13-Apr-2000
The next few days tested them all. At Quatre's request, Sally Po had caught the next shuttle down to L2. Also at Quatre's request, the hospital had invited, albeit grudgingly, Sally to be one of the consultants on Duo Maxwell's case. Wealth it seemed, could accomplish almost anything.
Anything except bring Duo Maxwell back to them...
As Duo Maxwell lingered in the coma, his four friends could only sit by helplessly and watch as each moment brought him ever closer to death. Heero and Wufei were no longer talking to each other and could scarcely abide being in the same room together. Only their mutual reluctance to be anywhere but by Duo's bedside kept them in the room. They never argued or fought again as Trowa had made it expressly clear that -he- would personally kill anyone who dared fight in front of Duo; that elegant threat had gone a long way towards keeping Heero and Wufei in line. But that threat did nothing to dispel the tension, and it seemed that it got worse with each passing day.
Until the day Duo woke from the coma.
It'd happened so unexpectedly - it caught all of them off guard. In the middle of the night, when they'd been curled in various uncomfortable positions of repose, a soft whimper had woken them from their slumber. Heero sat up, alert and listening; he could hear similar movements from the others as they woke and tried to take stock of their surroundings.
A single glance towards the machines that monitored Duo's heartrate showed that it was stable, if not particularly strong. No different than it had been for the past few days. Nothing else... He was wondering if he'd imagined it all, when he heard it... A quiet, dry, rasping cough... Coming from the bed. "Duo?!" He was by the bedside in an instant, his hand closing around Duo's slender fingers. His heart leapt with... joy, perhaps, when his questing fingers were rewarded with a weak squeeze of acknowledgement.
"Duo," he brushed his fingers across the pale cheeks. Was that the beginning motions of a smile tugging upwards on Duo's mouth? Surely he did not imagine that. From the other side of the bed, Quatre placed a gentle hand over Heero's, his own blue eyes radiant with relief as he gazed down upon their friend. Everything would be okay from now on...
Wouldn't it... ?
They waited in the corridor outside the Intensive Care Unit. Trowa and Quatre were seated on the floor just across from the door, Quatre ever so subtly cuddling up to Trowa more for comfort than for warmth. His handsome face, probably the most expressive of them all, reflected distress and anxiety. Uncertainty.
Heero stood next to them, ramrod straight, cobalt blue eyes burning into the door. Wufei stood just beside the door, his own dark, accusing glare boring into Heero's face. No, they hadn't settled things completely, and hating each other's guts was easier than facing up to the worry over what was going on inside...
Easier than facing up to Duo's blank, unrecognizing gaze... to the innocently murmured questions: "Where am I... what happened... who are you... ?"
The last one had utterly shattered the illusion that everything was going to be fine... that the Duo Maxwell they knew was back... Sally had sent them all out of them room - had insisted on examining Duo Maxwell in private.
And when the door finally opened, four pairs of eyes locked on her. Sally Po closed the door quietly behind her. "It's not nearly as bad as we imagined. The most likely explanation is a manifestation of post traumatic stress disorder. The memories are there - badly fragmented - but they're there. I'm recommending sessions with a trained psychologist. She would be able to draw -"
"Why can't you do it, onna?" Wufei demanded.
"Because I'm not a psychiatrist," Sally glared back at him. The sky would collapse the day Wufei ever called her by her name.
"No one is going to mess with Duo's head." This time, it was Heero who was glowering dangerously.
"Can't you do it, Sally? You may not be a psychiatrist, but you are a doctor, and we trust you with Duo," Quatre spoke up, his voice softly appealing. "We don't want to leave him with a complete stranger."
"I -"
"I want to see him," Heero stepped lightly past her and pushed open the door.
Sally opened her mouth to object, then realized what a futile and useless gesture it would be. She would get more reaction out of a brick wall. "Fine," she sighed. "Just try not to stress him. If he doesn't know who you are, then he doesn't know who you are. It's that simple - don't push him to remember; just let him be."
The room was silent but for the steady hum of the machines that fed nutrients and liquids directly into Duo's veins. Heero approached the bed silently, hardly daring to breathe.
Duo lay on his side, his skin so pale, he was but a shadow of his former self. His lips were almost colourless but Heero noticed with relief that they were no longer swollen. Like a delicate blossom he lay, bruised and injured but alive.
So silent... so still... Heero scarcely dared touch him...
The dark fringed lashes flickered slightly as a crease of a frown appeared between his eyes with the effort of taking a ragged breath.
"Duo..."
The violet eyes slowly opened - ringed with exhaustion - lashes lifting, then closing - then lifting once again. Their lazy, weighted movement - catlike, sensuous.
Heero stared down at him, his eyes traveling slowly over his lover - gripped by a raging torrent of emotions as relief, fury, passion and love washed over him. He wanted to grab Duo, shake some sense into him - how could Duo not remember him - but his plan of action was floundering; he found it difficult to look at the hauntingly beautiful face before him and retain calm or coherent thought.
The violet eyes met Heero's with a guileless, inquiring look... but as for recognition - not a whisper...
It was a crushing blow - that look - devoid of all recognition. Heero's grip on the metallic bed frame tightened. There had been no possible preparation for the wrenching agony it caused, but still Heero held on to that now wavering gaze, desperately searching for that which was lost to him.
Despite everything, he had still expected the unsure but hopeful expression that had always appeared in Duo's eyes. This, followed by the slow yielding to the joy that Duo could never disguise at the sight of him. And finally, the love that eventually flooded their violet depths - that silent reaffirmation of a bond unseverable... or so he had
believed.Still breathtaking these eyes, but his heart ached at what had been stolen from them.
To have come so far... to have finally understood for himself what Duo felt for him, and what he himself felt for Duo... only to have it snatched away once again...
"Duo," his voice was gentle. "Do you know who I am?"
Violet eyes searched his face, confused and bewildered now. Utterly disorientated. Fragments of memories - faces, voices - skittered crazily in his brain... impossible to catch hold of them... much less make sense of them... A face faded in and out of focus... Blue eyes... Dazzling cobalt blue eyes... Cold, cold eyes...
Like the ones now gazing down on him...
No, different. Same, but different... not so cold any more, he decided dazedly, unable to follow the thought any further. Tired... so very tired...
"Do you remember me?" the voice urged, keeping him from the welcoming darkness dragging down at his mind.
"I... I think so... " There was a name just tugging at the recesses of his mind... So elusive... slipping through his fingers as he tried to reach for it... Later... it could wait...
Heero watched the eyelids slide down over the lovely eyes, heard Duo's breathing settle into a even rhythm as the young man drifted into a normal sleep.
His grip on the metallic bed frame relaxed, and he noted dismissively in passing that he had left it badly dented. Duo remembered him... Those few words a whispered promise for the future they could still have...
Heero reached out slowly to touch him, reassuring himself, as he drank in the beauty that was Duo Maxwell. Stroking him softly, Heero intimately acquainted himself with his ex-lover in a way that Chang Wufei, had he been in the room, would have never allowed. The glorious golden-chestnut mane of silky hair was gone... but the face was no less lovely to him.
His fingers barely played across the planes and hollows that rendered the visage so exquisite. He traced the delicate tapestry of veins that shot through the pale parchment of his eyelids and brushed the dark silky eyelashes fanned on pale cheeks. His fingers trailed slowly down to caress the full, sensuous lips, his chin, along the curve of his throat and the hollow of his collarbone.
I love you... The words never passed his lips, but they were in the soft glow of the cobalt blue eyes as Heero sat by Duo Maxwell and guarded his rest...
End Part 4
(:./danyale/reclaim4)
