Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ In the Arms of the Angel ❯ Fidelity - 2 ( Chapter 23 )

Part XXIII

Duo gently hugged his knees to his chest. He held onto the TV remote loosely, absently flipping through channels. He was cold. It had been three days since he had taken a swan dive into a coffee table, and all he could think about was how cold he was. He noticed Heero entering the room with a tray balanced precariously in one hand, a bag in the other. Duo ignored him. Flip. Flip. Flip. He sighed within his mind, the sound never occurring. TV was boring. Flip. Plus, hospitals never had anything good on. Flip--wait. He raised an eyebrow as his thumb froze over the channel up button. Heero had stopped, eyes turned toward the TV.

"I've seen this." Heero mentioned. "It's a cheesy kung-fu flick." Duo remained silent, but he watched the show. He scrunched his eyebrows together after a moment. What the fuck is this? He decided to speak.

"Why is there a guy in a toga fighting ninjas that flew in on kites?" Heero sat down, arranging the tray on a rolley table before shrugging.

"I told you it was cheesy."

"Damn." Duo muttered, releasing his thumb so he could continue flipping through the other worthless channels.

He hadn't left the room since he had been patched up from his brief fight with a glass table. He hadn't been seriously injured, just enough to be irritating. Heero hadn't said anything. Trowa had stayed across the hall in Quatre's room. Duo was just cold.

"I had a strange dream last night." He began, suddenly feeling the need to chat. Heero leaned back in his chair, settling in to listen. Duo continued. "There was all of this hungry mist. It tried to eat me." Heero's raised an eyebrow.

"Tried to eat you?" He asked dubiously.

"Well, it wasn't trying to eat me, eat me, but it tried to…well…you know…" Duo trailed off, dropping his gesturing hands. They weren't making his point any better than his words so why use them? He sighed. "I don't know. I told you it was strange."

"True. So, what else?" Duo thought for a moment, trying to remember the wispy fragments of his disturbing dream. The truth was, was that it had scared Duo. He had woken up with a scream lodged in his throat and sweat soaking his skin. At first he attributed it to his withdrawals, but as the day began to wane, his certainty had as well.

"There was glass." His throat suddenly felt swollen--he couldn't swallow or breathe. Tears stung his eyes, and he swallowed convulsively. "I saw Quatre." His voice came out as a harsh whisper; he was surprised it came out at all.

He began bawling. There was no other word for it--he cried like a child. Heero had his arms around him in an instant, and Duo turned into the protecting and comforting warmth. He felt Heero settle more comfortably on the hospital bed and he continued to sob desperately into Heero's shoulder. Heero's hands soothingly rubbed his back.

"Shh…it's okay. Let it out, it's okay." Heero murmured. Duo cried until he had a headache, clutching Heero as though his life depended on it. Eventually, his deep sobs subsided into small hiccups and sniffles. Heero handed him a Kleenex from a box that waited on the rolley table. He blew his nose; wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and sniffed mournfully.

"I can never make this up to anyone--including myself." He shook his head, his withered sorrow settling coldly in his heart. "I am so sorry, and I regret so much. I just wish…" He could feel tears threatening to return, and he swallowed them back. "I wish I could go back in time and fix it before it happened." He finished in a small voice. Heero's arms tightened around him.

"I understand." Silence filled the room, broken only by Duo's occasional sniffle. Heero sighed. "I really do understand, Duo." He realized that Heero said this more to himself than to Duo.

"Will everything be all right?" He asked softly. Another sigh forced itself from Heero.

"I don't know, Duo, I just don't know." Heero tilted his head up, forcing him to gaze into Heero's eyes. Heero slowly kissed him, their mouths moving softly against each other. Heero pulled back, gazing longingly at him. "I hope so, though."

"Me too." Duo realized as he whispered the words that for the first time in a long time, he was warm.

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Trowa woke up. He had fallen asleep at some point in the chair he dragged to Quatre's bedside, his head resting on the bed, hand holding Quatre's hand. He wasn't sure what had awoken him. He rubbed his eyes, blinking the sleep out of them. His neck was stiff, protesting his awkward sleep position along with the rest of his body. He sat up, stretching his back. He tried vainly to rub away some of the tension from his lower back. It was then that he heard the noise.

The heart monitor still beeped softly away in the background; just one among many noises that made up the soundtrack of a hospital. But this sound didn't belong among the chorus of machine-song. This sound was an odd mixture of human and animal--but it was alive, whatever it was. Trowa jumped slightly startled, and his hands stopped their soothing ministrations. He flicked his eyes around the room warily. The sound came again. This time it sounded like a soft groan. Trowa snapped his gaze to where Quatre lay in a coma.

But Quatre's eyes were open. His mouth moved slowly, as if there was a bad taste in his mouth. His eyes fluttered shut as though they were made of iron, too heavy to keep open. They popped back open. Quatre's fingers clutched spasmodically against the mattress, bunching up the starched sheets. Trowa froze; his sleepy mind not registering current events. His heart jumped for joy, yet he could only gape in disbelief at the slowly awakening Quatre.

"Trowa?" Quatre's voice, rusted with misuse and dehydration, whispered into the stunned silence, effectively snapping Trowa out of his trance. Quatre's eyebrows furrowed together as he repeatedly blinked his eyes. Trowa vaulted from his chair; leaning over Quatre he gently brushed his bangs from his forehead.

"Quatre?" His voice trembled with relief and happiness. "How do you feel?" Quatre brought a shaky hand to his face, dropping it halfway there, apparently too weak to expend the energy.

"Like I've been hit by a semi." Trowa let loose a desperate laugh, his relief unable to remain inside.

"I'll get the nurse." In his excitement, he forgot about the call button, instead running out of Quatre's room. As he burst into the hallway, he began to shout, hollering for the nurse or a doctor. He sprinted down the hall toward the nurses' station. Several nurses were rushing worriedly toward him. "He's awake! He's awake!" He skidded to a stop before the nurses, who slowly began to realize what he was making a commotion about.

"When? How does he feel?" One of the nurses began to shoot a barrage of questions at him that he didn't know how to answer, but she was pulling him back down the hall and into Quatre's room. He was positively giddy with relief, practically skipping for joy down the hall. He didn't know how much longer his chest would contain his heart, for it felt as though it would exploded at any moment. Quatre was awake, against all odds, and he would recover--he had too. He vaguely noticed Heero standing in middle of the hall with a look of anticipation scrawled across his features.

"Heero! He's awake!" He enveloped Heero in a bear hug, pouring all of his frustration, worry, relief and joy into the hug, and prompt burst into tears. Heero's arms came around him and held him while he cried his irrational tears. He raised his head from where it had lodged itself in Heero's shoulder. The movement brought Duo's room into view, where an anxious Duo peeked out, wringing his hands. Trowa wasn't sure if he had ever seen anyone wring their hands before, and laughter promptly accompanied the thought. He pulled back abruptly, grasping Heero's face between his hands and planted a kiss on Heero's lips before turning around, wiping tears from his face, and entering Quatre's now bustling hospital room, leaving Heero standing stunned in the hallway.

In, what seemed to be hours, various nurses and doctors gathered, more often the not, insisting that Trowa leave the room. He didn't like it, but he obediently left, opting to remain just outside, poking his head back in whenever someone left, just to be ordered back out again. His nerves started to get the best of him as he chewed on his nails as he crouched by the door, trying to eavesdrop on the medical staff's conversations regarding Quatre. Earlier, he had nearly been out of his mind with fear and grief, and now he was nearly out of his mind with joy and relief. A complete one-eighty in terms of his feelings. Eventually, however, the doctors finally left, and Trowa was admitted once again. One of the nurses placed a hand on his shoulder--it was Becky. He couldn't help the foolish grin the invariably spread itself over his face.

"He's sleeping for now. He desperately needs it, too." She cast a glance over to Quatre. "At all appearances, he should recover fully, but I just want to warn you that its still too early to tell." He could feel his grin slowly slipping from his face until he was sober.

"I understand." He, too, turned to look at Quatre. "I'll try to keep that in mind. When will you know?" Becky shrugged an action he noticed from the corner of his eye.

"Varies, hard to tell. Just one of those cases you have to watch carefully. So I can't tell you." He nodded. "Just give a holler if his condition changes, goodnight." Trowa moved the chair he had been keeping vigilance in, back to Quatre's bedside. He fell into the chair, suddenly exhausted. He watched Quatre sleep for a while, noticing the change. Quatre had been too still before, now he moved slightly every so often. He was certainly in a deep sleep--not a coma.

Trowa drew a leg up, resting his chin on his knee, listening to Quatre's steady breathing. He was exhausted. Intense feelings had been assaulting him incessantly since Quatre had ended up in a coma. Now, as those intense feelings of anxiety, fear, frustration, anger and hatred, slowly purged themselves from his system, his prominent feeling was that of exhaustion. Even his bliss and relief were muted by his fatigue. The heart monitor still beeped serenely in the background, but Trowa no longer was bothered by it. He slowly relaxed, feeling all of the tension drain from his body. And it was this way that he finally drifted off into an untroubled sleep.

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Heero stood numbly in the hall as though he were a speedbumb. People milled slowly around him, ignoring him for the most part. Did Trowa just kiss me? he wondered. Yes, he did. Heero shook his head, trying to pull himself out of his trance. It had been so sudden and unexpected. One moment he had been hugging him, the next crying on him, and the next kissing him. He didn't quite know how to react to that. Of course he knew that Trowa was ecstatic, but still, did he have to kiss me?

Am I going to just be the shoulder for everyone to cry on? Heero looked down, plucking at his shirt, pulling it away from his body as though there was blood or vomit on it. He grimaced as he looked at his shirt. He'd never have a dry shirt again, he sighed. He tossed his hands in the air and turned on his heel. Duo was peeking out of his room, anxiously watching Quatre's door.

"Heero? Did I hear Trowa right?" Heero couldn't resist the smile that began to spread. He moved to Duo, taking him in his arms.

"Yes, babe, Quatre's awake. Everything will be fine." He backed Duo into the hospital room and let the door close behind him. It was only a matter of time, Heero thought, before everything would finally fall into place and everyone could be free of this episode. He couldn't fool himself, however, and he knew that the recent events could not be forgotten so easily. After all, it still remained to be seen whether Quatre could even forgive Duo for his complete lapse of judgement.

Heero knew that the hospital staff would be releasing Duo tomorrow, and Heero had already lined up a good rehab center for Duo to get better in. This one was dedicated to drug addicts, and had come recommended by several of the medical staff. Heero had a good feeling about it, and Duo had already agreed when he had brought it up yesterday. He was concerned about the tremors he felt sweeping through Duo's body, but the doctors had assured him that the tremors were a normal part of the withdrawal process. Heero placed a kiss on Duo's forehead after gently pushing Duo onto the bed.

"You need some sleep." He smiled at Duo's nod. "Everything will work out."

"Everything?" He nodded.

"One way or another. Everything."