Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ World on Fire ❯ Job Part 2 ( Chapter 9 )

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing so far, you're all great :)

This week's post has been beta'd by cozzybob.

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It was morning when Trowa awoke from his all too inadequate sleep, rough and sore from the improvised bedding of seats that were never designed to be comfortable even when you sat in them properly.

It seemed that Heero had not gone to sleep at all, spending the time he was supposed to be on watch keeping Relena up as well. It had just been an inkling at the start, however Trowa was beginning to suspect that indeed Heero did have a heart and he seemed to be willing to give it away to the first girl he met. Of course, there was the irony there that now he was poking his nose into Heero's supposed relationship, something he had been annoyed at Heero for doing just yesterday. Although, Trowa supposed, it could be considered just payback.

Considering that he should check on Relena again, he climbed down the ladder to the lower level of the plane where he found both Heero and Relena right where he left them when he had gone to bed. It appeared they had finally given in to sleep, Relena just passed out on the bed, Heero leaned over and resting his head next to her. Though it could have classed as sweet and adorable, Trowa was only glad for the fact that it was Heero that got to tell her about the firestorms, not him. He was never the most calming influence.

Silently Trowa left them to their sleep, climbing back up the ladder to the main bay, intent on finding either Quatre or Duo so they could get back in the air and out of this burnt botanical graveyard. By chance he found Quatre first, sitting at the rear exit with his legs swinging over the drop, a computer in his lap that he quickly closed upon hearing Trowa's approaching footsteps.

“Has Heero found out anything about the girl?” Trowa asked, stopping to lean on one of the massive hydraulic arms that were holding the rear bay open.

“Relena,” Quatre corrected pointedly, swinging his legs back to the floor to stand up as he explained. “Her name is Relena, and he has found out less than he has told her. She was the daughter of the Vice Foreign Minister and accompanied him on his latest trip to the colonies. Her father died immediately following the plane crash.”

Trowa just nodded, not hearing anything particularly remarkable in Quatre's assessment of the situation. It seemed they had come all this way just to rescue one girl whose parentage may have been useful a month ago but was of little use now. “I take it we plan to head back, now?” He stated more than asked.

“Duo's preparing the plane at the moment.”

Trowa nodded at the response, shifting his weight off the hydraulic arm to leave when he was struck with a sudden thought. “If we had this plane all along, why haven't we used it to scout?”

Quatre stopped his own walk back to the cockpit, not turning his head as he replied, “It's not well shielded against radiation. We need to conserve fuel. We didn't know where to go. There were a lot of reasons, Trowa.”

“Yet it was used to rescue a single girl?” He retorted, ignoring the annoyed look he was receiving.

“The first survivor we know of. That's important if nothing else. If she survived, maybe others have too.”

Trowa walked away from the other boy, more questions playing through his mind though they were not ones he wanted to voice just yet. He was beginning to believe that Heero may have had a good point, that Quatre and the Maguanacs were holding back much more than they knew: perhaps they were not just minor details or oversights as he had thought before. He would have to have a long discussion with Heero at some point, at least once the other boy was done with Relena.

“Duo.” He announced upon arriving in the cockpit, seeing the braided boy sitting in the pilots seat, several generic ship statistics playing across the screen.

“Hey, Tro.” Duo swivelled the seat around, his expression softening into a smile. "We're just about ready to go.”

“Heero seems a bit... preoccupied, so I guess I'm copiloting for this one.” Trowa explained as he sat down, giving a puzzled blink when Duo suddenly grinned, leant over and planted a kiss on his mouth. It was almost embarrassing; they were beginning to act like infatuated schoolboys. The thought did cross his mind that they were infatuated teenagers, so it was probably excusable... still embarrassing, though.

“Let's get started then.” Duo had already swivelled back to the controls by the time Trowa had sorted through his surprise, already warming up the engines by the time that Trowa had taken over his own controls.

As the copilot he was charged with all the systems that were not essential to keeping in the air, but still essential were all in place. Thankfully Quatre had made sure the rear exit was shut when he left, leaving him with an easy array of green lights as the plane sealed itself and pressurised. With that done, it seemed like the copilot in this plane had little else to do until they were in the air and he was in charge of system monitoring and navigation.

“All green.” Trowa relayed to Duo, tightening the harness around himself as the plane began to shudder. He noticed with some dismay as he did so that the harness was designed for someone much bigger and well, fully grown, so he ended up with most of the heavy buckle hanging just above his crotch; not the sort of place you wanted it in an emergency landing. It would make concentrating on the plane much harder, that was for sure.

Duo wasted no time in getting the plane airborne, surprisingly a much smoother transition than when they had first left. It seemed that after just one flight behind the controls of the plane, he was already an expert on it. He's a much better pilot than I am, Trowa thought, biting back a small amount of pride for himself, though strangely he was feeling pride for the other pilot.

The trip itself was uneventful, Quatre seemed to be avoiding the cockpit alltogether and Heero was still downstairs with Relena. That left the two of them alone in the cockpit to talk, which Duo seemed to believe was a requirement rather than just a way to pass the time. Duo had indeed brought out some socialisation in Trowa, but nothing changes that easily. He was still terse rather than verbose, serious rather than animated. Duo never seemed to mind though, happy enough to fill the silence with his own chattering from a seemingly endless pool of topics that he could draw from.

“Are you going to see Brian when you get back?” Trowa asked after a while, stirring Duo out of his meandering story of life on the streets of L2.

“Yeah, I guess so. It's getting harder.” Duo admitted, giving the back of his head its customary nervous scratch. “Doesn't even look like him anymore. He's wrapped in so many bandages now it's like talking to a mummy.”

Trowa didn't respond, already regretting how he had brought up the subject. He figured that Duo had been going to see the other man on his many exploratory adventures of the base, but he had been ignorant of just how bad his condition was.

“I keep bringing a gun in, ya know? Just in case he wants me to kill him.” Duo sighed. His expression somehow managed to provide an even more downcast and heartbreaking look than Trowa had thought possible. “I'd do it. I'd be happy to. He keeps on trying to hide it, but I can tell he's in pain. Shit, if that happened to me I'd be begging you to shoot me.”

*

Heero was sitting in the infirmary next to Relena's bed, talking in a situation that had become very familiar to the two over the past day. It had been hours, yet they had found little break between their conversations, stopping as Relena needed to rest only for her to gasp awake minutes later, shaking and grasping for Heero's hand as another nightmare took hold.

“I was sitting down and just crying, I didn't want to be strong anymore, I didn't want to be a leader like father.” Her head was held down as she spoke the hushed words, shying from them as if their content was treasonous. “I just wanted it to end, I wanted to die if it meant I wouldn't have to be sitting in filth, starving and surrounded by the dead.” She looked up at Heero, her fingers gripping his hand tightly. “Then you came, so beautiful and handsome and strong, my angel coming to rescue me from hell.”

“Obviously you were delirious from malnutrition.” Heero snorted derisively despite another damnable blush crossing his face. A soldier such as he had no use for fancies like romance, though it appeared that teenage hormones were a more powerful force than his willpower.

“When I became a teenager, my mother said it was no use wishing after boys, hoping for a knight to sweep me off my feet.” Her voice hitched as she referred to her mother, throwing the rest of the sentence into barely contained emotion. “She said, 'Be strong and be yourself, when you're happy without a man, that's when you find the right one.'” She lurched from the bed in an ungraceful tangle of tubes and sheets, grabbing a startled Heero by the collar and dragging him closer so she could bury her head in his shoulder as she sobbed. “I don't want to be strong. God, Heero, please... I'll be a simpering, ditzy bitch. I'll set women back a thousand years, I don't give a shit. Just make it go away, please... Heero... just make it go away.”

Heero awkwardly wrapped his arms around her in a loose hug, his mouth working silently to speak words that would not form. He was usually silent, true, but it was a silence of his own volition. This was the first time he had found himself unable to talk when he had actually wanted to. Working his arm around her back, he rubbed a hand soothingly up and down her spine as she sobbed warm tears into his shirt.

With a final sniff she worked her way off Heero's chest, pulling back to sit herself solidly on the hospital bed. “I know I'm being selfish.” She wiped the baggy sleeve of the overlarge patient gown over her eyes, wiping away the tears that hadn't been soaked up by Heero. “I know everyone else has lost as much as me... I just don't think I can cope.”

Heero looked away from her, trying to avoid her tearful eyes and wishing he had a better way with words. Quatre might explain to her that everyone was hurting as much as she was, but they were pulling together to survive and she'd find that strength too. Duo might say that the rest of them were so damaged emotionally that she was the only one having a normal reaction so far. Trowa might... when he thought of what Trowa had done to help cope with the stress he was struck with a foolish impetus. Reaching out his hand to lightly touch Relena's cheek, he brought his face close to the surprised girl, their noses lightly brushing as Heero moved in for the kiss. He brushed his lips slightly across hers, pleased when they opened just slightly enough to give him permission to take it further. He kept it soft and slow, chaste and tender but passionate enough to leave her breathless when he finally let her go.

Take that, Trowa, he thought with a smug sense of satisfaction. Your girl didn't look this pleased when you kissed him.

“You don't need to worry.” Heero soothed as Relena stared on wordlessly with overjoyed wonder. “You're here now, you're safe. We can work through this.”

Weak words to be sure, but they seemed to work well enough on Relena. She settled back into the bed with a smile on her face, content to let Heero continue stroking her hair as she drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

Heero sat there in wonder, absentmindedly brushing out the tattered and knotted locks of Relena's hair. He was feeling confused and guilty in many ways, not the least of which the growing feeling that he was manipulating the girl with her attraction to him, when he could not tell if his affections were directed at her, or as he suspected guilt over a similar young girl he had killed not long ago.

It had not been long after he was recruited by Doctor J, he had been sent on a mission to infiltrate an Alliance military base located on one of the L1 colonies. The mission had begun smoothly, he had made his way to the base commander without being detected and had cleanly slit the mans throat before he could raise an alarm. The complications came shortly after that, when the commander's teenage daughter had come back from the adjoining toilets to find Heero standing over the corpse of her father, bloody knife in hand. He had no choice but to chase down the hysterical and grief-stricken girl, to silence the threat to his identity. She had struggled and run, but after several glancing stab wounds she had succumbed to the loss of blood that had begun decorating the hallway. Eyes full of tears, she asked Heero what she had done to deserve this, in the end begging for her life moments before he slit her throat.

The girl had looked remarkably like the one lying before him now, with sandy blonde hair and the oddly determined features of someone that did not take their birthrights for granted. Like Relena, she had been the daughter of a powerful man and even his brief interaction with her as she ran terrified, bleeding from the wounds he had inflicted, he could tell she would have been a strong woman, much like the one he had in his arms now. She did not stand petrified and helpless, nor did she expect a hero to save her. She had taken her life on herself, trusting in her own abilities to lose Heero... and when that had not worked, she had negotiated, begged. But she never gave up, not until the moment she had been butchered like cattle.

*

“Hey, Heero.” Trowa leaned through the doorway of Relena's room, whispering softly to avoid waking the girl.

“Yes, Barton?”

“Come on out here.” Trowa motioned with his hand for Heero to follow him, slipping out the door into the corridor. It did not take long for Heero to follow suit, entering the corridor himself to find Trowa leaning against the wall, holding a stack of papers to his side.

“I've got some bad news,” Trowa explained, a grim expression plastered over his face. “She has radiation poisoning. Not severe, but it's enough to be lethal.” He waved the stack of papers at Heero, as if they were there to provide some semblance of authority to the statement.

“What is this?” Heero replied with a growl, snatching the papers out of the other boys hand.

“Medical reports.” Trowa looked on with some sympathy as Heero flipped through the stack of papers, empathising with his pain but somehow unable to express that in words. “Her bone marrow is destroyed, the only option is a transplant and at the moment there's just no way...” He trailed off, realising logically that his clinical words were doing nothing to help, but that was all he had.

“Isn't there a doctor that should be telling me this?” Heero narrowed his eyes dangerously at Trowa and for once the former mercenary actually felt uncertain. It was not hard to guess the capabilities of the stoic Yuy, the few exhibitions of speed and strength he had witnessed had been enough to respect his abilities and finding himself looking into the unspoken threat in Heero's eyes, he began to see why no one had been willing to break the news to him.

“It seems I'm the only one not scared of giving you bad news.” Trowa reasoned, shrugging off his own annoying nerves. “You've intimidated pretty much everyone here.” He added in a tone that spoke more of amusement than reprimand.

“Fuck!” Heero snapped, slamming the papers against the door in a futile display of anger, only managing to spread the reports into falling in a slow shower down to the corridor floor.

“Case in point.” Trowa snorted, though the outburst had been more amusing to him than intimidating.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Heero rushed Trowa, grabbing him by the shoulders to slam him against the wall as he snarled out the words, shaking the taller boy against the hard concrete when he proved too dazed to respond. “People say I'm cold, I've got nothing on you. Asshole.”

Grabbing hold of Heero's arm to steady himself, Trowa shook off the dizziness that was taking hold of him. It would be pointless to try to fight the other boy, but that seemed to be where it was heading. “I'm sorry.” He apologised, quickly taking his hand away when Heero got ready to retaliate. “I don't... sorry.” He wanted to say that he really did sympathise with Heero, that he wished he could help in some way. He wanted to say that he didn't intend to be cold, but dry words and dark humour was how he coped with uncomfortable or emotional situations. He wanted to say that he understood, because he had been there before.

He said none of those things, the words caught in his brain by years of emotional indifference. Heero let him go with another small shove, the pained looked on the Japanese boys' face enough for Trowa to revise his approach.

“If... if something like that happened to Duo, I... wouldn't know what to do. It would hurt.” There, he said it. Those small token words were hard enough to say for Trowa, to actually admit weakness like that went against everything he had done in his short life. At least they seemed to reach Heero, the Asian boy nodding wordlessly before he regarded the door behind him, the door that lead to Relena's room.

“How do I tell her?” He asked simply.

“She already knows.” Trowa answered just as plainly, motioning to the papers scattering the floor. “The symptoms are... they will not have been pleasant for her. She must already know.”

*

“Heero?” Relena asked as the door to her room opened, already awake and sitting up in her bed. Several days had passed since the news of her illness had come to her and Heero had spent every waking hour by her side. Every hour that she had seemed to become more and more ill, her skin covered with the same sickly pallor and her hair thinning, becoming impossibly sparse for a young girl as it fell out in clumps.

“How are you feeling today?” Heero asked as he appeared from around the door, a thin smile on his face as he caught sight of the girl.

“Tired, Heero. It's starting to hurt again.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Heero asked, taking his customary seat beside her bed.

“Heero.” Relena dipped her head, patchy strands of hair falling over her face. “We both know how this is going to end.”

“Don't.” Heero took a hold of her hand, choking out the word even before her request. It was obvious, it was something he thought of every night. When was she going to ask him. What would he do when she finally did? “Please, don't ask me to do this.”

“Heero, I'm sorry.” She weakly gripped his hand, trying to look Heero in the eyes, though the boy was refusing to look, his eyes hiding behind his bangs.

“I'm not going to do it, Relena.” He stood up, finally showing her eyes rimmed with tears and determination. “There's going to be some other way. I swear it to you.”

“Heero.” She was saying his name like a mantra now, hoping that the single word would reach him where logic wouldn't.

“No, Relena.” He let her hand drop down as he turned to the door, reverting back to his awkward avoidance of her gaze. “They have doctors. I'll look, I'll find a place that has survived. I'll get supplies, anything they need. I won't give up on you.”

Closing the door before she could protest, he took off down the corridor to find Quatre. Trowa and Duo would be certain to help him, if only for something to do. So focused in his thoughts on what he needed to do, he was halfway down the corridor before he felt something was off. With a sense of dread, he reached into his jacket to find that his gun was missing, the lack of weight causing the odd sensation that had been nagging at him.

He turned back down the corridor, a feeling of helpless inevitability washing over him.

The gunshot echoed down the cold walls.