04-Jun-2002
For Sharon. She knows why.
"The thing is, it doesn't make any sense, you know, but it's the only thing it can be."
Heero's eyes flickered and his eyebrows went up sluggishly.
"No," I laughed, "I know, I said it didn't make any sense. I'm not sure if I want to tell you, because you'll think..."
His eyes rolled slightly, to the left once and then up, and his mouth curved into a grimace around the tube in his throat.
"You already think I'm crazy, I guess." I pressed my back harder against the door, to squash the urge to just lay down with him and never get up.
I ran my hands over my hair and down to the base of my neck, digging my thumbs into my shoulders. Under the pads of my fingers, the chain of my cross tangled in the fine hairs there.
Heero glared at me, and it hurt me to think how weak he was that a look like that warmed me.
"Okay, fine." I heaved a huge sigh and propelled myself away from the door, to sit next to him. "This is all of it." I flashed a grin at him. "And don't interrupt me."
He glared harder.
"You were with me the day you were shot."
He seemed to freeze, his breathing choking up in his throat.
I put out my hand and rested it on his forehead. "It's okay. Just breathe, okay, or I won't tell you the rest."
He calmed, his eyes flickered down to my throat, like when he woke up, and then back to my face.
"Okay. You were with me. In your apartment. You were helping me move in." I paused. "You don't remember this part, right?"
He blinked once, very deliberately. 'No,' I guess he meant.
"Right. Because you were actually on a mission."
Thin lids closed twice in succession. 'Yes.'
I took a deep breath. "Somehow, Heero, I think this guy can," I made an awkward sort of fluttering motion with my hands, "travel through dimensions."
No blinking. No change of expression at all.
"See, see, that's what my Heero would have said. But it makes sense. Somehow he can move through these, um, interdimensional walls, and you followed him back here. And my Heero," I stumbled a bit, but Heero raised his eyebrows again as best he could and I kept going, "my Heero got pushed out because there can't be two of the same," fluttery motions again, "life-patterns in the same world."
Eyebrows stayed up.
"Well, okay." I could feel my cheeks flushing. "'Life-patterns' sounds lame, but I'm a mechanic by nature not a fucking physicist."
I got up and started pacing. "Look. I found Wagner's body all hacked up in his apartment. But Wagner is still alive! I saw him! And he had an article about you that didn't make any sense because you're not missing. Unless you're missing on another earth."
And then I had gotten going and couldn't stop.
"And he had pictures of people I knew but who looked different! He had a picture of that girl across the hall -- Stefanya? -- with long hair and she hasn't had long hair in a year at least. And he said he knew me, when I met him, that he knew me and that I was..."
Heero's eyes were wide when I trailed off and looked back at him. His chest rose and fell sharply, like he couldn't quite take a breath.
"I'm dead, aren't I?"
He blinked twice, his eyes glistening.
I sat on the edge of the bed and before I even registered the thought, I was fastening my cross around his throat. It sat just over his collarbones, his neck thicker than mine.
He blinked once, hard.
"Better that you have it," I said, my voice thick. "Keep it safe."
We sat in silence and I watched his heart monitor, keeping slow, steady time.
"Heero," I said finally. "If we can find a way to bring him here, or bring you there, we can switch you back. Because if you're here, my Heero can't be."
I glanced at him and he dragged his eyes open. His eyes flicked over my shoulder, in the direction of the monitor I was just watching.
I had thought of that. And discarded it. Because I would rather have this Heero than none at all.
And what if I was wrong? To kill Heero just to bring mine back... the whole thing sounded insane in even my head, and there was no way I was going to breathe a word of it out loud.
"You should sleep now," I said softly.
He struggled to keep glaring at me but the conversation wore on him, and soon his eyes started to close.
"I don't know if I can do it, Heero. I'm sorry."
He tried to turn his head towards me but only his eyes slid to the right, glittering under half-closed lids. His lips moved slightly.
I shook my head. "No. Not now. There has to be another explanation."
His eyes drifted closed and I scrubbed my hands over my face. "How can I do this?"
"Because you know it's right."
I snapped my head around and found Trowa standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.
"No, I don't! How can you even say that?"
He came closer and dragged another chair around to the other side of Heero, looking at a spot near Heero's feet. "Why did you say it then?"
"It was Heero's idea, he..." I stopped, knowing I sounded stupid. It couldn't have been Heero's idea, obviously. It had been mine.
"How long have you been listening?"
He shrugged. "I was out getting a cup of coffee when you showed up. I didn't want to intrude."
I looked down at Heero's face, never quite relaxed in sleep. "Is this what you were talking about?" I traced a finger along the chain of my cross, the gold bright against his dusky skin. "Having trust and faith, right?" I turned to look at him. "This is what you meant."
"You can't let other people make decisions for you forever."
My face flushed, but it wasn't with the anger that I felt before. "It wasn't quite like that."
Trowa laid his hand over Heero's heart. "I used to sit like this when I pulled him out of Wing's wreckage back in 195. I used to imagine that our hearts beat at the same time." His brow furrowed. "I thought I could make mine beat like his."
"I always thought you and Quatre were..." I waved my hands around.
"Were...?" Trowa's lips quirked up. "No. There was something there, but it wasn't like that. Not then, anyway."
I was silent. I remembered at night Quatre and I would lay on identical cots side by side, because I didn't want to be alone. He told me stories from when he was growing up, fairy tales, kind of, but not like the ones I was used to. These were about war and love and death and a different kind of magic. Gold and incense kind of magic.
He talked about Trowa then, too, but I didn't know him as Trowa. I knew him as some other pilot, and it hurt my heart to hear about him, to hear how infatuated Quatre was with him.
I thought about me laying there all those months and not knowing that "other pilot" was somewhere with Heero, sitting just as he was now, watching him breathe like I was never allowed to.
Trowa reached across Heero and took my hand, squeezing it lightly, placing it over Heero's heart, covering it with his own.
"Heero trusts you," he said quietly. "You're the only one he trusts like that. And there are some things that he needs you to do for him."
"How do you know all of this?" I watched Heero's face as Trowa spoke, watched his eyes twitch back and forth under closed lids.
Trowa lifted one shoulder gracefully. "How did you know how to welcome Wufei back."
"I--" I stopped and Trowa stood. I just did. Because he was my best friend, my brother.
"I have to go. Quatre's waiting for me."
I jumped up, grabbing him by the arm. "Wait!"
He kept his head turned away from me. "I'm not going to lie to you, Duo. I did love him once, the way you do. But it was that I was young and I needed to know that I could love. And he was safe, not like Quatre, because Quatre made me feel... adrift." He looked at me and I had never seen that look in his eyes. It was like looking into a mirror. And suddenly I knew this was the reason we were never close, the reason I could never quite look him in the eye.
He reminded me too much of myself. But it was who I so desperately wanted to be, who I thought I could be but never thought I was strong enough.
"But now." He stopped and looked back at Heero. "He's the brother I've never had. He's the family I thought I could never have. I do love him. And I want him back, too."
Again my eyes stung and there was a knot in my chest that wouldn't unravel. God I wanted to cry, to let it all out, but I had to be strong, like this, for once in my fucked up life.
"I have to go. Tell Heero--" He stopped, took a breath, composed himself. "I won't ask where you're going. But I'll keep them away."
And then he was gone.
I slid down the wall, wrapped my arms around my knees and just breathed through it; everything caught up with me and I slept.
The next thing I was aware of was a rustling near Heero's bed and I snapped my eyes open, my whole body giving a strong jerk, like I was falling.
Elaine, the nurse from the night before, turned quickly and then crouched in front of me. "I didn't mean to startle you."
It was dark again, the faint light I saw coming through the blinds when Trowa left faded into night.
I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and staggered to my feet. "What time is it?"
"About nine." She stood and hugged the bundle of sheets to her chest. "I was coming in to change Heero's sheets. I wanted to wait until you were up..."
"No. No, I have to go. Now." I took a half step towards Heero, saw that he was awake and staring at me. "I'll be back."
He blinked twice and closed his eyes, better for me because I don't know if I would have been able to leave.
"See you later, then, Agent."
"Yeah. See you."
I didn't stop walking when I left, took my black cap out of my back pocket and felt for Heero's pistol in its back holster.
This would be over tonight, one way or the other.
End Part 9
(:./sparcck/tracing9)
