***
Quatre stopped as he passed the infirmary, almost afraid to look in the room where Heero had been restrained to his bloody sheets. No, Quatre corrected himself, the word sounding alien and almost horrid in the apathetic expanses of his jumbled mind, *her* sheets. Heero was a girl, he mustn't forget that. No matter what it cost Heero, she had to be truthful now that she was found out. Quatre assured himself that such was the best option for Heero to heal.
He paused, pushing open the door lightly, a bitter taste in his mouth at the thought of the Japanese pilot. She had been the one with Trowa, the night before. Trowa had admitted it, and he doubted Heero would deny it. He wondered vaguely why he was checking upon his former lover's mistress, but the idea rang foul. Trowa had acted remorseful, his behaviour almost of one abused as in his past. Trowa had even said he hated the girl, Quatre had just barely heard him in the hallway as he was weeping at Trowa's betrayal.
It was all so confused, although he was glad Duo had insisted that he sleep the rest of the night. It had done him well, for he could not imagine the awful state of stress and nervous energy that he would have been otherwise. Unfortunately, he had not been able to sleep past the sun's rising radiance, and now found himself at the brink of looking at the broken pilot that seemingly had ruined his life.
Quatre knew there was more to that statement than he was currently willing to admit, and reflected upon his conversation with Trowa the previous night. Heero did not need his anger, however much she deserved it. It might indeed shatter the fragile girl. And she seemed so very helpless, as if a crystalline fragment of dreams, slipping away before the other's pilot's awakening minds could grab at the last tendrils of her memory. The mental image was replaced by the physical image of Heero, curled delicately into Duo's arms while still strapped to the bed, for her own safety.
Quatre nibbled on his lower lip, tracing the fading scratches on his arm with a soft fingertip absently. Heero was bleeding slightly still, although that was unsurprising given the depth and vicious quality of her cuts. He shivered, an unconscious reaction to the memory of his own self-injuries, and stepped into the room.
Duo was holding Heero, to the best of appearances, and Quatre assumed that the braided pilot had no difficulty sneaking past Wufei, who was asleep by the shuttered window. The Chinese pilot was surely exhausted -- he had not had the misfortune of direct involvement in this tangle, yet had watched from the outside and borne the brunt of calming all participants. Quatre resolved to relieve Wufei of some of that unfamiliar burden, acknowledging that to do so would also enable himself to maintain detachment from the entire situation. Thus, he might just be able to survive, without Trowa.
Quatre laughed to himself, muffling a slightly hysterical chuckle with his palm at the thought. Him, living without Trowa? After what he'd already done, so sinful? The idea was inconceivable to him. He'd realised that the past night, before slipping into fitful sleep. He still loved Trowa, no matter the betrayal with the girl before him. He had wanted to rend Heero for that, for the anguish, and now glared lightly at the shivering girl on the bed.
Then Quatre blinked, sensing movement from the two entwined figures, one restrained by leather and her partner. He stalked forward, silent as one would expect of a terrorist, if not him. But Quatre gasped then, withdrawing from the side of the bed as Heero peered up at him with wide distraught cobalt eyes, quivering from where her face was hidden against Duo's chest. The blonde pilot inhaled sharply at the expression of remorse, marred by unrelenting tears, and the complete transport of her countenance to distressed terror as she gazed up at him, either unable or unwilling to move violently from Duo for safety as Quatre might have done were he her.
Heero whimpered at the shock in Quatre's aqua gaze, and shuddered against the American pilot's awakening form as Quatre turned and ran, fighting sudden tears.
***
This page and all works within are copyrighted 2001 to Engel. Don't steal.
