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"Remnants of Blue"Written By: Katleap Pairings: 1x2 3x4 Rating:R Warnings: violence, language, death Disclaimer: Don’t own them. AN: Not a death fic. Since I was asked so nicely,
here is sequel to Never Saw Blue. It can be found on my livejournal.
There is another one more after this and that is the end of the arc. Summary: The mission has developed a deadly complication
that may mean the end of the Gundam Pilots. *Scene change
It's all the same
Knives flickered into my hands and I was moving. I ignored the sensors and cameras. Speed was more important. I needed to be there yesterday. Alarms shrieked in my ears as I darted through the door. Men in black poured into the hallway. There were too many to spread out properly and using bullets would only kill their own men. My long knives were perfect. I aimed for eyes, necks and wrists. Maim and kill. Flash of steel. Spray of blood. By the time, I reached the stairs I was bleeding from a dozen wounds and covered in blood. Behind me, lay a score of corpses and walls painted in red. There were tree men on the stairs. Another five down
the hall and two outside the office. All of them died. Quatre was
sitting at a small table. It was set with tea for two. He didn’t
move at my entrance, eyes fixed ahead, he was barely breathing. “Don’t!” I froze immediately. “Quat?” “The room has been activated.” “The target?” “A representative.” He said bitterly. “Though he won’t live another five minutes.” I raised my eyebrow, even though I knew couldn’t see it. Quatre smirked. “I switched the drinks.” “How much longer?” Blood dripped on the plush carpet. “2:32…31..30.” I fixed the count in my mind. “When?” He asked. “About……now.” The house shuttered with the explosion. While Quatre had been in his meeting, I had rigged all the outside doors. Two more explosions thundered out making the floor heave. “Fuck!” I barley retained my feet as the floor moved under me. “Mark.” I had two minutes to get Quatre and myself out of here before we were blown to kingdom come. “The chair?” “The floor. Thirty seconds.” Shit. The minuet either one of us set foot on the floor we only had thirty seconds till boom. “You got a plan Q? Cause everything I’m coming up with involves running like hell.” “I could get us out of here if we had a little more time.” His voice was thick with frustration. “Mark.” Well screw this. I dashed into the room. There were no sudden lights or sounds. It heightened my senses and made me move faster. “Duo!” Quatre shouted. I ignored him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him move and something shattered one of the windows. The count was echoing in my head. I dove for the desk in the corner, ripping at the left hand drawer. It was locked and I wrenched at it. Another of my presents exploded directly under us. It sent me over the desk tearing the drawer open and landing me on my backside. 9… The contents spilled out and I grabbed the disk.
They say that when you die your life flashes before you eyes. They’re wrong. It doesn’t happen. I should know. I’ve had more brushes with death then years in my life. However sometimes it stops. Between the 1 and the explosion it stopped. No sound. No movement. I thought that Heero was going to kill me, if he had to drag me back from hell to do it. And after he was done killing me, Trowa was gonna kill me. I really really hoped that Quatre survived. Maybe then he’d only maim me. Wufei should be coming. He’d had to be back up and I had activated the call as I drew my knives. He was going be pissed. He probably wouldn’t kill me, but kick my ass, most definitely. And I really really hoped that the disk was the right one. All this passed though my mind in that one forever instant. Then force and bright heat. I flew backwards, felt something rip at my right side and contacted a surface hard, which buckled and then… I died.
Heero was there when I finally came out of it. The room was dim. My vision was blurry. My eyes crusty, dry and sore. When I convinced them to open the first thing I saw was blue. The perfect view of my lover’s eyes. That first instant of relief something about them pricked me. It was strange, like a ghost behind the eyes. It was only there for a flicker and then it disappeared as quickly as it came. I blinked and they were only Heero’s eyes and I drowned in them. After a few minutes of quiet assurance that never left the tongue, I opened my mouth and rasped. Water was administered and I asked the first thing that raced across my mind. “Quatre?” “Fine, a little worse for wear, but nothing serious.” Whew. Trowa was not going to kill me. “The disk?” ”Nothing.” I cursed. All that blood, swear and tears for nothing. I looked back at Heero. “And me?” I asked with trepidation. I was still so full of drugs that I couldn’t feel much. Just numbness. “Lacerations on your right side. They needed stitches. Concussion and some minor burns on your left leg. Plus numerous cuts and bruises.” I sighed in relief. Nothing that wouldn’t heal in a couple of weeks. Heero reached down, lightly tracing my cheek with his fingers. I leaned into his touch. My eyes moved from his face to the room and didn’t recognize it. “Where are we?” This wasn’t our base. “Quatre’s house outside Amsterdam.” That’s why it was unfamiliar. I didn’t know Q had a house here. We had been in Paris and the Netherlands was close. I blinked and yawned. Those damn drugs were making me sleepy. I hate drugs. “Stay with me.” He smiled. “Of course.” Heero stretched out on the bed next to me and carefully drew me into his arms. I was perfectly content. Warm and safe in his arms. I drifted. I didn’t want to sleep but both my body and those damn drugs conspired against me. As I slipped away, I remembered something. Of the five of us, I have the strangest dreams. During the war, I would sometimes share these ludicrous concoctions of my mind for entertainment. When Heero and I got together and I had one of these bizarre dreams I’d share it. His favorite ones evolved us. This one was from my flirtations with consciousness. I had been present but unable to see or move. There were two others in the room and they were arguing. “He shouldn’t be here.” “He is our key. We can’t just get rid of him.” I recognized the voice as Heero’s. “Still it’s too risky. What if he wakes up? What if he’s listening now? What if…” Heero interrupted. “We’ve been over this. He’s fine. He won’t wake for another two days. I don’t understand why you don’t trust me.” “I do.” The other voice replied. “I trust you with anything but I just can’t stand the thought of you with….of you…..” There was a very long pause. “Come here.” And there was the sound of someone moving. “You know this will change nothing. There are differences and I know them. I’m not leaving you.” “I know.” The voice was strangled. “But…” “Hush.” And the voices faded out. The one voice was Heero’s and I was sure I knew the other but couldn’t put my finger on it. It made me think precog. Like it was me talking to me and I got to listen to something from the future, or something like that. It would have made Heero smile. But instead of sharing I snuggled into him and gave into sleep.
After my return of consciousness, Heero had taken me off the drugs. Thank goodness. He had stayed with me for two more days and then poof, he was gone. Well not really he just wasn’t around as much. Wufei, I saw every once in a while and Trowa even less. I didn’t see Quatre at all. Every time I asked about him or the case or anything else related to our work it was neatly step sided. Then there was the whole cage thing. I don’t like being confined, I make a terrible patient. Which is why I’d been drugged for a week. I hate not doing anything as much as drugs and hospitals. Every time I left the room to familiarize myself with the house or to seek out one of the others. Someone, a servant or one of the guys would come take me back to my room. It was strange. Quatre was practically my bother. In the three years since Heero’s ‘death’, our relationship had been torn apart and stitched back together again. It didn’t make sense that he wouldn’t see me no matter how busy he was. There was the lack of information, the confinement but by far the worst was the haunting. Shouting matches, broke glass and missing items. It was creepy, like the house was haunted. But nothing really big ever happened. I mentioned it to Wufei once. He just raised an eyebrow and asked in that “you’re an imbecile” voice. “Really Maxwell.” I didn’t bring it up again. Heero and Wufei were out on a mission. I was antsy and bored. I wanted to see Quatre and there was this stupid itch inside my skull like I was missing something. I was ready to burst! I stopped my pacing and threw myself on the bed making the springs bounce. I squirmed around and then settled, like I was going to take a nap. I feigned sleep for twenty minutes then slipped from the bedroom. The door opened silently. It didn’t normally but its amazing what practice can do. I knew all the right moments to stop and miss the creaks. I slithered into the hall and ghosted down the stairs. The second floor was trickier. There was more traffic. My progress was slow and I had to squeeze myself into tiny spaces again. I am not 15 anymore. It’s harder than it looks. I managed to get down the side stairs to the first floor without being seen. I was two thirds of the way down the dark hall when I heard footsteps. Light steps, it was one of the guys. I panicked, which didn’t make much sense because the guys were my family and I trusted them with anything. I listened to my gut though and ducked into the closest room. My instincts had been honed to frequency on the streets. I wasn’t about to stop trusting them now. The room was so pitch dark it was thick. I did not like it immediately but by now the people were in the hallway. I clamped down and tried to become one with wall and darkness. The footsteps were coming toward me. I held my breath. Two men passed my door. Quatre was the one closest to me. I couldn’t see the other one. Not that it mattered. Quatre had all my attention. He had on his business persona. The one that covered him in ice three feet thick and a single glance would make you grovel for mercy. I knew that persona, having seen it many times. Quatre always shed it as soon as possible. He hated it. But now it was like Quatre had merged with it as his permanent self. It was the eyes that told me this. There were glacial all the way to the core. If stillness had not been so important I would have shivered. There was one other thing that I noticed just before he passed out of sight. There was a two and a half inch scar on his temple. An old scar. I sat in the dark, barely breathing for a long while after they’d passed. I had gotten lucky. Q had been distracted enough not to feel me. When I felt okay enough to move, I practically dashed to the stairs. I wanted that confining familiar room. I wanted nothing more than to crawl under the blankets and barricade myself in there until Heero got back. Halfway up I paused. While I had sensed the footsteps, I had not heard a door being opened. I turned back around to look at the dim hallway. I was torn. Half of me wanted to get the hell out of there. The other half wanted to know where Quatre had come from. The curiosity won. You know that saying about the cat. Well I was just asking to be killed. I had barely moved back down another step when the soft sound of a throat clearing startled me. I literally jumped, tangled my feet and crashed hard on the stairs, though I managed to catch myself before I slid to the bottom. When I decided that I was not going to end up a messy pile of goo at the foot of the stairs, I opened my eyes. Total de ja vu. Trowa was crouched on the stair above me, concern in his green eyes. I started again and tried to sit up too fast. My head met Trowa’s jaw and then the back of the stairs. I lay there groaning. Twice in fifteen seconds. “Tro don’t do that.” He and Heero were the only ones who could get the drop on me. They just moved so damn quietly. “Duo.” Trowa’s voice sounded a touch weird. Probably cause he’d bitten his tongue. “ what are you doing out of bed?” Busted. While I felt that I was completely up to par,
the lacerations on my side were healing slowly and if I wasn’t
careful I could rip open the stitches. I opened my eyes slowly. Concentrating
on not moving. I did not want a repeat. I’m pretty sure Trowa
didn’t want one either. He rolled his eyes and helped me to my feet. My head still hurt from contact. So he held onto my elbow as we made our way back up to my pretty cell. We settled down on the couch to watch some hot shot action flick. Me, with a blanket and pillow. 15 minutes into the movie I conked out. 25 minutes later Trowa moved from his end of the couch. He turned off the vid and stood for a moment watching me. Then he glided away and the door shut softly behind him. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling in the mid afternoon light. While I wasn’t moving, my mind was racing at a million miles an hour. Now I knew why they hadn’t let me see Quatre. There was something wrong with him. The Quatre I had seen was definitely not the Quatre I knew. And Trowa’s eyes. When he had stared at me minutes before, they had been dead. Absolutely blank. Something was dreadfully wrong. The only problem was I didn’t know what it was. I stared at the ceiling for a very very long time.
My confusion over Quatre and Trowa kept me preoccupied. Wufei had not gone with Heero on his latest assignment. So like the good friend he was, he tried to distract me thinking that I was missing Heero. I’d started to relax and then Wufei’s cell went off. He answered and as I was moving past him, I saw the lit screen for half a second. Half a second too long. That date was on the screen . It was one week later that I’d been told. Some how I managed to be normal until Wufei left and that clinched it. There was something fundamentally wrong with my friends. If they were even my friends. The last time I had seen the real Quatre was him climbing out of a second story window with a thirty foot drop to the ground and the house blowing up around us. You don’t walk away from something like that unscathed. When I saw him a few days ago, he was absolutely fine. Then there was that scar. It was too old, obviously it had happened years ago. The real Quatre had no such scar. Trowa wasn’t so hard for me to read anymore. But ever since I woke up I haven’t been able to read this one, it was like back during the wars all over again. But Wufei sealed it. Wufei had been my friend for nearly seven years and my partner for half of that. He could read me like a book most of the time. He should of caught onto my edginess around him. But he didn’t. I had been lied to, tricked, manipulated and for all I knew, kidnapped and betrayed. The only question mark on the whole thing was Heero. Because of my injuries we had not had sex. The lacerations had slowed down in healing for some reason. Before he left we decided that they were healed enough for gentle sex. He had promised me that we would upon his return. I had been putting him off. The unease I felt since I woke up was full blown in my gut. I didn’t want to believe that my friends weren’t my friends. I didn’t, but I very nearly did. Heero would be my last opportunity to prove that they were. If he failed, it was elimination. I had my knives. Even though I was injured and confined to my room, they could not relieve me of my weapons without arousing instant suspicion. There was a gun with a silencer under the couch. Knives in my boots and lock picks in my hair. I didn’t have on my wrist sheaths or any of my other knives because I didn’t have a practical reason to be so armed. The last piece of information lay with Heero. When ever we began serious foreplay that would end in sex, I went straight for one of his scars. Being a Gundam Pilot was hazardous business and we both had collections of scars, but his were more extensive than mine. You can’t self destruct without leaving some evidence of it behind. This one particular scar was right below his collarbone. It was shaped like a scythe. If I went anywhere else lower before touching that scar, my Heero knew something was wrong and would stop me. It was an unspoken code between us. Even someone who had observed us would not know. It was never obvious and we never talked about it. I was waiting on the couch. Normally with the promise of a good fucking, I’d be laid out on the bed, naked, stretched and fully aroused. I wasn’t because that would leave me too vulnerable. I could never beat Heero in a strength battle, so it was never an option. The wound in my arm twinged and I resisted the urge to rub it. The lacerations were still healing. The tears had been deep, particularly the one on my arm that ran from shoulder to elbow. I was dressed all in black. If I was right, Shinigami would go hunting. I prayed I was wrong. Footsteps in the hall. Heero. He wasn’t trying to mask his presence at all. The door swung open. He locked eyes with me even as he shut and locked the door behind him. They were an unreadable blue and I trembled at them, half afraid, half angry at what might be behind them. He stalked toward me, every move predatory, domineering. I waited. He kissed me hard and ruthless, plundering my mouth with his tongue. I moaned, hands already starting with the buttons on his shirt. Even if this wasn’t my Heero, he acted and tasted just like him. We parted enough to draw breath and then met again. His hand was down my pants massaging my ass, the other half entangled in my hair. I ripped his shirt pulling it off him. Mine was riding around my collarbone. I covered his skin with kisses, hickies and bites. I ignored the scythe but did everywhere else and when I slipped down to his nipples and then his abs and belly button, he never noticed. I sank to my knees, head resting against his stomach. My hand with drawing the knife from my boot. “What is it Duo?” Heero was confused as to why I stopped. I turned my head to smile up at him and slowly rose to my feet. I’m a few inches shorter than Heero. I brushed a kiss against his lips. My eyes met his and saw that strange shadow behind them again. I could see cracks in the blue. I buried the knife to the hilt in his stomach and ripped up. I caught him against me as he slumped. “I love Heero” I whispered in his ear. “and you aren’t him.” I pulled the blade out and put it directly in his heart. I withdrew it again and let him fall to the floor. The knife fell from my hand to lie next to him. The blue of his eyes had shattered. They were the wrong blue. “I’m sorry.” My tears mixed with his blood. Then I retrieved my gun and shot him in the head, right between the eyes. I left him there and got the rest of my equipment. Two more guns, extra clips, raided from Heero’s stash. Knives on my wrists, thighs, my brace of throwing knives across my chest and the biggest one strapped to my waist beside a gun. I left the knife on the floor. Gun in hand I slipped from my cage for the last time. I wasn’t coming back. I killed Wufei on the second floor. I shot him in the knee first. I don’t like shooting people in the back, even my enemies. Especially enemies that wear friends faces. He took three in the chest and one in the forehead. He did get a shot off. It nicked my left arm and lodged in the wall. Every “servant” I ran into drew on me. I killed them. By the time I made it the first floor I was nearly out of bullets and knives. I knew where I needed to go. Quatre has two offices in almost every house. A large ornate office on the ground floor that was used for formal things and a smaller one where he did most of the actual work. He wasn’t in the smaller one. It was on the second floor and I had already checked it. Trowa nearly got me. I was passing the grandiose doors of the ballroom when he dropped onto me, knife ready to slit my throat. My gun went skidding out of my hand. I opened up a wound on his belly. It was perfect payment for the cut along my throat. It wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous, but it bled a lot. Tro and me squared off. I hate knife fighting. Its messy and leaves big scars. Give me a gun any day. Unfortunately my gun was on the other side of Trowa. The good thing was as much as I dislike it, I am very good with a knife. After several passes, we were both bleeding. He had a deep gash in his thigh. I had a line of fire down my right side. It intersected the healing lacerations, ripping them open. I wanted this over. I drew two knives and threw. I knew that they would both miss him by a hair, but he flinched. This was not Trowa. He might have his face, his talents and his memories. But memories are worth shit facing experience. Trowa should have plucked both those knives out of the air, not flinched. He feinted and then rushed me. I threw two more at him and dove for my gun. He dodged one, the other lodged in his shoulder. I came up ready and his knife swiped at my face as his foot kicked my gut. Damn weak spots. He sent me flying into the doors, which weren’t locked and opened inward. They gave under me and I went skidding across the marble floor, the gun flying out of my hand again. Trowa was still coming. I palmed my last throwing knife. It took him through the eye. He staggered, then crumpled to the ground, dead. I started to get to my feet. I only made it to hands and knees. There was a large smear of blood on the floor in front of me. It was mine and Heero’s from my clothes. Trowa lay some feet away, a slowly spreading pool that would eventually meet mine. All five of us would bleed. Three of us were dead and at least one more would follow. I suddenly felt old. I was twenty one and felt a million. I had killed my friend, my partner and my lover. I was still searching for my best friend. I had the sudden urge to laugh hysterically. This was so twisted. The sound of clapping brought me out of my thoughts. I was on my feet and facing the inside of the room in a second. The room shifted around me, my side warm and wet, then focused. Quatre stood ten feet away from me. “Bravo.” The sound of his applause was mocking and hollow. His eyes were bright and cunning. Such as I had only seen when we plotted a particularly good trick or were destroying OZ facilities. There was a gun in his hand and I was out of weapons. “Very good. I honestly did not expect you to get past Chang, let alone Barton. Yuy always was a sentimental fool.” I gaped at him. I knew this wasn’t Quatre. The eyes were too hard, the smile too brittle and there was that scar, slashed across his temple. It was just hard to hear the harsh words come from him. He laughed at my stricken expression . “You are too precious. So naive. So trusting. So innocent.” Those were the words used to describe Quatre. Words I had used myself at one time. I knew better now. But to hear them used on me, was mind blowing. I was a child of the streets; those words had never been associated with me. “You’re not Quatre.” It was a statement, not a question. Something clicked. I couldn’t even call him by his name. He was 04, not my best friend. “You’re right. I’m not. I’m better than that idiotic pussy. I’m a reflection of what he could have been had he wanted a little more. After all, I have the world at my fingertips.” My eyes were huge. “You are insane.” “Am I?” He arched an eyebrow and then gestured to his right. There on the floor, bound, gagged and bloody lay High Chancellor Argus, second highest position in the ESUN government. The President held the highest position. The Chancellor was the second and had the President’s ear. Relena was the most popular of the council and the third in power. I stared at the beaten Chancellor. 04’s voice floated over me “The President is already dead in case you are wondering.” My eyes flipped back to him in a shock and confusion. “I am afraid I don’t understand.” I said as calmly as possible. 04 gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Let me give you a hint. I am the one responsible for the death of Dr. Bently.” Instantly the pieces came together. In order to pull off our “deaths” Quatre created three clones, one of Wufei, one of Heero and one of me. While the clones never actually lived, they served the purpose as decoy corpses. They were simply bodies, the perfect mirrors of ours. Quat had hired a scientist, Dr. Bently, who had actually worked for WEI and helped him with Wing Zero. They, with Heero, used some of the mad five’s research on cloning and succeeded. When our extractions were done, Quatre had destroyed almost all of the research. He kept two copies. Both were hidden in separate secure locations. Dr. Bently, frustrated that he wouldn’t be allowed to publish his accomplishments, left after they finished my double. Seven months ago, Quatre received a box. Within the box was a hand, a disk and a note. The disk was of Dr. Bently’s torture and death. The note simply stated, “Watch your back.” Q had checked the disks and found one missing. After some investigation, it seemed that Bently had come back two years prior to collect some “items”. He had taken the disk. Then the incidents started. Sightings of the three dead Gundam pilots, missing documents, assignations, stolen money. All of it high profile and done by the pilots. There was never any proof, only vocal accounts and we knew that we hadn’t been there. Then the threats started. Relena nearly met her end. The few people who actually felt that the Gundam pilots were not a danger to society became targets. Quatre had multiple attempts on his life. So we stated splitting missions and bodyguard duty, never leaving him completely alone. That’s how we ended up at the late Senator Chalmèr’s estate in France, to discuss negotiations with the perpetrator. Because he was good. Very very good. And now I knew why. We had been up against ourselves. “I can see the wheels in your head turning, Maxwell.” 04 said mildly. “Let me help you some.” “Don’t you know that the villain isn’t suppose to give away the evil plan.” I quipped. “Every time he does, he ends up dead.” 04 stared at me for a moment, the burst into peals of laughter. When he finally got himself under control, he met my eyes. “For that, I will tell you exactly what I am doing, but first…” He walked over to the Chancellor and ripped off the gag. “I suggest you start. It was after all your plot first.” The gun tapped the back of the Chancellor’s head. “Now.” Chancellor Argus swallowed twice and licked his lips. “Well…ah….. you see… um I… Its just…” The back of the gun impacted the Chancellor’s face and sent him sprawling. Casually, 04 leaned down and tugged the man back up. “Now let’s try this again.” He said pleasantly. “If you will Chancellor.” Argus’s cheek was beginning to darken and swell. There was blood on his lips. “In my research on the Gundam Pilots I stumbled across a Dr. Bently that had once worked for WEI and had quite recently been released. I interviewed him to find out what he knew of the Gundam Pilot’s shortcomings. The research was brought to light and the anti circle hired him. We created a plan and then presented to the President. The President agreed that the Gundam’s were too dangerous and must be brought under control.” He gulped and looked up at 04, who smiled and nodded condescendingly in encouragement. “Benlty made us five living clones of the Gundam Pilots and then things just…” He trailed off. All five of us knew about the anti circle. They were the ones who had voted to have the five of us put away and were looking for any excuse to do so. They consisted of Senator’s Chung, Silk, McCormick, Rodriguez, Chalmèr, and number of minor representatives. The Chancellor and President were suppose to be neutral and obviously were not. 04 patted his cheek and directed his full attention at me. He was good. I had been looking for an opening since he appeared, I had yet to see one. “We were created with memories intact up to 197 AC. We developed a great interest in our living counter parts. After much observation, it was decided that that you were wasting opportunities for power and that we must replace you. So we set about to remove you and take your places. It was simple. We removed those that supported you and created doubt. Undermined everything that we could and then take control of the power we were due. It was thanks to the Gundam pilots that humanity even exists today.” His face turned ugly, twisted into a look of intense hatred and rage. “They were indebted to us and instead of honoring us, they tried to lock us away. And you originals, instead of demanding what was owed you, you let them own you. You accepted their regulations and then hid like cowards. So we are eliminating you. Permanently.” The scariest thing about 04’s explanation was that he never raised his voice. It was all delivered in this calm, silky, dictorial tone, that simply stated. There was no arguing with it. “Our makers” He practically spat the word. “then decided that after we replaced you, we were to let them control us. That was unacceptable, so we took matters into our own hands. Bently was removed when he tried to create replacements. These fools” he nudged the Chancellor with his foot. “tried to stop us. We dealt with them and set about eradicating you. The only thing is that as cowardly and weak as you originals are, you are amazingly hard to kill.” 04 then shot Chancellor Argus in the head. He turned back to me. “It won’t work. Your cohorts are dead.” I didn’t dare move. This satisfied smirk curled on the edges of his lips. “Do you think so? They will find your dead body and I will tell them how I fought to escape you. That the Winner they are now working with is the real imposter. The arranged proof is here.” He touched the cuff of his shirt. “They will believe you are a clone and then one by one all the rest of your friends will die. Maybe I’ll save Heero for last and tell him how you died so pathetically.” 04 raised the gun. “Goodbye Duo Maxwell. It’s been a pleasure.” I dove left. Normally I would have moved right instinctively. That’s what 04 expected, so I did the opposite. It saved my life. I threw myself at Trowa’s corpse. Ducking and rolling as I yanked the knife from his head. As I came up the knife went flying and embedding itself in 04’s hand. The gun tumbled free. We both went for it. His hand closed over it first. We wrestled for it. Rolling on the floor through the blood. The trigger kept getting pulled and I knew that any moment a bullet was gonna hit someone. I got an elbow in his nose and pulled the gun free. He kicked and sent it sliding again. He went for it and I went for mine on the other side of Trowa. 04 was a split second faster. We stood there seven feet apart, breathing hard. His gun pointed at my head, mine at the floor. Any movement and I would be dead before I could get a shot off. “Too bad.” He smirked. “Game over.” And he pulled the trigger. Click. “Fuck you.” Bang! I staggered, fell to my knees and blacked out.
I woke up in a hospital. There was the faint beeping of machines. The soft swish of people passing and the off sterile white of a hospital room. An IV hooked into my right arm. There was a table with two chairs. On my left side, curled up in a chair, head pillowed on his arms on my bed, was Quatre fast asleep. His clothes were rumpled. The tie and jacket gone, shirt sleeves rolled up. There were dark circles under his eyes and stubble on his chin. A gleam of white caught my eye and I moved my head to look. His left leg was encased in plaster, from toes to knee. “He broke it when the house exploded.” A soft voice said. I raise my gaze. Trowa stood in the doorway, whole complete. No bandages, or new scars. The knot in my gut that I didn’t know was there, loosened a little in relief. Trowa moved to stand beside Quatre. Tenderly he ran his fingers though the golden hair. “Tro.” I croaked. He looked at me. “Are you, you?” He smiled, a slight tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Yes Duo.” He rolled up his left sleeve to show the tiny ragged scar on his wrist. It was a minuscule thing and new. He had gotten it three weeks before Paris during a mission in India. He had hidden the information in a liquidized microdot and injected it into himself. We had needed to get the info immediately, so I ended up cutting the dot out with a serrated blade. I relaxed a little more. I believed him. “What happened?” My voice was thick and hoarse. Trowa poured a little water into a plastic cup, complete with straw, and helped me drink. Fire raced down my right arm and side as I tried to move it. I gritted my teeth and rode it out. To distract myself, I asked the question that had been bugging me since I woke up. “Why are we in a hospital?” “We aren’t “dead” anymore.” I gaped at him. Open and shut, open and shut. I couldn’t find the words. I kept pulling up one syllable expletives. I must have done a very good fish impression because Trowa chuckled and began to provide an explanation. “After Wufei removed Quatre from the remnants of Chalmèr’s house, he went back for you. He couldn’t find you, but he did see me. That roused all sorts of things because I was currently with Yuy in Brazil. So as soon as Quatre recovered from his concussion they began investigating. The disk, as it turns out had all sorts of stuff. There were records of the anti circle and its activities, money transactions, and the strangest plans. Quatre called Une and…” The door opened and a fresh faced nurse bustled in. She fussed with my IV, checked my temperature, vitals, eyes, and all the bandages on my right side, all the while running a commentary of questions without waiting for answers. Then with one last pat on my head, she departed as quickly as she came. The stranger entering the room had woken Quatre. “Hey you.” “Hey yourself Quat. Have a nice nap?” “Oh Duo” He looked like he was going to throw himself at me but Trowa placed a hand on his shoulder. He checked himself and simply hung onto my left hand. “I thought you had died.” He shuttered. “Never….ever…..do that again. I couldn’t…..and Heero…..Just never do it again.” I couldn’t promise him that, so I smiled and squeezed his hand. “Where’s Heero?” “Heero will be here in 10, if not less.” Wufei replied as he came through the doorway. “He was with Une, dealing with some of the evidence. Good to have you back Maxwell.” “Good to be back, Wuffie.” I directed my attention back to Trowa. “So what happened next?” “We told Une almost everything and teamed up with the Preventers. They had access to more of the info we needed with the dead officials. We were pretty sure that you were alive but we couldn’t figure out where they had stashed you. ” “Senator McCormick showed up at headquarters right after Silk died. That was about a week ago. He spilled everything about the clones, and the plans. He and the President were assassinated the next day. But we still didn’t know where the clones were.” Wufei added. Quatre broke in. “Then Chancellor Argus disappeared. We managed to tag him to Amsterdam, but lost him. Wufei figured out that Silk had an estate there and we raided it.” “We arrived to find almost all of the occupants dead and you half conscious and covered in blood.” Heero stood in the doorway, half clutching the frame to keep upright. I wasn’t even aware of Quatre and Trowa moving. All I knew was that Heero was sitting on my bed and I was in his arms, doing my damnedest to keep from crying. “You’ll tear your stitches.” Heero murmured. But he didn’t let me go. After a while, I lifted my face from his chest and addressed my friends. “I killed you. I murdered every single one of you. And even though it wasn’t really you, it felt like it. I am never ever doing that again.” “Don’t worry.” Came Quatre’s voice. “I destroyed all the clone information, including everything on the chip my double had.” The words were meant to be reassuring, but I couldn’t help feeling that we had missed something very important. I was beginning to hate these “missing something” feelings. I burrowed deeper into Heero’s arms. I wasn’t letting go for anything. Our secret was out. We were alive again and the world would want to know why we had pretended to be dead. They would demand answers for the dead politicians and the clones. They would demand a lot and we would give them what we could. But for now it was just the five of us, alive. The world could wait. Owari
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