Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ After Colony 198 ❯ Seeking in the Void ( Chapter 8 )

After Colony 198

chapter eight

by Iris Anthe

He woke into a void--a void of light, a void of sensation, a void of pain. For a brief and terrifying moment memory was gone, all reference to his existence erased. But then he moved, flexed his fingers into a fist, felt the reality of his body asserting itself, and his mind began to return. What he remembered prior to this void was being ripped apart, a division of himself forced upon him with the brutish impassivity of a machine. Heero knew that kind of pain-the relentless force that no amount of pleading can stop because there is no mercy from a machine, only its goal and your compliance.

His mind was reaching for something. There was an intuition, a sense of something he ought to know but just couldn't remember rubbing at the corners of his mind. While searching for this elusive thought, a high tittering laugh and a flash of white blond hair sprayed across the periphery of his vision.

In a surge of alarm he pitched himself onto his feet and began running in the direction he thought the vision had gone.

*****

Watching him there, strapped to his bed, the intravenous needle in the top of Heero's hand affected Quatre in ways he wouldn't have expected. It seemed somehow malignant; as though it were sucking the life out of him, rather than dripping it back in. The thin metal piercing his friend's skin could not possibly be benign.

The doctor was asking him something. He struggled to find an appropriate answer. "He's always been the strongest of us," was all he could think of to say. The doctor gave him a compassionate but impatient look, and tried again.

"You say your friend had a similar seizure how long ago?"

Quatre paused to think about Heero's earlier breakdown at the circus. "It wasn't the same, unless maybe it was? Maybe he's been connected to her all along?" The doctor didn't like that answer and made a motion to begin rechecking Quatre for head trauma that he'd failed to notice in his cursory examination earlier, but Quatre batted his hands away. "I'm fine Dr. Sudirman. Please, can you help my friend?" The doctor was faced with the young and sincere face of his eighteen-year-old employer, who for the first time he could remember truly looked young and unsure. And so, putting his questions aside, he gave Quatre the confusing assessment he'd made of his patient's condition.

"Master Winner, your friend seems to have slipped into a catatonic state, which may or may not be a hereditary dysfunction. His autonomic responses seem to be functioning perfectly, but his awareness of his surroundings seems completely severed. If you could answer some questions as to the patient's prior..." the doctor's voice trailed into silence as he watched his patient's eyes suddenly begin to twitch beneath closed lids. "Now that is very odd." Suddenly absorbed in a puzzle, Dr. Sudirman unconsciously traced a well-manicured finger from one side of his nose to the other--a habit he'd picked up during his first term in medical school. With a final tap on the bridge of his nose he turned to Quatre with the distant look of a man faced with the excitement of a professional challenge and said, "Master Winner, it is not usual for a patient in a basic state of catatonia to display REM sleep patterns. I think I will need to get on the nets to consult with some specialists in the field before I can try treating your friend any further."

The doctor was already excusing himself to the door, when Quatre ordered him to stop. That it was an order was unmistakable. That the previous state of uncharacteristic helplessness in Quatre's stance had disappeared was also unmistakable.

"Dr. Sudirman, I'm sorry but I must request that you not divulge any of the particulars of this patient to anyone, either in person or through correspondence, even if you believe yourself to be anonymous." It was amazing really that the doctor had managed to forget just how commanding his young employer could be. With a faint stain of embarrassment coloring his cheeks and ears, Dr. Sudirman turned a look of annoyance on Quatre. "How can I treat him if you won't allow me the full use of my resources?"

Death seemed to be hovering at the head of the bed, waiting to sever the thin thread still holding Heero's soul to his body. Quatre looked sick as he replied, not taking his eyes off of the IV needle stuck into Heero's hand, "Please understand Dr. Sudirman, I only ever wanted to help my friend, but I would be hurting him more than you can imagine by letting his location be known." Quatre looked up finally and if anything he looked even more disgusted by his own decisions. "Please offer no personal details about my friend, his age, physical description, or our location while you are discussing him with your colleagues. Do not mention anything about his unique physiognomy or neurochemistry, and do not ever mention either his or my name."

If anything, these warnings from his severe young employer only piqued his curiosity further, but he knew something that he perhaps shouldn't have known, and the fact that he'd never mentioned it either to Quatre or anyone else was perhaps the reason he was allowed to stay in this very comfortable existence as the personal physician to the Winner estate. He knew that Quatre had been in the war. He knew that he had piloted a Gundam. If he had known that it was in fact Quatre who had been responsible for destroying a number of colonies while under the influences of the Zero system, he might have treated him quite differently. But it was enough to know that one simple secret and to guard it so well. It gave him something he valued greatly, the trust of his employer. It was not surprising therefore, that he nodded his head once in understanding, realizing that this unconscious eighteen year old boy was yet another gundam pilot, and that this was one more layer of trust he could hold to himself to give himself validity.

"I understand Master Quatre. Your secrets and those of your friends are safe with me."

"Thank you." Quatre closed his eyes and heard the quick exit of his "family doctor." He allowed himself the luxury of trusting the man because he knew the power of trust both when given and when received. If only Heero had submitted to that power earlier, perhaps they wouldn't be in this disturbing situation today.

*****

"Father? Is that you? Are you there?" The sound of wine goblets clinking in delicate counterpoint sounded in the darkness, stirring up feelings of childlike hope and fearful dread in Relena's heart. She couldn't see anything, but there was a presence, a familiar feel to the space around her that caused her to think that if she could just find the light switch, or maybe turn the knob of a magic door, she would find herself in a room filled with elegant adults, mingling and sipping wine and adoring her every well-mannered movement. If she could just manage to open her eyes, she would be standing next to her father as the world of adults admired his good, strong face and smiled at her simply for being a sweet and caring child. Just open your eyes, Relena. We can get there if you'll just open your eyes. The darkness would not lift. Her eyes would not open, and the presence began to fade.

"Father! NO! Don't leave me!"

But her pleas died on her lips, finding no sound in the nothingness around her. Her only recourse was to fade once more, out of existence, into the void.

*****

Heero stumbled in the dark. There was nothing to trip on; there was nothing to fall onto. This stumbling was simply his soul giving out, his heart closing up against the onslaught of the dark. It had been so long. How long? How long had he been here in the dark chasing something, something he couldn't remember?

"What am I doing here?"

In response, out of the darkness came an echoing cry, broken and weak. "Don't leave me!" In his exhaustion, Heero stretched out his aching fingers, reaching for the sound of that familiar voice. He finally came back to himself before collapsing into oblivion, one concrete thought in his mind. "Relena."