Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Palace of Justice ❯ 25 ( Chapter 25 )

25:

Somehow, despite knowing he should be, Trowa was not surprised. He stared at the gun in Nataku's hand and then at her face and he had no idea if she was doing it because she wanted to or because she had no choice but the why was at this point irrelevant. She had a gun aimed at him, and that didn't sit well with him at all. More importantly, she had a gun pointed at him and Quatre.

“Taku?”

“Hand him over. Now.”

“Son of a...” Giles muttered and Nataku snarled but her hand didn't waver and her gaze remained frozen on Trowa. That she felt frustrated, Trowa thought was a good sign. Frustration meant she was at least still thinking about it, even if it didn't mean she necessarily had a choice.

“You know I can't do that,” Trowa replied coldly, still not sure what to make of the situation and wishing he had more time to sleep, get himself together and then think about things, because he wasn't really sure about anything any more and suspected he was losing his mind. For all he knew he was dreaming right now, only that would have been too easy.

“I know.” Was that remorse he heard in her voice? For what? That couldn`t be good… “I was just hoping I didn`t.” Nataku replied and there was a hint of a smile as she pulled the trigger.

Trowa heard it a long time before he felt it. The click as it all came together inside and then the bang as it exploded out. He fancied he even heard the hiss of air it displaced as it travelled and he definitely heard the thunk as it collided with flesh and bone.

He realised he was falling a moment before he felt the floor and the cold of it and heard Quatre crying out, reaching for him and clutching at his hand. All of it long before he felt anything. His fingers were numb. He only knew Quatre was holding his hand because he could see their fingers entwined.

By the time it registered, that he'd actually been shot, Nataku had forced Quatre off him with inhuman strength and hauled him into the lift. Where they went from there, Trowa had no idea. He was still on the floor, wondering why it was so damn cold, and why his heart was beating so damn loud in his ears.

“Fuck! Oh my god…Fuck!” Giles swearing was odd and Tracey seemed to be muttering under her breath, but Trowa couldn't make it out over the pounding in his ears. That was when it started to register. A deep ache at first that grew in intensity, blooming through his chest and spreading through his side. It felt…wet. Too wet, and that was when it all came together in his sleep addled brain.

“She shot me!”

“Triton?” Hatty was hovering worriedly by his side, looking horrified and confused at the same time. It wasn't a look that suited her incomplete face. He wondered if it made any sense to her, being shot? If it would have hurt, had it been her? He didn't want her to find out, ever, which was a little ironic considering who'd shot him. But he knew by the look on her face, by the expression, which was human, regardless of anything else, that she was innocent. That she cared, and even if she didn't understand it right now she was hurting because he was hurt.

“She shot me!” Trowa pointed out to Hatty, not really having believed she was capable of it. She'd always seemed so…so…So like Wufei. As if Wufei would hesitate to shoot him if he felt it was necessary. He'd just been a love sick fool and hadn't been willing to accept she was her own person…robot…whatever. Of course she could bloody well shoot him. And she had!

“Fuck. She shot me!” It was still a little hard to believe.

“We know she shot you, you're all over the fucking floor!” Tracey ground out, trying to help Giles cut away pieces of his shirt and bind it around the wound. Trowa wasn't even sure where it was, somewhere in his chest but it was hard to pinpoint exactly where when it all hurt. All felt cold and engulfed in agony. Was it really supposed to hurt that much?

“We've got to get him help,” Giles muttered and was already hauling him toward the Pad, pointing at the table. “Hatty, set the Pad to the Earth coordinates we have!”

“Yes, Sir!”

“No!” But they were ignoring him, dragging him on and Hatty was doing as she was told and he wanted to hit her, teach her that she didn't have to. That she had free will. But what if they didn't? Wasn't this proof enough that they certainly did not? Unless this was Nataku's will, he had no way of knowing. He just didn't want to believe it. Why the hell did she shoot him? What was she going to do with Quatre? What the hell was going on?

“I have to stay here!” He had to make sure Quatre didn't die, and that Frank didn't win, and that Heero didn't blow them all up. No way could he leave just because he got shot.

“What you need is something to plug the fucking hole in your chest!” Tracey snapped and he had to agree that she was probably right, but they could do that here. Right? He knew first aid, he would give them instructions, they would patch him up and it would all be fine. They could get on with the real work that had to be done.

It was only then that it occurred to him that it had to be bad. That there was a lot of blood scrawled across the floor where they had dragged him and that his inability to feel much was not likely a good sign. That they were panicking because they couldn't just patch him up; because he might be dying.

“Fuck.”

“Send him Hatty!”

“I want to go with Triton!” Hatty was at his side immediately and holding his hand and Trowa stared at his hand in hers and felt that same strange sense of pride. She wasn't Nataku, or Wufei. She was her own…person? He wanted to tell her something reassuring, to give her a positive to think about. To assure her everything would be okay and they would find a way to beat Frank and everyone would live happily ever after. He wanted to give her a fairy tale, because little girls always liked those.

But he'd never believed in them himself, they were never reality. And words didn't come, or escape him.

Tracey dragged Hatty off the Pad screaming and Giles hit a key on the keyboard. It was the last thing Trowa saw before the nausea and agony pulled him under.

There were no dreams, no fears, no thoughts. There was nothing at all, not even consciousness of nothing.

*

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Frowning, Trowa tried to ignore the incessant noises but they were like a clock ticking in a silent room and that had always bugged the crap out of him. He forced himself to accept he was waking up and let his eyes slide open.

“You got shot.”

That voice. Trowa's eyes went wide and he tried to sit up but pain blossomed hard through his chest and he found himself still on his back, struggling for breath.

“Idiot! Stay still!”

He forced himself to take deep breaths, waited for the pain to subside before daring to open his eyes for fear it was a hallucination. At first he thought it was. He wasn't sure half the past few days hadn't been a hallucination. Apart from the getting shot bit, that was obviously real.

The same skin tight black suit, the same golden caps on the plugs, the same liquid inside. The same boots, the same hair…the same face. He felt panic rising as he took it all in, distracted by the appearance and thinking, just for a moment, that he had been taken by Her. But this time the voice was the one he wanted to hear and when he met the annoyed gaze it was Wufei's soul looking back.

“Wufei…”

“No, the tooth fairy, yes Wufei you moron!”

Trowa didn't think that was really fair. It wasn't like there was much he could have done about anything. Because he remembered now that Wufei had reminded him. He was shot. By Nataku! Somehow that only made it worse. A lot worse. She was supposed to be his companion, a brother in arms. He really had to be more careful when picking allies.

Note to self: robots are untrustworthy. But Hatty's face came to mind and he just sighed. Generalizations were bad for ones health, and politically incorrect to boot. That was how they'd taught Heero, anyway, after the war, and it seemed to have worked for him. So far. It didn't stop his first reaction being `destroy everything' though.

“Don't sigh at me! Do I have to remind you, you got shot? As in someone put a bullet in you. And not just a bullet in you, but they blew a hole through your damn chest? A really big one that leaked blood everywhere and left you with little pieces missing?”

It was nice, to hear Wufei so furious. It meant he was feeling better, and that he cared, both being things Trowa treasured. He smiled, knowing full well it wasn't what Wufei wanted to see but unable to do anything else. He was happy to be there, with Wufei again, regardless of the circumstances.

Even if he did have to go and get back to Frank. Hatty would be worried.

“Lie the fuck down!” Wufei bellowed at him, standing up and pinning him hard to the bed.

“Hi.” Had his eyes always had that hint of honey near the edge?

But he was glaring hard and Trowa forced himself to think seriously. He was shot, but how bad? Wufei said pieces missing. Rib likely, and that wasn't too bad, but his lungs hurt which meant it had probably put a hole in one and that definitely wasn`t good. That took far too long to heal. So he wasn't likely to be going anywhere anytime soon. Not with permission, anyway.

“Quatre?”

“Heero and Duo have gone in.” That was a start, and Wufei clearly seemed to think it was the end of it. Trowa had to agree that Duo and Heero weren't likely to give up until the mission was accomplished but it felt wrong. It was his mission, not theirs. Quatre's safety had been his responsibility and he'd screwed it up all because he trusted a machine. Had valued a machine the same way he valued his friends.

“I'm serious, Barton. Stay in the bed or I'll break your legs.” He would, too.

“How long was I out?” He knew as soon as he asked, by the way Wufei hesitated, for even a second, that it had been a while.

“Four days.” Days!

Four days, and Heero and Duo weren't back yet, didn't have Quatre back yet. But that might not be true, they might have Quatre and just be staying on Frank, to keep an eye on things. Like he was supposed to be doing. Or they might all be dead. Nataku wasn't human, who really knew what she was capable of. Sure, she'd been on their side, but she sure as hell wasn't now.

Was she?

“Why'd she do it?” It was a rhetorical question. He was just voicing it to get his thoughts clear around the fuzziness he felt from the drugs. But Wufei sighed and slumped back in his chair, toying idly with the edge of the sheet.

“Who shot you?”

They didn't even know that? Trowa gaped, wondering just what the hell had been going on for four days that they hadn't even found that out. Was it that unimportant? Was he that unimportant that it didn't even matter who put an apparently giant hole in his chest?

“Nataku.”

Not even a flinch, just a very slight frown and Trowa could see him thinking about it. Was he worried? Was it concerning that his female clone robot had tried to kill his lover? Did he consider that a betrayal? Did he even think of him as his lover? He wished he could read Wufei's mind.

But the frown turned dark and Wufei's eyes were blank, as if he were a long way off suddenly, seeing something else, doing other things. No sitting beside Trowa having a conversation at last. Not really there at all.

Very carefully, so as not to disturb anything, Trowa forced himself to sit up, shifting his pillows to support him and moving the various contraptions they had him hooked up to so they weren't tangled across him, all the while leaving the piece of sheet in Wufei's hand perfectly still. Wufei didn't react at all, which was a good thing in Trowa's opinion as he valued his legs and the ability to walk and he had no real doubt that Wufei would follow through on his threat.

But Wufei was otherwise occupied, and Trowa took the chance to really look at him. He was still pale, and thin, and there was a light sheen of sweat on his skin from recent exertion, but he looked a thousand times better than the last time Trowa had seen him. The plugs appeared a neat invention, even if he didn't really approve. He understood them needing a temporary fix to keep Wufei alive, but this seemed a little too permanent. He wanted the plugs gone, removed and Wufei free of the Origen capsule for good. This wasn't free, not by a long shot.

Especially when he was doing what he was doing.

Fury rose in Trowa, but he didn't take it out on Wufei like Heero might have. It wasn't fury aimed at Wufei to begin with, so what would have been the point in that. No, he'd had his bed rest, and it was time to move. He didn't have time to sleep, nor any inclination to do so. He left the sheet in Wufei's care and very carefully shifted himself to the side of the bed, no longer surprised when Wufei didn't react at all. He wasn't seeing Trowa at all.

Getting up was harder than he had expected, but once there the rest was easy. He turned off the alarms first, then the machines, placing it all carefully away before looking around the room for his clothes. They were gone. What was it with hospital staff always stealing your clothes? There was something really inherently wrong in that!

Walking was hard, and it hurt. A lot. The first step he almost fell flat on his face. The second he wished he had, but it was like Molecularization. It got easier, somehow, and he made it to the door, leaning on it for support and looking up and down the hallway outside.

“Preventers Medical. Dandy.” That meant the Pad Farrar had built couldn't be that far away. Up a few levels, in whatever room Heero had deemed worthy.

“TROWA BARTON YOU ARE A DEAD MAN!”

And finally, Wufei had stopped being creepy and was back to screaming at him. Hands came up under his arms and supported him, Wufei's weight solid behind him and Trowa felt himself relax back into it as though it were natural. He wanted it to be.

“Please don't break my legs.”

“Don't beg me like a dog,” Wufei grumbled, but Trowa knew he'd won him over. Besides, he'd walked on his own. He was fine. Especially while Wufei was holding him like that. It felt good…ridiculously, incredibly, unbelievably good. Maybe he should get shot more often…

“Get shot again and I'll break more than your legs!” Wufei snapped. Trowa hadn't known he was so easy to read. Quatre wouldn't have known what he was thinking, but then Quatre wouldn't have been holding him quite the way Wufei was. It just made Trowa happy, which he supposed was a little masochistic of him, but he didn`t care.

“I need clothes.”

Wufei looked him up and down and then sighed, changing his grip and putting one of Trowa's arms over his shoulders so he could support his weight better. Pain ripped through Trowa's chest at the position but he didn't complain, gritting his teeth and refusing to show it hurt because Wufei would make him go back to bed. No way was he going back there now.

Wufei assisted him down several hallways and into a storage closet, closing the door and rummaging through the shelves until he pulled out a clean Preventers field uniform in Trowa's size. It was so random, and so perfectly a Wufei thing to do, to go get a damn uniform to put on instead of just the first clothes he could find, that Trowa laughed. Wufei clearly didn't find it amusing, but that only made him laugh more. It was typical that he had to get shot just to feel so damn good.

“Get dressed,” Wufei grumbled, kneeling down to help him into the trousers, getting the zip and button for him at the fly. It felt good just to have pants on again, he didn't fancy the idea of the nurses ogling his ass. The t-shirt was harder and he had to bite his tongue from screaming, managing to keep it to a few grunts as Wufei helped get it over his bandages. It gave him a better understanding of his injuries and just why Wufei was so concerned. Whatever she'd shot him with, it sure as hell hadn't been a simple pistol.

Shoes and socks were easy after that; he just sat down and Wufei put them on for him. Trowa came up with all kinds of inappropriate fantasies while Wufei was kneeling between his knees but he figured it was perfectly normal. They were locked in a closet, after all, and it was the man of many, many, many of his dreams. So. Totally normal.

“What happened, in the room…” Because Wufei had left it, or his mind had, and Trowa needed to know.

“There's…stuff…in my brain. Things they did, to make me.” To make him part of Frank. Like Nataku. The plugs were just the surface, there was more underneath. Which was likely why they had opted for the temporary solution of the caps. To buy them time to study Wufei and what had been done to him. Trowa wanted to scream at them, to say no and demand they fix him now. Only that made him sound like a machine, because he needed repairs, and that wasn't so. Wufei was perfect, before and now and after, Trowa just wanted him happy and he didn't think the ports made him happy at all.

“Wufei…can you access Frank?”

“Yes.” And Trowa was certain no one else had bothered to ask, or even put two and two together.

“Nataku?”

“A little, but she's out of my control at the moment.” Because she was in Frank's. But for how long had she been working against them? How much of their work had been sabotaged? How much had Frank known of what they were doing? How much about Preventers did Frank now know?

“At the moment?”

“When I was the Origen, she was like my legs. I could ask her to do things and she would. But after…” He shrugged and there was a sense of loss to the tone of his voice. Trowa understood it well, but he doubted his own feeling of betrayal was anything akin to Wufei's. She had been a part of him, his only means of communication in the world.

“After we plugged her in,” Trowa realised. That was when Wufei had lost contact with her. Wufei just nodded and Trowa sighed, leaning back against the wall while Wufei slid a belt through his pants just to make sure he didn't embarrass himself completely.

They'd done a lot since Nataku went in the capsule and Wufei came out. So much, and Frank had known about all of it. No wonder everything they tried had failed. It had all been so laughably easy for Frank. They had all been so stupid.

“I don't think Frank had control of her the whole time,” Wufei said softly, looking at Trowa's face and guessing the line of his thoughts. “I could still communicate with her, if I needed to.” Just not control her. “But just before she came here that connection severed entirely. I can't access her at all now.”

That made Trowa frown, thinking about what they had been doing before they sent Hatty through to Earth. Farrar had been building the Pad, Tracey was helping him, Giles was…being Giles. Nothing out of the ordinary, except…

“They repaired her access. Boosted her wireless.”

“What? Who did?”

“Farrar.”

The name clearly meant more to Wufei than it did to Trowa, because his eyes went wide and there was fear clear in every line of his body. Trowa reacted immediately, reaching out and drawing him in against his chest, ignoring how much it hurt and just cradling him.

“Shh. You're safe. I'm here, it's going to be okay.”

“I never knew you were such a moron,” Wufei snapped, carefully extracting himself and examining Trowa's chest as if he expected to see blood. When there wasn't any he just folded his arms over his chest and glared.

“Let us get one thing straight. You do not leave my side. You do not try to be a hero and you do not try to protect me. I protect you. You are the one with a hole in your chest.”

“Technically, you have a hole in yours too…” And he so shouldn't have pointed that out judging by the way Wufei had a knife pointed at his face.

“Get it through that over-imaginative moronic brain of yours. I am in charge here. I'm taking you with me because if I didn't you would go do something stupid on your own.”

It was so nice to know Wufei knew him so well. Trowa just nodded agreement because he didn't actually want to argue. Go with Wufei? Hell yes. Do what Wufei said? For the most part, hell yes! What was supposed to be the down side of this?

“Through my over-imaginative moronic brain it is.”

Wufei rolled his eyes but put his knife away but not before staring at the blade and frowning and Trowa knew exactly where they were going next, which was good because he was getting himself one of these nifty guns that blew massive holes in people. Or two of them.

“Armoury,” Trowa grinned because those places were just fun.

“Armoury,” Wufei agreed, helping Trowa up and checking the hallway outside. There was a commotion around the corner and Trowa realised they knew he was gone.

“Gig's up, let's move.” But he didn't need to say it. Wufei was already slipping under his arm, taking his weight and hauling him out of the closet. They moved quickly, and Trowa honestly had no clue at all where they were going until Wufei left him leaning against the wall and rounded a corner by himself which was just not on. Trowa scowled and shifted enough to peek around the corner himself just in time to see Wufei knock the second guard unconscious.

He didn't mind hanging back and watching Wufei do his thing. At all. He was just concerned that Wufei wasn't ready to be doing things like knocking people unconscious. Not that he was going to tell Wufei that was what he was worried about, he didn't have a death wish. Life was far too good to be trying to off himself.

“Stop staring,” Wufei grumbled, hauling Trowa into the armoury and it was the perfect distraction for both of them. Trowa wasn't surprised at all to see Wufei head for the blades, moving himself to the guns because really, what had that thing Nataku had looked like?

There it was. It looked shiny and new and he strapped one to a holster on his thigh immediately, and then took another. Only there were so many more interesting looking things and he found himself strapping on a lot more holsters and then knives. Oh god, he loved knives and Preventers armoury had some beautiful knives. He took as many as he could hide and then turned to grin at Wufei.

“You're like a child, I swear.” But he was smiling and Trowa knew it wasn't just because he had a sword strapped to his back. He let Wufei slip in under his arm again, glad he hadn't strapped anything sharp around his chest and then they were moving again and he had to grit his teeth against the pain. It was getting easier though, his mind numbing to it the longer he had to move and cope with it.

“Do we have a plan?” Because Heero was always such a stickler for plans and Trowa was wiling to admit he had gotten used to Heero having a plan.

“You said Farrar repaired Nataku's access issues? Ones she had been having since she was removed from the capsule?”

“Yes?”

“Farrar is the one that stuck all this shit in me!” Wufei ground out and the rage was back, making his eyes dark and his expression darker. His hands clutched at Trowa, but the ache of them felt good against the agony of his wound. And the pain of knowing he'd trusted someone he shouldn't have. Again.

Farrar. He remembered the way Farrar had looked at Wufei at the temple when they sheltered there from the search for the Origen, and remembered that Farrar had recognised Wufei immediately. He'd thought it strange at the time, but hadn't followed his suspicions, wanting to trust. He'd been a damn Monk! But he'd known, recognised Wufei immediately, because he'd been inside Wufei, stripped him down to bone and muscle and rebuilt him.

Just like he'd built the Pads, while Harrison was busy building and designing Frank, Farrar had been building the Origen to run it. Not brothers at odds with one another but brothers in arms, working together, each with their own cover. Harrison in the military, keeping an eye on people's actions while Farrar was in the shrine, keeping an eye on their souls.

“I'm such a moron.”

“I've been trying to tell you that since you woke up.”

“Where is he now?” Because he wanted to kill the man and he had fancy new guns he knew for a fact would hurt appropriately.

“Last I heard he was going back to Frank to reprogram the additional Pads to link to Earth through the main one on Level 5.”

Great. So they would have immediate access to all the points in Frank from Earth. Except Level 1. At least Farrar couldn't get there, if he was working for Frank as they suspected.

“So we're following, right?” That was the plan?

“We're following.” He liked this plan! Though he had visions of re-Molecularizing only to be shot again as soon as they arrived. He kept those thoughts to himself.

Wufei seemed to have a much better understanding of Preventers than Trowa, judging by the weaving, backwards way they took to get into the higher levels. That, or he was horribly lost.

Only the emerged into a hallway with two guards on the door who looked distinctly uncomfortable at seeing them both there and when Wufei approached they just stepped aside.

The Pad was in the middle of the room, and was a hell of a lot bigger than the one on Frank, not to mention the laser. Trowa recalled that the one on Frank's Level 5 didn't need to be as large because it was connected wirelessly to Frank's eye. This sure as hell seemed to make up for it. Though really, Trowa was still questioning it's ability to send him all the way to Frank and not leave him out in space somewhere. Or nowhere at all.

“Barton, what the hell are you doing out of bed? You were shot, if someone neglected to tell you!”

“I told him. Numerous times,” Wufei grumbled. Une seemed unimpressed, glaring at them both down her nose and it was the first time Trowa realised how tall she had grown. She was almost his height, when he was standing, which wasn't quite what he would call what he was doing now.

“I'm fine.”

“Yes, because fine people lean on other fine people all the time.” But she turned and spoke quietly to one of the men, who hurried out to do whatever errand she had arranged before she turned back to them.

“You're not going.”

“We are,” Wufei corrected. “You either let us officially, or I'm going to knock you out and go anyway.”

“Are you now,” Une arched a brow at him and Trowa had to smile because she had to get a lot of threats like that with Duo and Heero permanently on staff. He looked mild by comparison and felt a little left out.

“Not me. I'm just going to shoot you.”

That got both their attention and Trowa just grinned, smug and entirely delighted by their reaction. At least he didn't feel left out anymore.

“Alright, alright, but at least tell me why?”

“Farrar is working for Frank,” Trowa replied immediately, watching her quickly put the pieces of the puzzle together and she was nodding, just like that and he realised that was why she was head of Preventers. She understood when things were convoluted, and saw possible solutions and leapt to massive conclusions most people simply weren't capable of. It was, perhaps, what Treize had seen in her, many years ago now.

“Bring him in, if you can.” If. Which meant they had permission to kill if it wasn't. Like they needed permission.

But Trowa was chuckling as he stepped onto the Pad and got ready to go and Wufei glared at him for an explanation.

“It's just, before I got shot…we were complaining about people from Earth just showing up with no warning.”

“Well. Let's hope Giles hasn't learnt from your mistake,” Wufei grumbled, hauling Trowa into position with him.

“I don't make mistakes!”

“You meant to get shot?”

Une looked entirely relieved to press the send button.