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"Grounded"Written By: ExecutiveShrimp Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, it belongs
to Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. Written for pleasure not
profit. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: unbeta'd, sexual, violent content (graphic,
at times). Pairings: 2x1 Summary: A Preventer mission goes horribly wrong. Co-captains Duo and Heero both survive, but as changed men, and they have to rebuild their lives from the ground up.
"Grounded" Part VII – Heero's POV Voices in his ear. Static. Falling. Pain. Crack! Screams. Clang! Fear. Tears. Heat. More pain. Crack! Clang! Floating. Flying. Duo. That was all he was left with. No real memories, just feelings and flashes, like from a half-remembered nightmare. "Good morning," Rhiannon chirped as she walked into his room without knocking. Heero glared at the nurse in her pink scrubs. Her shoes squeaked on the floor and he couldn't think whenever she was around. Always talking, always squeaking, always prodding at him. She was a petit, African American woman. He estimated her to be in her mid-thirties, at a height of 5'2" and weight of about 105 pounds. The biggest thing about her was her hair – dreadlocks with colorful strands woven into them –with the exception of her personality. He didn't like her, but he liked night nurse Floramaria less. "Did Duo bring you your breakfast yet?" She inquired as she ripped the curtains open, letting the light pour into the room. "Yes." "Did you actually eat it?" "Yes," he grumbled. "Hm. I'll check with Duo when he gets back." She flashed him a grin. "Have you peed?" "I don't know. Maybe you should check that with Duo too," Heero bit in dismay at being treated like a child. "That's my sunshine-boy," Rhiannon quipped, unfazed by his attitude. "What did you have for breakfast?" Heero knew Rhiannon was aware of the daily menu. She was testing his memory, like she did every day, with tiresome, stupid questions. "Scrambled eggs." She nodded. "Do you want some water?" "I had a glass with-…" He let his sentence trail off as she was already pouring him a cup. She walked it over to him and held it out to him, but Heero didn't reach up to accept it from her. Their stubborn gazes locked and eventually the nurse put the cup on the bedside table. "You will drink that," she asserted. "If I'm thirsty," he argued. She cocked her hip and glanced down at her watch. "Well, you better plan on getting real thirsty between now and twenty minutes, because that's when I'll be back from my rounds." She patted his leg – his lifeless, unfeeling leg – and then she walked out; every footfall accompanied by a shrill squeak. "Hey, Duo!" Heero heard her greet out in the hallway and he pushed himself upright a little more. "Sleep well?" "Well enough," Duo said, sounding tired. "Did he eat?" "Almost all of it." "Excellent. I'll be back in a few. Get him to drink." "Will do." Heero crossed his arms in front of his chest and fixed his glare on Duo when the man walked into the room. Duo laughed sheepishly. "She means well. We both do." He planted himself in the chair to the right of the bed Heero was still confined to. He bent one leg to put a foot up on the seat and he slouched to make himself comfortable. The American pointedly eyed the cup of water. "You better drink that or we'll both be in trouble." "Empty it in the sink for me." Duo chuckled and shook his head. "No." "Please?" Heero tried. He had had to use that word way too often the past week and he didn't like it one bit, especially now that it had seemed to have lost its effect. "No!" Duo laughed again. "And don't even think about pouring it into your urinal again." Heero pursed his lips. He resented Duo taking sides with the nurses. Heero was an adult, he could decide for himself when his body needed hydration and when it didn't. He shot a disgusted look at the disposable urinal at his bedside, made of pressed cardboard, that he had to relieve himself into and every time he did he had to press the button to call for a nurse so she could dispose of the urinal and provide him with a new one. The process involving the bedpan was even worse. Much worse. Not only was it incredibly painful to have to lift his hips off the mattress so the nurse could slide the bedpan underneath him, it was also immeasurably humiliating when the nurse returned to collect it and she had to empty it and clean it. It was a small victory when he had been strong enough again to at least wipe himself. "What did WuFei have to say?" Heero inquired. He'd rather think about anything other than the many shameful moments. "Same old." Duo had meetings with Major Chang every morning to keep the Major in the loop on Heero's status and in turn to keep Duo informed about the aftermath of the mission – the mission that was still mostly unknown to Heero. The Japanese agent could tell that his co-captain and his Major were conspiring to keep as much information as possible hidden from him and it irked him. "Please just drink your water," Duo pleaded and he held the cup out to him. "It'll be so much easier if you do what she says." It would be easier, and Heero was not opposed to "easier", not when everything else was so much more difficult. But at the same time he didn't want to give in, he wanted to rebel against her authority. "She'll hook you up to an IV again," Duo warned him. "Remember how long it took to find a vein last time?" Heero's arms had had so many needles stuck into them that finding a suitable vein for an IV had become a challenge and she had been poking him and wiggling the needle around for ten minutes before she got it to work. "Fine." He took the cup and gulped down the water. "Thank you." Duo covered Heero's hand with his and caressed his thumb along his coarse knuckles. The bedridden agent pulled his hand away and shot a look at the doorway. "You can't do that here." Duo nodded and retreated his hands into his own lap. Heero didn't understand why Duo kept taking such risks, he knew very well that the nurses barged in whenever they pleased and if anyone would witness such an intimate touch, it could get them in real trouble; they'd never be able to go out on missions together again. Heero ignored the tingle in his knuckles and rubbed his hands against the scratchy linen. "She called again," Duo spoke with a forlorn tone. Heero didn't need his partner to clarify who he was referring to. She had called nearly every day. "She wants to see you." It was the same every time. Heero's answer was the same every time too: "No. She doesn't." Duo scoffed. Heero hoped he wouldn't, but he went through the same song-and-dance with him again as he said: "It's not as if Relena would think less of you if she saw you like this." "I don't want her to see me, Duo." "It would be good for her. It would help her to know how well you are. How yourself you are; still stubborn as Hell," he tried with a grin. "I'm not myself!" He burst, startling his partner. "I'm not myself, not yet. I don't want to be seen. Not by Relena. Not by Quatre. Not by Cho!" "Heero-" "No, Duo!" Rhiannon's squeaky footsteps announced her presence before she did. "Hey boys," she greeted cheerfully as if she hadn't walked in on anything. "I see you drank your water. Thank you." "Could you knock?" Heero sneered. "I could. But I'm not going to." "I'm sick of this!" He exclaimed and the week worth of pent-up frustration erupted out of him and he scared himself because he was unable to control himself. "I'm sick of everyone getting to decide what's best for me! I want to drink when I want! I want privacy! I want to start physical therapy so I can get out of this goddamn bed!" "Heero, please calm down," Duo tried. His eyes were large and frightened. "No!" He grabbed the handle that dangled above him and sat up in bed, disregarding the pain in his hips and his thighs and his feet. He tried to move his legs, wanting to swing them over the edge of the bed, but all he could do was hopelessly tug at them, causing himself more pain. "Heero, stop that, you'll hurt yourself." Duo came closer to him and put his hands on his shoulder, intending to press him back down against the mattress. "I can handle pain!" He put one hand against Duo's chest and he pushed him away. Duo stumbled backwards and fell over the chair behind him. He crashed to the floor with a grunt, but he got up even before Rhiannon had crossed the room to help him. He clutched his right wrist with his left hand, indicating that he had hurt himself trying to catch himself in his fall. Heero's anger instantly deflated. All rage retreated into a hidden place inside of him, so well hidden it was like it had never been there. "I'm fine," Duo ground out, even though Heero didn't even ask if he was okay. Duo approached the bed again and directed Heero to lie down, easing him back onto the mattress. Heero flinched and squeezed his eyes shut at the unexpected shots of pain in his pelvis. Without the anger to dull his nerves, the pain was excruciating. "I'm sorry," he said through gritted teeth. "It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about it." "I shouldn't have gotten angry. I don't know why I did that," Heero tried to communicate his own confusion at his out-of-control emotions. "It's perfectly understandable," Duo shushed him. It wasn't. Not to Heero. He didn't understand. He didn't understand himself anymore. His body wasn't cooperating and neither was his mind; first the forgetfulness and now practically throwing a tantrum. How was he supposed to become himself again when he couldn't control himself? Why was nothing easy anymore? He wanted so badly for Duo to touch him and to kiss him; that used to be easy and he needed it, but it wasn't easy anymore, not with a team of doctors and nurses watching him like a hawk, never leaving him alone. "Heero?" Rhiannon called to get his attention. "Are you in any pain? Do you need me to get Faulkner?" "No, I'm fine." The pain in pelvis was already subsiding and the bottom of his thighs, where they met the prosthetics, only throbbed. He didn't want her to get Faulkner; the doctor was a little too generous with the pain medication and it made Heero groggy. Heero preferred to deal with the pain over the dizziness and the nausea of those shots he would give him in the upper thigh. "Okay. You just relax now," she said in a placating tone. "Duo, can we talk for a minute?" Heero caught her pointedly staring at Duo's right wrist. Duo nodded. "Sure." Addressing his partner he promised: "I'll be right back." "I'm fine," Heero muttered and he averted his gaze. He shook away Duo's hand when the man touched his shoulder. He listened as they walked out of the room. Rhiannon's shoes squeaked, Duo's footfalls were inaudible thanks to years of stealth training – he couldn't help himself. Ten minutes later Duo walked back into the room. Heero only noticed when he heard him sit down in the chair and the legs of the chair scratched along the floor as he scooted closer to the bed. Duo folded his hands together on the edge of the mattress, Heero could see from the corner of his eyes. He noticed the bandage wrapped around Duo's wrist and Heero stiffened. He hadn't meant to hurt Duo. He had gotten used to being weak and powerless, he didn't expect that his shove would cause Duo to fall backwards. Heero's anger had made him stronger, while Duo's insomnia made him weaker and he had easily lost his balance. "I'm sorry," Heero said again, without facing the other. "Yeah, it hurts like a bitch, you have no idea," Duo deadpanned. When Heero snapped his head around to look at him, he saw Duo's silly grin. However, none of this was funny to Heero. Hardly anything ever was. He cast his gaze down at Duo's hand and he meekly touched his fingers to the light pink bandage. "She said I could choose a color. She had blue, mint green and white too," Duo said. "But I chose pink." "You hate pink," Heero whispered. The American smiled. "You hate everything but black." "Well, she didn't have black," he simply replied with a shrug. "She did have a black cast, but it's not broken, so that's too bad. Nah, come to think of it, I had a black cast before and it was no fun. People couldn't sign it." "You're an idiot," Heero chastised lightly. His eyes locked with Duo's and they stared into each other. "… I want to kiss you so badly," Duo breathed and he started to lean in. "Don't," the other warned, even though it caused a hurt in his chest that overshadowed any other pain. Duo sighed and shot a look over his shoulder. Through the window in the door they could look down the hall at the nurses' station, where Rhiannon was talking with a couple of her colleagues, making big gestures with her arms. "You don't have to worry about anybody seeing us. It doesn't matter." "Of course it matters. I'm getting out of this bed and back into the field," Heero contended. The other captain sighed. "Maybe," he said carefully, looking down at where Heero was absentmindedly picking at the edge of the bandage. "But I'm not going back." Heero's fingers stilled. "What are you talking about?" "I didn't take The Twelve, so I've been grounded," he reminded him, but that was not the whole story and they both knew it. "You can reapply for the test at any point." "I'm not going to. I don't want to." "Why in the Hell not?" Heero burst. It was uncharacteristic for him to swear, but he had been unfiltered lately, which probably had something to do with being confined to the bed and needing ways other than the physical to vent and express himself. He knew that field work meant as much to Duo as it meant to him. Duo had called it their "atonement" and Heero agreed; it was the one thing they had to offer the world, the one thing that gave value and purpose to their lives. He couldn't fathom why Duo would want to give that up. They may have failed their mission, but he shouldn't let that stop him. When they were younger and caught up in the war, they had failed missions before, but they knew they had go on. Duo's mouth became a taut line. He sat back and pulled his hands out of Heero's reach. "I don't trust myself anymore." "I trust you," Heero stated. He didn't even need to think about it, it had been an unwavering truth since they were sixteen years old. The American shook his head and he told him bitterly: "You shouldn't." "I get to decide that for myself." "You can't make that decision when you don't know all the facts." "Then tell me the facts and let me decide. Let me read your mission report." "You're not allowed. Because of your condition your status is non-active, which means you aren't allowed access to Preventer records." "That's a bullshit rule and you know it," Heero bit. "You will be fully debriefed once a therapist has cleared you." "I have no interest in talking to a therapist." "Then you have no business reading official reports." Heero crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared defiantly at his partner, but unfortunately Duo could be as stubborn as him – even more so – and they were at an impasse. It made Heero all the more determined to get out of that bed and get back to work, he was sick of Duo's secrets and his misguided idea that keeping these secrets were somehow beneficial to Heero. They both glared at each other, nostrils flared. "It was my mission," Heero said, not willing to let himself be brushed off again. "I have the right to know what happened. You and Chang better start treating me like an agent again, because that's what I am!" "You're not!" "Fine! But I will be! Stop acting like I won't be coming back!" "You need to stop acting like an agent is all you ever were and all you ever want to be!" Heero narrowed his eyes at his co-Captain. "But that is who I am." "You're not… You're not. You're so much more. I need you to believe that, because you can't be a Preventer agent anymore and I don't want that to ruin you." His heart clenched and he clenched his fists in response. "I am a soldier, Duo. Fighting is all I know. It's all I'm good for." "So, what? These past years with me haven't meant anything to you?" Heero didn't understand what Duo meant, so he couldn't answer. "After all this time, you really still only care about the missions?" Wouldn't it be selfish otherwise? Wouldn't it be selfish to care about the mundane little things that he had taken away from so many people during the war? He did care about more, but he couldn't say it, because he didn't deserve to. He remained quiet. He wanted to stop their argument. He didn't want to fight with Duo. He wanted to go back to the way things were; so easy and comfortable. The argument did end, with a pained look in Duo's eyes. Duo dropped his head, avoiding eye contact as he oftentimes did lately and continued to do so more and more as the days dragged on. As much as Heero pestered the nurses, Faulkner and Sally – during their video conference calls when she was checking up on him – the staff wouldn't allow him to start physical therapy until the pain had sufficiently subsided. His thighs didn't hurt much anymore, but his hips did. Even at the slightest motion it felt like the Gundanium implants were grinding against his bone, crushing nerve-endings in between. It was decreasing as time went by, but not fast enough. His big toe on the left foot still hurt most of all. It was a relentless pain, day and night, one that he couldn't escape, like the pain in his pelvis, by lying still. There was nothing that could be done because it was phantom pain; a misfire in the nervous systems because of the traumatic amputation. Heero didn't have a big toe anymore – the prosthetic foot didn't even have individual toes, even though the "skin sleeve" did give that illusion, complete with small, acrylic nails – but that nerve in his body didn't know that yet and it kept sending signals to the brain that there was something wrong with the toe. The incessant pain was exhausting, even though the pills Faulkner kept giving him helped him sleep at night. During the days, he found it difficult to focus on anything but the pain in his toe. Faulkner warned him that it could take up to six months for the phantom pain fade away, but in the worst case scenario the pain would be permanent. As time went by, Duo wasn't around as often anymore and he didn't sleep in the other bed anymore, and Heero missed him when he wasn't there. Although they never really talked much whenever he visited. All Heero did was ask the same questions over and over and all Duo did was refuse to answer. Duo looked at him less, touched him less and visited him less and Heero didn't understand. But Heero felt lonely when Duo wasn't around – even as he acknowledged he wasn't the most fun company to be around. Rhiannon and the other nurses constantly walked in and out of is room and invaded his personal space, but they didn't chase away the loneliness the way Duo did. Heero waited, watching the window in the door. It was an hour past noon and Duo usually stopped by for a few hours after lunch. The door opened, but it wasn't Duo. A cleaning lady walked in with an apologetic smile and she held up her mop in question. Continuing the mute exchange, Heero only shrugged to give his consent. She nodded, dunked the mop into the bucket of soapy water and she systematically worked her way through the room, mopping the floor, leaving a wet sheen on the surface that Heero watched dry. She pushed around the chairs and bedside tables to get access to every nook and corner and when she was done with the floor she cleared away the dead flowers that Quatre had sent last week and watered the miniature bonsai tree that Relena had delivered to his hospital room. Heero had no idea why the two of them thoughts that their gifts would be of any help to him. The cleaning lady raised her hand in a half-hearted goodbye and then rolled her equipment out of the room and closed the door behind her. Bored, he stared out the window. One team was jogging along the track, while another was struggling to make it through the obstacle course at the back of field. He shot a look down his body. He wished he could wiggle his toe, as if that would help with the pain. The action-receptor in his brain was working and the legs were receiving signals, Sally had said on their last conference call, but the synapse firing of his neurons wasn't yet triggering the correct electrodes to enable movements. The sensors had been precisely planted into the part of his brain responsible for the motor control of the legs, but there was no way to predict how long it would take for the prosthetics to act according to the commands of his brain the way his own legs would have. But it had been three weeks now and his impatience was insufferable. For himself as well as for those around him. His rehabilitation would start in the pool at the rehab center. Only once his brain had figured out how to generate the automatic motion for walking did the neurons have a base-line to work off of and from that starting point he could train more deliberate movements. The water would support most of his weight. By moving what remained of his thighs, he would have to start walking, maneuvering the cumbersome legs until they would respond to brain signals. Thinking about the pool alerted him to the fact that he hadn't peed since before breakfast. He looked to the side, at the urinal placed on a lower shelf of his bedside table. The table was not where it should have been. The cleaning lady had moved it to enable her work, but had neglected to put it back. He knew he wouldn't be able to get it from his current position. It could wait, he decided. Sooner or later a nurse would come in anyway and he could ask them to push the table closer to the bed again. He focused on the training field again, in time to see a team run standard gun-drills on the lawn; all six of them rolling through the grass in unison and bouncing upright to aim their weapons at the targets ahead of them. They weren't using live rounds. Exercises with live rounds were only conducted indoors. They fired balls of red dye at steel silhouettes of men. The training was flawed because it didn't prepare them for the weight of a real assault rifle, nor it's kickback and Heero had observed the effects of that when they had taken their own team to the shooting range. Agents get too used to the easy-to-handle paint ball guns and during rapid fire with real rifles, the aim got progressively worse with each succession. That was why Team One logged more hours at the indoor shooting range than any other team. But there was no Team One anymore. The only thing WuFei had been willing to tell him was the team was not working on active cases. They were stuck catching up with administrative backlog. Heero wondered how little there would be left of Team One when he and Duo returned. He refused to believe Duo was serious about not wanting to go back into the field. It was starting to get late and his co-Captain still hadn't stopped by yet. A medical emergency down the hall kept the staff preoccupied. Heero didn't want to call for a nurse just to get him the urinal. He gauged the distance between himself and the bedside table again. Maybe if he scooted a little closer to the edge of the bed, his arm would be long enough to reach. He really needed to relieve himself. It was frustrating that such a simple thing was such an ordeal in his state. With determination he planted his hands onto the mattress on either side of him and lifted his weight off the bed. Unsupported by the mattress, his hips ached, but it wasn't too bad. Inch by inch he seated himself closer to the edge and he rearranged his lifeless legs to avoid the strain. They were stiff and heavy, but he could raise them up easily by twisting his fists into the fabric of his sweats and pulling. Seated at the very edge, he tried again and he was only a little bit short. He reached down and collapsed the railing, so he could lean over a little more. "Dammit," he cursed as he still couldn't grasp the edge of the table to pull it closer to him. He was starting to get angry again and it clouded his judgment. He scooted even further to the left, so he was sitting over the edge of the bed a little bit. He trusted the weight of his lower body would keep him in place as he extended his hand out again. The exertion of repositioning himself a couple of times had caused him to start sweating. The pain in his hips was intensifying as his pelvis got angled to one side. Suddenly a sharp pain shot through him and his entire body cramped up. The shift of his weight caused the center of his gravity to move over the edge of the bed and his heart skipped a beat as he realized he was falling. Reactively, he reached a hand back and grabbed at whatever he could; his fingers twisted into the sheets but he just pulled them over with him. His body crashed down. His left hip and shoulder hit the unforgiving floor first. The fall knocked the wind out of him and he rolled himself onto his back while gasping for air. He opened his mouth to let out a scream of agony but he choked on the sound. His face was red and hot. He clenched his jaw shut in pain. His entire body was tensed up, like a current was running through it and for a long time his body refused to breathe. With the first deep breath he finally took, he let out a groan. His second breath he exhaled in a long, pained wail; sounding like a dying animal. His breaths came in stutters. One of his hands hovered over his left hip that had impacted the hardest with the floor, but he was too afraid to touch himself. His thighs ached at where the prosthetics had pulled on the joint. He felt a warm wetness in his pants and at first he thought he was bleeding, since it felt like the Gundanium bone implant had thrust right through his pelvis and pierced his flesh, but he soon realized it was urine; he had wet himself. His eyes began to sting with tears, more from the embarrassment than the pain. He reached a hand up to the edge of the bed, wanting to pull himself up, but even the slightest shift of his pelvis and legs paralyzed him with pain. He clenched his fists into the sheets that he had pulled down with him and clutched the bundle to his chest. His entire body was trembling. He gritted his teeth while he breathed harshly through his nose. No one had heard him fall, but a few minutes later a nurse must have walked down the hallway and spotted his empty bed through the window in the door. She came in and sounded alarmed. "Agent Yuy?" She called. She couldn't see him because he had landed on the floor at the side of the bed away from the door. He couldn't speak; he was too focused on his breathing. Every intake of air was a conscious effort. She must have heard him pant and wheeze. She walked around the bed and her features expressed her shock at how she found her patient. She rushed to his side. "Oh my God." She pushed the emergency button on the remote to call for help. "Does it hurt here? Is this where you fell?" She pointed to his hip that he protectively shielded with his hand. Heero managed to nod. Rhiannon, a male nurse and Faulkner walked in and the young nurse at Heero's side made room for them. "What on God's green earth were you trying to do?" Rhiannon berated him, but then she paused to assess the situation while the doctor crouched beside the patient and she put the pieces together. Her tone became soft and pitiful as she concluded: "Oh, Heero, you needed to use the urinal?" Heero spasmed when Faulkner pressed his knuckles into his hip to check for dislocation. "It's still in," the doctor said. "Let's get him back into bed and into clean clothes and give him something for the pain." The male nurse hooked one arm under Heero's armpits and the other under his thighs and he hoisted him up from the floor. As he was lifted, a vague memory returned to him. He had been carried that way before. He smelled soot and blood and Duo. His legs kept slipping out of his grip. Heero felt nauseous suddenly and he nearly vomited but he swallowed the bile back down. He had suffered enough humiliation for the day. Faulkner approached with a syringe and Rhiannon pulled down Heero's pants and cleaned a spot on his outer thigh, close to his buttocks and Faulkner jammed the needle into him. "This will work fast," the doctor promised. A few seconds later Heero's body relaxed, his heartrate calmed and he felt like he could breathe normally again. Within a minute he was pain free and drowsy and was in no state to be mortified or make objections as Rhiannon and the male nurse undressed him, cleaned him with a warm, wet sponge and then dressed him in a new set of clothes. Heero had never been drunk but he imaged that was what it felt like. His mind was fuzzy and completely disconnected from his body. He halfheartedly flailed his hands, searching for something tangible to grasp onto as his mind started to slip away. He hit the male nurse in his crotch once. Both the man and Rhiannon laughed, so it mustn't have hurt. His eyes fell shut, but he didn't want to sleep. Duo hadn't come by yet and he didn't want to sleep and miss him. "Nnnn… Duuu…" "Shhh," Rhiannon shushed him while she tied the drawstring on his clean sweatpants. "It's okay. I'm sure he'll be here later and this medication wears off in an hour or two." For the next two hours he drifted in and out of consciousness. When his senses started to return again, Rhiannon brought him dinner before signing him over to night nurse Floramaria, who castigated him for his carelessness and locked the railing on either side of the bed in place, so it wouldn't happen again. Heero waited all evening for Duo to show, but when the door to his room opened again, it was Floramaria, bringing him his sleeping pills. His chest hurt with a sharp pain and he wondered if he could have broken a rib in the fall.
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