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A hundred feet...two hundred...five hundred feet below ground, and still they climbed, skittering along on the damp rocks, and gasping for air. The steep passage was barely wide enough for one person, forcing all five members of the team to proceed single file. There were no sources of light in the naturally-formed cavern, save for the tiny halogen lamps held to the boys' army fatigues on tightly-buckled shoulder straps.

The logic behind choosing the shoulder-mounted flashlights instead of the traditional miner's helmet became painfully idiotic when the second boy in line bumped his head on a sharp rock.

"OW! Dammit!" he yelped, clutching his head with both hands.

"You didn't want a helmet messing up your hair," the team leader called back over his shoulder, in a slightly mocking tone.

The injured one stuck his tongue out impishly at the sarcastic one, while he smoothed his bangs and assessed the status of his braid. "If you'll care to remember, Hee-chan, the rest of you all picked the same light I picked, so don't get snarky about it."

"Hn." Picking his way delicately down the stony passage, Heero thought he heard two sets of tiny snickers following just behind. Duo and Quatre were having a nice little giggle in the middle of a mission. How lovely.

"I humbly suggest you keep your minds on the trail if you don't wish to incur further injury," someone called from behind the group. Wufei. At last, the voice of reason, Heero thought. Trowa, as usual, was silent.

Seven hundred feet, perhaps more, and still they climbed, further and further down into the belly of the Earth.

~~~~~~~~~~

Above ground, two hulking figures in dark clothes enjoyed a beer-soaked conversation in the mid-day sun. "So what were the details of the 'mission', anyway?" the larger of the two asked, miming little quotation marks.

The smaller one chuckled and sat back in his lawn chair, swatting at one of the giant mosquitos that inhabited the jungle. "Search and destroy, Burt," he replied between swigs of lager. "Search and destroy."

Burt just sat there with a blank look and swatted at a few killer mosquitos of his own. "Louch, you never let me in on anything!"

Louch smiled. "That's 'cause I'm the brains of this operation, and we may be friends, but I'm not about to let a musclebound meathead mess this up for me." His expression turned cold as he wrapped a calloused hand tightly around the neck of his beer bottle. "I've waited too long for this...I can't let anything screw it up now."

"So you don't trust me enough to explain it to me?" Burt sounded more annoyed than disappointed. He'd lived with a reputation for having more brawn than brains for a long time, and he was getting used to it somewhat, but the fact that his so-called friend wouldn't confide in him didn't make it easier.

Guilt got the better of Louch at the sight of Burt's forlorn face. He sighed and tossed the burly ex-soldier a fresh beer. "Alright, I'll tell you."

~~~~~~~~~~

Heero stepped into a smallish cavern just big enough that they could all stand together, and waited for the others to catch up. He took a neatly folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, opened it, and looked back and forth between the paper and his surroundings, scowling. Such a badly drawn map...impossible to tell exactly where we are along the route.

Gradually the others filed in, Duo first, then Quatre and Trowa close together, and finally Wufei, who insisted on looking anxiously over his shoulder every ten paces. He seemed oddly distracted...disturbed, even. Perhaps he isn't fond of small, dark spaces, Heero thought with a tiny grin.

He turned his attention to the task at hand. "Quatre, there are no markings on the map that indicate the location of this cavern. Can you tell us how far down we are?"

"Sure, Heero," the blond boy answered, taking off his backpack and setting it on the ground. He shuffled around in the pack, searching for something, while the others caught their breath and got a good look at each other.

The pilots were clad in identical army fatigues and steel-toed boots, with olive green packs filled with supplies and explosives strapped to their backs, and a semi-practical rectangular halogen lantern mounted on the fronts of their right shoulders. Quatre and Wufei each wore a black cap with a small, short-range radio transmitter sewn into the brim. After the long, difficult trek down through the dank cave, each of them was evenly coated in a dark, sticky film of dirt and sweat, giving them the appearance of five lost coal miners.

Duo snuck up behind Heero and punched him playfully in the arm. "Not too shabby in here, but you gotta do somethin' about the déécor!"

Heero ignored his pitiful attempt to distract him from his work. "Have you got it?"

Crouched on his heels, Quatre was fiddling with a nondescript electronic device, his brow knit with concentration. "Almost..." He studied it intently, twisting knobs and tapping buttons while his companions stared at the bleak, forbidding walls. The device made the same curious buzzing noise several times, and each time it did, Quatre's frown grew by degrees. "...Oh no..." he moaned, slapping the side of the black box with the palm of his hand.

"What?" Heero was standing directly over him now.

Quatre looked up helplessly. "I...I don't understand...this was working fine on the surface! I know, because I checked everything before we left..." He turned the device off with a sigh and stood. "I don't know how far down we are, Heero. I'm sorry."

Trowa ran a hand down the damp rock wall, then rubbed his fingers together thoughtfully. "Maybe the moisture got to it," he said.

"Maybe these rocks are magnetic," Wufei added.

Quatre shook his head desperately. "It's supposed to be waterproof--"

"It doesn't matter," Heero interrupted. "We know it's ahead of us, and the map doesn't show too many sharp turns. We keep going." And with that, he turned, glanced at the map, put it away, and took off down the next leg of their route. One by one, his team followed, Quatre first, Wufei last.

~~~~~~~~~~

Louch took another long gulp of his beer and settled in to look more closely at their surroundings. If one stopped to look, it was really quite a pretty place, as dense jungles go. As the sun slipped further towards the horizon, light began to stream through the rainforest canopy like a waterfall made of honey.

He leaned back and stretched his legs out in front of him. "It's like this," he began. "They received word that there was a secret enemy base buried deep underground, under this very spot. You remember? Where I sent you earlier?"

Burt nodded enthusiastically.

"Well, see, the specs on this place were so phenominal...massive military encampment, armed to the teeth with missiles and bombs and what-have-you, and most likely a huge hanger full of newly-minted mobile suits, hell, they can't let a thing like that slide by, can they?" Louch emptied the bottle and tossed it over his shoulder into a clump of tropical ferns, wiping his crooked hairpin mouth on his sleeve. "So their mission, of course, is to blow the place up."

Burt looked confused. "But I thought I--"

"You did a great job, I'm sure." The smaller man was mean sometimes, but he knew when to flatter a person. He let an evil smile take over his scarred, chiseled features. "They've really gotta get some better security on their computer systems. Planting that message was way too easy."

A flash of understanding burst in on Burt's vacant stare. "Oh, so they think they're going to blow up the base, and instead we're--"

"We're gonna get to them first," Louch cut him off, once again.

A long pause followed. "Hey, Looooch?"

"Yeah?"

"What do we wanna blow up a military base for?"

Seconds later, Louch whacked Burt upside the head good and hard. "Idiot! Am I sittin' here talkin' to a sack of potatoes!? There IS no base! I made it up!!" he shouted, thumping himself in the chest with two thick fingers. "...shit, Burt, they should've discharged you on the grounds of being a flaming moron!"

Louch leaned back heavily and reached down between their chairs for the cooler; this time, instead of retrieving another beer, he brought out a little silver box. It was just large enough to fit in the palm of his hand, and it sported a green light, and a red button. He ran his thumb over the red button, caressing it like a lucky rabbit's foot.

"Time's running out, Gundam pilots," he whispered to the sultry mid-afternoon air. "Today the 83rd platoon pays back an old debt."

~~~~~~~~~~

After another hundred feet or so of steep, narrow and rocky travel, the route levelled off considerably. It appeared as if the team had hit bottom, and all that remained was to navigate the tunnels that led into the base. The trail was uncommonly smooth, probably cut with lasers, though it was difficult to tell how recently it had been done. Now there wasn't even the exictement of slipping on wet, jagged rocks and possibly breaking an arm to keep those with short attention spans entertained.

It was such a dull march that Duo began skipping down the tunnel just to alleviate the boredom. After a sharp poke in the ribs and an admonishment from Trowa, he stopped, but he got bored again and switched to the Bunny Hop after only a few minutes. A stiff yank of his braid was necessary to make him walk normally the rest of the way.

Heero looked back and gave Duo a disapproving glare before moving ahead into a large chamber with a high ceiling.

They poured into the cavern, grateful for something new to look at. The room was large and irregularly-shaped, and the ground was uneven again. Stalagmites and stalactites decorated the floor and ceiling, and the sound of dripping water echoed loudly.

Wufei looked around and scowled. "The passage we were just in was manufactured better than this. I would have expected conditions to keep improving as we got closer to the target."

"Maybe we're lost," Quatre mused.

Heero shook his head. "There was no other way to turn once we hit the man-made tunnel." He walked slowly to the other side of the room and studied the far wall as well as the floor for signs of a secret passage. The expedition leader grunted in annoyance when the light dimmed suddenly. He turned to see Trowa tapping the front of his shoulder lantern, which had gone out. After a moment or two of fruitless tapping, Duo moved forward to help him.

"I think the battery's dead already," Trowa growled. "Duo, these things are junk. We should've taken the miner's helmets."

"Hey, the batteries on the helmets are smaller than these are, and these lights were on sale at Roy's Army Surplus! I got you guys a bargain if you didn't but know it." Duo levered off the outer casing of the light and tried to jerryrig it back to life, without success.

Turning back to the wall, Heero made an executive decision. "Quatre and Wufei, turn your lights off to save the batteries. We'll still need light to get back out of here." They complied. "Duo, bring your light over here and take a look at that wall."

He pointed Duo to a spot somewhere to his right, and the other three busied themselves, carefully extracting explosives from their backpacks in the dark. Heero moved further and further down the left hand side of the back wall. There's something...a dark patch over there...could just be a recess in the wall...could be another passage. He made his way closer to the darkest corner of the cavern.

~~~~~~~~~~

"So let's double-check one last time," Louch suggested. "You climbed down as far as you could go down the back tunnel, the larger one...'cause we all know you're a tall drink of water," he said, slapping Burt in the gut. "You blasted out a smooth tunnel and hooked it up with the little scrawny passage that comes back up here..."

"Yeah, and then I set the explosives in the ceiling with that sticky stuff." Burt wasn't one of the greatest technical minds of the colonial age, but he could get the job done.

"Right, and you set the trigger way in the back, in that little hollow in the wall?"

"Uh huh."

"And you plugged up the big tunnel so they couldn't find it?"

"Uh huh."

"You're a treasure, Burt. Good job." Louch smirked at how easily his partner was appeased. "You know, you're not as gormless as you look sometimes." Satisfied that all was in place, he went back to lovingly running his fingers over the red button.

"Louch?"

"Yeah?"

"Shouldn't we get out of here if things are gonna start blowing up?"

Louch looked exasperated. "Noooo...it's not just gonna blow up on it's own, that what this nifty little gizmo is for," he snapped, holding up the little silver box. "And we're plenty far enough away, I've already figured that out. All we'll feel is a slight tremor."

"Then what was that trigger thing I put in the wall for?" Burt's eyebrows threatened to fly right off his face.

"The trigger just sends a signal to this box, and the green light starts blinking. That's how I'll know the pilots are too far down to get out in time. Then..." he said, almost drooling at the thought, "...then I get to press this and bury the little fuckers alive."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Heero, I've been over and over this wall eight times, there's nothing here!" Duo whined.

"There doesn't seem to be anything, anywere," Trowa added, gracefully avoiding the jagged rocks sticking up from the floor as he surveyed the cavern. Quatre and Wufei had joined in the search for clues as well, leaving their packs and the explosives on the driest piece of ground they could find.

There seemed to be no exit to the room, save the way they came. It was far too cold to be anywhere near the massive power source the base was supposed to require; in fact, the more they explored, the more they all thought there must be something wrong with the information they had been given.

Heero, however, was undaunted. It MUST be here. A lever, a switch, a pressure plate... His fingers played deftly over the wall's surface, probing for anything that might make the wall give way and reveal the true path.

Tired of walking around half-blind in the dim light, Quatre leaned against a random wall and watched Heero work. His eyes followed the intricate path of his halogen lamp, left and right, up and down, bobbing and swerving as he searched. Heero was once again in the darkened alcove he had searched twenty minutes ago. It had turned out to be a dead end, but stubbornness forced him to give it a closer inspection. As he stepped farther into the alcove, a strange sight caught Quatre's eye and made him go cold.

A bright red dot appeared on Heero's boot. Quatre plastered himself against the wall and fought hard not to start hyperventilating. "H-Heero?" he choked in a half-whisper.

Heero swiveled his head around, puzzled at Quatre's tone. "Hn?" He could only barely see the Arabian pilot's outline, trembling and pointing down at the ground Heero was standing on.

"There's s-something on your ankle..." he whispered, half not wanting to guess what it was.

Annoyed, Heero vaguely wondered if Quatre had seen a giant spider on his foot or something. Preparing to shake the pest off and continue working, he looked down. There was a shiny red spot, no more than a centimetre across, glowing on the side of his foot. He saw faint flecks of red hanging in the air an inch or two off the ground, illuminating a thin line of red dust. It was a laser, the kind one finds in a grocery store check-out, emanating from a tiny fixture attached to the wall directly to his left.

By now, the other three were all looking at him, wondering what was so fascinating about the ground over there. Heero whipped his head around to the right and examined the same spot on the opposite wall. There was a reflector plate mounted even with the laser emitter. And he had just broken the path of the beam.

Heero's eyes widened.

~~~~~~~~~~

Topside, sweltering and completely out of booze, sat the two ex-OZ soldiers, like unholy sentinels guarding the entrance of the cave. Louch was ready to fall asleep; hours had passed since the Gundam pilots had disappeared into the crevice, and he had spent the last forty minutes (at least) staring at the green light on his custom-made detonator. If something didn't happen soon, he would fall asleep.

Panic shook him awake. Had they discovered the trap? Were they on their way back up the passage? Or worse, had they found the larger tunnel and snuck up behind them while they were drinking?

Louch was just about to spin around in his chair, expecting to see pistols aimed at his head, when the green light flickered. He stared at the light, incredulous; had he imagined it? He watched for another five seconds to be certain. It was blinking. The rabbits had stepped into the snare at last.

"Burt! Burt! Look!" he shouted, slapping his partner in the arm and pointing at the green light. "Time for the big bang, Burt!" They jumped out of their chairs and stood side by side facing the cave.

Louch shouted ceremoniously, so the entire jungle could hear. "Ground Unit G-9, 83rd platoon, OZ Mobile Suit Forces...ah-tennnnnnn-SHUN!" Both men snapped to attention. "Acting Commander Luciano Baretti, Leo Division, pilot second class...detonatorrrrrrrrrr.....READY!" Both men saluted.

Louch smiled and pressed the red button. "See you in hell."

~~~~~~~~~~

Heero whirled around and hollered at his team. "IT'S A TRAP! GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!!" Five pilots bolted for the escape tunnel, abandoning all but what was in their hands. Trowa shoved Quatre ahead of him into the tunnel, and followed as quickly as he could. Wufei and Duo reached the exit next in line.

Heero sprinted across the cave, but was violently jerked backwards as a strap on his backpack hooked onto a stalagmite and wouldn't let go. While Wufei began his hasty climb, Duo looked back and saw Heero struggling to free himself. He had only made it halfway across the cave.

Duo started running back to him, shouting. "Heero!"

"No! Keep going!" he yelled back, almost out of the straps. Gambling that Heero's speed on his feet would make up for the time he lost, Duo ran back to the tunnel. He had barely begun skidding across the smooth surface when the blast hit.

The horrid, booming sound of dynamite and plastic explosives filled every inch of the cave, the tunnels, the pilot's shaking forms. The escapees were thrown to the ground inside the narrow passage, and crawled frantically forward as the very walls shook and heaved, threatening to collapse and smother them. More and more blasts rocked the entire network of catacombs, and to either side they could hear gruesome crunches as other tunnels collapsed, their dying echoes rumbling along on the heels of the first shockwave.

Minutes later, the garish noises had condensed down to coughing and scratching, as the team half-crawled, half-stumbled up to the smallish cavern they had visited before.

Duo's eyes were on fire. Even if he could open them, there was nothing to see, but there was a wet, stinging dust everywhere, saturating the air and nearly making him choke.

Mercifully, a hand clutched his at last, then two more, and he felt arms all around him, pulling him to his feet. He had made it as far as the little cavern and the air was a bit clearer there. He rubbed his eyes gingerly with his shirt cuff and blinked away the dust. Trowa, Quatre and Wufei were still staring down the corridor.

There was no sign of Heero.

Duo pushed past the others and shone his light down the hall, eyes wide with panic. Visibility was next to nothing because of the dust. "Heero!" he shouted. They strained to hear a response; none came. "HEERO!!"

Duo began choking on the dust and needed Trowa to hold him upright. All four looked at each other, their gazes quickly settling on Duo. He was second in command, after all. He pulled his sleeve up over his hand and covered his nose and mouth with the excess fabric. The others followed suit, and the four of them carefully crept back down the way they came, back to where their leader had fallen.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two drunken louts in faded, tattered OZ uniforms staggered through the jungle, victorious. Like the braggarts they were, they sang songs from the war and laughed raucously at their good fortune. Even so, before they left the scene of their triumph, Louch insisted on blowing up the entrance to the cave for good measure, because he didn't believe in relying on luck. Not anymore.

Still insensible with drink, he pulled a miniature metal detector from his pocket, and waved it around carelessly. After no more than a half-hour's walk, he found what he knew must be hiding with them in the underbrush--the jeep the pilots had used to get there from the native village two hours' drive away. All Louch and Burt had been able to afford was a guide to show them as far as the point where the dirt road morphed into a rough trail through the bush, marked by notches in the bark of rubber trees.

Clearing the branches and moss off the vehicle, the ex-soldiers grinned at each other. They'd be going back in style.

~~~~~~~~~~

The ringing in Heero's ears didn't stop for a long time.

Am I dead?

He tried to move something, anything, but found he couldn't.

Damn. My final mission was a failure. That really ticks me off.

Heero sighed, bringing not only a coughing fit, but the realization that he was still breathing. His senses slowly returned to him one at a time. He could hear the incessant dripping of water, apparently unfazed by the cataclysm. It was pitch black around him, but he couldn't tell if he was blind or if his flashlight had been smashed by the explosion. The smell of blasting powder was in the air, and if he inhaled through his mouth, he could taste the bitter atmosphere on his tongue. That left only one sense remaining...

"Aaaaahhhhhrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!" His sense of touch returned, and an intense, crushing pain had decided to tag along for the ride. Heero grit his teeth together and clenched his fists, using every last ounce of his training to stop himself from screaming again. The pain, the agony, it was horrible, it was unbearable, it was...it was coming from his legs!

The even pressure on his back told him he was probably lying on the ground. Instinctively trying to pull himself into a seated position, another wave of horrific pain struck him. The sensations in his legs forced another humiliating scream from his throat, and he stuffed two white knuckles of his clenched hand into his mouth, biting down hard. Not dead yet.

Several deep breaths later, he assessed his situation calmly.

Breathing...nominal. Concussion...none apparent. Injuries...

He pushed himself up on his elbows and reached forward. His knees were intact; he reached further and felt something rough and cold, large, faintly damp. At least one massive stone boulder was pinning his legs to the ground just below the knees. Wincing badly, he felt the fabric of his camoflage pants and brought his hand close to his face; the metallic scent of blood was obvious.

Multiple lacerations just below the patella...possible damage to the cruciate ligaments...high probability of compound fractures to both tibias. Glaring invisibly at the boulder, he braced both arms against it and pushed hard, momentarily blocking out the pain with his firm resolve; it didn't move one bit. The size and weight of the rock made it obvious that escaping under his own power would be next to impossible. Laying back down on the ground, he held his breath for a moment or two, listening for any sound coming from the tunnel. There was nothing except the dripping water. Status of team...unknown. Probability of escape...unlikely. Probability of rescue...slim at best.

He sighed again, disappointed in himself. So this is how it all ends, buried alive on a fake mission. You really blew it this time, Yuy. Someone's having a good laugh at your expense about now. An icy cold drop of water fell from a new low point in the ceiling and hit Heero in the face like confirmation from the Almighty. Hn.

With only pain and darkness to keep him company, he began calculating approximately how many hours he had left until he lost consciousness from severe low blood pressure.

...they'll regret not saying goodbye properly, but that can't be helped. They followed procedure correctly by leaving when they did. A brief twinge of his own regret caught him off guard, and the stoic stare left him for just a few seconds. I'll be satisfied if they made it out of here safely.

Another drop of cold water hit him square in the chest.

...although, I might see one of them again, one last time. He closed his eyes and imagined beautiful death standing over him, smiling. Duo. If he really is the Earthly incarnation of death, he should be here to collect me. He couldn't help but smirk bitterly at that thought. He'll be here in a few days, perhaps only hours...he'll poke me with his scythe once or twice, make sure I'm good and dead, crack a few jokes, and then take me straight to hell where I belong.

Heero let his mind wander, killing time until the inevitable caught up with him. In between the pitter-pat of water dripping to either side of him, a faint, melodious sound wafted down from the escape tunnel. "....eeerooo..."

His eyes flew open. I didn't hear that. I did NOT hear that. He sat up quickly, forgetting his injuries and cringing furiously as his wounds made fresh contact with the boulder. He fell back down and his hit head on the ground, letting out a tiny moan.

The sound repeated itself, louder this time. "...eeerooo!"

Duo! He pushed aside notions of death coming to fetch him, mind reeling with frustration and rage. That baka came to look for me against procedure! Kuso!

"Heeerooo!" A different voice this time...Quatre's. You fools! You're supposed to be making your escape! What's the matter with you!? He slammed his fists into the ground to either side of him.

Finally, hurried footsteps and haggard breathing flowed out of the tunnel. Heero tilted his head back trying to get a look at his visitors. The brown glow of dust illuminated by their lanterns grew brighter as they approached, until Duo's light cut through the darkness, making the fallen pilot squint.

"I found it!" Duo called over his shoulder. He took the light off it's strap and shone it around the room. "Geez...Heero!?"

"Down here," he croaked. Screaming so much and breathing in all that dust hadn't done much for his voice.

Duo scanned the floor with the flashlight and let out a gasp, crouching down next to him just as Quatre emerged from the tunnel. "Oh man...can you move? Can you see me?"

"No, yes, in that order."

Quatre flicked his light in the direction of the gravelly voice and crouched on Heero's other side. "Are you badly hurt?"

Heero winced as another drop of water hit him in the face. This is a waste of time, you have to get out of here... "My legs."

Swiveling his lantern around, Quatre ran the beam of light down Heero's body, almost afraid to see whatever had happened to him. Trowa and Wufei arrived just in time to witness the unveiling of Heero's injuries. About two inches below the knee, his trousers were stained crimson; no more of his legs could be seen beyond that point. A massive rock was resting on his shins, and where the fabric had been torn away, they saw his flesh and muscles were badly shredded, and blood was oozing out in slow motion. There were a few whitish protrusions that could have been broken bones.

Quatre tasted bile in the back of his throat, dropping the flashlight and surrendering to a coughing fit that nearly made him retch. Trowa steadied him from behind and they both leaned against the wall, sickened and reeling.

Taking Quatre's place at Heero's left side, Wufei shone his lantern on the rocks surrounding his legs. "It's not just one stone, there are several. This large one is being partially supported by these smaller ones, here and here..." he said, pointing to the rocks. "There is just enough weight being transferred to his legs to trap them, but perhaps not so much that--"

"Yeah, yeah, he might be able to walk a month from now." Duo wriggled out of his backpack and dropped it at his feet. "We've gotta stop the bleeding first and worry about getting him out second." He unzipped the large pouch of the pack, turned it upsidedown, and shook out the contents, as Murphy's Law dictated that the first aid kit would be on the bottom. Wufei was shining his light in Heero's eyes, tugging at his eyelids and asking him all sorts of questions to determine his mental state.

This was getting silly. Heero fumbled in the dark with his right arm, latching onto Duo's braid and pulling him down sharply so he could have a quiet word without overexerting himself.

"OW! Leggo!" Duo yelped.

"Listen to me." Heero spoke in such a desperate whisper that the other pilots all crowded around him quickly to hear. "This was 100% intentional. The entire mission was a trap from the moment we received our orders. Whoever did this could be on their way here to make absolutely sure that we're dead. You can't be here when that happens."

"Heero, we're not--OW!" Another sharp pull silenced him.

"Your new mission is to get out of here alive. This is a direct order." He was struggling for every word, fighting the intense pain. "The four of you are to go back up the tunnel at once. If you spot the enemy, utilize the side tunnels to your advantage and eliminate all obstacles. Do you understand?"

The sparkle faded from Duo's eyes; he stared down at his commanding officer with unparalleled sadness. He shook his head slowly. "I can't leave you here."

"You can and you will. You don't have time to argue about this, just go."

"With all due respect, sir, your strategy blows!" He pulled his braid out of Heero's weakened grip and stood just out of reach. "This attack was the act of cowards. They couldn't even look us in the eye before pulling the trigger, they just left a huge nest of explosives for us to waltz into. Fraidy-cats like that aren't coming back to check on us, they're long gone by now!" Considering the subject firmly closed, he went back to searching for the first aid kit.

Trowa left Quatre's side to examine the rocks more closely. Seeing that Duo wasn't getting anywhere, Quatre reached over his shoulder for his own backpack, to find his first aid kit...but it wasn't there. He slapped his forehead. Of course it was gone, everyone except Duo and Heero had set their packs down to prepare the explosives. Picking up his flashlight, he left the others, still arguing loudly about the best course of action, and made a quick scan of the room.

The cavern was less than a quarter of the size it had been; giant boulders blocked passage to either side of where Heero lay, and Quatre's heart sank when he realized that the three backpacks full of supplies were completely covered. All of their explosives had been in those packs, as had most of their food and water. He tore his eyes away from the wall to look at the argument prolonging itself a few feet away.

Duo was pretending not to hear his fallen teammate barking out orders that were poisonous to his ears. He was cutting torn fabric away from his wounds, and daubing them with cotton and antiseptic. Trowa and Wufei were trying to budge just one of the huge stones, without success. Heero was absolutely livid.

Swallowing hard against the recurring bitterness in his throat, Quatre knelt behind Heero's head and spoke soothingly to him, trying to calm him down while they worked.

~~~~~~~~~~

The heavily modified standard-issue army jeep barrelled down the muddy path, weaving back and forth madly. The occupants of the jeep hollered and guffawed at the surrounding wildlife while shielding their eyes from the late-afternoon sun. Still an hour outside the village trading post where they had been anonymously dropped off, the last surviving members of the 83rd platoon celebrated their victory.

Eventually, a blinking light on the dashboard caught Burt's blurry eye; he drew it to Louch's attention, who pulled over, scratched himself, belched, and decided it must be the long-range radio. Someone was looking for the ill-fated pilots. This would never do.

Louch gave himself a few slaps across the face to sober himself up. An answer would have to be given, or someone might come looking for them and ruin everything. Disabling both the audio and video controls, he used the transmit button by itself to tap out a brief message in Morse code:

TARGET DESTROYED. RADIO BADLY DAMAGED DUE TO MISCALCULATION. NO CASUALTIES. RETURNING TO BASE.

Satisfied that any rescue parties would be sufficiently delayed to find the bodies of five pilots, either crushed to death or suffocated, the pair drove off, laughing once again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Out of breath and muscles aching, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei scrambled back up the tunnel to radio for help. At some point, Quatre's lantern battery died, leaving only one light for the three of them. They made the early part of their climb wordlessly, sparing no energy for idle banter that could be better used by their arms and legs. Farther towards the top of the passage, fatigue combined with the cold, stale air began taking a dreadful toll on Quatre's delicate constitution. He slowed them down terribly and begged to be left behind, but the other two had heard enough of that sort of talk for one day.

With Wufei in the lead, Trowa and Quatre lagged behind, struggling along without any source of light. Even the comforting sensation of Trowa's strong arms around him, steadying him on the slippery rocks, couldn't distract Quatre from worrying out loud.

"Even if we can move those rocks, how are we going to get him out? We can barely squeeze through one at a time, and we'd have to carry him the whole way! What are we going to do?"

"We will deal with the problem in stages," Wufei called back to them. "Our first priority is making contact with home base."

"They can probably think of something we haven't," Trowa added, "and they'll have better equipment...maybe some digging machines."

"But how long will it take? Most of our supplies are buried under fifty tons of rubble, and he needs medical attention now! We're hundreds of miles from everything, there's no hospital, no--"

"Stop it!" Trowa yanked on Quatre's arm and immediately regretted it. He could imagine his friend with a hurt look on his face in the dark; they both stopped climbing, and Wufei made his way further and further ahead of them.

Pulling himself together, Trowa sighed and caressed Quatre's arm apologetically. "It won't do him any good if we start panicking. It's our turn to be strong for him, this time, and if we can all keep a cool head, there might be a way to save all of us."

Quatre felt tears sting his eyes at Trowa's use of the words 'if' and 'might'.

"And...we also have to be strong," Trowa continued, "in case...well...so he doesn't spend his last hours cold and alone. No one should have to die that way."

"You...no..." Quatre shook his head and heard his voice squeak with sorrow. "You don't...agree with Heero, do you? He's already given up on himself, and now you've given up on him too?"

"Of course I haven't given up!" Trowa snapped back. "But we have to accept the possibility that he might not make it."

Somehow, Trowa could tell his angel was crying openly, even though he made no sound. Maybe it was easier to tell because he couldn't see it. Maybe it was just easier to cry when you couldn't be seen.

"It could have been any of us, you know," Quatre said in a calm, even tone.

"I know."

"...I'd never leave you behind, Trowa. I couldn't..."

Trowa drew his arms clumsily around the smaller boy, scraping his knuckles on the narrow walls. "Me too." Wufei was so far ahead now that not even the barest reflection of light from his lantern reached them. Trowa let go and nudged his friend forward. "Come on, let's catch up."

It was another fifteen minutes before they caught up with their teammate. Wufei had dashed ahead, probably to give them some valuable time and space to themselves. It was a tough time for all of them, and Wufei understood what they needed from each other; for that moment, at least, he wasn't so aloof and insensitive as he made himself out to be.

When they approached him and saw the light grow brighter and brighter, they realized that Wufei was standing still. Something must be wrong; they both sensed it.

Quatre crept up behind him. "Wufei? What is it? What have you found?"

As he turned around, both boys shuddered at his expression; impossibly, the Chinese pilot, for whom no obstacle was too great, wore a look of pure helplessness. He moved out of the way and let their gaze slowly shift from his pitifully sad eyes to the tunnel ahead.

There was no tunnel. Tons of rock had collapsed into the cave entrance, making it impassable.

Quatre blinked and rubbed his eyes, praying that it was an illusion or that his eyes simply hadn't adjusted to the light level yet. Trowa stepped forward and placed a hand on the cold rock. It was no illusion. "Could we have taken a wrong turn?" he asked.

Wufei shook his head and pointed to a pair of diagonal scratchmarks on the wall. "I left these markings with a stone as we descended. This is definitely the way we came."

In spite of the lecture he gave Quatre on keeping calm, Trowa felt himself slipping closer to a state of panic. "We're trapped."

~~~~~~~~~~

Amazingly, Duo had run out of things to talk to Heero about in the first half hour after the others left to get help. He'd talked about basketball, fly fishing, the latest album by some metal band Heero had never heard of, the peculiarities of different brands of toothpaste, fun things to do in the jungle when you're bored, and even the broken weather machine back on L2 which, Duo claimed, once made it rain marshmallows for an entire hour when he was a child. Anything to avoid the topic of being slowly crushed, starved, choked and bled to death all at once.

Heero wasn't buying it. Why is he wasting oxygen trying to distract me from the pain? If he thinks he can make hurt less, he's wrong. If he's using up the air to help me die quicker, I wish he'd shoot me instead.

Now there was an interesting thought. Heero had been lying on something uncomfortable, but he'd been in too much pain to care what it was. If Duo's inane prattle had accomplished one thing, it made him think twice about dismissing the object as a rock. His precious gun was still tucked into the waistband of his trousers, digging into his spine.

He decided this would be his escape when he finally convinced the others to leave. Even if they refused, the remoteness of their location made it less likely that help would arrive before he bled to death.

Reminded of his injuries, he looked over at Duo. The erstwhile Good Samaritan was sitting up against the newly-formed wall, with his feet stretched out next to Heero's right ear. His right hand was clamped over the visible part of the wound on the near leg, pressing a thick, sterilized cotton pad on it to soak up the blood. He couldn't put enough pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding entirely because of the fractures; plus, when he had tried earlier, it was hideously painful. Heero didn't let it show, but Duo could tell.

He forced his gaze up Duo's arm and looked directly into his eyes. Duo's smile tore a hole through Heero's chest a mile wide. He had an awful feeling that this was the one person who would never abandon him...but why did it bother him so much now?

What's wrong with me? We're both soldiers, we knew the risks coming down here...we're trained to accept whatever must be done for the sake of the mission. But he won't let me. Him and his stupid, misplaced optimism, he'll take the gun out of my hand, he'll make me suffer through this pain until the last possible moment! Can't he see how agonizing it is!?

He looked up at the ever-present smile. Duo could smile through the Apocalypse; it was a cleverly-designed mask that could withstand almost any attack without changing a bit. Out of the blue, he started thinking about his own mask, the one he used every day without officially acknowledging it's existence.

No...he can't see how much it hurts...because I don't want him to see. He didn't realize he was staring until Duo casually looked away, lifting the cotton pad gently to examine the wound's progress. Even if he put the gun in my hand and dared me to do it, I couldn't. Not with him in the same room, the bullet could ricochet off these walls and... Excuses, excuses. Heero looked away with a pain in his eyes that had nothing to do with his injuries. An occasional truth could do the same damage as a hundred thousand bullets.

...I can't do it with him watching.

When the pain became insufferable, when delerium and shock began chipping away at his orderly mind, when it would eventually become apparent that his only future would be a slow, agonizing death, outside of battle and without one scrap of honour...not even then could he pull the trigger.

Because I don't want to hurt him.

"Heero?"

He looked back at his friend. "I wasn't falling asleep."

"Good." Duo smirked. "You do whatever you have to do, to stay conscious. You're not slipping into shock on my watch, no way. I'd tell you to count the ceiling tiles but, um...well, just use your imagination." He gazed up at the ceiling and a drop of water hit him right in the eye. "Ackgh...yeah, I'm imagining ceiling tiles right now...fluorescent purple ones with those glow-in-the-dark plastic sticky stars, and..."

Heero let him ramble on some more. If it made the baka feel better, who was he to question? He took the opportunity to glance over his thoughts of the last ten minutes...unusual thoughts for the Perfect Soldier to be having, of that there was no doubt. He ran through his mind all the missions in the past that had very nearly required the ultimate sacrifice--he never thought like this then. If you started getting in the way of the mission, you had to go; it was just another part of the job. That's why their Gundams had self-destruct buttons. That's why they occasionally carried cyanide tablets. It was part of the job.

Why have I never thought this way before?

Strange shuffling sounds to his right pulled Heero out of his reverie. Duo was muttering and searching through the pile of assorted junk that used to reside in his backpack. After less than a minute, he found what he was looking for.

"A-ha! Gotcha!" Triumphantly, he held a bundle of shiny, rectuangular objects into the beam of light coming from the halogen lamp, which was sitting on the ground facing up. He twisted them around in the light one by one, studying their surfaces. "Okay, dinnertime!"

"I beg your pardon?" Heero choked out, in too much pain to bother hiding his surprise.

Duo opened one of the foil-wrapped rectangles and sniffed it, smiling. "Ahhhhh...dried fruit bars, food of the gods." He chuckled at Heero's adorably bemused expression. "Q-Man helped me pick these out, see, 'cause nobody really likes emergency rations anyway, and besides, they're all buried over there somewhere..." He waved a hand in the general direction of the rock wall far to the left.

"Hn." Heero hated to admit it to himself, but Duo's frivolity with the supplies was actually going to be useful. At least the others would have some fuel to run off of...that is, if they ever saw sense and decided to run.

Duo took a big bite of his fruit bar. "Mmmmmmm...what kind do you want, Hee-chan? I've got apple-grape, apple-raspberry, apple-strawberry, apple-apricot..."

Heero scowled. What kind do I want? Baka, you can't waste precious supplies on a dying man. "Duo..."

"...apple-wildberry, apple...uh...something unpronounceable...looks good though..."

"Duo, wait a minute."

"I wonder what's with all the apples, though. Are apples, like, the glue that holds all other fruits together?"

"Duo!"

The supreme effort it took to yell was worth it; Duo stopped reading food labels and looked at Heero, eyes wide. "What?"

They sat there in a stunned silence for awhile, until scraping noises came from the tunnel. Duo rose and picked up the lantern. Whoever was coming had no light with them, and was fumbling down the crevice by touch alone. Heero prepared to make a grab for his gun in case it was the enemy. Duo shone the light down the passage. "Halt! Who goes there?"

"Put the light down, Maxwell, I can't see." Wufei had an arm draped over his eyes when he emerged. Duo put the lamp back down where it had been sitting and led Wufei over by his free hand, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

"Did you make radio contact?" Duo asked without preamble.

Wufei looked tired, frustrated, and angry all at once. "No. We couldn't even get outside. The entrance has caved in completely, and it's going to take some time to dig ourselves out, if we can dig out at all."

Duo's shoulders slumped noticeably. "Great..."

"The thought occurred to me that there might be another way out," Wufei continued. "Do you have the map?"

Heero removed the folded paper from his shirt pocket and handed it up to Wufei. "It won't do much good, this is the only tunnel marked on it. If you start now and work together, you might still be able to clear the entrance. Fumbling around in unmarked tunnels will only waste time."

"Yeah, and besides that, more of them could've collapsed, and we might spend the next three hours finding more dead ends," Duo added, crouching next to his gear. He gathered up two handfuls of the fruit bars and walked back to Wufei. "Here, take these up with you," he said, counting out six bars. "This is our only food supply, so make 'em last." He pushed them into Wufei's hands, then turned to search for something else. "Heero, where's your pack? You had the water, right?"

Wufei stared at the back of Duo's head wide-eyed, as if to say 'I came all this way in the dark, and you're not even coming back with me? Lazy-ass!' He looked down at Heero and remembered with a sigh why he had left Trowa and Quatre to their own devices on the way up. That was the bitter burden of being the odd man out, one always had to give other couples their space. Not that he'd ever seen evidence that Duo and Heero needed that kind of space, but he preferred not to ask.

Ignoring the stifling silence, Duo scoured the floor and finally spotted Heero's pack lying in a far corner with half it's contents spilled onto the ground. There were two one-litre bottles of water, both thankfully intact; he picked them up and handed one to Wufei. "You haven't got your flashlight with you?" he asked.

"I left it with the others so they could see what they're doing. They started working on the entrance when I left...are you..."

"Staying here," Duo said resolutely. He sat down next to Heero's right shoulder, tucking his legs underneath him. "Now, you'll need a light if you're going to carry all that up with you, do you want mine? There's still emergency candles here, and--" Duo was cut off by a hand on his knee. Heero was looking up at him, and had just enough strength to bend his arm at the elbow.

"Duo...you go too," he whispered.

"Nuh-uh, Heero, someone's gotta keep you awake, and I know I annoy you more than anything, so I'm the logical choice, right?" he said with a grin. Gently lifting Heero's hand off his knee, while ignoring the firey sparks his touch sent through his system, he picked up the flashlight and stood up to fasten it to Wufei's shoulder strap.

Heero's silence worried Wufei immensely; he thought surely by now the Wing pilot would be objecting fiercely to Duo staying behind, perhaps uttering one of those long and impressive strings of Japanese curses that only came out on special occasions. But instead, he was lying there, quite docile as his second in command blatantly defied orders. Maybe he was sicker than he was letting on, or maybe the two of them really did need that 'extra space'. Heero might have a few choice words stored up that were for Duo's ears alone. Either way, after a brief exchange of verbal assurances with Duo, Wufei left quietly and very disconcerted, back up the tunnel.

Heero waited until he felt Wufei would be out of earshot to start nagging his companion. "Duo, how many of those fruit bars did you give him?"

Surprised by this odd question, Duo answered quickly without thinking. "Six, why?" He lit an emergency candle from his pack and set it between them.

"How many did you bring?"

"Ten. I sent them six, I ate one, so I get one more and there's two left for--" Duo stopped when he saw Heero's disapproving glare. "Oh, come on!"

"You can't waste rations on me in this condition. I won't allow it. I won't eat."

Duo crouched and leaned over until his face was a scant inch away from Heero's. How does one trick a stubborn child into cleaning his plate? "I'll hold your nose if I have to."

"Fine, then I just won't breathe," Heero said evenly.

Duo threw himself back on the ground. "Argh! You...are...infuriating!!" Another cold drop of water hit Heero in the chest, as soon as the words were out. They laid there, staring at the ceiling, until the next drop hit Heero in the face. Duo was getting fed up with that weird drip-drip-drip-splat noise, and sat up to investigate. "What IS that?"

Squinting and bringing the candle closer, Duo finally saw the thin, dirty streaks of water on Heero's face. He stared straight ahead, deliberately avoiding Duo's eyes.

"How long has that been dripping on you?" Duo asked, looking up to find the water source and getting smacked in the nose by the next droplet in line. "As long as you've been lying there, right?"

No answer.

"Silent treatment, huh?" He looked back down at Heero. "All right, if you're gonna act like a child, I'm gonna treat you like one." He pulled his sleeve over his hand, and grabbing the crown of Heero's head with the other, he proceeded to wipe off the water and mud. He didn't get very far in this project before his victim started fighting back; one hand was in Duo's face, pushing his head back, and the other wrapped itself around his braid and was pulling hard. They fought each other off valiantly, fists and insults flying in all directions until they broke apart and fell back to the ground, panting and coughing.

Heero recovered first. "This is ridiculous. Get up that tunnel and dig yourself out now!"

Duo got up and paced back and forth a few times; he was on the verge of saying something really regrettable, but he didn't. Instead he took it out on his empty backpack, kicking it across the cave with a yell.

While he thought Duo wasn't watching, Heero let a hand slip to the back of his head and winced. Falling on the hard floor over and over really hurt, even though it paled in comparison to what his legs were going through. Still, it was something new to focus on. He rubbed the back of his head gingerly, watching Duo and putting his hand down quickly as soon as he turned around.

Not quick enough; Duo caught it. "What do I have to do to get you to bitch and moan about the pain, huh?" He picked up the lightly abused backpack and sat on Heero's left side. He lifted his friend's upper body off the ground and put the backpack under his head, cushioning it. "You'll do anything to avoid looking remotely human...I'll bet you're kicking yourself for letting us find you in the first place."

Heero just stared into those amethyst pools, praying that his stoic mask was still in one piece. You fight so hard, care so much...why waste it on me?

Duo let one arm linger under Heero's back for a moment, taking note that the boy's temperature was starting to drop. The scent of blood in the room had increased; the bleeding hadn't stopped. Duo considered the implications of leaving Heero in this condition, the way he was talking. At the moment, he was quite calm, as if strangely relaxed by the feel of Duo's arm around his shoulders. Heero found the closeness so intoxicating, since he could finally feel something besides pain, that he wasn't paying attention to the arm itself, and was too slow to stop a minor disaster from occurring.

Duo slid his hand down Heero's back and grabbed the pistol tucked into his waistband. He yanked it out and then scrambled out of Heero's reach before the shocked boy could react.

Furious, Heero stretched his near arm out in a futile attempt to snatch his weapon back from the braided bandit. "Give that back!"

"You're slipping, you know that? You're reeeeally slipping," Duo said, setting the gun down far to Heero's right, where he had no hope of reaching it. "I'm not leaving you here armed and dangerous, not a chance." He got up and made his way to the tunnel. "And since you really don't want me here, I won't make you suffer any more than you already are by having to look at my ugly mug, okay?"

As if on cue, an icy drop of water hit Heero in the chest. He was sure it felt more like someone punching him straight to the heart. He looked away. I DO want you here...

Prepared to disappear from Heero's sight, Duo turned and looked back at him. "Oi..." Their eyes met eventually. Duo looked over at the gun, then back at Heero. "You weren't, were you?"

"Of course not," Heero answered flatly.

Duo tore his eyes away painfully. "Liar." And with that he was gone.

After a few minutes alone, Heero reached out to his right, and pinched the lit wick of the emergency candle, extinguishing it. No sense in wasting this either. He was a liar, even to himself...especially to himself. He wouldn't admit that it was just plain easier, in the pitch blackness, to imagine that his friend was still there.

~~~~~~~~~~

Climbing back up the crevice was difficult enough with the lights on. It was damn near impossible in the dark, but every bruise and scrape Duo received helped drag his mind further away from Heero. Stubborn brat.

As he got closer to the top, it wasn't getting any brighter as he expected, but something else that was odd made him pick up speed. The air smelled a great deal fresher, and he swore he could detect the perfume of tropical flowers. Finally, without warning, he spotted a steel-toed boot and almost gasped for joy.

Wufei and Trowa were seated casually on the rocks; behind them was a hole in the barricade, not much more than a half-metre across...just about the size of a Sandrock pilot.

"He got out?" Duo exclaimed with glee.

"And we're taking a breather," Trowa said, finishing off one of the delightful dried fruit bars.

Duo grinned widely. "Awesome!" He bounced up the rest of the way and stuck his head through the opening, inhaling deeply. The air was like wine, sweet and cool on his face, soothing his nose and throat with clean, fresh moisture. It was beautiful outside. It was also dark. Duo realized with dismay that night had fallen.

He sat back next to the other two pilots. They didn't seem as happy, somehow. "Is there...anything else?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at their lack of enthusiasm.

"We sent Quatre out first to find the jeep," Wufei said, dragging a tired arm across his forehead. "We both thought he needed the fresh air more than we did."

There was something else...something less than good. "And?" Duo prodded.

"And the jeep's gone," Wufei finished.

Duo blinked. "Whaddaya mean, 'gone'?"

Trowa snorted in disgust. "Those cowards who set the explosives must've taken it. There can't have been anyone else around for a hundred miles." He shook his head. "How's Heero?"

"Mad as hell."

"Good," Wufei said, genuinely pleased. "If he's putting energy into his anger, perhaps he's not ready to give up yet."

Rearranging a few chunks of rock, Duo sat down sullenly. "I'm not so sure about that...I had to take his gun away before I came up here."

Two pairs of eyes widened dramatically. "He wouldn't..." Trowa stammered.

"I dunno...but I'm not taking any chances."

After that, they sat quietly together, suddenly unable to enjoy the fresh air. Rustling was heard outside, heralding Quatre's return. The blond boy crawled back inside easily, clearly having benefited from his time outside the cave. He looked straight at Duo, saw no trace of his trademark smile, and sat down next to him. "Heero's angry, isn't he?"

Duo nodded. Quatre looked expectantly at the others. "You guys want some fresh air? It'd do you both good..."

Wufei let a slight trace of a smile slip past his defenses. He was used to this. Wordlessly, he and Trowa got up and squeezed through the hole in the wall, shoving aside rocks as needed to make themselves fit.

Quatre switched his lantern off to save the battery. What seemed like an eternity passed before either of them spoke. "He's getting weaker," Quatre whispered.

"I know."

"He puts so much energy into supressing his emotions...that's how I can tell he's weakening, because they're starting to seep through the cracks." Quatre wrung his pale hands together. "He's getting tired."

"He wasn't too weak to tell me to get lost," Duo observed bitterly.

Quatre looked hurt, as if the remark had been aimed at him. "He didn't mean it..."

Duo looked up with surprise. "Hey...if you can tune into that all the way up here," he said, turning to face the other boy, "then you must know if he...you'd know what he feels about...about me," he finished uncomfortably.

"No, I couldn't!" Quatre gasped, shaking his head. "I can't...pry like that, I don't want to. Even if I could pick up on something so...personal...I couldn't tell you, it wouldn't be right."

"Come on, level with me here. Can't you even tell me if we're feeling the same thing?" Duo took hold of Quatre's arm firmly. "What do I feel? Tell me."

The tiny amount of light coming from the outside world was all but gone, but Quatre felt his friend's pleading expression etched into his mind nonetheless. "You...you care for him...very deeply."

"And he doesn't give a rat's ass about me, right?"

"Duo, please, there's so many horrible things going on inside him right now, it's like a huge black monster pounding him into the dust. He doesn't need this aggravation, so just leave it. For me? Please?"

Duo let go of his arm and stared at the opposite wall. "Oh, but I think he does need it, if he wants to live."

Even in the dark, Duo knew the gentle-spirited Arabian was crying by now. His voice was no more than a frail whisper. "He doesn't."

Half-prepared for the truth, but still not willing to accept it, Duo set his jaw and nudged Quatre towards the hole in the rubble. "Go on, get some more air, you've been working hard."

"What about you?" Quatre asked, rising weakly.

"I'll work on widening this out a little," Duo replied, kicking at the pile of rubble around the opening. "You need to get out of here. Walk around. Organize something. Get the guys to start poking around for food and water out there."

Quatre didn't like leaving Duo alone the way he was feeling, but he complied, squeezing back through the gap in the rocks and disappearing as easily as he had come. Slowly and with conviction, Duo began picking apart the barricade stone by stone with his bare hands.

~~~~~~~~~~

By 9:00pm, the only thing still open in the village was the bar. The grand total of structures that were actually brick buildings instead of straw huts belonging to the natives was two; the building that wasn't the bar housed the post office, radio room, and souvenir stand, all in the space of about 200 square feet. The bar, however, could seat about 80 people quite comfortably. Nobody usually came to the jungle outpost unless they were botanists, zoologists, or middle-aged jetsetters on safari with more money than brains. At least the safaris paid for the gas-powered generator that kept the beer cold. It was important to keep priorities straight in this village.

The bar itself was full of friendly local sorts, relaxing after a long, hot day in the fields. Besides the bartender, there were only four people in the bar who were most definitely not farmers. Sitting at a table, disposing of the rest of their cash until their ride came for them in the morning, were Louch and Burt. Their singular good luck from the afternoon had spilled over into evening, as they had managed to pick up two gorgeous ladies at the bar.

Louch carried another round of drinks to the table and sat down next to his new 'friend'. Her name was Lulu, and she was a goddess. She was slender, statuesque, a bit taller than Louch, and despite the stately, almost military air about her, she simply oozed femininity. Lulu wore denim cut-offs and a green halter top that were practical for the weather, and also flaunted her curves mercilessly. She was constantly brushing her long black bangs out of her face as she chatted, but the rest of her hair was quite short.

"So what are you boys celebrating?" Lulu asked in a husky alto voice.

"Why my good lady," Louch purred through a cloud of alcohol. "We are celebrating a great triumph for the memory of the 83rd platoon. Today we have claimed victory against our worst enemies, in the names of all our fallen brethren." He let out a tiny belch.

"That sounds fascinating," the other woman chirped, smiling at her companion. "And so brave..." She scooted her chair closer to the thugs, completely enthralled. Burt grinned stupidly.

The woman next to Burt was an absolute dream. Her eyes sparkled mysteriously, and she had soft, honey blonde hair gathered into two lovely twists that hung gracefully in front of her shoulders, framing her face. There was a hint of the east in her features, and the barest touch of red lip gloss made her resemble a proud Pharoah wearing a golden headdress. Her name was Sal.

Burt blushed as Sal leaned in closer, letting her low-buttoned khaki shirt fall away from her throat. "Won't you tell us about it?" she pleaded.

Flustered, Burt looked over at Louch as if asking permission to speak. Louch looked undecided until Lulu brushed his leg with her foot, smiling coyly. "Why not start with your platoon? You were talking like it's gone...are you all retired soldiers?"

Louch looked at his pint of lager sadly, but he adored talking about his old army days. "We were stationed in New Mexico, ground troops and an air squadron. I was a Leo pilot." He paused for a sip of beer and let his eyes go wistfully out of focus. "There was a convoy coming through by train...weapons mostly, top-secret stuff. They called in six platoons to see it across the state, numbers 80 to 85. An awful lot for a puny shipment like that, I thought.

"It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that the bigwigs were expecting trouble. Well, when the shipment was about halfway through, we got trouble." The girls were listening intently now, absorbed by the storyteller. He drained his glass and set it aside.

"About an hour after sunset, they came for us. Five mobile suits unlike anything we'd ever seen before. Sure, we'd all heard the rumours, that if you saw one of these babies, you wouldn't make it out alive, but it was just locker room talk, y'know? Well, I can tell you, not one of us was laughing when those...things came shooting across the horizon.

"83rd platoon was on guard past midpoint on the route, and the train was just coming into radio range...then we found out all those horror stories about the new suits...about the Gundams...were totally true."

Lulu and Sal looked at each other briefly; the men didn't notice.

"They had everything, the speed, the weapons, the tracking systems, damn things manoevered like mountain goats on land and even better in the air. The 'powers that be' had information on these suits, into that could've helped us in battle, but they never bothered coughing it up...and we never found out why. But heck, even if we'd studied them weeks ahead, it wouldn't have mattered...we outnumbered them dozens of times over, and they still had us outgunned!

"All five just started slicing through our unit. One Gundam had a flamethrower on it's arm that took out my whole left flank in one blow. Another had these curved thermal blades that could chop through a suit like it was warm butter...the third had firepower like a dozen of us Leos rolled into one. They just blew away half the platoon, made it look easy.

"The last two...oh, you could tell these were serious badass machines with equally badass pilots. Never saw anything move like these two did, never will again. One of 'em had a thermal weapon that turned a half dozen suits into coleslaw in about two seconds, and the other had this unbelievable rifle...belonged on an aircraft carrier, if you ask me, the recoil must've been brutal! Anyway, what got me about these two was the way they worked around each other...the way they fought, covered each other's backs...it was like watching two suits controlled by one mind. I hardly had time to blink before most of our platoon was dead. It was pitch black out and then all of a sudden there were so many Leos on fire, you could see for miles by the light they gave off. And those two...those two were next to each other the whole time. It felt like they were talkin' it over, laughing to each other, like 'See that last one I got? Betcha can't get two of 'em in one one go!'

"That burned me...that really burned seeing those Gundams just standing around acting all proud of themselves while our whole unit went up in flames...we had to pay them back."

Lulu wasn't smiling anymore. "Who's we?"

"Me an' Burt here," Louch said, pointing to the half-drunk techinician. "He wasn't even supposed to be in the battle; he was my primary tech and he sorta...got himself stuck between a coolant tank and a hydraulic conduit inside my suit. Never knew he was in there until I powered down after the battle. Ain't that right, Burt? Too many donuts, eh?" He smirked and clapped Burt on the shoulder.

The primary technician smiled back. "Yeah, donuts."

"What about the shipment? Did it make it through?" Sal asked.

"Nope," Louch replied. "Gundams stole it. Stole the whole thing. I saw them do it. They just up and ran with the weapons and everything. After they murdered our platoon, of course. Me and Burt were the only two that survived." He tightened his grip on the edge of the table. "Then fuckin' OZ wouldn't even reassign us to another unit, they just handed us our walking papers...'Oh, sorry you almost got barbequed by the Gundams, shit happens, have a nice life!' Makes you sick sometimes..."

Lulu seemed deep in thought over something Louch had just said; Sal picked up the conversation where it had been dropped in the middle of the table.

"So what about this great victory today? I'll bet it was exciting! What did you do?" Sal leaned over even further, exposing a bit of lace under her shirt, aiming more in Louch's direction. She fiddled absentmindedly with the next button down.

His eye quickly caught by the shameless acts of flirtation, Louch was propelled into a tirade about the day's events. "Before I was a pilot, I was a computer specialist with a team on recon in this area. We found all kinds of underground tunnels and mapped them for weeks, but they never got used for anything."

Louch leaned forward, eyes dancing. "I learned enough about hacking systems while I was here that I could plant a fake message in almost any network anywhere. Burt has some friends in the back-water intelligence racket, and between the two of us, we found out where those Gundam pilots were, after all this time."

Sal and Lulu paled and looked at each other while the ex-soldier rambled. "I sent them a fake invitation to a 'destroy-the-hidden-enemy-base' party, and they actually bought it! They came here with enough explosives to level a small town, and they went right where I told them to go...into this little, tiny cave I arranged for them with only one way out. They totally fell for it!"

Lulu swallowed. "And how was the party?" she asked flatly.

Burt and Louch looked at each other like they'd won the lottery. "They had a blast!!" Both men burst into peals of laughter, not noticing that their companions, Sal in particular, wore expressions of dread and fear.

Pulling herself together, Lulu nodded at Sal and turned her attention to the ringleader. "Oooh, sounds dangerous...take me there..." she moaned, licking her lips at Louch.

"Wha...? Babe, you don't wanna go back there, trust me. It's no place for a lady, besides that, it's hours from here."

Lulu pulled her chair closer to his, playing it real cagey. "You know what excites me more than anything? Dangerous men like you," she whispered, putting a graceful hand on his knee. "That's why I'm here, you know...only dangerous people come here..."

Louch shivered perceptibly as Lulu slid her hand up his thigh. Across the way, Sal had swung her jodphur boots up on the table and was treating Burt to a splendid view of her legs, fingering the cuff of her khaki shorts seductively.

By now the bartender didn't know what to think. He'd seen prostitutes in his bar before, but none as forward as these seemed to be. Nor had he ever seen two women con two men into buying them drinks and then not bother to drink them, preferring instead to do a virtual striptease in full view of the other patrons. Despite being good for business, he wished they'd just go and get it over with.

The hungry fire in Lulu's eyes intensified. "I'll bet you've got a thousand stories to tell, about the war, about you...fighting, guns, sex, death...if only we could go someplace where we could hear them all," she said longingly.

"Actually, Lu," Sal interrupted from behind her half-buttoned blouse, "there is that hut we rented from the safari company, and it's much too big for just the two of us..." She smiled at Burt, his eyes wide with anticipation.

Louch was grinning like a madmad at his date, shivering and drooling as he imagined what their wedding invitations would look like. 'You are cordially invited to witness the marriage of Lou and Lulu.' Sweet.

Few words passed between them as they left the bar; most of the other patrons were glad to see them go.

Lulu and Sal led the inebriated men to a small hut on the edge of the village, quite a distance from the others. They entered first, looking coyly over their shoulders, and moved away from the door. Louch and Burt congratulated each other warmly, saluted, and followed them in, their eyes glazed over with lust.

The men had high expectations of what they were about to receive, but were sorely disappointed when all they got for their trouble were identical roundhouse kicks to the head. They fell to the ground, unconscious.

Sally Po raised an eyebrow at Lucrezia Noin. "....'Lulu'?"

"What? I thought it sounded cute!"

~~~~~~~~~~

The odour of blood in the cave was increasing. For whatever reason, the bleeding still hadn't stopped, and Duo had been gone a long time. Still, Heero was determined to be satisfied that he had finally followed orders, if only partially.

He'll probably be back.

It was actually nicer with him being annoying instead of being gone; his mindless babbling filled up a little bit of the space between them that would otherwise have been filled with pain. He was thirsty now. As cold as it was, he had been sweating profusely because of the pain, holding himself back from crying out. It wouldn't do any good to yell. It wouldn't hurt less if he did.

I've been trained to deal with pain.

The stinging, aching, throbbing, tearing pain could be dealt with, but not ignored. It occurred to him that maybe Duo's lifelong policy of 'ignore it and it'll go away' didn't work any better for Duo that it did for himself. All the time he wasted blathering about rock bands and ceiling tiles was how he dealt with his pain, the anguish of watching his friend suffer and not being able to help.

He could give himself his silly psychotherapy while digging out. Why would he insist on staying here with Mr. Hopeless Cause, AND endanger the rest of the team's safety?

After a time that Heero couldn't measure, he felt himself drifting closer to sleep. It could be suicide to do so.

He's not the soldier I thought he was...needs to toughen up...

He fell suddenly, hundreds of miles at a terrifying rate, into a foggy abyss of dreams and memories.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey, you guys! Whatcha lagging back there for? Come on!" Duo ran from the food promenade to the midway in record time. Three hot dogs plus two sodas, and cotton candy on the side resulted in a burst of energy none of the other pilots could match.

It was a red-letter day in Duo's history. As part of a special promotion to benefit some charitable organization, the circus Trowa worked with had teamed up with a huge carnival company to present an outstanding double feature. The specially-discounted tickets for the occasion, combined with having a buddy in the business, meant that coaster-crazy Duo could have his fill of thrill rides at rock-bottom prices. He was in seventh heaven.

As they tried to catch up with him, Trowa and Quatre jogged hand in hand taking in all the wonderful sights, sounds, and smells of the midway. Heero and Wufei walked behind, rolling their eyes at each other and shaking their heads periodically.

Duo stopped in front of the carnival's crown jewel. "Whoa..." he breathed admiringly. His four friends stood behind him, gaping.

"You can't be serious," Wufei said with a start.

"Hell yeah!" Duo shouted.

Quatre put a hand on his elbow. "But you just ate! You can't go on that thing yet!"

"Nooo, of course not," Duo said in mock compliance. "Not by myself, anyway!" He grabbed Quatre's shoulders and steered him toward the line. Panic filled the Arabian's eyes and Trowa pried him free eventually, laughing so hard he nearly knocked them all to the ground.

"Ahhh, don't any of you turn chicken on me NOW," Duo chided, teasingly. Kicking over an orange crate and standing on it, Duo proceeded to deliver a short sermon about the object of his admration. "Gentlemen...what you see behind me is not mere paint, and glitter, and steel, no..." He put one hand on his heart and flung the other to the side, pointing back at the metal beast. "This, my friends, is an institution...a symbol of man's quest to conquer fear...a line drawn in the sand by fate herself, where the masses tremble with anticipation, waiting for this magnificent creation to separate the men from the boys!"

By now a small crowd had gathered behind the pilots, pulled in by Duo's emphatic and passionate speech. The strange mix of priest's clothes and sweeping gestures worthy of the pulpit at St. Peter's drew their enraptured attention. Heero looked around, slapped a hand over his eyes, and groaned.

"What THIS is," Duo hollered, ready to drive his point home, "is the biggest, the baddest, the meanest mother of a roller coaster in all the Earth, and the colonies! And we're not gonna let it scare us away, are we!?"

"NO!" the crowd shouted. Trowa and Quatre snickered. Even Wufei showed traces of an amused smile. Heero raised an eyebrow.

"And we're the only ones in this whole sorry, timid, chickenshit universe with the guts it takes to battle this beast, aren't we!?"

"YEAH!" the crowd answered.

"None of us is leaving until we show it we're not afraid! Get in those seats and vanquish it! The killer! The ultimate! The Quantum Death 3000! NOW WHO'S WITH ME!!?"

The crowd exploded with cheers and rioted all the way to the gate chanting 'Quantum Death! Quantum Death!' A terrifying thought struck Heero that if Duo cleaned up his language a little, he might have a bright future in politics. Duo hopped off the orange crate, pumped full of adrenaline, and grinned at his fellow daredevils. "Ready?"

"You're not going on that thing," Heero said.

"What? Why!?"

"Quatre's right. You just ate, and if you ride that coaster right now, we're ALL going to regret it in about ten minutes." Heero folded his arms and fixed his face into a glare. He wasn't backing down on this one. "The tickets may be cheap, but the food isn't, and since you're always broke, I'll have to feed you twice."

Duo stood toe-to-toe with Heero, hands on hips. "Lemmie get this straight...I've pulled G-forces sitting in Deathscythe that would make most guys quit breathing, and you think I'm gonna step off this thing and toss my cookies?"

"Yes."

"I won't!"

"You will."

They stared each other down until Trowa cleared his throat. "Guys, they're only open for another nine hours," he quipped. Duo looked at the roller coaster and then gave Heero his best puppy dog eyes.

Heero shook his head. "Those don't work on me." Duo's face fell. "It's only 12:30. We'll walk around for awhile, and then come back, okay?"

Duo looked forlornly at his loyal followers, who were already strapped into the ride, still chanting. He sighed, and decided it was the best offer he was going to get. He didn't want to be angry at Heero, since he was only looking out for his friend, after all.

"Okay," he sighed.

And so they continued on their way, leaving the coaster full of cheering thrill ride fanatics behind.

Wufei nodded approvingly at Duo. "Good speech. I enjoyed it."

"Hey, thanks, Wu-Man!"

They wandered for a good hour or so, playing the carnival games, watching the street performers, all the while listening to Duo chatter about how much he was looking forward to the Quantum Death 3000. Eventually, he was tugging on Heero's arm every five minutes asking if it was time to go back yet. His enthusiasm proved infectious enough to make the others agree to ride the coaster too, even Quatre; they truly liked doing things as a team. While they prepared themselves for the ultimate blow to their senses, fate prepared a surprise for Heero.

Situated a few meters away from the boys, as they compared the times on their watches, was a batting cage. Little kids, dreaming of the big leagues, paid to have baseballs thrown at them at 90 miles an hour, just for kicks. In the middle of a batting session, an eight-year-old boy suddenly decided he had to go to the bathroom. As he left the cage, no one noticed he left the gate wide open, just like no one noticed the pitching machine was still on. No one noticed anything strange.

The next ball came screaming out of the pitching machine, over the plate, through the gate, ricocheted off a 'you-must-be-this-tall' sign, and beaned Heero in the back of the head. He noticed.

The ball struck his skull with a sickening crack, and for a moment he just stood there, not even blinking. Dazed, the Wing pilot lurched forward, clutching the back of his head and letting out an involuntary groan. All four gasped and held him upright. They shook him gently and shouted his name, trying to drag him back from the brink of unconsciousness. The batting cage operator was over in an instant.

"Hey, kid, are you alright?" asked the bearded man, genuinely more worried about Heero's condition than his liability insurance. He picked up the errant baseball and looked straight into Heero's eyes. "Kid? Can you hear me?"

"Heero, come on, wake up!" Duo was snapping his fingers in his dizzy friend's face. At least he was still standing; that in itself was quite remarkable. "Look at me...I'm right over here...can you see me?"

Heero blinked in the direction of the voice, struggling to bring his vision back into focus. He saw approximately four Duos...not an entirely unpleasant sight, to be sure, but not exactly normal either. Within seconds, the Perfect Soldier appeared to be back, and he politely brushed off the concerned hands holding him up.

"I'm fine," he said plainly.

"You don't look fine," Quatre said.

The cage operator wasn't buying his story. "Listen, kid, you oughta lie down and lemmie have a look at ya. You just took a fast ball to the head! That'd knock me out cold!"

Heero shot a mild Deathglare at the bearded man, although he had trouble locating him at first. "I said I'm fine."

Trowa put a hand on the operator's arm. "It's alright, sir, really. I'm with the circus troupe, I can get him backstage to see the duty physician if he needs to."

The man thought for a moment, then seemed satisfied with this. "Yeah, well...alright, just keep an eye on him," he said, walking away. "And don't let him operate any heavy machinery," he deadpanned.

Four out of five pilots couldn't help but laugh at the innocent remark. They quickly shuffled Heero over to a bench in front of the Quantum Death 3000 and sat him down. Wufei immediately knelt in front of him and starting asking questions; the date, the time, the place, the capital of Venezuela, the names of their Gundams in alphabetical order, and finally how many fingers he was holding up. "Pay attention, Yuy."

Heero slapped his hand away. "I said I was fine! Are you all deaf!?"

Trowa winked at the others. He'd dealt with concussion patients before, mostly after a mishap on the highwire. They stubbornly refused to believe there was anything wrong with them unless they were utterly humbled. "Heero, if you were to take Wing from the moon to L3, while the moon was in perigee, with a full tank of fuel but only 75% of your life support, what's the minimum speed you'd have to maintain to get there before you run out of oxygen?"

Heero blinked stupidly. "Uh...L3?" He nodded. "L3 is...um..." Damn. He knew the colony was out there somewhere, but it's exact compass bearing kept eluding him. "From where, again?"

The others sighed. Trowa nodded. "Concussion."

Duo looked sympathetically at Heero and put an arm around him. It was truly sad and at the same time hilarious to see him so lost and confused, and he felt a strong sense of protectiveness towards him. Heero stared straight ahead and slightly downward, blushing.

Crisis number two came soon after, in the form of an announcement over the loudspeaker. The Quantum Death 3000 would operate for one more trip, and then be closed for maintenance the rest of the day. It was last call.

Duo jumped up, ecstatic. "Oh man...you're all coming, right?"

"Heero can't ride that thing with a concussion," Quatre pointed out sadly. "Well, I don't know that he can't, but it seems risky..."

Trowa shook his head in agreement. "Wouldn't be a good idea."

"Oh no! Can we come back tomorrow?" Duo pleaded.

"Not likely," Wufei answered. "We're moving to a new safe house tomorrow."

Duo fell back onto the bench, defeated. "I can't believe this." Out of the depths of his despair, Duo felt a hand on his shoulder.

"You guys go ahead. I'll wait here."

They all looked at Heero and then at each other, then Duo broke the silence. "Aw, Hee-chan, I can't let you sit out here by yourself and miss all the fun...tell you what, I'll stay with Heero, and you three can go nuts," he said, waving the others in the direction of the coaster. "We'll be fine out here," he said with a grin.

Quatre looked pleased and disappointed at once. "Duo, are you sure?"

"Yeah, go ahead...and I want a detailed blow-by-blow when you get back, okay?" He stretched out lazily on the bench, draped an arm across Heero's chest, and gave the blond boy a sly smile. "No rush..."

Trowa and Quatre smiled back with instant understanding. With very little discussion, they turned around, took one of Wufei's arms apiece, and the trio marched off to battle the coaster of doom. Heero was still staring at Duo in disbelief.

"You didn't have to do that."

"But I wanted to. It wouldn't have been any fun without you anyway."

"...hn." There was little point in arguing.

The three adventurers returned later with nothing but the highest praise for the roller coaster. It had been a sensational ride. Heero felt a pang of what he guessed was guilt that Duo had missed it to babysit him, but the braided boy kept insisting that it was alright. Night approached the carnival, and three of the boys had enjoyed a full afternoon, trying out all the other rides while Duo and Heero kept various benches from flying up in the air. While they busied themselves on an antique Polar Express, Duo weaved around the game stalls and food stands, looking for the perfect spot.

He finally settled on a bench facing west, just in front of the lake, with a squarish-shaped boulder in front of it, at the perfect distance for one to put one's feet up casually. They both sat down, and Duo immediately flung his feet up on the rock. After being sharply nudged in the ribs with an elbow, Heero did the same. The sun was setting into the horizon of the lake, painting the water and sky with glorious shades of blue, purple, red and gold.

The hurly-burly of the carnival seemed to fade away after awhile, encouraging forth the quiet conversation waiting in the wings. "How's your head?"

"Better, but I still feel a bit strange."

Duo folded his arms behind his head. "Probably should take a couple days off before you get back in Wing. You gotta admit, you took a hard lick back there."

Heero nodded, taking in the sunset. Thankfully, his blurred vision only lasted about an hour, although some disorientation and a slight ringing in his ears remained. "Duo?"

"Yeah?"

"Why don't you go find the others and have some fun while the park's still open?"

Duo pulled his braid out from behind him and fiddled with the elastic. "Because..."

"You don't have to sit with me all night, I don't plan on passing out or having a seizure," Heero said with a touch of sarcasm.

"I know, I know," Duo declared. "That's not why I'm here anyway. Takes more than a fastball to the noggin to stop Heero Knievel, I know that!"

"So why are you here? All you could talk about after lunch was going on that roller coaster. Why didn't you go?"

Duo shrugged with a smile. "This is nice, too..." A lack of any intelligible response from Heero made Duo blush faintly, and he started babbling. "We don't get that much time together, especially not with that damn third wheel of a laptop around. Don't try to deny it, that thing always gets the lion's share of your attention. Not that I'm one to complain, but today's been...well, nice. It's a shame you almost got knocked out and all, but I'm really enjoying getting to hang out with you for a few hours and not get yelled at for talking overtop of your almighty clicking keyboard.

"And besides, just look at that!" he exclaimed, pointing to the sunset with upturned palms. "That's worth ten Quantum Deaths any day of the week...especially since I got to share it with you." Ordinarily, Duo would have thrown himself under a bus before saying anything so sappy, but hell with it, he was in a sappy mood.

Heero didn't know how to respond. No part of his training ever prepared him for his battle partner rambling about the sunset, or for what happened next. As he stared at the horizon, Heero felt something warm wrapping around his hand; looking down, he saw Duo had inched closer to him and slipped his own hand around Heero's thin fingers. He had quite logically assumed that Duo wouldn't be happy unless he was racing around the carnival like a cheetah on acid...so why did he seem so content sitting still?

Duo seemed to read his mind. "Suppose, hypothetically...and I don't mean anyone in particular...that you've got a choice between being together or being happy...I'd always pick together, 'cause y'see, being happy won't necessarily bring you together, but being together is what makes you happy..." He trailed off, embarassed. "Yeah, sounds stupid, I know." He shrugged and looked over at Heero to gauge his reaction.

When Heero turned to meet Duo's gaze, he nearly caught his breath. The sunset was reflected in his violet eyes and tinted them with a multitude of sparkling hues. His eyes were suddenly two dazzling, rainbow-coloured jewels, dancing and shimmering only for him. Pleased with the way his friend stared at him, speechless, Duo smiled--not his trademark smirk laced with bitterness and superiority, but a pure, gentle smile. Heero was shocked to feel his mouth involuntarily offer him a tiny smile in return.

Looking at the sunset once again, they sat in silence. Duo's stomach rumbled angrily, demanding it's dinner, but Duo ignored it completely. Instead, he yawned and leaned his tousled, chestnut head on Heero's shoulder.

Alien sensations flooded Heero's muddled brain...tingling, swirling, aching sensations he couldn't interpret, and a tugging feeling in the center of his chest, just below his ribcage. He tried desperately to link these new symptoms to his concussion, as if afraid of what else they could mean. Unable to make a correlation, he analyzed it methodically.

Could he still see and hear clearly? Yes. Were any of the new sensations painful? No. Did his concussion seem worse since Duo had come closer? Not at all--in fact, he felt better. Puzzling.

He looked down at his friend; maybe it wasn't supposed to mean anything. Maybe it was just supposed to feel good.

After awhile, Heero got a crick in his neck from sitting up straight, and without thinking, he leaned his head against Duo's. The other boy's grip on his hand tightened ever so slightly, and they relaxed together, watching the stars come out and drinking the summer air laced with the aromas of soft pretzels and caramel corn.

Heero didn't know why, but he liked this.

He wanted more of this.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the heavenly remembrances faded and reality came crashing in, Heero awoke to the smell of blood, stone, and stale water. He regretted not having died in his sleep, with such beautiful thoughts to see him into the next world.

Blinking away a fresh layer of wet dust, he saw light in the cave; someone had returned, at least long enough to re-light the candle. He also felt a faint pressure on his chest, up near his right shoulder, far from the damp puddle in the middle of his camoflage shirt caused by the dripping water.

He turned his head weakly and saw Duo, sitting with his eyes closed and his legs tucked underneath him. His left hand was resting lightly near Heero's shoulder; his right hand was suspended in front of him, clutching an object. In the low light, Heero caught the glint of a golden chain running from Duo's hand, around his neck, and back again. He's holding his cross.

Duo hadn't yet noticed that Heero was awake; his eyes were still gently closed, and his lips were moving mutely, as if in a trance. He was silently reciting something, but the low light combined with grogginess and fatigue made it too difficult for Heero to lip-read.

He looked Duo over thoughtfully. He'd seen the boy in this posture before. It was many battles ago, at a time when they had all relied on hand-to-hand combat to accomplish their mission; Duo had also been forced to mortally wound a guard. The uniformed brute wasn't a vile or wicked man, he was merely following orders and he got in the way. Duo secretly pitied him.

When the fighting had calmed down, Duo, Heero and Wufei waited for their signal to proceed. Heero remembered discussing something with Wufei, and Duo had disappeared around the corner. When the signal was given, he went to fetch his teammate and found him crouched over the guard's body. He laid a hand upon the man and clutched his cross in the same way; he was muttering something quietly.

Heero had watched for a moment and ducked back around the corner before Duo could realize he was being observed. When Duo returned, he nonchalantly announced that the guard was dead.

And now he seemed to be huddled over Heero in the same way.

Has he finally accepted that I'm going to die?

He was probably the only living soul that knew about Duo's secret little death ritual. And soon, no one will know. Heero didn't realize that Duo had opened his eyes and was staring back at him until he spoke.

"Sleep well, Heero?"

The final countdown had begun.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sally and Noin had already lived one hell of a day. Home base had gotten just so far as to determine the five pilots had been given a fake mission, and figure out a rough location, before the message in question digitally self-destructed. Since the ladies were closest to the general area where the boys were supposed to be, having just finished some business of their own, they were dispatched to investigate covertly. Both were tired, hungry, overworked, and had been greatly looking forward to going home and putting their feet up, and now the two dunderheads in their custody had gone and ruined it for them, and possibly murdered the pilots at well.

They were more than upset; Sally and Noin were, quite plainly, in no mood to be fucked with.

"Why don't we try this again? You either tell me where they are, or you sit there all night with the gag on. Either way, you're not using language like that with me ever again, understand?"

Louch boiled over with anger, but eventually nodded at the dark-haired woman. The honeymoon was over. Resisting the urge to bite her fingers off, he sat still while Noin pulled the gag down below his chin.

She stepped back to stand next to Sally, who kept a vicious-looking rifle trained on the two men, in case three layers of quarter-inch nylon rope wasn't enough to hold them. Louch was glaring razor-sharp daggers at the pair, especially Noin; Burt sat quietly staring at the ground. He remained ungagged because he couldn't bring himself to use language like Louch just had, not in front of a lady...two ladies.

"Where are they!?" Noin demanded.

"Boiling in a lake of fire, I hope," Louch spat back.

Noin struck him hard across the jaw, adding one more bruise to his rapidly growing collection. "Try again."

"Why are you so interested, huh?" he scoffed. "Are you their babysitters or something? Or maybe you've got something going on with them..." he said with a disgusting smile. Sally swallowed and stiffened just enough to be noticed. "Yeah, you do, doncha?"

"You wanna keep making smartass remarks, or would you rather leave your knees in the middle of your legs where they belong?" Noin crouched in front of him, snarling an inch away from his face. "Haven't I gone easy on you? Haven't I been generous? You've still got everything attached to you that you came in with, haven't you? If you'd just answer one itty bitty question, you could take a nap right now and forget all about those nasty bruises." She smiled sweetly. "You don't want me to get bored, or I'll have to start breaking bones."

"Yeah, right," he said, "you don't scare me, little missy. I only let you tie me up 'cause it gave me a buzz." He smirked and made sloppy kissing noises in the air.

In a flash, Noin hit him with a swift right jab to the face, breaking his nose. Louch howled in pain, and Burt winced, cowering away from the woman. Noin stood, satisfied with her handiwork.

"OWW!! Geez...frickin'...God-damn..." Louch sputtered, eyes watering. Blood trickled into his filthy mouth.

Sally smiled. "Only two-hundred-odd left."

"You bitch!!" he screamed. "You don't know who you're dealing with! You don't screw with people like us! We're not your average pushovers, we're OZ!!"

Throwing a sympathetic look at Burt, Sally backed up a few steps. Things were about to get ugly. Noin sat down on the floor opposite Louch, crossed her legs and propped her elbows up on her knees, lacing her fingers together gracefully. The smile was still there. "Really, now?"

"I'm a war veteran! D'you know what that means? It means I've marched through blood and gore and guts fighting for something that mattered! I could break you in two with my bare hands!"

"Is that so?" The smile grew.

"We didn't just run around shooting stuff, we were a force! There's more of us out there, and when they find us they'll tear you to shreds! And it won't be quick either, because we've seen it all! We've seen all the shit that goes on in a war, and we'll give you a taste of it, make you two little pussies understand who's in charge!! I was a corporal in the greatest army there ever was, and you...can't...TOUCH ME!!"

Noin's smile never faltered. "Corporal, eh?" She reached into her pocket and pulled out her old lieutenant's insignia, which she carried for luck. She slapped it on the floor between them. "I'll raise you."

Louch blinked and squinted at the piece of metal, eyes wide. He began to blubber faintly. Noin grabbed him by the collar and dragged the heavy man closer, their faces an inch apart once again.

"Listen up, dicksmack." Louch froze at the sound of her well-trained military voice. "While you were out here playing Tarzan and learning how to type, I was training the Specials. When you were bumbling around in the desert getting pasted by the Gundams, I was fighting alongside Zechs Merquise. I've been in the same room with people who had their finger on the trigger that could have annihilated most of mankind. I've seen ten times the shit you've seen, and I happen to have some pretty powerful friends too. You're in WAY over your head, mister, so don't even THINK about threatening ME."

She threw Louch back against the wall hard; he was speechless, for once. Standing up, she took immense gratification in watching him squirm.

"I remember the New Mexico convoy," she continued. "I wasn't there, but I read the report. You weren't totally honest with us, were you? Was it the booze talking?"

Sally's ears perked up, slightly anxious to hear about the puzzling thing Noin had been mulling over in the bar. She still wished she'd hurry, though; if the boys were still alive, they probably needed help, fast.

Noin paced like a prosecutor grilling a witness. "You said you saw the Gundams steal the shipment of weapons. That's very strange, because the official OZ report was that the shipment was destroyed. The cleanup crews even brought back some of the burnt-out casings with the train cars and damaged suits.

"Just a minor change to your story, really...either way, the shipment never got through. But it's not what you told us, is it? How could you remember the rest of the battle in such perfect detail and not know the outcome? You never saw what happened to the shipment, so you had to guess, and you blamed the Gundams. Where were you when the shipment was destroyed?"

Louch looked up, head slightly lowered and seething with rage. Burt just looked whipped and a little confused. Neither man spoke.

"I'll tell you what I think," Noin declared, stopping in front of her captives. "I think you ran away. I think the Gundams scared you so much that you ran from the battle! You left your comrades in the middle of a fight because you couldn't handle it!!"

"SHUT UP!" Louch yelled. Noin had struck a nerve.

"You were stuck in a dead-end reconnaissance job and you weren't happy with it, so you enlisted to get some real action and found out it was too much for you. That's why you took your frustrations out on the pilots, because they were up to the challenge, because they were stronger than you and that's why they were the last ones left standing on the battlefield! Then OZ canned you because you deserted, and you blame the Gundams instead of blaming yourself! You can't face up to the fact that you're a coward!!"

"I'M NOT A COWARD!! They cheated! They must have cheated, how else.....how else....." Louch sputtered, red-faced.

Noin looked down at him with contempt. "You sicken me. Those five pilots are just kids, and you brought them out here to die because of your own shame...just so you could win at something."

Sally looked at Noin sadly. Did she really believe they were dead?

"It might not be too late, you know...if there's any chance at all that they survived, you'd make it easier on yourself if you told us where they are." Noin waited for his decision.

Louch clammed up and stared at the wall. At this point he didn't care if he spent the rest of his life in prison, so long as he could keep his victory. He stretched his crooked lips into a tight, defiant sneer, refusing to speak.

The women looked at each other for ideas, but they could only shake their heads. It would take days to search the jungle blind, but it appeared they had no alternative.

"I know where they are," a timid voice said. They all looked up. It was Burt.

Louch glared at him fiercely. "Don't you say anything, you brainless meathead," he spat.

"Hey!" Noin shouted, kicking Louch in the leg. "Let him talk."

Sally handed the rifle to Noin and crouched in front of Burt, studying him. He was cute, in a teddy bear sort of way; it was a shame that he let himself be bossed around all the time. "Burt?"

Burt swallowed. "We got their jeep too."

"Burt, shut UP!!"

Before Noin could strike Louch again, Burt turned to look at him. "I'm sorry, Louch. I can take it when you yell at me for being dumb, I mean, I know I'm not that smart...and I can take it when you call me names and put me down all the time," he said solemnly, "but I don't like it when people lie to me, and you lied when you told me those guys were thieves and cheaters."

Louch stared. "You believe them over ME?"

Burt looked up at Sally, who smiled, then looked back at his former friend. "Uh-huh."

Louch had nothing more to say; he just gaped at the man, then glowered at him. Burt seemed to shrink and wither under the steely hard gaze.

Noin switched out of disciplinary mode and spoke softly. "Burt, I said Sally and I had powerful friends, and if we're trying to save those pilots, it must be true, right? They're powerful, and they're on our side." Burt nodded. "Who does Louch have?"

"Just me," Burt said.

"The only reason he's got you at all," Sally said, "is because he knows you won't stand up to him. We stick with our friends for better reasons than that, and we protect each other. If you help us, we'll do our best to protect you too, alright?"

Burt actually looked thoughtful. "You'll look after Louch too, won't you?"

Sally smiled, touched that after all the abuse he had received from his so-called friend, he still felt concern for him. "We'll take him someplace where he can get some help."

"And the authorities will know how you helpful you were," Noin added.

Burt looked at Sally with the first true glimmer of hope he'd felt since the war. "Promise?"

Sally traced a pattern on her blouse. "Cross my heart."

A short pause later, the bottom fell out of Louch's world. "I can show you where the cave is," Burt said. "It takes a couple hours to get there by car."

Noin sighed with relief. Progress at last. Louch was re-gagged for the journey, and as soon as the way was clear, the women marched their captives out of the hut under cover of darkness. Burt led them to the jeep, and they drove out to Noin's vehicle, where she picked up laser rifles, climbing gear and other assorted equipment. Sally emptied the trunk of her medical supplies and piled it into the back seat of the jeep, between Burt and Louch. The ropes had been left on their arms and wrists, as a precaution. Burt didn't mind; he called it an intelligent and proper thing to do.

It was nearly midnight when they sped down the dirt road. Noin drove while Sally worked the controls on the radio, trying to raise a signal on the pilot's emergency transceiver frequency.

Unnoticed by all but the natives, storm clouds began to gather.

~~~~~~~~~~

With no light to guide him, Wufei stubbed his toe on a sharp rock; he scowled at it, then kicked it over in frustration. The reconnaissance mission was not a sterling success. All of their halogen lamps had either broken down or dropped out due to a dead battery, but still they'd been put through more punishment than the manufacturer had intended. From that point on, the three topside pilots got lost several times, and it became painfully apparent that they had little hope of finding their way to the main road until morning.

As for food and water, the situation wasn't much better. There was no standing water anywhere, unless they counted rainwater and dew that had collected in only a few upturned flowers. Trowa found a clump of bushes that bore pale red berries, but none of the boys could properly identify the plant, which seemed to be an obscure species outside their encyclopedic knowledge. They left the questionnable berries behind and returned to the cave entrance.

With only a few fruit bars and less than a litre of water between the five of them, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei agreed amongst themselves to abstain as long as possible, to give Heero the best chance of survival.

They began their dark descent in silence. When they were too far down to hear it, thunder rolled in from the mountains; the pilots' prayer for water was about to be answered in the worst way.

~~~~~~~~~~

The burning of a single candle provided a pleasant cover for the more noxious odours in the cave. Duo pushed the candle closer to the rock wall and re-examined Heero's wounds; his patient could barely feel his careful touch as he worked, replacing the loose dressings with the tenderness of a saint.

Duo pressed a hand to Heero's cheek; his skin was cold and clammy, an early sign of shock. The bleeding had slowed somewhat, but he wasn't improving, making it likely that there were other wounds behind the rocks that Duo couldn't reach.

"How are the others?" Heero asked finally.

"They're okay...they're coping..." Duo answered.

"Did you manage to clear the entrance?"

Duo paused. "No, we didn't." He had plenty to hide from but nowhere to run; all he could do now was lie. If Heero knew the way was clear, he'd insist all over again that they abandon him, which would only start another argument none of them needed. It was painful for the God of Death to defy his most basic principles, but some things are worth lying for.

Heero turned his eyes back to the ceiling. "If there's still digging to be done, why are you down here?"

"I'm not starting this again, okay? I'm just checking up on you." He pressed a hand to Heero's neck, below the ear. His pulse was weak and rapid. Duo felt the tension in the boy's neck muscles as he strained against the agony he was in. Guilt overcame him. "Look, Heero..."

"Hn?"

Duo rubbed his eyes and sulked forward. "I want to apologize," he struggled. "You're only still alive because of me, and I know it's hell for you. I guess...I'm just not ready to give you up yet......you..." Heero could see the effort this required; if Duo was struggling to say something so uncomfortable, his time was clearly growing short. "You mean a lot to me," Duo finished at last, staring at the ground.

This was no ordinary goodbye; Heero felt he was trying to say something else as well.

"I'm being selfish, trying to force you to hang on...but in case you--" He swallowed, unable to finish the sentence. "I wanted you to understand why I did it...thought it was important that you know I'm not torturing you on a whim," he said with a tiny smirk.

Heero nodded. "When you get out, you can use Wing as your backup. I'll give you the codes before you go."

Duo let out a sharp, single laugh, his smile widening. He played with the end of his braid. "No, no, no...I regret my behaviour, I never said anything about changing it." He locked eyes with Heero and continued before he could object. "When I get out, you're coming with me, one way or another. I'm going to keep pushing you to stay alive, even if you'll hate me for it for the rest of your life." His eyes narrowed. "I'm not a quitter, and neither are you!"

"That's not what this is about!" Heero shouted. It seemed the argument Duo wanted to avoid most was going to happen anyway. "This isn't about backing down from a fair and just challenge, this is a practical solution intended to minimize the team's losses! It's a numbers game, and I lost this time.......I lost. It happens."

"Well pardon us if we don't add it up the same way you do," Duo sneered. "Must be that new math."

"You said it was selfish of you to keep me alive for your own sake...how selfish is it to force them to stay, without food or water, languishing alongside me for however long it takes me to die, just because you're too afraid that if you do leave I'll be gone when you get back!?" Heero panted heavily from the effort of shouting.

"They'd feel a lot worse if they didn't get to say goodbye." Duo looked at his watch. "In fact, they ought to be coming back down to rest in a little while."

Heero shut his eyes tight and sighed. "I'm only saying what I think is best for you and the others...I'm just trying to do the right thing..." He shook his head. "It's not as if I didn't see this coming anyway," he said quietly.

Duo scowled. "Sorry, what was that? Do I detect a note of self-pity? Oh, horrors!"

"Never mind."

"No, really, I want to hear this." An angry Duo was a scary sight. "What do you mean, you saw it coming?"

Almost a minute passed before Heero broke down and shared his thoughts. "When I look at my life, it just seems like a forgone conclusion that something like this should happen. It fits together too well."

"What...just because you're a risk-taker? We all take the same risks, we're all equally--"

"No, no..." Heero said weakly, wincing. How do I make him see? I deserve this...divine retribution in exchange for the hundreds of lives I've destroyed... "If this had to happen to any of us, it's fitting that it should be me."

Duo raised an eyebrow.

Say something, Duo...say something now before I keep talking. I don't want to keep talking, but I will because I don't know what else to do! I don't want to feel this! I don't want to think about it! Duo, please, say something, dammit!! The pain was getting the better of Heero; bricks were practically falling out of the wall between his mind and his emotions.

"All the mistakes I've made...the people I've killed...soldiers, civillians, the Alliance leadership...so many of them deserved better than what I gave them. It's time I paid for my sins--" A drop of water hit him in the chest and distracted him long enough to realize what he was doing. He summoned up his remaining strength and closed his mouth for good, he hoped.

If Heero secretly expected any sympathy for this, he wasn't about to get it. "You think we don't have fucking truckloads of guilt too!? You don't have the monopoly on beating yourself up for what you did during the war, and you never will!! We're all hurting, but we just suck it up and get on with life. Nobody gets shortcuts, nobody! And that's just what you're doing, Heero, taking the shortcut because it's easier to die than deal with how much it hurts!" Duo had leaned in so close, Heero could have throttled him if he wanted to. And he almost wanted to.

Duo withstood a full-strength Deathglare for several minutes before sitting back and pasting on a cunning smile. "Okay, Heero...that was the bullshit explanation for the newspapers...what's the real reason?"

Heero blinked. Real reason? What other reason could there be? He stared at Duo like a mime under hypnosis, trying to figure out what he meant.

There's no other reason, my reason was perfectly good. It's simple, I'm a murderer and I deserve to die. It's so simple, so obvious, so easy... What Duo said about shortcuts replayed in his mind. Too easy. Maybe there's something else, something I don't want to see...

Duo saw the wheels turning behind Heero's dim blue eyes. In the last remaining seconds before the finished product was revealed, he made a silent promise and a fervent prayer--that he would be strong in Heero's coming time of weakness, and that Heero would someday forgive him for what he had to do.

The pain actually faded into the background, as Heero collected his thoughts and began to speak.

"When I came down here, I knew what my purpose was, just as I've known since I was a child. I was bred to be an assassin, but I knew it would end eventually...as I grew old, my body would fail me and there would be nothing I could do about it." He looked at the boulder crushing his legs in the flickering candlelight. "Once it did, I'd no longer have a purpose."

Duo's expression softened. "What're you talking about, of course you would."

"And do what!?" Heero looked disgusted with himself and turned away. "You and Trowa and Quatre and Wufei...you could walk away from this place tomorrow, abandon the cause and lead normal lives, but not me. J didn't program me to be a regular person. I'll be his precious boy assassin until I'm destroyed or I outlive my usefulness. And then there will be nothing left." Duo shuddered at the bitterness in Heero's voice; he spoke as if he were already dead. "Nothing but an empty shell." Nothing left for you.

"But you're more than a kiling machine," Duo pleaded, taking hold of his arm. "I know it. We all know it, or we wouldn't be trying so damn hard to get you out of here in one piece!" He moved his hand off the arm and pointed a finger sharply into the puddle in the center of Heero's shirt. "There is something more in there!"

"No there isn't! Don't you think I've tried to find it!?" He pushed Duo away firmly. "Every time I...feel something I don't understand, I keep waiting for some 'inner voice' that everyone else seems to have, to tell me what it all means, but there's nothing there! Only what J and the others wanted me to have, nothing more! They took everything I had with the capacity to feel and they crushed it, and all that's left is anger and hate! I'm empty inside!" He tried to turn his entire body away from Duo. It's not right that you should care so much for a black-hearted monster like me. I can't give you a fraction of what you give me every day...you deserve so much more...

Duo shut his eyes tightly against the tears threatening to persuade him away from his plans. "So that's it, huh? You made up your mind years ago to let yourself die at the earliest opportunity and there's no point in my saying anything else?"

Heero was doing his best to count the pock-marks in the stone wall he was staring at, anything for a distraction. I made up my mind that I want you to be free of me. "Right."

Duo slapped his hands on his knees and rose. "Right." He pushed the candle to the far side of the room with his foot, far to Heero's right side, and sat down against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him. "If you've made up your mind, I've got to make up mine." He began straightening his hair and his uniform, arranging himself just so.

The curious sounds drew Heero's attention from the wall, and he couldn't help looking at the boy in the candlelight. He was an even lovelier sight now, if that were possible; he was tucking loose strands of hair back into his braid, and despite the dirt it must have accumulated, it still shined like a river of chocolate. He had also rubbed most of the dirt off his face, and the soft porcelain skin seemed to shine with a light all it's own. The more Heero looked at the vision, the more convinced he was that such beauty, inside and out, shouldn't be wasted on him.

Duo opened his eyes at last, gleaming with the fire of determination. "And now, I've come to a decision." He picked up Heero's gun.

A chill ran down Heero's spine; his eyes widened. "...what are you doing?" he demanded in a soft, low tone.

Duo pulled the bolt back, checking to see if the pistol was fully loaded, and snapped it back in place. "We're leaving together, Heero...one way or another."

Heero shook his head fiercely and leaned to his right as far as he could. "Don't be stupid! You're not injured at all! Give that to me right now!" he shouted, reaching out a trembling hand.

"You just told me not to be stupid," Duo said with a grin. "Besides, if we start struggling, it's gonna mess up my hair, and I gotta look good for my funeral."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry!" Heero choked out. This had to be a simple scare tactic to make him apologize, it just had to be. "I shouldn't have threatened suicide and I promise I won't do anything foolish. Now please, just put it down. You're not hurt."

"I'm not hurt yet," Duo growled. He gestured wildly with the gun to punctuate his words. "But if you die, I am gonna hurt! It doesn't matter if you do it yourself or not! I wanted to do this for a long time, and then I met you and I suddenly felt alive! But hey, don't see much point in my hanging on if you won't." He lifted the muzzle of the gun to his temple.

Heero was straining to reach Duo now, but his hand fell short a scant six inches from the boy's foot. "Put it down NOW! I order you!!" He twisted to his right until his legs screamed in agony under the gigantic boulder.

"The commander of this mission has been incapacitated due to severe injuries and shock, therefore I am in charge." Duo picked up the sole candle with his free hand.

"Duo, please! I was the one being selfish! I admit it, okay!? Now stop this!!" He turned his head down the tunnel, hoping the others were on their way as Duo promised. "Trowa!! Wufei!!"

"Tell them I'm sorry." Duo lifted the candle even with his lips.

Heero clawed himself forward along the ground, his shattered bones creaking and popping under the boulder, threatening to rip his legs apart if he pulled any harder.

"Duo!! Otose! Oreno yukoto o kike!! Shikkari shiro!!"

"You mean a lot to me, Heero...see you on the other side." He blew out the candle and set it down.

"NO! DUO!!"

A gunshot cracked the air wide open. It's dying echoes were followed by the muffled sound of a body falling to the floor.

Time stood still as Heero listened to the sound of his own anguished, laboured breathing in the dark. Kudasai...Duo...

He balled his fists and slammed them down onto the cold stone floor, letting out a primal scream of agony for a pain that would never, ever go away. Broken by his torment, he fell on his back with his arms splayed to either side.

I never got to tell you... His breath caught in his throat. This HAS to be a joke...it can't be real...oh God... "Duo!?" he spoke to the darkness, voice crackling with supressed tears. "This isn't funny anymore! ANSWER ME!!"

No reply came.

Heero's breathing became quick and ragged. The emptiness inside him grew a hundred times larger, and his chest was tying itself in a square knot. The person who cared for Heero more than anyone else in the universe was gone. Gone because of him. The knot tightened as his mind was assaulted with a wretched agony that was neither anger nor hatred, his constant companions--it was sorrow. Hot streaks of liquid burned his eyes and he finally choked out a weak, pitiful sob.

I did this to you. I killed you.

He shut his eyes just as a drop of water fell to mingle with his tears. He would not fight death.

"I'm coming with you..." he whispered.

A few seconds of silence followed.

"Atta boy, Hee-chan, that's the spirit," Duo chirped.

Heero froze.

The candle was re-lit by an unseen hand. Duo was lying on the ground where he had 'fallen', his beautiful head completely unscathed. Putting the candle down, he looked at the gun in his hand, looked at Heero, and shrugged. "Whaddaya know, I'm a lousy shot at close range."

A rapid succession of impulses struck Heero. He wanted to laugh, cry, scream, and throw things, as he went from a state of bliss at seeing Duo alive and well to the grim realization that he had been duped.

Duo sat up slowly, his face quite calm. Heero felt a hot flush overtake him, and something inside him snapped. He grabbed fistfuls of stones and gravel from around him and threw them at Duo, who ducked and squirmed awkwardly, covering his head and still holding the gun. Heero let loose a hideous stream of Japanese obscenities, most of which Duo was glad he couldn't translate. After the first several handfuls of gravel, he lapsed back into English.

"KISAMA!! I'll break every bone in your body! I'll wrap your braid around your neck and throttle you with it! How DARE you!?" He pelted Duo with pebbles until his hands were raw, and then fell back, exhausted in body and spirit.

Duo peeked out from behind his tangled limbs and saw Heero lying still with his hands covering his face. "I guess I deserved that."

"Yes, you did," Heero murmured through his hands.

Duo gave him a few moments to collect himself. The Imperfect Soldier took deep breaths, cleared his throat, and rubbed his reddened, aching eyes, trying to put his mask back on. Baka...it would serve you right if I never spoke to you again. Heero folded his arms across his chest and looked over at the joker, prepared to meet his flippant smile with a ferocious glare.

But there was no smile. Duo sat cross-legged against the wall, absolutely stone-faced. He was still holding the gun. "Now..." he breathed, "...let's have a dialogue, hm? Where you actually listen to me and respond when I talk to you?"

Heero put his hands back down as his sides and looked helpless. After a lifetime of always being the strong one, the powerful one, he shivered as he discovered that Duo was in complete control; the braided puppetmaster could make his blue-eyed toy feel anything now, just by pulling the right string. Rage, pain, fear, joy...Heero was powerless to stop them now.

Duo gestured with the gun again. "What I just did here...didn't feel too good, did it?"

Heero answered with the barest shake of his head, as if any sudden movement might bring the pain back.

"It hurt you, didn't it?"

A tiny nod; his eyes never left Duo's.

"Why did it hurt so much?"

Heero's brow knit in fevered concentration; it was getting harder and harder to form coherent thoughts--was that a side-effect of his traumatic experience, or the next symptom of shock?

Duo answered his own question. "You don't want me to die?"

A pained look filled Heero's weary azure eyes.

Duo leaned forward, clutching the pistol intensely. "I want to hear you say it, if it's the truth."

Swallowing against the grit lodged in his throat, Heero paused, and croaked the words out in a shattered voice. "I don't want you to die."

"Why?"

Heero just wanted him to put the gun down. His mind reeled and he gave what he thought was a reasonable answer. "You're a valuable member of the team...you're still young...there's so much you could do with your life..."

Duo shook his head with a wistful smile. "Heero...I can only give you so many chances at this...don't screw it up." He crawled forward a few feet and knelt, the pistol still in his hand. "Why?"

What do you...why can't you say what you mean? Out with it already! Haven't you put me through enough? "Because you blame yourself for things that aren't really your fault, because it would be injust if you--"

"Nice try," Duo said with another shake of his head. He came closer, close enough for Heero to touch him. Close enough to grab the gun...but at that moment, Heero wanted nothing more than to throw his arms around his friend and feel the life surging through his strong, uninjured body. He felt so cold, so broken in body and soul, he desperately wanted to feel Duo's warmth and pretend everything was going to be alright.

Duo drew in a deep breath. "Why?"

It was agony being this close to him. What more do you want!? A wave of dizziness overcame Heero, and his head swam from loss of blood. "The others...they'd miss you...Quatre would be devastated..."

"Ohhhh, Heero," Duo whined in a tempting whisper. "You're so close..." He crawled even closer, crossing Heero's waist to put one hand on the ground an inch away from his side. He leaned over his treasure, forcing him to look straight up at his face. "But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." He breathed his question one last time. "Why?"

Even the dripping water ceased, as if waiting for Heero's answer.

...I'm so cold...I just want this to be over...what do you want from me? Staring into those violet gems, he saw a softness in Duo's eyes that he faintly recognized...the sweet, gentle expression he wore when they shared the sunset by the lake. You DO know what he wants...the same thing you want...just open your mouth and say it, this could be your last chance!

".....ai...." he struggled, swallowing and wincing. What's wrong with me? Why can't I say it? "Ai....shi..." The expectant look in Duo's determined eyes weighed him down like a millstone around his neck. You have to do this! If you don't say it now, you won't just lose him here, during your last day on Earth, you'll lose his soul for all eternity!!

They stayed that way, lost in uncertainty, until worried voices and pounding footsteps reverberated down the tunnel. The recon party returned, shouting for Duo and Heero to answer them. When they poured out of the passage, their concern was obvious.

"What happened in here!?" Wufei blurted.

"We heard an echo that sounded like a gunshot!" Trowa added.

"Yeah, that was me," Duo said, sitting up straight with a guilty look. "I wanted to get you back down here as quick as I could, so I fired one into the tunnel to call you."

Wufei stamped his foot in anger. "Dammit, Maxwell! How could you be so careless!? You should know better than to fire a weapon in an enclosed area like this! It's a sidearm, not a signal flare!"

"Sorry," Duo whimpered sheepishly. He looked past Wufei to Quatre; just as he thought, the fair-haired boy was pale and sickly-looking, sweating and about to fall over. He must have felt the turmoil in Heero all the while that he was running back to the cave at full speed. Only a herculean effort on Quatre's part, and Trowa's steady arm, kept him from collapsing to the floor and clutching his chest in agony.

Duo caught Quatre's weary eye and raised both eyebrows at him, asking mutely if he was okay. Quatre swallowed and weakly nodded his assent, then walked over to Heero under his own power. "How are you feeling, Heero?" he asked, crouching beside him and trying to act ignorant of his leader's pain.

"Tired," he answered honestly.

Quatre sighed in heartfelt sympathy. "Well, I'm glad you're still awake. We're all glad, and we're going to keep working on digging our way out, so you just relax and let us...take care of..." He trailed off when he noticed Heero staring at his shirt. Quatre looked down at himself, bewildered. There was a sprig of green material stuck in one of Quatre's buttonholes; before anyone could react, Heero snatched it off and looked at it angrily.

"You've been outside," he growled. The others were horrified to see a frond of succulent green leaves between his trembling fingers, betraying their secret that the entrance was clear after all. Heero looked at all their faces in turn and saw by their downcast eyes that they had no intention of telling him. Finally, his gaze landed on Duo. "You lied to me."

"No, we lied for you. There's a BIG difference."

Heero's first instinct was to be furious. "Will you or will you not take the team outside and back to the village?"

Duo smiled and shook his head.

Heero turned to Trowa next. "Trowa, take command and get them out of here." Trowa looked uncomfortably at Duo.

Duo cleared his throat. "Did any of you guys just hear something?"

Trowa took strength from the second in command and met Heero's desperate gaze with a calm stare. "No...it's real quiet in here."

Two mocking drops of water hit Heero in the chest; he turned to Quatre, his anger becoming frustration. Quatre looked away. "I didn't hear anything." Wufei was his last hope.

Unfazed by the two prussian blue lasers drilling holes into his forehead, Wufei glanced over at Duo and thought quietly for a moment. "I believe I did hear something...and if I have to listen to that dripping water all night, I think I'll go mad."

Duo grinned, Trowa raised an eyebrow, Quatre hugged himself with joy, and Heero... They all disobeyed me...and I think I understand why. He stared at the ceiling while his friends smiled silent congratulations to each other. Their act of defiance showed Heero the true depth of their loyalty to him, and he knew that from that day forward the mission at hand would always come second. It was terrifying and wonderful.

"Heero's cold...we gotta keep him warm until morning," Duo announced. "C'mon, bunch up...he needs all of us."

Four pilots got down on the ground and crowded together, lighting all the candles they had. Quatre curled up behind Heero's head and laid a hand on his left shoulder; Trowa laid down by his right side, placing one hand on Heero's arm and grasping his angel's free hand with the other. Wufei took the place on his left side, propping his feet up on the rock wall. Heero tried weakly to push them away at first, but the moment he touched their warmth and felt their caring hands wrap around his, he only wanted to pull them closer.

After positioning the lit candles around the shivering group, Duo crawled past Wufei to sit by Heero's knees. He smiled at the sight of the others all huddled around him, sharing their warmth, even the chronically stoic ones. Looking thoughtfully at Heero's sopping wet shirt, he unbuttoned it as well as his own, taking extreme delight in knowing Heero couldn't help but watch. Next, he unbound his hair from it's twisted prison and ran his fingers teasingly through the long, luxurious tresses.

The eyes of the other three boys were already closed in exhausted sleep. Being careful not to disturb them, Duo opened Heero's shirt wide and leaned forward, pressing their bare chests together. Heero gasped quietly at the sudden heat covering him; the threat of hypothermia could be a wonderful thing.

Duo stopped an inch away from Heero's face, letting his hair spill over them; being in a generous mood, he breathed a single word and gave Heero one last chance to answer the ultimate question. "Why?"

A drop of water hit Duo in the back; Heero was finally warm.

I have to tell him...before this night is over, I have to tell him I lov--

But he knew the words wouldn't come. He couldn't even think them before slamming into a wall deep inside his psyche. It was as if the entire concept of love, not just the words, had been edited out of his brain. Programmed out. He was determined to get it back.

Heero tilted his head up and took hold of Duo's lips with his own, gently flicking his tongue over their softness. Duo closed his eyes and fell into the kiss, deepening it, luxuriating in it. He felt his own lips pleading for more, begging for every last drop Heero was prepared to give, and the plea was answered with a caress too gentle for any mere soldier to bestow; Heero found something tender and fragile where the emptiness inside him had been. They stayed that way, tasting each other for the first time, their lips entwined as deeply as their souls, until fatigue snatched Heero away into a blissful sleep. Duo kissed his cheek and wished him pleasant dreams; the taste of salt was on his face.

Duo felt eyes upon him; he looked up and saw that Quatre was still awake, and brushing away tears of his own. Their gazes met with a flash of quiet understanding, and they smiled reassurance at each other. Duo tucked his soft, thick hair around Heero's neck like a scarf, and settled his own head comfortably next to his. He finally had his answer.

Outside, far above the warm den the five boys created together, the rain began to fall.

~~~~~~~~~~

A jeep full of travel-weary adventurers retraced the route back to the cave. On this road, with the lives of the pilots at stake, the speed limit wasn't a measure of miles per hour, but how close the gas pedal could get to the floor. The jeep bounced and rolled down the mud track wildly with Noin at the wheel, the headlights only cutting a few yards through the rain before being blotted out completely.

All four were soaking wet from the torrential downpour; each bolt of lightning and crack of thunder pierced Sally's heart, sending new tremors of worry through her very blood. She was concerned for each of them, but Wufei most of all; they shared an unspoken bond that neither had been able to take to the next level, and the idea that it might be forever too late threatened to crush what little hope she had.

The dirt road ended suddenly and the jeep careened into the underbrush at full speed, tossing it's passengers about violently. Noin slammed on the brakes and halted the jeep at an ugly angle against a clump of berry bushes. "Alright, everybody out!" the driver hollered over the thunder, leaping to the ground. Sally helped Burt out, and the three of them surveyed the area, leaving Louch in the back of the jeep.

A short walk away, still visible from the jeep's location, Burt showed them the entrance to the cave. Upon seeing it open, and not collapsed with rock the way they had left it, he stood gaping.

"Is this it?" Noin shouted through the pounding rain. Burt was too confused to answer. "What's the matter?"

"It wasn't open like this, it was all blocked up with rocks," Burt said sheepishly.

"Could they have climbed out?" Sally exclaimed, head suddenly turning in all directions. "If they did, they could be anywhere by now!"

"If they could make it that far, they could have made it back to the village, or at least to the road, and we didn't pass them," Noin decided. She shone her flashlight at the crevice, and then down at the ground. "Oh God...I hope they're not still down there..."

Sally followed the beam of light to see what Noin sounded so frightened of. The surrounding land was a small valley, the lowest point being the cavern's entrance; a deep pool of water had collected in front of the gap and water was pouring down into the crevice.

Noin pushed Sally towards the jeep. "Go get the half-inch rope and find something to tie it off to. I'm going to have a look at this..." She manoeuvered herself partway through the opening and shone the light down a long stretch of the rocky, unpleasant-looking climb. It was possible the pilots had escaped, but she had to be sure.

Slipping and stumbling over the wet, mossy ground, Sally ran back to the jeep. She did her best to ignore Louch, who leered at her dripping form while she shuffled around in the slippery ropes.

"Hey, sweets, you don't look half bad in a wet uniform."

If Sally had been paying attention, she would have noticed that Louch was no longer gagged. She might also have realized that if the rain made the ropes she was handling so slippery, the ropes on Louch's arms might have eased up enough for him to wriggle out of them. Unfortunately, Sally was so absorbed with worry for her Wufei that by the time she realized all this, it was a half-second too late.

Louch grabbed Sally's wrist, spun her around, and clapped a pistol to her head.

~~~~~~~~~~

Adrift in a peaceful slumber, Quatre's troubled soul was soothed by the warmth and kinship that engulfed him, all of them, in sleep. So deeply entranced in this euphoric cloud, he almost didn't notice when something cold and wet pressed lightly against his back, near the floor. He was lying on his right side with his back to the escape tunnel when a growing pool of chilly water reached his shirt and soaked it through.

Quatre yelped and leapt up, fully awake in two seconds flat and grabbing at the freezing cold side of his shirt. He woke the others easily with his cry; Duo and Heero bashfully pried themselves off each other, having unknowingly wrapped themselves up in a tangle of arms during the night.

Duo scrambled to his feet and quickly re-braided his hair. "What? What?"

"There's water coming in!" Quatre shouted in a high-pitched voice. Everyone but Heero was on their feet staring at the floor. It was no mere puddle; a quarter-inch deep river was quickly covering the cave. It reached the backpack on which Heero's head still rested, and began soaking everything around him.

Wufei reached down and snatched up his black cap with the transceiver in the brim before it got soaked too. Quatre's cap wasn't so lucky. He and Trowa filled their pockets with whatever supplies they could out of Duo and Heero's packs, before they were useless. Duo picked up Heero's gun and tucked it into his waistband at the back; he jogged down the hall with a candle, and then returned quickly.

"How bad is it?" Heero called out to him.

"Bad," Duo said, the tension starting to show. "Shit, this is bad...it's almost a half-inch out there."

"There was hardly any water when we first came in," Trowa pointed out, "and this can't be the first time it's rained here, so it must drain off naturally."

"But the cave itself was an entirely different shape," Wufei said, studying the floor. "Hairline cracks that might have served for drainage in the past may be completely covered by now."

Duo wrung his hands, thinking, then called an executive meeting. Four of them could still escape safely, but if Wufei was right and the cave was no longer draining properly, it was certain that Heero would drown. The water was already at his waist and gaining speed.

Without further discussion, they threw themselves against the main boulder pinning Heero down and exerted their combined strength on it. While they strained and groaned at the bulky stone, Heero felt he was forgetting something important; if only he could drag his mind out of the muddy haze of shock-induced confusion long enough to remember...

~~~~~~~~~~

Noin frowned at the flooded crevice. "How far down is it?" she asked Burt.

"Really far, but I don't know any numbers." Burt's eyes were tightly shut as he followed the sound of Noin's voice. The rain was falling in sheets down his face, but having his hands tied behind his back, he couldn't wipe the water from his eyes.

With a slight sigh, Noin smoothed his hair back against his head and pushed off some of the excess water with her bare hands, enough so he could see again. "Is that better?"

Burt blinked away the raindrops, looking surprised that anyone would do such a service to him. Louch certainly wouldn't. "Thanks!"

Noin paced a few times. "What's keeping her? Sally!!" she called out.

"Sally's not here right now, can I take a message?" a mocking voice answered.

Burt and Noin whirled to face the voice; Louch was propping Sally up by the throat and holding a gun to her head. "Okay, nice and easy, everybody back away from the..." He saw the rocks had been cleared away. "What the hell happened!? Did you do that?"

"It was like that when we got here, Louch, honest!" Burt whimpered.

Louch dragged Sally closer so he could get a better look, then grinned when he saw the water pouring in. "Heh...if the blast didn't quite get them, I guess I can settle for pilot soup instead!"

"Louch...look at me," Noin said quietly. She put her hands up in a submissive gesture. "They could be long gone for all we know. Maybe if you start looking now, you can catch up with them. It won't do any good to start shooting people, so just let her go, okay?" She hoped he would find the boys somewhere in the jungle; even with a weapon, he'd never stand a chance against all five of them.

Sally cringed and shivered as Louch let the muzzle of the gun slide gently down her cheek. "I don't know," he mused with a wicked gleam in his eye, "I think I might keep her. She's real cute, and I don't think she's gonna hit me like you did. Nice and soft, and pretty, and easy to tame, just the way I like 'em."

"Don't bet on it, jackass," Sally snarled. Louch tightened his arm around her throat and she couldn't help but let out a tiny cry of fear. She fought with herself to remain calm.

Noin took a hesitant step towards them. "Leave us here if you want! Take the jeep and go! Nobody has to find out what happened here. You can walk away a free man." At least, until she got hack-happy Heero back to his laptop, after which time there would be nowhere to hide. If Louch hurried, he might buy himself a good ten-minute head start. "Just let Sally go, and it's all yours."

"Uh-uh, YOU can stay here, but cutie-pie's coming with me!" Louch looked at Burt with his smile of false sincerity. "You can come too, Burt. I forgive you for squealing. No hard feelings. Get in the jeep."

Burt shrank away. Louch snarled and pressed the pistol harder against Sally's head, making her wince. "Get in the jeep now!" Burt looked forlornly at Noin, then started slowly towards Louch's side of the jungle. Louch stopped him partway. "And while you're at it, grab some rope and tie that one to a tree."

Noin hung her head. They had been so close with Burt, and now he was back under Louch's control. The huge, burly man was probably strong enough to lift the jeep over his head and juggle with it, but he had no sense of self, and was easily manipulated.

On seeing Burt's puzzled expression and the way he jerked his hands around behind his back, Louch exploded again. "You idiot, how do you think I got out!? The rain made the ropes slippery! Just shake 'em off, already!"

Burt blubbered, walking slowly behind Louch and back towards the jeep, untying himself clumsily. "If the ropes are slippery, won't she get away?"

"Not until we've gotten a good twenty miles away, if you can tie a knot properly!" Louch was paying more attention to Burt than Noin. She crept forward.

"But...it's cold and wet out here, won't she get sick?"

"Sick!?" Louch bellowed. "She almost landed us in prison and you're worried about her getting the sniffles?"

Noin kept moving forward slowly, waiting for Louch's temper to boil over. She locked eyes with Sally and they seemed to communicate silently as the men bickered. The military trained them for all sorts of situations, some of which they never expected to be trapped in as they sat in the classroom. Noin prowled further ahead, waiting for an opening.

Burt was almost all the way to the jeep and still indecisive. "You're not going to hurt Sally, are you?" That did it.

Louch kept hold of Sally but twisted at the waist to point the gun at Burt instead. "Don't you fuckin' tell me what I can't do with this bitch!"

Simultaneously, Sally pried his arm off her neck and dropped a half-second before Noin tackled Louch to the ground.

~~~~~~~~~~

There was no shortage of noises to listen to in the cave; everyone was in some degree of pain as none of the rocks in the wall would allow themselved to be moved. Four lithe bodies were wrenching stiffly against the immovable objects, pulling some muscles and spraining others.

The water was a good three inches deep now, and filled with dirt, minerals, and all sorts of impurities. As the others splashed around, the water leapt up and licked at Heero's wounds, stinging his legs with a flood of grit and salt.

Overexerting himself past the point of human endurance, Quatre cried out sharply and fell to the floor, clutching his right leg. Trowa was at his side instantly. Duo ran behind Heero and lifted his head above the tide Quatre created when he fell. "What's the matter? What happened?" he barked.

"I think I...tore a ligament or something..." Quatre sighed painfully.

They all stopped working. Nothing would budge with four of them pushing, so they didn't have a hope in hell with only three. Nobody could bear to look anyone else in the eye; they had failed Heero miserably.

As for himself, Heero barely heard them through the fog around his head. There were inky black tendrils on the edge of his vision, and it was getting harder to breathe, as if there were a heavy weight on his chest. Half sitting up, he leaned completely against Duo and stared at the candles they had jammed into several cracks in the wall. Duo held his head well above the rising water, stroking his forehead and whispering in his ear, coaching and praising him like a nurse preparing a child for his first needle.

Trowa and Wufei bantered back and forth, looking for a short-term solution. "Can't we pile some of these smaller rocks in front of the tunnel like a levee?"

"You couldn't fill every last crack, the water will still get through. It would be quicker to amputate if we could find the tools."

"We'd have to knock him out before pounding on his legs with sharp rocks!"

"It's too risky to let him fall unconscious while he's in shock."

Duo shut his eyes and bit his tongue to keep from screaming. They spoke about Heero while right in front of him as if he was a piece of furniture that couldn't see or hear, but what angered Duo most was that it was almost true. Heero was less and less responsive with each passing minute, slowly slipping away as he stared lifelessly at the burning candles in the wall. He stroked his friend's soaking wet hair and kept talking to him, quietly. "Don't you die on me..."

I can still hear you, Duo. I'm still fighting, I swear it. There's just something...about this, that I should remember...it's vitally important to you, and I can't find it! I can't think!

Muscles aching, and sensing Heero's desperation, Quatre slumped forward, bracing himself on the watery ground beside Heero's legs and sending splashes of silt and mud into his legs. The new shock of pain jerked Heero awake with a cry, and Duo had to pin his arms down when they tried to flail about in agony.

Quatre looked horrified and close to tears once again. "I'm sorry, Heero! I'm really...really sorry..." He wasn't just sorry for causing the pain, he was tearing himself apart inside because he had failed his friend. He leaned forward on his hands and wept openly.

Trowa sat right down in the water opposite him, gingerly, on Heero's right side and was just about to say something meaningless and comforting when Quatre's expression changed. He stopped crying and looked blankly at the water, moving his hands along the ground, as it seemed. They were all staring at the Arabian now, as his brow furrowed and his fingers worked at something they couldn't see. He rose up off his heels and pulled at something below the water's surface.

They watched as he winced and groaned, using the last of his strength, until his hands flew up with a splash that made them all jump with surprise. Quatre looked at the object in his hands, eyes gleaming. It was a piece of the floor.

"The water made it soft!" he shouted. "I felt a crack and I managed to get my fingers into it--"

Before he could finish, three more pairs of hands plunged into the water covering Heero's legs.

~~~~~~~~~~

Louch had the wind knocked out of him as soon as he hit the ground, but he still had a deathgrip on the gun. Noin had one hand on his wrist and the other at his throat trying to make him drop it. Louch clawed at her and hit her, but she wouldn't let go either; she was definitely stronger than she looked.

Sally ran to the jeep and grabbed a rifle out of the back, but in the pitch black and the pouring rain, she couldn't see clear to shoot. Instead, she dropped the rifle into the passenger seat, fired up the engine, and nudged the jeep swiftly forward, enough that the headlights illuminated the ongoing battle.

The combatants tumbled around over rocks and plants, kicking and punching for control of the weapon. Louch slammed a fist hard into Noin's side, and she answered it with an elbow to the face that knocked out one of his teeth. Sally circled them, looking for an opportunity to help. Louch pinned Noin to the ground and Sally leapt on his back, but he bucked her off effortlessly. A fresh volley of blows was exchanged, but by the finish of it all, Louch was the one left standing.

Noin looked up through the cascade of water. The victor stood feebly over her, reeling from internal injuries, but snarled in triumph.

"I was gonna go easy on you, little missy..." He stood back and levelled the gun at her chest. "But you just pissed me off on the wrong day." Noin held her breath and Sally was shouting as he began to squeeze the trigger.

A shot rang out that was only slightly louder than the thunder. Noin exhaled sharply and shut her eyes at the sound, expecting the world to go black at any moment.

Half a dozen heartbeats passed, but the world didn't go away. She opened her eyes and felt frantically around her torso for a gunshot wound; she found none.

Noin and Sally both looked up at Louch; he stood like a statue, eyes wide and trembling. He slowly looked down and touched his free hand to the front of his shirt. The hand came away covered in blood, seeping out of the fresh bullethole in his chest. Louch dropped the gun, then dropped to his knees.

Noin looked at Sally, prepared to congratulate her, but she shook her head, and her hands were empty. They both stood and looked towards the jeep.

Burt was holding the rifle that had been resting on the passenger seat. His face was alabaster white, and he was shaking when he finally dropped the rifle. Burt had never shot anybody before.

As she walked up to the injured thug, Noin sized up his wound and decided he could wait in the jeep and bleed half to death while they took care of more pressing matters. He had earned that priviledge.

Wringing rainwater out of her hair, Sally stopped Noin from delivering the final blow. Looking down at the pitiful figure, coughing and whimpering as the stain on his shirt grew, she remembered bitterly that this was the man who all but called her weak. Only one man had been afforded the exclusive right to call Sally 'weak', and it wasn't Louch. With an endearing smile, she spun around, landed a kick soundly across his jaw, and levelled him, just as Wufei had taught her.

Noin raised her eyebrows in approval. "Not bad."

They hauled Louch into the back of the jeep and dumped him there, taking the time to re-bind his limbs and slap a quick dressing on the bullethole. Burt was still standing at the side of the jeep, dumbstruck. While Noin tried to bring him around with an appreciative pep talk, Sally went back to work on the radio, trying to get through to the pilots' emergency transceivers.

~~~~~~~~~~

Down below, the water was rising. Duo had abandoned the digging to cradle Heero in his arms, his thin frame wraked with spasms as filthy water flowed around his exposed tissues. The miniature lake was nearly a foot deep, and Heero hardly had strength enough to keep his nose above the water level.

The pain was worse now than it ever had been, but Heero was grateful for it; it was keeping him conscious and helping him think.

I've got to remember...there's something about the water and the cracks in the walls...

Trowa, Quatre and Wufei were hurriedly sloshing around at the base of the wall, breaking away chunks of the ground no more than an inch or two across. The floor of the cave wasn't pure rock as it had seemed, but an intricate web of rock and sediment, just enough sediment to absorb the excess water and soften the surface. Still, it was slow, tedious, and extremely painful work, for all of them.

I can still feel my feet. The part of the cave behind this wall must not have caved in completely...why does it seem so dangerous? Am I delerious?

The diggers couldn't pussyfoot around his legs any longer, and were forced to actually move the tangle of broken bones and torn muscles to reach the ground underneath them. Heero lurched back and screamed, all mental defenses gone.

"Easy, guys!" Duo cried, wrapping his arms more tightly around his patient.

Frayed tempers began snapping, and the boys started arguing over whose fault the last wave of pain was. Duo tried to overshout them to get them to shut up, but it only escalated until the cave was filled with raised voices. Heero was numb to it all, head lolling back weakly, praying to pass out from the pain.

Suddenly, Wufei proved he was louder than all of them. "QUIET!!"

Everyone froze and stared at Wufei. Offering no explanation, he held his hands out in front of him and seemed to be in deep thought. They held their breath; even Heero paid attention as they slowly became aware of a faint beeping. Wufei snatched the cap off his head and held the brim to his ear.

"Is it the transciever?" Quatre begged.

"Shh-shh-shh!" Wufei hissed. He made them all wait as he concentrated on the dots and dashes coming from the hat. A gleeful smile appeared on his face, a rare and beautiful sight. "It's Sally! Sally's here!"

The clouds parted and sunlight shone from all their faces; all hurt was forgiven, all sorrow erased.

Can you get a signal back to her and tell her where we are?" Duo asked excitedly.

"It would be more likely to work if I was closer to the surface," Wufei replied. "She probaby has a larger radio battery than there is in this puny thing."

"She might need help climbing down, too," Trowa suggested.

Heero shook off the haze of fever and confusion and sat straight up, no longer leaning on Duo for support. They risked their lives to help me...it's about damn time I started helping them. He stretched forward and braced himself against the wall with one hand. Ignoring the lightning bolts of pain, he jammed his other hand into the crack between his shins and the floor. He strained inaudibly and ripped his hand away holding a chunk of rock twice the size of the ones the others had been able to excavate.

He looked at the piece, as did the others. "Go contact Sally before she leaves the area. We'll finish up here." He didn't specifically indicate that Duo would stay behind because he knew there was no need; it was a given.

They looked uncertain, wondering if he was being honest. "Heero..." Quatre said in a feeble whisper, "...are you sure?"

Heero dropped the chunk of rock to the side and picked up one of Quatre's scraped and bleeding hands. "I'm coming with you," he whispered back. "One way or another."

Quatre's eyes flooded with relief; he knew he was telling the truth. He threw his arms around Heero and hugged him. Duo watched, smiling joyfully, and knew that his horrible treatment of Heero had worked; he wanted to live.

Trowa grabbed a candle out of the wall, then helped Quatre get to his feet and limp off down the tunnel, favouring his left leg heavily. Wufei followed, fiddling with the transceiver along the way. Fuelled entirely by adrenaline, Heero reached back into the crevice and began pulling out more chunks of rock; pain was irrelevant.

The Perfect Soldier was back with a vengeance.

After only another ten minutes, the water was up over Heero's waist. He needed Duo's help to reach the last pieces of stone holding him in place, and Duo had to dunk his whole head, braid and all, into the murky water to stretch that far. He came up for a breath, threw aside some rocks, and dove under several more times, untying Heero's steel-toed boots. There was no way he could be extricated while still wearing them.

Heero felt it when the last stone was pulled away, felt what was left of his legs drop of few inches, felt the water rushing past into the other part of the cave. The water's movement set off an alarm bell in Heero's mind. He had been trying to remember something about the water earlier...what was it?

Duo climbed back behind him, encircling Heero's chest in his arms and bracing himself as firmly as he could in the dingy pool. "Okay, ready?"

Heero nodded and swallowed, hanging onto Duo's arms tightly. Duo began to pull with slow, even pressure, easing Heero's feet out of his boots as gently as he could. It was still monstrously painful, and Heero clutched his friend's arms in such agony that he'd have finger-shaped bruises for days. A few twists this way and that, some steady pulls, and finally one quick tug, and Heero popped free of his stony prison.

It took a moment for it to register; he was free. Duo laughed and squeezed him hard, but Heero seemed to be lost in thought almost immediately.

We've just opened a huge crack in the wall, and the water is draining to the other side, where the other backpacks are...oh, shimatta!!

"We have to move, NOW."

Duo blinked. Something about that sounded bad. "What's wrong?"

"It's not completely caved in on the other side of that wall," Heero struggled, gasping for breath. "The packs with all the explosives are on the other side. The charges are waterproof, but the detonators aren't. If the water gets high enough and shorts out the detonators, they could send a false signal and--"

"OH shit!" Duo leapt to his feet, draping Heero's arm over his shoulders and lifting him out of the lake. He barely made it to the tunnel before Heero's suspicions were confirmed. The water flooded the opposite chamber and soaked into the other boys' backpacks, shorting out one of the detonating devices.

A ferocious blast shook the cave, not as badly as the original explosion, but bad enough to knock Duo off his feet. A long series of quakes kept him from getting up again, as charge after charge of dynamite was ignited on the other side of the wall. Duo fought to keep Heero above the water, but pieces of the ceiling were breaking off and falling all around them. One fairly substantial nugget hit Duo in the head, and he collapsed into the water, unconscious.

When the rumbling stopped and Heero opened his eyes, Duo was nowhere to be seen. Only one candle remained lit and stuck to the wall after the blasts, but it gave enough light to see that Duo was gone and the water was almost completely still. Heero sloshed around in the water with both hands, terrified. He found a thick, squishy rope and latched onto it, dragging Duo up by the braid.

"Duo! Duo!!" He leaned on one arm and hoisted Duo's soggy head up to his shoulder, shouting in his ear. He was out for the count.

Heero berated himself for sending the others away. If only one of them had stayed... Pull yourself together! You don't have time for useless things like guilt and regret. You have a mission to complete!

Feverish, shaking, dizzy, nauseated, and every nerve screaming in anguish, Heero tucked one arm under Duo's shoulders and started dragging him down the tunnel. The soldier's training he had cursed only a few hours earlier helped him block out the sensation of his exposed bones scraping along the ground, but he still overestimated his stamina. His frail, beaten body had taken too much punishment. He began to slow down.

I'm not giving up on you...on us...we're getting out of here.

He pulled them forward a few inches at a time, wondering if the others had heard the explosion and were on their way back. His pace slowed even further as the symptoms of shock became more insistent.

No...can't stop...should have listened to you...should have...fought harder...

Heero's arm gave out underneath him and he had to stop and lean against the wall, shoulder-deep. They started slipping down the wall.

We can't have...gotten this far...only to...

The tunnel was twisting and lurching all around him. He couldn't feel his legs or anything else now, except the weight of Duo's head on his shoulder. He had to stay conscious or they were both dead men, but even that was too much, too difficult in his wretched condition.

I won't leave you...we die together, Duo.

He couldn't feel himself breathe. He fell and seemed to keep on falling forever. Cold water engulfed him and filled his ears. Silence turned to muffled buzzing. The sensation of death was most unusual indeed.

Then, just before his senses shut down completely, he was vaguely aware of pressure on his arms, and cold, stale air on his face. He felt someone's lips pressing down on his, forcing his mouth open, but they felt different than before. Rhythmic compressions were applied to the center of his chest. Warm air was forced down his throat. Everything hurt.

Heero's body became aware and responsive, but most of his brain shut down for the night. He felt about four years old, and simply let the strange impressions wash over him, his body seeming to rise and fall in an odd pattern for quite a long time. Later, he felt water upon him once again, scattered, falling water, like the ceiling of the cave dripping down from a thousand points at once. Pleasant rumbling noises rang off his water-logged eardrums.

For an immeasureable amount of time, he was barely aware of anything except two times when he felt his ears pop. He drifted in and out of a beautiful dream where Duo held him, and kissed him, and told him everything would be alright.

Duo's voice got steadily louder.

A bright light surrounded Heero, and he wondered at the back of his mind if the stories he'd heard about the afterlife being a very bright place were true. Duo felt closer than ever now; it must have been heaven.

"Heero?" he sang lightly. "Wakey-wakey..."

His head throbbed at the sudden onslaught of light and sound; opening his eyes and squinting against the brightness, he eventually focused on Duo's face. He glowed like any angel should. Duo smiled as he was studied, but Heero saw something that puzzled him. The boy sported a bandage over his right eye. That didn't make sense...angels couldn't cut themselves.

He forced his tired eyes into focus and gave a good long look at his surroundings. The Great Beyond was full of doctors and smelled of lemon Pine-Sol.

Heero would deny for many years to come that he laughed out loud.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sally wanted to sedate Heero when he burst into laughter, but Duo stopped her. He didn't care if it was post-traumatic stress, it sounded damn good to his ears. Instead, she waited patiently for him to recover long enough to get his vitals checked over.

She recorded his pulse and shone a penlight in his left eye. "I was starting to wonder about you," she teased. "Looked like you were going to miss a few days of work just for sleep."

Heero swallowed; his throat was dry, sore, and terribly scratchy. "...where..." he choked out.

"Peru," Sally said, switching the penlight to the other eye.

He mouthed the word silently to Duo, as a question. Duo nodded. "Swear to God, a llama came by earlier and took your temperature. And you missed it."

Sally rolled her eyes at Duo and continued while checking her patient's blood pressure. "We carried you out of that slime pit you were in, drove you back through the rain to the outpost, found out their most sophisticated medical facility was a first-aid hut, put you in our mobile suit carrier and flew you straight here. Our Lady of the Holy Something-or-Other, I didn't catch the name...but we're just outside Callao."

Heero wondered who else she meant by 'we' until she moved away and he got a look at the bed to his left. Curled up comfortably, though covered head to foot in scrapes and bruises, was Noin. She rubbed her eyes, managed to give Heero a faint smile, and buried her head back into the stiff pillow.

Duo poured a glass of water and handed it to him. "She had a punch-up with one of the creeps who set the explosives. Took a beating, but she's gonna be okay."

The water looked only slightly better than the stuff Heero had just been pulled out of, but he gulped some of it down anyway. He looked to his right and saw the rest of his room. It was a long, stark rectangle meant to hold four hospital beds, although a fifth had been squeezed in at the far end. The walls were a bit dingy, some of the equipment looked antique, and the lemon fragrance was suspiciously overwhelming, but it didn't matter. Somehow, he had made it to heaven without dying.

He glanced over the other occupants sharing his ward. Wufei was closest; Trowa and Quatre were in the two beds squashed into the floor space reserved for only one. All were sleeping.

"What about them?" he asked.

Sally threw her hands up, exasperated. "I honestly don't know! They won't let me do any work!" She walked around Heero's bed to stand next to Wufei, and brushed a strand of ebony hair out of his face. "I wish I knew what went on down there, but these guys have changed; all of a sudden they're stubborn and impractical and won't listen to anybody. They absolutely refused to leave this room, not even for x-rays...not until they knew what your prognosis was." She almost smiled as Wufei twitched sleepily at her touch. "Now that I sortof know, it's a shame to wake them."

Her last words seemed strange to Heero. "Define 'sortof'."

Sally ran an eye over his chart with an empty stare, then looked up. "I won't lie to you, Heero, I was hoping for a better result than this."

Duo met Heero's eyes for a moment, then looked down. He already knew the details, and they didn't make him smile.

"I'm not going to guarantee that you'll be able to walk again, because frankly, I just don't know," she continued. "You have multiple compound fractures and severe tissue damage. It's not even a simple task to set the broken bones because you're actually missing a few pieces. Plus," she said, flipping over a page, "you have a severe staphylococcus infection; I don't need to tell you how you got that. It started in your legs, but now it's systemic, and you've been running a high fever since we found you. I want to fly you to Kyoto tomorrow to see a surgeon that specializes in skeletal reconstruction, but they won't operate until we bring your fever down, and the drugs we've been giving you aren't doing very much."

Heero absorbed it all quite calmly, pursing his lips in thought. "Anything else?"

"Yes. You need a bath." She smiled a bit and poked Duo in the shoulder. "And would you please tell this one to go eat something? It's very difficult to concentrate while you've got a stomach rumbling at ninety decibels a few feet away." She turned and walked to the other side of the room to check the tensor bandage on Quatre's leg.

"She exaggerates," Duo said with a shrug. "It was seventy-five at the most." He grinned.

"I could use a bite, I'll bring you back something," Noin said, sliding gingerly off her bed. "Besides, you've got serious calories to replace after that little display earlier..."

Heero raised an eyebrow. Duo looked guilty, but pleased with himself. "Yeah, well, that...it wasn't so bad...no big deal."

"No big deal!?" Noin excitedly gave Heero the full report. "We're coming in through the emergency room, right? Duo woke up on the plane and he was just a little groggy, so he said he was alright to walk. They wheel you in, and then another bunch comes and gets this trigger-happy bastard we captured after tricking a confession out of him. I tell the nurses to put him in a different room from you, because he was responsible for your injuries.

"This guy," she said, jerking a thumb emphatically in Duo's direction, "goes absolutely ballistic and tries to kill him while he's still on the stretcher! Hands around his throat so tight, I thought he was gonna rip the guy's head off...took all of us plus two orderlies to pry him away. And the mouth on this kid!" She put her hands on her hips and gave Duo a wide-eyed look; he grinned back proudly. "You never heard such a disgusting stream of filthy language in all your life! He even came up with a few I didn't know!"

Duo shrugged. "I do some of my best work when I'm angry."

"Yeah, right," Noin chided. "Anyway, I'm starving. I'll see you two after I hit the cafeteria." She left the room with a slight limp.

Heero was impressed with the story for several reasons. If their positions had been reversed and Duo was the one at death's door, Heero decided he would have done the same.

"I think," Duo said, reaching behind his back, "I can probably trust you with this now." He took Heero's gun out from it's resting place and set it on the tiny table beside him. "It'll give you something to do...you can polish it over and over until I can find you a book of crossword puzzles or something. You're going to be off your feet for a long time."

Heero actually smiled at the gesture. "How is everybody, really?"

Duo tilted his head to the side, running over a mental checklist. "Between them, they pulled about three dozen muscles, Wu's got a little chest congestion from the cold, Quatre's gonna be limping for awhile, cuts and bruises all round. Trowa did pretty well."

"...and?"

"And what?" Duo wilted under a Deathglare. "Okay, okay...I had a bit of a concussion and a little water in my lungs, nothing serious." He moved closer. "Sally says it would've been a hell of a lot worse if you hadn't been looking after me. I might not've made it."

Heero glowered. "I almost got us all killed."

"No you didn't!" Duo exclaimed. He grasped Heero's arm, being careful not to dislodge the IV drip. "I don't ever want to hear you talk like that again! We chose to stay. We decided it was worth the risk. And since you did such a great job looking after me, I'm gonna look after you. If I have to wheel you around for the next fifty years, I'll do it...because I choose to."

Heero laid there in a stunned silence. Everything that had been said between them in the last 24 hours was completely genuine. He was appreciated, wanted, loved...it felt like the most important part of his stolen humanity had been reclaimed. I have a gift for you, to let you know I'll never treat my life so carelessly again.

Heero started to say something, then winced and clutched his throat, wanting Duo to believe he couldn't talk easily. He beckoned him closer, and closer still. Duo kept leaning forward until his ear was only a few inches from Heero's face. With his left hand, the one without the IV, Heero reached up and pulled the boy's head so close, his lips nearly brushed against his cheek. He spoke gently in a perfectly clear voice.

"Ai shiteru, Duo." He placed a warm kiss on Duo's neck just below his ear. Duo inhaled and shuddered with delight.

When they pulled away from each other, his violet eyes were dancing and shimmering just as they had done at the carnival. "Whoa...I must've really done a number on you down there. Either that or it's the morphine talking." He sighed with relief. "At least now I can finally say it back!"

Heero looked puzzled. Now that he thought about it, Duo had never admitted his feelings, although in retrospect they seemed self-apparent. "Why didn't you ever say it?"

"I had a good reason for that," Duo explained, shifting his weight to the other foot suddenly. "If I told you how I felt and you didn't ignore me or punch me in the mouth for it, you might've just parroted the words back to me, to keep me happy or to shut me up, depending on what sort of mood you were in. That's why I've said everything but those words up till now, because I wanted you to say them first. I wanted you to really mean it."

Stricken with alien emotions, Heero nodded. "I do mean it."

"Then I guess you've earned this," Duo whispered, leaning forward again. "Ai shiteru, Heero." He kissed him once on the lips, feeling the boiling hot fever on his face.

Duo stayed at his side until Heero fell asleep, and long after. He was at his side to press cool cloths to his burning forehead, and to smuggle extra desserts to him from the cafeteria. He was at his side on the plane to Kyoto, and was waiting for him when he came out of surgery. He was at his side when the physiotherapist explained how the titanium rods in his legs might affect his mobility. He was at his side when he tentatively climbed back into Wing a scant ten days later. Duo was forever at his side.

~~~~~~~~~~

Heero Yuy was a very different person during his convalescence. He was still a stubborn and impossible patient, as Sally expected, and he still recovered at an alarming rate, perhaps better than she expected. Duo was even happily prepared for certain changes in their relationship that might come down the road, which he knew would be rather un-Heero-like.

What confused Duo, after getting Heero discharged to one of Quatre's luxury estates, was the way he behaved around his laptop for a particular two or three days. It has been nearly a month since the 'incident', and he had been too busy with physiotherapy to even touch the machine. When he finally did, a strange thing happened.

Every time Duo entered a room where Heero was busily typing away, instead of ignoring the baka as usual, he would slap the computer closed and fold both arms over it, with an impish gleam in his eye. Once he even leaned an elbow on it casually, propping his head up with one hand, and wearing a look that said, 'And you would be coming in here, why?' Duo chucked a pillow at him that time.

He was obviously putting a lot of effort into something, but for now it was a secret. Duo felt the same way about secrets as he did about suprises--he couldn't stand to wait.

Each time, Duo would leave the room with no more information than he had when he came in. Heero realized in those few days how much fun it was making his friend squirm with annoyance. Revenge was sweet.

~~~~~~~~~~

Quatre walked quickly into the study, carrying the Friday morning news and abruptly disturbing Trowa's practice time with the sound of rustling papers.

"Those two guys are being sentenced on Monday!" He sat down on the sofa and spread parts of the newspaper all over the coffee table. Trowa put his flute down carefully and joined him.

They read the article at an equal pace. Burt would receive a lesser sentence because he showed remorse and concern for Heero and the others after the fact, and because he assisted in Louch's capture, but he would still serve some time. When interviewed, he apologized for his behaviour and publicly thanked Lucrezia Noin and Sally Po for setting him straight.

As for Louch, he showed no remorse whatsoever, and the prosecutor was pushing for the maximum. Fifteen years seemed most likely.

Their reverie was broken by Wufei jumping down the grand staircase, two steps at a time, pulling on his jacket. Instead of his usual attire, he had on a classy-looking outfit in muted blues and grays, with stylish, contemporary lines. Quatre could also detect a whiff of cologne.

"Another date with Sally?" Trowa teased.

"It is not a date!" Wufei barked. "We merely happen to be eating at the same restaurant and going to the same theatre afterwards. It would be wasteful to take two vehicles, that's all."

"And you'll just happen to be eating at the same table to save on silverware," Trowa said, raising his visible eyebrow.

"And your seats at the show will just happen to be next to each other to economize space," Quatre chirped.

Wufei fastened a cufflink and smiled less-than-innocently. "Yes." He walked into the study, glanced at the paper, and stuck his hands in his pockets. "So where's the Bionic Man?"

Trowa shrugged. "He took Duo somewhere this morning. Said they'd be gone for the weekend."

"He left?" Quatre spouted short phrases in rapid succession. "What did he leave in? The car? Heero drove? He's not even supposed to be walking! How can he drive?"

Wufei rolled his eyes slightly. "I saw him leg-press his own weight on that home gym you have but never use the other day. He'll be fine."

The trio chatted aimlessly but cheerfully until Sally arrived. Wufei left Trowa and Quatre to their own devices once again, and all parties concerned had a pleasant, relaxing evening.

~~~~~~~~~~

Bright and early Saturday morning, Heero woke Duo with a military flair; he carefully put a pair of headphones over his ears, popped a disc into his portable stereo, and waited. At 0600 hours, he pressed play and blasted the dozy Deathscythe pilot with a loud recording of a bugler playing Reveille.

Duo jumped a good foot and a half off the bed and yelped. Heero chuckled lightly at his prank, which earned him a swift hotel pillow to the face.

After being so cruelly awakened, Duo realized with horror that Heero was already up, dressed, fed, watered, and his bed was made to quarter-bouncing standards and above. Curses on the morning people of the world. "Get up, we have someplace to go today."

"I thought we were already there!" Duo whined, pulling on his shirt lazily.

Heero shook his head. "The drive out here was only the first part. Meet me at the car and you can grab some breakfast on the way there."

Duo moaned a bit, but went along with it. Heero was acting mysterious ever since yesterday when he practically dragged Duo to the car with two suitcases and drove for hours. When they got to the hotel, everything seemed arranged; there was a non-smoking double reserved, with a bed for each of them. Even though they had just passed a major emotional milestone together, they were content to take things slow for now.

They made their way back to the car, at which point Heero took something out of the glove compartment--a purple silk scarf. Duo was too sleepy to notice him winding it into a band; before he knew what was going on, Heero had tied the scarf around his eyes and knotted it firmly at the back.

"Oi! Heero! What's going on? Get this off me, you brat!"

Heero slapped Duo's hands when he tried to take it off himself. "Leave it where it is. I don't want you to see where we're going."

"....oh." Duo sensed a surprise on the horizon.

They drove in a winding path for half an hour or more, and stopped. Duo felt hands guiding him out of the car and across a large area, which felt fairly smooth and flat; Heero kept him from walking into several cars as they crossed the parking lot. They reached a gate, and the man in charge compared Heero to a picture he had been emailed, and waved them both through. Everything was arranged.

"Heero? Where are we? I hear people...and music...and I definitely smell sugar!"

"Not yet..." He marched Duo past befuddled onlookers to stand in an open area. "Alright...now."

Duo eased the blindfold off and blinked. All around him, there were flashing lights, children and adults running happily everywhere, the sounds of the midway, the smell of cotton candy and pretzels...

"Oh, no way! NO WAY!!" Duo leapt for joy and hugged Heero with all his strength. "So this is what you've been doing on your silly computer!" He had tracked down the carnival's route since they last visited, and planned out a little getaway just for the two of them. It just about brought a tear to Duo's eye.

"You haven't seen the best part," Heero said, pointing to the far corner of the park. Duo's eyes widened.

Far away in the distance, beckoning with it's dizzying drops and ferocious speed, was the crown jewel of the carnival. The killer. The ultimate. The Quantum Death 3000.

"Race you there," Heero challenged with a grin.

"You're on!"

They took their marks, counted to three, and sprinted all the way to the roller coaster. Heero won, but not by much. It never came up whether Heero was slowed down by his injury, or whether he let Duo keep a close distance behind just so they wouldn't be separated. He had gotten too used to them doing so much together, he didn't want it to end. Neither of them did. They wanted to stay at each other's side for the rest of their lives.

Being together made them happy.

~owari

~~~~~~~~~~