Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.
Warnings: Male/Male sex, graphic, language, violence, gore, torture, explicit
scenes.
"It's my watch," a thin, dark man told Duo's guard as he stepped into the room.
Duo's guard grunted as he sent Duo swinging hard, one last time in his manacles. Duo was conscious, though he looked ready to pass out again. His body was covered with new bruises and a few odd red sores over his ass.
"What did you do to him?" the dark man wondered with a grimace of disgust.
The guard snickered and showed a taser. "Low voltage, but enough to wake him up for Grainer, and to get him in the proper mood to tell us what we want to know."
"How inventive," the man replied in a tone that implied anything, but.
"Pansy ass," the guard sneered as he pocketed his taser and headed out of the door. "I don't know why Grainer keeps you around."
"Brains," the dark man muttered, "Something that you don't have."
The man approached Duo and looked up into his face. "Aren't you the poor bastard? I wish that I could help you, but things are out of my hands. I've told Grainer, that someone like you, will never crack, but he won't listen. A waste of time, really."
Duo blinked at the man, through a haze of agony, and couldn't help the tears.
"I can at least let you down before your hands pop off of your wrists," the man grunted, and let the chain go slack slowly until Duo was sprawled on the floor. Wrists loose, Duo was able to cradle his privates and curl in on himself.
"I do have a lot of respect for a man like you," he continued as he crouched by Duo. "You give it all, in the name of the things that you believe in. I'm not so altruistic. I love my life far too much." He tucked a small device into Duo's braid, clipping it into the small hairs at the nape of his neck. "Grainer knows that there's a mole, now, so I have to give him one. The device is damaged, so he'll see that you never reached your contact. That will soothe his fears of discovery, and he'll go on with his plan. It is very important that he continue."
The man smoothed a hand along Duo's bloody cheek as Duo managed a glare.
"Don't think that you will tell him," the man warned. "Your silence will buy innocent lives, I promise you."
"Liar," Duo forced from a dry throat.
"Can you know that for sure?" the man wondered and saw the doubt in Duo's eyes. "No, you can't, can you?"
The man patted Duo's cheek and straightened. "I suggest that you tell Grainer what he wants, as well. I don't think that you'll last much longer under his brand of persuasion."
"Fuck you!" Duo swore and then choked on a pain filled cough.
"See? You're getting very close to death. There is a larger game going on than the one you're in. The stakes are high, the prize, hundreds of lives, to save, or to snuff out. It's too late for you to figure out who's on which side of that game, because, unfortunately, your part in the game, is to be a piece that has to be sacrificed. Play your part, Maxwell. Play it well."
The man took up a position, outside of the door, and Duo stared at his back, wondering who he was and what was going on. Play his part? During the war, Duo had seen factions splinter, each splinter developing it's own agenda, sometimes to the detriment of the original faction. It was clear to him, that this man was at odds with Grainer, but Duo wasn't sure if their goals were different. The man could imply it, but Duo wasn't fool enough to believe it. Maybe he didn't have long to live, but he wasn't going to die a coward, or help a man commit mass murder before then. He'd take whatever Grainer dished out.
___________________________________________
"You don't know that this information is accurate," Wu Fei argued.
"Why wouldn't it be accurate?" Heero wanted to know, expression wild. "Why would they lie?"
"Why wouldn't they, if their only goal is to extort money from us?" Wu Fei pointed out. "Besides, it changes nothing. Maxwell's fellow terrorists may have turned on him, but it doesn't change the fact that he sought them out, and planned a heinous act of terrorism, with them."
Heero raked fingers through his hair, staring at the computer screen and the messages from an alleged mole in the terrorist organization. "According to these messages, the plot is still going forward. Someone else is leading them. Shouldn't this man, and the terrorists, be our targets, now?"
"We are not alone in this, Yuy," Wu Fei retorted. "Other agents are positioning themselves to stop them."
"Positioning?" Heero shot back. "Why not stop them now? Why allow this to go any further?"
"You know why!" Wu Fei exclaimed as he leaned over Heero's desk, and ignored the other agents working around them. "If we miss any of them, that's another attack, in the future. We have to make certain that we arrest everyone in the organization."
"And risk lives, by doing so," Heero growled as he tried to hack further into the system.
"It won't get that far," Wu Fei assured him."Une won't allow any civilian to die, during the operation."
"She's God, now? She can't guarantee that, " Heero scoffed. "Here's the location." He pointed to the screen. "We should stop them, now."
"We follow our orders," Wu Fei insisted. "Call Commander Une."
__________________________________
Duo staggered down the hallway. The device the man had left in his hair, had come apart easily. The electronics and a chipped panel, had sprung his manacles. His benefactor, was face down in a pool of blood, dead, or alive, Duo didn't know, or care. The blow from his chains had taken him out instantly. With the man's gun tucked into his belt, and the man's cell in his pocket, he only needed time to take the entire place down to the ground.
_________________________________________________________
"It was only a one second burst," Heero said as he tapped the computer screen with his finger. "It might have been an explosion, of some sort."
"Or the mole trying to make contact, again," Wu Fei suggested.
Une frowned at the screen, her glasses catching the light from the over head, as she stared at the reading again. "An electrical burst. One second. Even feedback, or a short in their systems, would last longer."
"If it is a message, then we have to wonder who and why?" Heero said as he took the burst apart and analyzed it further on his screen.
"A message?" Une scoffed. "That would be an impossibility."
"Not necessarily," Wu Fei replied. "It could be an identifier."
"A code name?" Une guessed and then shook her head. "Still too short. We would have missed it completely, if we hadn't been sweeping the building for weapons sign."
Heero shot her a surprised look. "Then you are moving in?"
"Into position," Une clarified. "You don't kick an ant nest, Yuy, without knowing how big their bite is."
"Our mission has been cancelled, then?" Wu Fei asked, and almost sounded hopeful.
"No, it hasn't," Une replied. "In fact, you will be going in under cover of fire, to complete your objective."
"Why?" Heero demanded. "If Duo is their prisoner-"
"We don't know that," Une told him sharply.
"But if he is?" Heero persisted. "Are we supposed to kill him in his prison cell?"
"That would be Agent Chang's objective," Une replied coldly.
"An unarmed man, in a prison cell?" Wu Fei was outraged."That is dishonorable."
Une straightened and gave them both a hard look. "How likely is it, that Duo Maxwell will be in a cell? How likely is it, that he will not only be free, but trying to carry out his terrorist activities, even apart from his terrorist cell? I don't have any proof that he has changed his mind about over throwing this government."
"Orders should never be absolute," Heero retorted angrily.
Une cocked her head and her glasses glinted. "What should my orders be, then, Yuy? Should I order you to kill Maxwell, unless he seems willing to forget his terrorist ideals? Should I leave you that open for him to, possibly, kill you, or others? Gundam pilots never stayed prisoners for long. You were all too good at escape, at playing the game of the enemy until they dropped their guard. Duo Maxwell is very dangerous. He needs to be eliminated."
The computer finished a program and made a small noise. Heero looked at the screen and then frowned. "S. That's what was imbedded in the burst."
"S... Not D or M? It must be from the mole, then," Une guessed.
"No," Wu Fei said, staring at the S on the screen, and looking troubled. "I'm almost certain that it's S, for Shinigami."
"He's escaped," Heero agreed, not liking that Une might be right in her assessment.
"Why Shinigami?" Une wanted to know, confused, and then grunted in understanding, a moment later. "Ah, I remember. The God of Death."
"He's killing," Wu Fei surmised with a dark expression.
"Killing who, though?" Une wanted to know. "The other terrorists, or civilians?"
"I think we need to find that out," Heero said as he checked his gun and stood up. "We can't wait for your agents, Commander Une. Chang and I will go in, now."
"I can't authorize that," Une argued. "You need cover and support."
"We've never had it before," Wu Fei told her as he followed Heero towards the door. "We won't need it now. We intend to complete our mission."
________________________________________
Duo closed the power box, on the system that he had set to overload and explode, and struggled back down the very narrow access tunnel. It had been made for maintenance bots, not for humans. Duo could feel the heat of electronics, the slime of grease and dust on his skin, and the scrape of metal never meant for a human to slide over. He gasped for breath, the tunnel almost totally lacking in air, before he was out, and down, into a cement generator bay.
Duo had sent one message with a short burst of power to the main system. It was a signature, that he hoped would make it clear, that he was the one about to take out the entire terrorist cell. Unfortunately, the chances of anyone having heard, it were very slim, but Duo had needed to at least try. Since Grainer, and his men, had probably noticed the burst as well, and the growing over load, it was only a matter of time before they found him and exacted their revenge. He didn't expect to survive it.
Body a riot of pain, and strength gone, Duo tucked himself into a shadow, under a tangle of cables, and hoped that the explosion would happen before his discovery.
"Sorry, Heero, for everything," Duo mumbled as he wrote it on the concrete in grease, blood, and dirt from his own body. Like the signature burst, it felt like a useless motion, but one that he needed to at least attempt. There was a great deal more that he would have liked to write, but there wasn't enough blood in his body to spell out how pathetic and repentant he was.
A small thread of rebellion protested, though, and wouldn't yet give up it's assertion that governments, and anyone in a power position, had to be watched carefully, and distrusted to a certain degree. Heero's blind faith was still wrong. His balancing his entire life, on his ideals, to the point where even his lover's disagreement, could make him a murderer, made him, in Duo's mind, a prime candidate for a psycho ward.
"I need to go, too," Duo whispered, staring at the smeared and crude marks on the concrete. "Even after everything that happened, I still love you, you crazy asshole. Too bad you'll never know that. Wouldn't matter, I guess. You hate my guts. You want me dead. Hell, Une probably sent you to kill me. You'd do it too, finish the job that you didn't complete during the war. Mission: eliminate Duo Maxwell."
Duo chuckled, but it hurt, too much, and he stopped. He curled up, as best he could, and decided to let the pain take him under. The overload would take out half the building, and himself along with it. He didn't think that he wanted to be conscious for that.
The building suddenly powered down and emergency lights flickered on. Duo heard the change in the machinery around him and dragged open his eyes."Fuck," he whispered through busted lips and levered himself up with a supreme force of will.
Without power, there would be no explosion, no final, honorable way of ending his life.
"Guess I'll have to be a little more, hands on," Duo mumbled and, gritting his teeth, he pulled his gun, and began stumbling out into the main hallways of the complex.
________________________________________
"This is not a court martial, Agent Yuy," Commander Une told Heero. "This is only an inquiry. Holding back information, may convince us, though, to move forward with formal charges."
Heero shifted uncomfortably in his metal chair. Facing the board of inquiry, in the large, echoing room, was designed to intimidate. He wasn't immune to it's effect.
Une shuffled papers and then looked over her glasses at him. "You were unable to locate your target, at first?"
"Correct," Heero replied, feeling beads of sweat make his starched, Preventer collar itch. "He wasn't in his designated holding area, though we did see signs that he had escaped."
"A dead man, with an empty weapon's holster?" Une clarified.
"Correct," Heero replied and then swallowed. "There were signs of torture, Commander. I believe that they were attempting to get information from Maxwell."
"That is pure speculation," Milliardo Peacecraft interrupted coolly.
"Yes, sir," Heero replied.
"Dead men tell no tales," Une sighed."We don't have a live suspect to confirm or deny anything that happened that day."
"Correct, Commander," Heero replied.
She looked at him again, as if suspecting that he was mocking her, somehow. Her frown looked weary. "Still, what we've gathered from the agents on the ground, and both your, and Agent Chang's, reports, makes us question your judgment that day."
She went on, but Heero was seeing the moment when his 'target' had become his life saver. Pinned down with the other agents, after a failed attempt to find Duo, he had seen, agent after agent, fall. They had tallied their chances and the commander of the action had made a decision. An information stick had been slapped into Heero's hand. Wu Fei had nodded his agreement and kept shooting, determined to stay with the other agents and cover Heero's retreat.
Their weapons had been ineffectual against the illegal laser in Grainer's hands, though. The man had shouted taunts, and had laughed at them, while he had killed agents with ease. When even Wu Fei had crumpled to the ground, clipped on the forehead by a bullet, escape for anyone had seemed impossible. Reinforcements were not going to reach them in time.
A figure had vaulted over them, then, braid snapping and swinging in a wide arc, as Duo had landed, braced and firing two weapons. A purple eye had pierced Heero to his core, the other swollen shut, and Duo had shouted, "Go, love! I'm a dead man, anyway. I'll hold them off!"
Clothes hanging and filthy, body showing signs of his torture, Duo had still been an immovable force as he had faced his enemy full on and continued to fire two, high powered charge guns. Agents had fled under his cover fire, dragging Wu Fei with them. Gripping the information stick, containing all the information on the terrorist cell, Heero should have gone too.
"...and then you gave your information stick to Wiles," Une's voice suddenly said, cutting through the memory of burning flesh, discharged power weapons, and guns. "We would like to understand your reasoning for this decision."
Heero blinked and ran a hand over his face. His eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep. His mouth felt dry. His psyche felt bruised to the bone. "I..." He fumbled for the right words and came up empty.
Une persisted, shuffling more papers to scan the report, as she asked, "In retrospect, do you think that was a sound decision? You did have the best chance of bringing that information, that had the potential to save civilian lives, out of there intact."
Heero tried to understand his decision, frowning. His head pounded with a headache as he turned that moment, over and over in his thoughts. He remembered shouting to a surprised Wiles, 'Go!' as he had handed him the stick. He remembered shouting 'Duo!' as he had taken a charge from a fallen agent's belt, and tossed it up to the resolute man who was attempting to shield them with his life. Duo had caught it, almost with a sixth sense, and changed charges in his gun with a fluid drop and slap movement that had been a blur. He had seemed invincible, for a space of breaths, and then a round had caught him in the side. His blood had splattered Heero's face.
'Oh, god! Love!' Heero had remembered groaning as he had palmed two nitro charges, dubbed 'Last rites', by anyone who dared used them. They were for last ditch scenarios, not for agents who still had a clear chance of escape.
"Yet you used those charges," Une was saying, and Heero realized that she had continued speaking, reading off the report."Again, please explain your reasoning, Agent Yuy. Why didn't you leave the target, and fall back with the other agents? Why stay to perform an action that was clearly suicidal in nature?"
"Don't you do this, Heero!" Duo had shouted at him. "I'm dead meat, anyway! I screwed you over, remember? I told you everything that you believed was shit! You wanted to kill me, right? Now's your chance and you don't even have to do it yourself! So, go! I'm not letting you fucking die with me!"
"My choice!" Heero had shouted back.
"Why?!" Duo had cried out, just as Grainer had managed to shoot his arm. The laser had gone straight through it and Duo's gun had gone clattering to the floor.
"You threw the charges at the terrorists," Une said, tapping the report. "A remarkable throw, behind their lines. You should pitch baseball, Agent Yuy." There wasn't a laugh from anyone in the room and even Une wasn't amused by her own words.
Heero remembered grabbing Duo by his filthy shirt and dragging him down the corridor. A bullet had impacted into his leg, and grazed his arm, but he hadn't faltered, even when he had to fireman carry Duo, when the man had stumbled and fallen. They had barely made the turn in a cross section, when the bombs had blown.
Body parts, shrapnel, and the power of the blast itself, had tried to knock Heero down, but he had regained his balance and kept running as charge weapons had began overloading.
"Laser burns, bullet wounds, charge burns, blast burns, strained back, dislocated arm, detached collar bone," Une recited. "All of this should add up to 'dead', but, amazingly, you both survived."
Heero touched his collar bone gingerly, remembering Duo's weight, and his determination not to drop the man, no matter what.
"Once again, Agent Yuy, I must ask for your explanation, as to why you would risk yourself, and the success of your action, by trying to save a man that you had been ordered to terminate?" Une insisted.
"Are those orders still in effect?" Heero asked, blue eyes searching Une's anxiously.
"In light of Maxwell's rather heroic act," Une replied tersely, "I'm certain that this board will recommend a review of his case."
Not a yes, or a no, but Heero found some comfort in her reply. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment and then admitted, "I love him... still. My judgment was impaired by my feelings for him."
"That's honest, agent Yuy, and why I recommended that you not be placed on this assignment," Une said. When he looked at her, startled, she frowned at the men seated with her and added, "I was over ruled."
Une stacked her papers neatly and then folded her hands on top of them. "I can't guarantee that there won't be disciplinarian action taken, after a review of this inquiry, Agent Yuy. We still have to hear from Maxwell. Since he is still unconscious, stable, yet still in need of intensive medical attention, It may be some weeks before this inquiry is complete. You will be suspended of all duties, until our decision is made known. Understood, Agent Yuy? Turn in your weapon and your Preventer ID, before you leave this building."
"Will I still be allowed to see Duo during my suspension?" Heero asked anxiously.
"You have clearance, but you will be monitored, "Une warned. "He is still listed as extremely dangerous and will be treated as such."
Heero nodded, and then regretted the motion as his head, and collarbone, protested with pain. "Yes, commander."
The hearing broke up and Heero was helped to his feet by Wu Fei. "You should be in the hospital as well," he told Heero.
Heero replied, "No. They can only put me in an uncomfortable bed and pump me full of medications that I don't want."
Wu Fei grunted and then looked at Heero with a quizzical eye. "What will you do, if they decide that Duo must still face termination?"
"If they terminate Duo, after he saved the lives of so many agents, then, they may be the corrupt government that he said they were," Heero replied.
"I would have to agree with you," Wu Fei told him, "Especially, since I am one of the men that he saved. I will not fight for a dishonorable government."
"Neither will I," Heero agreed and had to wonder at himself. Before, he would have killed his own lover for uttering words such as that. Now, he was speaking of rebellion himself.
_________________________________
"No fair," Duo mumbled as he slid an eye sideways at Heero. It was bruised and red along the lid, a neat line of stitches crossing over his brow. "You shouldn't come to kill a man when he has a catheter stuck up him. That's like hitting old ladies on park benches... baby seals... puppies... kitties... I like kitties... used to have one... way back... didn't work out... worked too much... and some dick was allergic to him, too."
That dick was Duo, Heero remembered with a pang. He leaned into Duo's sight and said, softly, "How do you feel, love?"
Duo's eye traveled around the room, the other too swollen to manage it. "Someone else here, Heero... or are you talkin' to yourself?"
Heero sighed. "I still only know one man that I love," he insisted.
"Well, he must be invisible, then, because it sure as hell isn't me." Duo was definitely drugged. His speach was slurred and his eye drooped and then went wide as he tried to focus on Heero.
Heero sat on the edge of the bed and asked, "How are you feeling?"
Duo frowned. "There is a tube up my wang, Yuy, so that's a stupid question. I also have a few new holes in me, broken bones, lines and lines of stitches, and a death warrant out there with my name on it... just peachy, all the way around."
"I wouldn't worry about the death warrant," Heero assured him.
"No?" Duo seemed almost disappointed.
"Une was able to cancel the warrant and to have your case reviewed," Heero told him as he repositioned an IV line that went into Duo's wrist.
"How did she manage that?" Duo looked pained as he closed his eye. "After what Grainer forced me to tell him, I'd have pulled the trigger on me, myself."
"But you didn't tell him everything," Heero reminded him as he tentatively rubbed the back of Duo's hand with his thumb.
"I don't know," Duo admitted. "I was so fucked up, I can't tell you what happened."
"I know what we all saw," Heero replied. "We saw you risk your life to save us."
"I didn't think that I needed my life any more," Duo sighed and picked fretfully at his blanket. "I figured that I might as well use what was left to help out someone else."
"That's what a hero does," Heero told him warmly, but then emotion overwhelmed him and he found himself clutching at Duo's hand. He tried to speak, and failed. He bowed his head, shaking.
Duo's hand strained against a splint, and an IV line, to get close enough to touch Heero's hair. Duo tugged on it and asked, confused, "What the hell, Heero?"
"I'm sorry," Heero managed. "I... I don't think that I was trying to kill you... that day... but I was so angry! I didn't want to hear what you had to say. I didn't want everything that I had worked for, bled for, to have been for nothing."
"I think that I got a taste of what that feels like," Duo replied as his hand in Heero's hair turned gentle. "I can understand... well, not getting the shit beat out of me... but... how you must have felt."
"I'm getting therapy," Heero admitted.
"I probably need some of that, too," Duo sighed. "Two guys, who love each other, shouldn't be beating each other to death, right? I think we're just supposed to yell, a lot, and one of us leave, or something."
Heero looked up, his heart in his eyes. "Don't couples apologize, later, and stay together?"
"Is that what you want?"Duo was guarded, searching Heero's face. "Didn't we burn our space suits, that day, and blow our ship to pieces? How can we go back, now?"
"We can do anything, love, if that's what we both want," Heero assured him.
"I missed you," Duo said, voice trembling.
Heero carefully leaned to hold him, as best he could, "I missed you, too. I was hurt. My life was shattered. I was still thinking of you, though, every day."
"This all sounds good," Duo said, carefully, "but we might just be blowin' smoke. Maybe it's 'the moment', and all, and you'll feel different, later, say when I get jail time for thirty years, for terrorist activities?"
Heero went guarded and Duo nodded.
"Yeah, I thought that I wasn't going to get away completely," Duo sighed. "I fucked up and I gotta pay."
"Maybe not," Heero told him. "There are people speaking for you."
"Yeah?" Duo blinked at him, amazed.
"Wu Fei, for one, the entire operation unit that you saved, and myself. We might swing the government into being lenient," Heero replied.
"Might, being the key word here," Duo pointed out and then looked depressed as he sank back into his pillow. "I don't think that I want the government to be lenient, anyway. I deserve what ever they give me. You were right not to doubt their intentions. I was wrong. I was so wrong, that I was going to help terrorists murder civilians. I love you, forever, Heero, and it means the world to me that you've forgiven me, but I can't forgive myself."
___________________________________
"I don't know what to say to him," Heero sighed as he stared out at the small, hospital solar, at where Duo was slumped in a wheel chair. The sun was shinning in his hair, but his eyes were down and his face was pale under it's bruising.
"It's more about what you're going to do, now," Une said as she stood, stiffly, arms crossed over her breast as she looked over the rim of her glasses at Heero. "He's on parole. He has a chip locator. He's movements will be constantly monitored for three years. Any deviation from the letter of the law will end in his incarceration for ten years, minimum. He's a lucky man that the government was that lenient."
"And yet he still thinks that's not punishment enough," Heero replied.
"It's not," Une retorted with a severe frown. "You know Quatre Winner, and Relena Peacecraft, had a great deal to do with his stepped down sentencing? Even Milliardo Peacecraft came forward to argue mental trauma from the war, and a poor upbringing resulting in paranoia, to bolster the case for his release. Anyone else would be cooling their heels on death row. Duo knows that. You know it, too, Yuy. Duo realizes the inequality of the sentencing and I can't blame him for feeling that justice wasn't done, properly."
"You still think that he should be terminated, don't you?" Heero growled.
Une cocked her head at him. "I wish that none of this had happened, and that I still had my best men working for me," she replied. "Unfortunately, you both made decisions that make that impossible. Duo decided to become a rebel, again, and you decided to ignore my orders and jeopardize lives. Your suspension could very easily become permanent, if you don't prove to the board that you regret your decisions. I can't see you accomplishing that, though, because I know that you don't regret anything that happened that day."
Heero wanted to deny that claim, but he couldn't. Une was perfectly right.
Heero watched Duo pick had his hospital gown despondently. "I'm sorry, but Duo's my concern now, not anything else. I need to find out what will convince him to want to live again."
"I'm not a psychologist," Une replied, sourly, "but, it seems to me, that he needs a firm reason to ignore everything that he's done. You have to give him a sense of worth that outweighs his sense of worthlessness. In his present position, that may be impossible."
"I've asked him to come home with me," Heero admitted. "He won't answer me. He's decided to close up, entirely. He won't even speak... about anything."
"Do you want that kind of life?" Une wondered. "You'll be constantly monitored, in every way; every phone conversation, every movement, every bit of mail. They'll even write down how many times you flush the toilet, Yuy. Total observation, for three years. That may even be extended, if the government feels the need."
Heero shivered slightly, hating the thought of people knowing his every movement, but, staring out at Duo, and seeing him rub at his forehead, as if life pained him, utterly, Heero knew that he couldn't make any other choice. Despite everything that had happened, he still loved Duo enough to bear with anything.
"It doesn't matter," Heero told her. "He's worth it."
She sighed. "You say that now," she warned, "but will you think so months from now, when it all begins to wear on you? What will you do, if that man over there, never decides to forgive himself? It might not seem so worth it, when you give up so much for so little in return."
"I never knew, that things could go so wrong, so quickly," Heero admitted, "and I can't know, now, how things will turn out, either, but, I have to try."
"You're a good man," Une told him. "I truly hope, that Duo Maxwell is worth your sacrifice."
Heero left her there, not wanting to answer her, both angry at her insinuation that Duo didn't deserve his help, and fearful, that whatever he gave, of himself, might not be enough. When he reached Duo's side and touched his lover's arm, Duo didn't even look up at him.
"Duo," Heero said as he crouched to be at Duo's level. When the eyes still didn't turn to him, Heero went on, determinedly, "I'm going to take you home with me. It may not be what you want, but I think it's best."
"Best for who?" Duo finally replied, his voice rough from disuse.
Heero blinked at Duo's averted gaze, and then replied truthfully, "For me, because I want you back, and for you, because you need care, still, and you need love, more than ever."
A tear tracked down Duo's cheek, but his lips pressed together and he didn't respond again.
TBC.
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on to chapter four