Descent of an Angel

Trowa jerked, gasping slightly as he felt the hand jostle his shoulder. His body tensed, ready to strike before a voice broke through his start.

“Easy, Trowa. It’s Sally.”

Emerald green eyes turned to her before he sighed softly, then seemed to remember why she would be waking him like this and bolted up right, “How is he?”

Sally glanced to his left before she motioned for him to follow her. He got up, wincing as his joints popped back into place and became loose. He glanced at the others, all of them were seemingly asleep. Quatra was curled in his chair like a cat, legs tucked to his chest, kept that way by hooking his ankles into the chair’s arms, his wrists crossed and pressed to his chest. Wufei was sitting sidewards in his chair, his arms folded in his lap, his head resting on the back of the chair. Heero was sleeping with his arms crossed, his chin on his chest, breathing evenly. He turned back to Sally, following her down the hall until she deemed them far enough away from the other three.

“Why are we going this far?” Trowa asked softly.

“Because, you’re the only one that seems stable enough to hear this. Heero’s too close to this, Wufei’s… off because of this, and Quatra’s way too emotional.” She said softly, holding her clipboard almost protectively to her chest, her eyes glazing over in sadness.

Trowa just stood there for a while, as if thinking if he should ask or not. He wanted to know, he wanted to help Duo but, truthfully, if he was honest with himself, he was terrified of what Sally would tell him. He’d seen Duo, how he’d looked, he didn’t want to know what lay in wait beneath what little cloth that he had been wearing. They all spent five years under this self made delusion that Duo just didn’t want to be around them, that he was happy where he was, and that he would make a living like he was suppose to as a young man, when the truth was more horrifying than the taller male could ever wish on anyone. No one deserved to look like that, especially not someone as happy and adventurous as Duo. He swallowed hard, squaring his shoulder slightly before he rubbed his neck.

“How… is he?” he asked softly, wanting to scold himself at the hitching his voice made.

Sally lifted her gaze to him before she sighed and leaned against the wall, “Technical, or do you want me to lay it on you easy?”

“Just… tell me…” he said softly.

Sally nodded before she took a deep breath, “First off… We had to… shave what was left of his hair, it looked like it was already mostly hacked off, it was falling out as we touched it, it hasn’t been washed in years, but that’s not the reason we had to shave him. It looks like he’d taken a blow to the head, a bad one, there was some an extreme excess of fluid putting pressure on his brain, and we had to drain it. It was cloud, which tells us that it was infected…”

“An infection in his brain?” Trowa asked softly, he’d never heard of something like that.

“Yes. It’s progressed into Encephalitis, and spread down his spinal cord into Meningitis. After the draining, we’ve put him on a wide range of antibiotics, hopefully that will get everything else in his system besides the brain injuries.”

“Everything else?” Trowa asked softly, frowning at Sally, his eyes darkening a little.

“We haven’t gotten the test results back but, his lungs are filled with fluid, we’re hoping it’s a mild strain of pneumonia, and not the alternative.”

“And what would that alternative be?”

“Lung worms. It’s highly unlikely giving the conditions he was put in during those five years, but we’re covering all the bases that we can find. His malnutrition is a given diagnosis with his state, so is the dehydration. We were able to do a quick test and found his B12 levels to be extremely low, but that might just be because of his lack of the proper food. We’ll know more once the tests get back… That’s the stuff that I can tell you about so far, at least the things that can only be healed with medication.”

“What else. Given his state, that can’t be all…” Trowa said, the under tone in his voice a warning to her for holding back information from him.

“His left hand is completely shattered, healed several times on its own and re-broke. He’s going to need surgery for it, his right one isn’t as bad but it will need to lay in a cast until it heals properly. He has several broken bones in his shoulders, legs, and arms that will need re-breaking and proper setting, including his right leg. I did a quick once over, he’s so thin…”

“I know…”

“I wrapped a chest cast around his ribs to allow the broken and cracked ones to heal. He’s got scars all over his lower body, some of them I’ve been able to identify as burns from things like cattle prods, and several in the shape of seals, like the ones used to mark cows in the extremely old days by branding them… His left eye is completely swollen shut, probably sealed shut, he’ll need surgery for that, too.”

“Don’t wounds like that heal on their own?” Trowa asked softly.

“If they’re bruised and caused by a beating to the eye… No, I think there’s pressure behind that eye, or he’s had a small stroke that causes it to lay like that, it might’ve just been struck too many times and may be like that permanently. He might even be blind in that eye now.”

Trowa rubbed at his own face, pinching the bridge between his eyes with his middle finger and thumb.

“Mentally, he’s even worse from what I could tell.” She said.

“He woke up?” Trowa asked.

“Briefly. We had to sedate him because his heart started racing, and his lungs closed up on him. We had to incubate him with a non-evasive tube. He won’t be able to talk until it’s removed. He started to talk to someone who wasn’t there. Someone named ‘Solo’ or something like that. When he saw me, he started freaking out, screaming and trying to run away. He re-broke his shoulder wound, which was why we were able to sedate him. I noticed that his speech was slurred, slow, and broken. His accent kept switching between his properly spoken English, to the broken L2 slang, to Japanese, to a language only known on the Mars projects.”

“What’s that mean?” Trowa asked.

“He might have permanent brain damage due to the Encephalitis. I won’t know more until both the tests results come back, and we have figured a cocktail where he can be awake, lucid but calm enough to keep from hurting himself.”

“Give him Oxycontin…” Trowa muttered softly.

“Why?” Sally asked.

“Pain drugs effect him differently than most people. Morphine makes him loopy, the seeing pink elephants kind, he’s allergic to something Hydrocodone, so don’t give him that. I don’t know what Oxycontin will do…” he muttered softly.

“I’d rather not test it since that’s a very strong narcotic… Maybe a small bit of morphine will keep him lax enough to ask questions, but not enough to bring in the herd…” Sally said softly.

“When can we go in and see him?” Trowa asked, pushing his bang back in frustration and letting it fall back into place.

“He’ll be awake in about three hours, but I suggest only one of you seeing him at a time.”

“That’s not going to settle well with Heero… I’m sure he’s going to want to be the first one there.” Trowa muttered softly.

“Do you trust Heero to be in the same room with Duo?”

“When it comes to Duo, Heero’s going to be the best person for this. He loves Duo, and will do anything he can to help him. That’s kind of what scares me. He’s going to be so protective of Duo, that he might hinder his healing.”

“You?” she asked.

Trowa looked down, “I don’t want Duo to see me first. I was never close with him. No, the best choices are Quatra and Heero.”

“You’ll have to choose one of them. It doesn’t matter which one, as long as they don’t try to force him into something too soon.”

“Both of them might try to do that, but Heero will follow orders if specifically given to him…” Trowa muttered, thinking as he looked down at the clean, linoleum floor.

Sally watched him, a small frown on her face. She was worried these four boys. They were taking this harder than they should be. She understood why Heero was taking it hard, she could understand why Quatra was taking it hard, but she could tell Wufei had been crying, and Trowa was so shaken up, that he was having difficulty deciding simple things like who would be best to go in and see Duo.

“Trowa… what’s going on between the four of you? You and Wufei shouldn’t be taking all of this as hard as you’ve been.”

She winced at the question. It sounded like she thought they were heartless or something. She knew better than anyone that they weren’t, but she couldn’t help but feel like she’d missed something between these boys. Wufei had never been close to Duo, neither had Trowa, by his own admission, too. Trowa lifted his head up to her, as if thinking of his answer.

“He’s one of us… one of our brothers, and we never even noticed that he was in trouble, that he was suffering. He got this way, and suffered for five long years while we twiddled our thumbs, thinking he’d gone on a trip around the world. We should’ve known that something was wrong when he just disappeared, but we didn’t. We assumed that he was somewhere he wanted to be, somewhere where he was happy, and not suffering.”

Sally could only watch as Trowa trembled in suppressed anger and resentment. She couldn’t tell who he was more mad at right now, himself or the men who did this to Duo, and she didn’t want to know. She dismissed it and looked around the hallway, as if waiting for something then turned to Trowa again.

“When you’ve decided who is going to go in, tell me so I can have them in when he wakes up. I think, even now, him waking up alone isn’t a good thing.”

Trowa nodded in understanding before he turned and returned to the waiting room to find Heero awake, and nursing a cup of steaming coffee. He was staring into it as he slowly turned the cup in his hands, letting them warm the appendages while occupying his mind. The Latin male watched Heero until he seemed to notice someone was watching him and lifted his head up.

Trowa bit his lip a little, mostly to break off the dryness that was forming on the top layer of flesh. He moved across the room and sat down beside Heero, making sure to give the other his space while sitting close enough to be comforting.

“He once told me… that he wouldn’t be able to just disappear after the war. He thought that he was too close to all of us now. That all he wanted to do was to just settle down, go back to school, and get a job where he could do what he loved all the time. “ Heero muttered softly, into his coffee cup, slowly taking a sip, then chuckling to himself, “I just don’t understand… why didn’t the alarms go off when he just disappeared. Why didn’t I question where he went? Why didn’t I look for him? Why did I just let it go?”

Trowa watched helplessly as Heero gripped the Styrofoam cup tighter and and tighter, the liquid spilling from the cup and onto the floor, scolding his hand. Heero relaxed his grip, letting the cup fall and clatter onto the floor.

“We all did, Heero. None of us thought twice about him disappearing, like we should have. It’s not your fault, it’s no one’s fault. Listen, Heero… Sally’s going to let one of us in to see Duo when he wakes up. Would you like to be the one to go in?”

Heero looked up at him, as if thinking then sighing softly, “I don’t deserve to see him.”

“None of us do, Heero. You aren’t special out of all of us in the guilt department. We all are guilty, but I know that when it comes to Duo, you wont do too much to him, and cause him to regress. I want you to go in and see him, because he needs to wake up seeing someone, not thinking that he’s still in that room. He needs to know that we are there, here, for him.”

Heero looked down at his hands before he sighed softly, using them to scrub at his scalp and neck, nodding, “I want to be there when he wakes up. You sure Quatra wouldn’t be better to be there for him when he wakes up?”

“Quatra’s a little under the weather, or not himself right now. I’ve got to coax him back into being our Quatra before I want him anywhere near Duo. He’s too fragile.”

Heero swallowed before he looked Trowa in the eye, “Do you… know how he is? I saw Sally take you down the hall…”

Trowa swallowed a bit before he sighed, “I’ll tell you what to expect so you aren’t surprised when you see him.”

Heero nodded before he straightened up, squaring his shoulders, getting ready for any an all information that Trowa could be giving to him, good or bad.

“First off, Heero… He had some swelling in his brain due to an infection, they had to shave his head to get to it.”

“His… hair?” Heero asked softly, eyes on the ground.

“Sally said it was falling out anyways. She said it probably hadn’t been taken care of since he was taken… It would’ve all fallen out anyways.”

“But… it’ll grow back?” Heero asked, voice cracking.

“It might.”

Heero nodded, rubbing one wrist with his free hand then looking to Trowa, telling him silently to continue. For the next hour, Trowa explained what to expect from the other, and how he was suppose to be around him. Quatra and Wufei were woken halfway into the conversation by his voice, listening intently to what ever the Latin male had to say.

“We aren’t entirely sure how bad his mental state is. Sally said he kept trying to talk to someone named ‘Solo’, but I don’t know of anyone Duo would know by that name.”

“Solo was the kid who took care of Duo on L2 before he was picked up by the Maxwell Church…” Heero supplied, shaking his head, “He died when Duo was eight.”

“he’s Hallucinating…” Wufei said softly.

“yes. We don’t know how bad he’s going to be, or how bad he is, but we’re going to have to work together to help him through this, and back to the Duo that we know him to be.”

“He’ll never be the Duo you knew him to be.” Came a quiet voice from the entrance of the waiting room.

All four of them lifted their heads to the voice to see Zechs, Noin, and Une standing there. All three of them were still dressed in their Preventer’s uniforms. Noin’s hair was slicked back with sweat, her face flushed a little. Zechs looked almost the same, a bit of tiredness on his face but he seemed fine other than that. Une was looking pissed where she stood, a small frown on her face before she crossed to the four of them and sat in a vacant seat.

“We know that, but we have to do something to make him seem like he used to be. At least a little bit.” Trowa said, looking over at Zechs after watching Une take her seat.

Zechs shook his head, “You don’t seem to understand what he’s going to be like in there.”

“Neither do you, Marquise! You don’t know anything about us, about Maxwell, or how he’s going to be once he sees that all of us are real! You don’t know anything!” Wufei snarled at him angrily, rising from his chair until Quatra pushed him back into his seat, sighing softly.

Wufei balked for a few seconds before he looked away, a little upset with himself for letting his emotions run ramped like they’d been for the last twenty-four hours.

“We aren’t going to know at all how bad Duo is until we get in there and see him for ourselves, and we can’t do that until he’s out of the woods, so until then, everyone either back off, butt out or shut the hell up and wait.” Trowa growled, his eyes narrowing and all eyes suddenly on him.

“Can any of you be a little quieter?” Sally asked from behind the two still standing Preventers.

All the focus was now on her, the other four pilots now on their feet, all with anxious looks on their faces, fists clenched and anticipation making their hearts race.

“Trowa.” She turned to the banged male, ignoring the other three, “Did you decide?”

“Yes, and I’ve already prepared him for what he’s going to see, and how he’s suppose to do and say to him.” Trowa muttered, wincing at how many ‘ands’ he just put in a single sentence, he was tired.

“Good. Heero, follow me.” Sally said, her voice dropping into an even softer tone, like she was talking to a rather small child.

Heero swallowed the lump in his throat, wincing when he could taste the bile from it. He’d never thrown up in his life, but he felt like he was close to it right now. He didn’t want to see Duo like this, but he desperately wanted to see the boy he loved again, so he squared himself off, steeled his nerves, and followed Sally down the hall.

“You have no open wounds or sores, correct?” Sally asked.

“Affirmative…” Heero said, wincing before correcting himself, “I have none on me… Why do you ask?”

“Because we’ve identified-… Trowa will tell you later.” She said softly before setting her gaze before her again.

“Why wont you tell me yourself?”

“Truthfully, Heero, that whole ‘can bend steal with my bare hands’ thing still scares me.” She said, turning down another hallway in the wing.

Heero blinked before he glared, “Truthfully.” He snarled.

She looked at him, stopping her movements, “Truthfully. You being known for bending steal bars, sheets, and even bricks with your bare hands scares the shit out of me. I’m afraid of you taking your anger and frustration out on me.”

Heero blinked before he shook his head, “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I don’t want to chance it. Here’s the room he’s in.” she indicated to the door behind her, the thing was closed tightly with a single slot of plastic for the clipboard.

Heero nodded and started for the door before Sally pressed her hand to his chest, stopping him.

“Talk gently to him, even if he’s asleep. He needs the reassuring.” She said before she turned and headed back down the hall.

Heero swallowed hard before he nodded at nothing, feeling his resolve crumbling again. He rolled his shoulders, shivering a little as his stomach twisted and churned uncomfortably. His legs shook, threatening to give out from under him. He didn’t want to open the door but he found his hand on the knob, twisting it and pushing the door open.

The room was slightly lit by a small lamp on the table beside Duo. Heero swallowed hard again and reached against the wall. He found the white switch and flipped it up, bathing the room in light. He felt his heart drop slightly.

Duo was laying in a bed that was way too big for him. His head was wrapped completely in bandages that had slight patch of red on the right side. Heero could tell, even from where he was that Duo was completely bald under those bandages, and the thought broke his heart. He’d never seen Duo without his braid of hair, he’d never seen Duo care about anything more than that hair, and now. It was all gone. He didn’t want to be the one to have to tell Duo about his hair, but he didn’t want anyone else doing it either.

Heero frowned and shook his head, thinking to himself that he needed to stop being so bipolar with his thoughts. He let his eyes travel lower, putting aside the heart wrenching thought of a hairless Duo. His right eye hidden behind a square bandage that was tapped onto his skin, hiding the sight of what was under there from the world. The horribly mangled, probably unusable eye. His face was so gaunt, sunken in, he had a thin white tube down his throat to help him breathing. His right hand was bandaged in a tight cast, laying above the blankets. He could see from where he was the other in a similar position, but it was wrapped in a thicker cast up to his shoulder where it disapeared under the hospital gown he was wearing.

The silence of the room was pierced only by the spaced out, but steady beeping of the heart monitor that trailed the most wires to the American. Heero moved to the chair beside the bed and took a seat in it. He debated his next action for almost a full minute before he lifted his hand and gently laid it on the bed, slowly and lovingly stroking the only visible fingers in the cast of his right hand.

“I’m so sorry, Duo…” Heero muttered softly, “I promise, you’ll never be alone again. If no one else is going to do it, I’ll be there. I promise. I should’ve looked for you like I was supposed to. I should’ve just… I shouldn’t have just assumed that you didn’t want me around anymore. You were never like that before.”

He spoke softly like that to the unconscious male before he felt the fingers give a small twitch, a sign Heero was looking for that the other was going to wake up. It was another half an hour before Duo opened his one eye, looking up at the brightly lit ceiling, as if he’d never seen one before.

“Bright… It’s so bright…” Duo muttered, his voice dreamy and soft.

“Duo.” Heero said softly, sitting up so Duo could see him without doing too much work.

Duo turned his head, looking at Heero then smiled, “We’ve got company, finally… What’s he going to do?”

“I’m not going to do anything. Duo, it’s Heero. Remember?”

“Looks like Heero, sounds like Heero. Heero impostor… They’re called Doppelgangers, kid… That’s a weird word…” Duo muttered, his voice hitching in the middle when he addressed, apparently himself, as ‘kid’.

“Duo, it’s really Heero. I’m here, Solo’s not.” Heero said, getting frustrated.

Duo stared at him, his mumbling dropping to being under his breath before he laid back and looked back at the ceiling.

“Bright… It’s so bright…” he said, repeating his very first sentence as if it was the first time he’d ever said it.

“Duo…” Heero muttered softly before he swallowed hard and took a deep breath, steeling himself, “Duo, I don’t know how far gone you are, or if this is just a defense. You were always so good at hiding behind those masks of yours, sometimes even getting lost in them, but please hear this. Please understand me. I am the real Heero Yuy. You shot me when we first met, twice. Once in the arm, once in the leg.

You were trying to rescue Relena, and regretted it after that.” He said, a slight chuckle in his voice, “I stole the parts for your Gundam, I made you worry so many times and I’ve never been nice to you, but listen to me now. I promise, and so do the others, Quatra, Trowa, and Wufei, to help you. We’ll get you back, Duo. We wont give up on you, even if it takes us a life time.”

Duo didn’t seem to hear him, still muttering to himself before his voice trailed off. Heero lifted his head, watching helplessly as Duo’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he went lax against the pillow.

“Duo?”

The machines attached to the American blared to life, sounding high pitched, rapidly beeping alarms. The heart monitor going haywire, the heart rate going higher and higher.

“Duo!” Heero called a split second before a long, resending tone followed his cry as the heart rate flat-lined, “No!”

He felt hands grab him and roughly push him aside. He stumbled, loosing his footing and slamming into the wall near the door. He gathered himself onto his knees, feeling his heart beating wildly in his chest, his chest constricting, cutting off his lungs, he couldn’t breath. He couldn’t think. He could only watch as Sally attempted to revive Duo via invasive procedures of liquid adrenaline, and anything else before it didn’t work.

Heero didn’t see them come in, but Sally had some how gotten her hands on paddles and had them charging by the time Heero recognized what it was.

“Clear!” she shouted, the doctors and nurses leaping back as if Duo was a poisonous snake.

Heero could see the bandages that had been wrapped around Duo’s chest for his lungs cut open. The paddles were placed one over the right side of his chest, or rather over his right lung, the other pressed towards the bottom of the left side of Duo’s ribcage. He heart the thump of the shock and Duo’s body jerked back to life for a few precious seconds. The machine told of two thumps of his heart before it flat-lined again. The doctors and nurses attacked him again, pulling wires away, pulling the bandages out of the way more as Sally charged the paddles again.

Heero literally let out a startled yelp when a hand landed on his shoulder. He ripped his eyes from the sight and to the face of a startled nurse with long, red hair tied back in a pony tail.

“Sir, you can’t be in here.” She said, voice shaking.

“Clear!” Sally shouted.

Heero whipped his head to Sally, the thump sounded in his ears, and Duo’s body jerked again. There was a pause where it seemed like time stood still as the machine sounded off one weak beat, two weak beats, then three, four, five.

“We have Sinus rhythm. I want him in another saline drip, and adrenaline until we find out what made his heart stop. Leslie, get Heero out of here!”

Heero felt the nurse pull him out of the room, only realizing what had happened after the door closed in his face.

“No! What’s going on?! Duo!”

“Mr. Yuy, there’s nothing you can do! Please, return to the waiting room and Sally will tell you when she knows more.”

Heero felt the hands pull him up and take him back to the waiting room. He didn’t remember being handed to Trowa and Zechs, he didn’t remember Wufei and Quatra fussing over them. He didn’t remember the two sitting him down, or telling them that Duo coded. It was like he was in a dream, just floating, his mouth working against his will. He heard himself say Sally revived him and listened to the barrage of questions he didn’t know the answers to before he closed his eyes and remembered no more. The darkness consuming him for the second time that night, his dreams now a nightmare of Duo being completely gone from this world, him being without that light. He couldn’t even imagine it, but his nightmares did, and they spared no expense in showing him.