Descent of an Angel

“Tell me everything that’s happened.” Une said, looking at Trowa carefully.

“I don’t know how they found him. I was upstairs with Quatra securing the rest of the gang members.”

“We were looking for the man in the suit. We thought there was a secret passage in the walls, so we ran our hands over the walls and found the entrance.” Wufei relayed, rubbing his head with his middle and forefingers, trying to soothe the headache that was forming in the back of his head.

Une seemed to stare him down before she bulked, glaring at him, “You and Yuy went into a hidden room with no back up, and no way of knowing if there was anyone armed in there?!”

“That doesn’t matter! We went in, and it’s a good thing that we did! Maxwell would’ve been dead if we hadn’t!”

Une looked like she was going to say something, squaring her shoulders and glaring hard at Wufei, she opened her mouth but Zechs placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned to him, confused as to why he would touch her before he sighed a little.

“They’ve been through an ordeal, Ma’am. Maybe it’s best if we save the formalities for later.”

Une frowned before she looked to the three, who were watching her, waiting to be screamed at, but she didn’t even bother to do it. She waved it off then sighed softly, letting her shoulders lax then leaned back in her seat.

“Why are you even here? None of you knew Duo. Hell, I don’t think any of you liked him.” Quatra said, frowning at all of them, his eyes flashing dangerously.

“We knew Duo. Not very well, but we knew him.” Noin said.

“He sought the three of us out during the party at the end of the Eve war. He gave me… a very influential piece of his mind at it.” Zechs said, arms folded over his chest.

“Wait, you were supposed to be dead during that party.” Wufei growled, eyes narrowing.

“I know.” Zechs said, “Duo, somehow, knew that I wasn’t dead, and was able to find me in the shadows. Gave me a stern talking to about almost getting you killed, Chang.”

“Duo lives in the shadows… He would know you were in them before you did…” Heero muttered from where he was sitting, having finally woken from his dazed sleep.

“He sought me out during that party as well. He told me that he thought I was amazing during the last war, that he was honored to have fought alongside me. Sometimes, actually a lot of times, I wondered if he was lying.”

“Duo doesn’t lie.” The four ex-pilots all said at once.

“I know that now, but then I hadn’t, and thought he was being vindictive, or cruel.”

“I wanted Duo to come and work for Preventers. I had seven positions that he could’ve taken from training, to hacking, stealth missions, everything, but he refused them all. Said that he wanted to do something else. He disappeared onto L2 with Hilde and stayed there until Heero’d retrieved him.” Une said softly.

“Someone should call Hilde.” Noin said softly.

“There’s no need to worry her yet. She doesn’t know anything and thinks that Duo is somewhere else. She doesn’t need this on her shoulders when she probably can’t get down here to see him from that colony.”

“You can pay for her to come down, Quatra.” Noin muttered softly.

“We don’t need her to make the rest of us, the nurses, the doctors, and possibly Duo uncomfortable. She’s the mother hen towards Duo, because of her feelings for him. If they still exist after all these years, she’ll be wondering all kinds of things, causing all sorts of mishaps, and asking too many questions. Leave her for now, we’ll call her and tell her what’s going on when we know more, and when Duo’s strong enough to have more people around him.” Trowa muttered softly.

Heero swiveled his head to the entrance to the waiting room as Sally walked in, looking tired and her normal braided pig tails were pinned to the back of her head to keep them out of the way as she worked. She had a clipboard in her hands again, holding it like a small child would a teddy bear, she was shaken up, a little pale but other than that she was fine. All of them were on their feet, hands clenched at their sides.

“He… He went into cardiac arrest. It took two shocks to get him back to sinus rhythm…” she said softly, relaying what Heero had already told them.

“What happened? You said that he was fine!” Quatra said, fists trembling.

“I never said that he was fine! But I didn’t know that there was something wrong with his heart.”

“What’s wrong? Stop beating around the bush and just tell us!” Quatra growled, his Zero self lashing out once more.

Sally blinked before she looked down at the floor, holding the clipboard tighter to her chest, “His heart is… almost completely gone. His malnutrition is so bad that his body started to attack itself for its nourishment. It’s almost eaten its stomach, he’s got very little if any muscular tone left, it’s all been absorbed. It’s attacked everything that it can, his stomach, intestines, mussels, bits of his lungs and his heart. It’s half it’s normal size and… he needs a new heart.”

There was silence in the room. It was deafening, threatening to consume all of them.

“Then… get him a new heart.” Wufei murmured softly.

“It’s… complicated.” Sally said, her voice lowering a tone into sadness once more.

“What now?!” Heero snarled loudly, body tensing, his Soldier threatening to escape like Quatra’s Zero self.

Sally swallowed hard, taking a step back away from him, “Until we get his body to stop eating itself, getting him a new heart will be worthless, because then his body will attack it for food. Everything else wrong with his system will keep us from proceeding, and the STD he’s contracted during those five years makes it so that absolutely no doctor, besides me and one other, will even touch him and neither of us are unqualified to perform said surgery.”

“STD?” Heero asked softly, his heart stopping for the fifth time that night.

“It’s treatable, Heero, but it’ll take months to get all of it, and he doesn’t have months. He might have by the end of the month to get a new heart before it’s completely gone. Duo told us, mumbling answers, but he told us, that they fed him three times a day, bread and water, but it was three times a day. See, being fed that often, his body shouldn’t have attacked itself, so we did a little… investigating. A test we gave to him came back positive for a tapeworm.”

“How would he get a tapeworm in a cement room?” Quatra asked.

“It could’ve been in the water they were giving him. I don’t know where he would’ve gotten it, I just know that he tests positive for one, so we’ve gotten him on medication for it, hopefully it’s still small so it’ll just die, if not, we’ll have to remove it.”

“Is that all? What else are we going to throw at him?” Heero growled.

“Heero.” Noin gasped softly.

“What?! It’s not enough that he’s like he is, we have to give him a heart condition and everything else?! After everything he’s been through in life, can’t someone, somewhere give him a fucking break?”

“I can only tell you what I know, Heero…” Sally muttered softly.

Heero turned his gaze to the desk in the front, watching people ask questions, get answers, the lady at the desk type on the computer then he lifted his gaze to the florescent lights, “You should find something to put in his room, besides the Fluorescent. They hurt his eyes…”

Sally blinked at him, “How would you know that?”

“He told me that the lights were bright.”

Sally frowned deeply at him, “Heero, he’s on a ventilator. He can’t talk with it in him, it hinders his vocal cords. We only just removed it to ask him questions about his eating allowances.”

Heero turned his gaze back to her, frowning deeply, “I heard him.”

“I think you’re projecting, Heero. Maybe you all should go home and sleep a little, I’ll call you if something happens.”

“I’m not projecting, in denial, nothing like that. I heard him talk. He thought I was another hallucination, said that the lights were bright, and he started repeating himself. I know what I heard.”

“Heero, sit down.” Trowa said softly, catching Heero’s wrist as it began to shake, “You’re over tired.”

“I am not!” Heero snarled, pulling his wrist from him hard, making the Latin boy back away, and holding his hands up in a surrender motion.

Heero glared at the floor for a few minutes before he blinked as he heard the tell tale popping noise, and a small, circular pill appeared under his nose. A soft growl escaped from his throat, turning his head away as if he was denying it.

“Heero, you haven’t slept in two weeks. You haven’t slept since the middle of the spying on the building, and this has gotten your emotions all over the place. Maybe sleep is something that would be useful. This will help you sleep.”

“I’m not leaving.” Heero growled lowly, eyes narrowing dangerously at him, as if daring him to try and move him.

“Sally, is there a free room somewhere that they can sleep in?” Une asked, standing from her seat and stepping in between the boys and the now slightly scared Sally, she knew better than anyone what would happen if Heero lashed out.

“Of course… I’ll get it set up for them.” Sally said, taking any opportunity that she could to run off.

Une watched her go before she squared her shoulder, her face becoming stern and rounded to the boys. Wufei blinked at the sudden change, taking a step back. Trowa gave her a glance to show that he saw her there before he went back to staring Heero down.

“That’s enough, Yuy. You aren’t the only one here that’s worried about that boy. We all are! Knock it off.” Une growled, her voice a rumble like a growling animal, her hands clenched, ready to defend herself if Heero did anything.

“I know that I heard him talking. I’m not crazy.”

“I know you aren’t, we know you aren’t. Calm down, Heero, and take the goddamn pill.” Trowa hissed, his one visible eye narrowing at the messy haired male.

Heero blinked a little before he let out another growl deep into his throat, he let his shoulders roll, starting to relax and plucked the pill from Trowa's hand, “I want to talk to that man in the suit. I want to hear what he has to say.”

“That’s why we’re here.” Une said softly, her face still hardened, “All the men that we’ve captured from that building have all committed suicide besides that man in the suit.”

“How could they all have committed Suicide?!” Wufei asked loudly.

“Chewed through their own tongues.” Une said, folding her arms dignifiedly over her chest, flicking a stray stand of hair over her own shoulder, “We haven’t been able to identify the man that was captured in the room with Duo, but he seems to be the only one that’s reluctant to commit the deed.”

“He asked for a phone call, but when we refused it, he asked for you, Heero.” Zechs murmured softly.

“Me?” Heero asked, gulping down some water to wash the pill down his throat.

“We don’t know why, and we aren’t sure of his motives.”

Heero rubbed the back of his neck, starting to feel the tiredness that he didn’t even realize was there before sudden swept over him. He felt himself tremble a little, holding his left wrist in his right hand.

“The room’s ready whenever you all are.” Sally said, looking into the waiting room going to step in before the alarms overhead blared to life.

“Code yellow, Room 42! Code yellow!” the voice over the speaker called.

Sally turned and bolted out of the place, dropping her clipboard as she did so. The others stared after her before Heero gasped loudly.

“Duo.” He hissed before bolting after Sally.

“Heero!” Trowa called before running after him.

“Yuy! Barton! Dammit!” Wufei snarled before grabbing a hold of Quatra and keeping him back.

Heero ran as fast as he could down the halls, skidding to a halt as he moved to the room that Duo was being held in. The door was pried open, so that it would be easier for the nurses to get in and out.

“No! No-o-o!” Duo screamed, thrashing around, arching his back and trying desperately to get away as the nurses and doctors tried to hold him down, “No! Please! No! I’ll tell you! Okay, I’ll tell! I’ll talk! I swear, please no! No!”

“Stop it!” Heero yelled at them all, suddenly finding himself pulling hapless nurses and startled doctors off of the struggling man.

“Heero, stop it!” Sally yelled at him, trying to push a needle into Duo’s struggling arm.

“You’re hurting him!”

“He’s hurting himself! We have to sedate him! Stop it!”

“Heero!” Trowa moved into the room to get the other.

Duo pulled his arm away from Sally hard, letting out a whimper as he tried to move the heavy cast his arm was in, but it was too much and landed on the hallow of his stomach with a soft thud then he rolled, letting it fall. He whimpered and was face to face with Heero.

“No more… No more… Leave me alone, please. Please!” he started low and it turned into absolute screaming.

“Duo, you have to calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself worse!” Heero said, reaching out hesitantly and stroking his finger over the side of that sunken in face, taking in the pained, tortured violet eye.

“Heero… Solo… Trowa… Sally… all of you, pleases. Please, go away! Go away, and leave me alone! Let me die! Just let me die!” he wailed, pushing himself back onto the bed, trying to move, to get away, “Let me die! No more! No more seeing things, no more pain, no more hunger! Please, just let me die!”

Heero blinked when arms shot out of nowhere and pushed Duo into the bed, holding him down as Sally slipped the syringe into his exposed arm, and pushed the sedative in. Watching as she slowly pushed it in, keeping an eye on Duo’s reactions. Duo’s eyes started to droop down, still mumbling until he was fast asleep in the bed, the nurses coming back to get the things attached to him once more.

“Sally?” Trowa asked softly.

“He woke up in a panic. He ripped everything out of himself, his IV drip, his monitors, his incubator tube, everything. I’ve given him enough of this shit to keep him knocked out for the next fourteen hours.”

Trowa looked down at Heero, frowning at the way he sat there, head bowed, body shaking. The Latin male wanted to scream, hit something, anything, but kept himself composed. He bent down and pulled Heero to his feet, frowning at how compliant the Japanese male was but dismissed it quickly and lead him out of the room. The two moved down the hall in silence, Trowa taking him to the room that was made for the four of them to stay in and laid him down. Pulling the thin sheets over him, then the thin comforter, keeping him warm.

“He’s finally given up.” Heero murmured softly.

“For now.” Trowa said, “But we’ll build him up again. We can’t show him that we’ve given up, Heero. We have to be strong and positive for him, show him the way back.”

“He thinks that we don't exist. He thinks that we’re something he’s imagining or something. He’s given up on thinking that we would save him. We waited too long to find him, we’re too late.”

“I see… Then you obviously don’t love him.” Trowa said, turning to leave.

“You don’t know anything!” Heero snarled, sitting up in the bed.

“I know enough to see someone who doesn’t care anymore! We have a friend that needs the best we can offer him, to be to him what he can’t be to us, and you’re going to give up on him before we even start to work with him! Knock it off!”

“How can we convince him that we’re here to help him when he doesn’t even think that we exist?”

“By continuing to be there. The thing with hallucinations is that they don’t last. They will disappear, reappear and disappear again, but we will be the only constant he’ll see. We’ll always be there, touching, reassuring him until he sees and starts to come back. It’s all that we can do.”

“I’ve... missed him so much, and we finally find him… and it’s not him…”

“It is still him. He’s just changed, is all? It’ll be an adjustment, but we’ll do it for him. Get some sleep, Heero.”

Trowa turned and left the room, closing the door behind him then moving into the waiting room once again.

“Wufei, why don’t you go get some sleep. There’s a second bed in the room Heero’s in.” Trowa said, moving over to the small blond that was still standing in the middle of the room.

Wufei sighed from where he was seated in the chair, rubbing the back of his neck then shaking his head, “I don’t know where this is going to go, Barton, but… I’m going to bed.”

Trowa nodded as Wufei left before turning his gaze to Noin, Zechs and Une, “You three should go home. Come back in the morning.”

An hour later, Trowa was left alone with Quatra, whose body was still tense and alert. Trowa decided then that there was no better time to talk to the blond than now.

“Little one, calm down a little.”

“No.” Quatra growled softly, eyes narrowing at the clean, white floor.

“You have to. Being like this isn’t doing Duo any favors. Quatra, please. Turn off the Zero system and come back to being the normal Quatra that I know. Please, little one?”

“You don’t understand…”

“I do understand! Why does everyone think that I don’t know what’s going on around here, or what everyone is going through? I know! I’m going through it, too! I’m feeling the anger, the frustration, and the fear from what I’ve seen? I wasn’t close to Duo, but he was my friend! I fought at his side, I patched him up, and he patched me up. We shared safe houses, we were comrades. We were all we had for a long time, and then the war ended. When one of us hurts, I feel it just as much as you all do…”

Quatra turned his head to him, a slight frown on his face before he sighed softly, his face and body finally starting to soften. He felt the other’s long arms slide over his shoulder, rubbing softly, soothingly. He felt himself pulled to the ex-Heavyarms pilot's chest, blinking as he felt his heat through his shirt, the soft thumping of his heart. He felt his anger and frustration start to dissolve into nothing but sadness and self hate. Wetness rolled down the side of his cheek, and a small whimper emitted from his throat.

“It’s okay, little one…” Trowa soothed softly, turning himself to the other, holding him close to his chest as the small blond began to sob into his chest.

“This is my entire fault!” he cried softly, gripping the under shirt he wore under the Preventer’s uniform.

“What? No, it’s not, little one. This is none of our faults.”

“No… this is my entire fault. I blocked Duo’s emotions out. I didn’t want to think of what I would feel from someone who left our group. I didn’t want to think that he was happier without us than with us. If I hadn’t, he would’ve been rescued sooner!”

Trowa closed his eyes, sighing softly, feeling the day finally taking its tole on him as he pulled Quatra to him. He buried his face into the smaller’s neck as Quatra buried his own face into the other’s shirt, sobbing into it. The two sat like that for hours, Trowa holding onto the only anchor he had left, Quatra sobbed himself to sleep after the first hour and was now a limp rag doll against Trowa’s shoulder.

The emerald eyed ex-pilot climbed to his feet, still holding onto the tiny blond and took him to the room set up for all of them. He entered and laid Quatra on the thick plush chair in the corner of it. He pulled a blanket from the dressers and covered him with it. Standing back, he let his eyes travel from Quatra, to Wufei then to Heero. All of them were asleep, soundly, so it would seem. The emerald eyed, ex-Heavy arms pilot turned on his heels and left the three of them to sleep on their own in the room. He moved down the hallway and to the room where Duo was now sedated in.

He entered silently, moving up to the side of the bed, looking down at the young man in the bed, his hands slipping into his pockets as he watched him. The steady beeping of the heart monitor, set to go off with even the slightest change. He was more fragile now than ever, now that his heart had taken a turn for the worse. The tube had been replaced with a nasal air pipe that was forced into his nose to help him breathe. His face was so pale, even more so than he’d ever seen him before.

He pulled a chair to the bed, sitting down beside the bed and crossing his legs at the ankles. He settled where he was, he placed his elbow beside Duo’s bandaged right hand, keeping himself close to the other, but not getting too close to him.

“Hey, Duo. I know you can hear me, even if it is unconsciously. It’s been a while since we’ve just talked. Actually, I don’t think I’ve talked to you since before the end of the first war. Kind of sad if you ask me, you used to be so interested in talking to me. I don’t remember if it was because I was interesting to talk to, or that it was a surprise that I was actually talking more than a few words at a time.”

He searched the lax, pale face, as if looking for a response but he received none. He wasn’t actually expecting an answer. He wanted to be sure that Duo knew that he was there, listening to him.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking. Truthfully, despite everything you knew about me before, I will actually admit to you, and only to you right now, that I’m terrified to know what’s going on in your head. I know that you’d given up on us rescuing you a while ago, years ago, maybe, but we’re here now. I know that it doesn’t make up for the past five years of suffering you’ve endured, but I am going to do everything I can to help you. As you would tell me, I’m extremely good at waiting; I’m a very patient man. I am going to be there for you from now on, Duo. I’m going to talk to Quatra once he’s a little more settled about all of this. He’s a little emotional right now, you know how he is.

He thinks that this is all somehow his fault that he’s ignored you. He hasn’t, please don’t think of him like that. He’s done nothing but think of you for these past five years. He’d always talk about you, wondering what you were doing, where you were, if you were eating well, if you were taking good care of yourself… I know it might seem stupid to you, giving everything that has happened, but he was always with you, at least in the mind.

Heero as well. He’s wondered about you for so long. You know how he is. Emotions aren’t the easiest thing for him to deal with. He still doesn’t know how he should react to you being like this. I know he’s pissed at the people who did this to you, but he doesn’t know what he’s going to do now that you’re here with us once more. He pined for you for so long, and now that you’re here, he’s torn between wanting to hold you, and wanting to let everyone else do what they have to do to make you better.

Wufei’s the same way; he doesn’t know what to think. He’s changed some since you last saw him as well. He doesn’t go on those long, irritating rants that he used to go on. He doesn’t think that women are so weak anymore, but he’s not exactly thrilled with them right now. Things between him and Sally didn’t work out. She realized that she didn’t love him the way she was suppose to, and broke it off with him. He understood, but that doesn’t help the hurt he feels sometimes. We would poke fun at him, saying that he was scared that she was going to seek revenge on him for dumping her, and after a while, he started to believe that we knew that she was going to do something to him.

We’ve all missed you, Duo; don’t think for a second that we hadn’t, please. Understand that we all are here; we’re all here for you. It’s going to take a while for you to see that it’s really us, and not any of the voices, dead people, or hallucinations that you’re now used to having. One of these days, maybe not next week, next month, or next year, but some day you’re going to return to being the Duo we know and love. We’ll take any Duo we get out of this, but know that we all still love you, some of us love you more than the rest of us, but we all are going to take care of you from now on.

I think Wufei and Heero are going to kill each other to help you. Quatra’s going to mother hen over you for the next twenty years, and I’m going to have to be the one that keeps them from smothering you. Wufei will want to help you with the physical therapy that you’re going to need, Heero’s going to want to do it as well, but he probably will be too busy tripping over himself to do it, so it’s going to have to fall to Wufei. Quatra and I will help you with anything you want to talk about. You can tell both of us anything you want, and we will do anything that you need.”

Trowa paused after his long tirade before he moved his own hand and gently touched the fingers poking out of the cast before he let his hand wrap around the cast gently holding the small, frail boy’s hand the best he could, stroking his thumb over the bruised and confined appendages.

“Come back to us, Duo. We need you, and now that we have you back, you aren’t going to go anywhere.”

He sat with the other for a few more hours, even falling asleep beside him at one point. A nurse coming in to re administer sedatives to Duo was what woke him up. He checked his watch, reading the hands to be at five thirty in the morning, he got up and left the room as silently as he came in, unaware of the hidden, unconscious storm brewing in the mind of the young man he’d just been talking to.

Hours ago, Duo had been wrapped in one of the many nightmares he’d suffered with for the past five years; suffering with no one to wake him up until his mind deemed him tortured enough and released him from its sleepy hold.

He’d been sent back to the first couple weeks of his capture. The men had raped him a few times already, beaten him more times than that, and used different forms of torture to try and get him to co-operate, but he refused to give in. He’d been sitting on the cot, nursing his bruising arm when the man in the suit, Mr. annoying-Jerk-ass, as Duo began to call him, came into the room.

“Are you ready to talk now, Mr. Maxwell?” he asked him, hands behind his back.

“Fuck you.” Duo snarled as he rubbed his wrist miserably.

“Why, Mr. Maxwell? Why do you persist in denying such a simple request?”

“Because I refuse to be the one to start another war, to make more orphans like me. Don’t worry your pretty little head, M.A.J.A[1]; my friends are going to be here any day now. They’re going to help me out, get me out of here then kick your sorry little ass for even thinking that you could mess with us.” Duo growled, smirking to himself.

“Your friends… and they would be?”

“The other pilots. Heero, Quatra, Wufei, and Trowa. They’re going to realize that I’m missing, if they haven’t already figured it out, and they’re going to find out where you’ve taken me, where I am, they’re going to rescue me and arrest your ass, if you survive.” Duo snarled, eyes gleaming dangerously.

“We’ll see.” Was all the man said before he turned and left him to his own devices in the little room?

Duo remembered preaching this for months, and months until one day, the sudden realization came over him almost a year after being in these men’s hands. Solo had appeared after eight months, was sitting beside him, and staring at the wall with him.

“They… aren’t coming for me, are they?” Duo asked softly, his legs brought up to his chest, arms wrapped around his knees, trying to keep from shaking.

“Who?” Solo asked, looking at him, his blond hair sticking to the sides of his face, blue eyes scrutinizing searching him.

“My friends… None of them are coming for me are they?”

“I’m not going to lie to you, kiddo, but I’m not going to crush your hopes either.” Solo said.

“I just… are they not coming because they don’t know I’m gone? I mean, I said I was leaving for L2, but they would’ve called for me, and seen that I hadn’t answered. They would’ve called Hilde and found out that I hadn’t arrived up there. They would’ve put two and two together unless…”

Solo turned his head to him once more, a small frown on his face, eyes troubled and sad.

“They don’t… want me to come back… Did I piss them off that much that they wouldn’t care that I’ve gone missing? Quatra isn’t worried about me, feeling the hurt I’ve been going through? Trowa isn’t questioning, neither are Wufei or… Heero? No one cares that I’m gone? No one's called for me to just say 'hi'? No one has had a feeling that they need to call me?”

“That can’t be it, kiddo.”

“What if it is?” Duo asked softly, burying his face into his arms, “What if they aren’t coming for me, that they don’t care?”

“Because you’re their friend. They would never do that to you.”

Duo swallowed hard before he nodded his head, making a sniffling noise as he fought back the urge to sob. He shook a little before he leaned back against the wall, preparing himself for the men to come in for their round.

It was another month before Duo accepted that no one was coming for him, that he was being left on his own, no one was going to save him, and that’s when the hell started for him, where the last hope he had was crushed, and there were times where he wondered why he didn’t just give these people the plans that they wanted. It was remembering Solo, and how he grew up sometimes that would keep him from doing just that. In the end, it was unconscious responses that kept him from telling all the secrets that he knew instead of actual defiance or reluctance to co-operate. Just when he was finally broken, his mind bent too far, his body unable to take any more of the abuse; he was taken out of the room.

To him, he was still in that room. Being tortured, starved, and interrogated. When he woke up alone, in the white room, bandaged up, he became afraid that they were going to do something new on him, and he felt his heart constrict in his chest. It was soon that his worse fears were realized as people swarmed in and started to hold him down.

He struggled so hard until he saw the one face he’d longed to see for so long. Heero. He knew he was a hallucination, but he still felt he should talk to him. He’d wanted to for so long. He wanted to say hello, say how much he missed him, but his mind controlled his mouth into pleading for his own death. Then Trowa came up beside Heero and pushed him down, holding him down as someone put something in him, putting him back into the darkness of his mind.

He floated for a long time, not able to hear, see or feel anything before he felt someone enter the room. He listened carefully as someone began to talk. He heard their voice as a low mutter at first, then Trowa’s voice clicked in his head and he started to be able to hear actual words. He listened to Trowa’s long talk, listened to the way his voice rose, fell, hitched with emotions, everything, and wondering when he’d become human. He felt his heart clench painfully in his chest as Trowa pleaded with him to come back to them, his hands touched the others and he felt Trowa hold his hand the best he could.

They staid like that for so long, Duo began to feel himself start to swim out of the fog. That is, until he felt something stab him and he was pushed back down where he’d started. He wanted to cry out, and plead as Trowa left him in his bed, alone and craving some more of the touches, of the human contact the other was giving him, but he couldn’t. He wanted to cry, to scream, to yell, to plead with Trowa to come back, but he was too sedated for it. He sobbed in his head for the rest of the night, wishing the hallucinations, voices; what ever they were would come back and talk to him. He couldn’t stand the silence anymore, but nothing changed. The silence, the deafening silence, the quiet was slowly consuming him again. All gone…

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[1]= This is Duo being a smart ass. Since he didn't have a name to call the guy, as it was mentioned in the fic, he called the guy Mr. Annoying Jack Ass so M.A.J.A is the initials for that name. Pronounced MAh-jah. This is also me attempting humor. Yes, it sucks. XD