Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Duo's Jewel of Peace ❯ 7 ( Chapter 7 )

Duo's Jewel of Peace 7/? (maybe 8)

By Nix Winter

Disclaimers: I don't own GW. I don't get to make profit from this story until I manage to own the characters.

Pairings: 1+2, 3x4, 5xoc female

Warnings: total fantasy science of the kind that makes me go "I wish!"

Notes: I'm told that Heero has a type A blood type, and that Duo has a type B. I'm going to be bad and declare for the sake of this story, that Duo has type AB. The reason for this will become apparent farther down in the story. I hope this is just a small change and doesn't bother anyone.

Duo's Jewel

Visiting hours had ended. Mika had taken Jewel home. Quatre and Trowa had gone with her, with Trowa nearly carrying the smaller blond. Hospitals were not good places for an empath when his friends were hurting this badly, or even when the hospital was just filling up with people with asphyxiation problems. The air generators had been on a scheduled full shut down and even though Rike had gotten them started again, there'd been spontaneous emissions of fire extinguishing foam as well and in the thinner air, people were sick, poisoned. Heero refused to calculate how the story would have come out if Duo had not shot Papadopuls, if the man had been able to manage the disaster he'd engineered. Instead, he sat next to Duo's bed, lightly feeling the pulse in his friend's wrist, watching a frail chest rise and fall. Visiting hours had passed though. Heero had lied, told the head nurse that he was Duo's mate, and that exempted him from the hospital visiting hour rules.

Duo's pulse had grown fainter over the last hours, his chest rose millimeters less, and Heero knew his friend was dying. All the time he'd spent on Earth, being Relena's security, all the time he'd spent in training, all the time lost, and it was like the girl and the puppy, replaying for him now, this mission failed that he could do nothing about. So close to death, and still Duo had more life in him than Heero thought he'd ever had. He remembered Duo holding that baby, being comforted by her small body on his chest, when Heero'd just been afraid that she'd hurt Duo with her weight, even though she probably didn't weigh more than 4, 4.5 kilos. Failed missions brought Heero easily to the point of wanted to end his own life, and every time he got to those thoughts, there was Duo's thin pulse under his fingers, a fragile lifeline rhythm reminding him that it was Duo who'd picked his battered form from the rocks and told him he just had to live if that hadn't killed him. It was Duo who had picked his battered soul from the wreckage of programming and war, given him the sweet longing for a life of his own.

Trowa would return soon, lay an arm around his shoulders and offer him the comfort that only a best friend can. Heero wanted Duo to be alive then, wanted even an unconscious Duo to hear him tell Trowa that he'd made up his mind, that he understood his heart now, understood that he was in love with Duo.

On Relena's ship -

Relena lowered her head pressed a delicate finger to her forehead, thumb against her cheekbone, and nodded very slightly. On the screen, just inches away, even if she felt like she was shrinking as the doctor gave her his report. So small. It hadn't felt like this when her father had died. That had been an impossible fight against the exploding sun. This was the quite setting of the sun, the slipping away of her own life, not just the radical shift of it.

The doctor had perhaps grown immune, or he just felt important giving a medical report directly to the Prime Minister. "Madame, I don't expect the patient to live another six hours, if that. The first incident of cardiac arrest happened before he was brought in, and the damage is too extensive when taken in tandem with the drug he'd ingested. The malnourished state of his body prior to the drug and the heart attack..."

"Stop," she said, fearing not so much for Duo Maxwell, her rival, her enemy on love's battlefield. "If it's his heart that is so damaged, do a transplant."

"No donor organs are available, Madam, and even if they were, even with a request from your office, there are recipients who have been waiting longer." The doctor said, but Relena noticed the slight hesitation between the words 'available' and 'madam'.

Quickly her mind ran through the political reasons, for things he might be hiding. Her eyes narrowed. "I will take responsibility for his medical bills. And see that your hospital has a sizable donation to celebrate his recovery."

Thin doctor lips twitched, almost smiling. "I will see that he is added to the recipient list, his need is certainly urgent. However, Madame Prime Minister, please understand, he is not a good candidate. His entire circulatory system is damaged; even a donor heart might not save him. He has very little body mass presently and he is short. He has the body of a person in late adolescence. This sometimes happens to people who come to maturity in lower gravity as there is in the less affluent sections of L2, persons who are chronically malnourished."

That wasn't the Duo she remembered. She remembered him smiling and cocky and daring, playing basketball and running with Heero before Duo had gone back to L2. She remembered a Duo who never held back, who had seemed young, and now that she thought about it, he wasn't much taller than Heero, even if Duo were Caucasian, not Asian. Duo was a shooting star. "What about a child's heart? Why would the donor have to be an adult?"

"There are, in this hospital two children on the recipient's list. On Vega, there are four. They are excellent candidates. To risk a young heart on a poor candidate and cost a child their life would be despicable. I'm sure you can understand that?"

Relena's throat closed off, choking tears out her eyes. Duo was just a child, no man in advanced age, just a boy who'd gone away when she'd asked him to, just a boy who'd given her her chance to win Heero. "Then make him a new heart. Clone him one. I will get you the experimental permit. Just do it."

"I haven't got that kind of technology." Duo's doctor said, sounding rather discouraged, realizing that while the prime minister could have represented very good things for his hospital and career, she could also bring him harm. "I know who does though. There is a doctor. Her license has been revoked for cloning experiments. She's rumored to be with the Sweepers. Maybe she'd even be sympathetic to Mr. Maxwell, as they're from the same stock."

"Her name?'

"Ming Sung Sai. She was Chinese, before they ran her off planet."

Relena wrote it down. "Keep Duo Maxwell alive. I will find her."

"I am not God, Madame Prime Minister."

"Then perhaps you should find one to pray to." Relena terminated the call. Duo could not die. Heero would never forgive, never forgive any of them. Relena herself had found a news article with the doctor's photo in it even. This woman, according to the article was brilliant, even if she displayed very little regard for the law. There was a list of her discoveries, achievements, and degrees. Relena hardly believed them. The woman in the photo couldn't have been much older than Relena herself, certainly not more than a couple of years.

On a Preventer's Cruiser Ship -

Wufei blocked, noting the acceptable power that his partner struck with, then threw a punch in return. She dodged, grabbed his arm, spun, attempting a throw, only to find him pour his energy into her throw, and to bring her over as well. They ended up on the sparring mat, him in push up position over her, bodies not touching, eyes locked. She was an Irish girl, maybe, but she had red hair, fiery red and fiery green eyes that challenged him on every decision he made.

"Kitelyn," he said, mangling her Irish bred name with his Chinese accent. "You fight acceptably."

She grinned, a blush coming up over pale cheeks. "Really?" Then she sucker punched him in the gut, which doubled him over and put her on top of him, her knees to his chest, her elbow against his throat, where it would have crushed his breath from him if they'd been really fighting. "I thought I cheated."

He smoldered under, but let his wrists fall back to the mats in submission. "The red dragon does not cheat when it stalks it's prey."

"The black dragon knows few rivals, but does well to accept true companionship," she parried verbally, and he laughed, bucking his body to tell her to get off of him.

"This black dragon," he said, laying a hand on his chest, "is wiser than he was." Across the room, he saw his comset blinking though, and pointed to it in explanation as he took his sweaty black dragon form over to it.

Maxwell. This was the first time he'd heard about Maxwell's current problem, which seemed to quite out do the previous. The death of Death's Dragon would make the stars themselves weep in the dark velvet of space. "We have a mission. We'll take the Viper."

"Oh, we will? You got permission to take that death trap?"

He nodded curtly, completely back to business as he headed for the showers. "Mission is direct from the prime minister. We are to use all necessary force; timetable of the mission is two hours. We must acquire a renegade scientist, a doctor who experiments in cloning."

Caitlin peeled her own sweat damp shirt off as she followed her partner into the shower room. "Two hours? Where are we going to find said doc in two hours?"

"Trowa tracked her to a mining ship. The ships captain knew Trowa and suggested we try on the new moon Helios. Her proximity gives us good hope of reaching her in the timetable, with the Viper," Wufei explained. Then they showered fast and hard, red and black dragons. Within twenty minutes they were in the launch bay.

The Viper turned out to be a small two person craft, dagger shaped where it hung in the dock, the large launch engines clinging around both cylindrical fighters like the hilt of a dagger. Cait had taken to secretly calling them Vice and Viper. At first she'd thought of them almost as coffins, but it was because of her ability to pilot this craft, a skill that had more to do with how fast her nerves fired than any training she'd had, that was the trait that let her spend more time with the Black dragon, and she could lay down in a coffin to be near him, especially if they both got to get back out too.

In Ming's Lab -

Ming Sung Sai knew they were coming. If the Viper's propulsion system had not held her attention so intensely, she very likely would have arranged a collision with space debris for them. There was an unusually large amount of it near this new moon. She herself was not terribly good at mechanics nor computer programming, but it fascinated her just the same. She wanted to examine their craft much more than she found the idea of conversation with police officers only slightly better than trying to do a DNA insertion with an eyedropper.

Some things just had not changed all that much her lifetime. At 103 years old, she'd had plenty of opportunity to discuss morality with police officers of various organizations. When she hailed them, she asked for their identification, and like good little boys they replied with badge numbers. This gave her their id's, everything from academic career to some very interesting photos. The girl was quite interesting. Yes, the girl was very interesting. Ming lacked few of the pleasures of life. Until she saw the photo of the girl, standing next to her partner, sunlight behind them, a Chinese and a European together, until then she had not realized how lonely she was.

She rose from her desk, the bells on the end of her four hair pins tinkling softly. She did not look like the preeminent, if exiled, bioengineer in the Earth Sphere and just beyond. She looked like a Chinese princess, five foot four, with long jet black hair, bright blue eyes with twenty-twenty vision, and not a wrinkle anywhere on her 125 pound body. She decided she would welcome these police officers, offer them what it was they wished, within reason, and she would find for herself a lover, a red headed lover, perhaps.

In Duo's Room….

She touched Heero's shoulder softly. "Mr. Yuy?"

He woke with a start, surveyed the room quickly. Outside the window, the sun was rising. Inside the room, Duo's chest was still rising, falling. Heero realized he'd fallen asleep with his forehead touching Duo's fingers. "Yes? How may I help you?"

"I am Leiloni Captril. I'm a hospice nurse. Mr. Maxwell's doctor referred you to me, and I thought I would come and introduce myself. I want to help in anyway I can."

Heero considered her words. Hospice. It was an organization that assisted the dying, comforted them, and helped those that love them grief. "I have no need of your services, but I thank you for your time."

"Mr. Yuy, here is my card, in case you change your mind, or would like to at least discuss Mr. Maxwell's diagnosis. One of the jobs of hospice is to help the family members understand the condition that is causing their loved one to die." She held out the card and Heero found it ironic to think that she could be on such friendly terms with death and dying.

He'd hated both when he fought. Duo had been the one on friendly terms with death. Shinigami. Would the Japanese god of death come to claim Duo? Walk away with him, one arm over his shoulder, as Duo laughed maniacally. Heero pretended he didn't have heartburn and asked, "What do you know of his condition?"

She reached for the other chair and sat down, pulling a small, inexpensive palm computer from her jacket pocket. "This is a still image from one of the scans that was taken yesterday." She held it out to him, expecting confusion, an angry outburst perhaps, which she expected to be able to diffuse.

Heero studied the scan, shifted in his chair, touched the screen to move to another still of Duo's scan. "He had a heart attack. No one told me. He needs a heart transplant. The damage is too much for someone of his age."

She blinked, reached for her little computer only to have him move away, as he flipped through the stills, assessing the damage to other parts of Duo's body. "Mr. Yuy, Mr. Maxwell has been put on a recipient's list. All that can be done for him is, but his condition is very critical. I don't think we'll find a donor."

"A donor," Heero whispered, getting an idea.