"This Beautiful Life"

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters

Rating: R

Warnings: Romance & Friendship

Pairings: 2x5, others will be present but subtle.

Summary: 3 years after cutting ties with everyone from the war, WuFei Chang gets into a car accident in his way home from a company Christmas party and wakes up to another life.

"This Beautiful Life"

Chapter 23:

For the next few hours before the Winner Christmas Party was scheduled to start, Duo and Hilde took over decorating and set up while Quatre kept WuFei company. They sat on the couch where they could watch their respective significant other and "stay out of the way", with drinks and a plate of small snacks to split between them.

WuFei didn't know how to speak to Quatre. The embrace had caught him off guard, and he didn't know where to begin unraveling what their friendship might be like from that initial greeting.

During the war and the time that followed after, Quatre had been an enigma to WuFei. They're personalities contrasted one another so drastically. Quatre was soft and empathic, WuFei not so much. In the memories WuFei had of those past three years, Quatre made attempts every now and then to reach out which WuFei recalled largely ignoring. He couldn't get the bad taste of that one Christmas party out of his mouth.

Now he sat across from the other man with the knowledge they'd spent those three years becoming good friends. Quatre eased the awkwardness at first by stating, "Hilde mentioned your memory might be fuzzy from the accident. If you have any questions about anything, please, feel free to ask."

They sat in quiet for the most part, though. Quatre asked a few polite questions about WuFei's recovery. He mentioned the circus visit.

"I was overwhelmed with work that night. I insisted Hilde go without me, but she's been going to great trouble over this party and her own business has been keeping her busy," Quatre smiled at the glass in his hand, "She secured the contract with L4."

"Ah," WuFei didn't know what else to say. He couldn't recall anything about Hilde, least of all what her work entailed. Quatre seemed to sense the issue, smiling.

"She might not have mentioned the contract to Duo yet. With everything that's been going on. The government in the L4 colony cluster has contracted her salvage shop to perform sweeper operations around their colonies," he explained.

"I see. That sounds like an excellent opportunity," WuFei said.

"She's worked hard for it. Between her business and mine, we barely see one another sometimes," Quatre took a sip of his drink, "That's why this party is so important to her. It's a rare moment when we get to see all of our friends and family. She wants it to be a special night."

"She seems like a warm person," WuFei replied, wincing and realizing he was speaking so impersonally about a woman with whom he allegedly shared a close friendship. Quatre didn't remark on it, picking at one of the snack foods, a small cookie, off the plate.

"Duo seems in good spirits, all things considered," Quatre said, covering a laugh as he popped the cookie into his mouth.

"It's been a rough few days for him but I think we've come to an impasse," WuFei replied. He furrowed his brow and decided to bite the bullet, "I must apologize for my distance today, I'm not sure what our friendship is like, Quatre. My memories…are different. The last time I recall speaking to you was three years ago, at the Christmas party you hosted then."

Quatre sat thoughtful a moment, his brow furrowed, and he nodded, "Three years ago…oh, yes, the first Christmas Party I decided to invite everyone to. That's the last time you remember speaking to me? Oh dear. That was…an interesting evening."

"To say the least."

"I knew it would be difficult, bringing all of us together, but I had to try. The five of us…we shared an experience no one else in the world could understand. At times, it could be an isolating feeling. I knew that I was struggling with my place in the world and the things I had done during the war, and I had wondered if the rest of you felt the same, and if so, could we perhaps find a way to help one another through it," Quatre leaned his elbow on the sofa arm and perch his cheek in a hand, "I knew if I took a direct approach I would never get a response. We weren't trained to rely on others in that way. When we came to earth, we were told that we would be fighting our battles alone. Remember the surprise of learning there were more of us?"

"I admit, it wasn't too surprising for me," WuFei said, taking a sip of his drink. Quatre smiled broadly at him.

"Of course. Sometimes I forget how much better your grasp was of the diplomatic games and manipulations being played around and with us. You always seemed to know more than us."

"I wouldn't say always. I made my mistakes of judgement," WuFei lowered his eyes, a fluster in his cheeks, "I was the one foolish enough to join the Barton Foundation, after all we fought for during the Eve Wars."

Quatre placed a hand on WuFei's forearm, and he looked up at WuFei with a kind expression, "You were lost and looking for yourself. We all were at that time. There is not a one of us that has ever held that against you."

"It felt that way in this room three years ago," WuFei challenged.

"How so?" Quatre frowned.

"I never spoke to Heero or Trowa that evening, the greeting with you was as a guest to a host. You speak about that night as though you arranged it as a ploy to bring the five of us together, but from my perspective, it was a grand gesture, a formality, nothing more. I wasn't welcome in that room, and then Duo..."

"But you were welcome," Quatre bristled, his eyes shimmering with lighted passion, "All of you were my most important guests that night. There was distance between all of us, I'll grant you that. That pain and uncertainty, it was evident in each of you, and I didn't know where to begin. I was afraid if I pushed too hard, you would all scatter and I'd never see a single one of you again. Heero hid in the corner, retreating to the safety of his responsibilities as a soldier. Trowa, he was the most obvious in his anxiety, donning the persona of an orchestra member…even the orchestra believed he was one of their own. And you. You looked ready to fight anyone who came too close.

"I confess, you were the one I most feared would not show up that night, and you were the one I thought might need that night, need our connection, most of all. You had lost all of your connections during the war, and I had spoken to Sally Po before the party – she was worried about you. Worried you weren't forming new connections, and with nothing to tether you, she worried you were losing yourself. But then Duo showed up to prove me wrong, you weren't the one that needed us the most."

Quatre's eyes fell to the floor and WuFei's eyes found Duo across the room, bouncing and chatting with his friend, Hilde, lost in the merriment of that day and oblivious to their partners' conversation.

"I wish I had known…I wish he had felt he could come to us. If only I had tried sooner, he might not have had to suffer alone for so long in the way that he did."

"The PTSD," WuFei acknowledged.

"Yeah, his PTSD didn't help. It definitely made his diagnosis harder for him to handle and increased his feelings of isolation. To have survived all that we did during the war, to finally have achieved peace in this world, I can't imagine what that felt like, to be told he wouldn't be able to enjoy it, that he only had months before the cancer took him," Quatre said.

WuFei's heart dropped and his focus on Duo bleared, "What?"

Quatre examined WuFei's expression, looking himself surprised and abashed.

"You don't remember."

"Tell me," WuFei said, his voice trembled with emotions that felt like anger but weren't quite as he came to understand that this was the thing Duo had been keeping from him.

"He…he received the diagnosis almost a week before my invite reached him. That's why he showed up at the party the way he did, drunk and upset. It must've felt like a slap in the face for him, such a long period of silence from us after the war. He struggled to keep a job and maintain friendships because of his PTSD, he got that diagnosis, and then I sent him a Christmas invite, it must've seemed insincere to him and on top of everything else. I was so foolish, I should've reached out sooner," Quatre shook his head, "We didn't know. He was so angry about so much at that party, we couldn't figure it out. But you did. Wasn't that how it always goes? You always manage to figure out things long before we do.

"You volunteered to drive him home after the party, I think you just wanted an excuse to leave, but eventually you realized he had you driving in circles and that he didn't have anywhere to go. You forced him home with you. Somehow you got it out of him that he was homeless and jobless. I don't know how you did it but you convinced him to stay with you in your extra room. Enlisted the rest of us because he was in such a bad way. We took shifts on suicide watch those first weeks because we didn't know what he would do," Quatre smiled at the memory, "It wasn't long after he came to live with you that you started seeing the symptoms of his cancer and got him to confess. Doctors had given him months to live, he was determined to die, but you forced him to get treatment anyway."

…saved my life…gave me a reason to fight…

From across the room, Duo caught WuFei's eye and grinned, waving his fingers. A faint smile touched WuFei's features, and Duo returned to his decorating and party preparations with Hilde. They were setting up presents under a fifty foot tall tree.

"I did all of that for him," WuFei murmured, taken aback by the details of his own actions.

"Whenever you make a choice to act on something, whether right or wrong, you always throw yourself into it one hundred percent. Even during the war. You never doubt yourself, never falter. You persist and keep fighting. Even when the stakes are high and the odds are stacked against you, you never give up. Once you've set your mind to something, you go after it, with your whole self, heart, mind, body and soul, without hesitation. I always admired that about you," Quatre said, "He fought you every step of the way, and the rest of us were ready to throw in the towel, but for whatever reason, you had made up your mind that you were going to save Duo's life."

"The cancer?" WuFei looked to Quatre, wishing his fear of the answer wasn't so evident in his voice.

"When you got the news it had gone into remission, the two of you kept it a secret until we could bring everyone together and make the big announcement. It was such a beautiful day, we had a picnic at the Darlian estate. It was that same day you decided to let everyone know you'd both fallen in love, though we all suspected as much by then, and now that Duo had a new lease on life, you both planned to spend the rest of it together," Quatre glanced across the room, his gaze softened, "It was also the day I met Hilde."

"I see. It sounds like it was a good day for everyone," WuFei frowned at his glass. Why would Duo keep these things from him? It didn't make any sense. If their relationship stemmed from him helping Duo out of a rough situation, helping him through illness, wasn't that something that should strengthen their bond? Or did Duo worry that their relationship felt born out of an obligation? A sense of owing someone his life?

"The two of you fought before the accident," Quatre said, his voice low and shaky, "Do you…maybe remember what you fought about?"

"No. He said it was about him taking better care of himself," WuFei replied.

"Oh," Quatre fidgeted in his seat, "The party is tonight and I don't want to recall bad memories before then but…"

"What is it?"

"There's only one thing the two of you would've fought about that would upset you that much," Quatre met WuFei's eyes, "But if you thought the cancer was back, you would tell us, wouldn't you?"

~ * ~

Chapter 24

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