff; Kurt was not a guy who had ever gotten all emotional about things. Even when he lost his leg, he had just gone on, sure and steady Kurt.

'I thought you drugged Howard to save me from the lecture, Papa Kurt,' I observed dryly and he laughed.

'Ok, squirt,' he chuckled, calling me by the much-hated nickname the Sweepers had used for me when I first started with them, 'I give.'

We just talked for a bit then, about nothing in particular and I was able to relax a little. When the hour was winding down I was actually sorry for the first time in days.

'Tell Howard that I checked all the tether lines, got a good nights sleep and went potty before I got here.'

He laughed for me, 'Will do.' But then the laugh was gone, 'You be damn alert out there, Maxwell; we expect to see you back here in a week.'

'And I expect at least a steak dinner when I get there.'

If he had a reply, it was lost in the static.

Then it was time to buckle down and get serious. Time for Duo Maxwell to do his job.

***

I was still a couple of hours out but the location was finally within sensor range and I pulled up every aspect of it I could. I put visual on the main view screen and ran scans on every level imaginable. The heat scan showed nothing untoward. Radiation, just the normal smattering of natural phenomenon out here in the belt. Audio found the looped distress call still playing after all these years. Meant the ship still had a bit of power in her, which might make this go faster. Scans for mass and gravitational pull came up a little nasty; there was something out there with a lot of pull that was causing a 'wash' that was effecting the path of everything around here. Like putting a bump in the road. Or maybe more of a pothole. I also found the scattered debris field of the Sanderson ship. Ouch. There wasn't enough left to go after. If I had to guess, I'd say either they hit the wash and got thrown where they weren't expecting or something else hit the wash and found them. Either way, they had to have taken a direct hit to the engines to have blown the ship to shrapnel like that.

Erratic orbit didn't begin to describe what the target ship was doing. It came closer to aimless wandering. I almost wished I had brought my 'Demon' after all. Just gone in for the data and gotten the hell out. Hindsight and all that.

I finished my scans and didn't find any other surprises. Time was ticking down; I went to suit up.

This was going to take flying by the seat of my pants to a whole new level.

Back in the pilot's seat, secure in my vacuum suit, I settled in and took over control of the ship.

'Ok, 'Wench' it's time to play,' I addressed the console in front of me as I switched off the autopilot.

I'm always vaguely disappointed when the ships I fly don't answer me. I think Deathscythe was the only thing I ever piloted that I would have sworn, sometimes, voiced a quiet chuckle at my cracks. It didn't stop me from holding up my end of the conversation with whatever I was in the seat of though.

'Wench sounds so... disrespectful.' I made a couple of minor adjustments to my course, as much to get a feel for the way she handled as anything. 'Mind if I call you Randy?'

I hit the jets and slowed further, alternating between watching the visuals and watching the radar. The asteroid belt is a truly sucky place to fly.

There was the beginning of the hiss of dust scouring the hull; not the universe's most pleasant sound. It would only get worse.

I needed to catch the damn thing; get close enough to grapple onto it and pull the ships together so that I could get aboard. Top priority was the data and I was heartened by the distress signal that was faintly broadcasting. If the ship still had some power I wouldn't have to waste a lot of time trying to trundle emergency generators over there to get things up and running.

The crew, when they abandoned her, had tucked her in tight to a large chunk of asteroid; she was orbiting around it while it made its own irregular way through space. The asteroid had afforded her some small amount of protection from other objects and though I could see that she had taken more than one hit over the years, she was surprisingly intact. She wouldn't hold an atmosphere but at least I wasn't trying to pick up pieces.

'Ok, Randy my girl; let's go make a living.'

I had a side screen displaying the gravitational fields in a lovely blue and green spectrum and I checked our location compared to the gravity wash. I spared a moment to key in a five-minute proximity alarm, 'Don't let us hit that, Ok M'lady?'

Then it was boosters and jets, curses and sweat, and I didn't have the time to tell 'Randy' much of anything. Closing on the asteroid was fairly easy compared to what I had ahead of me yet; no worse than flying inside a damn pinball machine. You've seen all those old space opera movies? They came pretty damn close to getting the asteroid belt right. Except for the dust. I'd never seen anybody get that part; that constant, almost static hissing sound. I settled at length into a parallel orbit near my target and took a break, just spinning through space sucked up tight to that big honking piece of rock out there, and watched the other ship tumble along beside me.

Target. Other ship. I tried to dredge up the name of the damn thing; it'd been military, it was something pretty flat and expressionless... ah; 'The Londonderry' that was it.

'Randy... meet Derry,' I muttered and wished I could wipe my brow. In the back of my mind I could hear Howard screaming for me to get the hell out of here. And honestly... I should have. This was going to get nasty; Kurt would be telling me to walk away. I'm not really sure why I didn't. My shoulders were already aching with the strain and I hadn't really even started yet. I glanced at the chrono and sighed. Two hours into this; couldn't back out with a two-hour investment... right?

He was tumbling... no, not all ships are girls. Derry sounded like a guy's name and besides, Randy prefers men, and since I was planning on practically mating them together, Derry was going to be a guy. Standard procedure said the next step was to stop that tumble. It requires getting a grappling tether on the target and using the boosters to counteract the spin. I didn't get a warm fuzzy thinking about that. One of the little voices in my head kept whispering that they didn't like the idea at all. I zoomed in the visual and looked him over; I could make out the damn serial numbers on the hull at this magnification, then I finally saw it; there was a broken tether line attached near the stern, trailing along behind Derry like a tail.

So, the Sandersons had gotten that far. That far and no farther. They'd followed the book and tried to stop the spin and their ship had been ripped apart. No one will ever know just what it was that went wrong; the evidence was months scattered and irretrievable. Had something hit them? Or was it just a simple miscalculation? I couldn't even guess. But it confirmed for me that I wasn't going to follow the book on this one. I wouldn't try to stop the spin... I would match it.

That was two lines, simultaneous attachments and a feather-light touch of the boosters. No big deal... really.

'What you think, Randy? Care to dance?' I watched Derry turn lazily beside me and settled on my attachment points. I would follow his spin, trailing slightly, launch the lines and then pray like hell.

No time like the present, I reasoned, and tapped the jets, lining us up. 'Cross your fingers, hon. We're goin' in.'

My heart was pounding in my ears so loud that I wouldn't have heard it if the damn ship had replied. I won't ever tell this to anybody, because I don't think I could ever explain it right and I'd just come off sounding like I needed to be locked in a loony bin somewhere. But... I miss the war. Ok; not the war. The adrenaline. The rush. The feeling of being something to be reckoned with, something to be respected. That's why I do what I do. There aren't a lot of things left that will give you an adrenaline kick in the ass after you've piloted a Gundam into overwhelming odds and come out on top. So I threw myself at these impossible jobs because the only times I felt like I was truly alive was when I was flirting with the ragged edge of disaster, every part of my body tingling with electricity and I felt like I could just fucking do anything. And the voices in my head stilled while every ounce of my attention was on the job.

The hiss of dust intensified for a moment to an almost hail. I waited for us to pass through it before I prepared to fire the tether lines. I marked my attachment sites and watched them spin by under/in front of me for several rotations until the timing was as much a part of me as my breath. My sight was tunnel vision narrowed to the screen in front of me, my shoulders were on fire with the tension. Again, I wished I could wipe sweaty palms on my pants leg. Five... four... three... two... launch! I watched the lines streak out in twin arcs, my finger hovering over the release button in case I didn't get two good connections. They hit as perfectly as I could have hoped and I had my hands wrapped around the yoke fighting to maintain the distance and not get snapped off into the belt somewhere. There was the thrumming feel of the lines drawing taut and I nudged and babied the boosters, crowing with delight as the two ships decided they just might like each other after all... and then the proximity alarm screamed in my ear. Shit! Five minutes to the wash. Shit. I ground my teeth and cursed. I had no choice; I was not riding out a trip through a gravitational flux tied to a dead weight. I hit the release button and pulled back to a safer distance. Well... this would be a different experience.

It was exactly like hitting a bump in the road. Going a hundred miles an hour. Randy bucked and fought me, wanting to answer the siren call of gravity. In my mind's eye, I could see the Sanderson ship caught in the flux, tethered and trapped, smashed against the asteroid itself most likely. I could hear the voices of the two brothers screaming their last. Not a real spiffy way to go. No thank you ma'am.

'You don't want to go there, Randy-girl,' I growled and wrestled with her, boosters and jets, sweat and curses.

It was over in a matter of minutes and we were out the other side. I adjusted my orbit, verified that Derry was still with us and collapsed in the damn seat. Ok, I hadn't been expecting a cakewalk out here but I have to confess I was starting to wish I had a partner. Somebody to rub the back of my neck, if nothing else.

'Don't suppose you do massage therapy?' I sighed and watched the Derry with dismay. The orbit had been altered subtly and I was going to have to completely realign.

It took me upwards to three more hours. I had to jockey and adjust to get the two ships back into alignment then pick an entirely different set of tether positions. Neither of my next launches were as perfect as the first one, and it took two tries before I had the ships tied together, turning languid circles around each other. My hands were shaking and my knees felt weak by the time I made it.

'Son of a bitch; but I'm getting to old for this shit,' I murmured and had I been in Deathscythe, that would have won me the shadow of a ghost of a chuckle. Randy refrained from comment.

Since I had managed to not smash the hell out of my ship, I allowed myself the quick luxury of slipping my helmet off so I could wipe at that damn sweat. I went so far as to trot down to the galley for a cold drink while I was at it; suit water is just disgusting. Never cooler than body temperature.

Palate cooled, heart rate at something more like normal, I re-suited and made my way down to the air lock. Here's where things got really fun.

I had the two ships within yards of each other, the tethers keeping them together, the force of their spin keeping them apart. Now I had to take a walk and go see if I could get aboard the Derry. This is the part that would make Howard's skin crawl. Hell... it was making my skin crawl. Outship was not a place I much cared to be in the middle of the damn belt. So, in typical Duo fashion, I intended to do it fast.

I could see the airlock on the Derry; the exterior door still standing wide from the evacuation. I'm fairly good in zero gee, all part of the whole Gundam training after all, so I bypassed the personal tether line for a handheld 'spurt-gun'. I did my trajectory calculations, fired my personal booster and shot across that hundred-yard space yelling the whole way. Free-fall is one thing; it takes a certain mind set to be able to deal with the total lack of 'up' and 'down', but free-fall out between the stars is something else all together; it rips at your belly on a primal level. Something far beyond the fear of falling. There is no fathoming falling from a height that doesn't exist. It's almost more of a fear of being... lost. Not lost exactly... there's just no explaining it. It just shoves you right in the face of God and points out to you just how fucking infinitesimal you really are; how very little you truly understand the universe.

I was more than a little relieved when I got my magnetics locked to the deck in that air lock. A vacuum suit will only take so much of that rain of dust out here. The interior door wouldn't open of course; it had been that kind of day. So I had to take the time to pop open the control panel, short out the circuit and open it manually.

'Knock knock.' I grinned as the panel finally slid open and I breathed a gusty sigh of relief when I was able to make my way inside.

It was almost pitch black, the occasional dim, idiot light glowing here and there. I knew this ship from stem to stern from studying the blueprints and I wasted no time in heading straight for the bridge. I passed more than one hull breach, not that I was surprised, but it's just something that will make any spacers blood run cold just on general principle.

I drifted through the corridors feeling just a little weirded out, if the truth be told. I might very well have been involved in the battle that disabled this ship. It's funny the things that will take you back in time. Smells will get me quicker than anything. There's a smell that only comes off a ship that has made a hot planetary reentry; that one whips me back in a heartbeat. There's a certain, nameless brand of I'm not sure what... deodorant? Cologne? That rushes me back to long, lonely nights in a shared dorm room. The sight of this ship was taking me back; making me remember old missions and assignments that I'd just as soon forget. I shook it off; now was not the time to be daydreaming about old comrades and the 'good old days'.

I should have been prepared for the bodies. I wasn't. Too many years removed from a war I typically tried not to think about. I had conveniently 'forgotten' that this ship had been abandoned under duress. Evacuated under fire.

Things do not deteriorate in total vacuum. There are no scavengers. Time is pretty much meaningless. I did not scream when I kicked off and sailed through the doorway to the bridge and almost collided with the first drifting corpse.

'Shit!' I cursed and hit the first surface I came to, pushing away from that thing I didn't really want to come in contact with.

I stopped my flight near the ceiling and hovered there, shining my spotlight and looking around the bridge. There were five bodies, all suited up and drifting about the room in the strangest, otherworldly dance I had ever witnessed. The sound of my own heart in my ears was thundering. Shit.

It only took me a minute to get my head together, then I kicked off and floated to the first one. I avoided looking it in the faceplate but I got the name and insignia off the suit's breast. I moved through the bridge and collected every one of the names, committing them to memory. More than likely all these names had been registered KIA a long time ago but on the off chance that there was still some family somewhere wondering what had happened to their loved ones, I'd have the answer.

Then I turned my attention to the control panels around me. The first thing I did was turn off the distress signal. I was pleased that I had guessed right; there was still power to some of the panels. I had been given all the last known access codes and I set to bringing up and logging into the ship's main system. It was almost anticlimactic. I patched the feed into my suit's com unit and sent the data merrily off to Randy.

'Record this for me, will you Randy-girl?' I grinned and just tried not to think about the dead eyes watching me from around the room. They made me feel like a damn grave robber.

I debated going down to the engine room for a look around; if I could get the engines on-line, I might stand a chance of getting the ship out of here along with the data. But I knew there wasn't likely anything I could do on short notice to a set of engines that were damaged enough to make a crew abandon ship. The Captain's cabin wasn't far from the bridge, so I did decide at the last minute to make a stop there to see if there was a private log or some such. I had somehow come to the conclusion in the back of my mind that I wasn't getting the ship out of here. Once the choice to take the data and run made its way to the front of my mind and informed the rest of me, I just suddenly wanted off that floating graveyard and back aboard the 'Randy Wench'.

I had to pry open the panel to the Captain's compartment and when I did, I wished I hadn't. The good Captain had decided to go down with his ship. He had not, however, chosen to die the slow way from suffocation or starvation. He had blown his brains out. The body was... moored... to the deck chair, one foot wedged under a rung. The rest of the body was drifting idly in place. It reminded me of nothing so much as seaweed. The flash frozen blood crystals wandering around the room were what made me back-peddle into the corridor and say the hell with it. Goddamn but I wanted out of there. Enough was enough; I had what I had come for.

I wasn't three yards down the corridor when my conscience bit me in the butt and made me go back. A man who shoots himself rather than run away with his crew more than likely left a damn message. I found the journal in the top desk drawer. I had it out and stuffed in my utility belt in a second and was heading for the door again when it happened.

There was a... thrum. A sound that wasn't a sound but a vibration carried to me through the doorframe I had my hand on. Then the whole world tilted and bucked and I found myself sailing into the corridor, almost out of control. I managed to grab a zero-gee handhold and keyed on the magnetics in my boots. Wouldn't do to get thrown around so bad I damaged my suit.

'What the hell are you doing, Derry-boy?' I muttered, hanging on for dear life and fearing I knew exactly what was going on. I expended a little of my attention to analyze the movements the ship was making under me. It didn't take long to figure out that something had hit one of my tether lines. Of all the stinking luck; something out there in all of space no bigger around than my damn thumb and it had to get creamed with a stinking piece of space debris.

The second tether wouldn't likely hold out long. Getting left on this side of the line was unthinkable. I killed the magnetics and began hauling myself hand over hand down the corridor. I'd take my chances with damaging the suit; it beat the hell out of the alternative.

I was actually within sight of the airlock when I felt the vibration of the second line giving way and there was an immediate cease to Derry's bucking and twisting. I made the trip to the hatch anyway; I fully intended to launch myself across space and use my spurt-gun to chase after Randy. But it was already too late. Those little guns aren't meant for more than just minor adjustments and short-term use. It would never get me where I now needed to go. The two ships had been spinning around each other and when the lines had given out, they had been thrown in opposite directions. Randy was nothing more than a pleasant memory... and I was dead.

I just stood in the damn airlock for a long time and watched her drift away. I resisted the urge to swear at her; it wasn't her fault after all. When the adrenaline rush faded a little, I just felt numb; I'd never actually been dead before.

Well damn. Wasn't this a revolting development?

At length, I shook myself and turned back to Derry. There might, after all, be an escape pod left or something else I might be able to make use of.

I searched that ship from top to bottom, front to back and all I came up with was another ten names to add to the five from the bridge and the Captain's. There wasn't so much as a workman's sledge in the hold.

I'd been onboard for close to six hours and my suit was nearing the end of its air supply. I was going to die out here in the middle of the belt and spend eternity with the ghosts of the crew of the Londonderry and the Sanderson brothers. I don't really think I was feeling it yet; probably wouldn't until I was sucking on the last of my air. But I was still close to twelve hours from my communications window. I couldn't stand the idea that Howard and the guys would never know what happened. I'd come so damn close too; the stinking data was already downloaded to Randy. I could have burst it tight-beam back to Howard during the next window. I might have had to break it into two transmissions but God damn it to hell I could still salvage the job if I could just live until the window opened. I pinged Randy just to make sure she was undamaged and was pleased to get an echo back. Now, how to survive the next twelve hours? I thought hard about what I had seen while I had been desperately searching for some sort of transport but kept coming up empty. Standing on the bridge, it took one of the corpses drifting in front of my face to engage my brain. The Captain hadn't been wearing a suit.

I kicked off and glided back toward the Captain's cabin. His suit was still hanging in its niche by the door and I pulled it down to check the tanks with shaking hands. The tanks registered full. I didn't have a lot of choice but to trust them. I disconnected the tanks themselves and hauled myself back to the bridge; the Captain's corpse got to me more than the faceless ones on the bridge.

I waited until the last possible second, milking my own supply for all it was worth before jerking the coupling and making the switch. The air flooded my suit, stale and bitter cold, but it was breathable. That bought me another eight hours.

But my brain was engaged now and I looked around the room at my new shipmates; not all of them had suffocated. The third body I checked had died from a holed suit. There was six hours of air left in his tanks. That would get me through to my window. I took the tanks and went to belt down in the Captain's chair. A body at rest will use less oxygen. I did my best to nap a little, setting my alarm to wake me a half an hour before the com window opened.

Instead of sleeping, I found myself trying to figure out how in the hell I was going to tell Howard. I could feel Kurt's medal where it rested against my chest and I felt like crap, hearing his gruff voice telling me to just leave it go and turn around. Getting the data back would make up for it some; they would at least still be able to feed their families at the end of the week.

It's funny; I couldn't really seem to work up to being truly frightened. I should have been; I was about to die in a rather ugly manner. The way the Sanderson brothers had gone out would be preferable to this slow, inexorable slide into nothing. But thinking over my life, I wasn't really leaving all that much behind. My 'Demon' was promised to Howard and I suppose the few personal things I had, could go to him as well. I didn't own all that much; my books, some photographs, my music, some clothes. There wasn't much to parlay out. My belongings would probably fit in a half a dozen cardboard boxes. My bank account was a tidy little amount; nothing to write home about, but respectable. I had to think about that for a while; maybe I should have Howard give it to Kurt. Maybe that would make up a little for my not bringing him his medal back. I never did sleep; it seemed a horrendous waste of the last hours of my life. It was just as well; I had set my alarm for the check-in time, not the time when the Captain's air would have run out. I might have sat there and suffocated had I fallen asleep. I must have been a little more rattled than I thought.

It was Howard's voice that came through the suit's speakers when the time came, sounding anxious and worried.

'Duo? Are you there?'

'Hey, Howard,' I said softly and all the lines I had prepared went right out of my head.

'What's wrong?' He heard it in my voice instantly.

'Listen... I have a list of names... are you recording?' I pushed the rest of it off for the moment. I learned that from Wufei; one thing at a time.

There was a moment's pause, then he came back and said, 'Go ahead.'

So I rattled off the list of names, starting with the Captain, omitting the fact that he had killed himself. I only said that he had deliberately gone down with his ship. The instant I was finished, Howard pounced like a cat on a string.

'Duo; what the hell is wrong?' His voice was rising and I thought I heard someone else in the background.

'Listen... Howard... I kinda had an accident.'

There was the sound of a groan and suddenly it was Kurt talking to me.

'Tell me what happened, Duo,' he told me in his calm, sure voice.

'The tether line got cut somehow... with me on the wrong end of it.' It wasn't much of a joke and it sure as hell didn't get a laugh.

'God... Duo...' That from Howard.

'Ok, kid;' Kurt was cool as ice, sounded like we were working on an engine together. Ok, kid; hand me that wrench. I wanted to laugh, 'What kind of shape is the 'Londonderry' in? How's the life support? What...'

I cut him off; he'd made a couple of false assumptions, 'Kurt, stop it. There is no life support. The ship is holed in a dozen places. I made it this far on borrowed tanks. I'm... running out of corpses.'

'Fuck,' he muttered.

In the background I heard Howard start yelling for men to get a ship ready to launch, his voice fading as he moved away.

'No!' I shouted at them, 'There isn't any damn point in sending anybody else out here to die! I only have about four hours of air left. I'm gonna be a corpsecicle long before anybody can get here.'

There wasn't an immediate answer, so I bulled ahead, 'I got the data downloaded before the... accident. I'm going to tight beam...'

'I don't care about the fucking data, Duo Maxwell!' Kurt snapped at me.

'Damn it! I'm dying for this fucking data...' I stopped. There was no way in hell I was going to have my last words to this man be in anger. I took a breath and started again, 'Kurt... I'm sorry, man. I know this sucks but done is done. Tomorrow I'll be gone but you guys will still have mouths to feed and house payments to make. Let me do this.'

There was a long silence and for a moment I thought something had gone wrong, that I'd lost the window somehow or something had happened to Randy.

'Kurt?' I finally called into that silence.

His voice when it came again was that gruff one, 'Ok squirt. How much air do you have left?'

'Four hours in this tank,' I told him.

'Is that the last tank?' He wanted to know and I had to admit I wasn't sure.

'Well find out, damnit!' he snapped. 'If I give up this window to download data, then I want another one to... to say goodbye! The guys... will want to...'

He stopped and I was just as glad; this rush of emotion from calm and cool Kurt was a little overwhelming. 'All right,' I conceded meekly, 'I will scrounge through the ship from end to end and I will do my best to make it another day. Can I start the download now?'

There was the sound of a heavy sigh. 'Promise me.'

I grinned despite myself. 'I promise.'

'All right... go ahead.' His voice sounded very small.

I sent the commands to Randy to burst the data before he had a chance to change his mind. Then I went to rob the graveyard again. While I was at it, I towed the corpses down the corridor to an empty cabin; it was starting to be too hard not to look at the faces. In the end I came up with just under thirty hours of air. I got lucky and stumbled on another couple of unused suits to add to my supply of 'corpse' air.

Then there was nothing to do but sit on the bridge and try to breathe shallowly, constantly resetting my alarm to remind me to change tanks. I finally did doze off sometime after the download finished; I'd been up for over twenty-four hours after all. The body can only take so much stress before it just doesn't care anymore.

I hit the damn gravity flux in there somewhere and woke with a curse, clinging to the arms of the Captain's chair until Derry and I rode through to the other side. When things settled, I frantically pinged Randy and felt weak in the knees when I got a response; she was my only link to the rest of the universe.

The silence was starting to get to me and I had to stop myself from singing more than once; used too much extra air. My suit was struggling with waste management and the air was starting to take on a musky tang no matter whose tank I was breathing out of. I longed for a cool, fresh drink; the recycled water tasted brackish and warm. My stomach was complaining rather loudly that I had missed a score of meals now and I was actually starting to feel a little shaky from it. Extreme hunger is one of those triggers that takes me back to my childhood on the streets of L2. I could almost hear Solo laughing beside me as we ran through the crowds, our pockets full of stolen ration bars.

I checked the chrono and found that there were still hours to go but only about thirty minutes before time to change tanks again. It didn't seem worth trying to doze back off.

I found myself thinking about Solo and the other scrappers and scrabblers that I had grown up with. It's kind of funny when you think about it really; some of my life's earliest lessons had taught me that there was safety in numbers. I wondered how I had come to be here at the end of my life all alone. If I'd had a partner, someone on the other end of that line, I wouldn't be in this mess. Of course, if I'd had a partner, I probably would never have taken this job. Isn't that a strange thing? I had sense enough to know that this was a suicide job when it came to someone else's life, but not enough sense not to tackle it myself.

I suspect, sometimes, that Freud would have had a field day with the inside of my head.

Solo would be cursing me rather resoundingly right now; I could almost hear his voice.

'What the hell were you thinking, you idiot? How many times I got to tell you never go where the bastards can get you cornered!'

I'd broken that most basic of rules when I had made the leap to the Derry without a clear path back. I'd let myself get cornered. Now I was going to pay the price. I just had to make it to the next window and say my goodbyes; make things easier for those few people I was leaving behind. I would have the time to give the final instructions for the dispersion of my meager, worldly belongings. Could hopefully make things better with Howard then get on with the business of dying.

I changed the air tanks again and it suddenly came to me that I had more than enough to make it to the appointed time. It really didn't matter how long I lasted after that. The silence was gnawing at me again, beginning to fill with the voices of my dead. So I went ahead and sang; let the music drive the demons away. I sang a few of the hymns that Sister Helen had taught me, because my thoughts had been drifting through those years. But that only served to depress me, so I switched to the street songs that I had picked up before I had even understood the words. I was sitting in the Captain's chair, belted down and singing for all I was worth when the channel went live in my ear.

'... Duo? Do you read me... Duo?'

I blinked in total surprise. 'Quatre?' What in the world? The shock of that voice after all this time was almost enough to make me forget where I was. 'Qat! Hey man; what are you doing there?' I tried to imagine bright, sweet little Quatre in Howard's radio room surrounded by hulking, gritty Sweepers and almost laughed.

'Duo!' The relief in his voice was plain and it brought me back to my plight; I was instantly embarrassed and cursed Howard in my head. Why in the hell had the man called Quatre?

I didn't know what to say. I had planned out all the reassuring things I needed to say to Howard. I had settled on what to do with my money and my things. I had practiced an apology to Kurt over the medal that was even now weighing heavily on my chest. None of those things fit the situation now.

'Duo, how's the air?' he asked me then, all business and I grinned. This was the Quatre from the war; calm and sure and in charge. Took me right back to that time and place. But... he wasn't getting me out of this one though.

'I'll last out the hour,' I told him blandly; I really didn't have time to sugar coat things.

'That's not what I asked, mister.' His tone was firm and I did laugh at him then. What the hell was he going to do? Come and smack me?

'About six more hours.'

'This is what I need you to do...' he began and I sat in my empty ship and gawped at nobody.

'Quatre... this is nuts... where's Howard?' I could not fathom what he thought he was doing.

'I'm here, Duo.' came Howard's voice, sounding oddly hopeful. 'Listen to him... do as he says.'

I didn't say anything for a long minute and I thought I could hear the hint of a muttered conversation.

'Guys. Listen to me. It. Is. Over.' I was a little surprised at the grumble of anger that rumbled through my belly.

'No it is not,' came a new voice, just as firm as Quatre's but deeper. I recognized it in an instant. Shit, what was this, a fucking reunion?

'Trowa?'

'We're here, Duo,' he told me, then said the most ridiculous thing I had heard all day. 'We're coming after you.'

'That's insane!' I barked at them. 'I'll be dead in six hours! What in the hell do you idiots think you're doing? God damn it all to hell; nobody else dies because of me! Do you hear me?'

There was a stony silence, then, very softly, Quatre said, 'the ship launched yesterday. It's already on its way.'

What had come over these people? I had known them all a long time and had never thought that any of them were this freaking stupid.

I struggled with the words to make them stop this lunacy. 'It's a nightmare out here,' I told them bluntly. 'The ship is in an elliptical orbit. Erratic as hell. There's some sort of damn gravity wash throwing crap around. I do not have the air to survive that long. Please... please... do not do this.'

It was Quatre who spoke to me next, 'Duo. It's already done. The ship is on the way... we have an idea that might get you through until...'

I cut him off, feeling the snakes of anger and fear coiling around each other in my gut, 'I won't have this. I will not, fucking well have this. I screwed up. I did this to myself. Nobody else is going to die because of my mistake. I am going to pull the line and end this right here... right now.' My hand was actually on the airline as I spoke.

'We're coming after you alive or dead, damnit!' Kurt's voice suddenly came out of nowhere, loud and clear. I imagined him shoving Quatre away from the transmitter. 'You can't stop us! I won't have your... body... out there...'

Someone spoke softly and he just shut up. I was shocked; he'd been doing that to me a lot lately. I resisted the urge to call him Papa Kurt. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. They were bloody well serious; they were coming for me even if I died right now while they were listening. I sat and blinked at nothing.

'Duo,' came Quatre's voice again, 'I need you to take whatever tanks you have left and go down to engineering.'

I found myself unbuckling. 'O... Ok,' my voice said meekly.

I went on some kind of autopilot, returning to the old days. The war days when following Quatre's commands had become second nature.

He guided me down to engineering and it quickly came clear what he intended. He only had to get me started and I was able to finish the job myself. I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of this. I'm not sure how I felt about the fact that they had thought of this.

Quatre had me tie my suit into the ships filtration unit. It was a simple process, really, easily accomplished. Not so easily lived with. I was tied in place now, with a veritable umbilical cord connecting me to a system that was neither tried nor true. There was nothing around me that I could reach and I could do nothing but float in place at the end of my line. There was no port here in the depths of the ship; it was pitch black when I didn't have my flash unit on. The batteries in it were growing weak and I had to keep it turned off to conserve them.

'Done,' I told them when the job was complete, and I didn't even know whether to hope the system was still functioning or not.

I think I imagined a collective sigh of relief. 'All right then.' Quatre told me soothingly, 'the ship launched yesterday, within two hours of your last transmission. You've already got almost a day behind you.'

I was suddenly very weary and a little irritated that they could ask me to continue like this. Four more full days with no food and no water other than the vile, tainted shit my suit was producing. Shut away in the dark... in the cold... alone with the voices. Waiting for a rescue that was probably going to fail; then there would be more than just my corpse to add to the growing collection.

'Quatre...' I sighed, 'I've done as you asked, now let me get this said...'

And I detailed my last will and testament. There wasn't much to dispense with but it made me feel better to not leave any loose ends.

I instructed them to send the books off to the orphanage and gave them the address from memory. I gave my bank account to Kurt, quoting the account numbers and pass codes; I knew they would be recording this. I had been planning on having Howard pack the little box of pictures off to one of the guys; they were mostly of the war years after all. But since Quatre and Trowa were right there, I told them to take them and do with them as they saw fit. I gave them directions to where the box was kept aboard the 'Demon'.

There was an odd silence then and I supposed that I had made them uncomfortable.

I felt weird not really knowing who all was on the other end of this open transmission but my time was ticking away.

'Howard... you listen to me, man; this is not your fault.' I tried to pretend it was just him and me sitting here, talking in his office, 'I took this job with my eyes wide open. You know the kinds of missions I take; it was only a matter of time before I hit one that hit me back.'

But Trowa and Quatre had handed him a platter full of hope and he wouldn't hear any part of it. 'We're going to get you out of this, kid,' he told me, sounding like the Howard I knew and loved, not the broken, guilt-ridden man from yesterday.

I sighed and felt that vague irritation again. I had come to grips with this; why the hell couldn't they?

I stopped trying to convince him, he wasn't hearing me anyway and I was just wasting my breath and the last of my time.

'God.' I muttered, 'I can't believe you're asking me...' I cut it off; I hadn't meant to say that out loud.

Quatre's voice came again and if I was expecting a little sympathy, I wasn't getting it here. 'Suck it up, Maxwell. You got yourself into this, now you're going to do whatever it takes to get yourself out.' There was the sound of a couple of shocked gasps in the background.

I did my best to throw my head back, and I laughed long and hard, 'Yes sir, General Winner, sir!'

'That's better,' he said then and I could hear the soft smile in his voice.

I drifted at the end of my umbilical tether and stared off into the dark, 'Quatre?'

'Yes, Duo?'

'If anybody else dies because of me I'm going to come back and haunt you till the end of your days; you understand that... right?'

There was a dry chuckle, 'If that happens, I'll make up the guest room myself.'

The little shit won another laugh but I don't think he heard it; the window closed and I was suddenly alone in the dark.

Damn. I hadn't even thought to ask who in the hell they had sent after me.

I drifted, not even aware of the movement unless I bumped into the wall. I'm not sure what was making the difference but I was cold. Either the heating system in my suit was failing or it just wasn't enough to counter being connected to the almost-dead ship. I didn't dare use my failing light any more despite the fact that it was pitch black down here; I might need the last of that light at some point. The bridge had made things a little easier, with the view port and the few little indicator lights left alive. There was nothing down here; I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

But the worst was the frozen silence. Even my own voice, when I raised it as a shield against the dark, seemed weak and deadened.

'Well, Derry old boy... I hope you don't mind me staying for a couple of days. I feel kind of bad showing up here uninvited and all, though.'

Derry didn't seem to mind and I decided that we might learn to get along after all.

'Wish you'd paid the electric bill though...' I muttered under my breath, not wanting to offend. 'And sorry you didn't get on with Randy better,' I told him. 'Don't be too hard on her for bugging out though; it is kind of a tough neighborhood.'

Derry wasn't any better at conversation than Randy had been. Kinda made me miss Deathscythe.

I went back to singing for a while until I finally felt sleepy enough to doze. It was so damn cold down here; I really hate being cold. You're cold almost all the time on the streets, so being chilled always reminds me of my days of scrabbling for a hidey-hole to sleep in, someplace out of the wind and the rain.

I could almost see Solo, looking at me from under that fall of dirty blond hair, shaking his head and rolling his eyes, 'What kinda mess you got yourself into this time, kid?'

'Nothing you can get me out of, rat-boy,' I muttered.

'Suit yourself, baby-rat,' and he faded away, laughing at the old joke.

Vacuum suits are not meant to be worn for days on end. I could feel mine starting to rub sores on the tops of my shoulders and at my elbows and knees. You cannot squirm in a suit. You cannot rub or scratch in a suit. You cannot ease or adjust things once you are committed to hard vacuum. All you can do is sit and stew in your own juices.

I checked the chrono and almost groaned; time had apparently stopped dead in there somewhere when I wasn't looking.

I was thirsty but the suit water tasted so damn bad I had to force myself to swallow it. It didn't help assuage my thirst much and only made me start worrying about throwing up. Now there has to be one of the nastiest ways to go in the known universe; choking to death on your own vomit in a sealed vacuum suit. I shuddered and tried to think about something else.

I could always think about my hunger. There was certainly something to take my mind off how thirsty I was, the possibility that my stomach could actually wrap around my backbone and digest it.

I could hear Solo's voice again, coming to me from quite close; 'Get used to it, kid. Hunger's just one'a those facts of life. Nothin' to worry about until you don't feel it no more.'

Solo always had been something of a philosopher. He'd been tough on us kids, though he wasn't much older than the most of us. But he'd made us tough too; had taught us what we had to know to survive on the streets. Called us his rat-children. Had turned us into a gang and taught us a little something about self-respect. When the high and mighty on the streets, those people who actually had homes to go to at night, had called us 'street rats' we'd learned to grin with unabashed pride. Yep. We're Solo's Street Rats and don't you forget it!

'Did you know that, Derry?' I called out into the darkness, 'I'm nothing but a street rat... still don't mind me staying the night? Not afraid I'll steal something?'

I blinked; where in the hell had that come from after all these years? That bitterness? I had to sigh; there were some things, I guess, that just never went away.

Then I had to laugh; I'd been stealing from him for the last two days. Stealing the air from his dead crew.

'Relena would have warned you!' I shouted. 'Once a rat-boy thief, always a rat-boy thief!'

I shivered in my rank, cold suit. God. I hadn't thought about her since the damn war. What the bloody hell was wrong with me? I thought I heard a distant, disdainful and all too familiar sniff. Only Relena Peacecraft could deliver so much meaning with nothing more than the delicate exhalation of air through her nose. Her stuck up little nose. I had to chuckle at myself; you'd think I could get over being snubbed by her majesty after all these years. Wonder what Freud would make of that girl? Isn't the Princess supposed to fall for the guy who saves her, not the guy who tries to shoot her?

God it was so cold. I had to force myself to stay relaxed or I was going to start shivering. The cold made my burn scars ache. Why in the hell had I let them talk me into this? Why hadn't I just said my goodbyes and pulled the plug like I had planned? I couldn't make it four more days. I already felt weak and vaguely sick, almost light-headed and groggy.

I never could say no to Quatre. God only knows why. He's just so damn... fucking wide-eyed or something. I accused him once of still believing in Santa Claus. He'd just smiled that damned wise and innocent smile of his and almost had me believing too.

I was glad when he'd finally gotten through that tough guy shell of Trowa's. Glad they'd found each other after everything that we had all gone through. I'd known that Quatre was in love the first time I'd seen them in a room together. We'd talked about it once, during the war before they'd hooked up. He'd turned the most delightful shade of red when he realized how obvious it was. But then he'd made me turn just as red with an observation of his own.

I hoped they stayed together. They needed each other. Everybody should have someone they can count on, someone to be there in the dark.

'There's nothing in the dark to be afraid of, little Duo,' said Sister Helen near my right ear and I smiled.

I remembered when she'd told me that; I'd laughed out right at her. Didn't she know anything? The dark was where the monsters were! She'd never understood; you would have thought living in the neighborhood the Maxwell Church was in would have taught her a thing or two about the streets. But she'd never understood that the monsters in the night were the same people she brushed elbows with in the daylight. The predators that went prowling in the safe cloak of the darkness. Street kids weren't safe in the night; of course we feared the dark. She'd never understood the way we tended to clump together, the way we would sleep under the beds more often than not. Could never seem to fathom why we ran and hid when we got hurt, why when we cried, the tears were always silent. She just told us stories about Angels watching over the children and the weak.

I knew better. Solo and half the gang had died in the plague; both the children and the weak; I didn't believe in Angels. I believed in death. I believed that if there truly was a God he had a very twisted sense of humor.

'Yeah... this sit'ation you're in right now is pretty damn funny,' drawled Solo in my left ear.

'Shut up, asshole,' I muttered back.

'Duo! Watch your language!' Sister Helen admonished, her voice sounding shocked.

'Yeah Duo!' jeered Solo and he and the good Sister wandered off together to argue about my morals.

I felt the memory of a tingle on my left arm and wished I could reach to rub my hand across the scars there. How many were there now? Thirteen? Had Solo really been gone thirteen long years now?

I shook my head. 'You know, Derry... if you were any kind of host at all, you'd at least offer me something to drink.'

My throat was starting to feel like it was stuffed with cotton batting and my lips were split in more than one place. I made myself swallow some more brackish water.

I tried very hard to doze some more, just to make the time pass and I think I managed it. My dreams were very strange though, and I woke to the frantic sound of someone calling my name.

'Solo?' I called muzzily, 'is that you?'

'Duo?' It was Quatre, his voice sounding very upset. 'Duo... answer me!'

'Hey, Quatre,' I called and knew that my voice sounded hoarse and pathetically relieved to hear him. God. I'd made another day.

'Hey,' he said back and the relief was pretty plain in his voice too. 'Duo... who the heck is Solo? Are you all right?'

'S'rry... I was dreaming.' I muttered, trying to get my head back on straight.

'Listen to me, Duo.' He was using his mission voice again and my attention perked up despite myself. 'Do you still have that last air tank?'

I thought about it long and hard. 'I brought it,' I told him but I couldn't remember what I'd done with it. I finally broke down and flicked on the light for a moment and found it not far from me, drifting lazily a couple of feet off the floor. 'Yeah... it's here.'

'Get some fresh air into the suit, Ok?' And when he said it, it made perfect sense. I should have been doing that all along. I was surprised I hadn't thought of it on my own. I should have been doling the air out in increments; refreshing what the ship was filtering for me every... every... I couldn't fucking do the math.

'Quatre...' I failed to keep the rise out of my voice as I realized just how messed up I was. 'How much?... I... I can't think...'

'It's all right,' he soothed. 'How much is left in the tank?'

I had to flick the light on and off again. 'Just under six hours.'

'Two hours a day,' he told me and it was so simple after he said it. 'Set your alarm for every twelve hours.'

I went ahead and hooked the tank up, feeling better within a matter of minutes. Not great... but better. I set the chrono alarm right then before I had a chance to forget. God... I couldn't do this. I just was not going to be able to do this...

'Yes you can,' came Quatre's sharp reply and I blinked stupidly for a minute. I hadn't thought I'd said that out loud.

'Please... Quatre... talk to me...' I felt myself flushing at the sound of my own pleading.

'What's wrong, Duo?' he asked softly.

'It's... so damn cold,' I muttered, 'and quiet... so quiet... just talk to me, Ok?'

So for a little bit he did; talked to me about what he was doing with the Winner foundation, told me about one of his sisters or other breaking into the art world with her watercolors and getting written up in some sort of journal. Every little while he would ask, 'You still with me?'

And I would laugh and tell him he hadn't put me to sleep yet. But I was clinging to the sound of his sweet voice with everything I had.

After a while he stopped and said, 'Now you talk to me a little bit. How are you doing?'

I sighed, what the hell was there to say? I was freezing. I was starving, so damn hungry I could have cried, I was so thirsty I was starting not to notice the taste of the damn water. I wasn't sure the filtration system was working. It was pitch black and silent as a tomb, and I was starting to hear voices and fucking see dead people. Ducky... I was just ducky.

I heard a tiny sound in the background that I thought might be Kurt, but Quatre was talking again, not waiting for me to reply.

'You're half way there, Duo. I know it's hard; you just have to hang on a little longer.' His voice sounded strained.

I grunted. 'I'm fine,' I murmured and again, because I couldn't remember if I'd said it out loud, 'I'm fine.'

Someone spoke to him then and there was the sound of a heavy sigh, 'Duo... we're almost out of time.'

'Quatre... please... please... just let me go.' I couldn't believe I'd found the nerve to ask it; was shocked at the desperation in my own voice. I was just so damn tired.

'Duo...' Quatre said, voice as soft as a sigh and I could tell he didn't know what to say to me.

Kurt's voice cut across his, harsh and almost angry, 'Don't you fucking dare do this to us!' he snapped. 'I've never known Duo Maxwell to be a quitter!'

I chuckled for him but got no answer back. The window was gone. I almost cried.

Solo wandered through about then, nibbling at a ration bar, just to remind me that, 'Boys don't cry, rat-boy. Remember?'

'Fuck you king rat,' I told him and he meandered off laughing uproariously.

It was so quiet I could hear the sound of my own heart beating slowly in my ears.

'You know, Derry;' I yelled, 'as a host you leave a great deal to be desired!'

He seemed relatively unconcerned about that fact.

The quiet was far worse after the brief, bright sound of Quatre's voice.

'Why don't you just fucking let me die!' I shouted and did break down a little bit then and wept the silent tears that street rats and orphans learned to shed.

'Duo?'

'Who the fuck now?' I growled, blinking the tears furiously out of my eyes. I almost laughed out loud at myself. I was sitting here in a darkness as complete as the inside of my pocket worrying about figments of my imagination seeing me cry.

'Just hang on a little longer,' the voice said and I couldn't clearly identify it. It sounded familiar but the tone wasn't right.

'Solo?' I called. 'Are you back rat-boy? Stop fucking with my head.'

His voice came from close beside me. 'Oh... I don't need to fuck with your head... you're already pretty well fucked.'

I snorted at the joke and had to grin, 'Yeah... I suppose you're right; this is about as fucked up as you can get.'

'Hey!' he complained, acting overly wounded, 'At least you're still alive! I personally think that being dead is pretty fucked up!'

'I suppose when you put it that way.' I thought about it, looking at him, 'Hey; did you know you can see figments of your imagination in the dark?'

'No shit?' He was delighted with the idea and proceeded to twirl his way around the room.

'Too bad you don't just bloody well glow in the dark,' I muttered and he came to a stop in front of me.

'You Ok, kid?' he asked softly.

'No, asshole; I am not bloody well Ok.' I told him.

'Why don't you just pull that line and let's go?'

I stared up at him. It's funny; he didn't look the way he had when he'd died; he looked like I imagined he would if he'd lived. I looked at him for a long time and he waited patiently for me to answer.

'I... I want to Solo... I really do. But I... I can't.'

'Why not?' he asked, his face looking openly curious.

'I just can't. I promised Quatre... Howard's blaming himself as it is... I can't do that to them.' I met his gaze and tried to make him understand.

He just shrugged and straightened away from me. 'S'ok kid. I can wait.' He walked toward the door. 'Y'know... if you'd had a partner...' He smirked then and was gone.

'And just who in the hell's fault is it that I don't have a partner, you shit!' I screamed after him, 'You're the one who fucking died on me!'

His laughter drifted back to me.

'Come back here, rat-boy!' I shouted.

'You shouldn't talk to your friend like that, Duo,' Sister Helen admonished gently.

'Damn,' I muttered, 'I wish you guys would stop sneaking up on me like that.'

'Duo! Language!' she snapped, sounding really angry.

'Don't tell me to watch my language, damn it; you are just a figment of my overly fertile imagination. You are not Sister Helen any more than that was Solo.' I tried to glare at her and failed miserably.

'I know, dear,' she said calmly.

I grunted, 'Well; as long as we have that clear.' And just tried not to sound so damned petulant.

'Go to sleep, my little Duo,' she sighed and I could almost feel her fingers brushing through my hair. So I did; what the hell else was there to do? I woke when my alarm sounded and had a panicked minute of not being able to remember where I was.

'What the hell?' I muttered and groped around until I smacked my gloved hand into the wall. It sent me drifting to the end of my tether and it all came back to me. 'Shit.'

I found the tank and hooked myself back up, flooding my suit with new air. Note, please, that I didn't say fresh air. I don't know that you can call three year old air fresh. I was actually kind of surprised that I was still alive at all.

The alarm sounding meant it had been twelve more hours. I tried to remember what day I was on and wasn't sure, the third? Was it the fourth yet? I didn't think I was going to make it either way.

I needed to stay awake for the next hour, to disconnect the tank again and reset the alarm. I was kind of afraid of another visit from my imaginary friends; it was really starting to freak me out how real they were beginning to seem.

So I took to singing again, softly at first, a little afraid of attracting attention to myself. I sang a couple of the street songs Solo had taught us and I vaguely remembered a lullaby that Sister Helen had sung a lot. I love music, all kinds of music. The other pilots always found it irritating somehow; I never understood why. Everybody likes some kind of music or other, don't they? I always kept the hard stuff for when I was in Deathscythe, usually alone in battle. But they had never cared for anything I played. I eventually quit listening to it around other people. I used to sing a lot more too... I tried to remember when I had stopped and really couldn't. It just seemed to be something that had died along with the rest of my soul.

Ok... where the hell had that come from?

I was getting introspective again and I knew what that meant.

'So now your soul is dead?' came Father Maxwell's gentle, amused voice.

'Yep.' I grinned up at him. 'Dead soul. Dead heart.'

'Now Duo, don't you think you're being a little... melodramatic?' He smiled down at me from the towering height I remembered from my childhood.

'Melodramatic? Me?' I chuckled. 'I suppose I am... but come on Father; you're dead. Solo is dead. Sister Helen is dead. If I ever had parents at all... they're dead. Can't I be a little melodramatic if I want to be?'

He laughed then, 'well; I suppose you can be at that.'

'So... you're in the crowd who knows, is there a heaven? Do I at least get to know what it's like before I take the express elevator straight to hell?'

He clucked his tongue at me. 'Now, don't be silly; that would be telling.' He winked at me.

'Well what the hell good is it to spend the last hours of my life with a bunch of ghosts if they can't tell me anything?' I groused.

'I thought we were figments?' he said wryly and I had to chuckle again.

'Figments... ghosts... whatever,' I sighed and wished I could lay my head down someplace. 'So... you here to take my last confession or something?'

'Do you think you need to confess?' he asked and I couldn't tell if he was kidding or not.

'Well, let's see... never done a confession before. You're supposed to tell everything you've done wrong since your last confession, right? Does that mean I have to tell everything I've ever done wrong?'

He considered it and then grinned, 'Yep.'

'Shit,' I muttered and he laughed at me.

'I think you can skip the one about the language... I think I already know about that one.'

'Let's see... I don't have to get real specific, do I? We could be here for a real long time.' I glanced up at him again and watched his face suffuse with a wide grin.

'I think we're going to be here for a long time, anyway. But... no, you don't have to get specific.'

'Good,' I muttered, 'Ok, stealing. Lot's of stealing. And the language, like you said.' I grimaced, thinking about it. 'Uhmmm... taking the Lord's name in vain; that's not good... right?' He only glared down at me. 'That whole murder thing; lots and lots of that. How bad are... impure thoughts about another guy?'

I looked up at him through my sweaty, oily bangs and I felt myself flushing, 'Never mind, I don't want to know,' I murmured.

He only towered over me and looked down accusingly.

I smirked, 'Goin' straight to hell, huh?'

He never did answer me.

'As a figment of my imagination, you're not one of the better ones. Solo's a better conversationalist even if he is a shit.'

He faded away and it was time to shut off the air and reset the alarm. I slept some more after that.

I woke again to someone anxiously calling my name.

'I'm awake,' I moaned, forcing the sound out through a throat that was starting to feel tight.

'Good morning, sunshine,' Kurt drawled at me.

'What?' I croaked, 'not still mad at me?'

'I'm not mad at you, squirt.' he said and his voice sounded warm. 'You just frustrate the hell out of me.'

I grunted.

'How are you doing, Duo?' came Trowa's soft baritone.

I blinked for a minute. 'You guys still there?'

'Where else would we be?' He chuckled and I had to think about that.

My alarm beeped then, making me jump.

'What the hell is that?' I heard Howard yelp. Must have surprised them too.

'Time to add a little air to my... suit.' I had almost said 'coffin'.

I killed the alarm. plugged up the tank and took a couple of deep breaths. Remembering at the last minute to reset the timer.

My fingers were clumsy with the chill. 'Damn,' I muttered when it took me several tries to get the thing set.

'What's wrong?' asked Quatre, his voice sounding concerned.

'Cold,' I told him before I had a chance to think about it. 'My fingers are getting numb.' I wished I hadn't said it; my hands have been sensitive to temperature changes ever since I burned them. Burned them saving Quatre's life. It upsets him a great deal.

'You should be moving around while you're disconnected from the ship,' he commanded, using that voice again.

I only laughed. 'Quatre... I... don't have the strength left.'

'Duo...' he said and it sounded anguished.

'I know it's in your nature to hold on to hope for all it's worth,' I told him, knowing my voice was harsh; forgetting for a minute that the whole damn crew was probably listening to us. 'And I've always loved that about you but... damn it, Qat; you have to face the hard facts here. I'm not going to make it.

'You are so, Duo Maxwell!' he snapped at me, his voice sounding pained. 'You're too damn close to give up now! It's only another day and a half... Heero and Wufei...'

'What?' I practically yelled, that name snapping me into sharp attention. 'Damn you, Quatre! What kind of game are you playing at? There's no way in hell those two would ever come out here for me! I drive them both insane... why are you lying to me? Why are you making me suffer like this if there isn't...' I was losing the vestiges of my voice on the crest of my anger. What in the hell was he doing? How many other lies had he told me? Heero and Wufei? Not in this stinking lifetime! Neither one of them could stand to be in the same room with me; no way in the seven, bloody hells would they be coming after me. I couldn't process this. What was Quatre doing? What did he have to gain from telling me shit like this? Why drag this out and make me sit here in agony if there wasn't any rescue coming?

'No... Duo...' he sounded panicked and I imagined that he was envisioning me ripping the airlines out, 'you... you didn't let me finish...'

I waited, giving him a chance to explain and there was a strange sound over the line. It was suddenly very quiet, like the link had been cut.

'Q... Qat?' I whispered and felt a thrill of fear when he didn't answer me. The connection was gone. It wasn't time! What had happened? Then there was another click and I again heard the faint sounds that told me of people moving about. I had to bite back a moan of relief.

'Settle down, Duo.' It was Trowa's voice that came to me calm and steady. 'Quatre was going to tell you that... Heero and Wufei were reporting from the launch site. They're in communication with the outbound ship.'

'Oh...' I said and felt like an idiot. 'I... I'm sorry Quatre.'

'It... it's all right,' he told me softly, voice sounding tense.

I wasn't able to talk much after yelling at him, so they talked to me for the little bit that we had left. When I knew that time was winding down, I had to try again and it was starting to feel like some sort of ritual.

'Quatre?' I ventured, cutting into whatever he had been saying.

There was the sound of a heavy sigh and I knew that he had guessed I would ask this again, 'What, Duo?'

'Please... give me permission to pull the plug?'

'No,' he said and his voice was firm. He'd known I would ask and had been ready this time. 'We are not giving up and I will not allow you to give up either. You've come too far to quit this close to the finish line.'

The transmission went dead and I was all alone in the dark again.

Well; almost all alone.

'Did I notice s'mbody gettin' all aquiver at the sound of a certain name?' Solo was grinning like an idiot and drifting around me, trying to make me turn my head to watch him.

'Shut up, Solo,' I muttered and just concentrated on getting the line switched back to the filtration system. He was surprisingly quiet while I finished. Or, maybe not so surprising since it was my own over-worked brain that was producing him. I guess multi-tasking was a thing of the past.

'What's the matter, rat-boy?' He grinned in that malicious way he could have sometimes.

'Please leave me alone,' I asked him, my voice coming gravely and rough.

'Nah. This is too much fun. Who is it makes your little heart go all pitta-pat?'

'None of your business, you damned sadist!' I growled.

'Heeeero!' he sang to me and I thought I would break down and weep.

'Leave go... Solo. For the love of God... please leave it go.' I looked up at him imploringly. 'We were closer than brothers once, you and I... don't do this to me.'

He stopped and looked down at me, his face getting serious. 'I'm sorry, kid. I didn't know he meant that much to you.'

'He did... does... always will. But...' I just shook my head and hoped he'd drop it.

But he squatted down to look into my faceplate, 'Damn; rat-boy,' he murmured sympathetically, 'you got it bad.'

I snorted. 'Since the day I laid eyes on him,' I confirmed in a small voice.

'And I take it he don't know you exist?' He cocked his head off to the side in that way I remembered.

'Worse...' I whispered. 'He thinks I'm an annoying... idiot.'

'Sorry kid,' he chuckled at me. 'Wouldn'ta teased you if you'd ever said somethin'.'

'I don't like to talk about it, Ok?' I told him and had to stop for a minute while I tried to clear my throat. 'It just... hurts, you know?'

'Yeah.' He stood up then, 'I know.' And he was gone.

Sister Helen came back to whisper softly to me again until I slept.

I dreamed that someone was reading the 'Jungle Book' to me. I thought it might have been Sister Helen; she's the only one I can ever remember reading to me but the voice didn't sound right. It was gone when I woke to the sound of the alarm again.

I almost couldn't feel my hands and feet at all and I was nearly in frustrated tears by the time I got the line switched over. I started thinking about not being able to get switched back to the ships systems and shuddered. I decided to use the last of the air now and only make the switch one more time. I didn't think I'd manage it again.

Quatre leaned over me to check my connection. 'Good thinking,' he said, reaching to pat my shoulder in a gesture that never quite connected.

'What the hell?' I mumbled. 'You're not one of my ghosts.'

He laughed at me. 'Why do all your figments have to be dead people?'

He had a point, I guess. God, I hoped I wasn't in for a fresh parade of people; I'd just gotten used to having Solo and Sister Helen around.

'Just a little longer, Duo,' he whispered close to my ear and I imagined I could almost feel the brush of his breath.

'I'm so tired Quatre... it hurts... everything hurts... please...'

'No!' he snapped and his eyes flashed angry and dark for a moment.

I sighed in defeat and he faded away. I dozed for a bit and woke in a panic; I'd forgotten to set the alarm to switch from the tank to the filters. I had to flick the light on and check the air tank. I was on the last minutes. I'd come damn close to sleeping through my own death.

'Shit,' I muttered and began fumbling with the fitting.

'Careless, Maxwell,' I heard and blinked up to see Wufei standing over me with that condescending expression on his face.

'Oh bugger off,' I snarled and forgot him while I got my lines changed. I shoved the empty tank in his direction, once I had it disconnected, causing me to drift backward into the wall. He vanished with a wry chuckle.

'Great,' I grumbled. 'Now the live ones are going to come for their pound of flesh. As if the damn ghosts weren't bad enough.'

I was so cold; I wanted to curl up somewhere. That's just not a possibility in a vacuum suit. I tried to force myself to sip at the water tube but I honestly didn't think the filters were working at all anymore. It tasted like drinking pure urine. I gagged and just said the hell with it.

'And just how do you know what urine tastes like?' Trowa asked me with a chuckle from where he leaned in the doorway.

'I know because I've been drinking it for the past three days, that's how.'

He snorted and moved toward me, walking just as though we weren't in zero gravity.

'Trowa...' I scrabbled for words; I wasn't sure what I wanted to ask him; why won't Quatre let me give up? What is he lying to me about? What the hell is going on? Who is on that ship coming after me?

But he didn't wait for me to articulate my questions, just squatted down in front of me. 'You've always been the survivor, Duo. You just have to hang on a little longer. Don't give up. Less than twelve hours more, Ok?'

I just looked at him, because I thought he might not leave me until after I answered him. But his eyes wouldn't let me just sit in silence.

'Trowa... God... I don't know if I can. I just want it to be over... I just don't care any more.'

He looked at me sadly and faded away.

'You know;' I called after him, 'the ghosts are better fucking conversationalists!'

'Duo?' And it was the voice I had been dreading.

'Heero?' I whispered, caught between joy and pain. My heart, despite my every effort, soared with just the sound of him. But I didn't want to hear the curses; couldn't stand him calling me a 'damned baka'. Then I chuckled; this wasn't Heero any more than the rest of them were real. 'Or should I call you Figment?'

He snorted softly. 'Heero will do.'

'Come to tell me how bad I screwed up?' I wanted to grin at him but he seemed to be playing a different game than the others; I couldn't find him.

'No,' he said gently. 'Just wanted to tell you it's going to be all right.'

I blinked into the dark. Well... this was unexpected.

'What?' I said lamely.

I could hear the amusement in his voice. 'I... came... to tell you that you're doing ok. I came to tell you to hang on.'

I didn't know what to say and in the silence I heard the faint sound of Wufei's voice hissing, 'Yuy; be careful!'

That didn't make any sense. Great. Now my figments were losing their minds as well.

Heero just seemed to ignore him; I wondered again why he wouldn't come out where I could see him. 'You're tough, Duo. You always have been. You're going to come through this. I know you will.'

I grinned despite myself. 'I was wrong,' I told him. 'You're not a figment... you're a damn fantasy!'

For a little while I couldn't seem to stop laughing but Heero stayed and talked to me until I calmed a little. I managed to keep it from turning into hysteria. I was kind of proud of that, because I was right there on the edge of it.

'Are you hooked back to the ship?' he asked when I had quieted.

'Yeah...' I confirmed and thought that was odd; Quatre and Trowa had just looked.

'Can you sleep some more?' he said softly.

'I... think so,' I replied and closed my eyes. 'Heero?'

'Hmmmm?'

'You're a nice figment of my imagination.'

'Baka,' he murmured and his voice sounded downright tender.

Sister Helen didn't even have to come and whisper me to sleep.

I woke to Quatre's voice calling me again and it was hard to drag myself back to consciousness.

'Duo!' He sounded near frantic and I wondered how long he'd been calling me.

'Oh God, Trowa... he can't...' His voice got muffled then and I imagined him with his face buried in Trowa's broad chest.

I opened my mouth to speak and ended up coughing. It wasn't what I had intended to say but it let them know I was still among the living.

'He's alive!' Kurt shouted and I had to grin from the sheer exuberance in his voice.

'Barely,' I managed to croak out.

'Duo, it's time to switch back to the air tank; have you done that yet?'

I frowned; we'd talked about this already.

'Used it, 'member?' I muttered.

'What?' he asked, incredulous and I felt kind of bad. Maybe I hadn't made the right decision after all if Quatre was this upset about it.

'Hands are numb... didn't think I could switch twice.' My frown deepened as I tried to think it through, 'you said... good idea when ya looked.'

There was a long silence then and I was just as glad; talking was hard.

'What... Duo...' His voice sounded... strange.

'Never mind,' Trowa told me calmly and I let the frown fade away. 'It's all right. It was probably for the best.'

That eased my mind a little and I closed my eyes again; it didn't matter, there was nothing to see in the dark anyway.

'How are you doing, Duo?' Trowa asked me gently.

'Fine,' I mumbled. 'Not even hungry any more.'

Nobody said anything and I realized that I'd done something to upset them, so I tried to make it better. 'It's even a little warmer.'

Quatre made a funny noise. I didn't think it was a good noise and I sighed heavily. Maybe I should just shut up; I couldn't figure out why they kept getting so distressed.

'Gonna sleep now,' I told them and was really sorry that I couldn't seem to stay awake to talk more.

'No, Duo,' Quatre told me, his voice tinged with concern. 'Try to stay awake... they're almost there. Just a little longer.'

But I just couldn't, no matter how hard I tried.

'I... I'm... sorry...'

The last thing I remembered hearing was Kurt yelling at me but even that wasn't enough to bring me back.

After that, it got very strange. Light woke me; light and voices.

Heero and Wufei; only this time I could see Heero but not Wufei.

'Duo... Duo... can you hear me?' Heero's voice was patient and calm and I opened my eyes to find him right on top of me, working with my air connections.

'Hello again, Figment,' I muttered, blinking my eyes open, then had to shut them again. I'd been so long in the dark; the light from his flash was piercingly bright.

'Hello, Duo,' Figment Heero said softly.

'Was that...?' Wufei's disembodied voice asked.

'Yes,' Heero confirmed, 'he's alive.'

'Thank God,' Wufei sighed and I almost blinked my eyes open in surprise.

'Damn,' I coughed, 'mus' really be on death's door for you not to be yellin'.'

Suddenly, fresh air was rushing into my suit and I couldn't help but gasp for it, sucking in what I could.

'Steady,' Heero was telling me, 'don't pant... slow and steady breaths.'

For a brief moment, everything came into sharp focus and I was awake and alert and dazedly aware that these were not figments of my imagination.

'What the hell?' I muttered, trying to reach up and finding that even in zero-g, my muscles wouldn't obey me.

Heero chuckled softly, 'Not hell,' he told me firmly. 'Not today.'

But there was more wrong with me than could be fixed with just a tank of clean air, and I found myself slipping away again.

My next near coherent memory was suddenly finding myself with water running over me. I came awake in a panic and tried to fight my way clear but there were strong arms around me, holding me up, because gravity existed again. Not full Earth gravity, shipboard showers won't work in zero-g, but much more than I had been drifting in for the last week. I could barely move.

'You're all right,' a soothing voice told me and I was vaguely aware after a moment that Wufei was holding me and Heero was washing me. Shit.

'Don't fight us,' Heero told me gently and I gave it up and just sank into Wufei's arms, drifting on the edges of consciousness. Wufei's chest felt fever hot against my skin. There were places all over my body that stung under the spray of the water.

'He's nothing but skin and bones,' Wufei said softly to Heero who grunted.

'Careful how you hold him;' he admonished, 'He's lost a lot of bone density...'

I felt like a toy doll in their hands. That was my last articulate thought before I faded away again.

I roused next to find myself sandwiched between two warm bodies and for the first time I was aware that I was aboard my own ship. When I opened my eyes, I could see 'Demon's' black ceiling with the constellations painted across it.

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. I was vaguely aware of a stinging, pulling sensation on my right arm and I tried to shift my left hand to rub at it. Fingers closed over mine.

'Leave it alone,' Heero said quietly from where he was curled at my back. 'It's your IV.'

The back that my cheek was resting against rumbled under my ear. 'He's awake?'

'I'm not sure,' Heero responded and it slowly seeped down into my brain just what position I was in. I flushed and struggled to pull away.

Hands were on me, holding me down. 'Hush,' Heero said. 'You were near hypothermic; we need to get you warmed back up.'

I became aware that every blanket I owned was spread across us and both Heero and Wufei were slightly damp with sweat. I, on the other hand, still felt like I could break out in shivers.

I tried to speak again but he only hushed me, 'Shhhh... go back to sleep. Just rest.'

I let my eyes drift shut.

'Yuy; we need to get some food in him.'

'Fluids are more important right now,' Heero said, his voice lowering as he thought I had gone back to sleep. 'I'm afraid solid food will make him sick. He doesn't have the strength for that.'

Wufei grumbled. 'Wish to God we'd known he didn't stock the galley with anything but damn military issue rations.'

Heero just grunted. They grew quiet and I drifted away.

My next awakening found Wufei gone but Heero still in my bed, still wrapped around me. I didn't feel like I was going to tremble myself apart from the cold anymore. There was, in fact, a light feel of sweat on my own body and a few of the blankets had been thrown back. I just lay for a bit and listened to Heero's soft breathing, staring at my star-spattered wall and trying to think.

This was real. These weren't just the voices in my head. These weren't figments of my imagination. These weren't ghosts. Quatre hadn't been lying to me.

What the flaming hell? Of all the people in the known universe, these two were the last ones I would ever have expected to be on that rescue ship. We had gone through a war together; fought side by side and neither of them had rarely had a word to spare me that wasn't laced with annoyance. I had driven them to raging distraction. They had found me to be 'unprofessional' and a liability to our cover with my big mouth and what they termed my 'antics'. I had never been able to get across to either one of them that they were the ones who drew the attention. They had never learned the art of blending in. I may have been loud and somewhat obnoxious; but that's what people expected out of guys our age back then. Nobody gave me a second look. They were the ones who got stared at, with their sullen glares and refusal to go with the flow of whatever was going on. Always having to show people up.

Maybe I'd pushed a little too hard because of it; trying to make them see how people accepted me, how they didn't give good ol' 'Duo the idiot' a second thought. Things had just never gotten any better between us. And it sure as hell didn't help that somewhere in there, I had fallen head over heels, break your heart in love with Heero Yuy. I loved him with every shard of my black and broken soul. I always had. I think I always would.

Waking up in my own bed, with his warm, muscular chest pressed against my back, his arm thrown carelessly across my hip was every God damn wet dream I had ever had rolled into a reality that threatened to send me screaming back into the dark.

This I could not do. This was so fucking unfair I damn near broke down and cried where I lay. He was offering me this comfort because of what I'd been through, not because of any damn feelings he had for me. I couldn't even fathom that he had bloody well come out here after me. I could not, could fucking not, allow myself to start thinking that there was more to it than that.

The arm on my hip slid on around me and pulled me close. 'You're all right now,' a sleepy voice murmured. 'You're safe now... it's all over.'

I realized that he had reacted to my body tensing and tried to relax but I was just too near the ragged edge of... something....and found myself desperate to get out of his arms before I did something extremely stupid.

He came fully awake then and his hands were gentle but firm and he resisted my efforts to get away.

'Duo,' he called to me, 'it's all right; it's just me... it's Heero. You're Ok now. Everything's all right.'

I didn't have the strength to stinking raise my arms, much less struggle out of his grasp. I felt like I'd been turned wrong side out, scraped empty, then turned back. Hollow. Newborn kittens had more muscle tone than I did. It was all I could do to turn my head and try to look at him. He raised himself up on one elbow to bring his face where I could see him.

'You really awake this time?' he asked, his lips playing with a tiny smile.

I should not have looked. It was like getting kicked in the gut... really hard. He is... still... drop-dead gorgeous. The typical tall, dark and handsome - only without the tall. Thick dark hair, eyes so damn blue you could lose your mind staring into them. God made nothing else in the universe that particular shade of blue; that color is Heero's and Heero's alone. I think I might have gained an inch on him in the last couple of years but it was a little hard to tell lying down. But he'd gotten... lean. He was all angles and planes and I finally had to close my eyes to keep them from roving all over him. God; I'd missed him. Had thought I was getting over him.

'Duo?' he questioned gently, voice sounding concerned. 'Are you all right?'

I shivered. I hadn't been getting over shit. I'd only buried the heartache under all the work, hidden behind the job so that I didn't see what I didn't know how to handle.

'I...' I croaked, throat still feeling like it was full of cotton balls, 'I'm ok.'

He chuckled at me. 'Oh... you're just fine.'

The sound surprised me into opening my eyes; he was leaning over me, smiling warmly down. Maybe I was wrong... maybe this was still Figment-Heero. This couldn't be real.

'Did... did I dream Wufei was here?' I finally managed to croak out.

'No,' he told me, making no move what so ever to pull away from me, lying with his hand resting on my hip as though he did it all the time. 'He's bringing Howard's ship; we're in-bound.'

I brightened, forgetting for a moment that he was making my pulse race and my nerves run fire. 'You saved Randy?'

He smiled a little wider. 'Yes, we retrieved... Randy. Wufei is piloting it back.'

I sighed and had to let my head fall back, even in the low gravity, my neck muscles were trembling with fatigue just that fast. 'Good. She was Howard's primary ship; I felt really bad when I lost her.'

His hand left my hip and came to touch my forehead in that classic 'checking temperature' gesture. 'Well,' he told me, 'Howard was a little more concerned with losing you than the damn ship.'

I flushed darkly and didn't say anything, just stared at the wall.

'Duo,' he said softly then, 'do you think you can try to drink something? We need to get some food in you.'

I could see my own arm lying sprawled across the sheets and it looked like it belonged to somebody else; stick thin and frail looking.

I sighed heavily, 'I should try,' I told him. 'But we'll need to go into the head. I'll throw up. I always throw up the first time I eat after I haven't for a couple of days.'

There was a strange silence and I suddenly realized how that must have sounded, like I make a habit of it. I didn't know what to say to make it better and he didn't say anything either, just threw the rest of the blankets back and climbed out of the bed. He was wearing nothing but a pair of the soft 'ships pants' that you typically wore under your vacuum suit. That was when I realized I wasn't wearing anything at all. I blushed what was probably a very amusing shade of red and thanked God that my body was too traumatized and stressed to react to his physical presence the way it usually did.

He grinned down at me, 'You lost so much weight; nothing we found would stay on you.'

I did my best to glare up at him but it lacks something when you can barely move. 'There's some shorts in the bottom drawer that have a draw-string waist,' I grumbled and he went to find them for me. But then he magnified the indignity when he had to help me put them on. I couldn't believe how much weight I had lost. I could almost count my own ribs.

I made to slide my hand to the edge of the bed to pull myself out but he snorted a strange little laugh at me, unhooked the IV bag from its hook and simply picked me up in his arms. I didn't have the strength to even hold my head up and had to let it rest on his shoulder.

'Heero...' I tried to complain but he only chuckled at me; there was obviously nothing else to be done. I couldn't have gotten myself out of bed if my life had depended on it.

'Stop trying to be so damn tough about it, Duo,' he scolded, his voice calm and soothing. I wanted to ask him just what in the hell he had done with the real Heero Yuy.

He took me into the head and sat me down before retrieving some water. This was the one part of the ship where I had spent some money strictly for luxuries' sake. I lived aboard this vessel both docked and in space, so the head functioned as a normal 'bathroom' with a normal tub, shower and toilet, and also in low-gravity with the sealed units. Heero perched me on the side of the tub and lifted the lid on the toilet before handing me the water. I looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to leave me alone, before realizing he had no such plans.

I opened my mouth to object but he cut me off before I could even speak, 'Don't be ridiculous. I'm not going anywhere.'

I sighed, decided the hell with it and took a couple of big gulps of water.

He frowned and reached for the bulb. 'What are you doing?' he blurted, 'Not so fast...'

I raised a hand to stop him and shook my head. 'Better than the dry heaves.'

Then it was too late and I was spewing the water right back up into the waiting toilet, only happy that we weren't in zero-g where the crap has to be vacuumed out of your damn throat. As soon as I finished, I swallowed some more and it came back up as well. On the third try I managed to keep down a couple of sips. I used the towel that Heero handed me to wipe my face and gave him a weak nod.

'A... all done,' I managed and passed out cold.

When I came around again it was to find myself back in my bunk, nestled against Heero's chest, the IV line snaking upward across my line of sight to the hook over the bed. I had equipped the ship with a lot of little things like that; I was usually in a position where I had to be able to care for myself.

'... for a little while. We tried to get a little water down him but he threw it all back up,' Heero was whispering behind me.

'Damn,' came Wufei's equally quiet reply over the speaker above the bed, 'You have to get him to eat.'

'I know,' Heero told him, voice sounding worried. 'I wish we had something milder to feed him; those damned rations aren't exactly the easiest things to...'

'It's what I eat,' I informed them and it came out a little flat. 'My system doesn't have a problem with them.'

'Duo?' Wufei's voice rose to a normal level and he sounded... relieved. 'Dogs and starving coyotes have a problem with those damn things.'

I had to chuckle. Heero's hand came to feel my face again, then slid to pick up my wrist and I realized he was taking my pulse.

'You guys are just spoiled on those huge Preventer's salaries,' I told Wufei, trying to ignore the feel of Heero's hands ghosting over me.

Wufei snorted softly. 'Maxwell; Hamburger Helper is a step up from that crap.'

Heero suddenly interrupted the banter. 'We'll call you later. I'm going to try feeding him.'

Wufei chuckled at us and signed off.

I sighed again, wishing I had the strength to just push away and go take care of things myself. This was getting rather embarrassing.

He shifted out of the bed and helped me ease over on my back, sitting beside me on the edge of the bunk. I could feel the places where the vacuum suit had worn sores pulling and stinging wherever they came in contact with the sheet. The troubled look on his face fairly well took away the flippant comment I had been working on. His hand came to touch my cheek, almost seeming to move there without his knowledge.

'God...' he sighed, his eyes tracing over me. 'You look so... fragile.'

The blood rushed to my cheeks and I couldn't meet his eyes.

I hated feeling this out of control and I didn't know what to say to him.

'Do you think you could try to eat something?' he asked me softly and it was so hard when he spoke in that tone of voice not to let my imagination paint in more than was there.

'I should be fine now,' I informed him, looking over his shoulder and trying not to meet those piercing blue eyes. 'If I'm careful and take it slow... I usually don't throw up again.'

He frowned at me outright and finally got up the nerve to ask me, 'What do you mean? How often...?'

I stopped him, 'Not in years. But as a kid... growing up on the streets.' I left it at that.

He cocked his head to the side. 'With Solo?' he asked quietly and it was my turn to frown; I didn't ever remember telling any of the guys about Solo.

'Yeah...' I confirmed, 'with Solo and the other kids.'

I waited for him to question further but he let it go.

I decided to change the subject. 'If you're intent on feeding me,' I said, knowing that it was something that had to be done despite that fact that I was not the least bit hungry, 'here's what you do.' And I told him how to make Spacer's stew. I laughed outright at the disgusted look on his face, stopping when I felt my lip split again.

'That sounds... vile,' he informed me and I grinned at him.

'It's the closest thing to broth we're going to come up with.'

So he went to heat the water and shave a ration bar into it, coming back fairly quickly with a mug of the stuff. I was surprised at how much I had missed his presence in the five minutes or so he was gone. I realized when I thought about it, that he had been keeping himself in almost constant contact. If not touching, then at least within sight.

He sat the mug down on the desk and came to help me prop up with the pillows and wadded up blankets. I tried to push myself up but he didn't give me the chance, simply leaned down and bodily lifted me.

'Heero...' I grumbled but he only smiled down at me.

'Hush,' he said in mock warning. 'You need to save your strength.'

'I'd save it, if I had it,' I muttered and won a laugh from him.

He retrieved the mug and I tried to reach for it, but my hands were shaking too bad.

'Let me,' he said and I had no choice but to allow him to feed me.

I managed only a few bites and he frowned, obviously upset.

'Heero,' I sighed, 'it's been over a week. It's going to be slow or I'm going to throw it all right back up.'

He capitulated and started to set the mug aside but then a strange look came over his face. Cautiously, he raised a spoon-full and tasted it.

'Duo... that is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted,' he told me with a wry grin and I couldn't help but grin back; though more mindful of my cracked lips.

'You must not get around much, then,' I laughed. 'There's a whole lot worse out there.'

He shivered dramatically, then did set the mug aside.

'Don't try to save it,' I told him. 'It dries as hard as cement after a couple of hours.'

He cocked his head and looked down at me with an unreadable expression. 'Can I get you anything else?'

'I'm fine,' I murmured.

A tiny frown flitted across his face but he didn't argue, just reached over my head and made some adjustment to the IV. 'I wish you'd try some more water.'

I nodded and he pulled out a squeeze bulb from somewhere and I was able to raise my hand to take it but not able to hold it up. His hand wrapped around mine and held it steady while I sipped.

I caught him looking at my hand. He noticed that I noticed and he dropped his eyes.

'You...' he said after a second, 'had the scars worked on.'

My burn scars. They had made Quatre so upset that he almost cried every time he had seen them. I had taken to wearing gloves quite a bit toward the end of the war just to keep him from having to look.

I snorted softly, 'I got tired of Quatre looking at me like he'd done it to me himself. It made him feel better.' I glanced up, a little embarrassed. 'He... paid for the surgery.'

He looked at me oddly. 'You didn't want it done?'

I shrugged, looking down at the hand still lying on the bed. I flexed the fingers while I tried to think how to explain it.

'It never bothered me what it looked like... it was the nerve damage... and that can't be repaired.'

His face took on that unreadable expression again. 'The surgery had to have been... painful... why...?'

I grinned up at him and stopped trying to explain. 'I never could say no to Quatre.'

He offered me another sip of water and I took it not because I wanted it but because he wanted me to drink.

I was suddenly exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open. He was right there, shifting the pillows and pulling the blankets out, sliding me back down in the bed and preparing to crawl in with me.

'You don't have to stay with me,' I told him with a tongue that was already growing unwieldy with drowsiness.

'Yes I do,' he told me simply and I found myself back in the shelter of his arms, shocked at how quickly I had grown accustomed to this.

'I'm fine,' I mumbled thickly.

'Of course you are,' he soothed, 'but you just spent a week in what amounts to a sensory deprivation chamber. You need... human contact.'

Ah. It was starting to make a little more sense now. In a way I was relieved that the world was back on its axis. At the same time, I felt my heart shatter all over again. Damn. I had let that little bastard 'hope' get a finger-hold in the back of my head despite myself. I'd known better; I'd fought against it... but I was just too tired; too worn down. Regardless of my best efforts, I had started to harbor the hope that he was treating me like this, was being so attentive and so concerned, because he cared.

Silly me.

I fell asleep wrapped in the warmth of his arms feeling as lonely and hurt as I have in a lot of years.

***

I woke up in the dark. The air was stale and cold again. I couldn't feel my fingers. Shit.

'Hey rat-boy.' Solo said, leaning over me. 'Thought ya weren't gonna wake up that time.'

'Solo?' I said stupidly, not sure which was the reality and which was the dream. 'I thought I was safe...' I tried to look around but couldn't move. 'Heero came for me...'

Solo laughed derisively. 'Heero came for ya? Come on kid, tell me which is more likely.'

I blinked at him and thought about it. 'You're right.' Heero come all the way out to the damn asteroid belt to save my ass? Not bloody likely. 'Solo... help me with this damn airline. I've had enough.'

'Now you're talkin', kid!' he crowed, then straightened and looked off into the dark. 'But ya waited too long.'

'What do you mean?' I looked where he was staring but couldn't see anything.

He edged away from me. 'Sorry kid,' he murmured low, just before he faded, 'the Derry crew wants their air back.'

I looked again and saw the suited up corpses coming down the corridor, arms out-stretched and murmuring unintelligibly, led by their Captain. The one with no suit and only half a face.

Shit.

'Solo!' I screamed, 'come back here you son of a bitch! Get me loose from here!'

He didn't answer me or appear again. I started cussing a blue streak, hoping that Sister Helen might show up to lecture me about my language.

'Duo! Wake up! Come on, Duo... it's all right... I've got you... I'm here.'

I came awake panting, sweating and struggling with Heero's arms holding me steady.

He eased his grip when he saw my eyes open. 'It's Ok now. You're safe... it's all over.'

I couldn't speak for a long minute and shivered when the sweat began to dry on my skin. There was a mind-bending moment while I sorted out which was the reality and I couldn't do anything but lay and blink up at him.

He frowned and his hand came to hold me by the chin, forcing me to look him in the eye. 'This is real. I am real. It is all over. You are safe.'

It was all I could do not to throw my arms around his neck and weep like a frightened child. I closed my eyes to escape his gaze and finally managed a sharp nod.

'Sorry,' I murmured, trying to force myself to relax.

His fingers lingered on my face, not holding so tight. 'Are you all right?' he sighed not far from my ear.

'Fine,' I managed, 'I'm fine.'

There was a long silence and I could feel his eyes on me.

'Do you want to talk about it?' he asked softly and I just shook my head.

'Was just a stupid nightmare,' I told him and reached to try to pull the blanket up. He took it from my trembling fingers and tucked it gently around my shoulders.

His arm came back under the blanket and hooked my waist, pulling me close again. 'I'm here if you decide you might want to... talk.'

I didn't know what to say. I was too caught up with not letting the feel of his arms make me believe in something that wasn't true. I finally managed a weak, 'Thank you.'

I lay awake for a long time after that, afraid to go back to sleep. Afraid that this was the dream and the other was the reality. It would sure as hell explain the surreal matter of Heero Yuy sharing my bed. I lay very still though and tried hard to pretend to sleep. He could break me, so easily, on a rack made of my own shattered dreams and never even realize.

'I know you're awake,' he said softly, after a while. 'I can feel your heart pounding.'

I sighed but didn't open my eyes. 'Not sleepy,' I groused.

His hand left my waist and gently stroked up and down my arm, carefully avoiding the raw sore on my shoulder. 'Duo... tell me what you want?' he said softly.

To turn over and wrap myself all over you, I longed to tell him... but couldn't, so instead I said, 'It... it's just so quiet. I usually have my music playing. Could...?'

'Of course,' he smiled, sounding almost relieved that I had given him something to do for me.

I thought I would have to give him instructions to the files but he sat up and reached over my head to the ships controls. 'Which set do you want?'

'The... the folder labelled 'Night' will be... ok,' I murmured and he keyed it up, adjusting the volume, then slid back down to lie beside me.

The familiar nighttime sounds washed through the cabin and I felt myself relaxing despite everything.

'What is that instrument, anyway?' Heero asked after he was settled.

'Hammered dulcimer,' I murmured.

He grunted. 'It's nice... I was surprised. Not the kind of thing I remembered.'

I didn't answer; just lay there with a sudden overwhelming sense of horror. It had not hit me before now; but Heero Yuy and Chang Wufei had spent a solid week out-bound to the belt aboard my 'Demon'. Living in the heart of my most intimate place. This ship was... oh hell, this ship was me.

I thought about all the oddities aboard. Thought about all the customizations I had made. The pilot's seats were from the same designs that the Gundam cockpits had been made from. I wondered what they had made of that? I had painted the 'Demon' with my own hands, every brush stroke. I had searched until I had found a thick blanket, black as the night and had stitched the silver stars across it myself. It matched the walls, floor and ceiling of my cabin. The galley with its blue-sky ceiling and walls, clouds dusted across it in fanciful shapes of dragons and castles and paladin's horses. The cockpit was edged all around the ceiling with copies of every photograph I had been able to get my hands on of the five of us and our Gundams. Some of them had been lifted from the newsreels. Some of them from secure Oz files. There was a picture up there of me in irons; face caked with dried blood. The cockpit itself was painted that very color; I'd spent hours matching it. I only hoped they hadn't had reason to go down into the cargo bay where the floor to ceiling mural of the five Gundams stood, with the image of the burned out remains of the Maxwell church on the wall opposite it.

I'd cleared a lot of shit out of my head in the years I'd been working on my ship. My shattered heart and broken soul were poured out in glossy brush strokes on every square inch of bulkhead.

And they'd been living here for an entire week. Free to poke and prod. Free to go through my music, look through my files. I positively felt exposed and ... violated. Shit.

'Damn it, Duo,' Heero said; so close his breath stirred the hair against my temple, 'why can't you let me help you?'

'I'm all right,' I muttered automatically, suppressing a shiver at the intimate feeling.

He sighed. 'No,' he said rather firmly, 'you are not.'

It irritated me a little. 'What the hell do you know about it?'

His hand had stopped stroking over my arm and had settled against my chest. I realized that he was using my own heartbeat to gauge my reaction to what he was saying and right now it was pounding in double-time. I tried to push his hand away but didn't really have the strength.

'I know,' he was telling me and I very suddenly just wanted to get away from him. I felt like I was on the edge of some ragged breaking point.

'I have to use the bathroom,' I blurted and dared him to deny it.

He started to frown down at me and opened his mouth to argue the point, but then only sighed and got up.

I tried to struggle up before he had a chance to lift me but it was a pretty ridiculous attempt that only left me dizzy. It garnered me a fierce frown though.

'Stop it,' he commanded.

'You can't keep carrying me everywhere,' I complained.

He took the IV bag down, plopped it on my stomach and slipped his arms under me, lifting me easily in the low gravity. 'You can walk when you get a little strength back.'

'How the hell am I going to get my strength back if you won't let me do anything but lie here?' I pointed out, pleased to take the conversation down this path and away from where it had been headed.

'By resting and getting some food in your system,' he replied.

Then we were in the bathroom and there was an awkward moment while, I swear to God, he considered taking my shorts down and 'helping' me.

'Do not even think about it,' I growled and he blinked at me in some small amount of surprise.

'Set me down and get out,' I commanded, doing my best to sound firm and authoritative.

'Duo...' He hesitated. 'The last time I brought you in here you... passed out.'

I felt myself flush. 'Heero...' I warned and he finally gave in with a sigh.

'I'll be right outside.' He frowned at me. 'If I don't hear something every couple of minutes... I'm coming back in.'

I only glared at him. He went. There was an undeniable lifting of some... pressure to be 'all right' as soon as the door slid shut behind him and I let myself slump forward for a moment; just sitting there on the damn toilet.

There are almost no mirrors aboard the 'Demon'; I'm not overly fond of them. The only one, in fact, is there in the head. I spared a glance in that direction and had to bite back a shocked gasp when I met the eyes of the skeletal wreck sitting there staring back at me. Damn. No wonder the guys were treating me like I was made out of spun glass... I looked like I was made out of spun glass. I tore my gaze away and bent to the task of working my shorts down without falling over.

'Duo?' I heard before I was half done.

'Damn it!' I snapped, 'I'm ok!'

He subsided and I started a count in my head. After that, I called, 'ok' every forty-five seconds.

I really did have to go but this would be the first time since they'd gotten me back. It took a couple of minutes and some concentration and when it finally started to flow, I had to stuff my hand in my mouth to keep from crying out.

Damn, but it burned! When I was finally done, I blinked the water out of my eyes and glanced down into the toilet. The urine was tinged pink. I sighed, either a bladder or a kidney infection. I struggled and got the shorts pulled back up, spared another glance at the haggard man in the mirror and gave up the tough act as I reeled where I sat.

'Heero?'

He was in the room almost before the last syllable was out of my mouth. I nearly fell into his arms.

'It's all right;' he soothed, 'I've got you. I'm here.'

My gut twisted; God... he sounded so tender... I wanted to believe so badly...

He gently lifted me back up and I was so wasted, all I could do was loll in his arms. He took me straight back to the bed and settled me down, rehanging the IV bag from its hook.

'I need you to get something, if you don't mind?' I murmured, having trouble keeping myself focused.

'Anything,' he told me, carefully tucking me back into the bunk.

I blinked up at him for a moment, again left with that strange feeling that he just wasn't bloody well real.

'I have some sort of infection,' I told him and was taken by surprise by the fearful look that washed across his face. 'There's some antibiotics in the med-kit...'

'Where?' he interrupted me and when I gave him directions, he fairly ran off after them.

I lay while he was gone and stared up at the ceiling, tracing the tiny, hand-painted constellations with my eyes. Why was he acting like this? Could he really harbor some feeling for me? I wanted to believe that so badly... too damn badly. I knew better. Why in the hell did I keep letting this hope build inside? I had thought I would not survive the death of hope the first time. Had thought that when the war ended with my never managing to get much more from him than a cold glare, that I would go off somewhere and just curl up and die. Why was I letting myself resurrect that same damn hope? I didn't think I could take the total destruction of my heart a second time.

I dug deep under the old scars and dredged up the sound of his voice the way I remembered it; 'Go away, Duo.' - 'Shut up, Maxwell.' – 'Damned baka.'

That was the Heero Yuy I remembered.

So who in the hell was this?

He came back with the whole damn med-kit, wordlessly injecting a dose of the stronger, liquid antibiotics into the IV line, then brought me water to take a couple of the tablets as well.

'Why didn't you tell me you had this?' he admonished and when I looked, he was holding a tube of antibacterial cream.

'What for?' I muttered somewhat groggily.

He sighed, sounding a little exasperated. 'Duo; you are covered with suit burns. Or didn't you notice?'

He was pulling the blanket back as he spoke and began to gently rub the cream into the large sore on my shoulder.

I hadn't been expecting it; was still feeling woozy from the trip to the head and my breath hissed sharply.

His fingers stilled instantly and he met my eyes. 'Gomen,' he said softly.

'Who the hell are you?' I blurted and felt my face flame. Had that just come out of my mouth? Shit.

He stared at me a minute and I think for a frozen heartbeat he thought I had lost my mind. Then he looked faintly embarrassed.

'It's just me,' he said softly, his fingers going back to their task with feather-light strokes.

In for a penny, in for a pound I suddenly decided. 'I... I don't think I know you.' I scowled and his fingers moved to the sore on my elbow.

He smiled almost impishly. 'Then allow me in introduce myself; my name is Heero Yuy.'

I gaped up at him and for a second I thought he would stick his hand out for me to shake.

'I'm not playing, Heero,' I told him and my voice was on the rise. The drowsiness that had been stalking me was all gone.

His smile faded and he looked down at me as he worked, eyes looking shadowed and a little pained.

'Why are you here?' I asked, amazed at my own sudden audacity.

He looked away and there was a tiny shrug as his fingers shifted to the sore on my other arm. 'Someone once told me... never leave a man down,' he said very quietly.

I tried to pull my arm away from him but it was a pointless gesture.

There was the ghost of one of those old, irritated expressions on his face as he forced me to hold still.

'Why can't you let me help you?' he said suddenly and I don't think he had meant to say it any more than I had meant to blurt out what I had.

'I just don't understand what you...' I stopped. I wasn't sure what I had meant to say; what you're doing here? What you mean? What you want from me?

His hands just wouldn't stop working over me. I was a little taken aback that he wasn't even looking for the sores; he already knew where every damn one of them was. I just couldn't stand it any more and I dredged up some last remnant of strength somewhere and pushed away from him. I managed to get myself across the bed and braced in a near sitting position against the wall.

'Duo!' he yelped and my imagination painted fear for me into his voice. 'You're going to hurt yourself!'

'Stop it,' I tried to growl but it came out a little shaky.

He was frowning at me, his hands fidgeting with the stupid tube of cream. 'Let me help you,' he said and he'd regained some of that calm.

'I'm fine,' I ground out even as I was realizing that a few more minutes was going to see me pitching to one side or the other and I'd better decide which.

'You are very far from fine,' he said and it sounded sad. 'I know what you need; why can't you let me help you?'

'What makes you think you know what I need?' I snarled, my anger helping to keep me upright.

'Damn it, Duo,' he sighed, his hand lifting as though he might reach for me but then falling back into his lap, 'I've been there... remember?'

I wanted that hand to reach for me. I wanted it so bad I could have screamed when it didn't. What the hell was wrong with me? Did I fucking like sticking my heart in the fire? Was I insane? I couldn't process what he was telling me, been there?

'What...?' I managed stupidly.

'When... I... When Wing was destroyed,' he explained patiently and I flinched with the memory.

How could I have forgotten? I hadn't, of course, just buried that memory as deep as the rest of them.

'I wasn't adrift near as long as you were trapped,' he was telling me, voice gentle and soothing, 'but I know how I felt... afterward. I know what I needed.'

The sudden resurgence of those memories, of that other time, was almost enough to break through my tenuous grasp on the last of my control. It did wash away the last of my anger, leaving me coldly confused again.

'I'm fine,' popped out, my mouth on autopilot.

'You need to let go, Duo,' he said softly. 'You were there for me. Let me be here for you.'

I was very near to losing it all and couldn't believe he'd just said that. 'There for you?' I cried, my voice sounding harsh and distant in my own ears. 'I was a fucking half a world away trying to drink myself into obliv...!' I snapped my mouth and my eyes shut at the same time. Too late to stop the confession.

He ignored it and went calmly on. 'In my head,' he said softly. 'It was your voice I heard. Teasing me, calling me back. It was your voice that got me through.'

I couldn't answer him, just sat braced against the star-speckled wall and shook.

'Let me be here for you,' he told me again, voice soft as a sigh. 'You need someone to hold you... to anchor you.' There was a moment's silence, 'A partner.'

'I can't,' I said and it was near to being a sob. 'I can't,' I said again and felt myself falling. 'I can't... I can't...'

His hands did come to touch me then, catching me and easing me down, untangling the IV line and pulling me close again.

'You can,' was the last thing I heard before sinking back into the darkness.

I woke alone and didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified. I shifted and found that there was a warm spot next to me. A tiny shiver ran up my spine; I hadn't dreamed him. He'd been here and he wasn't far away.

I thought about the previous... night's? Day's? Conversation. Hell, I didn't even know what day it was. Didn't know how long I'd been off the 'Londonderry'.

A partner. He'd said that; I remembered it quite clearly. What had he meant? Someone to hold me. What was he offering me? Could I truly be mistaking what I saw on his face when he looked at me? It bothered him to see me in pain. He worried about my falling. He knew where all my hurts were. Could he... was it possible that the concern I saw in his eyes was more than just my damn imagination?

'Don't be such a damn idiot, rat-boy.' I heard Solo say, 'Ya don't get no second chances more'n once.'

I reached up, peeled the tape off my arm and pulled the IV out. I wasn't really even thinking about what I was doing; I just wanted to find Heero. Maybe just for the reassurance that I hadn't dreamed him.

It was a difficult climb out of that bed but I managed it and went slowly out into the corridor, clinging drunkenly to the zero-g handgrips the whole way. Once out of my cabin, I could hear his voice coming from the direction of the cockpit.

'... sleeping. He's still very... weak,' he was saying and his voice sounded drained.

'Are you all right?' came Quatre's voice, in full mother hen mode.

'Just a little tired,' Heero replied. 'It's been... a long couple of days.'

'Are you sure he's all right, Heero?' Quatre said then, voice worried. 'I mean... he was out there for a long time...'

He was asking about my mental state. I grinned to myself as I hauled my ass down the corridor and thanked God the 'Demon' wasn't any bigger than it was. I was shaking so bad I don't think I could have made another ten feet. I listened for Heero's answer and was surprised how long it took.

'I... I... don't know,' I heard just as I came to the cabin door. Heero was sitting in my pilot's seat, his knees drawn up to his chest, his hands tangled in his hair.

I blinked at the picture he painted.

I must have made some sound, some shifting of my grip or shuffling of my feet, because he unwound from that seat like a spring snapping and was across the cockpit in a heartbeat.

'Duo! What the hell do you think you're doing?' he reproached, but the concern in his eyes took the sting away.

'Duo?' I heard Quatre call, sounding a little confused.

'Hey Qat,' I said as Heero caught me around the waist and took me to sit in the co-pilot's chair. A place that hadn't seen a lot of use over the years.

There was an eruption over the commlink when I spoke and for a second I thought something had happened to my transmitter. Then I realized it was cheering. I blinked up at Heero and he grinned down at me. Damn.

The whole Sweeper crew must have been crammed into Howard's radio room.

'H... hi guys,' was all I managed. The sound of their collective, enthusiastic, so damn familiar voices washed away the last of whatever I had been clinging to. It felt like something inside my chest just freaking gave way. The tears started to flow and I couldn't stop them.

I turned to Heero and found his arms open and waiting. I threw myself into them with the last of my strength and just gave in to it.

'That's it,' Heero whispered in my ear, 'let it go... Just let it go. I've got you... I'm here. I... I'll always be here.'

'Heero? What's going on?' Quatre's voice came, full of worry. 'Are you guys all right?'

'We're fine,' Heero said over my head, bending to ghost a kiss against my temple. 'Everything is going to be all right now.'

A sob threatened to tear its way through my silent weeping and I began to struggle with it, terrified they might hear me. It was bad enough that Heero was seeing this.

He caught me up in his arms and said rather tersely in the direction of the radio, 'I'm sorry Quatre. Duo came up here on his own; he's exhausted himself. We have to go. We'll talk to you tomorrow.'

'O... Ok, Heero,' came the confused reply.

He took me out of there, back to the star field comfort of my cabin where he laid us down together in my bunk.

'Stop fighting it... let it out,' he crooned, his fingers stroking over my hair. 'Let go of the fear... let go of the hurt. Let me take it.'

It was impossible to stop anyway. I'm a child of the streets, the dirty, mean streets. You learn to hide your pain and all your tears had damned well better be silent ones. Any sound of weakness will bring the predators down on you in a heartbeat. I don't cry. I certainly don't sob.

I did both in his arms, in my bunk, in my ship, in the middle of nowhere. I wept bitter tears of pain and sorrow that I had held tight in my heart for so long it felt like lancing an infected wound.

For his part, he held me, stroking gentle fingers over my hair and face and whispered soft things to me. Made promises I couldn't half believe. Promises that I pinned my heart on before I could quite stop myself.

I cried myself into utter collapse and fell asleep with my head pillowed on his chest, listening to the soft rumble of his voice, feeling the steady beat of his heart. What had I done? What in God's name had I let happen?

He was still there this time, when I woke. He hadn't stayed in bed the whole time, because my IV was back and the blankets had been straightened and smoothed. But he was still there. Still running his fingers over my hair and whispering quietly. My music was playing softly in the background.

I lay still on his chest for a bit, letting myself have the moment... just in case it was the last.

'Don't offer this to me unless you mean it,' I told him, wishing my voice were steadier.

His fingers stilled and came to rest on my waist. He didn't say anything for the longest moment, then very softly, 'I do mean it. God... like I've never meant anything before.'

I repressed a shiver and closed my eyes, 'You can't stand me,' I said flatly. 'You spent a war pushing me away...'

The arm around me tightened and I felt his heart quicken under me. There was another of those silences.

'I pushed because you frightened me,' he said at length, his voice sounding far away. 'You made me want things... things that were forbidden. I had to keep you at a distance.'

I didn't speak, didn't ask the questions that were storming through my mind but let him say what he needed to say.

'I always thought... that there would be time to figure things out... after it was all over. If we... lived.'

We both lay still and thought about that one. I'm not sure about him, but I had never figured to make it through to the other side. Had honestly not been able to imagine an end to a war that had been going on for most of my memory. I still sometimes woke in the night and couldn't make myself believe it was truly over.

'But after the war... you just took off.' His voice softened even further. 'I thought there was no hope. Thought that by then you must have hated me.'

'Never,' I blurted, unable to stop myself.

'I kept track of you,' he whispered, as though revealing a deep secret, 'I couldn't stop thinking about you...'

As I had kept track of him despite myself. I had tried so damn hard to forget. To throw myself into the job until there wasn't a spare moment to waste pining after something I couldn't have. But I'd always, somehow, known where he was and what he was doing.

'When I got the call from Quatre...' His voice quavered and he stopped speaking for a moment. 'I thought... I thought I would lose my mind.'

I dared to reach for the hand that rested on my waist. His fingers came to meet mine; taking my hand in his and gently arranging us so that I didn't have to hold my arm up.

I sighed. Did I dare believe in this? This was the dream I had cherished in my heart until I had watched it turn to ashes in my hands. I tried to dredge up all the old hurts, brushed my thoughts across the scars in my head. But I found I couldn't truly work up any anger or resentment over them. We'd been in a war; we'd all done things that we had regretted afterward. Could you count the things that were said and done during those kinds of times? When each hour might be your last... sometimes your head just wasn't screwed on right.

Hell... I didn't think my head was screwed on right to this day. The war had fucked me six ways to Sunday. Like I said, Freud and his field day.

I tried to raise my eyes to look at him but couldn't keep my head up for more than a couple of seconds. He rolled me over and laid me flat on the bed so that he could look down at me.

'I'm... afraid to believe,' I whispered and watched hurt flash across his face. The confession twisted like a knife in my gut, the root of most of the pain in my life.

'I... I want you to be able to believe in me,' he said, his face as earnest and open as I've ever seen it. So different from the cold hard mask I remembered. Was I seeing the real Heero for the first time? Had this been there all along?

I slid my hand from his and reached to touch his cheek. My fingers trembled and shook. I didn't have the strength for this... this emotional wrestling match. I was exhausted and I hadn't been awake more than fifteen minutes. I felt myself wanting to flee into the darkness again; wanting to retreat into the safe blankness of sleep. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to say; I closed my eyes.

'Don't run away,' he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek and suddenly, I felt him moving closer. His lips brushed mine; I gasped in surprise and froze. He gently did it again, just the barest contact. The most tender of touches, cautious of the still healing places. I whimpered. I didn't mean to, had not felt it happening and was surprised when the sound escaped me. I wasn't even sure if I was asking him to stop or to do it again. It was electric; my lips tingled when he drew away.

I opened my eyes and my vision swam, 'I... I don't know that I have the strength...'

'You're the strongest person I've ever met,' he told me, gazing down at me intently. 'Please... let me care for you... let me be here for you. I have so many things to make up for... so many wrongs to make right.'

I had beaten this dream to death and locked its broken body in a secret box, throwing away the key. The questions skittered around in my overloaded brain, could I? Did I want to? Was I strong enough? Was this real? Could it work?

I wasn't sure I could handle letting the dream out of the box. What if things didn't work out? I didn't think I could bear watching it die again. I think it would shatter me beyond repair.

I thought about that and suddenly realized that I had never really killed the dream; it was still alive inside that box... had always been there; twisted and bloodied... but patiently waiting. I thought about going back to my life the way it had been these past few years and found that prospect every bit as frightening as believing in the impossible. I met his hungry, searching gaze.

'I... I want to try,' I told him, voice and hands trembling.

He smiled and it was like watching the sun coming out. 'We'll do more than try, my love.' He sighed and let his fingers come to stroke over my face, feather-soft; touching as though he couldn't believe in my reality. The road ahead of us looked long and steep and bumpy... but it wasn't so frightening with the promise of Heero there at my side at long last.

OWARI

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