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"For a Lark"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, male/male pairings, language Pairings: 2x3x2 Summary: A Valentine special: after both men suffer from unrelated “breaks”, Trowa and Duo meet on an isolated satellite A/N: My deepest thanks go to the kindness of Snowdragon
and WaterLily for editing and encouraging me to complete this "For a Lark " Chapter 3 - Recovery Red flashed through my eyelids and a shrill alarm bell made my teeth vibrate. I flew out of bed, nearly running into Trowa. He grasped my arm and I spun about. "It's okay, dude. It's the Friday emergency test." "What ? What do I do?" Adrenalin had sent my heart pounding. I was on full alert. "Nothing. It ought to shut-" The interior warning light blinked out. We were standing in the dark. The apartment siren shut down; although, I could the faint whine of other warning signals through the walls. "--down. There's a box by the door where you can cut the signal, which I did." "What if you're not home?" Silence, as in the alarms stopped. "They, ah, time out. The test only lasts a minute." "Oh." We were standing in the doorway to his room, in the dark, with his hand gripping my arm to keep me from dashing off madly, I guess. I felt the tension drain from my limbs and heart rate return to normal. "So, wanna eat?" "Ah, sure, but I can't. No food before surgery. That's today." "It's Friday already?" "Four o'clock AM, yeah." "I'm going back to bed." "'Kay. Guess I will, too." I could have fallen back to sleep in a second, but Trowa chose now to get chatty. I suppose he was nervous about his leg. "So, you doing okay here?" he asked. "Yeah. It's a lot more interesting a place than I expected." "Really? Trust you." That was something nobody else was likely to do. "You mean, you don't like this place?" "It's better with you." Whoa, what could I say to that? "Thanks." I was touched. "Can't think of anyone else who might think I improved their home. No one. Really. Means a lot to hear that." I'd embarrassed him with my effusiveness, I guess, because he'd clammed up and was hiding behind his bangs. "So, why choose this satellite?" "I guess it was the best Catherine could do. It's expensive to do the leg repair, put me up. And this doctor would work on an ex-Gundam pilot." "Pilot, yeah. We can be rough on medics. And this place is out of the way enough to be cut-rate." "It's that," he agreed. "You, ah, can check for messages, if you want. Over there. There's time." "Ah, sure." I didn't expect any, since I'd closed my last account before leaving L2 and hadn't bothered to start a new one, but I'd didn't want Trowa to think I was a complete loser, so I used his computer and roamed about a bit. I was getting into one of his arcade games, when he said it was time to go. "Ready!" I skipped breakfast, too, so as not to rub it in his face. I could always eat while he was in surgery. We retraced our previous route, taking a "spoke" tram to the hospital. This time we went directly to admissions. The clerk walked him through a blizzard of paperwork. Midway, Trowa asked if I wouldn't mind being his contact person. He was giving me next-of-kin responsibility and power of attorney to make life or death decisions for him while unconscious. "You're sure you want me to do all that?" I asked, pointing out the line detailing the responsibilities in case he missed it. It seemed like something he'd rather have his sister listed to do. "You're here. I trust you." Okay. Now that was good. "Okay, then." I signed the document adding a little flourish under my name, like what a scythe might make. It was just an affectation I'd picked up for fun. When Trowa took back the paper he traced the wavy line with a finger and nodded. "Slice and sweep," he muttered to himself. He didn't tell me what that meant or what the mark had meant to him, but that was all right. I was getting used to his cryptic remarks by now. "What's this?" the clerk asked, flipping through the final work order attachments. "Special treatment?" I had no idea what she was talking about, but took the sticker she handed me. "Put this on now and keep it visible." When Trowa cleared his throat she clarified her request. "It's a pass to the observation room so you can watch the surgery. These are reserved for medical students usually." "Maybe I am a medical student." I could be. She snorted. "Everyone knows who you are. Both of you." She smiled for the first time, so I guessed she'd been gung-ho for the Gundam fighter pilots during the war. "You have clearance to remain with the patient up until he enters the operating room and then again when he is moved to post op. If you behave." "He will," Trowa assured her. "I will," I said at the same time. It did make me wonder what I'd done to get a bad rep at an out-of-the-way outpost like this, until I caught her smile. It must have been a Gundam fighter thing she was thinking of and not the recent me. "You two are so cute," she said, but quickly regained her serious demeanor. "I'm holding up progress. The schedule is very tight here." Trowa stood ready to leave. "I'm ready. What's next?" I was still chafing under the "cute" description and missed some of the woman's answer. What was next, I learned, was locating the "prep" arena and putting him in a room where he changed out of his clothes and into a light robe. We had the doctor's permission for me to be present at all times, except the actual operating room, so I was stuck in the rather small changing room with little else to do than turn my back. That I studiously did. When he was enrobed, I folded his clothes and stored them in a drawer with his shoes. This ate up just enough time so that we didn't have to wait more than a minute before there was a knock on the door. "Looks like your ride's here," I joked. "Right." He climbed onto the gurney and waited as the nurse ran him through her battery of tests. She drew blood, took his temperature and blood pressure. She handed him a water bottle and a cup of pills. He shook the cup in order to see all the pills and identify them. He looked over at me to say, "Knock out drugs," and then tossed them back and swallowed them all with a gulp of water. "Lie down and rest. An intern will be right by to take you to surgery, Mr. Barton." The nurse swished out of the room leaving us to wait once more. His eyelids drooped. "Stay?" "Absolutely. Letting me into the observation room so I can keep an eye on you the whole time? You got one hell of a doctor. I might get over my hospital phobia after this." "You... have one...too?" He was fighting the medication, I could tell, but he needed to let go and let the drugs take him under. He couldn't keep his eyes open any longer, so I talked and reached for his hand. I almost didn't but, hell, he'd probably forget this part later and I believed he needed a direct link, a security line. "Oh, yeah. I'm as bad as 'Ro. Well, maybe not as bad. I wouldn't mess with my own broken bone. It's being so vulnerable to attack that gets me. But you don't haveta worry 'bout that. I'm here to watcher back, like I said I would. How're you doing?" He didn't answer. He was asleep, trusting me to protect him. I rubbed the back of his hand with my thumb, noticing the tan and freckles. That's what made him standout here, a tan, marking him as an Earth-sider. The UV rays were blocked for the most part on the colonies, giving us residents a unifying pallor. Trowa looked healthy. I wondered if that was why I was attracted to darker-skinned men like Art and, at one time, Wufei and Heero? The tanned skin meant Trowa had spent some of his time at the circus working outside. I'll bet he liked that. I would. I think humans were meant to live under the sun and sky and with nature. Tan and strong. And I successfully fought back any thoughts of how those hands would feel on my body. Better just to keep a platonic point of view about him, although it was increasingly difficult as I discovered things I liked about the guy-like his eyes and tan and smile when I'd teased one out. I'd never noticed how much larger his hands were than mine. Must have come from the acrobatics. Calluses, too. That's when I noticed the pale line where a ring had been. I knew he'd not worn a ring at any time since I'd been there. I would have noticed that kind of thing. So, he'd recently taken off a ring, on his ring finger, which he'd worn for a few months; at least, long enough to leave a line. Could he have broken up with a girl before or because of the accident? That would have explained his depressed attitude. The intern entered the room, maintaining a sort of hush, bustled about, strapping Trowa's arms in place and securing him to the gurney. "Did anyone tell you what to expect?" he asked, as he wheeled Trowa out. "No. All I know is that I get to 'observe'." I touched the sticker badge on my shirt. "Lucky you." The interned slowed for a corner then pushed on. "Once I get him into surgery, he will be hooked up to monitoring devices and IV. Then the doctor takes over. There's not much to see, but it might be interesting for you." I trotted along, going as far as the final swinging doors. "So, here's where we part ways." He tilted his head to the side. "You go that way." "Thanks," I said, and then found my way to the observation deck. Somebody thoughtfully designed the place with starving students in mind and lined the hallway with refreshment dispensers. Food from machines it was, but I was hungry enough to eat it. As far as the actual surgery was concerned, I didn't really watch. I kept my eye on how things were going, but most of the time it was too far away. I'd have to stand right up to the window and look down and, well, I didn't wanna see the details. There were high-tech devices for attaching muscles to bone and one to test it. One peek and I saw the leg muscle twitch. That was... enough of that for me. The next real look I had, they were fusing a skin layer over it all. Better. It may have been grown from his own skin samples, but it wasn't tan so it looked fake. "Okay, Mr. Maxwell," a pert nurse with an energetic voice said at my door, "the patient is being taken into recovery now. He's still asleep, but you want to be there when he wakes up." "Indeed I do!" I met Trowa's doctor, who was checking his stats from numerous machine readouts. I gave her a cheerful "hello," and waited for her to finish. "There," she said while jotting another note on his chart. "The procedure went marvelously. No complications and his augmented immune system has begun to operate. I expect him to sleep most of the time over the next twenty-four hours." "Here?" Where would I stay? The only chair in the room, made out of hard, molded plastic, looked inhospitable for the duration. "Only until he awakens. We'll check his condition and if all is well, send him home with you." "Okay, but he's not going to be able to walk, is he?" Did she expect me to carry him on my back? "Oh, no." Her laugh was nice and didn't make me feel stupid for asking. She told me about the hospital delivery tram and how he'd be deposited in his bed without me lifting a finger. My relief was apparent, I guess, because she continued to take the time to explain things clerks probably did ordinarily. I'd never before known a doctor to discuss anything with me. "I've been thinking about his recovery. You know, for serious reconstructive surgery to repair takes time, but that is nothing compared to the time it will take to recover his former strength and movement." "Yeah," I agreed. "We checked out a gym and signed up. I'll work out with him." "That's a good idea, and he'll be ready for that level of exercise in a few weeks, but this new tissue is brand new and might tear under normal conditions. For the kind of physical therapy he'll require, I was thinking of our low gravity gym." "You have one of those? Man, Trowa would so love that. He's great in low-G environments." Me, too! "That's wonderful. Now, if I could get a hold of a therapist who can work in those conditions..." "I can. I'm a born zero-G'er." "But you're not trained -" "You got video connections inside? A trainer could show me what to do. I'm pretty agile. C'mon, I wanna do something to help. At this point, I'm an uninvited guest taking up space." She smiled and folded her arms. "You are more than a just a guest. His attitude has improved measurably. I noticed it at the last appointment." Better? "He's kinda an introvert by nature." She didn't pressure me to say more about him. "Having you do the bulk of the work would save him some money, too." "Oh, Geez, I'll bet the special facility place costs a fortune. I got some money. It's no fortune, but if it could help out a fellow warrior-" And her expression changed from thoughtful to enlightened. "You're veterans. He should qualify for veterans' benefits. It should help him pay for at least part of his expenses." "You think so?" Why had no one mentioned this before to me, to us? Any of us? "I've never heard that Gundam pilots qualified for anything but possible death at the hands of a firing squad." I smiled as her eyes widened. "We also have had our fans." "You're a doll." "Doll?!" I was thinking Mobile Doll suits, naturally, and it took me a second or two to think of little girls' dolls. Even so-- "Listen," the doctor said to reclaim my wandering attention, "I have an insane amount of work to do and must go now, but I will look into this vet issue and schedule the low gravity room for you and your friend." She turned to Trowa and pointed at a monitor. "He should be up in a few minutes. I'll have the nurse finish with him, and as long as he's agreeable, I'll send you both on your way. He'll do better convalescing in his own home than here, don't you think?" "Yeah. Thank you." She was right about Trowa awakening soon. The door had hardly closed behind her than his eyelashes fluttered and his eyes were suddenly staring into mine. "It's over?" "Hey, you're back. Yeah, the operation was a blinding success. Soon as this nurse I see coming our way checks you out, we get to go home. How does that sound?" "Good. Real good." He actually tried to sit up, the twit. "Ugh. I'm going to need another minute or two." The nurse was truck sized and nearly ran me down getting to him. "You're going to need more than that. Now lie back down while I check your blood pressure." Everything was fine, good enough to give him clearance to go. "Ready?" I asked him, although he looked more ready to sleep than move. He nodded, though. "Let's do it, baby," I joked, because actually there wasn't much for either of us to do. While he was sealed into a traveling gurney, I collected his clothes. By the time I was done signing him out at the desk, he was loaded onto the hospital tram. I hopped on board and we were outside his apartment in fifteen minutes. I shouldn't have worried about how I was going to get him into his place and into bed. I should have thought about getting clear of the locked doors without a pass key card. I still didn't have one of my own and for the life of me I couldn't find his in his pants pocket. This was ridiculous, but I wouldn't be defeated. These guys handling the gurney were real pros, but they couldn't get us past the door. I stood there maybe thirty seconds thinking. "Hold on!" I told them. "I'll be right back!" Coming back around to the main "street", I crossed it and continued on until I found the hardware-type store I'd spotted my first day. In the back of the store, I located a standard, gray work shirt and cap, and with the help of a clerk, bought a four-foot metal ladder and an alarm of the kind used in elevators. I pulled the work shirt over mine, traded caps, put mine at the bottom of the bag with the alarm conspicuously on top. With the ladder's nest-to-the-last rung resting on my right shoulder, I set out for Trowa's place. I winked at the medical team in passing, and whispered a, "One more minute." This time, I walked straight to the building, where the doorman, faintly surprised, opened the door and said, "Yeah?" "Alarm," I told him, showing it. "Didn't pass the test Friday." The doorman looked at the box. "For what?" "Elevator." "The elevator? Nobody told me." "Well, they told me, replace the alarm." "Which elevator?" he asked. I wanted his attention away from Trowa's room and what was going on. "In the back." Sounding dubious, the doorman said, "Go ahead. They didn't tell me a thing about it. Here, I'll show you." "Thanks, pal," I said, and carried the ladder past the lobby and to the back. "Could you hold the elevator door open a sec. Dropped my wallet." The doorman grumbled but took the ladder and wedged open the door. I dashed back to the front door, opened it, and called in the medical team. "Take him to number three and I'll be there in a jiff." I smiled down into Trowa's face as the gurney passed. Sleeping like a baby. Good. Didn't want him to know about this idiocy. I returned to the scene of my crime, relieved the doorman of his burden, and boarded the elevator. Inside I opened the ladder and started up it, and the elevator door closed. Having no further need for the ladder, I closed it and left it leaning in the elevator, pressed the next floor number, and switched caps and shucked the shirt into the bag. I immediately pushed the top floor, and then I got out. As the ladder took a ride to the top, my sack of evidence and me took the stairs to Trowa's floor. The crew was waiting by his door. "This part's easy," I bragged. Having made it this far on my skills I was a bit cocky. Pulling a wire from my braid was a trick with my braid down my pants, but I did it. It took me no time to blow the electronic lock on Trowa's door and we were in. Heh, heh, I was good. "You sure we should leave this guy here?" one on the crew asked another. He kept a wary eye on me all the time. "It's his place according to the address on the delivery orders." That must have been good enough because they continued on to Trowa's room, moved him to the bed, and set out a few boxes of bottles and other medical-related supplies. "Here are the instructions for his care for the next few days. After that you are to call in for updates." This from the mistrustful one, who it looked like he wanted to get the hell away from the lunatic guy, which was me. He edged the gurney closer to the way out. "Okay." I leafed through the manual as thick as my finger. "Anything I should know right off?" "Keep him hydrated. He'll sleep for hours, so you have time to read about the medications." That was the second medic. He took a bottle out of the box and pressed it into my hand. "This one's for pain." "Mine, or his?" I meant it as a joke, but these dudes had no sense of humor and grumbled on their way out about crazy "spacers". I'd been called worse. I looked Trowa over and decided he was down for the count awhile. I needed to eat something before I passed out. Now that I was used to eating twice a day, or, better, three, my body was geared for it. Nothing looked better than that refrigerator full of possibilities. Baked potato with cheese and broccoli for me. After eating, I thought I'd see how my buddy was doing, and he was sleeping peacefully. Nice. I noticed a blinking light on the vid phone by his side of the bed, providing me with another dilemma. Should I check for messages on Trowa's machine, or not? I decided that since it might be from his doctor I'd better look. I carried the phone assembly around the bed, resting it on my bedside table, and plugged it in. There was one message and it was from Hilde with her number, but no message. I picked up the phone to return the call. "I suppose you know why I'm calling," she said. "Dumb supposition. If I knew, I probably wouldn't call back." I heard her snort, impatiently. "I'll ignore that for now," she said. "Here's the point, you left some boxes at the shuttle station." "Yeah. And when I'm ready, I'll have them delivered. What's the problem?" "They only hold for a week unless it's in the prepaid, long-term, storage lockers, which your stuff is not. Week's up and they want to know where to send them on to." Ah, shit. "I could just let them trash it all, you know." She seemed as keen to end our conversation as I was. "Send them here." It was Trowa. Eyes open, head turned my way. "Give her this address, Duo." So, I did. I didn't tell her it was Trowa's address, though. I didn't explain how it was that I'd run into him, or what was up. She may have been curious. She must have heard his voice, though I know he was out of the viewing reception range, and so she couldn't have seen him. After I gave her the pertinent facts, the stilted, uncomfortable conversation mercifully ended. When I shut off the call, I thanked Trowa. "It isn't much, just a few mementos, but they mean a lot." He nodded and closed his eyes. "No problem." "You need anything? Water? Bathroom? Pain killer?" "Water's good." After a drink, I helped him sit up and relieve himself using a handy little contraption from the box sent with him from the hospital. When he was comfortable again, he seemed tired but not willing to conk out just yet. He stared at me, waiting. That's how he was. He wouldn't start the questioning until I was ready. "You wanna know about me and Hilde?" He nodded. "I've got nowhere to go and nothing to do but listen." "Heh, heh, well then you'll get the long version, starting with..." "The last time I saw you in person was that party at the palace." "Right. That. After that, I needed a place to go and I had an escape plan already. Hilde and I worked a scrap yard on and off during the war. She sorta expected me to return when it was over, so when things didn't work out there in Sanc, to say the least, which is exactly all I'm saying on the subject, I contacted her to see if the offer were still open. It was. "It wasn't part of the Sweepers, then." "The Sweepers often sold us crap they'd collected out in space. We'd recycle was we could, selling parts and scrap metal. Good business, all around. I had a one-room cabin of my own at the yard. She had a bigger place and there was a barracks for temporary, itinerant workers." "Sounds like a big operation." "Yeah, not at first, but it grew big. And that started one of the problems." "Always does," Trowa remarked. "Get successful and you attract attention." "Yep." How to put the next part without sounding like a loser? "Were you and Hilde ever married?" That was direct and unexpected coming from Trowa. So far, past relationships were not topics of conversation with us. I hadn't thought he would ask me about the extent of our relationship. "No, which was the nub of our problems, I guess." "Her opinion. Not yours, I'd expect." "Heh, heh... yeah. I made it the problem. See, the business drew interested buyers, folks wanting to buy into a going concern, since startups on L2 mostly fail. One of the parties had a son-" "Uh, uh. Bad news." "Right, you are! He starting dating Hilde and I don't know if it was for her share of the business or if he really liked her-" "Tough call." His crooked smile suggesting sarcasm, as if I could miss it in his voice. "Yeah, well, he treated her nice and the dating got serious and," I sighed because this was the hardest part for me to tell. "She told me he wanted to marry her, but that if I wanted that for us, then she'd put him off." "That was uncool, putting you on the spot that way." "I thought so, but then she had the crush and I didn't. I could have married her, I guess. It would have secured my future, that's for sure. It's just... I was holding out for the right thing. You know? Some romantic notion of marrying the... person... I was madly in love with and who was just as crazy about me. This other thing would have been convenient, but it felt forced." "It was. You turned her down?" "Yeah, and she accepted his offer." "Which led to selling out to the father." "Yeah. I mean, I got a bundle for my part of the business, but I also lost my job, because I couldn't work there any more under the circumstances, and I lost my house for the same reason." "So, here you are." "So, here I came, and after a multitude of tips, leads, and helpful hints, I came to find you at the end of my trails." "Sorry." He looked away into the distance. "Sorry I couldn't have been... what you were looking for." "Who says you weren't? I found a friend when I needed one and now I have a purpose; to help that friend get his legs under him again, so to speak." And then Trowa blushed. I'd embarrassed him, but I was glad I had, because it meant he believed I was sincere. It wasn't until after he dozed off again that it occurred to me that Hilde called Trowa's number to get me. I supposed she'd contacted everyone else and was just taking a chance someone would know where I was. Still, it was odd, I'd only been here a week.
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