06-May-2006
Launch 19/20
Author: TB
Archive: GWA and
http://www.geocities.com/brother_maxwell/TB_home_page.html
Category: yaoi
Pairing: 3x4
Notes: If you're wearing your yaoi-goggles, you might be able to pick
up on the vague hints of 1+4.
Disclaimer: The characters and plot of Gundam Wing are used without
permission from their owners.
Summary: Part 19: Fire-fight at the O.K. Corral.
Heero glanced about the condo as he canvassed the empty rooms, looking for the computers. It was the sort of home you might expect from someone who had lived without one for most of his life-- oddly empty of junk, except for a few obviously prized acquisitions like a lamp made out of spare kitchen equipment that Heero vaguely remembered from Catherine Bloom's circus caravan. But it wasn't much on his mind to examine Trowa's lifestyle, and as soon as he found the spare bedroom that had been converted into a computer designer's dream, he forgot about everything else.
Trowa had a network of seven screens in an arena setup linked through a side-car multi-display interface. The slender notebook that lay demurely closed before those massive screens was shut down. Heero slid the single wheeled chair in the room before the notebook, propped it open and turned it on.
When it prompted him for a passcode, Heero paused and unclipped the comm from his belt. He depressed the "talk" key, and said, "I'm in position, Benson."
"I wish you better luck than we're having here. The office files are wiped."
"I'll keep you appraised."
"Thanks. Benson out."
Heero set the comm beside the keyboard and contemplated the screen. Circumventing the passcode was only a few moments of work, the kind of first-wall someone like Trowa couldn't be expected to bother with-- unless, like Trowa, it catapulted a cascade of safe-modes that offered reams of false files. It was still far more elementary than Heero would have expected from a man who ran his own network security company.
Heero cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders, and settled grimly in to strip down Trowa's defences one by one.
"Are we ready?" Quatre asked, his finger hovering over the command key. Ehrlich gestured for him to wait as she typed rapidly at the board of the UDS. A few moments later, she looked up, and nodded tensely.
"I'm go."
Quatre gripped his gun left-handed with fingers that were going cold and clammy. They had virtually no chance of finding a real hiding place, but Quatre estimated Duo would be arriving in perhaps fifteen minutes with a boat-load of Preventers. On the other hand, a fire-fight in the dry lab would be disastrous. There was no cover, and even with a clear shot at the door, he and Ehrlich would be exposed to return fire. He wouldn't make it far in a running shoot out; he could buy Ehrlich time to get to safety if he stayed behind.
"That's enough!"
Quatre fired. It was instinct, and it was probably what saved his life. The man who'd discovered them ducked back into the hall to avoid the shot, and Quatre shouted, "Go!" as he slapped the button. Information began to scroll down his screen, then stuttered and abruptly went blue. Locked. He didn't have a glance to spare for Ehrlich as he charged the door, ducking low, just as the black-clad man who'd discovered them came back, foolishly still aiming at man-height. Quatre hit him with a shoulder in the gut, knocking him up and off-balance. They tumbled into the hallway, the man's assault rifle stuck between them and pointed harmlessly away. He would hold him off while Ehrlich got away--
Except she was grabbing him by the collar and hauling him back into the dry lab, and she managed to get the rifle as well, just as a barrage of bullets split the air. The shouts of another soldier were cut short as Ehrlich threw the door shut and bolted it.
"Won't hold them," Quatre panted.
"No choice." Ehrlich slipped under his arm, supporting him with her shoulder as she brought him to his feet. "At least we did it. We crashed the bridge."
And announced their presence. There would be thirteen men outside that door in a minute. They were, Quatre knew, probably going to die. He saw it in Ehrlich's face, pale but set. She checked the rifle, and gave him Dorothy's handgun. She left him there, and took position on the other side of the door, her back pressed to the paneled wall.
Quatre managed a dry swallow. He was unbearably thirsty, and knew he'd passed into the second stage of shock. "Tell me again how you got out of your bunk," he said.
She looked at him. "Now?"
"We've got a minute before they storm us. That's enough time to tell me the truth."
Her expression was stricken, and he knew beyond doubt that it was an honest reaction. "Quatre--"
"Just tell me," he interrupted.
Her hands flexed on the butt and muzzle of the rifle. "All right," she said a moment later. "Yes, they contacted me. It was right before I met you. That day at Costa Dorada, do you remember?" Her pale eyes flicked between him and the door as someone tried the handle. They both tensed, unable to make anything of the mumbles they could just hear from the other side; but nothing happened. In a pained undertone she continued, "They told me they were looking for someone loyal, someone who didn't like how things have changed since the end of the war. I told them I'd think about it, and then I went to the Marina to meet you, and you just seemed so smug and sure of yourself. You had all this money you didn't earn, and you were just a colonial, it didn't really seem to mean anything to you-- you were just this kid out of no-where who'd never worked a day in his life."
Quatre shook his head. "That's not true," he started. Her face twisted, Ehrlich interrupted.
"I know that now," she said softly. "I just didn't want to believe it. When we were all on board together I could see how important it was to you, how you were really interested in everything we were doing. You pulled your weight and-- and everyone just liked you and accepted you, but you worked hard to earn it. You knew everyone's name and where they were from and what they liked to do-- you knew things about people I'd worked with for years and didn't know. And-- and then when you got sick, I realised-- they'd said they would find a way to get you off the boat, but then when I saw you having that seizure it just-- I didn't think they would hurt you."
It was the final clue to what he'd already begun to suspect. "Trowa switched my meds," he said. "That was why I was sick. He thought I'd have to leave the boat if I got sick."
"I think so." Ehrlich looked so miserable when she glanced back at him. "Please believe me," she pleaded. "I didn't think they'd hurt you."
He did believe her. He just wished it could change anything. "They left you free when they boarded, didn't they." She could only nod. Quatre asked her, "Why did you interfere against Dorothy then? Why not let her kill me?"
"Because-- " A heavy thud hit the door, and it shuddered. There seemed to be more voices now. Quatre tensed, both the guns at ready, knowing that when the door finally swung open Ehrlich was going to take the first assault, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Over the second hit, Ehrlich added hurriedly, "Because I know you now. And it was so obvious she had a grudge against you, that you'd fought against each other in the war. They told me this was about principles. That they were doing this to right all the wrongs. But it's just about revenge. They've got Hughes up on the bridge with his face beaten in, and they sent that woman down there to murder you-- I just couldn't let it happen."
He was starting to feel dizzy. He didn't think he'd lost that much blood, but his side was a mass of hurt, and his limbs felt heavy and achy. His voice was hoarse when he asked her, "How am I supposed to trust you now, Kathleen?"
"I wouldn't if I were you," she said dismally. But then her head came up stiffly. "But you need someone at your back, and I'm all you've got. This is my ship, too, Quatre, and my crew they've got hostage. I have to help fix what I helped make wrong."
With the third hit, the door splintered. They both flinched back, and Ehrlich did what he'd done, crouch low and aim high. It was a gamble that would probably fail, and then she'd be stuck on her knees under fire, but Quatre understood.
A voice called through, "Stand down, and you won't be harmed!"
It was Wufei's voice. Quatre discovered there was a large difference between knowing his friend and lover were on the IEO, and having it irrevocably confirmed. Neither he nor Ehrlich answered, and Wufei didn't ask again. With a fourth hit, the door burst open, and Ehrlich opened fire.
Trowa swore as he slammed a hand to the console. "We're locked out!" He straightened, and his gaze fell on the captain of the ship, who wore a look of undisguised glee in the face of Trowa's impotent fury. "What did they do?" he demanded, striding toward him. He reached out and ripped the gag away from Mostyn's mouth. "Tell me."
"What's happening?" Mariemaia interrupted. She clutched the arms of her hair in white-knuckled hands.
Mostyn was grinning at him through a split lip. "Screw you," he said with relish.
Trowa stared at him for a moment. Then he spun away, and slapped on his comm. "Chang, what's going on?" He waited for an answer, and got none. "Chang!"
"Where is he?" Mariemaia asked his back. There was a shrill edge to her voice now.
He grabbed his rifle from where it leant against his console, and he swung the strap over his shoulder as he made for the door. "I'm going to check it out," he told her. "Martinez, stay with Khushrenada."
"Yes, sir." He caught a glimpse of the woman moving into position just before he jumped onto the ladder, sliding down by the strength of his arms and hands and hitting the deck below the wheelhouse with a light bounce. It was daylight now, but so damn foggy he could barely see three feet in front of his face. He knew in his gut there were people out there in that fog, but without the instrumentation, he couldn't see where. He had six men with the nukes and had to hope that was enough-- Chang had another three with him, and with Catalonia not reporting in and Martinez on the bridge, they'd be only too easy to overwhelm.
He dropped down the ladder to Deck Two, and crossed the hall to the ladder for Deck Three. As he swung down the rails, he heard gun fire abruptly stop.
"Hands up!" Quatre said. "I mean it, Wufei."
Wufei rose slowly from his kneeling beside one of his teammates, who lay flat on the deck flooring bleeding around a bullet wound to the shoulder. "I'd be worse than a fool to give up my gun."
"We'll start with your hands where I can see them," Quatre repeated. Wufei obeyed that much, spreading his hands at head-height, one of them holding a Steyr in a tight grip. He'd at least moved his finger away from the trigger, but Quatre watched him closely. "Kathleen?" he asked, not looking away. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Just a graze." She came to his side holding all the confiscated weapons. Quatre took a Smith and Wesson to replace his nearly spent Beretta and tried not to notice how hard his hand was shaking as he sighted on Wufei's chest again, watching for the slightest muscle movement that would indicate an oncoming attack. "All right yourself?"
"Fine." He gestured with his free hand back to the dry lab. "Let's get out of the corridor, Wufei. Inside."
"Hands where I can see them!" a new voice barked. Ehrlich spun about, but when she went still just a second later, Quatre knew it was too late. He didn't bother to turn away from Wufei, who immediately trained on him, his stance relaxing as they were joined by another of the fake Preventers.
Trowa came into his eyeline, a rifle on Ehrlich. "Drop that to the deck," he instructed her cooly. "Let's keep this calm." The muzzle followed her as she crouched a bit to set down the armload of guns, and then she backed up a step. Quatre saw it all from the corner of his eye, still watching Wufei closely. Trowa's head turned toward him next. "Put down your weapons, Quatre."
"No," Quatre said simply.
"I will shoot you."
"I'm well aware of that." It didn't even hurt to say-- much. Something flickered in Wufei's face, though, and Quatre seized on it. "There's nothing you won't do anymore, is there?" he added relentlessly. "You've lied, taken hostages, threatened to deploy nuclear weapons-- you've murdered. Why should shooting me be off-limits?" Wufei swallowed hard, but anything he might have answered was cut off by Trowa.
"Quiet," Trowa ordered Quatre. He came a step closer, his gaze flicking down to Wufei's men. "Nootka, on your feet. Baker, get Kozlova out of here. I want more men on deck to cover the nukes."
One of the men looked up from his wounded comrade. "What about-- "
"He wouldn't be here without backup," Trowa snapped. "I want everyone but Martinez, Chang and myself on deck, do you understand me?"
"I can see why peace was unbearable," Quatre interjected with false sympathy. "Must have been hard, not having anyone to tell you what to do, to disregard your protests--"
"Shut up," Wufei snapped at him. "You heard him. On deck."
Quatre blinked rapidly as Wufei's body blurred, his voice echoing oddly. He'd nearly dropped the gun and had to wrench it back to level. "You grew up with the Alliance," he said loudly. "Now you're willing to replace them with a dictatorship?" But they weren't listening. They collected their weapons from Ehrlich, who stood with her hands held carefully at her sides. Quatre couldn't even catch their eyes as they slid past him and jogged back up the corridor to the ladders.
As soon as their footsteps had dissipated, Trowa moved his rifle off Ehrlich. He looked fully at Quatre, who did not take his eyes off Wufei. "You shouldn't have done this, Quatre," he added softly-- almost regretfully. "I tried to keep you out of it."
"I'm sorry I was always such a burden to you," Quatre answered a little bitterly. "But if you don't kill me now, I will stop you."
"You're too late." Trowa came another step toward him. "It's not our job to keep saving the world, Quatre. They don't want to be saved. They want to be ruled. They want to be safe, they want to be spared all the gory details, all the nasty secrets. Khushrenada's better than the Alliance or Dekim Barton, and that's all that concerns me right now. We convinced your friend here of that."
"You asked the right questions," Ehrlich interrupted. "You didn't give answers. I don't think you're giving them now-- you're just causing more trouble."
"She's right," Quatre said. "It's not enough to just ask questions. We've had enough of that. We're not fifteen anymore, Trowa, Wufei, it's not enough to just pick up a weapon and fight. There has to be something to fight for. A child with nuclear weapons and a lot of rage isn't an alternative to a stable government, however flawed you think it is."
"Flawed?" Wufei repeated incredulously. "I didn't want this!" Wufei cried, sweeping a hand about as if to take in the entire universe. "I didn't fight for this!"
"It doesn't matter if it's what we would have chosen," Quatre disagreed. "It's what we got. It's what billions of people without a Gundam and an arsenal chose for themselves. It's how they put their lives together after the tanks and the guns and the bombs were all gone and they could turn their lights on at night again! Who are you to take that away from them again? It's their peace, yes, not ours, but just because it's hard doesn't mean we can blow it all to hell!"
Wufei tightened his grip on his gun, fury and hate making a hot glare from his dark eyes. "And so everything just moves on as if two wars were never fought? As if we didn't bleed and die for them? They buried and forgot us, Quatre. They funnel us away into history and leave the door wide open for war to come again."
"That's bullshit," Ehrlich interjected. "War is a choice, the same as peace. There's nothing inevitable or natural about you bringing WMD on a science ship!"
The gun moved from Quatre's chest to Ehrlich's. "Shut up," Wufei snarled at her. "I've faced down greater men than you."
"Treize Khushrenada," Quatre said, seizing on the name and winning the gun back to himself. "That's an interesting example. I don't see him here. I don't see any of his spirit in this shameful hostage hold you have on the Earth. He died trying to stop Milliardo Peacecraft from something just this evil and misguided."
Wufei's chest heaved, his face a fraction more flushed than before. A tremor ran the length of his arm until the muzzle of his gun shook. "Barely a year after he fooled Heero into attacking the Federation Doves," he corrected. "He destroyed all hope of peace one day and bought it with his death the next. So what?"
Quatre saw the twitch in Wufei's expression a second before the proximity alarms went off. The klaxon rang over the intercoms, and the corridor went orange as the emergency lights came on. Quatre dove back toward Ehrlich as Wufei and Trowa reacted violently to the alarm. He pressed his right-hand gun on her and braced himself against the wall just as Trowa turned away and sprinted up the corridor. Quatre locked on him for a moment, but his mind wasn't as fast as his instinct. He didn't shoot, and a moment later he didn't have the aim to do it. Trowa went around the corner and disappeared. They were alone with Wufei now, and he was out-manned and out-gunned.
"Let's try this again," Ehrlich told him. "Hands in the air."
Heero's comm buzzed. He picked it up and stuck it on the velcro patch on his shoulder, thumbed it to speaker, and returned to typing. "Yuy," he said.
"It's me. What did you just do?"
Benson, at Trowa's office. "I tripped a few alarms, I think," Heero answered, distracted by the second screen and a sudden spurt of pop-up functions. "Why?"
"Everything shut down and restarted. I have a whole new screen. I think you've activated remote-access."
That confused him. "I don't see it anywhere," he confessed, running a quick check of all screens and the laptop. "Your access to me or mine to you?"
"Inputting file access command."
Heero waited, but nothing happened. He opened files randomly, but once again was greeted by nothing but nonsense. Or was it nonsense? Another layer of disguise? Real code, hidden in computer code? He struggled to find a pattern in the endless rows of letters and symbols. Tentatively he input his own string, but nothing returned. He tried again.
"Desktop," Benson said suddenly. "You see what I see?"
Heero pulled it up on the third of the linked screens. He stared at it, wondering what it was that Benson had seen-- and finally saw it, an icon in black on the black scheme. He clicked on it.
IEO-MK-00
"What the hell is it?" Benson asked.
Heero opened it, sending it to screen one. A pop-up box demanded a password.
"Not a lot of time for code-breaking."
Heero ignored that, and typed, OM-QRW-95. A moment later, the box disappeared, and information began to scroll down the screen. Heero leaned forward unconsciously, his fingers tense on the keyboard as he scanned the screen.
"OM-QRW?" Benson was saying. "What's th-- it worked. What is this?"
"A backdoor," Heero whispered.
"There's still time to walk away," Quatre said. "Help me get on the bridge. Stop Mariemaia from giving the command. Disarm the nukes."
"Not this time," Wufei said roughly. "I can't walk away now. I waited, Quatre. I waited for it to get better. For the people to understand. But they don't, and they never will. The path of righteousness is obedience and discipline. The people must be lead, and lead well, and then the peace will be a true one."
Neither of them got any further. Wufei's comm went off, causing all of them to jump. Wufei didn't move to answer it, until Quatre nodded. With his free hand, Wufei activated it.
It was Trowa. He said, "Chang. It's over. Abandon ship now."
"What?" Wufei demanded.
"There's something out there. I have a feeling we're about to be boarded. I'm getting Khushrenada on a STAB now. You've got two minutes to get on it and get her out of here."
That broke Wufei's concentration, and his handgun dipped as he began to argue. Ehrlich tensed next to Quatre, and began to inch toward Wufei. "What about the nukes?" he was shouting.
"I'm on that STAB," he responded. "And you're out of time. Come with me now or I will abandon you to the Preventers."
Understanding dawned over Wufei's face. "You lied," he said faintly. "You lied."
"If we live, we get to try again later. If you die, you don't get that option." Quatre swallowed heavily, watching the play of emotion on Wufei's face get darker and darker. And at the end of it, Trowa said softly, "Suit yourself," and the comm went dead.
Several things happened all at once, then. Ehrlich had been watching the exchange closely, and she unwisely stepped into Wufei's space with her rifle cocked. Wufei's gun automatically swept toward the new threat. Quatre whipped his own gun level with his eyes and sighted. And the lights went out, plunging them all into blackness.
There were three shots and a scuffling scramble. Quatre kept his gun trained though he couldn't see a thing, and shouted, "Status!"
"Fine," Ehrlich called back. He heard her shuffling, as if rising from the floor. Quatre stepped forward cautiously, then went into a crouch, sliding a hand out while keeping the gun at ready.
He found Wufei's shoulder, and followed the arm down until he had a wrist. His throat tight, he felt for a pulse. When it throbbed beneath his pointer finger, he let out a sigh that quavered. "What's going on out there?" he said aloud, keeping his bead while he searched for the wound he'd inflicted.
"I hear shouting," Ehrlich reported from nearby. Quatre turned half a mind toward it, the rest of his focus on searching vital areas. If Wufei wasn't moving, it had to be bad. "Preventers," Ehrlich added suddenly.
"We need medical," he told her. "Go find them. Wait--" He reached for his collar, and tugged off the chain and badge he wore beneath the wetsuit. "Show them this," he added, and slid it across the floor toward where he'd heard her. She caught it, and left without wasting any further words.
Wufei drew a shuddering breath. He moved, just a little. "Hold on," Quatre murmured to him, feeling arms and then legs. "You're going to be all right if you just hold on." Frustrated that he couldn't find a wound, he turned back to Wufei's torso, reaching under shoulders and pawing what he could reach of Wufei's back.
The next breath he heard had too much wet in it. Suddenly understanding, Quatre touched Wufei's neck, and found the spill of blood. He stuck the gun back between his feet, and applied careful pressure to the gushing bullet wound he or Ehrlich had inflicted on his friend, just to the side of the trachea. "Just a little longer," he said urgently. "You are not allowed to die for this. Do you understand me? You're not dying here."
Wufei's arm shifted, and then his hand clamped weakly over Quatre's. Quatre didn't know if it was agreement or denial, and he didn't make any guesses. He sat there in the dark waiting for help to come and feeling his friend's life slip through his fingers, and he didn't think about anything beyond listening for that next watery breath.
It could have been a minute or a year. Strong torch beams cut into the room, and voices were snapping orders in all directions. Quatre didn't hear any of it until hands in plastic gloves joined his on Wufei's neck, and he looked up to see Sally Po in a black ops suit and dark wool cap kneeling on the other side of Wufei's body.
"I've got him," she told Quatre. "I need airway control," she said, and Quatre was pushed aside by two Preventers who were bringing medical equipment with them. "Give me suction and get the tube ready," Po continued, taking a metal instrument from the kit laid next to her.
"Quatre," someone called, and he looked away long enough to see Ehrlich standing next to him. "You need medical, too," she reminded him brusquely. When he didn't immediately respond, she took his arm, but she was as gentle with him as she'd been the day he'd had a seizure. "They're waiting for you," she added softly, and kept between him and Wufei as she led him away from the lab.
They didn't make it any further than the corner, though. Preventers were everywhere, their high-beam torches illuminating the darkness as they ran past with rifles and handguns. Quatre remembered suddenly that he'd left his behind, but it seemed that the fighting was over, at least for him.
A Preventer his size broke from a trio at the end of the corridor and jogged to them, removing night goggles as he did so. Quatre caught a glimpse of a braid swinging, and abruptly relaxed. If Duo was on board, then it was under control.
It was Duo, and Duo didn't waste time with greetings before grabbing Quatre into a hard embrace. Quatre laughed just a little as he returned it, and he missed the warmth of his friend's arms when they stepped apart a moment later. He was shaking uncontrollably now.
"We caught Khushrenada," Duo told him immediately. "They tried to make a getaway, but we caught the whole damn boatload. We got Trowa, too. We're holding him on the bridge." He looked at Ehrlich, and added, "We'll get your crew out as soon as we've got all areas secured."
She nodded. "They'll appreciate that, sir."
Duo's bright eyes turned back to him. "They told me Wufei is down."
"I shot him," Quatre said, and winced at how dull his own voice sounded. "I don't know-- I don't know how he is."
He didn't have to wait for an answer to that, because Po appeared at their side with her medics behind her, carrying Wufei on a gurney, and a third woman carefully administering oxygen via a bag. Quatre moved toward them, but Duo held him back as Po reported, "He's stable. He needs immediate surgery to repair the trauma, but it looks worse than it is. We have a clear exit wound and no major arterial damage. I doubt you were aiming for the neck, Quatre, but as bullet wounds go, it's minimal." She frowned at him, then took Duo's torch from him and aimed it at Quatre. Specifically, at his side, and his electrical tape pressure bandage. "You're coming with me," she finished. "Maxwell, I'm taking one of the swift boats back to the Longhorn."
"Understood." Duo's comm beeped impatiently, and he thumbed it on. "Get me a pilot for Swift Boat One," he said into it. He ignored whatever message was waiting for him, and gripped Quatre's shoulder. "Good job," he said seriously. "We did what we came to do and we got all the bad guys. We should always be this lucky."
Quatre managed a small smile. "All that said, I think I'll sit the next one out." He remembered another problem, and turned to Ehrlich. "Dorothy," he said. "That is-- the woman in the sub launch. She'll need medical too."
"I've got a second team on board," Po assured him. "They'll get to her." She firmly removed Duo's hand and replaced it with her own. "But you're coming with me right now."
It was, Quatre decided, quite over. "No argument here," he sighed, and smiled at Ehrlich before he followed Sally topside.
Quatre woke abruptly when his sleeping mind registered that his arm had gone numb. He struggled to free it, blind and not truly alert, and heard a clatter nearby. He forced his eyes open to see that he'd flailed and knocked a water glass from a small table beside his bed. His fingers began to tingle.
Someone else was in the room with him. They rose to fetch the glass-- at least it was empty, Quatre thought-- but then they filled it from a pitcher on the tray parked above Quatre's knees. Quatre moved to rub his eyes free of crust and sleep, and felt the pull of an IV in his hand and an oximetre over his pointer finger. It was painfully familiar. With the now unpleasantly pins-and-needles arm, he awkwardly rubbed his face until he could see who was offering him the glass.
Heero.
The small part of him that was awake was startled, but the rest of him, still contentedly asleep, was not in the least surprised. That part of him offered a little smile in return for the water that Heero held to his lips.
"You must really like hospitals," Heero said, watching him sip from the straw. "How many times does that make this month?"
"Har har," Quatre retorted, nudging the straw aside as he finished with it. "At least I admit when I need one."
That earned him a tiny smile. Heero set the glass back where it had been, presumably, before Quatre knocked it off the table, and sat on the edge of Quatre's bed. They weren't in a private room this time, but instead were sheltered by a curtain drawn about the three open sides of his bed and monitors. Overhead lights were off.
"Casualties?" Quatre asked suddenly.
"Seven," Heero replied. "Three of ours. One being you."
"Dead?"
"Two." Heero looked at him sideways. "Catalonia made it though."
So the blow to the head hadn't crushed her skull. It had been three years since he'd killed someone, and he was very glad not to have done so again. He swallowed around the dry cottony taste in his throat. "Wufei?" he asked.
"He'll recover. He's in an isolation ward."
That, he was grateful for. "He threatened one of the crew," he explained. His never-ending supply of guilt made a rushing appearance in his gut, not far from the niggling ache of his stab wound, and to his intense embarrassment he found tears forming hot and liquid in his eyes. "I didn't have to shoot him," he admitted hoarsely, looking away from Heero's patient gaze. "There were other options. But I shot him anyway." One tear escaped down his cheek in a salty trail, and once it was free several others followed. He drew the line at sniffling, but he couldn't make the tears stop. "I'm sorry," he whispered vaguely. "It must be the drugs. I wish I hadn't shot him. I thought I'd killed him and he's my friend..."
There was silence in answer. Quatre forced himself to shut up by biting his tongue. Then with a rustle and a shift of the mattress, Heero reached for something. Quatre looked up when a damp cloth began to rove over his face, cleaning away the evidence of a very long day and his pathetic lack of self-control.
"You did good work in there," Heero said after a long pause, his eyes on his work, and not on Quatre's own gaze. "You acted to protect your people. Wufei knew you would do that, when he chose to put himself on the other side of the conflict." He puffed out a breath in something that sort of resembled a sigh. "Maybe it wasn't the best option, but it was what you had to do."
They sat quietly for a while after that, Quatre allowing Heero to wash his arms and hands, watching the cloth move carefully about the tape strapping the IV to his hand. When he thought he could ask without crying, he drew a deep breath for help, and said, "Trowa."
Heero grimaced. "He left his transmitter operational from his office in Brussels, but it was only accessible from his condominium. I probably won't ever know if it was a backdoor for us, or for himself. He's claimed that he was acting as a double agent the entire time. Une and Duo have had him in interrogation for nearly fourteen hours."
Quatre wished he didn't feel glad. "Give him one thing," he muttered, closing his eyes and letting his head drop back onto his pillow. "He's smart."
"He'll walk away."
"He always does." Quatre sobered abruptly. "But Wufei won't."
"No. He's already confessed."
Quatre sighed. "I feel sorry for him. Isn't that awful? I feel sorry for him, because I really thought he understood." He slitted his eyes to look at Heero, and saw this time that there were eyes waiting for him. "Whatever you did, to talk him down, during the Eve War," he said. "I couldn't do that. I should have tried harder."
"I must not have done too well either," Heero excused him. "What I said-- it didn't make that much difference in the end, did it?" He tossed the cloth into the sink along the wall, and rested his hands over the holes in the knees of his jeans. "We weren't ever going to save him from himself."
Exhaustion was kicking in, and his world was getting fuzzy on the edges. "Duo must have been glad to see you," he murmured.
"I might have been glad to see him too," Heero allowed. "And you." He hesitated, and Quatre kept himself awake long enough to hear what came next.
"I felt you," the other man explained, soft and a little uncomfortable. "Before I even saw the news. I had a dream about you. About us, really. In the ocean. Under it. There were-- dolphins."
Quatre found himself smiling muzzily. "Yes," he agreed. "There were." On an impulse, not even sure Heero meant to stay now that the crisis was over, he asked, "Do you want to meet them?"
"The dolphins?" He'd startled Heero, something he didn't often manage to do. "They're real?"
"Very." He reached for Heero's hand, could only reach as far as his elbow, and squeezed that instead. "Stick around, and I'll introduce you."
"All right," Heero agreed quietly. "I'd like that." He waited for Quatre to remove his hand, and stood. "Good night."
"Good night." He watched Heero pick up and don a jean jacket, then lift a corner of the curtain to go. "Wait," he demanded suddenly, just barely awake enough to ask. "Can you swim?"
Heero glanced back at him. "Of course," he said.
Quatre fell asleep grinning about that.
End Part 19
(:./erin/launch19)
