Overload

By GreenLady

Disclaimer:  Gundum Wing belongs to Bandai, Sunrise, and whoever else.  This is just in good fun. 

 Warnings:  Yaoi and violence, of course.  Probably some naughty words, because they are teenage boys.  Oh, and Heero's a little crazy here, but there's a reason for it, so I refuse to label it as OC.

This is third in what now has, (damn it) become a series.  First came Trying Normal, Peaceful Illusions, and now Overload.  You don't have to read the prequels, but it will make a lot more sense.  Thanks go to my beta Willowbranch for the long hours of listening patiently to me whine; you're the best.

Part 1

"Quatre . . . "

Heero opened his eyes, blinking irritably as the smear of white ceiling above his head refused to come into focus.  A soft growl escaped his lips.  He had never been fond of impressionism, no matter how often his lover would gush enthusiastically over the work of artists like Cezanne and Monet, and this was exactly why.  Those paintings bore a disturbing resemblance to the first sight seen after emerging from involuntary unconsciousness.  Associating something with nausea and headaches did not lead to fond recollections.

A bleary figure suddenly stepped into his line of vision and leaned over his prone body.  The person was recognizable only by the blonde hair framing the indistinct face.  "Quat . . ." he began, only to cut off abruptly as the world snapped back into focus.

It wasn't Quatre leaning over him.  It was Sally Poe.  Her nose was wrinkled in doctoral concern, and her warm eyes were framed by hair tightly pulled back into a ponytail, hair that was unmistakably a couple of shades darker than the other blonde Heero had mistaken her for. 

Heero's expression went blank, a belated defense mechanism.  He was shaken.  Quatre's presence had been strong.  So strong that he had been sure that the young Arab had been in the room with him.  That surety had been the only reason he had allowed himself to regain consciousness in such an unguarded fashion.  Otherwise his eyes would have remained shut until he had evaluated his situation and location thoroughly.

Sally lips pinched together slightly, the only sign that she had heard his slip.  She lightly caught his chin in her hand, the touch unthreatening and easily escapable.  The grip allowed her to keep his head still so she could check his pupils.  "Do you remember what happened, Heero?"

The brisk tone allowed Heero to get a measure of his control back.  He shook off his bout of unease, and gave her a measured look.  "Of course."  His voice was rusty with disuse, but he continued anyway.  "My team and I penetrated the target's base without running into difficulty.  Preventers Anson and Sebranek took out the guards in the control room and we gained control of their security system.  They kept in close contact with our second group, which consisted of Rais, Snow, and I.  We had just managed to plant the charges when we ran into a group of the enemy.  We exchanged fire."

"And you were shot," Sally finished, hands hovering over the bandage at his abdomen.  Her voice was matter of fact and professional, knowing that Heero would want to know the status of his body right away.  "You were really lucky.  The bullet hit your liver, but we managed to get a new one into you quickly thanks to the swift efforts of your teammates in pulling you out."  Artificially manufactured organs were commonplace in this day and age.  Winner Enterprises, Heero knew, owned a large stake in the technology.  Victims of injury or sickness had a much higher likelihood of survival with the lessened chance that their bodies would reject the new organs.  And if the new organs were rejected, they could always be replaced with one that was a better match.

Heero pulled his mind back from wandering, disturbed at its difficulty.  He felt uncharacteristically sluggish, but forced his brain into an analytical recount of the events that had led to the near failure of the mission.  The shutdown of the illegal weapons factory should have gone off without a hitch.  Heero had personally led a team of Preventers, and they had training, discipline, technology, and, most importantly, surprise, on their side.  It should have been easy.

But with the first staccato burst of gunfire, it had become apparent that they lacked something very important:  luck.  Duo always said that success was one part skill, and three parts luck, and it seemed that he was right.  Even the perfect soldier wasn't immune to bad luck.  A stray bullet, (possibly from his own team, and if that was the case, someone was going to get a long talk about "friendly fire") had tagged him in the gut.  The other Preventers had only *just* managed to pull him out under cover of the explosions.

All in all, it had been way too close for anyone's liking.

Heero looked up at Sally.  "The mission didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped."  His voice was flat, but the underlying tone was sardonic.  Heero was nothing if not a master of stating the obvious.

Sally quirked an eyebrow.  "Shit happens Heero.  Even to someone as skilled as you.  That's why I'm here.  Someone has to patch you idiots up."  She gave him a hard look.  "Of course, that means you have to be a good little patient and actually let me do my job.  Which means no leaving the hospital without my okay."  Sally wasn't just saying this to be funny.  The ex-pilots were known far and wide (or at least by exasperated doctors) as the worst patients in both the colonies and earth.

Heero frowned, choosing to disregard the concerned warnings.  Now that the mission report was out of the way, something, or rather the lack of someone, was bothering him.  His deep blue eyes measured and weighed the sterile hospital room and found it wanting.  "Where's Quatre?"  He asked abruptly, turning to pin Sally with a sharp gaze.

Sally's eyes widened slightly before her expression turned suspiciously bland.  "He wanted to be here," she said carefully, "but you knew Quatre and work - he had a meeting that he couldn't get out of."

Heero's eyes narrowed.  He did know Quatre, certainly better than this particular, currently lying, female doctor.  He knew that if one of Quatre's friends was injured, let alone his lover, nothing would keep the blonde from their side. 

Nothing.  Unless there were unforeseen circumstances.

Sally's feet shifted slightly as she leaned back on her heels.  It was a relaxed pose, but sharp blue eyes missed nothing.  The doctor was good at controlling her body language, but not quite good enough.  Certainly not good enough to fool a paranoid like Heero Yuy.  Unforeseen circumstances.  The only thing that would keep Quatre from his side . . .

Heero sat up abruptly, ignoring the twinge of pain from his abdomen as well as Sally's alarmed cry at his sudden movement.  She tried to get him to lie back down, but a cutting glance stopped her fussing and froze her to the spot.  "What happened to Quatre?"  His voice was low and dangerous.

Sally was refusing to be intimidated.  Deliberately she straightened her spine, (although not without taking a prudent step back,) meeting his eyes levelly.  "I told you already, he's at work.  Something important came up."

"You're lying."

Sally bit her bottom lip absently in a telltale habit.  She clearly had something to say, but feared the consequences of letting it out.

Heero took an educated guess.  "Did Preventer Une order you not to tell me?"

Sally worried her lower lip harder.  Heero realized he was right on.  She took a deep breath.  "Look Heero.  She's just worried you'll end up hurting yourself, and I agree.  You're in no condition to be running off somewhere.  We know how you operate, you never give yourself enough time to heal as it is . . ."

Heero's expression made her trail off, shifting her eyes nervously away.  It was only through a supreme effort of will that he kept himself from lunging and making her tell him everything.  Besides, that might actually take longer when she was already this close to caving.  "It's too late for that now.  I'll find out anyway, one way or another."  The implied threat was obvious.

But Sally Poe did not respond well to threats.  Her lips tightened belligerently, and indecision in her expression vanished in a wave of heated anger.  "Look Yuy, just because . . ."

"Preventer Poe!  Do we have a problem in here?"  The sharp voice came from the doorway, cutting off the doctor mid-sentence.

Sally stiffened.  Bravely she turned around to face Lady Une, somehow managing to look like a child with her hand caught in the cookie jar. 

Heero's eyes narrowed to slits as he looked at the ex-Oz officer.  "Where.  Is.  Quatre?"  He bit out, before Sally could say anything to placate her irate superior.  There was a growing feeling of urgency building in his chest.  All of his emotions were telling him that he had to find the blonde now.

Une frowned at him from the doorway, her long, loose hair framing her figure.  "Preventer Yuy.  If you can remain calm and not aggravate your injuries further I'll tell you.  Try to behave like an adult, and less like a time bomb."

Heero just glared, promising nothing.  "Tell me."

The women and exchanged glances.  Finally Lady Une nodded, a slight jerk of her head, and it was Sally who answered.  "Several days ago, around the time you were on your mission, Quatre was holding a meeting with W.E.'s subsidiaries.  I believe they were discussing a merger.  Then, according to witnesses, in the middle of his pitch, Quatre suddenly collapsed without any warning."  There was a slight pause.  Heero could feel the blood rushing through his ears.  The sense of urgency was growing.  "He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but the doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with him.  But . . ."  Her eyes were full of sympathy.  "He hasn't woken up."

"There's nothing you can do for him right now Heero," Une said, voice level.  "We'll get you over to him as soon as possible, but you shouldn't be moved with your injuries as they are right now.  You're staying in this hospital.  We have your best interests at heart. . . " 

Heero ignoring her words yanked an I.V. line out of his wrist.  "What hospital was he taken too?"  He planted his feet on the floor and hauled himself up, gritting his teeth as the movement pulled the unhealed skin at his side.  Sally reached for him quickly, obviously hoping to get him to lie back down.  Heero grabbed her arm before she could touch him, the grip threatening and painful.  "Where is he!?"

Sally winced at the hold, but did not cry out.  Une was yelling in the background.  "Heero, there are Preventers all over this building, they have orders to keep you in here by force if necessary!" 

"What hospital?!"

"Heero, you're just going to make your injuries worse!"  Sally shouted quickly, trying to make herself heard over the Lady.  "We're not trying to keep you from him, it's just that there's nothing you can do now, and your injuries . . ."

"Where is he!?"  He shook her a little for emphasis.  Heero knew her words made intellectual sense, but the feeling that he needed to get to Quatre now was overriding everything else.

"St. Bethel!"  Sally said suddenly, eyes widening as she heard herself spill the information so unexpectedly.  

Heero wasted no time.  He shoved the doctor away, tossing her on the vacated cot behind him.  It was a nice (relatively speaking) soft landing.  He didn't actually want to hurt her after all, just get her out of the way.

Lady Une was blocking the only exit out of the room.  Unless you counted the window, which Heero was eying a little too speculatively.  Une scowled and weighed her options.  Deciding she didn't want one of her best agents taking a dive out of a fourth-floor story window (no matter how obstinate he was being,) she moved to the side.  Her wayward Preventer immediately stopped eyeballing the window and raced out the door.  His injuries didn't appear to be hindering him at all.

Sally heaved herself up from the bed, cursing Heero loudly.  Une ignored the woman's antics, cocking her head to the side as she listened to Yuy's progress through the hospital.  It seemed her subordinates were following her orders and trying to stop the pilot's exodus.  Not that they were succeeding.

She sighed and checked her watch.  Exactly two minutes and forty-three seconds later a young Preventer officer came bursting into the room.  His hair was mussed and one of his sleeves was ripped, but he was otherwise unharmed.  "Ma'am," he saluted Une hastily.  "He appropriated an ambulance.  We couldn't stop him!"

Lady Une sighed and rubbed her temple.  "Of course you couldn't," she muttered.  She turned to Sally.  "I think we need to get over to St. Bethel.  I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of ruffled feathers to soothe.  I just hope no one tries to keep him from seeing Quatre."

"It's a private, rather expensive, hospital, ma'am."  Sally answered.  "There's bound to be security."

The two women exchanged a look, and then spoke as one.

"I'll drive!"

Heero brought the stolen ambulance to a skidding halt right outside the fancy, frosted glass doors of St. Bethel.  He leapt out of the vehicle and dashed though the entranceway into the lobby, making a beeline for the check in counter.  Vaguely he noticed that the lobby was certainly more posh than the hospital he had been staying at, which really wasn't a surprise.  St. Bethel was one of those fancy, and most important of all, discrete, places where the very rich and/or very famous could recover out of the limelight.  Heero's stay had been funded with government money, and there was no way the Preventer budget could put him up in a place like this.

The clerk at the counter glanced up at him as he skidded to a halt in front of her.  Her pretty brown eyes widened as she got a good look at the disheveled pilot.  His hair, naturally untidy as it was, had reached new heights of messiness today, and his cobalt eyes were wild.  The clerk's eyes traveled down his form, lipstick painted mouth opening in a gasp as she noticed the red stain spreading across the midsection of his white, obviously hospital issued, pajama pants. 

Right now, Heero bore an uncanny resemblance to an escaped mental patient, something that he grew painfully aware of as the clerk stared at him for a couple of minutes more.  Then she promptly pressed the panic button. 

Heero cursed as burly security guards suddenly materialized from practically every exit, closing in on him with a speed and organization that would have had Lady Une gasping with delight and promptly signing them all on as Preventers.  Before they could reach him, the Japanese man turned and addressed the clerk.  "Look, I don't want any trouble.  I just want to know what room Quatre Raberba Winner is in, and what his condition . . ."

The rest of the sentence was lost as one particularly speedy guard reached him and tried to grab his arms.  Heero quickly ducked under his reach and elbowed the man in the gut, than he used a spin kick to send him flying into one of his fellows.  The other guards closed in, and Heero wasted a precious thirty seconds knocking them all unconscious.  Then he promptly jumped over the counter, ignoring the stab of pain and fresh gush of blood from his abdomen, and grabbed the stunned clerk by the shoulders.  "I don't like repeating myself," he growled threateningly.  He noticed that the woman's eyes were wide with fear and a part of his mind cringed at his actions, but the sense of urgency riding him wouldn't let him stop completely.  Nevertheless, he gentled his grip and softened his voice slightly.  "What room is Quatre Winner in?  Please, just tell me."

The clerk seemed to realize that some kind of response was needed.  "I . . . I don't . . ."

Her incoherent stammering was interrupted by another voice.  "Melinda, I need the paperwork for Mr. Webster's checkout. . .  hey, who are you?  And what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Heero glanced over at the new voice.  It was a young man, fresh-faced and freckled with short hair the color of rust, and he was wearing a white lab-coat.  From that Heero deduced that he must be a doctor. 

The ex-pilot decided to ignore him for the time being.  He turned back to the clerk.  "Where is Quatre staying?!"

"Mr. Winner?"  It was the young doctor again, sounding startled and clearly not knowing when to shut his mouth and run very quickly in the other direction.  "Melinda, call security!"

"I, I already did."  And then, at a firm shake from Heero:  "I think he's somewhere on third floor!"

"You think or you know?"  Out of the corner of his eye, Heero could see the doctor taking in the virtual army of unconscious security guards.

The clerk, apparently named Melinda, gasped.  "It's third floor, I'm sure of it!"

"Hey!  Don't tell him that!"  The doctor looked outraged.  "You there!  Get your hands off of her!  And keep away from my patient!"

Heero dropped the startled Melinda and stared at the young doctor.  He had suddenly gotten a lot more interesting.  "Your patient?  You're Quatre's doctor?"  In a blur of speed Heero traded one hostage for another, grabbing the doctor's arm and twisting it behind his back.  "You will take me to him."  Ignoring the shout of startled protest he dragged the outraged man to the elevator and shoved him inside.  It was difficult to press the button for third floor with a struggling captive, but somehow Heero managed. 

The doors had just closed when the doctor landed a lucky elbow into Heero's wound.  The Japanese man gasped and suddenly let go, doubling over at the sickening pain as the redheaded physician scrambled over to pound fruitlessly at the doors.  Frustrated, he slammed his forearms against the metal, then stopped and blinked in surprise at the smudge of red that now decorated the door.

The doctor stared at the blood and then glanced at his arms.  Yes, one of them was smeared in red.  With a startled sound the man turned and stared at Heero, noticing the re-opened wound for the first time.  "You're injured!"  It came out sounding more like an accusation than anything else.  Heero managed an amused smirk around the pain.  He sounded like Sally Poe.

"Hn."

The young doctor was beginning to look exasperated.  "Are you stupid?  You can't just run around with a wound like that!  You'll expire from blood loss!"

"I need to see Quatre."

"I won't let you hurt one of my patients!"  They glared at each other, both frustrated and desperate.  Impasse.

The man's devotion to his patient was something Heero would have admired under any other circumstances, but right now it was annoying.  "Look, I'm not going to hurt him.  I would cut off my own arms before harming Quatre!"  The Japanese man took a calming breath.  It only sort of worked.  "I woke up in a hospital, a different hospital, and heard what happened to him.  I need to see him!"  Voicing the desperate urge out loud sounded strange, but Heero was feeling reckless.

The elevator door dinged quietly opened behind the doctor, but he made no move to leave.  Instead he stared at Heero.  "What's your relationship to Mr. Winner?"

Heero hesitated, eyeing the man distrustfully, going through possible answers and discarding them.  "We're . . . close."

One red eyebrow rose.  "Close?"  He parroted incredulously.  "That doesn't tell me anything!"  Heero shot the doctor a meaningful look, and crossed his arms pointedly (and painfully) over his chest, waiting for the man to get it.  "I . . . oh!  I see."  For a second he seemed at a loss, than he frowned thoughtfully.  "Look," he trailed off hesitantly, clearly torn.  "If you harm him in any way . . ."

Heero just looked at him, blue eyes trying to convey a patience that he didn't feel. 

"Alright.  I'll bring you to him, but I'm watching you.  Don't think I approve of what you did to get in here."  This time it was Heero who quirked an eyebrow.  "Follow me."  The doctor moved down the hallway, glancing back to see that the Japanese man wasn't so much as following him as crowding at his heels.  They marched quickly down the hallway, and then the doctor stopped in front of a door.  The number 310 was inscribed in delicate gold lettering on the wood. 

The doctor folded his arms over his chest and pinned Heero with earnest brown eyes.  "Look, I think its only fair to warn you.  Mr. Winner is in a coma.  He's been in one for days, chances are he may never wake up."

Heero stared at the door, urgency thrumming painfully through his veins.  "He's in there?"

"Yes, but you have to understand . . ."  Heero interrupted by the simple action of moving him bodily away from the door.  He pushed it open and stepped inside.

The lights were dim and the room was quiet, a quiet broken only by the incessant beeping of a heart monitor.  Heero's eyes adjusted quickly, and he followed the sound, yanking back a curtain as he went.

There he was.  The blonde looked fragile and washed out against the white sheets.  Tubes sprouted from his wrists like electrical wiring, leading to small bags of life-sustaining fluid against the wall.  Heero had the illogical thought that the blonde's life energy was slowly seeping away through the tubes, draining Quatre of what made him, well, him.

The doctor had followed him through the door.  "I don't know what you hope to accomplish.  It's not like he'll get better just because you're here."

//But he will// Heero suddenly thought, and moved forward to pick up the blonde's hand.

And as the doctor watched in amazement, Quatre's eyes opened.  The blonde blinked once, very deliberately, and then immediately focused on the young man holding his hand.

He smiled.