04-Mar-2002
See Part 1 for all disclaimers, warnings, and whatnot
"Please don't do this. I said I was sorry--"
Une sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I'm not doing this to punish you. I think it's necessary for now."
I knew I sounded pathetic. "Why?"
"Duo, you broke Greta's wrist. You nearly killed a man."
I wanted to say that was no man. That was a fucking monster who deserved to be killed slowly and painfully for what he did. But I don't think that would have done anything for my sanity plea. And deep down, I knew it wouldn't be what Heero wanted. No matter how much he wanted to, he would never have killed him.
We've done enough killing with our bare hands to last a lifetime. Me more than the rest of them.
"Look, I screwed up, I know. I'll fix it--"
Une was shaking her head.
"No, don't say no." I felt like something was scratching at my stomach from the inside. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to say you're going to get help."
"I don't fucking need help!"
"That's enough," she snapped. "Leave your badge and your gun, and go home. And tomorrow you'll go over to the Salzman Centre to see Dr. Lee. That's an order."
"I apparently don't work here anymore, so I don't see how you could order me around."
"Duo, please. You still work here. You're just on leave--"
"Forced leave--"
"Leave of absence," she spoke over me. "This discussion is over. And I have an investigation to run. So go home. Dr. Lee will be waiting for you tomorrow at 1300 hours."
"Fine." I stood, tossing my badge onto her desk, unloading my gun and dumping everything on the chair I had been sitting in. "But you know you're punishing the wrong person."
"Send in Quatre, Agent. And I don't want to see you in here before next week. I mean it."
I slammed the door on my way out and glared at Quatre and Wufei, who were waiting for me in the plastic chairs in the hall. They both stood as soon as I stepped out.
"Leave of absence," I said bitterly. "No badge, no gun."
Quatre looked relieved and I wanted to scream at him. Maybe I was losing it.
"It could have been worse--" he started, and I cut him off.
"And I have to go to the psych ward tomorrow on fucking orders--"
Wufei snorted and I glared at him as hard as I could. "Duo, the Salzman Centre is hardly a psychiatric ward."
"Whatever." I crossed my arms. "She wants to see you, Quatre."
He nodded. "Duo, you know we'll keep you informed of everything that's going on."
"I know," I said, torn between angry and depressed.
He squeezed my shoulder as he passed me, leaving just Wufei and I in the hallway.
"Where's Trowa?"
Wufei held up my jacket that I had left with Quatre when I went into Une's office and motioned for me to put it on. "He escorted the witness to the hospital wing. They just want to check out his throat." He slanted a glance at me. "If you don't mind me asking, what the hell did you think you were doing?"
I wanted to tell him all the things the guy had said to me, but I knew he wouldn't believe me. He would want to, but he wouldn't be able to. And I just felt like I couldn't trust myself with that right now.
So in an effort to not lie to my best friend, I simply didn't say anything. Let him take that as whatever he wanted.
"I'll take you home," he said instead of pursuing it.
"Thanks," I said, feeling for the wallet still tucked into the back of my jeans under my shirt.
And suddenly, I was so tired. Going after this guy by myself was most likely going to get me not only discharged from the Preventers in I got caught, but alienated from my friends as well.
"No, wait."
Wufei turned, his eyebrows up.
"Take me to the hospital instead."
"Call me when you're ready to go."
"Not necessary, Wu. I'll take a cab."
Wufei didn't want to ask if I was sure, I could see it on his face; he didn't want me to think he didn't trust me anymore than I already did.
So I beat him to it. "Yes. I'm sure." I smiled for emphasis, even if I knew how transparent I must have been.
The hard lines around his mouth eased a bit and he nodded. "I'll be around headquaters but my phone will be on. So call me if you need anything."
"I got it." I turned to go into the hospital.
"And Duo."
I didn't turn around. "Yeah."
"We'll find him. I swear."
"Yeah." I wondered when it had gotten so difficult to hide everything.
A group of off-duty med staff passed me, one of them recognizing me and flashing me an encouraging smile.
I just had to see Heero. All of the petty bullshit would matter less if I could just see him, touch him, watch his chest rise and fall because he was still alive in there somewhere.
I walked right past reception, flashing my Preventers ID at the guy sitting there without stopping. He nodded and returned to his magazine; Une must have called ahead and informed the staff I was coming.
I hope she didn't expect me to be grateful. She did, after all, just give me my "requested leave of absence."
They didn't suspend you, I remind myself quickly, to override my sense of loss of everything permanent about my life. This was not a suspension, although by all rights it should have been.
I pushed the door to Heero's room open, not sure what I would find, half expecting Heero to be sitting up in bed, scowling and trying to remove his IV.
He wasn't, of course. He looked freshly washed, his hair a bit damp and dressed in a new gown. But Jesus.
"Hey there, partner," I said, closing the door softly. Was that a twitch I saw? Did his eyes shift under those slightly tilted lids?
I considered for a moment trying to clamber over the equipment and lay next to him, just to feel him next to me. Instead, I dragged the chair I had used to day before to the side of the bed and sat, taking his hand in mine.
It felt right. God, it felt so right to touch him like that.
"Crazy shit's been going down, you know. You're missing it all." I clasped my other hand around his, and cradled it gently, not wanting to mess up any of the machines and tubes.
I laughed and shook my head. "No, you would probably hate it. You would be out there, skulking around with your gun and a plan and leaving the rest of us to clean up the procedural mess." I cocked my head and thought about that for a moment. "Well, the other three, anyway, since I would probably have followed you."
I leaned forward and rested my chin on our joined hands, letting out a breath that puffed up over his forearm. "Hey, Heero--" I stopped, sitting up straight. I swore I saw his eye tick, a little pull at the very edge of its upward slant. "Heero? Can you hear me?"
Nothing. I sighed again, this time letting one hand trail up the inside of his arm, pressing on the firm muscle of his bicep. He was so strong, so virile. But not even he could come away unscathed from a bullet to the belly.
I had always loved Heero for the humanity that I saw in him where others saw a machine. I never thought that I would wish him to be that perfect machine that everyone wanted him to be. I instantly hated myself for the thought, knowing in my gut that I loved him for everything, for who he was, for all his weakness as well as his strengths. But being as vulnerable as every other carbon-based creature on the goddamn planet was not a weakness.
Fuck. Tears again.
I blinked rapidly, my hand still moving on him, ghosting over his cheek to graze his bangs lightly.
I wondered who would love me for my weaknesses. I wanted desperately for it to be Heero.
The door swung open suddenly and I jerked back, almost the tipping my chair over.
Relena stood in the doorway, a bodyguard behind her -- a fellow Preventer who was trying to pretend like she hadn't just seen me hunched over Heero Yuy's bed like I was his lover.
Great.
"Duo," Relena said softly, surprised. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were here."
That's one thing Relena and I had in common: the ability to say something and not say anything at all; the words out of her mouth were two sentences that sounded related but in reality probably had nothing to do with each other. Neither one a lie, but when put together weren't exactly the whole truth. I had to bite back my automatic response to ask whether she was sorry she had interrupted, or sorry I was here in the first place.
It was silly; we had long stopped being rivals and she had really never done anything to me other than having once harbored a schoolgirl crush on the object of my schoolgirl crush.
How any of us managed to survive a war is beyond me.
Realizing I still hadn't said anything, I stood. "It's okay. I'm leaving."
"No," she protested, backing up a step. "I'll come back. I just wanted--" Her eyes shifted past me. "How is he?"
I must have grimaced or something because she went on before I could actually say anything.
"That's a silly question. I just meant--"
"You just wanted to see him." I took back my grimace, my intimation that her intentions for coming here were childish or unimportant. Of course she just wanted to see him.
And I couldn't be jealous of every person who looked at Heero sideways. He was my best friend and all the Trowas, Relenas, or other assorted warm bodies in the world weren't going to change that.
Now I just had to really mean it when I said things like that. I may have gotten over whatever it was that made me dislike Relena, but the thought of Trowa and Heero still made me want to curl up in a corner somewhere. Cool, confident, reticent Trowa was infinitely more intimidating than Relena would ever be.
Dammit.
I was suddenly angry with myself. Heero was laying in a hospital bed, probably paralyzed if he ever woke up at all, and I was worried he was sleeping with Trowa. I should be so lucky to have that as the worst thing in my life.
I looked back down at Heero, at his still face and thin eyelids hiding his eyes, his cracked lips and too-bony shoulders; after everything -- starving, whoring, murdering, prison -- this was the worst thing. This was it.
The man's wallet was still burning a hole in my back. But this I could do something about. Maybe it wouldn't bring him back, but someone would pay for taking Heero out of this world.
I pressed a kiss to his cool forehead and felt the rise and fall of his chest from the respirator. I had to remember he wasn't dead, yet.
"See you later, partner."
Relena smiled at me as I turned to leave. "He really cares about you, you know."
"I do know," I replied, and I was surprised to find that I meant it. I paused and then decided to just say it, because she was looking at me so earnestly and he was laying there so still and I knew how much she meant to him and you know what, if I was going to mean something, I was going to really mean it.
I know he cares, I repeated to myself.
"Talk to him a little," I said and she smiled a little brighter, relieved. "I think he would really like to hear your voice."
The world didn't end as I thought it may when I voluntarily shared a piece of Heero's heart with someone. Actually, it made me feel a little better.
She leaned forward and put her hand on Heero's forehead, tentatively, like she thought he might wake up suddenly and slap her off of him.
What was it about Heero that made us all want to protect him? What was it about us that made us think we could?
I was reminded again of Trowa. He had wanted to say something when I fucking poured my heart out to him but he had stopped himself. He could have said anything. There was a little part of me, the part of me that I repeatedly tried to stamp out, that whispered my what I was too afraid to really let myself think. Because faith was hard, but not as hard as hope.
And I thought that maybe, maybe he would have said that Heero felt the same way I did.
"Hello Heero," Relena whispered, lowering herself to sit on my chair.
I lost my train of thought -- or rather, forcibly derailed it -- and turned quickly to leave. I smacked straight into Relena's bodyguard. "Sorry," I mumbled, and she just nodded.
I wondered if the news of my "leave of absence" had trickled down to the on-assignment agents yet. They all seemed very preoccupied with us, being former Gundam pilots.
I could have told them it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Out in the hall, I turned to watch Relena sitting next to Heero and whispering things to him that maybe he could hear. I wondered if she knew he was human, too. I wondered which Heero she wanted back, if she wanted the same Heero back I wanted.
The same nurse who had waved me by when I arrived was sitting at the nurse's station when I left. "I'll be back later," I snapped as I passed, pissed and scared and needing to take it out on someone.
He glanced up at me, one meaty finger holding the place in the medical text that had replaced the auto magazine of earlier. "I'll be here, Agent."
I stalked outside. I was buzzed with anger and for the first time I pulled out the shit's wallet and flipped it open.
50 bucks. A worn looking, round, flat piece of metal jammed into the zippered change area. A page torn out of a newspaper that I opened with shaking hands. It was a picture of Heero: his Preventers mug shot, his handsome face flat with annoyance, his hair mussed in the front and determinedly sticking out at his temples. It was a picture I knew well enough and remembered ruffling his hair with a hidden palmful of mousse just before it was taken.
Man had he been angry. I tried to pull the same thing on Wufei but he promised to cut off my hand if I even came near him and you didn't grow up on the streets and not know a threat from a promise when you saw it.
I squinted at the picture; there was something there that I was missing, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I didn't even bother to scan the article, as I had seen it myself the day before in Preventers reception. I folded it back up and jammed it in my zippered pocket, next to the locker key.
A few credit cards, a bank card. And a license.
Thomas Wagner. 11-02 Ludlow Street, apartment 3A. 28 years old.
I pulled out the license and threw the wallet into the garbage next to the front doors. Then I started walking towards Westside, towards Wagner's apartment and where they had found Heero only two days before.
I felt the past two days rising up in me and for once I felt in control.
I had made a promise.
It was time to go hunting.
End Part 4
(:./sparcck/tracing4)
