Warnings : major sap alert…yaoi, OOC, Duo POV, rape scene, this is a direct sequel to ‘Road Trip’, ‘Broken Rules’ and ‘Memories of Pain’ and won’t make much sense if you don’t read them first.
Much thanks to Oni no Yume for beta reading.
That ownership thing? Do we really need to talk about it?

Facing the Nightmare

Part 1

When I woke, hours later, much later than I had thought I would sleep; I ached in every joint and muscle, it felt like I had a bad case of the flu. I felt bruised. Ok, so my face was bruised, I don’t mean that. I mean, all over, inside and out. Inside my head.

I just lay still for a while, and tried to sort it all out. Hero was gone; off with Trowa on a mission. That hit me first, left me feeling cold and alone and a little irritated with myself for being so…dependant.

I remembered…Gods, I remembered threatening Heero Yuy and living to tell the tale. I had to grin, remembering the wide-eyed look on his face. I hunted back through memory a little further. I remembered being in Heero’s arms and thinking that I had never in all my life felt safe before. Oh Gods! I remembered Heero opening his arms to me with Wufei sitting right there watching us. I thought my heart would burst with that sweet recollection. I stared at the ceiling for a bit and let that one replay...a couple of times. I will take that memory to my grave as my most cherished possession.

But why was Wufei in my room with us? I could remember him…hitting me. Why the hell did Wufei belt me like that? I frowned hard, trying to dredge up the details. Wufei hit me because I was lost somewhere…somewhere dark, and really cold…how’d I get there?

Duo, who …?

Man, I needed a shower. My hair felt positively gross. I forgot to re-braid it last night and I hate when I sleep with it down; it takes forever to get the tangles out. I got slowly out of bed and limped to the bathroom; my knee’s always stiff when I first get up. I wondered if it would ever be normal again. A hot shower would help that too. I thought I heard a sound in the hall, but nobody appeared in my doorway, so I went on in and started my shower, taking the extra time to put conditioner in my hair and comb it through. After I got out and scrounged up some clean clothes, I almost felt like a human being again. Most of the aches and pains had faded a little, except for a pounding headache I couldn’t seem to shake. I’d have to ask Quatre for some aspirin.

I braided my hair, wet as it was, and went down to see if I could find some food. I damn near tripped over a desk chair that was sitting right outside my bedroom door. Well, well; wonder which one of them Heero threatened into babysitting me? I leaned down, inspecting the seat and finally found a telltale strand of black hair. What a surprise; Wufei. Then again, Heero probably made him feel guilty about the fact that he had tried to cave the side of my head in, even if it had been for a good cause.

I waffled between pissed off that they all obviously felt like I was made out of spun glass, and glowingly happy that Heero cared enough to think about me even on his way out to a mission. I settled on mildly amused and determined that at some point before this day was out, I would give Wufei a run for his money with a little game of catch-me-if-you-can.

I pointedly put the chair back in Wufei’s room, and went down to the kitchen where I found my two keepers with their heads together over a sink full of dirty dishes.

I crept up behind them, in an evil temperament, and said rather loudly, ‘Hey guys! The mad Gundam pilot just escaped his room!’

Neither one of them so much as flinched, robbing me of any satisfaction at all; though Quatre did blush furiously. I guess that was all the revenge I was going to get.

They turned as one toward me, and Wufei started to retort with something that would have been incredibly clever and the two of us could have word-sparred for the next half an hour. But then they saw my face and Quatre just made a little ‘oh’ sound, and Wufei’s smirk turned into a guilty frown. I had meant to look in the mirror, but had forgotten.

‘Maxwell, I am very…’

‘Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry.’ I cut him off; I was really tired of people looking at me with their faces wearing that particular expression. ‘You did what had to be done. I owe you thanks; you do not owe me an apology.’

I really didn’t want to talk about this anymore; it made it hard to ignore the place in the back of my head where the black hole resided. Didn’t want to go there, Hu-uh, no way, no thank you sir.

Duo, who…?

‘I am starving.’ I said and turned away from them to rummage in the refrigerator. I came up with an apple and a can of soda and headed out the kitchen door with a backward wave. ‘Goin’ to the hanger! See ya later!’ I almost laughed out loud, hearing Wufei cursing under his breath as he scrambled to get out of the dishwater and get dried. I certainly hoped he didn’t think I was going to make this easy on him.

‘Duo!’ I heard Quatre yell, ‘You can’t seriously call that breakfast?’ But I was already off the back porch and gone from their sight. I ducked behind the hedge and worked my way to the driveway where I parked my butt on the hood of the first car I came to. I sat and munched on my apple and waited. I heard Wufei come charging out the door and start running down the path towards the hanger. He didn’t go far before figuring out I should have still been in sight. I could just see his feet through the bottom of the hedgerow; he stopped his headlong run and just stood for a moment. It took him just a second to think of the cars and then he was running back toward the driveway. I almost jumped down and took the game to the next level, but at the last second, I restrained myself and was still sitting there, ready to greet him with an innocent smile.

‘What’s the matter, Wufei? Lose something?’

The look on his face was absolutely priceless; a mixture of ‘Oh thank God!’ and ‘I’m going to kill you!’ all rolled into one.

‘Maxwell…’ came the warning growl and I took another bite out of my apple, beaming at him.

‘What? You wanna walk to the hanger with me?’ I hopped off the car and started back toward the path. ‘Shoulda said something; I would have waited for you.’

‘You are impossible.’ He glared, but fell into step beside me.

‘Not impossible, just…irrepressible.’

He just snorted. He was on my left, the side with the split lip and the bruised cheek. I could see him stealing glances at my face out of the corner of his eye. I felt kinda bad, it was obviously really bothering him. But neither one of us seemed to quite know what to say, so we made the walk in silence. I finished my apple by the time we got to the hanger, and I tossed the core in a trashcan as we went through the door, and then popped the can of soda, downing a good portion of it while I flipped on the lights and started toward my Gundam.

‘That stuff will rot your stomach lining out.’ He frowned at me, obviously not in a good mood.

‘Yes, but I will die with a pleasant caffeine buzz.’ I grinned at him and keyed my password into Deathscythes remote. Nothing happened. The hatch did not open. There was no sound of hydraulics, no hiss of pressurized air. Nothing.

‘That son of a bitch.’ I snarled, having to resist the urge to throw either the can or the remote across the hanger. I tried it one more time, just to be sure, with the same lack of results.

I was extremely pissed. Had Heero’s Gundam been sitting there in the hanger, it would probably have had its cockpit filled with jello or whipped cream or guacamole dip or something equally vile. But it wasn’t, so I downed the rest of my soda and hurled the can as far as I could.

‘Oh, I don’t think so, Heero Yuy. I do not bloody well think so.’ I muttered and went to get a stool out of the office. It was going to be a long afternoon. Behind me, I heard Wufei sigh heavily and go to make his own seating arrangements. I forgot about him. I forgot to be irritated about him shadowing me like a mother hen. I forgot the headache. You do not lock me out of my own damn Gundam. You especially do not do it freaking twice.

I sat down and began hacking into my own hacked into Gundam. I was really, really… annoyed. After a couple of hours, Wufei came and tried to get me to give it up. I ignored him and eventually he stopped talking to me. Several hours after that, Quatre showed up with food and drinks and I heard him speaking softly with Wufei. I wordlessly accepted a sandwich and a glass of juice, wishing he had brought more soda. Quatre kept Wufei company for a while, before shaking his head and wandering back to the house. Through it all I continued to key in password after password; shinigami, godofdeath, stayput, baka, fuckyou, fuckoff, letmein, imgonnakillyou, I tried random number sequences, I tried dates and times and old passwords, I tried Japanese, I tried Chinese, I keyed until my fingers cramped. I was getting close, I could feel it. My mind was getting to that weary point where it made intuitive leaps all on its own, I could feel it almost ready to fall into place. What the hell, Heero? What were you thinking? Why would you do this…again? Stupid question. I knew why the hell he did it. The same reason he did it last time. He didn’t think I was up to taking care of myself and he was afraid. Afraid something would go wrong on his mission and I would try to go after him. My fingers moved almost of their own accord across the keypad, and above me, Deathscythes hatch hissed open. I looked down at the last sequence I had keyed, the final try in a thousand other guesses, knowing what I had keyed, but needing to see it anyway; myheart.

Damn it, Heero, that’s hitting below the belt. I carefully lay the remote down on the workbench and just sat staring off into space. Not fair. Not fair. I really wanted to be mad at him. I really hate being treated like that. Like a small child who needs to be watched over and protected. I haven’t been a child for a very long, long time. I’ve never needed anyone to watch over me. Never had anyone to watch over me. And maybe, that’s why I found, somewhere deep down inside, I liked the feeling, I didn’t want to like it as much as I did, but it’s an easy feeling to get used to. And that’s why I hated being treated that way; because it made me like it. Who the hell was I? I didn’t feel like me, anymore. I didn’t want everybody looking at me as though I was going to explode any minute. I didn’t want this place in my head that I couldn’t look at except out of the corner of my minds eye. I knew what was there. I did. I knew it, in my heart, but if I didn’t look directly at it, it stayed where it belonged and we kept our uneasy truce. Except at night. But not since I opened my heart and let Heero in. The truce didn’t seem to be in effect any more. After all this time, all bets were off…and I was afraid. The dark place in my head was getting bigger and it was getting harder to ignore.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head into my hands. The headache was back with a pounding vengeance. I really needed to get my shit together. I’m a soldier. I couldn’t afford to be this…weak. Heero thought I was strong; how long before he got tired of taking care of me. How long before I lost his respect and then his love?

That black hole in my head was shifting and roiling around like a …balloon? A…bubble? A…blob… of black oil. It was like driving along and seeing something dead in the middle of the road; you didn’t really want to look as you got closer and closer, you could try to not let your eyes focus on it, but in the end you had to look and see what it was before it wandered into traffic. I tried not to look, except out of the safe corners of my attention, but it was …there. Demanding my notice. I needed to look, just to see if it really was getting bigger. I needed….

‘Duo, who r…’

‘Maxwell?’ Wufei’s hand was on my shoulder, squeezing firmly and I came back into the here and now with a start. I found my hands shaking and my body slick with sweat. I thought my head was going to explode; the headache had gotten so much worse. On my shoulder, Wufei’s fingers tightened slightly, ‘Duo?’ he asked, his tone getting anxious. I guess I scared him. I guess I scared me.

‘S’ok.’ I murmured, ‘Just a real bad headache.’ I wished I could tell him how glad I was he had been there. How near I had come to a tumble down the rabbit’s hole…again.

‘May we, then,’ he said dryly, ‘return to the house?’

I chuckled and his hand released, leaving a spot that felt chill in its absence. He moved toward the door and I hopped off the stool to follow, and promptly fell on my face on the damn concrete floor. How bloody mortifying.

Wufei was there in an instant, turning me over and hauling me into his lap before I had a chance to even start levering myself up.

‘Duo! Duo, are you all right?’ There was fear in his voice and his dark eyes were full of concern. I wanted to shrivel up and blow away on the wind.

‘I’m Ok. I’m all right. Relax; my knee just gave way, that’s all.’ I struggled to rise, feeling my face getting hotter by the second. ‘Didn’t realize how long I’d been sitting still.’

He pulled me up and had to hold me steady while I got my feet under me. My knee was stiff and felt swollen. It came to me suddenly that I had skipped my exercises yesterday after learning about Heero and Trowa’s mission, and hadn’t done anything with it today either.

‘Damn, ‘Fei, I can’t believe how fast it goes to hell when I don’t work with it.’ It was a sign of my disconcertion that I let the pet name slip, and a measure of his worried state of mind that he let it pass. I tried pulling away, but he wouldn’t let go of my arm. Which was really just as well, because the leg was trembling under me like it was about to buckle again.

‘Let me help you.’ He finally said after a few minutes of my trying to force the stupid thing to hold me up, and I didn’t have a lot of choice but to let him pull my arm around his shoulders and take some of my weight.

With his help, I began limping my way back toward the house; I could not believe it when I realized it was already dark out. The air was cool and clear, and in the distance there was the faint glow of the light on the kitchen porch. It seemed like a hell of a long way.

‘Man, I am so tired of being so bloody helpless.’ I grumbled after a few yards, just to break the uncomfortable silence that had risen between us.

‘You are far from helpless, Maxwell.’ He grunted, a hint of amusement in his voice, as we worked our way up the path. We found it difficult to work out a walking rhythm. He seemed uncomfortable at first, putting his arm around my waist, but there really wasn’t any place else he could put his hand with my arm thrown around his shoulders. It took a number of yards before we matched strides and stopped bumping into each other. I had to smile, thinking about Heero helping me. There had never been any awkwardness; it had been easy for us to move together from the first time I had offered him my support when he had been the one who needed it. But thinking about Heero just made my heart ache, so I stopped.

I thought about asking why he didn’t offer to go get one of the cars, but I suspect he was afraid to leave me alone with my Gundam now that I had cracked the password and could get into it again. Instead, I said,
‘I’m sorry.’ It came out kind of tight voiced, though I hadn’t meant it to.

‘For what?’ he asked, glancing over at me briefly.

I sighed, ‘Everything.’ I tilted my head back and looked up at the stars, wishing the pounding in my head would go away, ‘Just every damn thing.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

‘Doesn’t feel that way.’

He sighed, ‘It’s only been a few months, give yourself a little more time.’

I was feeling grumpy, ‘Feels like it’s been for bloody ever.’

He chuckled lightly, ‘Only to you. Your recovery has been…impressive.’

Well, damn. I couldn’t say anything for a minute.

‘Thanks for…for being around, man.’ I managed after a bit.

He just grunted and we finished the walk in silence. By the time we reached the house, the exercise had loosened things up a little, and I was able to straighten up and walk on my own. Though I noticed Wufei’s hand hovering near my elbow.

Once inside, I went straight to the kitchen sink where I knew a bottle of aspirin was kept and downed several of them right there. Behind me, I heard Wufei digging ice out of the refrigerator and turned to see him making up an ice pack.

‘Not yet, I have got to go down to the gym for a while.’

He stopped and I detected a slight rise and fall of his shoulders as he heaved a silent sigh just before he turned around to face me. He tried to put an interested look on his face and I almost laughed.

‘Wufei, look;’ I decided to stop playing games, ‘I know damn well Heero set you on baby sitting detail, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow me every stinking place I go, Ok?’

His face darkened, ‘Maxwell, I swore on my honor that I would allow no harm to come to you.’

‘I am going downstairs into the gym. I am not even leaving the house. I am going to do some work on the leg press, and I will probably spend some time on the stationary bike. If my knee loosens up enough, I will use the treadmill. I am usually there for an hour to an hour and a half. There is no reason….’

But there was just no arguing with the look of resolve on his face. Gods; I was a freaking mission.

‘I missed my morning kata.’ He said simply, ‘I can do it while you exercise your knee.’

So off we went together and spent the next hour on opposite sides of the gym, sweating out our own private frustrations in silence. I knew he was tired and didn’t really want to be down here, so I cut it short on the hour and just sat and watched him finish the routine he had started before rising and heading for the door, knowing he would follow me back upstairs. I was starting to get irritated again.

I stopped off in the kitchen for another soda and my ice pack and headed up the stairs with my shadow tailing along behind. At the top of the stairs, I couldn’t resist turning and leering at him,
‘I’m going to go rinse off in the shower, do I need to get enough towels for both of us?’

I thought he would choke. All I got was an incoherent growl. He swept passed me into his own room, but I noticed he left the door open. I did not leave mine open; I shut it rather firmly. I knew it wouldn’t last, but it was nearly the first moment of solitude I had managed all day and I heaved a sigh as a little of the tension ebbed away. I didn’t wash my hair again, but I did get into the shower and rinsed away the sweat of my workout. I pulled on a pair of running shorts when I got out; I had a feeling I would be having company before the evening was over, and sure enough, when I came out of the bathroom, my door was standing open again.

I thought I would scream. I was getting frustrated and annoyed and felt like I was on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. The stupid aspirin hadn’t helped the damned headache one bit, if anything, it was worse. I just wanted to be left alone for a while. I needed to think, I needed a little space, I needed…Heero. No. I had to be honest with myself; I wanted Heero. Big difference, Maxwell; I chided myself. I needed to settle down. I took a deep, calming breath and let it out. Just forget he’s there, that’s what I had to do. Just go on about my business, let him sit out in the damn hall all bloody night if he wanted to, what the hell difference did it make to me?

I went to my desk and sorted through my little stack of CDs until I found one of the few that weren’t what I liked to think of as ‘battle music’. I put in a McKennett and turned the volume down low, I think Quatre had already gone to bed. Something soft and soothing. I went to the bedside table and snagged the can of soda and the ice pack I had brought up with me, flipped off the bedroom light and went over to the window, I raised it, making sure to make enough noise that Wufei wouldn’t think I was trying to be quiet and sneak out, and let in a soft gust of wind. The moon was near full and shone faintly in through the clouds. I pulled the desk chair over and sat in a puddle of silver light, sipped my drink, and let the night breeze play with the wisps of hair around my face. I parked the ice pack half-heartedly on my knee, closed my eyes and tried as hard as I could to relax.

It was harder, without something to occupy my attention, to ignore that place in my head. It was definitely getting bigger. Did bigger imply stronger? Was I making a mistake in trying to ignore it? There hardly seemed to be room in my head for the both of us anymore. The truce that had lasted all these years was unquestionably off. Just thinking about it was making my heart speed up in my chest. I sipped at my soda and tried to calm back down. Behind me, Loreena sang of the dark night of the soul, and I had to wonder why in the hell I had picked out this CD. Was I trying to calm down, or was I trying to depress myself? I grimaced into the watery moonlight, there really wasn’t any getting around this, was there? What was I so damned afraid of? I kinda-sorta knew what was in that thrice-damned black hole; it was something I had freaking survived once, why couldn’t I just face it down and be done with it?

I finished my drink, quietly set the can down in the trashcan, dumped the sweating ice pack on the windowsill, and went over to lean in the bedroom doorway. As expected, the chair was back, and Wufei was sitting there, leaning against the wall right beside my door, his arms folded across his chest.

‘Wufei.’

‘Yes, Maxwell?’

‘How long is this mission supposed to last?’

‘About a week.’

‘What are you planning on doing? Not sleeping for the whole week?’

‘If it is necessary.’

I would like to say I was dumbstruck, but it really wasn’t any more than I was expecting from him.

‘Baka.’ I muttered and walked out of my room and into his. As if on queue, he rose and followed me.

‘Maxwell, what the hell are you doing?’

‘Just shut up and get the other end of this.’ I had hold of the mattress off his bed, and waited patiently for him to pick up his end. He just stood, hands on hips and glared at me.

‘Don’t be an idiot, Wufei. If you continue like this, by the end of the week an arthritic, half blind old woman could allude you, much less a street rat like me.’

He continued to glare, refusing to move and my new found calm started to wear a little thin, ‘Look. I am conceding that you feel it is necessary to remain in my stinking presence every moment until Heero comes back. Will you bloody well concede that you have to freaking sleep? Believe me, if I have one of my patented nightmares, you will not sleep through it.’ A small battle of wills ensued, but even Wufei is not stubborn to the point of lunacy, and finally, he grabbed the other end of the mattress and we hauled it into my room.

It would only fit in the space near the door, and I would have to be careful not to step on him if I had to get up and go to the bathroom. There were a few, bizarre, uncomfortable moments in which I decided to sleep in my shorts and he stripped off shirt and shoes and settled on sleeping in his pants. I crawled wearily into my bed and resisted the urge to say, good night John-boy, and instead, just turned my back on him and tried to forget he was there. On the desk, Loreena was still singing and I just let it go; the player would stop at the end of the CD anyway. She sang us both gently to sleep.

part 2

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