022b
Title: The Perfect Soldier pt. 2
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Death, language
Pairing: None unless you squint
Author's Note: In case you couldn't tell, the parts alternate between the present and Trowa's memories of the past.
“You’re a fucking class act Heero Yuy,” Duo sniffs.
He paces the small room, ignoring the whoosh of the respirator as Heero’s lungs inflate, and then deflate. Life support. The God damn fucking Perfect Soldier on life support. He tugs at the end of his braid, trying to find the words he wants to say. Sally had told them…Sally had told them a lot and yet nothing.
“Damn it Heero, why? I don’t know anything, none of us do it seems except fucking Sally and Trowa. Shit.” He sinks onto the horrible plastic orange chair and buries his face in his hands. “You weren’t supposed to go out like this Heero. You were supposed to go out with a crash, not some stupid infection that you got who-knows-where. Damn it, why didn’t you die with those asshole terrorists? Why didn’t they die?”
He glares at the I.V. dripping whatever-the-hell it is into his friend’s body, trying to keep him alive.
“Do you know what this is doing to us all? Relena’s an emotional wreck you realize, and Quatre’s nothing but a zombie. That’s more from flying straight from L4 and not sleeping though I think. Wufei’s taking it all with a blank face but I know he’s just as upset as the rest of us. And Trowa is constantly in here, monitoring everything. In fact, I’m surprised Relena was able to drag him off to get food. Maybe he’s finally given up. Maybe we all should. After all, this is what you wanted, right? To die? That’s why you pulled all those stunts in the war, right?”
He glares at the small, pale body as it manually takes in oxygen. He glares at the tubes running in and out of his body. He glares at the monitors that show high heart rate, high fever, high everything it seems. Finally he turns and marches to the door, pulling it open forcefully.
“God rest the Perfect fucking Soldier,” he mutters, bitterness coating his tongue, before pulling the door shut behind him.
--
They camped out in an open field - somewhere between cities Trowa doesn’t recall the name of - on their way to visit Sylvia Noventa. He’s too tired, too drained to care at this point. Heero is sitting off in the shadows, staring at the sky, at the stars and the colonies and the moon he thinks. He finishes the soup and leaves the can on the ground as he walks over to him.
“I’ve checked, it’s not bleeding,” Heero mutters s he approaches.
“And your temperature?”
“Is fine,” Heero snaps. Trowa settles down next to him, feeling his forehead anyway. He gave up worrying about whether Heero would snap his hand off when they were still at the circus. “I lived fifteen years without you hovering.”
He ignores the look Trowa gives him and Trowa sighs softly. The air is warm, full of summer. “It’s deadly.”
“I know the statistics.” They fall silent and Trowa looks up at the sky as well, tracing the constellations. “It’s just tiring.”
“Mm.” He doesn’t comment when he sees the blood seep through the bandage later on. Instead he leans against a tree and counts the stars.
--
Wufei sits in the too-bright room and watches the strong turn into the weak. He wonders if this is for the best, if it’s fast or if it’s slow. He can sense Trowa hovering outside the door and it makes him wince inwardly. Trowa never hovered over anyone until now. Then again, there never was a need and maybe that’s a lie.
A part of him regrets not getting to know him better, a part is glad. He shifts in his seat and stares at the body that isn’t really his comrade’s anymore and swallows. With a push and a surge he stands and checks the monitors and then looks at the too-pale face with the bruises under the eyes.
“You were the strongest.”
He closes the door silently behind him, not looking at anyone.
--
“You’re overdoing it Heero,” Trowa mumbled. The air was stale and hot, the machines cold to the touch. He hated Antarctica. Heero continued to work, eyes red-veined and unblinking as he focused on his laptop screen, working out the differentials on Heavyarms. “Heero.”
“I’m almost done…”
“Go to bed,” Trowa murmured. He dropped down next to the other boy and ignored a look from the passing mechanic. “I’ll handle it.”
“Trowa.”
“Don’t make me break your hands to get you to stop.”
Heero laughed, looking at him. “Won’t matter.” Trowa nodded and then sighed inwardly as Heero stood. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He nodded and then slipped away in the yellow light.
--
“I don’t understand,” Quatre murmurs. It’s late at night, too late to remember the time precisely, and he’s just so tired. Time changes, terrorists, and dying comrades do not make for liveliness. He closes his eyes and grips Heero’s hand.
“I wish you would have just told us Heero. I wish you would have realized, after all of these years, that we can be trusted. We’re your friends Heero, whatever it is, we would have understood.” He lets his eyes open and shifts. “Duo’s not taking it well, Relena’s not taking it well…Sally’s always in and out of here,” he murmurs. “You have her tied up in legalities, she can’t tell use but she wants to.”
He sighs.
“We were never the closest, I think Duo or Trowa won that spot, maybe Relena, but I want you to know that I respected you. You were a good soldier Heero, the best. I’m sorry about the past but that can’t be changed, and I’m sorry about the future you’ve denied yourself. Promise me that you’ll do one thing for yourself though - promise me you’ll go peacefully. You deserve it,” he whispers.
He grips Heero’s hand again and stands slowly. He feels four times as old as he actually is as he shuffles to the door. He looks back as it closes behind him, he thinks that maybe Heero shifted a little but Sally assured them earlier that he was in fact comatose. Relena looks up at him, her eyes filled with tears. Trowa sits next to her, reading.
“Your turn,” he sighs. Duo moves over, letting him collapse on the sofa next to him. He hears the door open and close and looked up, ready to soothe Relena. Only it’s Trowa still sitting across from him, looking as if a friend isn’t dying in the next room. “You will see him, won’t you?”
A page turns.
--
“Are you…worried?”
He looked at Trowa curiously. The other ex-pilot is leaning against the wall, behind the chair Relena fell asleep in. “About what?”
Trowa moved slowly around the various articles of furniture in the bedroom, stopping before the small window. He pulled the curtains aside and stared at the stars outside. It had been due to Relena’s influence, and Heero’s threats, which made Sally agree to release Heero from the hospital - so long as he remained in his apartment and was checked on regularly - after he had been shot twice during a routine security detail.
“Dying.” He turned to look at Heero.
To his credit Heero looked unconcerned. He glanced idly at Relena (she had insisted on visiting every night after her meetings let out, bringing dinner). He wondered if she felt some sort of obligation since he had saved her life. “Not usually,” he murmured finally. She stirred and he paused, letting her relax back to sleep. “I came to terms with it a long time ago.”
“During the war?”
“Before that, when I was still a child.” Trowa doesn’t mention that they were children in the war. “Doctor J wanted the perfect weapon and he made me it.”
“He didn’t give you CIPA,” Trowa snapped. In all honesty though he could have. Trowa had no way of knowing, Heero never spoke of his training in any great detail.
“No, but he trained me,” Heero retorted. He shifted in the bed, watching the way he moved his arm, judging the way the skin seemed to pull at the stitches. It would figure that he had been shot in his damaged arm. “Death is inevitable Trowa,” he continued finally, “mine’s just sooner.”
“What are you talking about?” Relena asked, stirring. She rubbed at her eyes and sat up. They watched as she rotated her neck. “What’s sooner Heero?”
“Inevitable drug addiction from all the times he’s been injured,” Trowa grumbled. She laughed.
“Funny. Can I get you anything?” she questioned, grinning.
“No, you should go Relena; you have a meeting with Romefeller tomorrow morning…”
“I know my schedule Heero, and you’re more important. Stop sulking and ordering me away because I won’t leave, I’ll be here until the end.”
--
“I guess this is the end, isn’t it?” she asks softly.
Her eyes are moist and she sniffs back tears as she stands next to his bed. The white teddy bear she had brought earlier looks out of place against all the beeping machinery. Someone had turned the lights behind the bed on low and it gave his pale skin a soft glow. She had the sudden urge to turn them off.
“I’m still here though Heero, aren’t I?” she whispers. She kneels next to the bed, gripping the cold hand. She had promised herself she would not cry. It amuses her in a dark sort of way when she feels the tears on her cheeks. “I’m here Heero. And you aren’t, you’re fading. You always told me I was selfless, sacrificing my time and life to helping others…I’m not Heero. Or rather, not this time.
“I want to be selfish, just this once,” she cries. “I want you to wake up and be my bodyguard again; I want you to wake up and threaten to kill me. I want to know that I’m completely safe because you’re in a corner somewhere, watching me. I want you to live.”
The room is quiet when she stops talking and she draws in a heavy breath, listening to the monotonous drone. Her fingers clutch his almost convulsively. “It shouldn’t be fair that you have sacrificed everything and gotten nothing in return. You lost your childhood, your family, your innocence, and your life and what have you to show for it? Scars and broken bones, nothing more than that!”
“Peace,” a quiet voice murmurs. “He has peace to show for it.”
She whirls and sees Trowa in the dark corner, watching them both. She glares and stands, slapping him soundly across his face. It angers and thrills her to see the red spread across his cheek from where her slap had landed. “You know what’s wrong with him,” she snaps. “You know why he’s dying. Why?”
“I…can’t tell you,” he says finally.
“The Hell you can’t,” she growls. She doesn’t feel like Vice Foreign Minister Darlian at the moment, she feels like Relena Darlian, a woman of twenty-six who can’t remember the last time she was free to announce the injustices of life and to whine about them. “You know why he’s dying; you know why he had to have all those tests. You know and you won’t tell any of us. You have no excuse Trowa Barton, you aren’t his doctor and he isn’t your patient. You just enjoy seeing us all suffer and wonder about what really happened and if it was our fault!”
She turns on her heel and storms out, cursing Trowa and Heero and all of mankind as she goes.
--
“What happened?” he demanded icily. Duo looked up from where he was sitting next to Heero’s bed. Heero was asleep.
“Hey Tro, didn’t know you’d get here so fast,” Duo joked. His smile faded when he saw Trowa’s face. “You okay?”
“What happened?” he repeated.
Duo shrugged. “From what Une said, Heero went off half-cocked as usual. He was after that terrorist group that almost got Relena, you know? Une said the Retrieval Unit found him passed out in a snow bank. He had his hand presses to his stomach because the bastards tried to gut him and he was missing his shoes. Apparently they shot him in the arm too since that’s bandaged up. Sally’s been in once or twice.”
“Did she run any tests?”
“She x-rayed his arm but I don’t think she did any others…Hey, where’re you going?” Duo called. Trowa exited the hospital room, heading to the nurse’s station.
“Can I help you?”
“I need to see Sally Po.” She frowned. “It’s about a patient she has.”
“I’m sorry sir; the doctor is very busy this time of year…”
“It’s okay Mattie.” He looked up, relieved to see Sally approaching. “Trowa, is it about Heero?” At his nod she set the chart on the desk. “Mattie, please send for Dr. Farrier, I think this will take some time.” The nurse looked annoyed but didn’t protest. “Come on Trowa, this way.” She led him to an empty room and nodded. “Okay, what is it?”
“You have to run tests on Heero.”
“I x-rayed his arm, its fine except for the bullet wound. Don’t worry Trowa, I gave him a low dose of antibiotics but he hasn’t exhibited any signs of pain the few times he’s been awake…”
“He has CIPA.”
“What?” She blinked, staring at him.
“He has CIPA,” he murmured, staring at her. “Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidroisis. He wouldn’t exhibit any symptoms outwardly.”
“It’s not in his chart, how do you…?”
“I found out during the war.”
She nodded and then sighed loudly. “Damn it Heero…This explains a lot you know,” she mumbled. “Do the others know?” He shook his head and she nodded again. “I treated him once in the war and he, well, I didn’t know what to make of him. I should have thought of it sooner, and him not having it on his medical chart? I understand during the war, but now? He’s had plenty of injuries in the past eleven years, it should be on there!”
He followed as she marched into Heero’s room, grabbing his chart. Duo looked up at the intrusion. “Mattie!” she bellowed. “I need a full set of tests on him now!” She scanned the chart. “We should have done this hours ago…You two will have to wait in the waiting room while we’re running him through the machines.” She paused on her way out. “Thanks,” she murmured to Trowa. He nodded, ignoring Duo’s confused look.
--
“I still envy you,” he whispers softly. He looks down at Heero and swallows whatever it is that has suddenly lodged itself in his throat. “I envy you the peace of your death. And the absolute certainty you have. I didn’t lie to Relena about peace, did I?”
He laughs drily and rubs his temples. He hasn’t slept in a day, two days, a week? He isn’t sure how long he’s been at the hospital and it frightens him a little. He knows this is goodbye, knows it deep in his bones. Heero won’t make it out of this alive. All the others have said their farewells, it’s his turn now, and he can’t say anything except that he envies him. He laughs again, bitter turned humorous.
“Trowa?” Sally asks. She steps into the small room and waits for him to look up at her. “Trowa, he listed you as his medical proxy, it’s up to you on what happens. I’m not going to sugarcoat it but…”
“Pull it,” he replies. She stares at him. “Take him off the ventilator and whatever else you have him on.”
“Are you sure?”
He looks at Heero, imagines him eleven years ago lying on his bed after the self-destruction. He can’t help but think that he looks the same, now as then. He brushes a strand of dark hair from Heero’s face, something he hasn’t done since that time, and then turns to the door.
“Yes,” he answers. He walks through the hall without looking at any of the others.
End Note: CIPA is a disorder known as Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis. Sufferers of CIPA have no knowledge of what pain is even when experiencing it. For example, a child without CIPA would take their hand off a hot burner but a child with CIPA would not react. They are not expected to live past early adulthood because they have no ability to sweat, feel pain, cry, or even tell if they're running a fever.