Pairing: Heero/Duo
Sins in Highlight: Lust, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: AU, sex, war, blood, profanity
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any of its characters.

Archivist's note: Merith commissioned art by Link Worshiper to go with this story. You can see the artwork here.

More Than All We've Ever Had
by Corazon del Fuego

If it is true that God created man, then it is also true that God created war. For it is in war that mankind defines itself as unique among the species. It is an integral part of our self-understanding -- as vital to the classification of human as is the mind's ability to conceive itself.

"Yuy!"

Heero looked up from his journal, meeting Trowa's eyes watching him from the hallway.

"O.R. and double-time it!"

A stub of a pencil marked his page. Heero folded the small journal and dropped it in the hip pocket of his knee-length white coat. He hopped up, leaving the half-dozen cots jokingly referred to as a doctors' lounge and jogging down the hall. A sharp turn to the right took him through double doors and into what the civilian eye would mistake for chaos.

Orderlies shuffled stretchers this way and that like they were cruising a packed parking lot for an empty space. Nurses leaned over crudely taped piles of blood and rags, what were once recognizable human bodies, shouted some orders and moved on to the next pile. Triage was the medical term for this circus. Determine the most critical cases and treat them first. If treatment was impossible or would tie up resources beyond acceptable standards, leave the patient to die. Triage was what they called playing God.

Heero navigated through the clamorous mass, brushing his way into the surgeons' preparatory room. He opened his locker, stripping to his dog tags and boxer shorts.

"Took you two long enough."

"Sorry, Trant. I guess we just don't have your attraction to the scent of fresh blood yet."

"You're going on report for that, Barton! You've got a femoral artery waiting for you in theater two, so get moving. Yuy, get your ass over here and get some scrubs on. Those soldiers don't have all day."

Heero hung his clothes up and shut his locker. A sterilized set of surgical scrubs was hanging by the doors to the operating rooms, the simple elastic design requiring no time at all to pull on. He washed his hands and forearms thoroughly, then backed his way into operating theater one.

"Here you are, Doctor," a nurse said, tying a face mask around Heero's head.

"What've we got?"

"Chest wound. Looks like a shrapnel explosion." The nurse pulled latex gloves onto Heero's hands, then held up a surgical gown so he could slide his arms in.

"X-rays?"

"They're coming out now."

Heero tilted his head, looking down at the young man lying on his table. He had sandy brown hair, and hazel eyes that were open but couldn't seem to focus on their own.

"Sergeant Nichol?" Heero asked, reading off the man's steel tags.

The patient nodded, making a grunting noise in his throat.

"Sergeant, my name is Captain Heero Yuy. I'll be your surgeon. I need you to relax and try to take some deep breaths."

Another grunt.

Heero looked to the anesthetist and nodded. "Put him under."

As the gas mask fitted over the patient's face, the O.R. doors swung open. A nurse came in with X-ray negatives, hanging them up on a lighted board. Heero examined the photos, noting areas of importance to the nurses with him, and got to work.

He cut his way into four bodies that day, and saved every one of them. Seven hours of non-stop surgery without enough of a break in between to even sit down. He stripped off his bloody protective wear once it was all done and dumped it in the O.R. hamper marked 'Bio-Hazard.' The sweaty, paper-fabric scrubs underneath were tossed in a bin in the locker room, the surgeon indulging in a hot shower before redressing and doing a post-operation evaluation of his patients.

As he examined Sergeant Nichol's bandages, a hand touched Heero's shoulder.

"Good work today."

He looked over his shoulder at the man behind him. "Thanks. How'd you do?"

"Eh. An arterial graft, a spleen rupture, and a double amputation." Captain Barton slid his hands into the pockets of his smock. "I thought I could save the right leg when they wheeled him in. Spent thirty minutes on it before I realized it was pointless."

"It wasn't pointless," Heero said, writing instructions for medication on Nichol's chart. "You gave it a shot and it didn't work out. Life works that way, Trowa." He slid the chart into its holder at the foot of the sergeant's bed. "The point is you tried. That and the fact that the guy's still alive mean he has more than enough to thank you for."

A small grin grew on the edge of Trowa's face. "You know, for someone so chronically depressed, you sure are optimistic."

"I am not chronically depressed." Heero brushed passed the taller man, pulling the chart from the other bed in the room.

"You certainly seem like it at times."

"Do I look like I need to be medicated?"

"I don't see how it could hurt."

Heero looked up from the patient's chart and gave his colleague a dead-pan stare. "I'm fine, Trowa. If you have the need to push drugs on someone, there are plenty of other people lying around this hospital that need them more than I do." He moved to the far side of the bed, checking the drip on the patient's I.V.

Trowa watched Heero busy himself for a moment, then shrugged and headed for the door. "You're not on call tonight, so go home and get some sleep when you're done."

"You don't get to pull rank on me."

"It wasn't an order." Trowa paused, his hand resting on the doorframe as he looked back. "It was a suggestion from a friend." He drummed his fingers on the wall and slipped into the hallway without another word.

After finishing his rounds, Heero left the army base hospital, surprised that the sun was still setting when he stepped outside. He raised his right hand, fingers splayed to protect his eyes from the crimson light blazing on the horizon.

The walk to his private quarters was a short hundred meters, close enough that he could be summoned in the middle of the night for an emergency. Rows of long-house style barracks boarded the medical staff. The closest house to the hospital was divided into three self-sufficient apartments for the base's chief surgeons. Heero lived in the first apartment, Trowa in the second, and Major Trant Clark in the third.

Heero shut his apartment door and hung his coat up, pulling his journal from the pocket to read what he had written in the small book earlier. He sat at his desk, flipping on the lamp and folding the journal out flat. His fingers twisted to hold the short pencil, scratching more words onto the thin pages.

Can it be said, then, that God loves mankind? If it was his design for us to invent the tools of our own destruction, and use these tools on our fellow men, with the intention of causing suffering and death, then I must conclude that God's intentions for humanity are nothing less than sadistic, and that any hope we may retain for compassion can only be fulfilled by what goodness remains in the human heart.

"Yuy, H. Captain. Records say you were the primary physician in forty-three cases this month, is that correct?"

"Forty-three individual patients, yes. Forty-nine surgeries total."

Colonel Po smiled, looking over her glasses at Heero's rigid posture sitting on the other side of her desk. "I appreciate your specificity. Your file also shows you had a success rate of 98 percent. One patient died in your care."

"The inquiry board cleared me of culpability, ma'am."

"I sit on the inquiry board, Captain. I'm well-aware of our decisions."

Heero nodded, his gaze dropping. "Sorry, ma'am."

The colonel pushed her glasses up her nose, turning through pages in Heero's personnel file. "As you know, the purpose of these monthly interviews isn't just to review your success rate, which I should note is the highest among our surgical staff in the past four months. It's important that we also assess your competence to continue practicing under such stressful conditions."

The glasses came off, their naked, rimless lenses clattering on the desktop. Colonel Po's fingers wove together, a rounded chin resting on steepled forefingers. "You were drafted into the military after completing your residency and stationed out here on a base forty kilometers from the primary war zone. You've received new casualties on a daily basis, many of whom you've had to operate on extensively. You've seen all manner of death, carnage, and mental instability. Do you feel competent to continue practicing medicine under these conditions, Captain Yuy?"

Heero wondered if it was a trick question. "I wouldn't be a very good doctor if I abandoned those in need, Colonel."

"Of course not, but I'm asking if you think you're fit to provide care for those who need it."

Heero's chin lifted. He squared his shoulders and nodded. "Yes. I believe I am completely competent, ma'am."

Colonel Po smiled, sliding her glasses back on before writing in Heero's file. "Good, because if you drop out on me, this hospital is fucked," she said, turning a page. "There's a notation in here that you were prescribed a sleeping aid."

Heero nodded. "When I first arrived I couldn't sleep because of the heat."

"Are you still using the medication?"

"I never used the medication, ma'am. The full bottle of pills is still in my apartment." He grinned at the curious glance shot at him. "I made myself get used to the heat. Call it paranoia, but I don't like being under the influence of medication."

"A doctor who doesn't like taking medicine," the colonel mused, breaking into a wide smile and shaking her head. "Well that's got to be a new one." She made a final note and closed the file folder, adding it to a stack of others. "I'd say you're perfectly fit to continue your work here, Captain. You're a skilled surgeon and I'm proud to have you working in my hospital."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"However..." There was a pause to her speech, throwing the word out as a warning that she had more to say. "New military regulations demand that anytime a patient dies under the direct care of a physician, that physician must undergo psychiatric evaluation within ninety days. And while I'm completely confident in you, Captain Yuy, your standing with the military is in question. I expect you to report to the hospital psychiatrist at thirteen-thirty this afternoon so we can get this formality out of the way."

Heero nodded, a half-second slower than usual. "Yes, ma'am."

He was dismissed from the colonel's office and checked his wristwatch on the way out. Oh-nine-forty. There was still enough time for him to do his morning run-through in the post-surgery ward and make it to the basketball courts by eleven, barring an emergency.

He took a pen from his coat's breast pocket and turned into a recovery room. "How are you feeling, Sergeant Nichol?" Heero pulled the patient's chart from the foot of his bed.

"All right, I think. I was having some really weird dreams," Nichol answered, his brown eyes clear and awake.

"That's a side-effect of the pain killers." Heero made a note to lower the dosage. "Do you have any discomfort or pain in your chest?"

"A little."

Heero carefully lifted the bandages, examining the stapled-together body under them. "No sign of infection. In all likelihood you won't have a scar from the surgery. With medication, the cuts and burns from the explosion might heal as well." He pressed the head of his stethoscope to Nichol's chest. "Slow, deep breaths, please."

The sergeant complied, his chest raising and lowering slowly as his took in air.

Heero pulled the stethoscope from his ears and wrapped it around his neck, writing a note of approval on the patient's chart.

"Can I ask you a question, doctor?"

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

Heero paused half way into the word "pulmonary" and looked up. "Twenty-five. Why?"

"Just thought you looked pretty young. You know, for a doctor."

There was something ironic that nibbled on Heero's stomach when a man who still had "teen" attached to the end of his age called him young. He put his head down and finished writing. "Some people are born with a talent for painting or playing the cello. For me, the only thing I've ever wanted to be was a surgeon. Somehow I just knew it was my talent, even though I never picked up a scalpel until I was in medical school."

"Guess I'm lucky you're the one that operated on me then," Nichol said.

Heero dropped the chart back into its holder and slipped his pen in the breast pocket of his smock. "I don't believe in luck."

The orange ball sailed through the air, spinning backwards relative to its arched path. It hit the back of the rim and fell through the net below, dropping to the ground with a fleshy thud.

"Lucky shot."

Heero grinned and wiped his forehead on the absorbent cotton band on his wrist. "Score?"

"Fourteen-ten," Trowa said. He passed the ball and set his hands on his hips, rocky abs flexing with each heavy breath.

The desert sun was quickly approaching mid-day, stirring up hot wind that streamed through the base's chain-link fences from the sandy expanse beyond. The eastern mountain ridge provided some protection in the morning, but nothing now stood between the all-too-close sun and the two men below it.

Heero checked the ball, tucked it close to his gut, and faced off. Trowa's long arms spread out wide, as did his stance, and he carefully watched to see where the ball would go. Heero swayed left, then right, faked left again and spun, sweat flying off bronze shoulders and evaporating in the dry air as he ducked under a long arm. Trowa chased him to the basket, but the lay-up was quick and simple.

"Sixteen-ten," Heero said, trying not to sound overly smug.

They called the game at twenty-seventeen, favoring an unresolved ending over heat stroke. Winner by default, Heero was obligated to buy lunch for the both of them, which he promised to do after they showered.

"I'll leave my door open," he said. "Just come in when you're ready." Heero unlocked his apartment and shivered as the relatively cool air hit his wet skin. He closed the door behind himself, leaving it unlocked as he went to the bedroom and peeled his shorts and jockstrap off.

The shower was cool as he washed off the sweat and microscopic layer of sand sticking to the exposed parts of his body. Heero leaned his left hand on the shower wall below the head, soaking his chocolate hair through. His right hand gravitated on its own to his limp cock, giving it a few gentle tugs and rolling his balls with his fingers. He let out a heavy sigh and shut off the water.

After drying off, he wrapped a towel around his hips and opened the bathroom door, noticing the sounds of a television newscast in the front room. He looked out the bedroom door and saw the back of Trowa's head poking out over the couch. Heero pulled a clean pair of army green boxers out of his footlocker, tossing his towel onto the bed before sliding them up his legs. Next he grabbed a pair of regulation khaki shorts and a faded green t-shirt with a ghostly white medical cross silk-screened over the left breast and back.

"Ready to go?" Heero asked, calling to the front room as he picked up his wallet and keys.

Trowa shut off the television and stood up, lifting his arms over his head. He wore a matching shirt that rode up his stomach as he stretched. "Just waiting on you."

In addition to the slop served for free to enlisted soldiers, the officers' mess hall offered more flavorful and easily identifiable items to eat. A small stipend was provided to each of them monthly, anything beyond which could be purchased out of pocket. As he picked at his ravioli, Heero noted that if he didn't start losing basketball games soon, he'd be cashing paychecks just to feed his friend.

"What's on your mind?"

Heero looked up, meeting Trowa's gaze. "Nothing," he said, shaking his head. He shoveled a noodle pocket into his mouth, savoring the squish and tang of non-processed cheese on his tongue. "The colonel set me up with a shrink this afternoon."

Trowa's eyes lit up. "Ahh. This is your first trip to the staff psych, isn't it?"

Heero nodded.

"It's nothing to worry about -- just a basic survey to make sure you haven't become too unstable."

"Too unstable?"

Trowa grinned and lifted his water glass. "No one in their right mind would be out here, Heero. They want us crazy, just not too crazy. Insanity within acceptable limits."

"Sounds like military thinking," Heero said.

Trowa laughed. "Can I ask you a serious question, though?"

"Shoot."

"When's the last time you got laid?"

"... You call that a serious question."

"Well, I am serious. I want to know."

Heero sighed and thought. "Are you talking about actual sex or...?"

"Blow job or better," Trowa said with a shrug.

Heero thought. "Seven months."

Trowa whistled and shook his head. "Wow. Maybe this shrink trip is right on time, then."

Heero gave his friend a dead-pan stare and tried to enjoy the rest of his lunch.

Damn Trowa to hell.

That was the single thought that passed through Heero's mind when he walked into the hospital psychiatrist's office and found an attractive young woman crawling across the carpet on all fours, collecting scattered papers. He wouldn't have normally seen the sexual connotations to this picture had Trowa not subtly maneuvered them into his head. He cleared his throat, looked upward, and knocked on the open door.

The woman sat back on her flat-heeled shoes and combed her honey-colored hair behind her ears. "Sorry, I just dropped a stack of papers everywhere. Please have a seat, Captain." She made a graceful gesture to the couch, grabbed up the last loose sheet and carried the disorganized pile to her desk.

Heero nodded and sat, trying to forget every pornographic movie he'd ever seen. Doctor/patient scenes were never his favorite, but couches were fair game.

The psychiatrist ran her hands down the front of her skirt, which was made of navy cotton too comfortable to be military issue. Tell-tale sign of a civilian uniform. She picked up a folder and closed the office door, smiling at Heero politely as she sat in the easy chair perpendicular to the couch.

Leather, Heero thought. Of all things, her chair had to be made of leather.

"Would you prefer me to address you as Doctor or Captain?" she asked. She uncapped a pen and opened the folder in her lap.

"Either is fine."

The psychiatrist looked at him and smiled. "Let's just go with Captain then to prevent confusion. You can call me Doctor Darlian." She folded back the top pages of a legal pad, which already had writing scribbled across them. "Your commanding officer explained why we're meeting today, didn't she?"

Heero nodded. "New regulations."

The pen scratched on the paper. "Because you lost a patient."

"Yes."

"I understand that it's rare for patients to die in your care."

Heero tried to read what was being written, unable to decipher the psychiatrist's shorthand. "It was the first in four months."

"No one you've treated has died in the last four months?" Darlian looked up, the pen finishing the line off and pausing before starting the next.

"Not while they were in my care, no. I don't have contact with my patients after they're discharged from the hospital."

Darlian nodded, her pen starting up again. "Tell me about the patient who died."

Heero took a deep breath, feeling like a bacterial culture with a lab technician hovering over it and writing constant observations. "Severe thoracic trauma, which resulted in unilateral hemopneumothorax. We attempted to drain the pleural cavity, but-"

"Captain?" Darlian interrupted. "I'm sorry but it's been a while since I had a seminar on the anatomy of the torso." She smiled, sweetly, and crossed her legs. "Could you tell me what happened in layman's terms?"

Heero cleared his throat and nodded. "All right. The patient had a severe chest wound."

"Your patient was a woman, yes?"

"That's correct."

"Do you know what caused her injuries?"

"An explosion of some kind."

"It was a car-bombing."

"That's possible. I don't remember."

"It was a car-bombing," Darlian repeated. "Tell me what you can remember about her."

"The patient's right lung had collapsed and the chest cavity was filling with blood. We attempted to drain the cavity, but there was too much arterial damage. Blood was filling the chest faster than we could repair it. The pressure caused suffocation."

"That's all you remember?"

"I've operated on over thirty patients in the last three weeks. Sorry if I'm forgetting any details."

Darlian was quiet a moment, making no sound except the scratching of her pen. Heero tried to get another look at her writing, then dropped his gaze to the woman's smooth legs, visible from the knees down when they were crossed.

"Captain, do you have an animosity toward death?"

Heero straightened, his eyes snapping back to Darlian's face. "No."

"I ask because in the time we've spent together, you haven't used the words 'death', or 'dead', or 'died' even once."

"Death is a pre-existing condition of life, Doctor," Heero said, matching stares with Darlian. "I don't think of death as my enemy."

"Who is your enemy then, Heero?"

Heero's jaw tightened. They sat in silence while uncomfortable seconds ticked away.

There was a knock at the door, breaking the quiet like a thunderclap at a tea party. Darlian calmly rose from her chair and answered it.

"Doctor," the office secretary said, "your thirteen-forty-five appointment is here."

"Of course, tell him I'll be ready in just a moment." She turned from the open door, clasping her hands together against the front of her skirt. "I guess our time is up, Captain. I'll give my report to your commanding officer." She closed the folder and put it on her desk. "You can return to your regular duties now."

Heero rose and marched out with brisk steps. He jogged up two floors to the surgery ward, seeking refuge in the doctor's lounge. A swift kick sent one of the cots flying into the wall, and then he felt a little bit better.

"Something ruffling your feathers, Yuy?"

Heero dug into the cargo pockets on his shorts, pulling out his journal and the stub of a pencil he wrote in it with. "Not now, Trant. I'm in no mood." Heero sat on a cot that he hadn't knocked over, pulling his knees up as an easel to write on.

"Hot shot Heero Yuy, always cool under fire." Trant crossed his arms and grinned as he approached Heero. "I knew you'd crack again someday. No one can be perfect forever."

"Trant, if you and I were civilized men, I would've killed you about an hour after we first met."

"There's nothing civilized about that!"

"I'd consider it a mercy killing -- ending the suffering of someone who's brain dead."

Trant pointed a finger at Heero. "The Colonel is going to hear about this insubordinate attitude of yours."

"Fine," Heero said, looking up from his journal. "You can tell her when she asks how your finger was broken."

Trant set his jaw and turned around, grumbling threats as he left.

Heero leafed through the thin pages to where he had stopped writing, his fingers pinching around the small pencil.

I hope more than anything that God exists. If not, I have nothing to fight against except the very thing I want to protect: humanity.

Chapter 2: "My so-called problem"

"Where'd they take him?! Hey, get the fuck off of me!"

"Doctor! Doctor, I need some help, please!"

Heero glanced at the doors to the surgeons' prep room, then back at the nurse trying to restrain a flailing, wounded soldier all by herself. Letting out a snort, Heero pulled his hands out of his pockets, grabbed the soldier by both shoulders and slammed the young man down against the gurney. "Hold still, kid."

"Who are you calling a kid?" The soldier tried to sit up, blood running down the right half of his face from a head wound, but Heero tightened his grip and held the man down. "Listen, pal. I want to know where the fuck they took my friend. You better tell me or I'm gonna have to get violent."

"I'd like to see you try," Heero said, the remark just a thought that happened to slip out.

The uppercut damn near knocked his jaw into his eye sockets. Heero stumbled back and hit the wall before he had the chance to fall over. The soldier tried to get up again, blood running from under his bandages and down the side of his face.

Heero lunged at the soldier and tackled him, sending the gurney skidding with their momentum. He held the soldier there bodily, pinning him on his stomach. "Where the hell is that sedative?!"

The soldier pushed back with his hips, trying to knock Heero off. Heero tightened his arms around the soldier's chest and bore down with his weight to keep him stationary.

The nurse reappeared with a syringe. She tugged the back of the soldier's pants down and stuck him, giving him a healthy dose of tranquilizers right in his baby smooth ass.

Heero laughed just a little when he noticed that last detail, feeling the soldier relax into unconsciousness under him. He slid off the gurney and turned the soldier onto his back. He picked up the long braid of hair coming from the soldier's head, tossing it across his chest to keep it out of the way. "They're sending us children out here," he said to himself.

"Yuy, get the fuck in here now!"

Heero looked just in time to see Trant's head disappear into the prep room. He turned to the nurse, rubbing his jaw. "Stitch him up and get the MPs to watch him. They can get my statement after I'm done in surgery."

"Yes, Doctor."

As he knocked the prep room doors open and gave Trant a cold stare and his middle finger, Heero thought about what a perfect end this would be to a perfect day. That is, if it had ended there. He still had God-only-knew how many hours of surgery ahead of him.

The first was a gut that looked like an open can of spaghetti-ohs. The X-rays were already up when he backed into the theater.

"Christ, this guy's got more metal in him than a Jeep," Heero said.

"Doc?"

Heero turned around, surprised his patient was still conscious.

"Doc, I need to ask you..."

Heero approached the patient, speaking to him through his mask. "Don't worry, Sergeant. We're going to do the best we can for you."

The patient smiled. "Sure, sure. Listen... there's a kid I came in with. Name's Duo." He paused, his breathing as raspy and labored as his voice. "I was wearing a cross on my neck. One of your nurses t-took it off me." He managed to lift a hand, weakly grabbing the Heero's surgery gown. "If something happens, you make sure Duo gets that cross, okay?"

Heero nodded, looking into the patient's dilated golden eyes. "I'll take care of it."

"Promise me." The bloody fingers curled on the white gown. "Promise me you'll take care of him. He's no good alone."

Heero hesitated a moment. "I'll do what I can." His voice was somber, serious enough to convince the patient to let go of him. Heero looked to the anesthetist and nodded. "Put him under."

No sunlight left when Heero exited the hospital. He had to concentrate and put one foot in front of the other, dragging himself and the weight of the world along with him one hundred meters to his apartment door. He stared at the bed, wanting to fall into it, but not wanting to sully it with the sweat and blood and screams and failure that clung to his skin in layers rougher than microscopic sand.

One day, seven surgeries, five survivors. And one promise hanging on a gold chain, burning a hole through the pocket of his discarded shorts. Over thirty people had died after arriving at the hospital from the latest brilliant military fuck-up. There was no way of knowing how many more were already decomposing on a battlefield, or shoved in some other hospital's morgue freezer.

He let the shower run hot, too hot for comfort, burning off the epidermis, shedding the skin. It was a day of blood, and Heero wanted nothing to do with it, not even the skin he wore.

"Is that Yuy?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then tell him to get his ass in here!"

The secretary smiled, turned to Heero and said, "The Colonel will see you now, sir." She muttered a "god-speed" for good measure.

Heero took a deep breath and bravely stepped in to Po's office. He could tell by the dagger-sharpness of her stare, the aggressive way she loomed over her desk, and the scowl screwed to her lips that he was about to be the victim of some permanent hearing damage. He showed the courtesy to shut the door himself.

Po stood up straight as Heero walked to her desk and saluted. "Cut the crap."

The salute went away.

"I want to know what the hell you said to that shrink yesterday."

"Nothing, ma'am."

Po grabbed a short stack of papers and shoved them at Heero's face. "You must've said something, god damnit!"

Heero took the papers and scanned over the cover page. It was Darlian's report on him.

"Doctor Darlian has placed you on a restricted duty regiment," Po said. "You're not allowed to spend more than eight hours per day with patients, and that includes time spent in surgery."

Heero looked up. "That's ridiculous. I spent ten hours in surgery alone yesterday." He flipped through the pages to Darlian's highlighted recommendations. "Unidentified psychological disturbance. Can't you get her change this?"

"I might have if you hadn't gotten into a fist-fight with one of your patients. Now if she goes over my head, you really are going to look crazy."

Heero dropped the report on Po's desk. "That guy damn near knocked my head off!"

"Don't shout at me, Captain, unless you want to spend some time with your boxing pal at the MP station! Understand that you are in enough shit with me already, and shouting at me, in my office, is not going to help you!"

Heero bit into his tongue, took a deep breath, and nodded. "I'm sorry, ma'am." He looked down at the cherry wood finish on Po's desk. "It won't happen again."

Po tugged on her pressed uniform shirt, straightening it, and sat down. "You will be meeting with Doctor Darlian every day until she is satisfied you are fit for full duty again. For your own sake, Captain, I suggest you make sure she is satisfied quickly."

Heero nodded and turned, leaving Po's office as quickly as he could. He hit the down button for the elevator, mumbling to himself, "Make sure she's satisfied." There was a ding, and the steel doors slid open. "God damnit, Trowa." He got into the empty car and pushed the button for the ground floor.

The Military Police station was across the compound from the hospital. Heero hadn't given his statement yet, but after his meeting with Po he certainly felt ready.

"Hey, buddy. How's the jaw today?" Heero had never seen a smile that pleased coming from inside a jail cell. "Probably still sore, huh?"

Heero gave the soldier a side-long stare, waiting for the desk attendant to bring him a complaint form. "I've had worse. How's your head?"

"Hurts like a bitch with teeth. But I've got to ask you about something else, doc." The soldier turned around, dropping the back of his pants. "How's my ass looking?" He laughed and shook his bare butt. The long braid of hair running down his spine shimmied back and forth.

Heero rolled his eyes. He wondered if the military was actively recruiting idiots, or just not screening them out.

"Too bad I didn't give you a black eye," the soldier said, doing his pants back up. "Then you would've been able to brag to all those pretty nurses about how you went toe-to-toe with Duo Maxwell, the infamous God of Death, himself."

Heero was only half paying attention, mentally composing his statement around the words "dangerously inflated ego". It wasn't until he replayed the soldier's words in his head that something struck him. "What did you say your name was?" he asked, cautiously approaching the cell.

"Pretty sweet, isn't it? I think it has a nice ring." The soldier lifted his hands, gesturing as if the words were written in invisible lights. "God. Of. Death."

Heero shook his head, hoping that he had heard wrong. "No. The first part. Your real name."

The soldier grinned and walked up to the cell bars. He wrapped one hand around a steel bar, the other sliding through. "Duo Maxwell, doc. Sorry, but I don't usually introduce myself before I sucker punch someone."

Heero let the soldier's hand hang in the air. He turned around and went back to the desk. He filled out the complaint form, writing in a description of the person who attacked him.

Height: 180 centimeters. Weight: 80 kilograms. Approximate age: 30. Hair: brown, crew cut. Eyes: green.

Heero signed the form and gave it to the desk attendant. Before he left, he went back to the cell and offered Duo his hand. He slipped him the cross necklace when they shook hands, then turned and left, not giving Duo another look.

"You lied," Trowa said.

"Falsifying records isn't lying. It's making the untrue true through bureaucracy." Heero munched on a corn chip. "Anyway, the description I wrote in has to fit at least a hundred people on this base."

"Trant being one of those people."

"A fortunate coincidence. The point is, I'm not accusing anyone else of doing it."

Trowa lifted his sandwich, bought with his own money for a change. "Did you ever think that this kid might deserve to spend some time in jail?"

"Jail isn't a place for kids."

"Neither is the military."

Heero shrugged. "I checked his file. Believe it or not he's nineteen."

"Looks more like sixteen, and acts like it to."

"Aren't you usually the optimistic one?"

Trowa shook his head, chewing a mouthful of ham and Swiss cheese. "Self-preservation is more important than optimism. I don't want to be the next doctor he takes a swing at."

"The easy way to make sure of that is just to avoid him." Heero bit into his club sandwich, shredded lettuce falling out of the other side. "With any luck," he said, "he'll be ordered out of here in a couple days."

"Ordered where?" Trowa asked. His brow furrowed slightly as he adjusted the angle of his straw.

"Back to his unit." Heero brushed the fallen lettuce shreds to the right side of his plate, away from the stack of chips on the left. "Back to wherever he was stationed."

Trowa shook his head. "His unit was wiped out." He paused. "I can't believe you didn't hear about it. Everyone in his squad is either dead or missing some important anatomy."

Heero leaned back in his chair. "So he really is alone," he said, staring at the half-eaten lunch in front of him. "How did you find all this out?"

"Word's been going around the hospital. But you haven't heard the punch-line yet."

"There's a punch-line?"

"Yep. These guys called themselves the Dead Dogs." Trowa wiped his lips with a napkin. "That, my friend, may be one of the few true examples of irony left in this world."

Despite the morbidity, it did strike an uncomfortably humorous bone. Heero sat up again and picked up his club. "Back to the point of what I was saying, though. He should get some sort of orders and be out of our hair soon."

"We can only hope. And speaking of orders, I heard you and the shrink hit things off. Now she's pulling strings to get a second date with you?"

Heero stopped just as he was about to bite off a mouthful of sandwich and looked up at his smiling friend. "Thanks for reminding me," he said. Heero reached across the table and smacked Trowa behind his head. "I forgot to do that earlier."

"Hello, Captain Yuy. It's certainly nice to see you again." Darlian shut her office door and took her seat in the leather easy chair. "I'm sure you have some questions about why I asked to see you again."

Heero felt the temptation to mention his roguish good looks and high-performance hair, but sarcasm aside, the last thing he needed was the psychiatrist thinking he was a sex fiend. Keeping his eyes off her crossed legs was enough trouble, given that her skirt was three inches shorter than the day before. "I assume it has something to do with my unidentified psychological disturbance."

Darlian smiled, folding Heero's file open in her lap. "I see the Colonel showed you my report." Her pen cap slid between glossed cherry lips, straight white teeth biting just gently at the tip. "I have to admit," she paused long enough to pull the cap out so she wouldn't mumble, "our last meeting left me very interested in you. Perhaps even more than professionally."

Heero did his best to keep his disgust hidden. It was his worst fear: a love-struck girl out to get him by whatever means. Only in this case it was a woman. An attractive woman with the power to destroy his career. "I see."

Darlian pulled a lock of her honey brown hair over her shoulder, idly playing with it as she flipped through pages in Heero's file. "Tell me about your time at medical school."

Heero tilted his head to the side slightly. "Don't psychiatrists usually start with childhood?"

"Been to a lot of psychiatrists before, Captain?"

"No, it's just... never mind." Heero stopped before he made himself look like an idiot. Movies certainly weren't accurate about medicine, and there was no reason for him to think they would be for psychiatry either.

"You went to a very prestigious university. That must've cost quite a bit." Her fingers twirled her hair back and forth.

"I had a scholarship."

"You were seventeen." There was a starry, near to adoring look to Darlian's eyes.

Heero felt his stomach flop. "I already had my status as an emancipated minor. All I needed was to take a GED test and do well on the medical program entrance exams."

Darlian smiled. "You make it sound so easy. There have to be thousands of people who can't pass those exams."

"Not everyone is cut out to be a doctor."

"And clearly, you are. That's why you went into medicine, isn't it? You knew you could do something that most people couldn't."

"I knew that I had the ability to become a great surgeon. The fact that I can do what most people can't just makes my work that much more important."

The hair twirling stopped. Darlian flipped it back behind her shoulder. "What does it take to be a doctor, in your opinion?"

Heero thought for a moment. "Professionalism," he said, trying to keep his tone from sounding accusatory. "A doctor has to be dedicated to his work, and knowledgeable and skilled. He has to be compassionate, but also maintain an emotional separation from his patients. He has to keep control of himself always."

"Do you think women make good doctors?" When Heero hesitated to answer, she smiled. "Please, be honest."

"I'm sure there are some women who are excellent."

"But for the most part, you believe men make better doctors than women."

Heero sighed and scratched his head. "I think women have a harder time detaching themselves from their children."

Darlian tiled her head. "Their children?"

"Patients, I mean."

Darlian shifted her position, uncrossing and recrossing her legs as she leaned back into the easy chair. "Would you say their 'motherly instincts' keep them from being objective?" The tone of her voice changed, dropping just a bit.

"It's possible."

"But men are more professional."

"We can control ourselves."

"Which is why you keep checking out my legs when you think I'm not looking." Darlian grinned at the look of surprise on Heero's face. "That doesn't say much for a doctor. Shouldn't you be a model of self-control?"

"You're one to talk," Heero said. He looked away, chewing on his tongue for letting that thought slip out.

Darlian grinned. She closed the folder in her lap and walked to her desk. "Diagnosing a disease is like a science experiment, don't you think?" She put Heero's file down and grabbed a tissue. "First you have to isolate the problem, and then you have to test it to identify what it is."

Heero looked up at Darlian as she wiped her lips with the tissue, cleaning off the shiny gloss.

"For example, by putting on this disgusting lipstick, by wearing a higher-cut skirt and pretending to subtly flirt with you, I can test you to determine what's going on in your head." She checked her appearance in the wall mirror, making sure she'd gotten all the gloss off. "That's what you surgeons call a non-invasive technique."

Heero stared in awe. "You mean... You-"

"I'm a doctor, Captain Yuy." Darlian turned around and glared at him with subtle contempt. "According your own definition, I should've been in control of myself the whole time. And I was." She sat in her desk chair, opening Heero's file again and writing in it for the first time the entire session. "Honestly I had hoped you would figure that out."

Heero wasn't sure if he felt insulted or impressed. "So... this means you've diagnosed my so-called problem?"

Darlian laughed. "One of many." She stopped scratching her notes and looked up. "You have a problem with women, Captain. More specifically, you have a problem with effeminate behavior, but that's just a symptom of the larger condition."

"And what's my larger condition?"

"Post-traumatic stress disorder."

The words hung in the air for a moment before Heero had the sense to chuckle. "You're diagnosing me with post-traumatic stress disorder. Because I checked out your legs?"

"Hardly." Darlian smiled at him and went back to writing. "Captain, I knew your prognosis five minutes after you walked into this room yesterday."

"If you knew what was wrong with me, why wasn't it in your report?"

"Because the military considers PTSD a debilitating psychological disorder." She capped her pen and closed Heero's file, putting it away in the cabinet behind her desk. "If I put it on an official report, you'd be immediately suspended from practicing medicine until you were treated, and in my knowledgeable, professional opinion, that would do your psyche more harm than good." Darlian stood and walked to the door, opening it for Heero. "Now if you'll excuse me, Captain, I'd like to change into something more dignified before my next patient arrives."

Chapter 3: "Death god"

Every sunset in the desert is dying red, and what few clouds float at the horizon become dancing orange flames against the lavender sky. The daytime heat retreats from the attacking winds just before nightfall and the icy stars slow our blood.

Heero paused his writing, looking to the men playing 3-on-3 on the basketball court. It was a game of sweaters versus skins, that is, men with chest hair against men without, and when Heero had lost count of the score ten minutes ago, the sweaters were up by five. He adjusted his seat on the steel bleachers, one leg propped up on the bench row in front of him as an easel.

It takes time to see visceral beauty in such a dead place. Time and boredom, neither of which I'm in short supply of now. Away from my patients, away from the only place where I can do good for this world and feel like my existence is something more than meaningless, I'm left uncomfortably anxious.

Footsteps clanged up the steel benches. "Hey, doc. Got a minute?"

Heero recognized the voice and sighed. He marked his page with the stub of his pencil and shut his journal. "More than I can count, kid."

"I told you not to call me a kid." Duo sat down on Heero's left side, leaning back against the bench behind them. His khaki t-shirt stretched tight across his chest, hanging looser around his thin waist where it tucked into desert camouflage cargo pants.

"Sorry, just a habit for talking to people young enough to still be living with their parents."

Duo snorted and shook his head. "I know you old folks get forgetful, but for future reference, the name is Duo Maxwell."

"I remember your name." Heero looked forward, watching the basketball game go on with little interest.

"Well use it next time, yeah?" Duo tilted his head, watching Heero quietly for a moment. The dusk wind picked up, blowing Heero's chocolate hair out of his eyes. Duo grinned and played with the small cross hanging around his neck. "I wanted to say I'm sorry... about punching you yesterday. If it'll make you feel better, you can make a swing at me. I'm pretty good at taking a punch."

"Don't worry about it," Heero said, shaking his head. "I don't hurt people."

"You just hold them while someone else pulls their pants down."

Heero laughed.

"Look at that, he does smile." Duo sat forward, putting his boots up on the lower bench and resting his elbows on his knees. "I was starting to wonder."

Heero looked at Duo, still grinning, then turned his gaze out to the basketball game again. The sky was darkening, spreading purple and blue like bruised skin.

"I also want to say thanks. I mean, I knew Solo was pretty bad off, but I wasn't sure if he was dead until you showed up this morning."

"Solo?" Heero asked.

Duo held up the golden cross.

Heero's eyes widened. "Oh. Sorry, I didn't know his name. He didn't have any tags."

Duo nodded. "He never wore them. Just the cross. Said that was all the protection he needed." Duo lifted the cross to his lips, giving it a kiss, then let it fall onto his chest.

Heero cleared his throat and looked down. Shirts and Sweaters were going their separate ways, exchanging obscene insults with an odd affection. "Not to be disrespectful, but it doesn't seem like his method of protection was very effective."

Duo shrugged. "Your opinion."

The last sliver of sun had gone from the horizon, leaving just faint pastels to mark its burial. "It's going to get cold soon," Heero said. His stomach made a queasy, growling sound.

Duo chuckled. "You too, huh?"

Heero sighed and stood up. In his boredom, he'd actually forgotten to have dinner. "We can still make it to the general mess."

Duo shook his head and got up as well. "Thanks, but I hear that stuff can kill you. Besides... I'm not in the mood to be around lots of people right now."

Heero nodded, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I understand. I guess I'll leave you alone then." Heero turned away, but only got two steps before a hand grabbed his arm.

"I, uh, don't really want to be alone either." Duo grinned, but it was shaky, apologetic. His blue eyes looked violet in the faded light, and too big for a soldier.

Heero sighed through his nostrils. "All right. We can go to my quarters for a while." The hand let go and he led the way down the bleachers, metallic twangs marking their footsteps in the growing dark.

"Man, if I knew officers lived like this, I would've signed up for that instead of grunt work." Duo sat on Heero's couch, one arm slung over the back as he looked around the front-room-slash-kitchenette.

Heero grinned and opened the miniature refrigerator. He dropped ice cubes into two glasses and topped them off with tap water. "You weren't drafted?"

"Hell no," Duo said. He accepted the glass offered to him and took a couple large gulps. "I wanted to come over here and save the world from the bad guys." He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "What about you?"

Heero shook his head. "Sorry, I'm not a big fan of war." He sipped his water and set the glass down on the countertop, opening one of the cupboards. "Is peanut butter all right with you?"

Duo scrunched his nose. "So long as it's not the chunky crap they serve in the mess."

Heero held out the brand name jar for Duo to see. "Luckily, my uncle sends me the good stuff from home." He twisted off the cap and got out a loaf of bread.

"Where is home for you?"

"California, in the Bay area." He spread peanut butter over four slices of bread. "You?"

"Eh. Little bit of everywhere." Duo got up and refilled his glass in the sink. "And nowhere I miss."

Heero perked an eyebrow, sucking peanut butter off his thumb. "No family?"

Duo grinned. "Let's just say they don't send me peanut butter in the mail." He sipped his water and leaned back against the countertop.

Heero looked over curiously. "They don't approve of you being over here?" He topped off the four sandwiches with another slice of bread, stacking two of them and offering them to Duo.

"Honestly, I don't think they give a rat's ass where I am, and that's fine by me." Duo took the sandwiches and went back to the couch, setting his glass on a side table while he ate. "What about you?" he asked after swallowing his first bite. "Is it just your uncle that sends you things?"

Heero shrugged. He sat on the other end of the couch and tore into a sandwich. "He's the only family I have. My parents both died when I was six, so Uncle J took me in."

"No kidding. Man, you're pretty lucky, doc."

"I wouldn't call the death of my parents lucky."

"No, I mean the part about having a caring uncle. When my parents died, I got kicked into foster homes."

Heero paused in the middle of a sticky chew. "You're an orphan?"

"Yup. Small world, isn't it?" Duo grinned and took another bite.

There was quiet as they ate. Half way into sandwich number two, Heero cleared his throat. "Can I ask you something, Duo?"

"Shoot."

"Was your squad really called the Dead Dogs?"

Duo almost choked from laughing with his mouthful. "What?" he asked while coughing up the bits of sandwich he'd accidentally inhaled. "Who told you that?"

Heero shrugged. "It's just the word going around."

Duo smiled and shook his head. He set the rest of his sandwich on the side table and tugged off his t-shirt, showing Heero the tattoo on his left shoulder. "Death Dogs," he read. "Not Dead Dogs." The words were printed in his skin with the same block letters as standard military stencils. The military insignia hung above them, a permanent mark on his body.

Heero nodded. "Looks like you've got a few of those," he said, pointing to the tattoo on Duo's chest. It was a smoking skull that took up most of his right breast. A ribbon scroll ran through the hollow eye sockets, reading "Kill 'em all, or Die tryin'".

Duo looked down and smiled. "Yeah. That one hurt like a bitch. But this one's my favorite." He turned his back toward Heero, pulling his braided hair over his shoulder. A series of Japanese kanji symbols ran vertically down his left shoulder blade, parallel to the spine. "It says 'God of Death'."

Heero tilted his head, running his fingers down Duo's back as he read the letters. "Actually, that's a bit of a mistranslation. The word it spells is 'shinigami'," he said. "It means 'death god', which is close, but in Japanese mythology there can be many death gods, not just one God of death."

"So long as people know I'm one of them, that's fine with me," Duo said, looking back over his shoulder.

Heero's eyebrows lifted. "You have some kind of preoccupation with death?" he asked as he stood up and went back to the kitchenette.

Duo shrugged his bare shoulders. "It's my job description, doc. Kill the other guys before they kill us. One sentence. Easy to remember." He grinned. "And I'm pretty damn good at it, if you don't mind me saying so."

Heero rinsed out his glass and left it in the sink. "I'm not sure if that's something you should really be proud of, Duo." He went into the bedroom, pulling the Velcro flap on his lower right pants pocket open and removing his journal. Heero set the small book on his desk, then turned around, stopping in place when he found Duo watching him from the doorway.

"Tell me something, doc," Duo said, walking toward him slowly. "Digging around in people's bodies, saving lives... does that make you feel good?" Pale light came in through the curtains, splashing across Duo's bare torso as he moved away from the yellow glow of the front room lamps.

Heero swallowed an odd lump in his throat. "It's my job description. Keep the patient alive whatever it takes. One sentence. Hard to forget."

"And I'm sure you're great at it." Duo came to a stop just inches away. He lifted a hand and put it over Heero's heart, fitting his palm to the shape of the large pectoral muscle. "But I was asking if doing your job made you feel good."

"Duo, I don't think this is-"

"Just... answer the question." Duo grinned, his head tilted to the side as he looked from Heero's eyes to his mouth.

Heero licked his lips subconsciously. "No. It doesn't." His heart danced under Duo's palm. Everything tingled. It was the oddest sensation -- not fear, but so much like it. "For every person I save, there are five more that die. It's impossible to win."

"You're trying to beat death." The hand on Heero's heart slid downward over his stomach.

"Not death." Heero shook his head. "God."

Duo's eyes widened slightly, then his lips spread into a large smile. "God," he repeated.

"This is his plan for the world, isn't it?" Heero looked down at the golden cross resting on Duo's breastbone. "War. Suffering. Death. Who else should I be fighting?"

Duo's hand reached Heero's hip, the other hand coming up to help tug Heero's t-shirt out of his pants. "I don't know."

Heero leaned back, grabbing both of Duo's wrists. "What are you doing?"

"I want to help you." Duo lifted the hem of Heero's shirt with his fingers, brushing them against the soft flesh of his pelvis. "Let me show you what it's like to feel good again." He moved his hands forward without a struggle and closed the space between their bodies with a final step. "We'll show the bastard that we're both still alive."

Heero loosened his grip, sliding his hands up to Duo's elbows. The tingling became worse, incessant, needing. It spread outward from the heat of Duo's hands on his skin. "I've never," he said, licking his lips again because his heavy breathing had dried them. "I've never done this with a man." He blushed, but not entirely from embarrassment.

"Same principle." Duo kissed Heero's exposed neck with light, damp touches. "Just do what feels good."

Heero chuckled softly. "One sentence," he said, tentatively moving his hands under Duo's arms. He stroked over Duo's sides, feeling the notches of ribcage under warm, smooth skin.

Duo pulled back just a bit and lifted Heero's shirt over his head. He let Heero take it the rest of the way, grinning and backing up to the foot of the bed. Duo unfastened his belt and unzipped, sitting down as he slid his camouflage pants off his legs, taking his socks off with them. He scooted back on the mattress, clad in just a pair of white briefs that gave a perfect impression of his erection.

Heero watched the undressing in a trance, his eyes taking in every inch of exposed skin they could. He snapped out of it when Duo turned over on his stomach and pillowed his arms under his head, facing away from him. He'd seen that ass twice before, but seeing it still covered by nothing but a thin layer of cotton was unexplainably erotic.

Heero fumbled with his belt buckle as he walked to the bed, dropping his pants and socks on the floor next to Duo's. He climbed onto the mattress on his hands and knees, his boxers comically tented in the front.

As the mattress dipped with Heero's weight, Duo reached back and pulled his braid out of the way, leaving his back completely exposed.

First hands, then lips, Heero touched the body offered to him. The soft gasps and mewling moans from Duo made Heero's heart pound in his chest with excitement. The closer he went to Duo's neck, the more Duo gasped and shuddered. The further he went down Duo's spine, the more Duo moaned and writhed. When he made it to the elastic rim of the briefs, Duo reached back insistently to help get them off.

And there was that ass again. Heero chuckled at how perspective changed things. The ass that had amused and annoyed him before, now only aroused him with its perfect shape and tone. He massaged the gluteal muscles, drawing long, deep groans out of Duo, who also rocked his hips into the comforter.

With little sense of anything but desire left in his head, Heero sat back to tug his boxers down, kicking them off the edge of the bed.

Duo took the opportunity to turn over on his back, grabbing his rock hard dick and giving it some needed attention. "You've got lube, right, doc?"

Heero paused, Duo's voice breaking his aroused high. "I... yeah. Just a second." He got up, his erection bouncing up and down with each quick step to the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet, grabbing the bottle of lubricant and a box of condoms. When he closed it, Heero caught his reflection in the mirror.

For a moment he came back to himself completely. "What the hell am I doing?" he whispered. Having a sexual relationship with an enlisted soldier was a serious offense for a military officer. He could be court marshaled, even sent to prison. And then he realized something was missing.

"You find it?"

Heero looked over his shoulder as Duo hugged him from behind, pushing his dick against Heero's ass. That was certainly a new feeling, but not an unpleasant one. "Yeah," he said, showing the lubricant and condoms.

Duo smiled. "Good thinking." He pressed more kisses to Heero's neck, his hands running over his stomach and chest.

Heero let out a heavy breath. The tingling, the warmth of Duo's body against his own. That's what had been missing for just a moment, but now it was back.

Duo took Heero's arm and pulled him back to bed. They tumbled onto the mattress together, legs tangling, arms reaching, hands holding on tight. Duo lay on his back, and Heero lay over him, their skins aching for all the contact they could get.

They stared at one another across inches of an unseen barrier, sharing the same air for heavy breaths. Duo pushed up, met Heero's mouth with his own, and both of them felt the rush that followed. It was passion renewed, extended, improved. Their bodies flushed hotter as tongues met and danced a slow dance. Duo's legs pulled up and wrapped around Heero's hips, both men rocking together and against one another, groaning into the union of lips.

Heero sat up, bed sheet pooling in his lap as he looked around the bedroom.

"Shit. Sorry, I was trying not to wake you up," Duo said in a low voice. He was half-dressed, holding his left sock in his hand.

Heero rubbed his eyes and slid his legs over the side of the bed. "It's fine." He checked the time on his alarm clock and then bent over to pick up his underwear off the floor.

"Anyway, I should get going. Have to be back at the barracks before lockdown." Duo tugged his sock on.

"Want anything to eat before you go?" Heero stood up, pulling his boxers on. He stretched, his body feeling tight, but also rejuvenated.

Duo smiled and shook his head. "Thanks, but I can't hang around." He walked out into the front room, squinting his eyes at the lamps. He put his shirt on and quickly inspected his braided hair for frays.

Heero followed, scratching the back of his neck. "Listen, Duo. About all this --"

"Don't worry, doc. This was just between us." Duo pulled the cross necklace out to lay on top of his shirt. "Right?"

Heero blinked. "Uh... yeah." He combed his bangs back with his fingers. "I appreciate it."

Duo sat on Heero's couch to tie his boots. "No sweat. I figure I still owe you. 'Sides, I had a pretty good time."

Heero nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, me too."

Duo smiled. "Well, I'm glad I didn't ruin your first time. I'd hate to put you off guys forever." He stood up and looked Heero over. "You're not gonna freak out on me, are you?"

"What?" Heero blinked.

"You just look tense. Some guys have a melt down after they try gay sex the first time."

Heero shook his head. "No, I'm fine. Really."

Duo raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything more about it. He opened the apartment door and waved to Heero. "Night, doc. And thanks again for everything."

The apartment door shut, and Heero spent a minute staring at it. The events of the night played over again in his head, scenes jumbled up and out of order. His fingers tingled when he thought about running his hands over Duo's skin and feeling the muscles of Duo's body tense and shiver. Heero clenched his fists a few times, trying to make the tingles stop.

He went to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress, resting his head in his hands. So maybe he was freaking out. A little. The room still smelled like sweat and semen. His hands smelled like lubricant. Heero looked over his shoulder at the bottle and the condom box on the bedside table. He grabbed them both and took them back to the bathroom.

When he closed the medicine cabinet, he met gazes with his reflection. He puzzled over blue eyes that were neither accusing nor confident. They were eyes that wanted answers, but didn't know where to look. Behind him was the bedroom. Duo didn't come to fetch him this time.

The tingling left his skin, and Heero realized that there was nothing to replace it. He gripped the porcelain lip of the sink. He could sense the coolness, the pressure against his palms, but there was no feeling any more. Nothing as intense as the sensation Duo gave him.

Heero went back and collected his pants. He left his apartment, the cool night air hitting his bare torso. He inhaled and let it fill his lungs as well. The air was sweet from cactus flowers that only bloomed at night. Trowa's door was locked and his apartment lights were off, but Heero could hear music playing inside.

"Trowa," he called. Heero knocked on the apartment door. After a minute, he knocked again. "Trowa, it's Heero."

The music kept playing, but Trowa didn't answer.

Chapter 4: "Human afterward?"

"Penny for your thoughts, Captain."

Heero's attention snapped to the woman in the leather easy chair. "Sorry," he said. "Just had something on my mind."

Darlian nodded. "Want to talk about it?"

"No. I'm sorry."

Darlian didn't say anything. Her pen was poised to write, but didn't move.

"It's just something personal."

"Too personal for your therapist."

Heero frowned.

"Captain, we're both bound by laws about privacy. There's nothing you can't tell me in confidence."

Heero debated with himself a moment. "Yesterday," he said, looking down at the carpet, "you said I had a problem dealing with women."

Darlian tilted her head to the side. "I did."

"What did you mean?"

"It's an aversion to effeminate behavior. Most likely it's linked with women, but it's not exclusive." She shifted in her seat, lifting her pen to bite on the cap.

The sun poured in through the window behind the couch, hitting his back. Heero stared at his shadow on the floor. "Is it possible that it could make me more..." he paused and searched for a word, "prone to being attracted to other men?"

Darlian's mouth opened, the pen hovering above her lip. She cleared her throat, pen and hand dropping back to the file folder on her lap. "Well, I... I'm not sure." She crossed her legs, knees hidden today by the pantsuit she was wearing. "I suppose the same underlying force that's pushing you away from femininity could make masculine behavior more attractive. But I highly doubt that it would be able to create those kinds of feelings. There would have to be a pre-existing sexual orientation, maybe latent or never explored. If desire for women were cut off, then I suppose it's possible for the other dimension of that orientation to take over and make men the primary objects of desire." Darlian sat forward, resting her elbows on her knee. "Heero, there's nothing wrong or unnatural about having a same-sex attraction."

Heero met her gaze. "I know. It's just... new for me."

"Well, I'm glad you were able to talk about it. If you're having worries, it's best to clear them up before engaging in sexual behavior."

Heero looked back down at the floor.

"Oh." Darlian's smile fell.

"It was a spur of the moment thing." Heero felt a bead of sweat run down his temple.

"Nothing to be embarrassed about," she said. Darlian flipped through her notes. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Heero shook his head. "Not really."

Darlian nodded and closed Heero's file. "I think we can stop a few minutes early today, then." She stood and crossed the room to put the folder back in its proper file cabinet. "If you change your mind and want to talk," she grabbed a business card off her desk, flipping it over to scratch on it with her pen, "about anything, please call me." She handed him the card, her personal phone number written on the back.

Heero slid the card into his pocket. "Thank you."

"Have a good day, Captain." Darlian smiled, opening her office door for him. "I'll see you again tomorrow."

Heero checked his watch on the way out of Darlian's office. He thought about heading for the surgeon's lounge since he had a few moments, his fingers absently playing at the pocket holding his journal. Instead, he turned the corner sharply and took the stairs to the ground floor.

"Trowa," Heero called, knocking on the apartment door.

"It's open."

Heero turned the doorknob and walked in. The front room was empty, so he walked toward the back.

"Thought you were with the shrink until eleven-thirty," Trowa said. He walked out of the bathroom, his skin still damp, and rubbed his head with a towel. A pair of thin cotton boxers hung off his hips, the waist low enough to flash a peak of brown hair in the front.

Heero stared for a moment. "It ended early." He ran his gaze up and down Trowa's body, analyzing the man. Trowa didn't excite him the way Duo had. There had to be a reason. "I thought we could have lunch here today."

Trowa pulled the towel off his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "That's fine with me." He turned around. His boxers stuck close to his skin, showing an impression of his buttocks.

Trowa was thinner than Duo. Heero wondered if that was the reason Trowa wasn't attractive for him.

"Go take a look around in the kitchen. See if anything looks good." Trowa bent over to step into his shorts.

Heero turned around and went to the kitchenette. He found a frozen pizza in the refrigerator and put it in the microwave. "Hope you like green peppers."

"They were in my freezer, so I think I'd better." Trowa filled a glass with tap water. He took a couple large gulps, drops carelessly dribbling down his shirtless chest. "So what's wrong, Heero?" He wiped himself off with a hand towel. "You and the psychiatrist having problems?"

Heero shot a glare in Trowa's direction and gave him a shove. "Knock it off."

"I'm being serious this time," Trowa said. "Is she starting to get under your skin?"

Heero shook his head. "It's not her." He chewed on his tongue. "There's something else I wanted to talk about with you."

Trowa set his glass on the countertop. "I'm all ears."

Heero took a deep breath and blew it out through his nostrils. "I did something last night that I could get into a lot of trouble for. The damndest part is I don't even know why I did it." He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work the tension out of it. "That guy -- Duo -- came looking for me."

Trowa crossed his arms. "Did he want to go for round two?"

A smile flickered on the corner of Heero's mouth. "Not exactly. He apologized for hitting me, and we went back to my apartment." He checked the timer on the microwave, then looked down at the floor. "We wound up in bed together. It was stupid, I admit, but I think he'll keep quiet about it. He said he would, anyway."

Trowa's mouth hung open slightly, lips moving but not forming words. "I... I never knew you were into guys," he said after a moment.

"Neither did I. Or... I haven't been until now." Heero slid his fingers through his hair and pushed his bangs out of his face. "I don't know. I've never been attracted to a man before. And even now, he's the only one I'm interested in."

Trowa nodded, staying quiet for another drawn out moment. "I was with a guy once. It was a few years ago, back at school."

Heero's eyebrows lifted. "You never told me about that."

Trowa shrugged. "I wasn't sure what it meant. I'd just broken up with a girl, and there was this guy in the nursing program that caught me in a bar one night. We had some drinks, went back to his place, and had sex."

Heero grimaced. "You make it sound so dry."

"It wasn't emotional, Heero. It was just sex." Trowa reached over and put his hand on Heero's shoulder. "Plus, I've had a while to think it all over. Trust me, with some time and perspective, this won't seem as important or scary as it does right now." He smiled. "Getting horny and doing something stupid is just one of those things every man does at some point."

Heero nodded and clenched his jaw.

"Nurse, how's our A-negative supply?"

"We have plenty, Doctor."

"Get another bag ready." Heero dropped a bloody sponge in the tray with the rest. "I'm almost finished, but he's going to need more whole blood." He slid a hook-like needle into the patient's flesh, easily piercing the skin and dragging a surgical thread through. He took his time to close the wound properly -- short, neat stitches that wouldn't leave much of a scar.

Heero took a step back and dropped the needle on the tray. "All right, we're done." He peeled off his gloves as two nurses wheeled the patient out of the theatre. "That was the last one today, right?"

"Yes, Doctor."

Heero tugged his mask down and pulled off his cap as he returned to the surgeons' prep room. He dumped his dirty clothing and took a shower. He let the water soak his hair, rubbing soap across his body to wash away the sticky residue of invisible blood.

He made a pass by the basketball court rather than going straight to his apartment, drawn by a curious expectation. His chest tightened and his heart jumped when he saw a lone figure sitting on the benches, facing the setting sun.

Duo's eyes were squinted, staring intently at the horizon. The dusk wind picked up, blowing his loose bangs over his face. He kept one foot propped on the bench in front of him, his arms resting on his knees as he stared into the red sun.

Heero climbed the benches and sat down on Duo's left. He could feel the heat of Duo's body pulsing like sunlight bouncing off the sands. "I hope I'm not bothering you," he said.

The corner of Duo's mouth curved upward. "Not at all, doc. I was just thinking."

"About Solo?"

Duo turned to him, his eyebrow raised. "Didn't know you could read minds."

"I've seen that look before. Too many times, in fact." Heero's expression sobered. "Every time I have to tell someone that the person they cared for is dead, and the reason he's dead is because I couldn't save him."

"It's not your fault that God's a prick. Besides, you aren't the one that did that to him. That fucker's still out there somewhere." Duo turned his gaze on the horizon again, looking past the security fences to the endless desert. "I bet ya he's hiding. Someplace he thinks is safe. But he can't hide from me. Sooner or later the God of Death is going to find him and send him screaming back to Hell."

Heero squinted as the sun flashed its dying rays. "I didn't realize you enjoyed killing that much."

"I don't usually. But I'm going to enjoy this one." Duo turned to Heero and grinned. "I know I will."

Duo reached over and put his hand on Heero's shoulder. The touch sent tingles racing down Heero's spine, making him shiver.

"Getting cold, doc?"

Heero shook his head. The sun had set and left deep purple bruises on the horizon, but he could feel Duo's body heat against his side. It made the night chill barely noticeable.

"We could go back to your place," Duo said. He slid on the bench until he was pressing himself against Heero's side. His arm wrapped around Heero's shoulders. "Just for a little while."

"Duo, I..." Heero swallowed and clenched his fists. "I don't know how I feel about this." He met gazes with Duo, scanning his violet blue night eyes. "It's confusing."

"But you do feel something." Duo leaned forward and closed his lips around Heero's earlobe.

Heero gasped, gripping onto the bench so he wouldn't jump off. "Yes," he said.

Duo's lips sucked his earlobe, giving it a tug, and then they let go. "Just focus on that," he whispered.

Just a few hours to midnight. The only light in the apartment came from the moonbeams in the eastern bedroom window. They gave no color, but enough contrast to show the shape of Duo's motionless body, which lay half-covered in the sheets.

Duo lay on his stomach. His parted lips made a rustling whisper with every breath. Heero carefully moved the thick braid of hair to the side and stroked his fingers over the bumps of Duo's spine.

He still couldn't figure out what it was. Even when Duo was asleep, touching him made Heero's hands tingle and itch. He wanted to fit himself against Duo's back, push into him again, fuck Duo bareback, and feel every inch of his body go wild with stimulation. But that was an unwise thing to do for so many reasons. Thinking about it got Heero hard again anyway. He moved closer, resting the belly of his erection against Duo's thigh.

Heero ran his fingers over the tattooed kanji symbols on Duo's back, sounding out each character in his head. Shi-ni-ga-mi. Death god. People like Duo were the ones who blew holes into the bodies of other human beings, or just blew them apart all together. A true monster, just like his nickname.

But watching Duo sleep, Heero couldn't see anything like a monster. Duo was warm, with sand-roughened hands and soft skin. He was muscle and bone and lots of long, chestnut hair. A healthy specimen of the male human ape; nothing supernatural or terrifying or notably unique in terms of visible anatomy. And yet Heero's stomach turned as he thought back on how Duo had smiled at him and talked about killing.

Duo inhaled deeply, letting out a low groan and blinking open his eyes. A wide grin spread on his face when he looked up at Heero. "Hey. What time is it?" He arched his back, yawning as he stretched out.

"Almost nine-thirty," Heero said. He ran his knuckles up and down along Duo's spine. "You can go back to sleep if you want."

Duo shook his head. "Nah." He turned onto his side, threading his leg between Heero's thighs. "Besides, it feels like you want to go another round." He pushed his hip against Heero's erection, rubbing himself on Heero's thigh.

Heero bit back a groan, wrapping both arms around Duo and pressing their bodies close. "Maybe in a few minutes."

Duo chuckled and snaked an arm around Heero. He kissed along Heero's neck, the slow rubbing making his cock hard again.

"Duo, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot, doc." Duo's lips sucked on his jaw.

"Why did you pick me?"

Duo leaned back just enough to look in Heero's eyes. "I didn't. You came to me, remember?" Their noses brushed together.

"I mean, why did you come on to me?" Heero asked. His lips were tingling, each of Duo's breaths blowing against his mouth. "How did you know I would want this?" He lifted his hand and stroked his knuckles against Duo's cheek.

Duo didn't say anything for a moment, a small grin tugging under Heero's fingers. "I saw how lonely you were. It's an expression I'm pretty familiar with." He pressed their foreheads together, taking a deep breath and letting it out again. "I guess I was feeling pretty lonely, too, and just took a chance. I wasn't sure if you'd be cool with it, but I figured the worst that could happen would be you socking me across the face. And then we'd be even. Blow for blow, so to speak."

"And tonight? Were you feeling lonely again?"

Duo shrugged. "Not so much lonely. Just not good." He smiled, rubbing against Heero again. "Feeling a lot better now. Aren't you?"

Heero was quiet. He closed his eyes and let his hands run over Duo's skin. "For a while I did. But avoiding problems doesn't solve them. They always wait for you." He untangled his legs from Duo's and sat up, dropping his feet off the side of the bed.

"Hey," Duo said. He grabbed Heero's wrist and tugged his arm. "Come back. We've still got some time before I have to go."

Part of Heero really wanted to turn around, his dick in particular. "No, Duo. I think you should go now."

"Come on, doc." Duo moved, sliding his hand up to Heero's shoulder. "Look, I'm sorry if I said something dumb. Can't we just forget it?"

Heero shook his head. "It's not your fault. I'm sorry, I just want to be alone right now." He swallowed. It felt like a weight was pressing on his chest. "Please, just go."

The hand on Heero's shoulder slipped away. The mattress squeaked and shook. Heero could hear Duo getting dressed behind him -- the zipper on his pants, the belt buckle, the strings of his boots rubbing together. He listened to Duo's footsteps going through the front room and out the door.

Heero lost count of the seconds that he sat on the edge of his bed, taking deep breaths, trying to ease the tightness in his chest. He sat until he heard music coming from Trowa's apartment.

He got up and pulled some clothes on. He walked next door, knocking at Trowa's apartment. "Trowa, it's Heero. I need to talk to you."

The music kept playing.

"Trowa!" Heero banged his fist on the front door. He grabbed the handle, almost falling forward when it turned and the door opened. He stepped inside, looking around the front room.

The music was coming from the bedroom. Heero shut the door and walked back toward the back of the apartment. "Trowa?" He stopped at the doorway.

There were no lights on in the bedroom, just the front room lamps giving faint shadows. Trowa was lying on his bed, covered by a blanket up to his bare shoulders. He didn't move, but his eyes were open. He was breathing slow, his lips parted and chapped.

Heero frowned. He walked to the bed and touched Trowa's neck. Trowa gasped and arched upward the instant he was touched, making a little noise that almost sounded like excitement. His pulse was very slow. When Heero pulled his hand away, Trowa sank back into his mattress and stared up at the ceiling, hardly moving at all.

Heero clenched his jaw. The pressure on his chest was starting to throb. He looked at the bedside table and found the tiny bottle of clear liquid and the hypodermic needle Trowa had used to inject himself. He held the bottle up to the yellow light coming through the doorway, reading "Ketamine" off the label.

"You bastard," Heero said, hissing the words out through his closing throat. He threw the bottle against the wall, listening to the glass shatter and scatter on the floor. He put his hand on Trowa's neck again, watching him shudder and react to his touch. He put his other hand on Trowa's neck. His fingers curled, squeezing around Trowa's throat.

Trowa gasped, sucking air through his throat until it was squeezed shut. He didn't struggle. His abdomen twitched, trying to expand and breathe even though the airway was shut. His eyes stared at the ceiling, bulging, lifeless.

Heero couldn't breath either, the pressure on his chest was too great. It was pushing his lungs up into his throat, suffocating him. Tears started running down his cheeks, splattering hot and salty onto Trowa's face. Suddenly his throat opened, and a hard sob burst out of his lungs. He let go of Trowa, sinking to his knees and covering his face as he cried, muffling his terrified whimpers in his hands.

Trowa relaxed into the mattress again, his breathing returning heavier than before. He still didn't move or react to Heero's presence, lost in his own world of hallucination.

Heero covered his mouth, his body heaving as he coughed. He gagged, feeling bile rise in his throat, but thankfully stopping there. Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, still shaking and wiping his eyes as he staggered out.

He went back to his apartment and washed his face, avoiding his reflection as he loomed over the sink.

Heero stared at the back of his desk chair for a moment before he pulled it out and sat down. He turned on the desk lamp, flipped his journal open, and tried to steady his hand enough to write.

If it was a disease, I'd know how to treat and cure it. But there is no medical diagnosis for the human need to kill. And if there was, if the killing urge could be isolated and removed, would the patient even be human afterward?

Chapter 5: "I can't avoid living"

"What is it you want from me?" Heero asked, slouched against the couch with the morning sun on his shoulders.

Darlian tilted her head to the side. "There's nothing I'm looking to get out of this, Captain. What I want for you is a healthy psyche. You need to find peace with yourself."

"And how do I do that?"

"By being honest with me, and also being honest with your own feelings."

"I've always been honest."

"You've never lied, but that's not honesty. You hold back from me. Today, for example, you're agitated and exhausted. I can tell just from your body language."

Heero frowned. "The last few days... There's so much that has happened. I have trouble sorting it all out."

"That's a start," Darlian said. "Tell me about what's been happening. It might help you get your thoughts in order."

Heero leaned forward and set his elbows on his knees. He took a deep breath and thought for a minute, trying to decide where he should begin. "Well for one thing, I've been meeting with you everyday. And my hours at the hospital are still restricted because of your orders. It's frustrating, to be honest. I think my time could be spent better if I could attend to more patients."

"There are other doctors and other surgeons. No one is going without care because of your restricted duty."

"That's not the point." Heero met Darlian's gaze, reading the obvious question in her eyes. "The point I'm trying to make is: What am I supposed to do if I'm not helping my patients? I know how to do good as a doctor, but if I can't do that, what am I supposed to do instead?"

"That's really a question for you to consider, Captain. Do you see it as your responsibility to do as much good for other people as you can?"

"Of course. That's why I became a doctor."

"That's not what you told me before. You said you became a surgeon because you knew you'd be great at it. It suited your ego." Darlian leaned back, making the leather cushions squeak. "I told you that you need to be honest with me. Now tell me about something else that's happened."

Heero's teeth creaked as they ground in his mouth. "All right. There's a soldier, and enlisted man named Duo that came onto the base a couple days ago, injured. He and I have been sleeping together."

"He was a patient of yours?"

"No. His squadron leader died on my table. I had to deliver his personal effects to Duo."

"That's not standard procedure when a soldier dies."

"I made the man a promise."

"And you felt beholden to that promise because he died."

"I owed it to him because he trusted me enough to go under my knife. He didn't even ask me to save his life. He grabbed me, and all he said was, 'Take care of Duo.'"

"Is that what you've been doing, then? Taking care of him?"

"I've tried. But it's been complicated."

"Sex has a way of doing that."

"It's not just the sex. There's something else about Duo that unsettles me." A cloud passed across the sun, making Heero's shadow fade into grey. "So much of him goes against what I believe and all the good I'm trying to do by saving lives. He is a killer, and remorseless about it. He wants nothing more than to be out in the field so he can kill again. And despite that, part of me still wants to be with him."

"Perhaps you see more in him than just a soldier."

"But that's the part of him that worries me the most."

"Because it hurts other people?"

"Because I'm afraid it might be in me as well."

The knock at the door woke Heero up from his television stupor. He answered it, pausing when he saw Trowa standing outside.

"Hey," Trowa said. "Can I come in?"

"What for?"

"I heard the staff shrink gave you the day off. I wanted to talk to you about last night."

Heero stood aside and let Trowa in.

Trowa sat on the couch. He grabbed the remote and turned the television volume down. "I realize that I should've told you I've been using. You're my best friend and I shouldn't be keeping secrets from you like that. I'm sorry."

"How's your throat?"

Trowa ran his fingers over the pink strangulation marks on his neck. "Sore, but all right. I've been telling everyone I slipped in the bath tub and hung myself on the shower curtain."

Heero sat on the arm rest. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's fine. No permanent damage. I really am sorry, Heero."

"When did you start using?"

"It was about a month after we got here. This place is just... insane. You know what I mean."

"You steal it from the hospital?"

Trowa scratched his head. "No. That nurse at the veterinary clinic I was dating, she keeps the drug stock inventory."

"So she steals it for you."

"And keeps some for herself. Heero, you have no idea how many people on this base have some bottle or another tucked in their footlocker. It's a survival mechanism out here."

"It's an escape mechanism."

"Like you and the grunt you're fucking?"

Heero scowled. "Leave him out of this."

"Why? He's just your drug. He's what you use when you don't want to feel anymore."

"You're wrong."

"The fuck I am. This place is a shit hole. Everyone knows that and no one wants to be here. So we escape for a little while. Some of us use a needle, you use your dick. Same thing."

"It's not. I don't use Duo to stop feeling." Heero's fingertips began to tingle. "He's the only thing I can feel. When I'm not with him... that's when I can't feel." He balled his fist, squeezing the sensation out of his fingers.

Trowa shook his head. "That's sad, Heero. That's really sad."

"Says the drug addict."

Trowa stood up and walked to the door. "I came over here to apologize, but I guess you're not going to accept it. If you want me, you know where to look."

Heero found no rest in the darkness. His bed was too hard and too big to be comfortable. The red minutes and hours ticked away on his alarm clock, and half the night passed before exhaustion pulled him under.

He dreamed he was in an open market on the streets of a desert city. An old woman carrying freshly cut jasmine flowers passed in front of him, filling his breaths with spiced scent. Chimes in the windows above his head were caught in a warm breeze. Their high pitches carried easily above the voices of hagglers in the busy market.

A woman stepped into the square from a side street. Her head was wrapped in a scarf the same color as the pale desert sky, but her bronze face remained uncovered. She glowed as the wind pressed her loose, white chador against her obviously pregnant belly, one hand gently cradling her stomach and the other leading a small boy at her side. The woman noticed Heero watching her, smiled, and continued on her business without a second glance.

He was entranced by her. She was more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen. She approached a grocer's stand set up next to a parked car on the corner of the square. Heero saw her mouth moving, but couldn't hear her voice and wasn't familiar enough with Farsi to try reading her lips. The small boy tugged on her burka, and she smiled down at him, speaking to him with more words Heero couldn't make out.

Heero started to approach the woman, but stopped midway through the square. A soldier stepped out from the market corner, surveying the crowd from his position. Heero turned and saw another soldier at the side street to his right. Eight soldiers all together, one at each corner and each side of the market square. Each one was dressed in full combat fatigues, painted in desert camouflage with body armor, and strapped with a fully automatic assault rifle.

Heero looked toward the woman again; she was buying fruit from the grocer. The soldier on the corner took off his helmet and dropped it on the sun-baked ground, letting a long braid of brown hair tumble down his back. A cross hanging around his neck reflected the unforgiving desert sun and blinded Heero's eyes with it.

The soldier pulled a grenade from his belt and lifted it to his mouth. His tongue curled into the pin, his lips closing around the circular head and sucking it out of the grenade. He spit the pin into his helmet, then dumped the live grenade in the driver's seat of the parked car. He looked straight at Heero, smiling across the crowd of unsuspecting shoppers.

The woman let go of the small boy's hand as she counted out money. The boy walked to the parked car, pushing up on his toes to see inside.

Heero pushed his way through the dense crowd, trying to get to the woman, yelling at her to get away from the car.

She paid the grocer and walked over to the car. Her hand closed around the boy's. She looked over her shoulder at Heero, her glowing face somber and sad. She closed her eyes and the grenade exploded, devouring them both in flames.

The explosion knocked Heero off his feet. When he got up again, the market was charred and deserted, the empty stone buildings still smoldering. There were no bodies left on the ground. Heero went to the spot the woman and the boy had been, finding only a spilled basket of fruit and fragments of sharp shrapnel. He dropped to his knees, righting the basket and putting the fruit back into it, not sure what else he could do.

Sand and ash shifted under heavy boots as someone walked up behind him. "What was it you said, doc? Death is just a pre-existing condition of life?"

Heero felt ice run down his spine. He watched the shadow of the soldier standing behind him, haloed by the high desert sun.

"You and I aren't enemies," the soldier said, grinning proudly at his work. "It's not my fault that God's a pr-"

Heero snarled and grabbed a piece of long, twisted shrapnel off the ground. He turned and shoved it into the soldier's gut, running the steel through his body.

He sat up in bed, panting and covered in sweat. The early sun stung his eyes, and he felt no more rested than when he had passed out a few hours ago. He looked at his hands. Deep fingernail marks were pressed into his skin where the shrapnel blade had sliced his palms.

"I had a nightmare last night. That's a symptom, isn't it?"

Darlian's pen was still. "It can be. What was the dream about?"

"That woman. The patient that died."

"Tell me about it."

The pressure on his chest started to come back. He tried to swallow it down. "She was in an open market with a little boy. There was a soldier... A car bomb exploded, and then they all just disappeared."

"Do you remember what she looked like?"

"She was wearing a white chador and a blue head scarf. She smiled at me."

"What else?"

"She was..." Heero chewed on his tongue and cleared his throat. "She was pregnant. Almost seven months."

"Do you remember when they came to the hospital?"

"Yes. The boy," Heero paused and tried to swallow down the pressure that was rising into his throat, "half his body was charred away. Part of his liver and an entire section of intestine were missing. He was already dead when they brought him in."

"And the woman?"

"She was still conscious. She grabbed me when they rolled her into the operating room. Her hands were covered in blood." Heero clenched his fists against his knees. "She kept whispering. It was hard for her to breath because of the blood rushing into her chest."

"What was she saying?"

Heero opened his mouth, but his throat closed up, not letting out any sound. He took a deep breath and held it as tears formed at the corners of his eyes. "She said, 'Save my baby.' Over and over again, that's all she'd say."

"What did you tell her?"

"I said, 'I'll do what I can.' We tried repairing the collapsed lung, but there was so much blood. It just kept pouring out of her." He wiped a tear off his cheek. "I started preparing for an emergency C-section and one of the nurses ran out of the operating room. She came back with Colonel Po a few minutes later. The Colonel ordered me to stop the procedure. She said that because the baby hadn't reached the third trimester yet it was illegal for me to remove it."

"But you didn't stop."

"No, I kept operating. We have incubators in the hospital, and there was a chance the baby could survive. I had to try; I had to do something, damnit. The Colonel warned me that if I didn't stop I'd be facing a court-martial. Then she brought in two MPs to drag me out of the operating room. I was screaming at them to let me go. I was screaming-" His voice gave out there as tears ran freely down his face. His stomach tightened, forcing bursts of soft sobs through his constricted throat.

Darlian set her notes aside and moved to the couch. She put her arms around Heero and pulled him close, holding his head against her shoulder as he cried.

Heero hugged onto Darlian desperately, his hands fisting against her back as he let go of himself. It was more than guilt washing out with his tears; it was fear, and anger, and blood, and sand, and all the things he tried to scrub out of his skin every night under boiling showers. It never came off clean, sticking to him like oil.

When Heero had calmed down, he sat back and Darlian let him go. She walked across the room to her desk and hung her damp jacket over the back of her chair. She picked up a box of tissues and brought them to Heero. "Take your time, I'll be right back." She left the room for a few minutes, giving Heero some privacy to regain his composure. When she returned, she sat in the lounge chair, crossing her legs and opening Heero's file across her lap. "Feeling better?" she asked over the sound of her scratching pen.

"Yes. Thank you."

"You did the hard part, Heero. I'm just the one that kicked your ass off the cliff."

Heero threw his head back and laughed. His stomach hurt and his throat felt thick and raw, but he laughed anyway.

"I do have one more question, though," Darlian said. "Do you know why the Colonel didn't have you put before a court-martial like she threatened?"

"She said she'd forget what had happened because the hospital needed me, but in the future, she expected more 'military discipline' from me."

"And you agreed."

"There will always be more patients that need me. Just because I couldn't save that woman and her baby, it doesn't mean I should give up on everyone else."

Darlian checked her watch and finished writing in Heero's file. "That's all for today, Captain. Thank you."

Heero left the hospital and went back to his apartment. He sat on his bed and sighed, considering a few hours of sleep before his afternoon shift started. He toed his shoes off and pulled his shirt over his head, hanging it over the back of his desk chair. His journal was sitting on his desk, and on a whim, Heero picked it up. He carefully turned through the thin pages, finding a specific entry.

I keep wondering who I should blame. Myself? Po? God? I should've been able to save them, but I failed, and now I have to live with that. I accept that punishment.

For a moment I considered trying to avoid my punishment. Those damn sleeping pills. The full bottle is sitting next to the bed. They're tempting me to run away. No. She couldn't avoid dying and I can't avoid living with that. It wouldn't be right.

When the right time comes, God will come for me, and then I can finally look the bastard in the eye and ask him why enjoys watching us suffer. Until then I'll do what I can to keep him from enjoying himself.

Chapter 6: "Let's move on"

Heero felt the dry wind blow through his hair. There was a rare scent on the breeze, ozone and burning air. There was a storm on the way, and it would arrive shortly after nightfall. The chain links cut into his fingers as he held on to the fence, staring at the darkening horizon to the east.

"Seems like all we get are sunsets."

Heero turned toward the man who had spoken, shielding his eyes with a hand.

Duo stood with his arms crossed, his head haloed by the setting sun as he looked through Heero to the eastern horizon. "Sounds kind of poetic, doesn't it?" There was no smile on his face, just a thoughtful frown as he walked up to the fence and stood at Heero's left shoulder.

"It'd be an awfully sad poem." Heero turned away from the sun, searching the black distance for words. Perhaps they were both searching for the same thing, because there was a long silence as they scanned the landscape again and again. The golden sand paled to charcoal grey and the sparse landmarks turned to clumps of shadow, all colors retreating with the light.

"I came to find you because I thought you'd want to know," Duo said. "Or maybe you won't give a shit. I dunno, I just thought..." He scuffed the toe of his boot into the concrete. "I got my orders. I'm shipping out to a new unit tomorrow."

Heero chewed on his tongue. "That was fast."

"I found out yesterday, but I was kind of pissed at you still. Anyway, I didn't know if you'd even care."

"I do. I do care what happens to you."

A grin curled on Duo's mouth. "Nice to know someone does, at least."

"Do you still plan on finding the one that killed Solo?"

"Yeah. I owe that to him."

"I know you might not want to hear this, but sometimes it's better if you can let go of the things that hurt you. Forgive and move on."

"We can't all play the good guys, doc. You, you're a great doctor. It's easy for you to be the hero. Me, on the other hand... The only thing I've ever been good for is killing people or getting people killed. Doesn't sound like much of a hero, so you keep to your gig and I'll keep to mine."

In the distance, the sky crackled and roared.

"I don't see people as heroes or villains. Trying to divide them up that way would just be confusing." Heero turned around and put his hand on Duo's shoulder. "We'd probably end up cutting everyone in half just to make the labels fit." He squeezed and let go, walking toward his apartment. "Since you're leaving tomorrow, at least let me make you dinner. I want to apologize for acting like a prick."

There was a moment when Heero had the option of delaying his climax just a bit longer, of slowing down or holding back, but then Duo's lips covered his mouth and he didn't want to wait anymore. Damp heat surrounded him, stuck to his skin like cloth as he shared gasping breaths with another pair of overheated lungs. Their tongues caressed one another, surprising gentle for the desperate impacts their bodies drove against each other. Duo kept one hand clutching the headboard, the other gripping Heero's right hand, their fingers locked. Duo's calluses pressed into his palm, and Heero felt anchored down and secure as the rush inside threatened to sweep him away.

The skies outside flashed like strobe lights, burning split-second images into Heero's mind if he had the luck of opening his eyes at the right time. The roaring thunder shook the building to its foundation, a reminder of the destructive power raging just outside one fragile pane of glass.

But Duo was surrounding him, wrapped around him and pulling him deeper. Somewhere in the thunder blasts their shouts were covered, their last ounces of energy spent in a violent surge that catapulted Heero to the nebulous overlay between euphoria and exhaustion.

He slowly, weakly, lowered onto Duo's chest, pressing his forehead into the crook of Duo's neck and gasping for whatever oxygen was left in the closed off bedroom. He could feel Duo unfold himself, his calves sliding over Heero's buttocks and down his thighs.

They carefully came apart. Heero peeled the condom off and tied it shut, but didn't roll over or move, laying on top of Duo's body still. He could feel the dampness of his hair as Duo's fingers slid through it, feathering the wet locks on his scalp. He placed his palm over the center of Duo's chest, a racing heartbeat thrumming through skeleton and muscle and flesh to dance under his fingertips.

They remained together, lying against one another as thunder rolls shook through to their bones. No words for the longest time. No breath for words. Just the feeling of the body beneath him was all Heero needed for reassurance that he wasn't dreaming. He ran his hand over Duo's chest, over his shoulder, down his arm. There was no tingling in Heero's fingertips, just warmth from sweat-covered skin.

Heero woke a few hours later to find the storm had passed. Rough fingers were petting through his hair and down his neck. "Did you sleep?" Heero asked, nuzzling against Duo's throat.

"A little. The quiet woke me."

Heero pushed up on his arms, bringing his face closer to Duo's. He tried to imagine Duo's face in the dark, feeling it out by brushing their noses together. The kiss was slow. Heero pushed forward, then pulled back, almost breaking the contact of their lips. He tilted his head to the side, parting his lips, pleased to feel Duo's part as well. Their mouths sealed again and their tongues rolled together. He could feel Duo's soft cock pressing against his thigh. His own genitals were resting comfortably on Duo's hip, unaroused and ignored for the moment. In the darkness, Heero could taste the forbidden pleasure of such intimacy, something he'd never allowed himself to sample until now.

"I should clean up," Duo muttered, his mouth not straying far from Heero's after the kiss ended.

"Me too."

Heero pressed forward into another kiss, delighted to feel Duo press back. Duo's tongue tickled his lips, and he opened them willingly for it.

"Shower?" Duo asked.

"You first."

Heero sucked Duo's lower lip. They kissed more aggressively, grinning into quick kisses stolen in what was left of their time.

Duo gave Heero a light shove and slid out of bed, finding his way to the bathroom blind and flipping on the light.

Heero squinted at the sudden brightness, but kept watching, enjoying the view of Duo's naked backside. He reached over and turned on the bedside lamp before hunting around the floor for his shorts. He found them hanging off a post at the foot of the bed.

Heero sat on the edge of his bed and watched Duo climb into the shower. He let out a heavy sigh and he stood up, stretching out his cramped muscles. He paused, a confused expression furrowing his brow until he looked down between his legs at the slowly swelling outline of his dick. "Now you want to go again..."

"What?"

Heero looked to the bathroom door and the closed shower curtain. "Nothing," he said. A smile spread over his face as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and tugged them down. He took his cock in his hand, stroking it as he wandered into the bathroom and climbed in the shower.

"I assume you're excited to get back to regular duty."

"Very much." Heero eased back into the sofa, folding his hands in his lap.

"Well, I think we're all done here, Captain. I just have to sign off on your report and you can go back to your patients." Darlian went to her desk, putting his file aside as she pulled out papers from sorted stacks and filled them in.

Heero rose and followed her, standing on the other side of her desk with his hands in his pockets. "I want you to know I'm sorry about the way we started off. I shouldn't have disrespected you. You're a fine doctor and I'm grateful for all your help."

Darlian glanced up at him and smiled. "I appreciate that. But it's nothing I'm not used to. Being a civilian, being a woman, being young... I faced my share of criticism long before you walked through my door." She finished the papers, then stacked them together and offered them to Heero. "You can take these to the Colonel yourself if you like. Otherwise, I'll just have my assistant do it later."

Heero shook his head. "That's fine. I'd just like to get back to work."

"Then you're dismissed, Captain." The grin tugging on her lips showed the playfulness behind the remark.

Heero nodded. "Thank you, Relena." The name curled strangely on his tongue. As he left the office, he wondered if it had something to do with the smile shaping his lips.

He spent an hour patrolling the post-op wards, checking up on his patients. Afterward, he left the hospital and headed to the basketball court. Trowa was already there, soaked with sweat and practicing shots around the three-point boundary.

"Hey," Heero called.

"Hey." Trowa rested the ball against his hip, pushing wet strands of hair out of his face. "You want something?"

Heero peeled his shirt off and hung it over the lowest bench on the bleachers. "I thought I'd give you the chance to buy me lunch." He swiped Trowa's sunscreen, rubbing the lotion across his chest and shoulders. "How's a four point handicap sound?"

Trowa was quiet a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I heard Duo left this morning. Is that why you're here? You got bored so you decided to come find me?"

Heero wiped his hands off on his shorts. "No. I came to find you because you're my friend. At least, I hope you still are."

"You want to just forget all that's happened?"

"No. But you accepted my apology, and now I'm accepting yours. I'm not saying let's forget; I'm saying let's move on." Heero offered his hand to Trowa. "Okay?"

"Yeah, okay." Trowa shook Heero's hand, his brow furrowing when he felt a slip of paper press between their palms. Heero withdrew his hand, leaving a white business card in Trowa's palm. "What's this?"

"Someone you should talk to. She's good with people's problems." Heero snatched the basket ball and dribbled to the free-throw line, taking a practice shot. "And she's got great legs."

"You want me to call the staff shrink?" Trowa arched an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"I think you need help. Just give it a try, okay?" Heero rebounded the ball and went in for a lay up.

Trowa flipped the card over, his look of confusion passing into a wide grin. "Heero... did she give you her personal phone number?"

Final Chapter: "All we've ever had"

"Dr. Yuy, you have a personal call on line two."

"Thank you." Heero picked up his office phone and pressed the extension button. "Heero Yuy."

"Hey, doc. It's been a while."

Heero's fingers were tingling around the receiver. "It has. How are you, Duo?"

"A hell of a lot better now that I'm stateside again. I was discharged a month ago."

"I'm glad to hear that. Are you... Were you hurt?"

"A little beat up. How about we meet and catch up?"

"You're in the city?"

"Just got off at the train station. I thought there was supposed to be more fog around here."

Heero laughed. "You came in the wrong month. Wait until August."

"Trying to get rid of me already, doc?"

"Hardly. There's a café in the Crissy Field Center, right on the bay. I'll meet you."

"What time?"

"You know." Heero slipped the receiver back on its cradle and leaned back in his chair. He drummed his fingers on the arm rests and took a deep breath before getting back to work.

He was already there when Heero arrived, nursing a cup of coffee and staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the bay.

"It's beautiful at sunset, isn't it?" Heero took the seat across from Duo, taking in the grand view of the sun sinking into the ocean behind the Golden Gate Bridge. "The way that the light catches in the ripples over the water and shimmers... I never really paid attention to it until I came back."

"It's funny how being gone for so long changes the way you see things."

"I don't know if it was just being away. Where we went probably has something to do with it too."

Duo chuckled. "Anything looks like heaven after you've seen the bowels of hell. Is that what you mean, doc?"

"Something like that. And you can call me Heero if you want."

"You come here often, Heero?" Duo waggled his eyebrows.

"Now and again," Heero said, covering a small laugh. "There's a place out on the beach I like better. It's not far from here."

"Let me pay for this and you can show me." Duo waved down a server.

They left the center and walked out to the beach, the breeze picking up as they strolled along the shore.

"You'd think we'd be sick of sand."

"This is different sand. Good sand. The kind that comes with an ocean attached." Duo grinned and slid his hands in his pockets. "So how long have you been back?"

"About a year. Things are just starting to feel normal again."

"Normal," Duo repeated. Their shadows stretched out in front of them, growing longer as the day grew shorter. "You know, when the hospital desk said they were transferring me to pediatrics, I thought I'd found the wrong Heero Yuy. I never pictured you working with kids."

Heero shrugged. "It's like you said. Being away changes how you look at things -- especially yourself." He departed from the shoreline, leading Duo into the shaded dunes. He sat down between two mounds of sand, leaving a space for Duo on his left. "This whole field used to be a military base. Now people bring their families here to fish or play with their pets. I'm not sure what is it, but something about that gives me hope."

Duo moved closer, pressing his thigh against Heero's. "That's why you come here to watch the sun set?"

"That's part of the reason." Heero's gaze turned away from the golden sunlight shining over the bay waters and fixed on Duo. He examined the contours and angles of Duo's face, reacquainting himself with the details he'd forgotten. He lifted a hand, his tingling fingertips soothed as they brushed against Duo's cheek and then cupped his chin.

Duo moved toward him, stopping just an inch before their lips met. "Heero," he whispered. "I... I'm sorry." He sat back, moving away from Heero on the sand. He looked out to the open bay, then down, holding his head between his hands. "I didn't mean to... I didn't come here for that. I'm sorry."

Heero's jaw hung open as he tried to come up with something to say. "I'm not sure what you mean."

Duo sighed. "Neither am I. There's just a lot going through my head. There's things I feel like I should tell you, but... then again, I'm not so sure." Duo pulled his knees up against his chest and folded his arms on top of them.

Heero put his hand on Duo's back and felt him shiver under the touch. "You just got home. When you're ready, I'll listen."

"What makes you think I'll still be here?"

The question struck Heero with an unexpected panic. "Is there someplace else you're going?"

"Nowhere I've got planned. No reason for me to go back to my foster parents now, and there's no one else out there that's missed me."

"Just me." The words slipped out before Heero had time to process their implications. When Duo didn't respond, Heero slid his arm around his shoulders. "You can stay with me as long as you want."

"I don't want you to say that because you're sorry for me."

"I'm saying it because I want you here with me." Heero wrapped his other arm around Duo, moving closer to him. "That's why I come here to watch the sun set. Because until now sunsets are all we've ever had." Heero pressed a kiss to Duo's lips, and Duo reluctantly leaned into it. "I want more than sunsets. I want sunrises, too. I want days and nights. And most of all, I want you to want to be here with me."

Duo was silent a moment, resting his forehead against Heero's. Then he uncurled from himself and slid his arms around Heero's chest. He tucked his face against the crook of Heero's neck, his body shivering as he inhaled sharply through his nostrils. "I'd almost forgotten what your cologne smelled like."

"I don't wear cologne."

"That's not the point."

Heero laughed and stroked his fingers over the back of Duo's skull, just above where the long braid of hair began. "Does this mean you want to stay?"

"Yeah. I want that." Duo turned his head to see the last sliver of sun sink into the Pacific, the sky on the horizon burning pink and orange behind the silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Romantic cliché or not, Heero had to conclude that having sex on a beach was not very practical. Their clothes had made a soft enough bed, and the dunes provided ample privacy, but trying to shake the sand out of his boxer shorts afterward was not exactly fun.

They had chosen to put their pants back on afterward, in case someone came by on a moonlight stroll. Laying side by side on top of their shirts and Heero's jacket, they felt one another in the darkness, remapping each other with tactile imagery.

Heero's hand lingered over the burn marks and pink scar tissue on the left side of Duo's belly and hip. They had surprised him earlier, to which Duo had smiled and repeated what he said about being a little beat up. "How did this happen?" he asked, cupping Duo's hip.

"Remember the guy I was after? The one that killed Solo."

Heero hummed a soft acknowledgment.

"We tracked him down to a safe house. I was leading a three-man squad inside to capture the son of a bitch." Duo shifted, propping his head up on his palm. "As soon as we knocked the door in I could see him, backed into the far corner and cowering from us. I had his head right in the sight of my rifle. I could've blown him away right then. I said to him, 'Remember me, asshole?' And he smiled... He smiled and that pissed me off so bad I wasn't watching his hands. The guy was wired with explosives and I was so mad I didn't see him reaching for the detonator. There was just an ear-splitting boom and the next thing I knew four days had passed and I was in a hospital bed in Cairo. Those scars are from a piece of shrapnel that hit me right below my chest armor and the surgery to remove my spleen. They showed me the armor I'd been wearing: It had more craters in it than the moon. Fuckin' miracle, they called it. Well not that fuckin' miraculous since the three guys I went in there with all got sent home in boxes."

Duo turned onto his back and stared up at the cloudless sky. "The lone survivor. Again. Chalk another one up to the death god."

Heero tried to think of something to say. He tried for minutes, and then he lay his head on Duo's shoulder and pressed up close against him. The night wind whistled by, but the dunes kept them protected and they kept each other warm.

I thought this journal would make a good relic, a souvenir of everything I didn't want to remember but was afraid to forget. I even had a few thoughts of sending it to Darlian. She might enjoy it as a case study into a mind and the man driven out of it.

Duo is still asleep. It will be dawn soon, but I don't know if I'll wake him or not. In fact, there are a lot of things about our future I'm not certain of right now. We don't get happy endings, just tomorrows. And right now tomorrow looks like it's going to be a beautiful day.

Heero lifted his head as an early breeze caught in his hair, sending it dancing over his eyes. Sunlight was shining on the very tops of the bridge.

That hope I felt -- the hope connected to this field -- I think I know what it is now. It's not a hope for humanity or for world peace. It's hope for us, Duo and I. If this strip of land can be reclaimed and cultivated into something beautiful, then maybe someday he and I can be healed of our own scars. Maybe we can become our own Eden, in time.

Heero closed the small, leather-bound journal and stood up. He faced the east, new sunlight pouring over his face as the world spun him forward. The journal in his hand felt heavy, and after a moment of consideration, Heero turned and flung the small book into the bay, where the outgoing tidal waves swallowed it and dragged it toward the bottomless ocean.