Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Nevergreen ❯ Chapter 13

Nevergreen 13/?

Trowa was already on the stairs, Heero could hear him swearing all the way down. He wondered how bad the place was, how much was falling apart under their feet, then he had no more time to think about it as the floor beneath him gave way and he was falling.

A splash. A gout of pain. He sat up in time to see Trowa stumble off the last step.

"Fuck!" Trowa looked from Heero on the floor to the new hole in the roof and just shook his head, a faint smirk firmly in place on his otherwise pale and drawn face.

"Enjoying yourself, Barton?"

Trowa leant on the wall for a moment, catching his breath and Heero heard the groan of wood breaking coming from the stairs. He was almost glad he had found an alternate route.

"I told you, Yuy, I'm selfish," he came over and offered a hand, which Heero took without preamble. "I always want more."

Heero just shook his head and took the hand, staring down at the long slice through his shirt and the grazed and bleeding skin underneath. If he wasn't so numb he thought it might hurt.

"Bugger." Unison.

They stumbled out of the Inn at the same time Quatre emerged from the corner store further down the road, sprinting for the Billabong. Heero took a deep breath and forced his legs to move, aware of Trowa already moving forward. He was slow…slower than Trowa and Quatre, his injuries slowing him down, pulling him back, but he pushed forward, a flicker of pale skin in the distance driving him forward, fuelling the fire starting to rage within.

Trowa was pulling them both from the swollen river when Heero reached the bank. Wufei was shivering, teeth clattering loudly in the night as he tried not to struggle in Trowa's grip, arms wound tight about a figure too limp, too pale, too devoid of any sign of life.

"Duo!" Heero stumbled forward, tripping over in the mud and scrambling further toward the river through the mud and silt on hands and knees. The ground was hard under his hands, the stones and soaked leaf litter slicing his palms, opening the wounds of the night before, but he didn't care. His sight had narrowed to one single point.

"Is he?"

Trowa didn't reply, prying Wufei's arms loose and rolling him off into Quatre's arms as he lay Duo down in the dirt and felt for a pulse.

"Duo?" Heero gasped, needing to hear something, for Trowa to tell him something. But Trowa was just looking down at the still form, faces pressed close, as if…as if…they were…

"Hey you." Trowa was smiling…

Heero's heart stopped in his chest as he strained to hear….anything, over the buzzing in his ears.

"'Ro?"

The voice sounded choked, pained, waterlogged, destroyed, but it was the most beautiful thing he head ever heard and he slugged the rest of the way down the bank to hear it again, collapsing at Trowa's side as his arms reached out of their own accord and gathered the limp form in. There was coughing and cursing and he might have cried, but he didn't care. All that mattered was what was there.

Trowa got up, moved to the side and Heero saw him helping Quatre lift Wufei. The man looked in bad shape, to put it mildly, but he was alive. Live.

A hand, so cold it penetrated even his iced exterior, patted softly against his cheek and Heero looked down into cobalt eyes the same colour as twilight. Duo didn't smile, he didn't laugh, he didn't make any romantic declaration. He coughed up a shitload of dirty brown water and Heero was forced to turn him onto his side, braid buried in the mud with the rest of him as he vomited up more water than Heero had thought it humanly possible to contain in one body.

When at last he was able to breathe freely again he wasted the breath, trying to reassure Heero. Trying to make him feel better, but it only made him feel that much worse.

"It's…a long…road…ain't it…"

Heero had no real answer for that, so he just lay down next to Duo, putting his arm out under Duo's head as a makeshift pillow, and he let the knot in hi gut slowly loosen, too tired to do anything else.

It was Trowa who moved them, slipping and sliding his way through the muck to lift Duo into his arms, limp and unresisting against the hands that took him like some twisted and broken ragdoll. Quatre was there soon after, hauling Heero free of the mud and helping him to walk back to the car.

Quatre pushed him into the back seat, where Wufei was already cradling Duo against his chest. Duo's eyes were closed, but Heero could hear the breath rattling in and out of his lungs and forced his body not to panic as Quatre shut the door and climbed in the passenger seat, one hand moving immediately to Trowa's where it rested on the gear stick.

"We have to go pick them up," Quatre said softly, and they all knew who he was talking about. But no one said anything as Trowa backed the nice borrowed BMW up and headed back for the main road.

Heero met Wufei's gaze over Duo's head and smiled softly. The guy looked ready to keel over and yet his face was as cold and disinterested as ever.

"You okay?"

"Fine," Heero drawled, rolling his eyes a little. The guy was either nuts or a masochist. They just sat and watched Duo sleep, listening to the god-awful rattle of drowned lungs until Trowa slammed on the brakes.

Treize and Zechs were sitting in the middle of the road, back to back, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Heero wanted to strangle them, thinking how differently things could have been had they just picked up the boy they had seen walking to Ootha…not that Heero really wanted them to be anywhere near Duo, but…

Zechs was standing by the door, leaning his head in, smiling in that way Heero remembered too well, only his heart wasn't doing the same flip-flop it once had. Rather it was screaming at him to slam a fist in the bastard's face, as it had that day in Kushrenada's office when he had resigned, on the spot and rushed off to a position in the public sector.

"You look like shit, baby."

Heero couldn't find the strength to move let alone think up some sort of response. He managed a grin, however, when Quatre's rifle butt appeared in Zech's face. The man backed off quickly enough.

"Get in the boot."

Treize looked at Trowa. Trowa looked at Treize. Treize got in the boot and Zechs followed suit. All in all, Heero thought it went well.

Trowa was driving again, but they hit the paddocks within a few k's of getting back on the main road. Heero watched the scenery, both familiar and unfamiliar, roll past, trying to figure out where they were headed. They needed medical supplies, but he knew they would not be getting to a hospital for at least a day; there was no way to get them all into town, and Parkes was too far away to drive in the condition they were in.

The road began to look familiar and Heero actually felt a genuine smile on his lips as they turned down the long driveway. The familiarity of Quatre getting out to open the gate, Trowa driving through, Quatre closing it behind them to make sure the cattle and sheep didn't get loose. The familiarity of the bumps in the dirt road, made all the sweeter knowing Zechs and Treize were in the back. The familiarity of the sound of children laughing and crying out as they reached the end of the drive.

And a single, lone evergreen through the window, still standing, still green.

Quatre leapt out of the car and raced up the steps before Trowa even had the engine switched off. There was the sound of greetings, of hushed voices, and Heero knew Quatre was having to face the inevitable; that he was returning alone.

"Go." Trowa looked at him oddly but Heero just glared back and Trowa was out of the car without any further prodding.

"I can't carry him," Wufei noted softly, nodding his head to Duo, who was still unconscious against his chest. Heero frowned and it only darkened as a shadow fell across his window.

"Need a hand?"

Fuck no! …and hell yes. The door opened on Wufei's side of the car and Treize somehow managed to maneuver Duo out of Wufei's arms. Heero wanted to protest, but the way Treize shifted them all, to cause everyone the least amount of pain, and the way he cradled Duo to him as if he were precious reminded Heero that regardless of the wrongs done to him, Treize was still a school Principal and he loved children. Duo was, in his eyes, still a child.

The door on his side of the car opened and he hissed loudly as hands hell on him, dragging him out. The last thing he wanted was that man's hands on him but he had no choice. Zechs helped him to stand, then left him to lean against the car for a moment as he pulled Wufei out as well.

They walked up the stairs like a broken four legged race, Zechs between them, Heero and Wufei hanging off each side, little more than dead weights. There was a kid at the door when they came in and she hurried them off to one of the bedrooms where they found Treize already getting peeling off Duo's shirt.

"No way Atty, they need baths, and band aids and shit first!" The little boy at the foot of the bed who Heero assumed had led Treize through the house was already ushering them back out the door, this time toward the bathroom. Atty followed, grabbing hold of Heero's hand and putting his arm around her small shoulders, trying to take some of his weight from Zechs. She looked so completely concerned he couldn't help but try and smile for her but he had a feeling it looked more like the death glare he wanted to give Zechs.

They were running the water and for once Heero found it amusing, that it trickled out so slowly and the kids watched it so carefully because to them it was the most precious thing in the world, while outside there was more than they had probably seen in their lifetimes. Still, they ran him a large bath, and they left him and Wufei a first aid kit large enough to run a small medical center. Unfortunately, they left them a Zechs first.

Zechs rummaged through the first aid kit and pulled out a pair of scissors, taking a step toward Heero, who simply growled and pushed him off toward Wufei, who needed the help more anyway.

Turning aside, Heero slowly peeled his clothes, off, shirt first. His hands were black and caked with blood and dirt and he didn't even want to know what. His side was raw and seeping, his chest and arms littered with scratches and grazed raw. He was red as a tomato, each wound stained with the red soil that was the Bush's trademark.

His jeans came next, peeled off along with skin and mud and tossed aside, useless, never to be worn again. Heero stared at his leg in quiet fascination. The tree had done a good job on him and the jeans had managed to hold it all in place. The cut was deep, bone deep in several places but the thick denim had glued itself to the skin, halting the bleeding, a makeshift bandage. Now they were removed blood was already pooling on the floor.

"Shit!" Hands were suddenly about his waist, hauling him around, pushing him over into the shower, which was hot and steaming as it ran over his skin, but his eyes were transfixed by the blood. It was so red…

Like the blood rain.

And suddenly he could feel again, and his body simply collapsed in the shower stall, falling heavily into something and it took his far too long to realize it was a someone, and even longer to recognize the voice in his ear.

"Shh…it's okay baby, hold still, just let me fix it…"

Agony ripped through him as antiseptic raced across the wound and then it was being scratched at, the dirt picked free before more Dettol, more pain. A towel was pressed to the long wound but Heero could barely focus on any of it. He let Zechs do what he would.

It was sometime later that he realized he was sitting on the toilet seat, wrapped in towels and swathed in bandages and Zechs was kneeling on the floor with Treize, the two of them wrapping a bandage about Wufei's bicep. Atty was standing beside the toilet, eyes wide, clothes in her arms.

"Quatre said to give you these," she said in a very subdued voice. Heero just smiled at her, unable to move and it was Zechs who eventually turned and took them from her, smiling in that way he hated, loathed, detested and sending her off half enamored with him already.

Zechs knelt by Heero then and the look he gave him nearly broke Heero's heart. Again. He didn't want to see that man. Not now, not ever.

"We need to get you dressed baby."

"Don't…" Heero struggled with himself, trying to choke the words out. "Don't call me that. I'm not…that…anymore."

A flicker of doubt crossed Zech's face but it was gone as quickly as it came, as so many things were where he came from. Heero just reached out wearily and tried to grab the clothes, but Zechs kept them firmly in his grasp and pass him the white cotton briefs. Blushing as he realized he was buck naked under the towel, Heero ground his teeth until Zechs turned around and let him put them on.

He needed help to get the shirt on, and it was Zechs who put the pants on him. He was weak and it was embarrassing and despite the fact he was cleaner than he had been in a long time he felt dirty while those hands touched him. Filthy, tainted, abused…

"Get away from me," he murmured and was rewarded with an indulgent, lazy smile. He looked past Zechs at Wufei, who was almost dressed, and simply reached out, through the pain, pushing Zechs away from him, slamming him backward into the hard, tile wall before stumbling forward and offering Wufei a hand up.

"It's okay," Wufei smiled faintly, leaning back against the bathtub. "Go see Duo."

Heero didn't want to leave him there, but something passed between them all, a look between Treize and Wufei and himself and Heero felt himself nod before he stumbled out the door, kicking it shut behind him, knowing perfectly well that Zechs was in its way.

Trowa was there, but Quatre was noticeably absent. Trowa had a small bucket at the end of the bed and was slowly washing Duo's hair. He looked…clean. And pale. And…warm. Smiling, Heero collapsed on the side of the bed and reached out to brush the wet strands of hair off Duos face.

"He's just asleep. He'll wake up soon."

Heero just nodded at the words. They didn't really matter, not after the fear.

"I don't understand…" Trowa said softly, face showing small signs of confusion, like the way his brow crinkled slightly or he almost seemed to frown. "Why would he go there?"

Heero just shook his head and ran a finger down Duo's nose, loving the feel of the skin under his, of the breath shaking in and out against his wrist where it hovered near Duo's mouth.

"I thought he went to the river, because…" Because Helen drowned in the river.

"Duo's scared of the river," Heero said softly. "He hates storms too." He smiled as he idly played with the small wisp of hair that hovered near Duo's ear, very much aware of Trowa's surprise.

"But…he's always talking about Bunyips," Trowa noted, confused. "He loves them…"

"No," Heero shook his head sadly, reliving his mad dash to the window, the way he had struggled to reach it in time, the way his hand had dipped down, struggling for purchase only to catch thin air. Bunyip's didn't welcome strangers infringing on what was theirs. Not one bit.

"He talks about a Bunyip, and a river, and both of those are gone. He talks about the dead ones, Trowa…the ones that can't hurt him anymore."

He looked up to find Trowa confused. They locked gazes and Heero took the moment to lie down at Duo's side.

"The dried up Billabong?" Trowa asked at last and Heero nodded.

"A place where the river didn't flow anymore, and where the Bunyip had long gone. Some place where there was nothing left to steal the things you didn't have to lose."

They were quiet for a long time. So long Heero wondered if he had fallen asleep and it wasn't just a dream. Maybe he had never woken up and he was still back in the house, waiting for the storm to pass.

But he had not fallen asleep, it really had all happened.

"Then…what Bunyip is he talking about all the time?" Trowa finished washing Duo's hair and pulled out a brush, running it through the long strands that were swept over the back of the pillow to fall down the head of the bed where Trowa was crouched.

"The one that moved into the Billabong here, because all the rest were taken," Heero said softly, sleepily. Dreamily.

He woke to something wet on his face. He opened his eyes to find Duo's face swimming right in front of his own, the tip of his braid being swept lazily over his nose.

"Duo!" Heero sat up faster than he should have, feeling the headache pound through his head, but he didn't care.

"Mm."

"You're okay."

"Mm."

There was a knock on the door and when it opened Wufei came in, looking a little unsure of himself, and still pale as a ghost. Heero just nodded to him and he came all the way in, closing the door behind him and sitting down on the bed beside them.

"You're both okay?"

"Mm." Unison, and they all laughed a little but it was a dry, restrained laugh with little humour.

"I'm glad," Wufei said softly, reaching out to toy with the edge of the blanket Duo was lying under. "Quatre…he's a mess. His sister is driving out to take care of everything…"

"What happened…to Cat?" Duo coughed a little, looking at them expectantly, eyes clouded with confusion.

"His dad died," Wufei replied quickly and it was a lot nicer than what Heero had been about to say.

"Sucks."

"Mm." All together now. Heero chuckled softly but the others didn't get the joke.

"There are some people who want to talk to you, Heero…" Wufei sounded like it was the last thing he wanted to suggest, but that he had spoke loudly. "I can stay with Duo, if you want."

Heero didn't want, but he would not be a coward either. He was not afraid anymore. Sighing heavily, he pushed himself up off the bed, kissing Duo gently on the forehead as he went, nodding his thanks to Wufei, who just waved a hand in his general direction. Heero noted idly that the hand sported nine band aids and they were just the ones he could see from that particular angle.

They were waiting in the hallway and their hands were there, reaching out to touch him and pull him closer as they pulled him out to the front verandah, eyes filled with concern that just made him hate them more. They had no right to be concerned. No right for anything.

"How do you feel?" Treize asked and it was such a politely phrased question Heero felt he had to answer.

"Fine."

"So…who's the kid?"

Heero blinked, looking back through the still open doorway.

"He's…the kid off the side of the road that you saw…" Heero thought that would have been obvious but Zechs and Treize were shaking their heads.

"No, we would have thought that was a girl. The kid we saw had short hair and we thought it was a guy…had this dumb little black cap on," Zechs noted.

Heero's brain stumbled, froze and he turned to stare at Treize, horrified. How could he not have known? How could he not have stopped? Done something? Anything? How could they all have been so blind? His mind was dredging up his class role, running methodically through the addresses he had never paid attention to. Sure enough, the name was there, in his head.

"You idiots!" Heero bellowed, rushing inside as quickly as he could in his injured state. "Trowa!"

Trowa came striding through from the kitchen, perplexed but ready. He could see immediately that something was wrong and grabbed the discarded pack from the front door they had assembled in town.

"What's wrong?" Zechs, confused, was right behind him, too close for comfort. Heero pushed him aside as he headed for one of the Station utes.

"Heero! What's going on?" Zechs woulnd't let up and only Treize's restraining hand on his shoulder was holding his ire in check. Heero didn't care. They didn't matter at that moment.

"That child you didn't help was you fucking daughter Treize!"

The gears ground together in Trowa's haste to leave. The water was slowing down, settling and sinking into the earth. The air was thick, the sun breaking through the clouds for greater intervals, burning the water, scorching the air dry of its moisture. Mozzies were everywhere and the flies were gathering. When they reached the turn off onto the main road, Heero spotted a fat crow on the fence post.

"Fark," it screeched at them, flapping its wings and taking flight. Heero did not think it was a good sign.