A/N: …I know right?

CHAPTER TEN

White and shades of gray swam into vision, the brightness blinding him momentarily. His chest hurt and his head wasn't making him feel any better. Eventually his abused eyes adjusted to the ridiculous lighting and he got a good look around. The walls were no longer yellow, but now gray and white. Slowly his hearing registered in his brain, the distinct sounds of the monotonous beeping pushing through the fog in his mind.

He was in a hospital.

He would've liked to move his head to scout better from his prone position but it weighed a ton. So he settled for peering through the slits his heavy eyelids provided. Glazed aubergine roamed around the poorly decorated room to scan whatever machines he could detect. Soon he registered another weight on the bed to his right. He could barely make out whose head it was from the extreme corner of his right eye. All he saw was hair splayed over the rumpled, stark white sheets.

A shifting noise brought his attention to the figure sitting at the foot of the hospital bed. Slightly disheveled raven hair fell over a drooping head, brushing against the sheets; black being a sharp contrast to the white. His slowly focusing mind registered the person to be Wufei. He vaguely registered that the other person he couldn't see had to have been Heero.

He lay there for a while, absently searching for a calendar, his memory sending him images of past events during the mission with Trowa. He'd had this weird dream, though. And he couldn't get it out of his head for more than five seconds. It was all blurred but he did remember finding it hard to breathe and blood rushing by his ears. Thinking about it too much was making his headache worse, so he associated it with the drugs being pumped into him. Although his chest did feel weird.

Duo's eyes were drawn to the movement coming from behind the Chinese. The door opened slowly and quietly, a blurry image of a person stepping in and closing the door behind him or her. Duo surmised he was in a private room if they were allowed that privilege. His eyelids began to get heavy as the figure came closer. He fought to keep them open to see who it was before the drugs swept him away. Unfortunately he was only able to glimpse a pair of green before everything went dark.

Trowa sighed, running his fingers through Duo's bangs as the other fell asleep. At least the drugs stopped Duo from freaking out like last time. The doctors said his heart was still weak, and any excitement too soon could overwork the heart. The results are pretty much self explanatory.

Trowa was relieved to see Duo awake after about a day and a half after a nearly stopping heart. Even if he did fall right back to sleep. Heero and Wufei were still snoozing themselves, having not moved from their self designated spots for the past twenty seven hours. Duo had given them all quite a scare that morning. Whatever it was that had him so panicked remained unknown to the others even now. Trowa gave way to a shudder that traveled through his entire body.

*******+*********FLASHBACK*********+********

Heero reached forward, not liking the paleness of the other's skin. Duo had this frightened look on his face and it really had them all puzzled and worried at the same time. Not a good combination if you really wanted to know what was wrong. Quatre had tried speaking to him once he regained consciousness after five minutes of blacking out and calming minutely.

Heero's frown deepened. Duo's heart was working overtime. It hit his ribs so heard he thought they'd crack under pressure. His skin was clammy and his eyes didn't seem to focus properly. Shit he was hyperventilating even.

Quatre shifted his gaze worriedly between Heero and Duo, waiting for a response of some kind; and a good one at that. Heero turned to him, Duo's grip on his own chest loosening and his hand falling almost alarmingly limp beside him.

"Quatre call an ambulance," Heero hadn't even finished his sentence when the familiar black cell phone materialized and tanned fingers flew over the keypad.

Heero returned his attention to a now still nineteen year old.

Too still.

""Tell 'em to hurry," came Wufei's newfound voice, noticing Duo's current state with unease.

"Fuck that," said Trowa, his voice making its way around the lump in his throat. "We're going to take him. Get Abdul."

The others nodded in agreement. Quatre hung up after telling the receptionist to get Sally ready.

When it came to speed and precision, they all turned to Abdul; whenever Duo was unable to provide his services. Much like this situation. Only now Duo's services may be permanently lost if they didn't get him to Sally.

All of them sat in the back part of the limo, Duo's head in Heero's lap ad the rest of his body across those of Wufei's and Trowa's. Quatre had his phone out again, cancelling all his meetings and postponing others, not removing his eyes from Duo's prone form. They'd gotten his heart back up for now, but it never seemed to revert back to its normal patterns.

************+**********END FLASHBACK************+***********

Those were the scariest moments of their lives. But sadly Quatre couldn't stay. He and Relena had to go to a political gathering that demanded priority and just couldn't miss. So that just left the stoic threesome. It wasn't going to be easy, and they knew it. Duo got off to rocky starts with all three of them, Quatre being the only one who really anchored him in the real world. It was a surprise that they never got together, really. But a huge relief for former pilots 01, 03, and 05. But that's another matter. What matters now that Duo gets back on his feet no matter what. They will help him get over what it is bothering him.

Duo awoke next and found that he didn't ache anymore. But he really needed to answer the call of nature. He took full stock of the room he was in and found that he was alone in it. In a hospital. Maybe it was all a dream after all. But the room seemed different somehow. Like it had been rearranged one way or another. But he couldn't place his finger on it. Then again, all the private rooms looked alike.

Duo looked around the room still, his completely lucid eyesight trying to find something he could get to empty his bladder. The bathroom was about a meter away. He should be able to make it. Even on his bad leg. With set determination and a raging bladder, Duo took great care in swinging his legs over the side of the bed and stood gingerly, letting most of his weight fall on his left leg. He made sure to tote his IV with him, too. Couldn't have that absent without knowing the state he was in.

It took an agonizing ten minutes, but he was finally at the door, legs quaking under his gradually overbearing upper body weight. All he had to do now was open the door, take a few more steps and then take a well deserved seat on the toilet. Duo winced at his situation. It's embarrassing for a guy to be caught sitting on the toilet and not going through the natural phase of the infamous, butt numbing number two. At least he didn't have to deal with a bed pan. That would be mortifying.

He must have spent a considerable amount of time resting his still shaking legs as he sat on the impossibly white porcelain bowl, because when he managed to get halfway back to his bed (five minutes after daring to stand again) the door to his room opened and he was greeted by a breathless concerned "DUO!"

Duo's head snapped up and he turned toward the owner of the voice. Oh he knew who it was already, but he just thought it was a trick of his weakened senses. And besides, he wouldn't be able to answer just yet. He was still out of breath. But he managed a small smile, anyway. In a flash the other came to help lie Duo back onto the bed. Duo looked up at the pale face above him, and noted the shadowed sunken onyx orbs.

"You look like shit," Duo said, brows furrowed.

"Thanks," Wufei responded dryly, "that's exactly what I need to hear right now."

Wufei straightened and more or less collapsed into the chair beside the bed. "How the hell did you manage to get out of bed without disturbing the monitors, anyway?"

Duo barely stopped himself from frowning in thought, the question appealing to his curiosity as well.

"Trade secret," he quipped. And a bladder from hell.

He saw Wufei roll his eyes and the barest hint of a smirk twitching at the man's lips. "Well you're none the worse for wear if you can further endanger your health and make a joke about it all in one go."

Duo quirked a smile and glanced around the room. "Where's Heero? I could have sworn he was there before I had to answer the call of the wild."

"He's back at the estate," Wufei answered. "Made him shower and sleep."

"And you shouldn't be doing the same?" Duo accused, raising an eyebrow. "How long have you been here, anyway?"

"Just over three days," Wufei sighed, running fingers through a, what Duo just noted, disheveled mass of black.

"Well I feel fine," Duo said. "Save for those stupid drugs that have me half out of my mind. They gonna let me out anytime today?"

Wufei looked at the braided man with wide eyes. "Not in your condition, they're not!"

"Whoa, easy there, Chinaman," Duo placated, stopping to clear his throat. "No need to get so worked up."

"Like hell," Wufei growled, taking the American aback. "Your heart's still too weak from injury and you'd had an attack. Do you really think they'd let you go the moment you wake up?"

"A guy can dream," Duo hazarded nervously. Wufei was acting strange, today. If him speaking this much -without one threat toward Duo's braid at that- wasn't a clue, then nothing would have helped the American along. His comment earned him a patented glare, however.

"Look," Duo tried again. "I'm fine. Go home, get some sleep."

Wufei regarded him thoughtfully, eyes colored with worry. "Are you sure?"

"Would I lie to you?"

"…No," the Chinese conceded.

"Then go," Duo admonished. "I'm sure Heero and Trowa miss you."

A tired sigh. "Fine. I'll call Sally."

Duo watched as Wufei left the room in search for the braided doctor. Then after he disappeared, Duo let his thoughts wander over the others with a shadowed frown. He'd had an attack? Well that would explain the stabs at his chest earlier on, given that it wasn't a dream. And apparently he was out for a grand total of three days.

Huh.

Normally a person should be alarmed to find out that at the tender age of twenty-something, they'd upped and had a heart attack. Duo would be the first to admit it; he wasn't a healthy eater by a long shot. But his metabolic rate was through the roof. Nothing should have clogged his arteries.

Okay, so a knife to the chest could have been a factor, but he was an ex-Gundam pilot. He'd lived through way worse that this. What's so damned different about this situation that has even Wufei practically in tatters about it? There can only be one plausible explanation for it all.

Pod People.

Duo had to roll his eyes at his own preposterous reasoning, smiling at the crazy thought process. Still, it wasn't everyday Wufei went about fawning over little old Maxwell. Hell, those days were so few and far between it could be compared to the time that spanned over every other Christmas. Had it really been that bad? And even if it was, it would have been no great loss to them, really. Or anyone else for that matter.

Suicidal? No.

Practical? Yes. If one were to look at it, everyone else had something to really look out for. And if looking out for friends who could take care of themselves with the sole power of one counted, then he would be completely useless.

Duo shook his head, frown becoming deeper. He'd like to think that he'd matured over the years, but he didn't think that he'd end up becoming this cynical.

Bad Duo.

Thankfully, Sally came in and distracted him for more than ten minutes, Wufei hovering just inside the doorway until Sally assured him that everything was going to be fine. When he left, Duo spied an incredulously raised eyebrow in the Chinese's wake that he was sure mirrored his own.

"…Strange," the surgical doctor muttered.

Tell me about it, Duo thought.

A/N: …Yeah.