"nakodo shimei"

Written By: t-shirt

View art work for 'Nakodo Shimei": Click HERE

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters are copyright to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties. I make no money with this fic.

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: post-war cannon, Fluff, sap, WAFF ^-^, slight angst, mention of lemon

Pairings: (eventual 3x4, 1x2), 5+all

Beta reader: mechante-fille

Summary: Duo’s unease over his fellow pilot’s lack of happiness in their new world of peace leads to a daring plan to rectify the problem.

 

"nakodo shimei "

Chapter 4

The mission ended up having to take a backseat to the job for a while after that. Wufei was intent on pursuing the investigation, which, from what I could tell, was going pretty much nowhere. On the dark side this was causing Wufei undue stress and frustration, but on the light, Sally seemed to be having a blast hanging out with Hilde. I figured once the investigation petered out Wufei would calm a little and come around on his own. In the mean time it was time to get down to the business at hand.

Elmer Wallace Candon had been a scholar and professor and one of the few notable personages during the natal years of after colony history who valued the written word. It was his determination to preserve the printed treasures of mankind that had led to the construction of the Sanctum. It is essentially a storage facility that was created to house the wealth of Earth’s parchment bound thoughts. There was a time during the early years when books were in danger of being irretrievably eradicated from existence altogether. The logic was that they are heavy and cumbersome, and it was just so easy to transfer the words onto disk or hard drive, a much more practical storage device by far, but good old Elmer had a thing for the feel and weight of the books in his hand and refused to allow their annihilation. And I whole-heartedly agree with him. That was the main reason I agreed to take on the job of moving the immense vessel to its new home nestled in a comfortable orbit around the X1999 colony. There it was destined to be reopened and eventually have its contents archived on those disks, but the works themselves were to be preserved in what would become the largest library ever known to mankind.

The tricky part was that it was roughly the size of a small moon, and equipped with manual engines instead of the ion drives that were currently the standard in such large ships. The job was going to take an enormous amount of raw fuel and the best pilot’s man could muster. Not to sound conceited, but I had the pilot role covered. Between Heero and I there was nothing we couldn’t manage to fly, but it would take time. Those old engines don’t move things around with the greatest of ease. That is, if they actually still worked and if we had enough fuel. That would be our first step on this job. To get the fuel in the gas tank, which just happened to be separated by a few hundred thousand miles. It was really just dumb luck that had supplied the fuel we would need. A forgotten dump station in the R29 sector had simply been overlooked for decades, but I’d run across it during the war looking for a hiding place for Deathscythe.

Wufei and Sally accompanied us. We would be passing close to the satellite belt where Heero and Wufei’s investigation was centered, so there would be an opportunity for some physical recon. It became apparent just how useful that Leo my partner had suggested we put back together would be when we started discussing the tasks at hand, so we packed it in a shuttle and set off for the R29 sector roughly a week before we were due at Quatre and Relena’s ball. With a little luck, the Sanctum would be safely circling X1999 in four days’ time, and we’d all be free to pursue more entertaining activities.

“It’s in there?” Wufei deadpanned gazing blankly at the ruined dump station. Well, I guess it did more resemble a huge kaleidoscope of floating space debris when I stopped to really look at it.

“You actually flew your Gundam into that mess?” Sally inquired, sounding a tad breath taken by the idea.

“Yeah, why?” I replied. It wasn’t all that bad. At least I didn’t think so until Heero suddenly brought our shuttle to a standstill and just stood with the other’s staring at the swirling hunks of broken asteroid and sections of busted ships dancing their endless waltz among the stars. “What?”

“You can’t be serious,” Sally snorted.

“Oh, come on,” I grumbled taking the co-pilots seat. “It’s not so bad.”

“It’s not impossible,” Wufei commented, making me grin for a moment until he added, “But that doesn’t make it intelligent.”

“Fine,” I sighed, seeing there was no way to win the argument. “I’ll take the pod in then. All it needs is a shove and it’ll be clear,” I reasoned heading for the cargo bay hatch.

“I’m coming with you,” Heero stated, getting up to follow, and I paused to look back at him. The look in his eyes told me without words that he meant to come whether I liked it or not so I just nodded and kept moving. It really wasn’t that hard. We were in and out in less than four hours even with the shift in the lateral vortex. It’s a bit like swimming in a huge school of fish; only the fish don’t exactly know where they’re going and tend to crash into one another now and then. All you’ve got to do is stay three steps ahead of them and you’re golden. It felt strange to hear Sally’s war cry when we finally emerged. It really wasn’t that big of a deal.

“Jesus, calm down woman,” I chuckled. “We’re not home yet,” I reminded her.

“Home my ass!” she laughed back. “That was some damn fine piloting, fly boy!”

“Like slidin’ on ice,” I smiled, feeing unreasonably good about myself all of a sudden.

“Damn fine,” Heero interjected softly, and I about lost my grip on the yoke jerking to look at him, but he’d already looked away.

“Very well executed,” Wufei sighed, sounding bored with the entire situation. “Now if you’d hurry up and lock down the tow lines we can be on our way.”

“Asshole,” Sally sighed, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Better watch it, Fei,” I chided. “I think she’s got’cher number.”

“Yeah,” she returned. “He’s a single entity of five, like the rest of you,” she laughed.

The comment was said in jest but it touched me somehow on a much deeper level than I would have expected. Sometimes, when things were quiet and all felt right with the world I found myself acutely attuned to the other pilots in some way. There is something about us that sets us apart. Maybe it was just that we all ended up in the cockpit of a Gundam at a ridiculously young age, or the fact that we all, in some way, fought for a common goal. Whatever it was, it felt like her words rang true. We were a single entity of five. I liked the idea.

“Time to lock and load, ladies,” I quipped, readying our cargo for the tether lines.

Wufei’s shot with the tether line was perfect, and it was soon secured so we could be on our way. The Sanctum was a twelve hour trip even with the shuttle’s state of the art thrusters, which left plenty of time for more... devious activities. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get Sally and Wufei into closer quarters.

“Who’s lame-brained idea was this again?” Sally groused, squeezing by me in the tight crevices between the equipment in the cargo bay.

“Maxwell,” Wufei grumbled.

Heero was near enough to smirk at me and almost made me laugh out loud, but I was a little busy trying to maneuver Sally into a position that would inadvertently put her in full body contact with Wufei.

“You in position, yet?” I called, peering over my shoulder so I could gauge the right moment to act. Sally was squeezing through the narrow passage between the crated sections of the mobile utility lift and some boxes of a homemade nitrate carbon compound I cooked up for blasting the Sanctum free of its ancient housing. There wasn’t a lot of room to move around in there, but I had insisted we could save a lot of time if we prepped the equipment ahead of time.

“Almost,” Heero smiled quietly. I think he was getting a kick out of what I was about to do. I waited until Sally was slipping between Wufei and the aft section of the utility lift to pull the pin on the harness that was securing my end of the catwalk. Things didn’t end up quite the way I had planned. The idea had been to pin Wufei and Sally together in the tight area at the other end, which essentially succeeded. They were indeed trapped face to face with little more than an inch between their snarling faces. What I had not anticipated, however, was that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and somehow Heero and I ended up in very much the same predicament.

“MAXWELL!!” Wufei shouted angrily.

“Shut up!” Sally retorted, turning her face from his so he wasn’t screaming up her nose.

“What the hell happened!?” Wufei growled.

“Well obviously something gave way!” she snapped back.

“Get us the hell out of here!” he demanded.

“Will you shut the hell up!” she snarled.

“Well,” I sighed, feeling unbelievably awkward having Heero pressed up against my chest, his face no more than an inch from mine making that smart ass smirk of his that much harder to bear. “That didn’t work out too well,” I observed dryly, grimacing at both the volume level and colorful content of our guests’ vocal battle.

“Works for me,” Heero grinned.

Um. ……Ever seen one of those cartoon characters shake their head insanely trying to clear it? You know, they make that funny sound like uh uh uh uh uh.. My brain was doing that about this point.

“MAXWELL! YOU FIND SOME WAY TO GET US THE HELL OUT OF THIS! NOW!!” Wufei suddenly roared.

“Any ideas?” I asked my amused partner, but he only shook his head and managed to look flagrantly pleased. “Maybe I can hit the gravity controls,” I sighed. It took a good deal of concentration to aim with our companions bellowing at each other, but I managed to miss the switch with the pin by a good inch anyway. “Shit.”

“I thought this was what you wanted?” Heero commented under the din of their temper.

“I didn’t want them trying to kill each other over it,” I mumbled. Gods, I had to get out. Having him that close, so close… I could feel his entire body lying along mine. His heat seeping through my clothes… the scent of his skin... damn…

“Are you alright?” he asked softly, and it suddenly became imperative that we get out of the situation very quickly or my body was going to embarrass me beyond comprehension.

“I don’t like feeling trapped,” I told him, mercilessly crushing the rising heat inside me and he suddenly looked very… sad.

“Alright,” he nodded producing another pin from the catwalk to throw at the gravity switch.

“What the hell?” I exclaimed. “Whadju do!?” I growled under my breath, glancing back at where Sally and Wufei had sulled up and done their best to turn away from each other.

“You asked me to help,” he replied, sounding not one iota remorseful.

“Yeah, but I had it under control!” I groused. “If you hadn’t butted in...” he ignored my ranting and hit the grav control without hardly trying and we were all suddenly drifting free. I didn’t get much of a chance to scold him after that since he decided to beat a hasty trail back into the cabin of the ship. What the hell?

“That is the last time I listen to one of your hair-brained ideas!” Sally snapped as she glided by.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Wufei retorted.

“And you were no damn help at all!” she growled. “One of these days you’re gonna hafta learn to control that temper, Chang…”

“Do not call me ‘Chang,’ onna!”

“Anger management! That’s what you need!”

They kept at it until I finally lost track as they got deeper into the cabin of the ship, and I just floated there trying to sort out everything that had happened. It was so odd but if I didn’t know better I’d swear Heero was... flirting with me. I had to shake a few cobwebs loose on that one. Damn. Get a grip Maxwell. I was seriously starting to lose it.

The remainder of the trip out to the Sanctum was... long. Wufei and Sally never did manage to get back on a friendly level, and Heero reverted back to a distant posture that reminded me way too much of our war days. I didn’t really know what to do since everything I was trying kept backfiring on me and causing more damage than good. It was starting to feel like the entire idea had been a mistake, until Quatre called and suddenly the whole universe was a brighter place.

“Hello, Duo,” he beamed into the vid phone, looking very much improved since our last conversation. Just seeing him smile like that, a true honest smile that came right from his toes, made it impossible not to feel happy myself. Perhaps things had gone well with Relena after all? “How is your trip going?” he asked energetically plopping down in his desk chair and picking up his teacup.

“Fine. Well, we’re ahead of schedule,” I amended recalling my shipmates’ less than amiable demeanors. “How are things with you and Relena?” I asked hopefully.

“Great! The ball is all set. We’ve received most of the RSVP’s back with wonderful results,” he smiled. Damn. I could get used to this.

“That’s great Quat,” I returned. “You seem in better spirits,” I was compelled to point out. “Did you guys have a good time at the symphony?”

“Oh yes, it was wonderful,” he giggled. I mean, he giggled. You know? Like he he he? Weird. “Thank you for suggesting it. It actually encouraged me to set some time aside to play some music,” he gushed and I was tempted to back away from the screen so I didn’t get anything on me. “Perhaps Trowa will have some time to play with me when he arrives,” he sighed.

“Oh?” I grinned. Man, he’s just contagious when he gets like that.

“Yes!” he nodded happily, his thick blond bangs shaking about in the light and I almost laughed at the silly image he presented. “He’ll be here day after tomorrow,” he confirmed.

“That’s great. I was a little afraid he wouldn’t make it.”

“He called a couple of days ago,” Quatre sighed again, then paused and looked aside at someone coming in and I heard Relena’s voice ask if it was Heero on the vid. She stepped up beside him while he informed her it was me and I was graced with that tolerant little smile she always wears just before she asks…

“Is Heero with you?”

“He’s around here somewhere,” I replied. “You’re lookin’ good,” I smiled and meant it. She was growing into quite a lovely young woman.

“Thank you.”

Ya know, as nice as I try to be to Her Highness, I always just seem to rub her fur the wrong way somehow. I don’t get it. It didn’t escape me that if she was asking about Heero right there in front of Quatre, things couldn’t be as on track as I’d hoped.

“Hang on,” I said switching to the infrared scanners to get a location on my wayward partner, but I needn’t have bothered as he walked into the cockpit while I was looking. “Hey, Heero. Look who wants to say hi,” I grinned.

“Hello, Relena,” he greeted but the sound of it was cold. I always thought that tone he took with her was nervous tension or something, but now it felt more like not so subtle rejection.

“Heero,” she breathed, her smile relaxing as stars began to sparkle in her deep blue eyes. No. Things could not be going as well with Quatre as I thought. “How are you?”

“Well,” he replied taking a place at my back. I was acutely aware of his hand coming to rest on the back of my chair, mostly because it was on the opposite side as he was which meant he’d essentially put his arm around me. “Yourself?” he returned politely.

“It will be lovely to see you again,” she smiled.

“We look forward to attending,” he returned.

“We?” she asked looking a bit stricken for a moment.

“Duo and I.”

“Oh, yes. Of course,” she chuckled gracefully but I could see the relief in her eyes.

“Will Wufei and Sally be tagging along as well?” Quatre asked.

“I’m working on ‘em,” I grinned.

“That depends entirely on what we find in the satellite belt,” Wufei commented, following his partner into the control room.

“Hello, Wufei,” Quatre beamed.

“You’re looking well, Winner,” Wufei chuckled. He was no more immune to our blond friend’s good humor than the rest of us.

“Thank you,” Quatre blushed softly.

“When will you arrive?” Relena wanted to know.

“In three days’ time, if all goes well,” I informed them.

“Have you decided where you will be staying?” she asked. “I would be very happy if you would consider the Peacecraft Manor.”

“I assumed Quatre was expecting us,” Heero replied. The disappointment in her eyes coupled with the icy finality in his tone quickened the tension in the group ten fold. It took Quatre several seconds before he recovered and nervously agreed.

“Of course. My home is yours. You all know that,” he smiled offering Relena a sympathetic glance in the process.

“Well,” she sighed, suddenly brushing it all away. “We’ll have plenty of time to visit. I’ll be saving you a dance,” she told Heero, her tone one of blatant invitation, but he only offered her a curt nod in return.

“I meant to ask you before,” Sally interjected. “Would it be alright to bring along a friend?”

Excuse me?

“Of course” Quatre smiled. “The more the merrier. It is an effort to increase public awareness, after all.”

“Great,” she grinned looking much too happy with herself, and my mind spun off into Never Never Land trying to figure out who in the hell this ‘friend’ could be. Was she involved with someone already? Or was it really just a friend type friend? There wasn’t much I could do about it, but it sure made me wish these people would stop messing with the mission parameters! The damn dump station debris field was less chaotic than this shit!

Sanctorium.

Impressive doesn’t even come close. The thing was frigging huge! I knew that it had taken like seventy years to fill it with everything from the ancient classics to the new wave fad magazines that were so popular back then, but I hadn’t truly been prepared for the sheer size of the thing. It was the size of a damn colony! I was thanking all the gods and their makers that all we had to do was get it started in the right direction and hold the course until we got within a hundred miles, because it would have taken every ounce of solid fuel ever created to move the thing otherwise. The fact that it was encrusted into the side of a mammoth asteroid, tethered there by a massive scaffold structure that must have housed the caretakers at one time, only added to the enormity of it all. All we wanted was the Sanctum itself, however, so the asteroid and its ancient lattice work had to go. The first step in ‘operation get’er goin’? Blast that baby free! Yeah!

“What the hell is he grinning about?” Sally asked, while helping to guide the fully assembled utility lift off the shuttle.

“I don’t know,” Wufei relied. “But I don’t like it,” he added glancing sideways at me.

“What?” I grinned what I hoped was an innocent grin, but I think it probably came across more like... impish. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I really like blowing stuff up.

Heero just laughed and stepped between us with the foot of the large mobile suit style loader. It was nowhere near the size of a military suit, standing only thirty feet tall, its cockpit open to the air much like the old tread style work machines of the past, but it was still impressive in its own right.

“Do not encourage him, Yuy!” Sally shouted.

“Oh com’on Sal Baby! Live a little!” I sang and tossed a blind cap out onto the empty deck. The resultant CRACK echoed nicely in the massive bay and sent them both diving for cover and I just about laughed my skinny ass right off!

“That is not funny, Maxwell!!” Wufei growled.

“Yes it was,” Heero laughed from his perch. I think if he hadn’t been sitting in a very large and dangerous machine, Wufei might have tackled him.

“Let it go, Chang,” Sally chuckled brushing herself off.

“I’m going to get the Leo,” Wufei grumbled, and turned back into the ship.

“You better be gone when he comes back out,” she chortled at me.

“With the wind,” I smiled, and did my disappearing act. I had charges to set.

It took me six frigging hours to prep all the internal stress points. I wondered how Wufei was doing on the outer while I was sweating my ass off squirming around in a crawl space not fit for a rat. At least the hull integrity hadn’t been compromised. We had atmosphere; that made things a lot easier than they would have been had we been forced to wear pressure suits, but the place reeked of ages gone by. I was reminded of those old movies where the puff of misty air rises up from the inside of the ancient tomb giving the impression you’re breathing the very same air the ancients had, only in this case, we really were. I was working on the last couple of detonators when I got Heero’s confirmation call.

“02 acknowledge.”

I almost laughed. “Right here, soldier boy,” I replied shaking my head. Once the soldier… “Wufei done?”

“Affir… …….Yes.. Status?”

Well, he was trying anyway. “One more to go,” I informed him. “He still on the outside?”

“Yes. Two hundred meters port of the Hapsenburg Bridge.” I smiled where he couldn’t see it anyway. The man is meticulous.

“Tell him to hold his position,” I told him, lying back so I could pull the diagrams of the Sanctum out of my many-pocketed attire. I’d always loved wearing that shit during the war. I could live for weeks on just what I had stowed in my pants.

“Is there a problem?” I heard Sally ask.

“I’m thinking we might want to lay that extra charge on fifth tier support after all,” I informed them, looking over the plan again.

“We went over this already,” she replied.

“Yeah, but the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced there’s a natural iron ore vein in that hunk of granite,” I explained. Again. “The engineers might have tapped into it. If that’s the case…”

“We’ll never break free by only blowing the stress points,” Heero finished for me.

“Yeah,” I grinned.

“0 fi…. Chang?” I heard him calling, and stuffed my diagrams back in my pocket with smug satisfaction. We had the load so there was no good reason to chintz the job. Better safe than sorry I always say. Besides, the fireworks would be fantastic!

I would never have imagined that my fail-safe plan would result in one of my best friends dangling on the end of a tether line in a dying Leo five hundred thousand miles from nowhere, but that’s just what happened. I think I mentioned my little pyrotechnic cache is homemade? Yeah well, that means they’re not only a little more... potent than the regulated stuff, but less stable as well. Wufei knows this, but it didn’t save him from getting that Leo’s left leg blown off. It was only by the grace of very quick reflexes and some of the most intense training known to man that he managed to launch a line and tie off before he was hurdled into deep space, never to be seen again. Now, the bright side here was that he was alive and stationary but, the dark had him out there in a damaged suit that was quickly losing power and life support and we didn’t have another one to go after him with.

“I’m going!”

“You cannot make that trek in a fucking pressure suit, Duo!” Sally shouted.

“You got a better idea!?” I snapped, already shedding my clothes.

“Just calm the hell down and we’ll think of something!” she insisted, but I was working faster than she was talking and already had my suit halfway on before Heero could speak.

“You won’t make it,” he said evenly and I froze ‘cause if he said it, it had to be true. I was completely lost. There was no way in hell I was about to let Wufei die out there.

“Heero,” I heard myself cry softly. It was a pleading, desperate sound if I’d ever heard one but I couldn’t help it. We had to save him.

“We’ll need a quarter charge,” he half smiled, and I just about snatched him up and kissed him.

“What?!” Sally was gasping, but I was already moving to cut the load in one of the charges. “What’re you gonna do?!” I could tell she was as scared for her partner as we were, but her sensibilities were warning her of further losses. She didn’t want us to get in trouble too, but that’s the difference between a normal soldier and... us.

“You done?” Heero called.

“Locked and loaded,” I grinned tossing, him one of the quarter charges I’d prepared. He was already in his suit by the time I was done and helped me lock down my helmet.

“You’re both insane,” Sally groused, but she too, was already in motion having worked out what Heero had in mind. “I’m on channel fourteen,” she called, taking her station at the communications relay. Our suits didn’t have enough range to contact Wufei that far away so we’d need her help and she fell into her role admirably. “Chang?” she called to him, letting him hear her voice, letting him know that help was on the way even as we disappeared into the bowels of the Sanctum.

Pressure suits are not meant to be used in gravity, nor are they meant to be used in an atmosphere. By the time we’d managed to stumble and crawl our way onto the Hapsenberg Bridge we were exhausted and dripping with sweat from hefting the heavy suits around. My glass was all fogged up on the outside and I kept having to wipe it clean. It made for a couple of damn scary moments when it came time to set the charges, but we managed it in record time and before long, the side of the bridge that was barring us from our friend was nothing but a memory. We picked up Wufei’s com link the moment the thick metal walls were no longer interfering with the reception.

“Duo!? Yuy!?” he was calling and I wanted to knock him in the damn head for wasting his air on something so stupid!

“Shut up, Fei!” I shouted. “You wanna breathe or what?!”

“Duo! You asshole! What the hell do you...?”

“Shut up if you want to live,” Heero intoned dryly, but it sufficed to silence our irate rescuee. All we had to do was get him back to the hull intact and before he ran out of air. No problem. We could hear him talking softly to Sally, assuring her everything was alright as we reeled him in, but we couldn’t hear her that far out. We had finally gotten him down and mostly inside the adjoining maintenance hatch when it happened and I felt my heart stop beating. Heero had unhooked to move to the opposite side and guide his descent and had somehow lost his grip and just... floated away.

“HEERO!” I shouted over the sudden roar of my own blood rushing in my ears. There was no thought involved when I pushed off and started after him. Only that if he was going out there somewhere, I was going with him but it was not to be. I recall screaming in a rage so harshly I tasted blood in my throat when the hand of the Leo closed around me halting my flight. Wufei was shouting something but all my mind could comprehend was that little dot out there that was Heero getting further and further away.

“HEERO!! Let fucking go! HEERO!”

“I don’t know!” I heard Wufei yelling frantically. “He’s hysterical! …No... there’s nothing you can do.”

“HEERO! DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING LEAVE ME!”

Oh dear gods no.

I cannot recall ever being as stupefied as I was in the moment I saw him pull that quarter charge from his pouch. Half of me wanted to scream for him to stop while the other half was cheering his brave ingenuity.

“Tell Sally to prep medical,” I told Wufei evenly.

“By the gods,” I heard him whisper, then I forgot him and everything else other than Heero as I watched him set the charge and drift it out behind him. He was looking straight at me when it went off but I couldn’t see the pain in his eyes when the shock wave hit. He was unconscious when he landed in my arms. I had hoped to never feel that kind of fear again, but he was alive. The next ten minutes were the longest of my young life while we waited for Sally to shut the outer doors and pressurize the maintenance bay. I had worked it all out in my head while I sat there counting the breaths he took, watching his pulse throb softly under the skin of his temple, just trying to reassure myself that he was really alive. We would take him back to medical as fast as we could and make damn sure he stayed that way.

“It’s ok man,” I whispered to him “You did it. You’re back,” I told him even though he couldn’t hear. I should have known Sally would be on top of things, though. She was there with a full med kit in her hands before I could get our suits off.

“Lay him down” she ordered, taking full charge under the circumstances, and I let her. This was her specialty, not mine. “Tilt his head,” was the next order and I did as I was told. Wufei watched while she checked his eyes and listened to his heart. There was a quick examination of his ribs and back and what I presumed was a search for signs of internal injuries. “Nothing seems broken,” she informed us, but I was so keyed up all I could do was sit there and wait for the next command. I hadn’t expected it to be directed at me. “Breathe, Maxwell,” she said evenly, so I did. I’m not sure when I’d stopped. “We need to get him back to medical,” she told us.

“Is it ok to move him?” I asked doubtfully. I wouldn’t chance hurting him anymore.

“Under the circumstances I don’t see where we have much choice,” she replied. “Wufei?”

“NO!” I snapped all but diving between my fallen partner and hers. “Leave him here for a minute,” I insisted, then turned my full attention on Heero. “Hey man,” I called patting his face softly. “Wake up sleeping beauty,” I know they were watching but I couldn’t make myself care. “Come on Heero… You gotta wake up and tell us where it hurts man,” I choked, then shut up because boys do not cry.

“Al’ovr,” he groaned and I felt the life rush back into my veins.

“Heero! Hey! That’s it. Come all the way around. We need a status here, buddy.” Ok. So maybe men do. At least in that moment I couldn’t stop my eyes from welling up with joy when he grunted…

“Clear.”

“Welcome back,” Sally grinned.

“For a minute there we thought you were going to leave us for good,” Wufei smirked.

I realized that Heero’s hand was in mine then because he squeezed it tight when he looked me dead in the eye and replied, “Never.”

“If we’re all done cultivating the stock of warm fuzzies,” Sally intoned amusedly, “I think its time we get this ball rolling.” Then she was packing up her kit and heading back the way she’d come. “I do not intend to be the only maiden to miss the ball,” she smirked, turning on her heel and gliding away.

“K’so onna,” Wufei chuckled, rising to help me help Heero to his feet. He moved like he was in some serious pain but he stood on his own and hobbled with minimal help, which I ended up supplying since he ended up draped over my shoulders. The gods of discord apparently got bored with messing with us after that because the rest of the launch went as smooth as silk. Wufei and I had the fuel tanks installed and ready for burn in less than four hours, and Sally only had to threaten Heero twice to shut up and let us handle it before we blew the holy hell out of the support structure, and cheered like a bunch of high schoolers when the bohemian Sanctum drifted free. A short countdown and a twenty-minute burn later set us off at top speed en route to Colony X1999, and there was nothing more to do but wait for deceleration. In a day and half we’d be on the outside of this little nightmare and on our way to the dance. In the mean time I had to admit I ...really needed a nap.

“Hey,” I smiled, though I knew it was wan due to the eminent exhaustion of too many hours with no sleep and some deep emotional overload, but I was never going to get any sleep without checking up on Heero first. He was lying on the only bed in medical, the only bed on the shuttle for that matter, looking very relaxed. “How ya feeling?” I inquired setting the container of juice I’d brought along for him on the utility table.

“Sore,” he confessed, but he was smiling at me, so I didn’t figure it was anything to be overly concerned with.

“That was pretty….” I started to chuckle but he cut me off with…

“Stupid,” and I laughed out right.

“Brave,” I amended, losing the touch of humor. His lips parted, as if to say something more, but the words wouldn’t come. I ended up sitting on the edge of the bed with his hand in mine instead. I guess sometimes words just don’t cut it.

“You should get some sleep,” he advised gently, but I only half heard it because my mind was playing along the edge of our hands where his thumb was softly brushing my skin. It became pretty clear he was right when I snapped to the fact that I was also staring numbly at the caress and hadn’t even realized it. How long had it been since we’d slept? Almost two days? Gods but time does fly.

“Man,” I yawned, trying to shake off the suddenly overwhelming fatigue, but my eyes refused to remain open.

“Sleep,” he coaxed. It didn’t take much. Just a nudge and softly spoken suggestion and I felt myself being folded into a warmth so comfortable I was gone to the Bahamas in 0.002 seconds flat.

~ * ~

tbc...

Chapter 5

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