Merc

Trowa's POV

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I pulled over on the side of a deserted road when I knew we were beyond the reach of our enemy. There was a meadow hidden by the dark, lit only by a half moon. I had intended to find a quiet spot to bury the pilot; in a serene place seemingly untouched by war. I had intended to use the strength of Heavyarms to rake a suitable depth in the soft ground to hide the fallen soldier.

But as I was climbing onto Heavyarms to enter the cockpit, I noticed a stream of blood dripping from the metallic hand. Corpses don’t bleed.

“No way.” I scrambled to the body to check it and found a pulse, slow, faint, but present.

Berating myself as a fool, I, as gently as possible, pried him from Heavyarms’ grasp and laid him out across the nearest flat surface, the gundanium chest plate. His skin was ice cold. I jumped off the truck bed, hurried to the cab, grabbed the first aid kit, and launched myself back up onto my suit. I didn’t have the supplies I needed for such extensive injuries, but he had already lost too much blood. Any wounds that were still bleeding needed to be taken care of immediately.

Luckily, no arteries were hemorrhaged; he would have bled out before now, since I foolishly assumed him dead. There were a few, larger wounds that still hadn’t sufficiently clotted, allowing more fluids to leach away until bandages helped add pressure and encourage coagulation. I hadn’t disinfected anything; everything would have to be treated when we reached the circus, but if he had any hope of surviving, the fluids would have to be replaced ASAP.

I carried the pilot from Heavyarms to the cab of the truck, laid him down across the seats, wrapped him in the blankets I had in my survival gear, and strapped him down across the four passenger seats that made up the front row. I wanted to keep an eye on him, but at the same time, I needed to try to keep his spine as straight and immobile as possible. Being tossed from such a great height, there was a very good chance of injury to the spine, and if that was the case, I needed to limit potential damage as much as possible.

As I made my way back to the circus, my thoughts were whirling.

I was a fool, an utter and complete fool. Why didn’t I check for a pulse immediately? Why did I leave his body in the Siberian cold, unprotected? If he dies…it would be my fault, my neglecting him. This pilot was strong enough to hold onto thin threads of life in freezing conditions, wounded beyond normal healing capabilities, for over three hours; he is made from much stronger stock than most, than me. Who is he?

My gazed traveled over his face, smudges of dirt with red lines highlighting its contours. This boy was the strongest man I had ever known. He had to live; I had to save him.

That pilot…he was a soldier. He followed every nuance of that order to the point that he was willing to die for it. Would I have done the same? It was an order, so, yes, but…if a battle has no meaning for me, does that mean I die for no reason, on a personal level.

Or if my whole life is obeying orders, would fulfilling that particular order give meaning to my life? Did it even matter? Did my life matter, or was I still just a nameless soldier dying in a meaningless fight?

Was pilot 01 emotionally attached to his battles? He was a soldier, maybe it was possible to have meaningful battles and still be a soldier. I would not know unless he woke up, and that was a long road ahead of us.

When I arrived back at the circus, it felt like hours later, I pulled the truck with Heavyarms right up to the outskirts of camp. I’d have to move the truck quickly before anyone noticed it in the trees. Hoping I didn’t make any of his wounds worse with my hurry, I lifted him from the cab and draped him across my arms, legs dangling, and head as supported as I could make it with my chest and arm.

He was heavy, much heavier than I expected for someone so lean. I’m not sure I would have been able to carry him the hundred yards to my trailer a few months ago, but my work at the circus had increased my strength in the past few months.

As a member, I didn’t get the isolation I had expected. Everyone was expected to help load and unload trucks, cages and equipment, raise the huge tents, hoist up the rigging, and various other tasks…when I didn’t disappear mysteriously on one of my little errands, of course. It was a very physical job, and my body changed quite a bit under the stress, muscles more pronounced, capable of more than ever before.

But he was still damn heavy for someone who looked about my age.

I made it into the trailer without any onlookers, and laid him out on my bed. Time pressed down on me like a physical thing. I had felt rushed since the moment I realized he might still be alive, and now that I was finally where I could begin to care for him, that urgency peaked. My respiration rate was elevated; my pulse was loud in my ears. What if I’m too late? With my head spinning about the time, I couldn’t think straight about what needed to be done.

Deep breath, Trowa, you know what to do.

First things first, fluids. He had to get something in him for his body to start replacing the blood he lost. A transfusion would be best but I didn’t have the necessary equipment, and I had no idea of what blood type he was. Uncomplimentary types would cause a bad reaction; he would die, no question. I got two glasses of juice and three of water from the kitchen, and brought them, in hands and pinned between my body and arms, to the small table next to the bed. One trip because I had to get back to him quickly, had to, no choice, only instinct.

Like my sheer presence would keep death at bay.

As I turned to look at him, I had this overwhelming fear that he wouldn’t be breathing, that the moment I turned my back, left his side to go to the kitchen, he slipped away. It was odd, and I didn’t realize until later…I think that was the first time in my life that I experienced fear. And I lived, completely immersed, in that terrifying feeling for a few agonizing seconds, until his chest rose slightly and fell.

Still breathing, he’s still breathing! And my breath left me in a flood.

The urgency melted, dripping out of my body as I sat down on the bed beside him and reached forward. That gentleness I had felt when Heavyarms’ hand lifted him took its place as I slipped my hand beneath the pilot’s head, tenderly lifting his broken body to lean against my own, propping him up with the right half of my chest as one hand held his head tilted backwards and the other hand set one of the glasses against his lips.

I just hoped that his reflexes were still present because I didn’t have the equipment necessary to rig a feeding tube.

My worry was unneeded. As the water reached the back of his throat, he swallowed. Slowly, so as not to cause him to gag, I sat with him, tipping the fluid into his mouth, watching the bob of his throat to ensure consumption before adding more. Time passed unnoticed; I was wholly attuned to him, the small noises of water against his flesh, ambient light reflecting off the juice beaded on his bottom lip.

It was trance-like, the silence weaving around us, supplementing the soft bubbling of liquid washing down the throat so near to my right ear.

Then all the glasses were empty, and I came back to myself quickly. There were things that needed to be done. I laid him back down on the bed, confident of his living this time, and exited the trailer. My gundam had to be moved. If it was discovered on the grounds, my cover was blown.

Running would not work with the injured man in my trailer.

The circus was an ideal hiding spot for me. The huge transport truck that carried my suit was perfectly at home within the massive trucks needed to transport the tall poles and mammoth beams of the big top tents. The last thing I wanted to deal with is finding a new cover I.D. while, at the same time, explaining why I had a comatose boy in my bed.

My idea of fun, no really.

I hid the truck within a cluster of trees outside the circus, threw several camo nets across it, and then ran the four miles back to the trailer.

I put on several pots of water to boil and began shredding my spare set of sheets into strips for bandaging. There was no way my first aid supplies were enough to cover what this guy had gone through; hopefully the additional linens would be enough to cover things. I didn’t want to bring Catherine into this situation yet.

I wasn’t so much of a fool to think I could manage all of his care alone, but until I knew what his reactions were, she needed to be kept away from him. Tending his wounds, setting any broken bones would be painful, and if he is anywhere near as dangerous as I think he is, a simple reflex in response to painful stimulus could kill. I know how to protect myself if such is the case, but Catherine, no, she needed to be kept safe until I had a better gauge of him.

Right now, he was still too weak from blood loss to be much of a threat, I think, but its best to use caution anyway.

I gathered everything I could think of that I might need and put it to the side of the bed, switched out the water on the stove, letting the boiling water begin to cool with me beside the bed and starting several new pots. Time to get busy.

Pulling my knife from the ankle sheath that more a part of my daily wear than jeans, I sliced the matted tank top down the center. Blood from several cuts had matted the thin material to his skin. I peeled the shirt away where I could, making sure to keep as much of the established scab as possible. Where the material was really stuck, I had to employ other techniques, like dipping a washcloth in the warm, sterile water and wetting the wound, encouraging the mass of dried blood to release the shirt.

It was slow going, but when his entire chest was exposed, Trowa was relieved. Most of the blood on the front of his chest was from multiple, shallow scrapes. The pilot had a bad case of road rash from being thrown from the open hatch. There were several spots that needed attention despite their minor nature. I would come back to those later and bandage them if I had enough, if not, leaving them open to air would be life threatening.

Now to his arms. I knew the left one was broken. The angle at which lay was unnatural, the shoulder dislocated, the upper arm having one too many joints, and it was pretty swollen. With the boy as depleted of fluids as he currently was, having any from of swelling means it’s a significant injury. I ran my hands over the arm from shoulder to fingers, closing my eyes and imaging what the arm should feel like, as opposed to was it did. As far as I could tell, it was a clean break; it just took a bit of traction to unstress and reposition the shoulder, then stabilizing the joint, move the broken bones back together.

It had been a very long time since I felt the grind of too bones finding each other in a less than pleasant embrace. Too many memories flooded me as I tended his needs, but they wouldn’t interfere with his care. I wouldn’t let them. I splinted his upper arm with the wrench from my toolbox to keep it in place during the coming movements as I checked the rest of him.

Within the next few days, I could rig an x-ray machine to see if it was aligned and to check his spine. It wasn’t hard when you knew the basics; it had been a long while, but Auldi had done this several times in my youth.

I ran my hands over his neck, checking the give and movement of his head with my hands. Everything seemed alright, but I still intended to keep his spine supported until I could rule out any fractures. The bones in the other arm were fine, a pretty deep gash, maybe minor stress fractures, but no major deformities. It was the same for his legs, wounds, road rash, but nothing obviously broken.

There were several lacerations up and down his legs and a few spots were the spandex shorts he wore were torn or shredded. I sliced up the sides of his shorts and scrunched the material over his groin, leaving him his modesty but allowing me access to the entirety of his legs and hips.

I carefully wiped the blood and dirt from his legs with a wet cloth then poured the sterile water over the deeper cuts, scrubbing any visible debris out before applying anti-microbial ointment and bandaging where needed. I cleaned and bandaged every wound on the front of his body before rolling him onto his stomach, adjusting the pillows to support his head but allow him to breathe.

His back was in much worse condition, there was some road rash there as well, but my main concern was the shrapnel of his dying gundam that had pierced his flesh in several places.

All there were several spots that had to be probed, metal removed, cleaned, and bandaged. It was very time consuming, and by the time I was finished, the sun was rising over the horizon. I rolled him onto his back, threw the strip of spandex into the trash with the rest of his shredded clothing, and covered his lower body with the sheet on my bed.

I left him there, and dragged myself into the shower to recover from the long day. It had been high adrenaline levels during battle, cold water shower as I watched a fellow soldier die, return of adrenaline as I realized he wasn’t dead and I had a limited time frame to get him stable, and the creak of my back as I stayed in the same position for too long treating deep wounds. And now I was exhausted to my very core, but I was also covered in sweat and blood.

After the shower, I slept. I shut down for hours as my body recovered from the stress.

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AN: Did you catch it? There was a transition in this chapter, a huge one.


Wanna play a game?: I'm writing another fic that, right now, is basically an extended conversation between 01 and 03 that will eventually be a (pretty hot, if I do say so myself) lemon. If you can pinpoint the telling spot, I'll send it to you before I publish it. Either review or email me: m. aestas@ yahoo. com (you have to delete the spaces). Oh, and you have to leave me a way to get in touch with you if you're right.

If you're not into games...no biggie.

As always review responses are posted on my author's page. I hoped you liked the chapter, we'll get back to the series next chapter.