"Rip Current"

Written By: yaruna

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing isn't mine! I'm not pretending they are, I simply love messing around with the lovable characters. Any similarity to existing works is purely coincidental.

Rating: R

Genre: Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Romance…? Alternate Universe

Warning:Probably some OOCness. Kind of bastard Heero in the first chapters. Some swearing. Won't pass the Bechdel test. Somewhat cliché, I think. Hmmz… what more… oh yeah, I'm a bit of a sadist, people will get hurt… sorry about that

Summary: Feelings are running high on the shorelines. Duo has arrived on the shores of Sanc Island and is making new friends, and enemies, among the locals as they surf their way towards the big competition. AU

A/N:I live for feedback

Sit back, and let the waves take you for a ride.

"Rip Current"

Chapter 25: Priority

 

Getting my eyes to open fully was a struggle. I felt lethargic and they tried to fall closed as soon as I opened them a crack. Heero sat next to me in a chair with his head in his hand and his eyes closed. It made me frown in confusion. Why wasn't he sleeping next to me? Surely it was night?

''Ro?'

He jumped at the sound of my voice, and his chin fell from his hand before he came fully awake and looked at me.

'Join me instead?' I said and started to move my hand in order to shift over when I felt the pull at my elbow. I lifted my arm slightly to be able to see the needle in it, the tape that kept it in place, and I let my gaze follow the line that was attached to it. There was a drip at the end.

'It's antibiotics,' Heero said. He placed his hand on mine and brought it down to rest at my side again.

'Hospital?' I asked, and looked around for other hints that could support the theory. I didn't have to look far. In fact, the bed itself was quite obviously a hospital bed when I thought about it, and I sighed. 'Not enough room here for you.'

He let out a snort in surprise, and smiled.

'No, there's not.'

'You were right then?' Regarding the blood poisoning.

'When aren't I?' he asked, pretending to be surprised, and I chuckled tiredly.

'Sure. We can say that for now.'

'Yeah,' he said, sighed, and looked at me with sad eyes. 'I didn't want to be right.'

'What's wrong?' I asked, a feeling of dread rushing over me, and I looked towards my infected arm that was covered by a blanket. 'They haven't taken my arm yet, right?'

'No,' he hurried in reassuring me and I let out a breath of relief. Some graces... With everything that had happened ever since Solo's death, I wouldn't have been all too surprised to wake up without an arm.

He leaned over to gently brush his lips over my cheek. 'They think you'll be fine, but...' He tapered off.

'Heero, you're not making any sense. What's wrong?'

'You'll be here for a while,' he said. I should have thought about that. It should have been one of the first things to enter my mind once I realized I was in the hospital.

'Rift Wars?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'Not even if you're released tomorrow.'

I sighed, and looked up at the ceiling as I felt tears burn behind my eyelids. I was failing Solo yet again. While I'd had my doubts about entering, in my heart I'd always known I'd do it. Because I wanted to fulfill Solo's dream. I wanted to give him one final ride.

'No chance?' I asked with an unsteady voice.

'I'm sorry,' Heero said, stroking a stray tear away from my cheek. It surprised me, that the tear had fallen without my knowledge.

'Oh, Duo. Love,' he breathed.

He leaned in and wrapped his right arm around my head. His left hand rested on my chest, and he put his head next to mine in the best mimic of a hug that he could come up with when I was lying in the bed. I wanted to lift an arm and hold him, but the I.V. was stopping one, and the pain from moving was stopping the other.

'I always fail Solo.' As soon as I'd said it, I wanted to take it back, because I knew Heero would argue with me.

'He wouldn't want you to do it if it meant hurting yourself.'

'I shouldn't have let it get this far. I forgot to clean it this morning.'

'Then it's just as much my fault. I also forgot,' he said and I shook my head.

'No!'

'It wouldn't have mattered. The precautionary antibiotics you got weren't effective against the bacteria you ended up getting.'

'If I hadn't surfed yesterday -'

'It was probably infected already. Stop blaming yourself, Duo.'

'Sorry,' I said, trying to break the heavy atmosphere, and turned my head slightly to give him a kiss.

'And stop apologizing already,' he said, smiling.

I chuckled and gave him another kiss. 'Sorry.'

Someone knocked on the door and Heero disentangled himself from me while the door was being opened, and a doctor stepped through the opening.

'Ah, you're awake, good,' he said, walking to the edge of the bed. He grabbed the chart that was hanging there and lifted the papers, reading what was on it. 'How do you feel?'

'Not so shaky or cold. But kind of sluggish and tired.'

'Any pain?'

'Only a little,' I said, realizing it was true only after I'd said it. While I couldn't move the arm due to pain flaring up, the constant throbbing was more of a distant ache. Very distant.

'A nurse will get you something for it soon,' he said and finally looked up from the papers. 'You're lucky your friend brought you here quickly, Mr. Maxwell.'

He took a step to stand beside me, and carefully pulled back the covers from my arm. He inspected it closely before he grunted and wrote something on the paper. Then he proceeded with a normal check. He listened to my lungs, looked in my eyes, and checked my temperature. It was very difficult to keep myself awake during all of it, but when I started to fall asleep, he'd ask me some question, and I had to wake up again.

'Well, Mr. Maxwell, we'll be keeping you here for a couple of days at the very least. Your friend got you here before any organ failed on you and we're hoping to keep it that way,' he said and I looked at Heero, surprised.

He mainly looked relieved, so I figured he'd known about the organ failure part of blood poisoning. No wonder he'd been in such a hurry to get me here.

'Thanks,' I said, realizing I hadn't said it yet.

He smiled softly. 'Anytime.'

'Now, you're not out of the woods yet,' the doctor said, 'though you are already responding nicely to the antibiotics and fluids we're giving you. Someone will be in to check on you every hour. You will be taken to surgery in about two hours to drain the infection in your arm.'

'Thanks, doc,' I said.

Heero stood up. 'I'll be right back,' he said, and followed the doctor out of the room, making me wonder what he needed to talk to him about that I couldn't be in the same room.

The fuzziness in my head didn't let me think about it overly much, however. By the time Heero came back inside, I had almost fallen asleep. I blinked my eyes open to see him come in, but they fell closed almost immediately. I'd passed my point of endurance. I was so tired.

He gently swept his thumb across my forehead, moving any stray strands of hair. His soft lips brushed a kiss on the spot he'd just cleared, and I forced my eyes to open again.

'Go to sleep, Duo,' he said.

'Stay?' I asked, closing my eyes again. His fingers brushed against my cheek.

'Always.'

He didn't lie. Every time I woke up from feverish dreams that night, he was right there next to me. He showered me with soft words of love and every time I fell asleep with a small smile on my face.

It felt like a whole lot more than two hours before they came in to take me to surgery. Heero leaned down and hesitated with his lips above mine, giving me the opportunity to lift my head and capture his mouth in a kiss. I enjoyed not having a completely discreet relationship anymore, even though it may take some time for me to be fully comfortable with it.

'Be right back, 'Ro,' I said when we separated.

He brushed a stray hair away from my forehead. 'See that you are.'

They didn't put me under during the procedure, but gave me local anesthetics and worked on draining the pus from my wound. At the beginning, I looked at what they did, fascinated, but I didn't have the strength to keep my head up for too long and had to lie down. It made me more uncomfortable when I couldn't see what they were doing. I expected every touch to hurt, so I held my breath, but that seemed to scare them, so I settled for focusing on breathing and trying to think about other things. Surfing. Heero. Solo. Rift Wars. It seemed like they were the recurrent subjects in my mind anyways.

When I looked at the wound when they told me they were done, it looked a whole lot wider than it had previously. They must have cut away some skin at the edges. An odd pipe was stuck inside the wound, and they wrapped it up in compresses and gauze.

I was tired when I was taken back to the room, and just barely managed to stay awake to give Heero a smile, and see his relieved look in return before I fell back to sleep.

Not many things before have made me feel quite as weak as I was feeling then. For days I could barely lift a finger. I stayed awake for about ten minutes at a time during which I most often had to talk to the doctors. Heero was a near constant presence at my side, although there were times I woke up and he wasn't there, making me wonder if I'd dreamt him being there at all. Was he getting tired of being around me? I think I may have asked him. Heck, I think I may have yelled at him about it. I know I yelled at him about Rift Wars, about keeping me out of it. I think I may have told him to get the hell away. I'm having trouble remembering; it was all a blur through the fever those first few days. It was frustrating to not get better quicker than I was, and I took it out on Heero, which was a pretty crappy thing to do.

On the third day, I could feel myself improve. I could actually move without feeling like I was going to expire within the next five minutes. Although anything I did was in slow motion, it was enough to make me happy. That day was the day I realized I'd been a bit of an ass against Heero. A lot of an ass, actually.

He wasn't there when I woke up in the afternoon, and I hoped I hadn't managed to scare him off completely. I'd asked the nurse what the visiting hours were, and when Heero was usually here. According to her, he should have been there already, if she went by his visits the previous days. I'm the first to admit I was feeling a bit antsy.

He showed up, but only an hour before visiting hours ended. With me having struggled to stay awake just in case he'd show up, I was tired beyond belief then. He stopped in the doorway, making me ask him to come inside before he did. Then he didn't kiss me, and my hopes diminished. He was giving up. I'd been a complete jerk, and now he hated me. I had to fix this.

''Ro, 'm so s'ry,' I struggled to say through everything that was trying to pull me off to sleep.

He took a step towards me, and hesitantly put his hand on my cheek. I leaned against it, taking comfort in the warmth I found in his gentle caress.

'Didn' mean 't,' I said and he hushed me.

'I know, love. Go to sleep.'

I fought against the pull of sleep. 'Come earlier. T'morro'.'

'I promise,' he said, and I was gone.

When I woke up again, visiting hours had ended, and the chair by my bed was hauntingly empty. I looked intently at the white ceiling, trying to keep the tears that pricked in my eyes from falling. There was no chance of sleeping again so soon, so my mind decided to paint up every single way our meeting tomorrow could end. Most seemed to end with him leaving me. I knew they were most likely false, but a part of me believed it because, in the end, everyone left. Even Solo had.

While I realized later that wasn't the best comparison, I was afraid. I had a fever, and was full of medication, and everything was trying to mess with my head. Succeeding in messing with my head.

Two hours before visiting hours came around again I extracted a promise from the nurse to wake me up before they started. It wouldn't do if I fell asleep on Heero again. So I went to sleep, anxious, but still excited about seeing him again.

The nurse didn't wake me up.

A gentle brush against my cheek brought me out of slumber, and then my lips were covered. I immediately recognized it as Heero, so I let my eyes stay closed and answered the kiss.

I opened my eyes when he withdrew. 'I won't complain if you always wake me like that.

He smiled softly. 'I'll hold you to that.'

I may have been overthinking things, but I thought I heard a gentle rebuke in his words.

''Ro, I'm really sorry about how I've been acting.'

'You certainly seem to feel better,' he said and sat down in the chair next to me.

'A lot. I feel more like myself again.'

'I can tell,' he said, smiling.

'I am really sorry, you know. I don't remember exactly everything I've said, but I've been a pain in the ass.'

'Only a little,' he agreed, but then gave me a wide smile to take the edge of it. 'But you're allowed to be a bit of a pain when you're sick.'

'I expect you to pay me back in kind,' I said, with a grin, because I knew we were just about done with the apologizing. Heero seemed to think I did too much of it anyways.

He laughed softly. 'I expect not to get as sick as you've been now. But I'll be sure to keep the offer in mind.'

'You should,' I said, and there was a bit of an uncomfortable silence during which he turned away from me slightly. That's something I've never really had with Heero before. It unnerved me, because there was still something between us. Something he was hiding. Had I said something I couldn't take back? I hated not knowing!

''Ro?' I asked and he looked back into my eyes. It didn't look as though he had slept much; he had bags under his eyes, and a hint of pink in his whites. 'I love you?' It came out more as a question than a statement.

'Duo,' he breathed. 'Yes. I love you. Don't ever think that I don't.'

'I thought...' I shook my head. 'Never mind.'

'What, Duo?'

I love the way he says my name. He breathes it out. He lets it roll off the tongue like a caress.

'Yesterday, you didn't come until so late, I wondered...' I turned my head to look out of the window, but Heero caught my chin with his hand and guided me back until I was looking at him again. 'I wondered if I'd messed up so bad you didn't want me anymore.'

'No,' he said firmly. 'I'm sorry, Duo. There was an accident on the beach, I had to stay late yesterday.'

'You all right?' I let my eyes travel from his head, down his chest and arms, and was about to lean over to check if everything was fine with his lower parts as well when he leaned in to kiss me. I responded, but when he withdrew I looked into his eyes as intently as I could, trying to see what he was hiding.

'Physically, yes.' He stared above me, out the window, but I don't think he saw what was out there. 'There was a drowning.'

'Shit,' I said, and brought my palms down flat on the bed, ignored the pulling of the IV as I bent my arms and pushed myself into a seated position. The change in position made the room spin for a moment and Heero's hands grabbed me, one on my good arm and the other on my waist. I was impressed he'd had the presence of mind to avoid grabbing my wounded arm.

'Duo, damn it, lie down.'

'I've been lying down. I want to hold you.'

He hesitated, but only for a moment, before he transferred himself to the side of my bed. We somehow managed to maneuver ourselves around each other until he sat behind me with one leg hanging off the bed, and the other wrapped around me and going under my bent legs. He put his arms around my waist and pulled me back gently, until I leaned against his chest. He put his chin on my shoulder, and we leaned our heads against each other. This was good. Not quite what I wanted, but still better than only holding hands.

'I thought I was going to hold you,' I teased, and he chuckled throatily for me. We both knew I wouldn't have the strength to stay seated on my own for very long. It had already been sapped, just by sitting up, and this was really the best way to feel him against me again.

'Want to talk about it?' I asked and he shook his head.

'Not yet.' He kissed the side of my neck. 'Can we just stay like this for a while?'

'Yes,' I breathed, and closed my eyes as I reveled in the feeling that was Heero. His strong arms wrapped around me. His chest against my back, moving me in time with his breaths. I realized I'd missed the feeling.

'Hi,' Heero said softly, making me stir in his arms, but I was warm, and comfortable, and I didn't want to move or open my eyes, so I buried myself deeper against him.

'Hello,' a voice I didn't recognize said, and I forced myself to blink my eyes open.

'I'm sorry,' Heero muttered to the nurse whom was walking towards us. He started to bring back his hands from around me, making me feel chilled where he'd just had them. I had slipped down, or he had moved us, so I had my head on his chest.

'Oh, don't worry about it. Stay, if you will. I only need to check his IV,' she said, and Heero's hands came back to their spots around my waist. They thought I was asleep still, and I really wanted to stay where I was, so I closed my eyes.

My arm was uncovered as the nurse checked to make sure I hadn't messed up the IV when I'd moved around earlier. She seemed happy as she moved away and there was some general clatter until I finally heard the door close up again.

'You awake?' Heero whispered. His warm breath brushed against the hairs on my head.

I opened my eyes again and burrowed against him.

'Yeah. Did I sleep for long?'

He kissed the top of my head. 'Twenty minutes, maybe.'

'I didn't mean to, I just can't seem to stay awake.'

'Don't worry, Duo. You're still sick, even if you're feeling better.'

'I hate this,' I said and Heero pressed his lips against the top of my head again. 'My hair is greasy.'

'No complaining,' he said with a chuckle and I smiled.

'I love lying here, in your arms.'

'That's better,' he said, and we both laughed easily leaving behind any trace of discomfort that we'd felt earlier.

'What's happened with Rift Wars?'

'They're still waiting. The surf has been pretty bad since the finals.'

I tried to do the calculation in my head, tried to figure out how many days was left of the waiting period, but I wasn't fully sure how long I'd been out of it in fever-dreams. It could have been three days since the finals, or it could have been a week.

'How long left?'

'Five days. The forecast predicts some good wind in a few days.'

'I won't be good enough to join,' I said. Heero had told me, I remembered that, but I'm not sure I'd let it sink down.

'No.'

'Who's getting my spot when I drop out?'

I knew who would get it. The top surfer from the qualifiers that wanted to join in the Rift Wars would get it. My bets were on Mueller.

'Mueller,' Heero answered after a second's hesitation. 'G already withdrew your entry.'

It didn't surprise me. G always was pretty quick to the punch. 'Figured.'

I shifted in his grip to get away from some of the discomfort of having been in the same position for too long. My arm was starting to ache and I moved it to lie in my lap.

'Let's get you back onto the bed,' Heero said. I shook my head.

'I like it here.'

'I do too, but I'll be back tomorrow,' he said and unwrapped his arms from around me. He slipped away from behind me, and gently helped me lie back down on the pillow.

While I loved being in Heero's arms, I couldn't deny that it felt good to lie down again.

Heero sat down oddly on the chair next to me and I frowned.

'What's wrong?'

'Leg fell asleep,' he said, rubbing his thigh. I made a sympathetic noise, but was unable to stop the grin.

'Want me to kiss it better?'

'That's what I need to do to make you well,' he said and leaned in to kiss me.

'You can kiss me anywhere,' I said. He snorted in surprise.

'Let's wait till we get you home for that.'

I sniggered. 'Someone might like the show.'

He laughed and stood up. He brought his left hand to wrap in my hair, and his right hand to my cheek, tracing it along my jawbone. He lifted my head slightly, and then he covered my lips with his.

It wasn't one of those light kisses we'd done so far. This one contained all the pent up passion from the last days, and I willingly surrendered to him. I started to lift my hand to grab him, but he moved his hand from my jaw to my hand instead, where we intertwined our fingers. It was a good thing I wasn't hooked up to a heart monitor, because it surely would have skipped a few beats.

When he withdrew, I reluctantly let him go. I was a bit out of breath and it pleased me to see that it hadn't left him entirely unaffected, if the slight bulge in his pants was anything to go by. It did surprise me however, that it hadn't stirred that kind of response from me.

'I'll come back tomorrow,' Heero said and we gave each other's hands a small squeeze before we let go and he left.

I couldn't wait for the sun to rise to another day.

Things were looking up again.

~ * ~

Chapter 26

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