NOTES:
Pairings: 1+2+1
Category: Romance
Blood type: A
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Wing.
WARNINGS: Shounen ai, mild angst, fluff
Rating: PG-13

Three Days
by Mikkeneko

Now, every able body on the ship frantically sought to make the ship storm-tight before the full wrath of the squall hit. Though the carrier was large enough to serve as a sea-mobile base for the Sweepers, large enough to carry two Gundams, its size was nearly insignificant on the scale that Nature worked with. The peculiar wood-plastic-metal hybrid that helped keep the ship safe and undetected from most scanners rendered it vulnerable to this kind of weather.... and if it couldn't stand up to the strain, Duo reflected bitterly, then a good portion of the Colony's fighting strength would be lost to the storm.

In order to make room for the massive Mobile Suits in the cargo bay, a great deal of the heavy equipment had been moved out onto deck; all of it had to be secured, because if it shifted loose in a wave and started punching holes in the ship, they were all in a lot of trouble. Duo, along with a few other members of the Sweepers, were struggling to get the last of the equipment fastened. As the storm worsened, more and more of the crew members had been sent below, but Duo and a few of the most stubborn mechanics stayed.

The growing spatter of rain quickly soaked through his heavy black clothes, but it was the wind that was the most danger. It chilled his fingers almost senseless, and sent the water up in fretful waves to splash and rush over the deck until he was almost wading. Through the gathering gloom, he saw one of the crewmembers finish his task and retreat helplessly to the relative safety of below decks. Apart from himself, there were only two others left.

Then, unexpectedly, Heero emerged from below decks. Through the rain, Duo watched in disbelief as Heero grabbed the elbow of one of the other techs and leaned in close to speak in his ear. Duo almost laughed at the sight; Heero practically had to stand on his tiptoes for the man to hear him. The Sweeper's expression turned to one of surprise, but after a moment he nodded and stepped away from the line he'd been struggling to pull down. As he headed for the doorway, head bowed against the rain-driving wind, Heero took his place at the line, easily pulling it down to the metal ring on the deck.

Duo half-laughed, not expecting the sound to carry through the storm, but Heero looked up towards him all the same. Grinning, Duo began to make his way across the deck towards his fellow pilot, carefully clinging to handholds the whole way. "Hey, buddy!" he shouted as soon as he was within range. "Nice weather we're having, huh?"

Heero managed to look half-annoyed and half-bored, though if he snorted his derision for Duo's poor taste in jokes, it was lost in the wind.

"Ne, Heero," Duo said, managing to keep an almost conversational tone despite the noise. "I half expected that you'd be in Wing and away from here by now." Although it was a very pleasant surprise to be proven wrong.

"Don't be an idiot," Heero replied, his voice carrying over to Duo. "I couldn't pilot in this storm. Now, tell me what needs to be done."

Duo grinned, freeing one hand to swipe the drenched bangs out of his eyes. "This winch assembly -- everything has to be locked into retract position -- and that pile of crates over there. They're not irreplaceable, 'swhy we left'em for last, but it's a miracle they haven't slid already."

Heero nodded, the rain beginning to plaster his messy hair flat to his head. "I will take care of it." He turned away and began to cross the flooded deck, not seeming to have any trouble with balance despite the wild rock and pitch of the deck.

"Oi, Heero!" Duo shouted, just as another wave crashed against the side of the ship. Heero turned back, and Duo let his accustomed grin soften into a real smile. "Thanks for the help, man," he said, quietly enough that he was relying on Heero's lip-reading skills to be understood. "I really appreciate it."

Heero nodded once, in his curt fashion, and turned back to his task. Duo stared across the deck at him for a minute, before the rope he still held nearly jerked out of his hands, bringing him back to reality with a sharp curse.

The wind caught the tarpaulin cover, nearly lifting him off his feet, until he managed to jam one foot under the winch array base and pull the line back down. Another timeless moment of yanking and swearing later, he finally managed to pull the end of the line through the metal ring. As he tied the knot in the rope, he glanced up to see how Heero was faring.

Just as he looked up, a sudden gust of wind shook the boat like a toy, and a moment later a huge wave, several times the height of any which had struck the ship before, crashed over the deck. The boat shuddered, and tilted, the starboard rail nearly dipping into the ocean under the weight of the water rushing across the deck. Duo clung to his perch, but he was higher on the deck and mostly shielded from the wave; Heero, on the other hand, was right in its path, and for a moment he couldn't see Wing's pilot for the water lashing the air between them. He shook his head fiercely, clearing it of the noise and dashing the rainwater from his eyes, and finally spotted Heero. Wing's pilot was hanging grimly onto one of the stays bolted to the deck, his powerful body almost like a doll's in the grip of that torrential force.

A movement out of the corner of Duo's eye arrested his attention, and he whipped his head around in time to see one of the large plastic crates crumble under the water. Something dark and metal-looking was caught up in the rushing wave, and carried along... straight towards Heero. A cry of warning died in Duo's throat as he stared in horror; even if Heero saw it coming, he never had a chance to dodge. Driven by the force of the wave, the heavy, metal object struck the back of Heero's head, snapped back with a force that made Duo flinch in sympathy.

For a moment, nothing happened, as the wave continued to carry debris along... but then, Heero's fingers slackened their grip, and his unconscious weight was dragged away from the handhold. Unconscious or merely stunned, Duo didn't know, but he made no effort to fight the wave that swept him into the sea-tossed ocean.

It was the sight of that tousled, dark-haired head vanishing over the rail which brought Duo out of his stunned paralysis. "Man overboard!" he yelled; his voice was lost to the wind, but that hardly mattered since by now he was the only one left aboard the deck. He was moving without entirely realizing what he was doing, untangling his body from his handhold and lunging for the neatly wrapped coil of line which had been stowed neatly away on a hook on the wall. He didn't even look at what he was doing, couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight of that dark-haired head bobbing and twisting among the waves.

As swiftly and gracefully as though he'd practiced the maneuver a hundred times, Duo peeled off his heavy outer jacket while wrapping the end of the line around his arms and shoulders. As the black fabric fell to a heap and half-floated on the flooded deck, he scrambled up the side of the boat, tying the other end of the coil quickly to the railing. With barely a thought as to what he was doing, knowing only that he could not let Heero's form vanish from sight, he dove overboard.

He was blinded in an instant; the turbulent seawater was dark and gray, and hardly any light filtered through the clouds above. But he drove his body through the rough water towards the place he had last seen Heero, never in his life so thankful for anything as for the swimming skills Howard had taught him in the last year. Struggling against the violent waves of a storm-tossed sea was a world away from practicing laps in a pool, but he hardly noticed the swirls and eddies tugging at his limbs, determined only to reach Heero.

A sudden jerk on his arms told him that he'd reached the end of his line, and his eyes widened in shock as he glanced backwards and saw how far from the ship the current had taken him. A wave slapped him stingingly in the face, and he gasped, then coughed as he inhaled seawater. He struggled to turn in the water, searching wildly over the rough surface for the other pilot... but saw nothing. "Heero!" he shouted, not really expecting a response, just having to say something, anything to make him feel not so alone in this chaos. "Heero, where..."

On a sudden impulse, he gasped a quick breath and surged upwards, awkwardly twisting his body to force himself down, under the ocean's surface. The salt water hit his eyes, stinging and burning madly, but he forced himself to keep them open as he pushed under the water, searching for his lost friend.

Just when he thought he would have to surface, swim a little further and dive again, he caught sight of something pale and dark twisting under the waves. Determination filled him, and he kicked against the water, diving deeper and reaching towards the elusive figure.

It was strange, the tempest above seemed quieter here. The depths still surged and throbbed with a dark rage, roaring in his ears and tossing his body about like a rag doll, but no longer did the waves claw towards the sky in fury and fall back to the sea in defeat. Here the rain didn't fall, nor the wind blow, and if not for the suffocating ocean surge, he could almost feel safer here.

He reached Heero just as his tether line snapped taut again, and he strained against its confining length, painfully unwinding just enough length of it from around his arms that he could thrust forward and snatch at Heero's arms. With the darkness of the ocean pressing into his eyes, he kicked up towards the surface again, hauling on the line to pull him along faster. Bubbles surged eagerly upwards, not all of them his; Duo couldn't think whether this was a good thing, or a bad thing.

He broached the surface like a whale, gasping for air, and the renewed sound and fury of the storm surprised him, for a moment. Bracing against the rope with one hand, he managed to manhandle Heero's body around until the Wing Pilot's head was above the surface. Water streamed from his mouth and nose, but Duo couldn't determine in all this turmoil if he was breathing or not. Well, nothing he could do here. Not until he got them both aboard the ship and safely under the deck again.

Another few second of confused juggling, and he had arranged things so that Heero lay draped against his chest, facing him, chin resting over his shoulders and limbs dangling limply at Duo's sides. One arm held Heero tightly against him, determined not to relinquish Heero to the fury of the storm, and the other pulled tight the line that connected them to the ship. Taking a deep breath, trying not to let a fit of coughing overcome him, he began the process of hauling them both back along the tether to the ship.

Halfway there, something dark and bulky looked up before him, like a wave, but it didn't fall like the waves. After a moment of confusion, Duo recognized it as a corner of the plastic crate that had broken apart. Pulling up alongside it, he elbowed it aside with the hand holding the tether.

The line snapped.

Oops, was the third-to-last thought that flashed through his head. Well, shit, was the second-to-last. And the final thought in his mind, before darkness overtook him, was that he had to keep Heero held tight to him no matter what.

The first sensations to greet him upon waking were a dizzying feel of vertigo and an aching nausea in the pit of his belly. His muscles tensed, just slightly, and awakened a blinding pain in his head, and a churning noise in his ears. A dim and detached part of him identified a probable concussion; if whatever it was that had hit him was enough to knock him out, then a concussion was only to be expected.

He struggled his way towards consciousness, drawing on every inch of his discipline to try and establish some kind of awareness. Slowly, the blinding pain in his head resolved into the bright sun stabbing directly into his eyes, and the nausea into the taste of salt and bile filling his throat. The vertigo, though, refused to leave him alone, and his eyes flew open with groggy startlement as he realized that he was not touching solid ground.

A dizzying expanse of blue sky filled his blurred vision, far more than there should have been, and pierced through with a blinding white sun. He blinked watering eyes, and turned his head slightly, every muscle protesting, until a blur of darker blue stretched away towards the horizon. It undulated ceaselessly, and after a long and painful minute Heero managed to identify it as the ocean.

His lips moved; he tried to form words, but only came out with an incomprehensible groan. His lips were crusted with salt, he realized as a burning sensation woke in them. What was going on?

"Hey." A voice spoke, very close by; Heero jerked up and whipped his head around, only to regret it an instant later as the pounding in his head intensified. After a minute he managed to identify Duo, looking at him worriedly over... some sort of plastic gray surface...

"What happened?" he managed to croak out.

"You got swept overboard," Duo answered. "I jumped after you. Now we're both out here."

Heero tried to focus his eyes into a glare, but couldn't manage it. "Idiot..." he said from between clenched teeth. "Why didn't you... grab hold of... a line?"

Duo grinned at him, bright and false cheer. "I did," he said, and held up the limply dangling edge of a rope. With some difficulty, Heero turned his head to follow the rope... it seemed to be wrapped around Heero, and then cross the short plastic to him, and wrapped around his shoulders...

After a minute, he realized that the rope was wrapped around his chest, the only thing keeping him tied to the plastic. To the meter-square that was adrift in the middle of a featureless ocean, extending for thousands of miles on all sides.

His eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out once again with the sound of the ocean roaring in his ears.

A constant litany of mumbled curses floated from Duo as he struggled against the water-logged fabric of his pants. It was heavy and clung stubbornly to his skin as he tried to work his way into his left pocket; one-handed, since he had to keep the other hand holding onto the edge of the sheet of plastic that was keeping them both afloat. At last, he grunted in triumph as he pulled something free from his pocket, and laid it alongside the others, spread out on the long almost-flat side of the sheet in front of him.

Duo chewed on his lip absently as eyes moved over the pathetic array, wishing that he could telepathically convert them to medical supplies for his partner. Heero had woken up briefly in the morning, but hadn't quite seemed able to focus in the few minutes before falling back into a stupor again. And the gash on his head, though no longer bleeding, more than hinted at some head injury. He wished that he had been able to grab his pack -- although if he had, it might have weighed him down and kept him from swimming. Or at least, the equipment belt that carried so much more useful stuff than he had absently thought to stick in his pocket this morning. Though it had seemed like good choices at the time, most of the contents of his pockets had been ruined by their introduction to salt water.

A handgun -- now waterlogged and ruined. A combination pocket switchblade, hinges encrusted with salt but still functional. Half of a ration bar -- and Duo cursed the pang of hunger which had made him decide to open it, because with the watertight packaging broken the food was inedible. A handkerchief. A pen, covered with a pulpy mess that had no doubt once been paper. Fifteen credits. And, last but certainly not least -- Duo crowed with triumph at the sight of the slim metal canteen. It was small, but at least it was full -- and not contaminated with salt.

Duo poured a little bit of their precious water supply onto the handkerchief, and used that to carefully clean the cut on Heero's head. Heero didn't need the salt eating his skin from inside out. He wished that he could get some of the water down Heero's throat, too, but as much as the decision hurt, he knew he couldn't risk wasting the water while Heero was still nauseated from the concussion. Blowing his breath out in a sigh, Duo recapped the canteen and tucked it carefully between a loop of rope and the plastic sheet.

He was pretty sure, from the color and feel of it, that it had been the corner of one of the shipping crates that had broken during the storm. It floated corner-side-up, trapping enough air underneath it to remain afloat, and Duo had clung to it with desperate intensity all through the rest of the storm. When morning had come, and with it the calming of the sea, Duo had to force his hands to unclench from around Heero. Somehow he managed to get everything shifted around until he and Heero were on either side of the spar, and used the remained of the broken line to secure Heero to the plastic so he wouldn't slip off in his sleep.

Squinting, Duo glanced up at the sky to judge the position of the sun. In order to occupy his mind, in the long silence broken only by the slapping of waves, Duo had devised a means to tell time. It was September, so the day was just about twelve hours long; so, by dividing the sky into twelve sections, remembering to slant them towards the south, Duo was able to tell when the day had progressed another hour. And every hour, he made another effort to reach over the plastic spar and shake Heero into wakefulness. He wasn't entirely sure there was any point in it. After all, the purpose of waking a concussed person was only to make sure they still *could* wake; if they had slipped into a coma, then they had to be hospitalized. Duo gave a sardonic snort at his own thoughts. To think, he had gone to all that trouble to break Heero out of that hospital, and now there was nothing he would want more desperately than to be back there.

But... he didn't really want to think about reaching over the plastic and touching Heero only to find that his skin was cold and clammy. He tried to think of something, anything else to keep his mind off it, off of the cold hard fact that they were stranded who knew how many miles away from land without food or any more than a liter of water. He only prayed to the only God he had ever known that he wasn't alone out here, too.

Heero stirred and groaned slightly, and Duo's attention snapped back to him, heart leaping into his throat with hope. He watched Heero's face closely as the other boy twitched; his eyes shifted under his eyelids, and Duo reached out with the still-damp handkerchief to wipe gently at Heero's eyes, cleaning away the dried salt. His hand paused, still holding the cloth to Heero's face, as he opened his eyes and focused right on Duo.

This time, those dark-blue eyes seemed much more clear and lucid, if not quite the razor-sharp gaze that Duo was accustomed to. As Duo slowly retracted his hand, Heero shifted a bit, then winced. His throat worked, and he opened and closed his mouth twice before trying to speak. "Status?" he said hoarsely.

Duo breathed a secret sigh of relief; Heero again. Then he had to stop and think about the question for a moment. "Screwed," he offered finally.

There was a grunt from Heero that might or might not have been his version of a laugh, and then drew in a cautious breath. He closed his eyes, then squinted them open and did a scan of his surroundings. "Can you be more specific?" he said, more quietly.

Duo exhaled, going over things in his head. "Well, as for where we are, you can see that pretty much as well as I can. I haven't seen any smoke, any birds, any sign of land or of Howard's ship, since the storm calmed down."

He paused for a minute, waiting for a response; Heero's mouth tightened, but he didn't say anything and Duo continued. "You took a nasty knock on the head; you've got a pretty bad concussion, as near as I can tell. You've been out of it since last night."

Heero sighed inaudibly, and closed his eyes. Duo bit his lip, watching him, trying not to let his voice be as concerned as his eyes as he asked, "How do you feel now? Still nauseous?"

Duo expected Heero to snap out that he was fine, even to the point of insult that Duo could think such a trivial blow to the head could bring Heero Yuy low. But what he got instead was a long moment of silence, and then Heero's quiet voice admitting, "I've been better."

Duo let out a breath of relief, then couldn't help but grin. "Not operating at full capacity, hmm?" Heero didn't bother to open his eyes. "Well, don't worry about it too much, Heero, 'cause there isn't too much for you to do in this situation anyway. But do this for me, okay? Do you think you could keep some water down?"

There was a pause as Heero shifted, apparently trying to determine status, and after a cautious moment he said, "Yes."

A small smile appeared on Duo's face, and he pulled the water flask from its position of safety and uncapped it. Heero moved his arms around to the front and tried to lift his head, but he froze and aborted his movement almost as soon as it had begun. A small grunt was the only sound that escaped him, but the muscles in his arms and neck trembled as he struggled to support himself. Swiftly, Duo reached across the distance and put his hand under Heero's head, supporting it and keeping him from crashing back down.

The sheet wobbled and dipped as Duo shifted his weight, bringing himself up a little further out of the water as he stretched out towards Heero's side. Holding the flask in one hand, the other cupped Heero's chin, supporting the boy's head so that he could drink the water offered to him. Heero closed his eyes when the first drops of moisture hit his tongue, swallowing hungrily, but after a moment the gentleness of the fingers moving under his jaw occurred to him, and he opened his eyes to regard his partner. His eyes narrowed, but they were cloudy and unfocused, and Duo sighed as he pulled the water back. "That's enough for now," he said softly, and lowered Heero back down to the hard surface.

Heero wanted to stay awake; there was something that he had to ask... but the world tilted away from him again and left him in darkness. With the paining edge of thirst slackened, his sleep was more natural and restful than the near coma-like unconsciousness of before.

Duo watched his partner for a long moment, until he was sure that he was really asleep, before pulling his hand slowly away from Heero's cheek. He tilted the canteen in his other hand slightly; it was still mostly full. The rim sparkled in the bright sunlight, beating heat down from above as relentlessly as the water sucked away heat from below. With a silent exhalation of breath, Duo closed his eyes and pressed the edge of the canteen against his lips, but he did not drink.

Heero woke twice more as the day progressed, and each time he drank some more water. By the time he faded back into sleep for the third time, with the sunset slanting its last rays across the ocean, his head was almost free of the fog that had clogged it all day.

When he woke again, it was to a feeling of cold and to the strangely altered sound of water slapping against the makeshift raft. He opened his eyes and it took a minute to adjust; the only light came from the stars overhead, but they were surprisingly bright without the lights of the heavily urbanized mainlands to interfere. But not, of course, anything like the diamond-sharp clarity of stars in space.

It took his still slightly disoriented mind a few minutes to pick out what had awoken him; a soft sound that mingled with the movement of the water but was still distinct from it. It wasn't hard to determine where the sound was coming from, though; there were a limited number of options, after all.

Duo had shifted around, so that his shoulders were on the sheet of plastic and his elbows braced him up, head leaning back so his face was to the sky. Softly, he was singing.

"...on the first evening a pebble... from somewhere out of nowhere drops upon the dreaming shore..."

Heero started to say something, but stopped himself. A small sound escaped him, though, and Duo fell silent.

"You awake?" Duo said rather unnecessarily.

"Yeah." Heero shifted, testing his inner equilibrium.

"Feeling better?" Duo twisted up onto one elbow, turning to meet Heero's eyes.

Heero nodded, now that Duo could see him. He remembered Duo's hands supporting his head so he could drink. "Thank you," he said after a minute.

"Hey, man, no biggie." Duo laid his head back down. "Did you want to sleep more? I can stop..."

"I don't care," Heero shrugged. "Go ahead if you want to."

"Nah, not really. It was just something to do." He fell silent again.

Still, Heero didn't feel like sleeping any more. He had been drifting in and out all day and it rankled him to be out of commission for so long. Even if there was nothing he could do... it felt wrong, not to be ready for anything.

Duo wasn't saying anything, for a change, just floating there looking upwards. Almost automatically, Heero followed his gaze up to the sky, his eyes instinctively searching out the brighter lights of the colonies.

"The moon is down," Duo said quietly, as though reading his thoughts. "And L2 and L1 are down with it. You can see L3 and L5, though, if you look over there."

"You're familiar with the Earth sky," Heero noted. "Did you live on Earth?" He wouldn't have thought so, nothing about the scrappy Deathscythe pilot spoke to him of Earth's jaded and shallow pretentiousness.

"Hell, no!" Duo's voice chuckled, but there was a bite of anger behind the humor. "I'm a space brat, through and through. But since I came to Earth, I've spent a lot of time looking at the sky."

"What for?" Heero asked.

"Oh, no reason." Duo evaded the question neatly. "You know, the moon looks really different from Earth, than from Space."

"Of course," Heero answered. "Without the air to interfere, the view of the moon is much more clearly defined."

"I guess so," Duo said, sounding oddly disappointed. "That's not what I meant, though."

"What did you mean?"

"That from space, it looks like a graveyard." Duo sighed. "From Earth..." he fell silent.

For a few minutes, there was only the sound of the waves softly rising and falling. The water was cold. A few shivers escaped Heero's tight control of his muscles.

"Ne, Heero?"

"What, Duo?"

He turned his head to see that Duo was looking at him again. He glanced away, not wanting to meet the other's eyes in the dim starlight.

"You cold? With the remains of the concussion, I wouldn't believe it if you weren't..."

He could have denied it. Habit told him never to submit to any weakness that would hinder his mission, but out here in the middle of the ocean his mission was on hold anyway. He nodded.

"Aw, man..." Duo sighed, and then there was creaking and splashing. Startled, Heero eyed Duo warily as the other turned over in the water, pulling himself around the sheet to Heero's side. Its balance creaked and shifted alarmingly, but then resettled as Duo came to a stop beside Heero, lining up against him in the cold water.

"Don't do that," Heero said reflexively, but there was no heat in the tone.

"Why not?" Duo asked as he resettled his grip. "I'm cold too."

Heero said nothing.

After a while, Duo shifted again, laying his head on the plastic. "Hey, Heero," he said, his voice returned to normal conversation, "look up."

Heero followed his pointing hand. "See those stars? The ones that form a sort of 'K'? That's the constellation Orion."

Heero studied the formation of stars carefully, as though memorizing facts for a test. Duo either didn't notice or ignored his analytical demeanor, shifting his hand to another portion of sky. "And over there, the bright stars form a sort of pot, like a saucepan. You're supposed to be able to use it to tell direction somehow, but I'm not sure how. And there..."

He continued with his monologue, pointing to each of the constellations, even ones he didn't know the names of, even a few he'd made up. Heero just listened, and said nothing.

By morning, Heero was almost completely back to normal. Duo was a little startled by how quickly he recovered, but then supposed he should have expected no less from the man who set his own broken bones. Still, he was pleased that Heero was awake and aware again. Without the task of caring for Heero, he quickly bored of the uninteresting scenery and began chattering to Heero about whatever crossed his mind.

"Do you always talk this much?" Heero interrupted him at last, with a hint of irritation in his voice.

For a moment, Duo was left speechless, but then he sputtered out, "Well, no, not always, but what else is there to do out here?"

"Talking as much as you do, you'll dehydrate that much the faster," Heero said brusquely. "You would do better to remain silent and conserve your energy." He paused, suddenly, as a thought crossed his mind. He could remember Duo helping him to drink, and he could remember taking a sparing drink from the canteen after he had awoken that morning. But he didn't recall Duo drinking at all. Before he could say anything about it, though, Duo interrupted his thoughts with a groan.

Duo dropped his head down onto his arms. His voice came from behind them, quiet but resigned. "Heero, do you honestly think that's going to make one damn bit of difference?" he asked.

Heero's mouth tightened, and he looked away. Duo propped up his head on his folded arms. "I mean, really, what does it matter whether we die of starvation in two days or a week?" he said seriously. "Either way, we're going to die. Nothing we do can change that, but I sure as hell don't want to spend the time sitting in stony silence counting nonexistent seagulls!"

He waited, expectantly, but got no answer. Duo sighed melodramatically and raised his eyes to the sky. "Why do I even bother?" he asked.

"Why did you?"

"Huh?" Duo jerked his gaze down to meet Heero's penetrating stare. "What do you mean?"

"Why did you jump after me?" Heero said. "It was a foolish thing to do. You risked your life on a gamble you had very little chance of success in. Now instead of just one pilot, we've lost two. What were you thinking?"

"Oh, hell, Heero," Duo sighed. "You don't go easy, do you? I don't even know what I was thinking. I just knew that I couldn't let a buddy down, you know? I don't think I could have lived with myself if I'd just stood there and watched you die while there was something I could do to help. That's not the way partners act. I mean, sure, you can be a stone cold bastard when you want to be, and your social skills could use a lot of work, but you're a damn fine pilot, too."

Heero considered that. "So you saved me because I'm a good pilot?"

"Yes! No!" Duo exclaimed. "Look, I can't deny that my first priority is the Alliance, and that if there's someone around who can do half the serious damage to them that I think you can, then I'll go all out to cheer them on. But it's more than that. You're a pilot too, like me, and there's a connection in that. No one can understand a pilot better than another pilot. We're on the same side, the same team, and we gotta support each other, because no-one else will."

"How do you know we're on the same side?" Heero said, a touch of curiosity tingeing his otherwise indifferent voice. "Our orders come from different sources. I was not even aware that other Gundams existed until I saw yours."

"Orders?" Duo grumbled, propping his head against his fist. "You can't seriously tell me you're working from orders. Well, I mean, sure you have a general situation and goal in mind, but whoever's giving you orders isn't here, doesn't have all the information that you do, so how could he possibly know what's best? It's not about orders, Heero. It's about having the same goals, the same reasons for fighting. Or do you even have reasons of your own for fighting? I wonder," he finished with a bitter snort, turning to stare out over the water.

"I don't know," Heero said unexpectedly, drawing Duo's attention back to him. "I'm not certain of the reason for anything. All I know is that the only reason for my existence is fighting. Completing the missions I'm given. I have to be a soldier, the best soldier, and soldiers don't question what they're told."

"Now that's where you're wrong," Duo said emphatically. "Soldiers that take orders and don't question are no better than the people who are terrorizing the colonies. The *best* soldier is the one who questions orders and gives himself his own missions, and who fights out of a conviction that they've chosen the right thing to fight for."

"I..." Heero trailed off for a minute, looking surprisingly vulnerable. "I don't know if I can believe that," he said finally.

Duo sighed. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter now," he said wearily.

For a long moment, they just floated there, each absorbed in his own thoughts, until Duo stirred again. "Ne, Heero?" he said.

"What, Duo?"

"Would you have jumped after me?" Duo asked with a trace of wistfulness in his voice.

After a long moment of contemplation, Heero nodded. "I would have," he said.

"Oh..." Duo grinned, a little foolishly. "Thanks, buddy."

"Of course, I wouldn't have failed to get you back onto the ship, so there would be no loss involved," Heero told him seriously.

"Hey!"

By noon, the plastic spar looked like it had been mauled by a pack of angry cats. Scratches covered the flat surfaces, some shallow, some deep enough that tiny slivers of plastic were peeling away. The perpetrator of the damage, the switchblade knife, was buried two inches into the plastic at the edge of the corner.

The earliest of the scratch marks was from when Duo got bored, and convinced Heero to play tic-tac-toe with him. Duo had won once, and the six following games were a draw, which had convinced Duo that the game was too simple and there were not enough variables. He had suggested that they try four-square tic-tac-toe, rather than the traditional three-square. That game had lasted somewhat longer, but after nine repetitions it too had fallen into draws. The latest and most confused marks came from the two games played of five-square, with wild spaces, before they had been forced to abandon the game for fear of causing structural damage to their makeshift liferaft.

Though the ocean water kept their legs cool, the bright sun overhead made their upper bodies uncomfortably hot. While Duo was occupied studying the results of their last game, chewing distractedly on his lip, Heero reached for the canteen of water and weighed it in his hand. Keeping a narrow glance on Duo, he opened the top and took a sparing drink. Duo glanced up at the sound of water sloshing in the canteen, but then looked down. Heero lowered the canteen from his lips, staring at Duo. Strange...

"Do you want a drink?" he asked abruptly, holding out the canteen. Duo looked startled, then for a moment guilty, before he managed to cover it up.

"Ah, no thanks, Heero, I'm not thirsty," he said, sounding sheepish.

Heero nodded in agreement. "Yes. You must have drunk a lot of water while I was asleep."

"Um..." Duo slid his eyes away from Heero.

"But you didn't, did you?" Heero went on, ignoring Duo's discomfort. "It weighs the same this morning as it did when I went to sleep last night. You haven't drunk any of it at all."

"I said it wasn't thirsty, okay?" Duo snapped, temper flaring. "Besides, you needed it more..."

"Don't be an idiot!" Heero growled, lunging up on his elbows to glare down at Duo disapprovingly. "My metabolism is not the same as a normal human's. You require more water than I do to function!"

"You were injured!" Duo yelled back, pushing himself up so that he faced Heero eye to eye. "Look, I'm from L2, okay? I'm used to being thirsty!"

"You're going to be useless within a day if you let yourself get dehydrated," Heero growled back, his own anger rising. He couldn't figure out why, really, Duo's actions bothered him so much. If Duo chose to pass up his share of the supplies, well, that was just his loss. But for some reason it made him angry, that Duo should put him first like that, when he didn't even need such special treatment.

"Oh! And God forbid I be useless!" Duo snarled. "What would you do if I become a 'liability,' huh? Kill me? That seems just like how your paranoid mind would work!"

That stung, and Heero's temper snapped. "You're going to kill *yourself,* at this rate!" he growled. He gripped the open canteen in one hand, and in a sudden move, grabbed hold of Duo with his other arm and dragged him forward. Duo's mouth opened in a protest, and without thinking, Heero tried to force the rest of the water down the baka's throat.

Duo yelled a curse, then choked and coughed on the mouthful of water. His free hand clocked Heero upside the head, triggering a residual wave of dizziness, and his grip on Duo loosened. Duo shoved backwards, pulling himself completely out of Heero's grasp and toppling off the edge of the plastic. He disappeared under the surface with a splash, and the entire raft rocked unsteadily. Heero grabbed wildly for the precious canteen, barely managing to catch it before it tumbled upside down and spilled the last of its contents. Duo reappeared, coughing and spitting, and grabbed hold of his edge of the plastic spar, stabilizing it.

"Damn it, Yuy!" he growled, in between coughs. "You really are trying to kill me, aren't you?"

Heero flushed slightly. He really didn't know what had caused his outburst, but he couldn't help but feel a little ashamed of it. "I'm... sorry," he said, a trifle stiffly. "I wasn't trying to hurt you." That came out a little more naturally.

"S'okay." Duo sighed. It really wasn't worth the energy of being angry.

Heero looked aside, avoiding looking at Duo, and his eyes fell on the much-contested canteen. "There's still some left," he said quietly, and held it out. "Drink it."

Duo turned his face to the side. "No way," he growled.

"I won't drink it either," Heero said flatly. "It will just go to waste."

"Maybe we should save it," Duo suggested, a faint tone of apology in his voice.

Heero was silent for a moment, and then sighed. "It's what you said before," he said wearily. "There really isn't any point to that."

Duo's mouth twisted in wry agreement. He eyed the bright silver meditatively. "Half each?" he suggested.

Heero thought about it, then nodded. He took the canteen, and took a long drink from it, then passed it over to Duo. Duo did likewise, and then handed it back, one eyebrow raised. Heero growled as he heard the tiny sloshing sounds inside, Duo hadn't taken the extra that Heero had left for him. And why had he done that? His thoughts confused him. He didn't know.

For a while, they were silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Heero held the canteen in his hands, unfocused gaze on it. Duo stared out over the ocean. At length, he sighed.

"You know," he said quietly, "it's kind of ironic. I came all the way to Earth, to all this water... and I'm going to die of thirst after all."

Heero looked up. "You're from L2?" he asked. "That's what you said before."

Duo nodded, and Heero tried to bring to mind everything he knew of L2. Most of his information was related to the Alliance in one way or another, but he knew that of the Colonies, the Alliance had allocated the largest number of troops to act as a policing force in L2. "That is one of the poorer Colonies, isn't it?" he asked, searching his mind for more information.

"Yeah." There was undisguised bitterness in Duo's tone, and when Heero looked at him, he wouldn't meet the other's eyes. "Look, I... You know, I'm glad that you want to talk an' all, but that isn't something I particularly like to talk about, okay?" he said.

"Understandable," Heero said after a moment, and Duo breathed a small sigh of relief. But, unexpectedly, Heero continued to speak. "But I would like to know your reasons why."

"Why what?"

"Why you fight," Heero said patiently. "From the things you said, it's clear to me that you weren't raised to be a soldier, as I was. Why did you choose to pilot the Gundam? It's not a decision to be made lightly, or rashly. I would like to know why."

Duo sighed. "Look, why do you wanna know, anyway?" he said, a hint of pain in his voice. "It's a really long story, and it's... complicated."

"We're not going anywhere," Heero reminded him. He folded his arms in a pointed gesture of stubbornness.

"All right, all right!" Duo said in exasperation. "You win! I'll tell you, okay?"

Heero settled back, not pushing him any further, and waited patiently. Duo's brow furrowed as he frowned, obviously thinking carefully about what he wanted to say. Just before Heero would have prompted him again, Duo sighed. "I guess," he said, "it begins with the church.

"I'm a war orphan. There are lots of them on L2, too many for the colony government to provide for. There's not enough space in the orphanages, so most of us ended up out of the streets and in gangs. We would steal food to eat, so I guess in a sense I've been training in stealth since I could walk. If we stole from the other colonists, the occupying Alliance troops didn't care, but there was never enough, so one day we tried stealing from the military base instead. They cared a whole lot more then, and the next day they went into the slums and started taking apart our old lair.

"We were lucky. A local priest, Father Maxwell, agreed to take us in. That's where I got my name, y'know. I didn't have a last name, so they just called me Duo of Maxwell Church." A smile played about his lips, of fond memories. "They found homes for the other orphans, but not me. I was too much of a trouble maker." He grinned, and Heero could easily believe it.

"So, the Church became my home." Duo sighed. "I was only there for a little while, but I was happy there. The nun who lived there was like a mother to me, and Father Maxwell, well, you'll never find a better man. He was even going to help me to..." He trailed off, and the smile faded.

"But, then the Alliance happened." His voice hardened, turning almost cold. "There was a group of rebels, on our Colony, that had gotten into a tangle with the local troops. They came into our church for shelter, bringing their wounded in, both the rebels and the innocents who had gotten caught up in the mess. There were more than two hundred of them in the Church, most of them wounded."

His breath caught on the end of that word, and suddenly Heero remembered the name he had only half-recognized before. Maxwell. Maxwell Church. Maxwell Church Massacre.

"And the damned Alliance bombed the place to the ground." Duo's eyes were hard as stone, voice devoid of anything except anger. Heero sat back, dismayed. This was not what he had expected to hear.

"So, you fight to get revenge?" he said slowly. It made sense, but it wasn't really what he'd expected. It didn't seem like a good reason to him.

"No!" Duo denied hotly, eyes widening, before he dropped them aside. "Partly," he said in a softer voice.

"What's the rest of it, then?"

"Ah, shit," Duo groaned, and looked miserable. "Look, it's a stupid reason, okay? It doesn't make sense."

Emotions never made sense either, thought Heero. And if the reason to fight was one of emotion, then that would explain why he was missing both. He leaned forward, across the plastic between them, until his face was only inches from Duo's. "Tell me anyway," he said quietly.

Duo grumbled something Heero couldn't quite catch, but it sounded unfriendly. Then, aloud, he said, "It's because I wanted to become bigger than Death, okay?"

Heero thought about it. It made no sense. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Duo sighed. "It's just... when the attack came, I couldn't do anything to stop it. I felt helpless. I didn't like that feeling. When I..." He trailed off, biting his lip, then plunged ahead. "When I was really little, some people who were very important to me... got sick and died. I wanted to be a doctor, the best doctor there ever was, so that I could stop people from getting sick." He closed his eyes. "Father Maxwell was going to help me. He said that it was a good choice, that I had a talent for helping people. But then he died, too, and I couldn't help him. I wanted to stop soldiers from killing innocent people, ever again. I wanted to be bigger than war, so that what happened to Maxwell Church would never happen again."

His voice trailed off into a whisper for the last words, and he stopped, closing his eyes tightly as though to block out some vision. Heero leaned back slightly, a little shocked and startled.

Heero wasn't saying anything. Duo sighed. "Look, just forget about it, okay? It's stupid..."

"I think it's a very good reason," Heero said.

Duo blinked, and his mouth dropped open. "You do?"

Heero nodded, and Duo's eyes widened at the expression on his face. He looked -- vulnerable, almost, and when he spoke, there was a note of hesitant uncertainty in his voice. "I think... that it's better to have a reason, like that... than to fight for nothing at all," he said.

"For nothing at all? What do you mean?" Duo asked.

Heero looked up at him, and met his eyes. "That's a better way to fight," he said quietly. "Because you care about what you're fighting for. I... was not supposed to care. I wasn't supposed to fight for any reason except that they told me to. But... when I fight, people... they... get hurt."

"Heero," Duo said softly. "That's not your fault. This is war, and people get hurt. Much as we'd like them too, the people who get hurt aren't always the ones doing the fighting. It sucks, but it's not all your fault, and it's okay to feel sad when innocent people get hurt."

Heero shook his head. "You don't understand," he said, quiet anger in his voice. "I know that people get hurt when I fight. But I'm not... do you see... I'm not supposed to *care* that people get hurt. You're allowed to care, you're even *supposed* to, because caring about people is the reason you fight. Me, I don't have a reason. I don't have anything."

He finished, and hung his head. He'd said too much, he knew it, things that were too close to the secret, forbidden heart of his doubts. What was worse, he had told Duo that he didn't care about those he killed. Surely, Duo would think him as bad as the soldiers who had destroyed his beloved Church -- but it wasn't true. He was even worse than them.

The touch on his arm surprised him, and he looked up to find Duo's face leaning in close. His expression was soft and sympathetic, with a hint of anger behind it, but the anger was not directed at Heero. "That's not true," he said quietly. "You don't have nothing. Not as long as you've got friends."

"Friends?" Heero repeated. It was a strange concept. "I don't think I have any friends. Why would anyone want to be my friend?"

"Sure you do." Duo smiled, not just the wicked grin that Heero was familiar with, but a real, warm smile. "You've got me, after all. And as for why -- well, hell, I don't really have a reason. I just like you. You're a bastard, a cold-hearted, unfriendly, antisocial, masochistic --"

"Hey," Heero objected to this growing list with a frown, but Duo's smile only widened.

"--stuck up son-of-a-bitch, but I like you," Duo finished, smirking openly at Heero. Heero glared at him, but it didn't seem to put a dent in his pleased expression, and he couldn't seem to hold the glare.

"Yes, well," and Heero paused, thinking. "You're also an undisciplined, talkative, irresponsible, hotheaded idiot..."

Duo lost his smirk very fast.

"...but I guess I like you too," Heero finished off, acquiring a tiny smirk of his own.

Duo's grin returned full force. He stuck out his arm, holding up his hand like he was preparing to arm wrestle. "Friends?" he offered.

Heero nodded, and took hold of his hand in a mirrored pose. "Hai. Friends."

Friends. It was a good thing, that set well in his mind and heart. So why did it not quite seem to fit the feelings in his gut? It made him happy to think of being Duo's friend, but it made him sad too. Why? Were his instincts trying to tell him something, trying to warm him about Duo? That didn't seem to be right. No, it felt good, but... not complete. Disappointing, somehow, like he had missed the point.

That thought troubled him greatly, and he spent a long time that night staring at Duo's sleeping face and wondering what it was he was missing. There was something that hovered about Duo's face while he slept that spoke to the missing part, promising him rewards unimagined if only he could think what more it was he still needed.

In the early morning hours, he must have drifted off to sleep, because he opened his eyes to find Duo looking at him, with an expression on his face that twisted in his gut to see. He realized that Duo had captured one of his hands in his own while Heero had slept, and was running his thumb over Heero's knuckles in a gentle motion.

It send a tingling feeling up through his arm, and with a shock he pushed himself upright against the plastic and stared at Duo.

The heartbreaking expression deepened, and Duo had to swallow before he could speak. "If only it had been enough," he began. "If only it could be enough to be your friend, I wouldn't have minded. I wouldn't mind being out here with a friend. That would be a good way to go. But why... why..." His face screwed up like he was holding something back, and he looked away.

"Enough?" Duo took a deep breath. "What is more than enough, to you?" Heero asked him.

"Why did I have to fall in love with you, too?" Duo burst out, a strangled cry of grief in that question. "It isn't fair! Why did I have to fall in love with you if I'm just going to lose you right away? Why?"

Heero stiffened, shocked. Duo loved him. Was that the more? Yes, his heart said. That's what was missing. And it wasn't really missing at all, it was there, you just didn't have a name to call it. "You love me?" he said softly.

Duo nodded, his jaw clenched tightly. He still wouldn't meet Heero's eyes, but he clutched his hand.

"You love me," Heero said again, a touch wondering. It was like a sudden leap of gestalt; all of a sudden, all the information was there in his brain, all the explanations he had been missing before. He was in love. That was it. He reached out and touched Duo's face gently, wanting to share the sudden joy. "Duo, I love you too."

"Don't say that," Duo warned him, ragged with a touch of anger behind it. "Don't say that if you don't mean it."

"I do mean it." Duo didn't answer. Heero went on to explain, the words coming to him to fit the ideas in his head as he needed them. "You know, you're the best pilot I've ever seen. I want to know what it would be like to fight with you. I want to help you win this war, to have you help me. I want you to be my reason for fighting. And I want to stay with you even afterwards, if we both survive. I want us to start a life together, to enjoy the peace together. You've done something terrible to me, Duo. You've made me want to live again. I want a life, and I want a life with you in it."

Duo whipped his head around, eyes widening as they met with Heero's and saw the absolute truth in them. "I want," he began faintly, then swallowed and went on, "a house. A real house, not an apartment." He paused, as if fearful of Heero's response.

"Where do you want your house?" Heero asked him, raising their joined hands and stroking his thumb over Duo's. "On the Earth? Or in the Colonies?"

"On Earth," Duo answered. "And I want... I want to have a lawn full of plants, trees, and a big picture window that you can look at them through. And I want to have a bedroom with a real bed, a big queen-sized bed with an actual mattress, not a cot or a pile of straw. And..." He trailed off, and the fair skin on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose flushed red. "I want you to be with me, in that bed."

Heero felt his own breath catch, in response. He lifted Duo's hand, and brushed the back of it against his cheek. "Then that's what you'll have," he told him. "When the war is over."

"Yeah..." Duo sighed. "When the war is over."

He hesitated, then, and Heero looked at him questioningly. Blushing a little more, Duo move towards him, his hand hovering over Heero's collarbone. Understanding the unspoken request, Heero pulled Duo towards him, and he came, settling against Heero like they had always been that way.

"Ne, Duo?" he said, hesitantly, after a minute. "Would you do something for me?"

"Sure, Heero," Duo replied, sounding a bit confused. "What do you want?"

"Would you mind... letting your hair down?" Heero said, uncertainly. It felt like a very intimate request, but if there was never going to be another opportunity, then it was a sight he didn't want to miss.

"Heer--" Duo cut himself off, sounding a little bit shocked. Then he gave a little sigh. "You know, it's been sitting in salt water for three days without a brush. It's going to be a rat's nest."

"I really don't care about that, Duo," Heero said quietly. "It would just like to see it... if you don't mind."

"I guess not," Duo said slowly, and then his lips quirked in a smile. "And anyway, it's pulling at my scalp like a bitch."

He reached back for the end of the braid, and moved his hands to the tie, but Heero put his hands over Duo's to stop them. Duo looked up at him, surprised, but allowed him to undo the tight, salt-encrusted knots and set the tie aside. His hair remained in a braid shape at first, so Heero used his fingers to comb it loose. His fingers met a knot in an inch, and Duo winced, but didn't complain.

When Duo leaned back against Heero, his hair fanned out in the water behind them. It was tangled and ratty, but the sun caught salt crystals in it like diamonds. Heero felt satisfaction. Now, he thought, he was complete, and that thought turned to sadness that he would never know better perfection.

He felt a strange coolness against his collarbone, and pulled back, startled. It had come from Duo. Salt water filled his eyes, and when he blinked they rolled down to meld into the salt water ocean. It was beautiful, but Heero didn't like it at all. Duo met his eyes once, but then looked down, as if ashamed.

"Are you afraid?" Heero asked. It seemed to make sense to him; Duo was such a life-loving person, why shouldn't he fear losing it to the cold silence of death? But Duo shook his head no, the motion causing tears to spill over down his cheeks. "Then what's wrong?

"I'm just mad!" Duo blurted out, his voice rising sharply before he cut it off. "I knew when I chose to pilot my Gundam that I probably wasn't gonna live through the war, but, dammit, this isn't how I wanted to end it! I wanted to die fighting, making a difference, not forgotten out here by God and everybody while I have to watch another loved one die too."

"I didn't think I would ever get a chance to die loving someone," Heero said quietly. "I always thought that I would die, unmourned, in the fulfillment of my missions. I even looked forward to it. I accepted each new mission eagerly, hoping that this one would be the one where I could give my life for the cause."

After a pause, he continued. "But I don't want that any more. I don't want to die, but if I do have to die, then I'd rather it would be in the presence of someone who would cry for me."

"It's just not fair," Duo whispered, eyes closed sending tears down his cheeks. "That we'll never get a chance to finish it. That I won't be able to fight any more, that I can't stop them from doing what they're doing to the Colonies. That I'm never going to have a home and a family and -- and a dog. That we're never going to live past sixteen." His voice wavered, and dropped slightly. "That I'll never get a chance to make love to you, or to fight by you..."

Heero's eyes remained dry, but he swallowed hard against the lump in his throat as he pulled Duo's head down against his collarbone. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm sorry that it happened this way."

Neither of them said anything for a long minute, and Heero slowly moved his hand through Duo's bangs as Duo took hitching breaths and swallows against his chest. At last he quieted, and for a long moment there was nothing.

Then, "Ne, Heero?" he said softly.

"Hai, Duo?" Heero said, equally soft.

"Do you think..." Duo hesitated, and tried again. "Do you think that if this hadn't happened, if we hadn't ended out here alone together... d'you think we would have fallen in love anyway?"

Heero thought about it, for a long time, and then he said slowly, "No, Duo. I don't think we would have."

"Me neither," Duo sighed.

Then, he pushed himself off Heero's chest, and smiled a little. "Then, I guess I'm not so sorry after all."

Time went too quickly, and too slowly, after that. They didn't do much, just floated there in each other's arms with nothing left to say. Duo talked a bit, of things of no consequence, but a lethargy was quickly taking hold of him and he soon dropped into silence. Towards sunset, he dropped into a doze, not a proper sleep, but an almost trance like state from which he did not waken. Heero held him, and felt; a little anger, still, that Duo had wasted all the water on him and taken none for himself, and a little anger that Duo was going on ahead and leaving him here. Mostly, though, he just felt as though he could weep.

After the sun set, the stars came out, but Heero didn't see them, only blurry reflections of starlight in the water. He just stared at the flickering, dim-cool lights, until finally it occurred to him that he couldn't see them anymore.

Suddenly, his senses came back onto the alert, and he lifted his head. The weather was changing. The gentle, undulating waves were changing into something shorter, choppier, though not dangerously so as they had been the night of the storm. The wind had shifted direction, becoming brisker and more certain of its path. A surge of excitement went through Heero briefly, no words, just a sudden and half-coherent burst of emotion.

A gust of wind pushed at him from behind, and on a sudden decision he kicked his legs strongly and swam with it. At the worst he would exhaust himself to no purpose, and even that was not such a bad thing, if it would put him in the same place Duo was.

The wind kept up, and he went on swimming with it to help, for what felt like an eternity. Everything around him was dark, even the starlight swallowed by the water, but he went on pushing blindly ahead, his heart in his mouth. He was pushing the edges of his limits, he could feel it, but he did let himself slow.

Finally, dawn split the air, a pale light flashing over the horizon and spattering against the waves. He peered forward into the lightening sky, and nearly shouted aloud. Ahead of him, still low and indistinct, was a dark rolling mass that could only be land.

The wind was dropping off, but he no longer needed it; the exhaustion could not drag him down with the sight of his goal so close at hand. He was panting, muscles shaking with the effort to drive himself and Duo's limp body through the water.

The last hundred feet were the hardest, somehow; the flow of the water suddenly turned back, and abruptly Heero found himself bathed by an unexpected warmth. His skin had grown accustomed to the chill water of the open ocean, and the warmer water over the shelf felt almost like a shock. As he approached shore, the water got rougher as the waves became surf. With a growl, he peeled himself away from the piece of shattered plastic they had clung to for the last three days, and shoved it away from him, pushing towards shore with Duo in his arms. The crate corner floundered, caught in the rougher undertow, tipped upwards, and then sank under the surface. Heero ignored it.

Duo stirred a bit in his arms as the water hit him up to his neck, but he couldn't spare the time or attention to make sure Duo's head was above the water as he struggled through the rough breaking surf. Once, a wave overwhelmed them, and when he pushed back to the surface Duo was coughing and sputtering beneath him. But by that time, the water was shallowing quickly, and Heero felt an almost painful shock as his feet hit solid ground for the first time in more than eighty hours. The feelings ran up his legs like electrical currents as he put weight on them, his own and Duo's.

Duo's eyes opened, his expression registering confusion. "Heero?" he said, and then had to cough at the saltwater in his throat. He swallowed, almost painfully, and his dazed eyes shifted around, taking in the situation. "Heero, what happened? Are we dead?"

Heero dragged himself above the low tide line and the water receded in a rush from around them. "No, Duo," he panted through teeth clenched in a fierce, exultant grin. "We're *not* dead. Not now. Not ever."

"What?" Shock entered Duo's voice, and with a bit more energy, he moved in Heero's grip, pulling himself up to stare around. "We made it?"

"That's right," Heero whispered. "We're going to live. We're going to live today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and all through this damn war and a hundred years after that. I promise you, we will survive together, and fight together, and we'll damn well build our life *together* when all the fighting is done."

Duo made a sharp sound in his throat, half exultant and half fearing. Slowly, he untangled from Heero's arms and dropped to the wet sand, and they both crept up the sharp-sloping beach. When at last they passed the high-tide mark, they stopped and leaned against each other, Duo trembling from cold, Heero from exertion. The air was colder on land than it had been over the ocean, and a sharp sea breeze blew at them. Duo lifted his face into it, blinking as the wind whipped strands of his loose hair into his eyes.

"We made it..." he said, sounding awed. "I can't believe it..."

"We did," Heero told him. "And you will."

Automatically, Duo shook his head, his eyes betraying his doubt and fear. "I don't know if I can believe it, Heero," he said sadly. "Maybe if we were anything else, I could find it in me to trust again. But we're soldiers. Anything could happen. Don't promise me you'll live when you know you can't control the future."

His shivers intensified, the water dripping off him and carrying his heat away with it. He cross his arms tightly over his chest, hunching over. A grip on his shoulder surprised him, and he looked up to see Heero, kneeling in the sand beside him, pulling him to sit upright. "Look at that, Duo," the soldier whispered fiercely, and Duo had to turn his head to look out over the ocean they had come from. "The sun rises, here on Earth. I can't promise you it will rise tomorrow because I can't control the sun, but I know that it will. I can't control the future either, but I know that we'll be all right."

Duo leaned against Heero's warmth, his body was weak but his mind was clear. "I have no reason to believe you, but I do," he said. "And I can't promise you that I'll never doubt, because I know I will. But... but..."

"What is it?" Heero asked him.

"But... if you can give me something, to keep in the times you're not there, then I think I can survive my doubt."

"Of course," Heero replied. "What should I give you?"

Duo turned his head back to look out at the sunrise. He didn't have to answer, so he didn't. The silence spoke for him quite well.