Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It happened, as most things do, unannounced, unplanned for, on a regular afternoon. It was a nice day in June, the sky a rich blue with a few scattered fluffy clouds that lazily crossed the sky in the light breeze. Heero was in Sanc to visit Relena and Quatre before the upcoming birth of their second child. They had invited him to stay for a couple of weeks in the palace, and while the wide halls and vaulted ceilings still put him a little on edge after all this time, he was happy to come be with them. Relena was expecting soon, and if he could be there to help with anything after the delivery he’d be glad to do it.

When Celestine was born nearly five years prior, he’d been out to speak at a conference on L3 and was only able to come visit nearly two months after. She wasn’t the first kid of his friends, that honour went to little Mei, Sally and Wufei’s daughter. When Heero first held her he felt something in his chest that seemed to expand infinitely to the point he was entirely overwhelmed — here was a person, brand new to the world, who would get to live in the peace they’d worked so hard to establish. It wasn’t until his vision started to swim that he realized he was tearing up, and then Wufei had grabbed his shoulder and squeezed.

“I know, my friend,” Wufei had said then, his voice a quiet whisper to keep from waking his daughter. When Heero raised his eyes to look at Wufei he saw pride, and joy, and also a bit of pain in the other man’s expression and he knew that really, Wufei understood the crushing and exhilarating feeling expanding in his chest.

Heero tried to blink away the tears in his eyes, and only succeeded at letting them fall. “She’s…beautiful,” his voice came out choked with the emotion he couldn’t articulate and Wufei’s hand squeezed his shoulder even more.

Little Mei was lifted from his arms, he absently noted Trowa beside him, and then Wufei was pulling him into a tight hug. “Thank you,” he said, his own voice rough with emotion. Heero had returned the hug, hanging on just as fiercely.

After that, there were more children and Heero began to be able to place some of what he felt seeing them as they were new and as he got the chance to see them grow — relief. Relief that the world kept going, that people kept going and trying after the wars. Even, and especially, when he found it difficult and a little chafing in trying to adjust to peace.

Now, he sat in the solarium having afternoon tea with Relena and Quatre while Celestine played with some toys by the window. While Relena was technically already off work to prepare for their new child, conversation had, inevitably, turned to politics and how her aid was faring in her absence. While Heero was interested in the conversation, he found himself distracted by Celestine, who found the adult conversation exceeding boring and had stomped over to him with a determined look on her face as she held one of her dolls. Once she reached him she grabbed his knee and thrust the doll toward him, it was some fantasy-styled woman with gossamer wings coming from her back.

Heero reached to steady her with a hand at her back and then gently took the doll from her with the other. “What is it?” he took a closer look trying to determined what was special about the doll.

“Mama says you have a friend with wings too!” Celestine said, her little voice loud and excited.

“I do?” He loved his friends’ children, but he often found himself at a loss when confronted with the mind of a child and found himself looking at Relena for help. Of course, she was laughing delicately behind her teacup, her gaze sparking with amusement. Seeing he would not be getting help from her he looked to Quatre who at least seemed to be holding back his laughter.

“I think she means Wing Zero,” he said and then turned his attention to his daughter. “Why don’t you tell Uncle Heero about your friend?”

Celestine giggled and then grasped onto Heero’s pant leg with both hands as she determined the best way to do this was to sit on his lap. Heero quickly put the doll on the table and helped her up into his lap, and then took the doll again to put into her hands. For a little while, she sat happily babbling about the fairy princess Aurora and her adventures, accentuating her points with moving the doll around to show how she would fly around or get out of trouble. After a while she grew more subdued and Quatre called for her nanny to come to take her to her room for a nap.

Without the distraction of a child, Heero looked at Relena, feeling a little off about something and asked, “You’ve told her about gundams?”

“Not really,” Relena said with a small sigh. “There was a spot on the news months ago for the anniversary of the end of the war and it showed the remains of Wing Zero. She’d wanted to know what it was and why it had wings.”

Quatre hurried to explain more, “She was so enamoured with the look of it, I was able to find some old schematics from when you made those upgrades to show her what it looked like whole — only I’d had someone do some editing to it so it was fully coloured and rendered out just without the weapons. There were a few months there she was obsessed with it, especially after we let her know it was yours.”

“So she just likes it cause it was … pretty?” Heero asked trying to wrap his head around this information.

Relena chuckled, “Yes, it seems so.”

How strange, he thought, to look at the weapon he’d used to destroy and save lives, and know nothing of its power, only to like it cause it looked pleasing. Then he remembered what else she said and asked, “She thinks it was a friend?”

“Wasn’t it?” Quatre asked, his voice oddly gentle.

Heero frowned a little as he thought about his old gundam and what he’d felt about it at the time. It was his weapon and his tool for getting what he needed done. It was the barrier between him and annihilation on many occasions. It was, in many ways, an extension of himself, especially the last version with the Zero system in it. He didn’t know if he’d consider that a friend so much. The machine was a constant in his life during some of the times where the only other constant was danger. But a friend? If he thought about his friends now, and how important they were to him now, was that similar to the importance his gundam held to him then?

He hadn’t realized he’d looked down at the teacup in front of him until he blinked and had to look up to meet Quatre’s eyes. He started to say, “I’m not—” but suddenly he felt as though he lost his balance. His gaze dropped again to the table, and he leaned forward and held onto it with both hands, eyes wide as he stared at the unmoving spread before him and tried to breathe. Heero knew he was sitting in the same chair he’d been sitting in for the past hour or two, he knew the table wasn’t moving, he knew the room wasn’t moving. But for all he knew this, it did not matter. He felt as though he were suddenly in zero gravity, as though the ground fell out from under him and there was only air around him, nothing pulling him anywhere.

“—Heero!” he lifted his head slowly, feeling as though it was incredibly difficult to move his perception at all to look up at his friends to see them both looking frightened and horrified. He wasn’t sure who’d spoken. He felt like he was watching them through water as Relena lifted a hand to cover her mouth in her shock and breathed out, “Heero, your face.”

Quatre was on his feet, and then out of Heero’s view, but his voice carried. “Stay with him, Relena. I’ll call for help.”

Suddenly Relena was at his side, he wasn’t sure when she’d moved, and turning to look at her made him feel like he’d somehow turned the world inside out. He groaned and dropped his head low, giving in to the desire to rest it against the tabletop.

“Heero, please. Please! Heero! Tell me what’s going on! I don’t know how to help you—” Relena’s voice was high with stress and in a vaguely detached way he felt guilty for worrying her at this stage in her pregnancy it couldn’t be good. But mostly, he couldn’t really seem to think at all. His body was still in the same place and yet it felt adrift and moving and he couldn’t seem to find his bearings.

Then, there were hands on him, and his instinctual jump at the touch only furthered his disorientation. He tired to note to himself, moving quickly only made it worse, whatever it was. But he felt the thought slip away as he kept trying to find his balance. Someone gently touched his head, he didn’t even realize he’d lifted it from the table until there was a light in his eye and he winced and blinked trying to get away from it. There were many voices all around him, harried, loud, and talking over one another and he could hardly pay attention to them, he got snippets but could not make sense of anything.

“…slack…” “…posion?” “…in pain…” “…injury?” and then one he understood completely, “Hospital.”

Then the hands were back on him again, trying to get him to stand. He stumbled. He knew his legs were there, as he knew the ground was there, but knowing did not translate to knowing and he couldn’t seem to find his feet or the ground. The hands stopped trying and let him back into the chair. There was more conversation, but he couldn’t pay attention to it, groaning again as he let his head fall back onto the table. It wasn’t long before they were moving him again, this time to something else he could sit on, and then he was moving quickly. He kept his eyes screwed shut, not wanting to look around and make himself feel worse, but even without seeing the disconnect between the movement he felt and the movement he was being propelled under, his disorientation only got worse.

He lost time.

He came to awareness, though he was sure he hadn’t been asleep, as his eyes were open the whole time. He was in the hospital. They had him laying down on a bed, this he knew just from the view of the ceiling he had. He did not want to turn his head as even horizontal he could tell the disorientation was still thick in his head. By looking at the ceiling he knew he wasn’t moving right then, but he felt as though his body were floating in space without a tie. He wondered if it were possible to forget gravity.

Then there was a face he didn’t know, the person wore the white coat of a doctor and they leaned down to tell him they were taking him for some tests. Were there tests to determine if you knew what gravity was? On a molecular level? He felt that must have been what happened, something inside him fractured apart in some way.

They put needles in him, took his blood, and then put in dyes to set him up for various scans. Heero could not keep track of what they were doing, the disorientation was overwhelming and seemed to be making it hard to think.

After they were done with the tests they left him in a bed in a room on his own, but it wasn’t long before a doctor came rushing in quickly, holding a tablet where he was reading something.

“Mister Yuy?” he said as he entered the room. “I’m Doctor Silverman.” He stopped by the bed Heero was on and then then seemed to note the empty room. “Do you have anyone here with you today?”

Heero looked at the doctor tiredly, feeling like the room was wafting around him in a steady rhythm. Talking at all felt like an enormous effort, he was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. Finally he was able to muster out, “Winner.”

The doctor’s eyes widened and then he poked his head out the door to speak to someone else briefly. “They’ll be here soon. Would you like me to wait to tell you what we found?”

He did not have the energy to glare at the man for requiring more engagement from him so he just tipped his head slightly in a nod and immediately regretted the movement. With how he was feeling he didn’t want to sit through the same conversation twice. It did not take long for Relena and Quatre to come swanning in and suddenly he had one of them on each side of his bed holding his hands.

“What have you found, Doctor?” Quatre asked, his hand strong and sturdy as it held Heero’s.

The doctor looked at the three of them and seemed to steel himself for a second before he said, “Mister Yuy, from our preliminary tests we noticed that there were some changes in your cerebellum. After looking further at the scans, we could determine that you had a bilateral cerebellar stroke.”

“A stroke?!” Both Quatre and Relena shouted in tandem and Heero just closed his eyes.

“How could he have had a stroke?” Relena demanded, her hand squeezing his harder as she spoke. “He’s perfectly healthy!”

“Yes, well. That was something I wanted to ask about. Mister Yuy’s health is otherwise perfectly fine from what we can tell right now, we’d like to run an echocardiogram and a few other tests on his heart. But, is there a history of stroke in your family?” Doctor Silverman asked, and Heero could feel his eyes on him so he opened his own again. It changed nothing about how off-kilter he felt.

“I…wouldn’t know.” Heero spoke stiltedly as he tried to reason around the cloud in his brain. He breathed for a moment as he looked at the doctor, and then frowned hard. “A… a stroke?” he asked.

Doctor Silverman stepped closer to the bed and his face was overcome with a sad and compassionate expression. “I’m afraid so. The parts of the brain that we can tell were damaged were in the cerebellum, where you get your context for balance, and your proprioception, which gives you the sense of your limbs and where they are in relation to your other limbs and body. Are you dizzy?”

Heero groaned. Dizzy was a word for it. “I think…feels like I forgot gravity.”

He saw the doctors eyes shine with amusement. “Well, that’s one was of putting it. The good news is, you’re very young for a stroke and the brain is very elastic at your age. While dead cells cannot heal, the other parts of your brain will learn and adapt and compensate for what you lost.”

“How long?” Relena asked with urgency in her voice. “How long will it take for his brain to adapt?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot give you a timeline. The brain is elastic, but it’s not on a schedule. Given Mister Yuy’s medical history that we have, and his physical health, I think he has quite a good outlook.” Doctor Silverman gave them a smile.

“But we don’t know why it happened?” Quatre turned then to look at Heero and brushed the bangs away from his eyes. When Heero looked up at him, Quatre was looking at him with such a soft expression it made him feel like his ribs had cracked open.

Doctor Silverman nodded. “No, not yet. With some tests we may learn, but the body doesn’t keep receipts. The artery that feeds into this part of the brain is among a bit of a tangle at the back of the neck, though. So it could just be from over wear of stretching the back of the neck that led to a dehiscence of the artery, thus causing the stroke. Of course, that’s just a theory. We’ll see if there’s anything lurking in your heart, Mister Yuy.”

“Hn,” Heero grunted in acknowledgement. He closed his eyes again. He was so exhausted.

“I think he’s tired,” he heard Quatre say, his voice quieter than before. “Is there anything else we should know right now? He’s not at any further risk immediately, is he?”

“No, he’s stable. I’ve put in for the echo and they’ll come to get him for it as soon as the machine is available. Then they’ll get him on a heart monitor.” There was some fabric shifting and then the door to the room closed.

Relena’s hand left his then and he heard her gasp. “Oh, Heero,” her voice came muffled and strained, and when he lifted his lids slightly he saw her face was in her hands. “After all you’ve been through, and now this.”

She gasped again and her shoulders began to shake as she gave into her tears. Then Quatre released his hand and went to his wife to wrap Relena in his arms and offer her some comfort. Seeing them together, Quatre speaking quietly enough Heero would have to strain to hear, Heero let out a small sigh and closed his eyes again. He just needed to rest for a little while.

They kept Heero in the hospital for about a week, though Heero didn’t remember any of it later. He knew the tests on his heart came back with nothing wrong, no matter what they looked at he was healthy and should not, by all accounts, have had a stroke at all. And yet, he still couldn’t remember where the ground was anymore. When he was released Quatre and Relena insisted he return to the estate with them, and with how disoriented travel made him he was not about to put up a fight. But after a few days of them hovering over him and fussing, he just wanted to go home. He didn’t want to be a burden on them as they prepared for another child, and while they disagreed, they didn’t put up much of a fight. After all, he wasn’t at further risk, he just had to learn to live with his new normal. Quatre arranged with Trowa and Wufei to get Heero back to Brussels and have them help him out once he was home.

Trowa came to Sanc for a few days to bring Heero back. While he bristled at the idea of needing an escort at all, when Trowa offered his arm for Heero to use to help him feel more balanced as they navigated the airport, he just felt relieved there was someone there to make it a bit easier. Since they found nothing in his heart, and his health was fine aside from the brain injury, there was no risk to taking a plane back. Despite knowing that, Heero was annoyed to find himself apprehensive about the flight. He was already so dizzy, as the doctor had said, and that was just being stationary on the ground. What would it be like to be in the air? But the worst thought was, what if his brain didn’t adapt, what if he could never fly on his own again?

“Hey,” Trowa’s calm voice broke through Heero’s twisting thoughts and he looked over at the other man, only then realizing they were in their seats on the plane already. Trowa gave him a small smile when he knew he had Heero’s attention and then he pressed something into Heero’s hand. “I thought you could use one of these.”

Heero looked down at the item in his hand and found it was a small box of the bonbons a local confectionery in Sanc made. They filled them with all sorts of flavours and he liked them quite a lot, though, he didn’t think he’d ever told anyone. He looked up at Trowa in surprise. “How did you—?”

“You’re not such a big mystery, Heero Yuy,” Trowa said with a small laugh. Heero opened the box and offered one to Trowa, but he shook his head. “No, those are all for you. I was thinking it might be nice to have one to let melt in your mouth for take off and landing. Help keep your mind off it.”

“Oh.” Heero looked back down at the box, there were six little bonbons in there and the flight wasn’t very long, so it would be more than enough. “Thank you,” he said quietly and leaned slightly in the seat so his shoulder bumped Trowa’s.

Trowa shifted so he was sitting closer and giving Heero a stronger line to lean on and brace against. “Of course,” he said and then crossed his arms and tilted his head back to get comfortable. “You’ll tell me if you need anything, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Heero agreed as he smiled softly to himself.

When they landed in Brussels Heero tried to stand up after the plane was at the gate and found he couldn’t really identify his own legs. He grunted as he fell back into the seat, unable to find his balance enough to stand on his own yet. Trowa remained seated next to him as they waited for the rest of the plane to empty. Then he stood up and looked down at Heero from the aisle.

“Ready to try again?” he asked and held out a hand to help Heero to his feet.

Heero gave him a look through his bangs and grunted as he reached out and grabbed Trowa’s wrist and use it to help lever himself upright. Moving to standing made him feel like the entire world around him was rocking and swaying and moving in a spiral. He grabbed the seat in front of him and leaned down with a groan. “Shit,” he muttered. “Fuck. I hate this.”

“Just take it slow,” Trowa reached over and rubbed Heero’s back in an attempt to offer some comfort.

After a few moments of trying, and failing, to use regulating his breathing to get his brain to slow down and stop being so off balance, Heero finally sighed to himself and slowly pushed off the back of the chair. He held tight to Trowa’s arm as he shuffled out into the aisle. It took a minute to figure out what would work best, but Heero ended up pushing Trowa ahead of him, finding it easier to use him for support from in front of himself than behind. When they reached the end of the plane, the flight attendants were clustered at the door waiting for them with concerned faces and Heero wondered if Trowa had spoken to them at some point about needing more time to disembark. Trowa thanked them quietly as he led Heero off, and he tried to give them a nod of thanks of his own, but moving his head wasn’t going to happen with how badly he felt.

When they made it to the flight gate Trowa led Heero straight for the seats and ushered him over and down to take one. Once Heero was seated, grimacing as he tried to make sense of where the ground was, Trowa knelt down in front of him and put a hand on his knee. “I’m going to go get you a bottle of water. You stay here and I’ll be right back,” he said, holding Heero’s eye. Heero didn’t nod, he didn’t feel capable of moving at all, but Trowa seemed to find what he was looking for as he nodded to himself, squeezed Heero’s knee and then took off to find some water.

In Trowa’s absence Heero ended up slouching into the airport chair. He rest an elbow on the armrest and cupped his head in his hand, finding that while it did not abate any of his disorientation and inability to tell if he was moving or not, it helped him feel a little more grounded to have a secondary input telling him his head wasn’t moving. As it was, he felt atrocious. While he’d been disoriented and dizzy before the plane ride ever since the stroke two weeks ago, being on the plane and with all that entailed for movement, he felt like he was still airborne with the world moving in undulating waves around him. Intellectually, he knew where up and down were, he knew he was sitting still on a chair in an unmoving building. But there was no convincing the sensation of loss of gravity he experienced — it was all-consuming. If he closed his eyes it only made him feel even worse … entirely unmoored in the dark as though he was in his gundam, lost in space, even after all this time.

He’d been staring in an unfocused way at the other side of the flight gate and it was only when there was a consistent movement in his field of vision that he blinked and focused on his surroundings. Heero shuddered, disliking that he was so unaware, so vulnerable as he sat there, lost in the depths of the anti-gravity of his mind’s own making. It wasn’t a threat before him, just a child likely around three or four, waving over in his direction. He couldn’t muster the energy to look and see if the child was waving at him, or someone behind him, nor to move at all to return the greeting if it was for him. He blinked slowly as he continued to try to use his breathing to get the roiling motion he was feeling under control. As before, it did not work and he groaned in frustration and slid further down in the chair until he could rest his head against the back of it instead of in his hand. He just wanted relief. If the world could stop moving all around him for a while he felt like maybe he could deal with what had happened to him. But it wouldn’t. The feeling of losing his sense of space and physical self made it difficult to think about anything at all.

Heero had no way to know how long it was before Trowa came back. While he hadn’t closed his eyes, he’d definitely zoned out entirely, lost in the movement his brain kept telling him was happening to him. And then, suddenly, Trowa was before him again, standing above his slumped form with a small worried frown on his face.

“You’re really struggling, aren’t you?” Trowa asked quietly as he folded himself into the chair next to Heero. Heero didn’t bother to respond, it seemed pointless and Trowa didn’t appear to expect an answer. Instead, he thrust a bottle in front of Heero’s face. It was a water bottle, but the inside liquid was …pink? Heero tired to convey his confusion with his eyes without having to move his head at all and got a light huff of laughter from Trowa for his trouble. “I found some electrolytes as well, I figured they’d likely help a little more than just plain water.”

“Hn,” Heero grunted and grabbed the bottle and opened it to take a drink. It was both fruity and salty tasting and he found himself making a face at the taste and could hear Trowa’s bemused reaction as he watched him.

He drank the bottle but tried to do so in a moderate pace in case drinking too quickly while he felt so awful would make him throw up. After finishing it, he held the empty bottle in a lax hand and just sat and breathed again. Trowa shifted, taking the bottle from him, and then pressed his shoulder against Heero’s again like earlier.

“We’re not in a rush. We can stay here as long as you need.” He said and seemed to be moving to get himself a bit more comfortable while maintaining that point of contact.

Heero wanted to snap at him that he didn’t know how long he needed. He could need forever for all he knew before he felt like he understood what was moving and wasn’t moving again. What was the point of getting up to get home and continue his life when it was just going to be more of this all the time? How was he supposed to work when trying to hold complex thoughts in his head felt like trying to grasp a handful of water? He could hardly do anything anymore. At least when he had injuries before they would eventually heal in an accelerated rate due to the experimentation J put him through — but accelerated healing couldn’t heal dead cells. He couldn’t bring himself to speak at all, feeling his frustration and anger burning in the back of this throat and making his eyes hot.

Then there was warmth across his shoulders, and Trowa squeezing his arm. “Hey, you’re gonna make it through this. Remember when you blew yourself up as a kid? You’re gonna get on the other side of this, too.” His voice was soft as always, but strong as he spoke only for Heero to hear.

He took in a long breath, feeling his body shudder slightly at the force of his tangled emotions, and Trowa’s hand squeezed his arm again in response. He had survived self-destruction, he thought, and that was during an active war. He just needed to survive his own brain trying to self-destruct a part of itself. Heero wasn’t entirely sure he had that kind of strength. Though it seemed Trowa believed he did.

Trowa took him home. When they arrived at Heero’s building, they both stared up at it. He was on the fourth floor and usually would just take the stairs. While there was an older elevator in the building, it was slow and he didn’t need to use it before. Now, he knew Trowa wouldn’t even let him try the stairs and while that was frustrating to realize, a small part of him knew it was for the best. He wasn’t even fully sure where his ankles were at the moment, it felt like he’d left them back at the airport. Out of the cab, Trowa offered his arm again, and with a small sigh Heero took it and let the other man help him into his building. They got into the elevator when it arrived and Trowa looked around the cab with an air of amusement.

“How old do you think this is?” he asked.

Heero was sure he knew at some point, but he couldn’t seem to remember at all. He leaned backward to rest against the back of the cab as it moved upward, and then quickly realized that was a terrible idea and stood straight again. Having his head touching the walls of the moving device only exacerbated his feeling of wrong movement. The quick back and forward upended his infinitesimal balance and he stumbled slightly, but Trowa was swift to take his arm back and steady Heero with an arm around his waist.

“I got you,” he said as he helped Heero keep upright.

“I hate this,” Heero grumbled as he let his head fall forward and stared at his shoes. It didn’t matter what he did with his head, all of it was awful.

“I know. I’m sorry, Heero.” Trowa’s arm squeezed Heero’s body close to him and stayed there when Heero didn’t try and move at all.

Once the elevator finally made it to his floor, Trowa ushered him out of the cab and when they were standing in the hallway on the floor that wasn’t moving he stopped and seemed to be waiting to see what Heero wanted to do. Heero finally lifted his head slightly to look at Trowa through his bangs and started forward, feeling Trowa’s arm release his waist before he offered it to Heero again for assistance. He grabbed it with a small sigh, and continued down the hall to his door. Trowa had his keys and was quick to open the locks on the door before pushing it open for Heero to precede him.

Immediately, he could tell someone else had been in his apartment. It smelled different than it should as the first sign, and as he took in the living area he noted a bag on the kitchen table that wasn’t his. “Who…?” he asked, turning slightly back toward Trowa who was busy with locking the door back up behind them.

“Wufei and I came by before I went to Sanc to see if there was anything to clean and I know he would have dropped some food by earlier today. I think he said he’ll try to come here after work. Do you think you’d be up for company?” Trowa explained as he came up to stand next to him, Heero had not moved from where he stood in the entryway, confused and off-centre having his space encroached on like that. Trowa gently grabbed his shoulder and gave him a brief squeeze. “We just want to help.”

Heero searched his friend’s face for a moment. He knew they only wanted to help, he’d given a spare key to Trowa specifically if he was ever injured and needed some help. But to need it at all, especially when he wasn’t injured in any way he would have ever thought — it wasn’t a bullet wound, he hadn’t been stabbed, he hadn’t broken any bones. It was his own body utterly betraying him and forcing him to nearly being incompetent of handing his own life. His friends anticipating that incompetence had him feeling shame burning hot in his gut. He couldn’t think of how to respond to Trowa so he just turned away and went to slide his shoes off, but doing so without something to hold onto or sit on, had him upending his meagre balance again and he found himself stumbling slightly in one socked foot and one still in a shoe. Trowa was there again, helping him remain steady but when he started to bend like he would take Heero’s shoe of for him Heero huffed with anger and hurried to slip it off himself before wresting himself away from Trowa to stalk into his apartment. Only, he couldn’t even walk angrily as he wanted to, his legs were too unsteady with how little he seemed to know about them now, and he felt the need to keep his hands out slightly to his sides as if they were rudders

He made his way into his kitchen and began to fill the kettle with water and get the things he’d need for tea, slamming cupboards and drawers as he went. It was childish, and he knew he was behaving poorly, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He was just so angry. At fifteen he had saved the damn Earth Sphere and then again at seventeen! And now he couldn’t even walk across his own apartment without it being an effort to remain steady. He’d set two mugs on the counter next to the kettle with tea bags in them waiting for the water, and now he gripped the lip of the counter hard enough his fingertips turned red and white and bowed his head low toward his hands. His eyes felt hot again, and this time, in the safety of his own kitchen as the kettle began to heat, Heero let the tears fall.

It was so inanely stupid to be brought down by just a little bit of blood that didn’t go where it should go. He saw the scans, he knew the dead area wasn’t huge, and yet it completely waylaid him. His entire youth was spent training on how to control his body, his reactions to things, his body temperature even, and yet — now, as an adult in his thirties, he had had no idea there was a problem with his own artery and it broke inside him, breaking a part of him with it. Heero couldn’t hold in a sobbing gasp and his shoulders shook with the effort. He’d bled so much as a boy. And now, now it was blood inside him, in a place he didn’t expect and they couldn’t even explain — and this… he released the counter to swipe at his eyes angrily. This wasn’t right. Heero knew he should be better than this. Better than to be taken down by a stroke. Much less have one at all. He didn’t know why his friends weren’t disgusted by him for being so weak to fall to this and be injured in such a ridiculous way. Heero Yuy, who could bend steel with his bare hands, unable to figure out where the hell the ground had gone — what a fucking joke.

Something warm nudged at the back of his hand and he scrubbed at his eyes with the other for a second before he tried to focus on it. When he looked, Trowa was holding a mug out to him, steam wafting off the brew as he pressed it against Heero’s hand. He hadn’t even realized the kettle had boiled, or that Trowa had come into the kitchen, but he took the mug all the same. Trowa’s look of concern only seemed to sharpen when Heero met his gaze.

“Heero…” He started, but Heero was quick to interrupt.

“Don’t. Please, just… don’t.” He said, and would have shook his head if he didn’t think that would make him feel worse. Instead, he took the mug from Trowa and moved around him to go into the living room to sit on his couch.

After a minute Trowa followed him out of the kitchen holding his own mug. He came and joined Heero on the couch, sitting on the other end with one leg curled under him. “I’ll let Wufei know not to come by, all right?”

“Hn,” he grunted in acknowledgement and looked beyond Trowa to stare out the window on the front wall. The tea was still very hot when he took a sip, but he didn’t care it helped him keep his mind in the here and now. After a few minutes of them sitting in silence, Heero shifted his eyes to look at Trowa who was looking down at his phone, likely having messaged Wufei already. “Maybe—” Heero started hesitantly, and Trowa looked up at him immediately. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Sure, we’ll try for tomorrow.” Trowa said, smiling softly at him.

Heero tired to give him a rueful look, though he wasn’t sure how effective it was by the way Trowa’s eyes sparked in amusement. “You’re staying here, aren’t you?”

Trowa shrugged, “Yes. Just for the first week you’re home.” Heero shot him a glare and Trowa shook his head. “I only want to make sure you can manage. It’s just for now, Heero, it’s not forever.”

“Don’t baby me,” Heero said in a huff.

“I think you’d probably kill me if I tried,” Trowa laughed.

He looked at his friend again for a moment, there was a kindness and a firmness to Trowa that he couldn’t help finding assuring when he felt like the entire world kept upending itself around him. “Not forever,” he repeated and got a nod from Trowa.

After they drank their tea, Heero decided he needed a shower and then he wanted to sleep. Trowa stayed in the living room, working on something on his phone while Heero went to get himself ready for bed. When he got into the bathroom he was surprised to find that they’d augmented his shower. While the bathroom had a separate stall shower already, it looked like Trowa or Wufei, or both, had come in and installed some hand rails on the walls and they left a movable bench inside. Heero warred with feeling touched they went through the trouble, and angry at the thought that he would need the assistance to shower — and angrier at the realization that he likely would. When he’d been at Relena and Quatre’s he’d found that sometimes while showering he’d feel even more disoriented either from the water temperature, or the act of moving his head to wash his hair, or even just the water falling around him. Heero heaved a heavy sigh at himself and began to wash up.

Clean, and feeling slightly better for that, Heero changed and came back out to the living room to find Trowa had already set up the couch with blankets and a pillow to sleep on. He paused with his hand on the door frame and wasn’t sure what he should do. But Trowa noticed him and smiled. “Going to sleep?” he asked.

“Yeah… tired.” Heero still stalled before he went to bed. Finally he asked, “Do you need anything?”

“No, Heero, I’m fine. I’ll stay up a bit. I have some work to do.” Trowa gestured to his laptop that was on the coffee table, that Heero hadn’t even noticed and felt a bit miffed with himself for overlooking. “You sleep, I’ll be here.” He gave a slight nod then, and his words reminded Heero of times in the war when they’d keep watch while in unsafe places so they could rest. He was at home though, it was safe, but it still warmed a part of him to know his friend had his back.

“Goodnight,” Heero said and then turned around to get into his bed. He left the door slightly ajar, knowing if he closed it and could hear Trowa from beyond the door he’d likely wake himself anyway at the sound of a possible intruder.

“Goodnight, Heero,” Trowa echoed to him.

Heero laid in his bed flat on his back like he usually slept, trying to find the comfort in the old normal he had. But being flat on his back after moving positions just made him feel like he was laying on a raft on a choppy sea. Having just the back of his head on the pillow wasn’t enough to tell himself he was in bed anymore. He groaned softly to himself as he turned onto his side and tried to find a comfortable way to sleep. When he’d been at Relena and Quatre’s he’d had the same trouble, but thought perhaps it was because it wasn’t his bed. He’d hoped being in the familiarity of his own home would help diminish the dizziness and disorientation and was extremely frustrated to find that didn’t seem to matter at all.

In the end, it took a while of manoeuvring slowly and stiltedly to try and get comfortable and not make himself feel worse in the process. He ended up almost on his stomach, with his face pressed into his pillow so hard he was nearly covering his ability to breathe … but somehow this position helped him understand he was laying down in bed better than any other. It didn’t make the dizziness go away at all, but it helped him deal with it enough he would be able to sleep.

He was somewhere between sleeping and wakefulness when he heard Trowa’s voice in the other room. “—gone to sleep… Yeah. It’s taken a lot out of him.” Then he went quiet for a while and there was the sound of something being put down on a surface. “It’s… difficult. He’s so strong and — I know. It’ll just take time.” Trowa stopped talking long enough, Heero forgot he was even there as his brain drifted. Then, he heard him speak in an even quieter voice. “No, don’t tell him. That’s a terrible idea. … You know why… No. Damn it, I’m not going to change my mind. He will hate you for—” Trowa’s voice got louder at the end and then abruptly he cut himself off. Heero’s eyes narrowed in the dark as he tried to come out of the hazy awareness he’d been in to think of what the hell Trowa could be talking about but he couldn’t focus and soon ended up closing his eyes again. “It’s fine.” Trowa spoke again after some time with a weariness to his voice that seemed odd. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Heero pressed his face further into the pillow. So he’d been talking to Wufei — unless he intended to see someone else tomorrow as well. He wondered what made Trowa so angry and tried to think about what would cause that reaction, but then his exhaustion and dizziness caught up to him all at once and his thoughts slipped away as he fell into unconsciousness.

He did not dream.

Chapter Text

When Heero woke the sun was coming in strong through his bedroom window, he’d forgotten to close the blinds before going to sleep but it didn’t seem to have mattered, by the amount of sun shining into his room it was quite late in the day and yet he was only waking up now. Heero let out a small whine as he pressed his face harder into the pillow. He’d not moved at all during the night, but still, he felt exactly the same as he had last night. Now that he was finally home, in his own bed, he wanted it all to just end for things to go back to how they were. He was home. He was in his space. Why couldn’t his brain get with the program? Heero let himself wallow for a few minutes before he groaned at himself and pushed himself upright to get ready for a new day. There was the sound of muffled voices coming from beyond the door to his room, and he frowned wondering who Trowa let in. 

It took him a while to dress. Now that he had his full wardrobe to choose from, he found making a choice more difficult than it should have been. Heero couldn’t remember if he was supposed to do something today, he knew there was a doctor’s appointment he had to go to now that he was home, but it slipped his mind when it was happening. He also needed to meet with Une and discuss when he would be coming back to work — his gut clenched in anxiety thinking about it. With how difficult it was to hold onto thoughts now, he wasn’t sure he could return to his job at all. While he absolutely wouldn’t be able to be in the field now while he recovered — if he recovered as the doctor seemed to think he should — Heero couldn’t help but feel doubt that he was even up for doing the more desk bound aspects his job entailed these days. After over a decade of being active in the field, Une had been insistently increasing his responsibilities in the office and assigning active field work to other agents. She said it was because she needed him more for his mind these days than his dogged tenacity in the field, but he had a feeling it also had to do with how he’d broken his leg in two places and four ribs when the floor he was on three years ago collapsed underneath him. Now with a stroke, he was sure she’d find a way to keep him desk bound for life if he could even do those aspects of his job at all. 

Suddenly he realized he was staring into his closet, his decision on what to wear completely stalled by worry over what he would do from now on. There was nothing to do but face it, he knew. So he decided on what he’d usually wear for a casual day, and take it from there if necessary. After pulling on pants and a top he started in his new obnoxiously shambling way for the other room. Just as he reached the door he heard the voices carrying again and this time could identify Wufei’s timbre with Trowa’s. While Heero wasn’t usually one to engage in eavesdropping on his friends, he vaguely recalled the overheard conversation from the night before and wondered if he’d get some context.

 “—asking again when she can get her own lion cub.” Wufei was saying, sounding a little tired. “You spoil her.” He accused. 

“What else are uncles for?” Trowa sounded amused in response. 

Heero huffed to himself and opened the door, he supposed he deserved the guilt he felt for indulging in his curiosity in such a way. Whatever he’d overheard the previous night wasn’t his business unless and until either of them made it so. 

He made his way into the living room area and found the two other men sitting at his kitchen table with some papers spread between them. They both looked up at his approach and Heero was surprised at the naked relief that overtook Wufei’s expression. He was quickly on his feet and crossed the room to Heero in a few long strides before he enfolded Heero into a tight, warm hug, one hand carefully cradling the back of Heero’s head as Wufei pulled his face to his shoulder. 

“It is so good to see you,” Wufei’s voice was thick with emotion. “I wasn’t sure—” he cut himself off and squeezed Heero tightly. It took him a moment, but then Heero raised his arms to return the embrace. He hadn’t thought about it at all, but having Wufei hold him so tight and so gently he suddenly knew that hearing it was a stroke had frightened his friend. 

“I’m okay,” he said softly into Wufei’s shoulder. 

For some reason that made the other man bark out a watery sounding laugh and he pulled back. He looked Heero in the eye with amused, but sad eyes, as he reached up to hold Heero’s head with both hands —it was strangely grounding. “You are not. But that… that’s okay. You will be, again.” His thumbs stroked the sides of Heero’s neck as Wufei took in his face, his eyes tightening a little in his worry. For the first time since the stroke Heero remembered Relena saying something about his face, and he wondered if something looked different about him now. “You will be, and we’ll help you.” Wufei said and then leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Heero’s forehead before pulling away and leading him to the table. “Now, come sit. It’s nearly lunch and you need to eat.” 

Heero let himself be led and sat down feeling stunned. While Wufei was a bit more demonstrative since becoming a father, he was never so affectionate as this—he must have really been scared for Heero. The thought made him feel a bit warm all the way through. Trowa had gotten up while Wufei was talking to him, and now he returned to place a plate and chopsticks before Heero. There were pieces of rolled omelette, a bowl of rice with pickled vegetables, and a small bowl of miso soup. Heero looked up at Trowa in surprise, Heero had been eating the more European style breakfasts while in Sanc, and in general would mix up what he ate at home. He wouldn’t have expected Trowa to go to the trouble to make him a more Japanese-styled spread. 

Trowa just gave him a small smile and sat back down at the table saying, “Enjoy.”

“Thank you,” Heero said with a small bow of his head as he picked up the chopsticks and began to eat. Holding them was second nature, but there was something more difficult about it now, he wondered idly if he’d be able to use them for the whole meal. While he wasn’t very hungry, he hadn’t been since the stroke — the disorientation didn’t make him nauseous, but it seemed to have stolen his appetite — he knew he needed food, regardless. 

While he ate Trowa and Wufei turned back to the papers strewn about the table, and Heero looked on curiously. “What’s this about?” he asked. 

“I’m picking Trowa’s brain on some ideas to update training for the new recruits.” Wufei explained and gestured down to one of the papers that detailed out a schedule of events for the current training program. 

Heero continued to eat as he tried to focus on what was before him for a minute and then he said sardonically, “You should get the trainees dizzy before making them do the obstacle course.” 

Both Trowa and Wufei looked over at him in surprise and didn’t seem to know what to do with his statement. Wufei squinted at him for a second and then he smirked. “Doing a run while compromised is a good way to get them prepared for undesirable field conditions, good idea.” Heero nodded, wearing his own little smile, glad that Wufei got what he meant. He returned to his food as the other two continued to discuss the merits of various tactics for training, and he let the back and forth wash over him as he tried to let himself feel grounded in being in his own home finally. While it was obvious now that the disorientation he felt wasn’t going to go away just cause he was home, a part of him continued to hope it would be easier in some way now that he was in his own space again. 

After he finished eating a quiet seemed to settle over the room and he noticed Wufei and Trowa seemed to be having some kind of staring contest with one another. He held in a sigh, hoping it wasn’t about his abilities now and broke the silence. “What is it?” he asked as he looked between them. 

At least they had the decency to look a little chagrined at him calling them out. But then Trowa just frowned and seemed to be glaring at Wufei, who didn’t look particularly much happier when he turned his attention to Heero. “I need to ask you something,” he started but then couldn’t seem to figure out how he wanted to continue. 

Heero waited a moment, and when it seemed Wufei was just going to keep floundering he pushed back in his chair a bit to give himself a little distance as he felt a strange tension in the air. “What is it?” he repeated.

“I realize the situation is … delicate—” Wufei said with a small wince that had Heero raising an eyebrow. “What I mean is —” he sighed and shook his head, seeming to be frustrated with himself. “Heero, Duo will be calling on Thursday for his regular update and I think I should tell him about what happened to you.” He finally said directly, looking Heero in the eye as he spoke. 

“Duo?” he asked his voice soft with the overwhelming confusion he felt. Why would Wufei want to tell Duo? Why would Duo care at all? He was the one who’d walked away all those years ago … he was the one who’d thrown their friendship aside. Heero swallowed, feeling that hurt surface as though it were fresh all over again. “What— why?” he asked turning to Trowa, unable to keep his confusion off his face. “Regular update?” 

Trowa had looked almost angry when Heero had turned to him, but when he realized Heero was looking at him the expression fell from his face, instead becoming one of soft compassion. “Duo has a regular call every three weeks to give us an update on how the Mars project is coming along—” he stopped and reached out to touch Heero’s arm. “Heero it’s not that we wanted to keep this from you—”

“But you did,” he interrupted, surprised by how rough his voice came out. “I don’t… I don’t understand. How long?” he asked, looking at them in askance. He didn’t know what to think at all, and he felt suddenly like the dizziness was getting worse. Was it because he felt such emotional upheaval? He didn’t know. He didn’t understand what they were telling him. They spoke to Duo regularly and no one mentioned it to him? Heero put his face in his hands and leaned against the table with a groan. Immediately both men were standing, hovering around Heero as they asked what happened. “No. Stop.” Heero groaned out. “Just tell me the truth,” he said, but didn’t move his head from his hands. He didn’t want to show them his face. 

There was quiet around him for a moment before Wufei spoke softly, “Why, since he left.” 

The words were so innocuous, and yet they felt like Heero had been shot in the chest to hear. This whole time, this whole time, they’d all kept up with Duo, and him with them, and no one ever told Heero — no one thought to tell him anything at all. It wasn’t that he thought they should stop speaking to Duo, not at all. But that they were all still in communication after all this time and no one ever mentioned Duo to him. It made him feel…too many things. He felt a yawning aching loneliness like he’d known when he was young and had worked on keeping at bay after the war. But suddenly it felt almost like he didn’t know his closest friends at all and as though that old loneliness would pull him under once more. Why keep this from him? He’d never known any of them to keep things like this from one another, but perhaps he was wrong for all these years to trust as he had. He didn’t want to feel any of this, and definitely not so strongly, it was so frustrating how vulnerable emotionally he seemed to be since the stroke. Everything seemed to hurt or mean so much more, and he didn’t know if it was a common thing for the type of stroke he had, or just harder for his mind to keep his emotions in check because of how much it was working to try and use a part that didn’t exist anymore. 

“Heero we just did what we thought would be best—”

“Best?” Heero asked, his voice harsh as he finally pulled back from his hands to look up at Wufei. The sharp movement did not help his disorientation at all, and he could tell his glare was breaking down and he clenched his jaw trying to keep himself present. “What is best about this? You thought you had to keep your friendship a secret from me. Why?” 

Trowa put a hand on his shoulder and Heero turned to look at him, his gaze just as angry and accusatory as is was toward Wufei. “We thought it may upset you,” he said, his voice soft as it always was and for some reason this only annoyed Heero more. 

He pushed away from the table and stood on his stupid uncertain legs, they were there, but he wasn’t sure they were in that moment. “You thought being friends with Duo would upset me? I wouldn’t have ever wanted you to abandon him. He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t deserve that.” His voice faltered and he frowned. “What’s between us was between us. It wasn’t —” his eyes felt too hot suddenly to keep going. That didn’t matter anyway he told himself as he took in a breath that he felt ashamed was so shaky. 

“Heero—” Wufei’s voice sounded pained as he spoke. “He asks after you all the time.” 

Hearing that only made him angry again, and he was a little glad to not feel like he would fall apart anymore. “He left.” Heero hissed. “He chose to leave and keep it from me. If he wants to know how I’m doing he can damn well ask me himself.” He glared at the both of them then. “My stroke is not his fucking business. He wanted to leave me behind him, that’s what that means.” He said viciously and then turned away from his friends and made his way in his halting stuttered stride to his balcony. He couldn’t stand to be inside with them a moment longer. 

The door opened with a bang that bent the frame and shattered the glass. He hadn’t intended on breaking anything, but he’d forgotten his own strength in his anger. Heero glared at the mess he made and stepped over it to get to one of the chairs outside. He’d deal with it later. He sat heavily down in the chair and curled into himself, feeling suddenly, overwhelmingly sorry for himself in a way he couldn’t get a grasp on. 

Heero clenched his hands into fists, his nails biting into his flesh, to keep himself from falling apart. It didn’t seem to be working as his eyes felt all hot again. But then he heard Trowa and Wufei approaching — likely cause of the noise of him breaking his own door — and forced himself to take in a number of deep breaths to get himself under control again. He kept trying to pack away his emotions so he could try to be more reasonable about what he’d learned, but he just kept thinking of the last time he’d seen Duo … nearly ten years ago now. Had it really been that long? The slightly subdued smile that Duo had given him that final time he’d seen him kept flashing in his mind’s eye. Heero had plenty of time since to try an analyze and pick apart their last interaction to figure out what he’d done wrong, what mistake he’d made that had caused Duo to leave him behind as he did. All he’d ever been able to pin down was the simple fact that he’d cared too much, shown it too clearly, and it sent Duo away. 

“Heero?” Wufei called from just inside the door, his voice carrying a hesitancy to it that was unlike him. Heero turned his head slightly to get a look at him and saw Wufei staring bewildered at the damaged door. 

“Accident.” He said shortly. Then he turned away from Wufei again and stared out into the cityscape his raised view afforded him and tried to quell the anger that flared thinking about Wufei and Trowa and Quatre and Duo. The anger helped bury the hurt at least, but he just wanted to feel nothing. 

“Quite an accident,” Wufei said wryly. Heero heard shifting fabric that could either mean he was trying to navigate the broken glass or had stepped back into the apartment. He hoped the latter though he was certain that he wouldn’t get a reprieve from their concern. “Trowa’s gone to get the broom.” Wufei explained, letting Heero know he was correct and would not get freedom from their hovering. 

After a moment he sighed and said, “I’ll take care of it later.” Hearing more movement Heero began the process of unfolding himself from the chair, frustration in every movement that only got sharper as he found himself needing to reach out to steady himself on the banister around the balcony. Finally he turned to look at Wufei and caught him staring at Heero’s movements with calculating eyes that put him on edge. When he spoke again, his voice was flat, “I don’t want you here.” 

Hurt flashed briefly across Wufei’s face before he bowed his head slightly. “I apologize for keeping something so important from you.”

Heero glared at him. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Wufei felt badly for how Heero reacted, he didn’t think Wufei understood why he was upset especially when he was hardly sure himself. “What else have you kept from me?” He asked, his voice hard. 

His question had Wufei looking quickly up at him in shock. “I don’t—nothing Heero. I have nothing to keep from you. I swear.” 

Heero did not like that he didn’t believe him now, where he may have done so earlier that day, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything, only frowned and walked past Wufei back into his home. As he shuffled down the hall Trowa came around the corner with a broom and dust pail in hand, he seemed to come up short at the sight of Heero. Knowing that trying to fight him on cleaning up the mess would only be an exercise in frustration, Heero decided not to bother. “Where’s my phone?” he asked instead. 

“Oh,” Trowa said, seeming surprised by the question. “Should be charging on your desk.” 

“Thanks. I’ll call a repair service.” Heero said as he shuffled down the hall and passed Trowa. While walking he kept his left hand out to his side slightly to touch the wall to help him understand a little better where he was, he felt Trowa’s eyes on him as he walked and chose to ignore his concern. 

As he made his way into the living room and then over toward his desk where his laptop was, and, he noted his phone was sitting right next to it on its charging dock, he could hear Trowa and Wufei’s voices down the hall murmuring to one another. Now that he knew what they’d been talking about on the phone the previous night, he had no desire to hear what else they could be talking about. He pulled out his office chair from his desk and let himself fall into it slowly, it helped a little to go slow when he changed elevation of his head, but only a little. Then he picked up his phone and set up a time for a repair person to come look at the door later that day. Heero sat at his desk for a minute and tried to think what he wanted to do, he felt far too wound up to stay at home with Trowa and Wufei, and he knew from what Trowa said yesterday he would not succeed in getting them both to leave him alone in his own home. But, he was alone now. 

Taking a quick stock of himself, he was dressed casually but fine to go out, and his bag for his laptop was leaning against his desk awaiting use per usual. He slipped the machine into its bag, called himself a cab for about ten minutes, figuring it would take him that unbearably long to make it out of his apartment and downstairs, and then slowly got up and put his bag over his shoulder as he moved to get his shoes. He kept an ear out for his, currently unwanted, guests, and they seemed busy at the other end of the unit still. Heero couldn’t help a small little smirk, it was not as thrilling as sneaking around an enemy base, but with how much everyone had been hovering since the stroke, it did feel a little thrilling. Once he got to the entrance, Heero braced his hands on the wall as leverage for himself so he could toe his shoes on without losing balance. He grabbed his keys from the hook and after deciding to check the weather quickly on his phone, took his umbrella out of the stand he had by the door. Then, he quietly slipped out. 

It wasn’t a long walk to the elevator, but with how difficult it was to keep track of his legs and the ground Heero felt like he was trying to walk down the hall wearing weights on his ankles. When he finally made it to the elevator he pushed the button with a little more force than necessary, battling his own frustration with how slow he was now and how difficult existing was with how little he wanted to stay in his apartment. Once he was in the elevator he let out a breath. Of course, the other two could follow him easily by going down the stairs, the elevator was slow and he was also slow, but just being inside it felt like he’d made his escape already. It was as he was exiting the elevator his phone pinged with a message, but he didn’t look at it yet. Instead he continued on his way out the door and onto the street where he saw the cab he’d called waiting for him — Heero wasn’t sure how to feel about being right about how long it took him to get downstairs and onto the street, but he was glad the cab was there. 

Once he was in the car and it was off to his destination he looked at his phone where a message from Trowa was waiting. “Where are you?” it read. 

Heero smiled to himself a little, good, they didn’t know where he was going. “I’ll be back this evening.” He typed quickly, realizing as he looked at his phone that reading while he was in motion was making him even more disoriented. Before putting the phone down though, he sent off a follow up to ensure Trowa at least would stay at his place and not follow. It read, “The repair service will be there in two hours.” Then he slipped his phone into his pocket and tried to determine if looking out the front window of the car as it moved eased any of the dizziness or not. 

Traffic was unusually heavy for the time of day so it took longer than Heero had anticipated to get to where he was trying to go. But, finally, the car pulled up in front of the museum, and once the driver pulled up at the curb Heero vary carefully extricated himself from the vehicle. The umbrella he’d brought turned out to be surprisingly useful in giving him a small point of extra balance and further awareness of where the ground was. He tried not to put his weight on it so much as using as a tool to just assist him in his spatial awareness that had so thoroughly been removed from him, an umbrella was not meant for the weight of a man, after all. 

Using the umbrella as a make-shift walking stick, Heero went into the cafe that was attached to the front of the museum. After ordering a coffee he set himself up at a table with his laptop and made a call. 

The phone rang a few times before a confused voice answered, “Fly boy? I didn’t expect to hear from you. Are you okay?” 

Heero smiled a little at her nickname for him, she’d called him that many years ago and somehow, it stuck. “I’m okay, Maia. I’m in the cafe.”

“What?!” Maia — Mariemaia, who at thirteen decided she wanted to go by Maia and stuck to it even now — just about screeched down the line. “Did you come here by yourself? Should you have been moving? I should call Anna. What are you doing here?” He could hear her moving about quickly through the phone and was sure she was rushing through the museum to get to him. 

“I’m okay,” he repeated, his tone purposefully even and calm. “And I wanted to get out of the house. Too stifling.” 

“How did you even get here?” 

“I am capable of calling myself a cab, Maia. I had a stroke. I’m not comatose.” Heero said flatly and was amused to hear her laugh slightly. 

“I’m calling Anna.” She said again, her tone firm. 

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Heero replied softly. While he still needed to talk to Une, he wanted to see what was in his emails first. And, he was a little apprehensive that she’d be just as overbearing as everyone else. 

Anna Une had changed much since her stern wartime self, and while she was still stern as the director of the Preventers, the steel of her spine was formed around a warm core. When he’d joined the Preventers after the Barton Rebellion, Une was glad to have him but she was hesitant to put him in the field at first. She’d sat him down in her office and enforced a heart-to-heart on him, something he’d never really experienced before, and told him that she’d heard his exhausted near-delirious words that awful night. She told him she had no intention on signing him up to be used as a weapon, that he held far more value than that. Heero, who had been sure his value was entirely as a weapon despite how little he wanted to be one anymore, was very surprised, and a little apprehensive — he didn’t know how to be anything else. They’d come to a compromise: she let him act as a field agent, but she had him on far less life-threatening cases than other agents and even early on she was splitting his time between active investigation and using his skills with technology. The limit chafed him for a while, it took a few years for him to find his flow in the organization, and the entire time Anna was there as his director and, more and more, as his friend. Even at the beginning, he’d noted she seemed to have a soft spot for him, but it wasn’t until he was in his mid-twenties that he learned a little about why. 

It was that soft spot and friendship that he was slightly wary of facing now. He knew she’d be worried about him and his abilities now — but after what he learned from the others he knew he now had more to worry about himself. Duo had also been a Preventer, they’d been partners for a time even, and Anna had been there to see the devastation Heero felt when Duo left that he’d tried so hard to keep hidden from anyone. While Heero didn’t want everyone Duo knew to abandon him, his friends providing Duo access to himself, when Heero had no say in the matter, left him feeling like he had an open wound he could not stop bleeding. He wasn’t sure he was up for learning that Une had done the same. 

Maia had gone quiet on the other end, but he could still hear that she was moving around the museum. Finally, she sighed. “I’m gonna see how you seem, then I’m calling her.” Then, much quieter, “She’s really worried about you, you know.” 

It was Heero’s turn to sigh. “It seems like everyone is.”

“Well,” she started and huffed out a small laugh. “I mean, that’s not unreasonable, is it? Anyway, I’m here.” She said and hung up as he turned to look at the doors that led into the museum. 

At twenty-four, Mariemaia Kushrenada carried a bit more of her father in her face than she did as a child. Now, she stood tall as a young woman, her flaming red hair cut short and dyed black at the tips — Heero had the brief thought that Duo would probably find her hairstyle amusing and startled himself at thinking that at all, but, Duo had been on his mind all afternoon. Her bright blue eyes were slightly diminished in their intensity by the glasses she now wore, and they honed in on him with precision immediately. She stalked over to his table, her impractical heels clacking on the tiled floor heralding her approach. When she reached his table, she stopped and looked him up and down with a small frown before she suddenly rushed forward and enveloped him in a fierce hug. 

“You are okay!” she breathed into his shoulder, her voice thick with emotion as she squeezed him tightly. 

Heero shifted so he could wrap his arms around her as well and noted she was trembling slightly. “I’m okay,” he said softly. “You don’t need to worry about me.” 

“You idiot,” her voice was slightly garbled, and when she pulled back from him to wipe her eyes from tears he understood. “Of course I’m going to worry about you. You’re like my stupid brother.” Maia laughed a little, gasping slightly as she tried to get a handle on herself. Heero leaned toward her and reached to wipe her eye as more tears started to fall. “My big stupid brother with a stupid idiot brain that tried to kill him. God. Heero. Look at you!” She exclaimed, and then the emotion couldn’t be held anymore and she burst into sobs. 

Heero helped get her into a chair as he pulled her back into an embrace. Since he couldn’t look at himself, and wasn’t sure what she meant, he tried his best to just keep repeating he was okay, he was fine, and hold her through her tears. It wasn’t long before she was able to get some control over her tears and Heero pulled away from her slightly. “You okay?” he asked as he looked for a tissue and found he only had the napkin he’d taken with his drink. When he handed it to her she gave a helpless hiccuping laugh and took it. He sat back to let her put herself back together, watching her with concern. 

After wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, Maia looked up at him and gave him a flat look. “Oh don’t look at me that way. I’m just—” she sighed and then reached over to take his hand in both of hers and then began to idly fidget with his fingers. She was looking down at their hands when she continued to speak, in a much quieter voice than before, “I’m just so relieved it didn’t kill you. I thought with Anna taking you out of actively dangerous missions I wouldn’t have to be afraid of getting a call about you being hurt anymore. And then… and then Relena called. And I know what a stroke is, but I couldn’t — it wouldn’t connect. It was unbelievable. You’re you. A stroke is so. It’s so mundane.” Maia huffed a frustrated breath and finally looked up at him, her eyes big behind her glasses and pained. “It’s such an ignoble thing to bring you down —  just a little bit of blood.” 

That made him smile slightly and he curled his fingers around her hands. “I thought the same thing.” He admitted quietly, earning him a startled laugh from her. 

“I’m sorry. I’m making this about me. You’re the one it happened to.” 

“It’s okay.” Heero dismissed, he didn’t really want to talk about the stroke anyway. But he was curious about one thing, “What did you mean about looking a me?” he asked. 

Maia blinked at him in surprise and then she let his hands go. “Oh. It’s —  Your face is … different,” she said after a minute and then she reached over to brush his hair out of his face so she could take a good look at him. “You look… tired. Tired in a way I don’t know if I’ve seen before.” Then she was looking directly in his eyes, scrutinizing him. “And your eyes are different, but I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like you’ve got a little less light in them somehow. I’m not sure. It’s not very obvious, but something is different.” She finished with a slight shrug as she tucked some of his hair behind his ear with a laugh. “You need a haircut.” 

“Yeah, probably,” he agreed easily as he thought over her words. He’d seen himself in the mirror since the stroke, but he hadn’t registered anything being different. But Relena had noticed something about his face when it happened, too, so there must be something others were seeing that he just couldn’t identify for some reason. Maia seemed to settle, and Heero reached for his coffee to take a sip. It had cooled, but it was still drinkable. 

“So why are you here?” Maia asked after a minute of seeming to be content to just watch him quietly. 

Heero gave her a teasing smile, “What? I cannot want to see my little smart sister?” 

“No,” Maia groaned drawing out the word. “Don’t call me that. I hate it.” 

“So I’m your brother but you’re not my sister?” Heero laughed. 

“I think, actually, I hate you.” Maia huffed and crossed her arms as she gave Heero a very ineffectual glare. “I’m not little. You make me sound like a damn baby.” 

Heero just shook his head and took another drink of his coffee. Then he decided to just answer her question, “I told you, it was stifling at my place.”
 
Maia frowned as she took him in again. “Why?” 

He wasn’t really sure what he wanted to go into right then, did he want her to know Trowa didn’t seem to trust him to take care of himself and insisted on staying at his place for the week? Or that the other pilots were apparently all so chummy with Duo they felt fine telling him Heero’s business without letting Heero know anything at all? Or how he’d accidentally broken his own balcony door in his anger? No, definitely not the last one, she’d get all worried about him being alone. He didn’t need more people worried about him being able to be by himself. 

“Trowa’s decided he’s going to be my roommate for the week,” he finally decided on. 

Her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out what else that could mean. “He’s your friend, he’s like your best friend isn’t he? I’m sure he’s just trying to help.” 

Heero frowned as he drank more coffee, giving himself a little time to think over what she said. It wasn’t in his nature to label his relationships, other people tended to do that for him, even so he’d known for a very long time that Trowa was his closest friend, he’d just never thought of him as his best friend. The yawning loneliness from earlier eagerly opened itself back up in his chest as he remembered the only other person who had ever been referred to as his best friend. It seemed, he could not escape Duo today. So, he took in a breath and asked, “Do you remember Duo?” 

Maia frowned in confusion at the apparent topic change, but he could see she was giving his question some thought. “He was a pilot right? And your friend, wasn’t he? Then he went off into space? Mars maybe? I think you were partners for a while, right?” 

“Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding far away even to himself. “For a while.” 

She leaned forward and touched his arm and asked him gently, “Why? What about him?” 

Heero couldn’t look at her and keep talking, he knew he’d not be able to handle her expressions. “He’s still in contact with the others apparently…” he trailed off and couldn’t think of how to continue. 

Maia’s hand tightened on his arm as she picked up what he wasn’t saying. “But not with you,” she finished. She squeezed his arm briefly and asked softly, “But you’d like for him to, wouldn’t you?” 

It was easier to look down at where her hand held onto him than anything else as he gave her a small nod. Heero swallowed hard, and then he let the words carry the pain for him. “He … he asks them about me.” 

“And they tell him, don’t they? But… but you didn’t know any of this, did you?” Heero barely shook his head and she let out a small pained noise. “Oh, Heero. I’m so sorry.” She said, her voice a little rough as squeezed his arm once more and then let her hand rest there, a point of warmth, as they sat quietly for another moment together. It seemed she didn’t know what else to say, and Heero felt like if he tried to look up or speak again he might just burst apart like the shattered pieces of a falling meteor. 

After a few minutes she squeezed his arm again and said, “Well, I know why you’re here now. I need to show you the new exhibit we just finished right when you left for Sanc.” There was a note of false cheer in her voice, but otherwise she spoke with determination. “Finish your coffee and I’ll give you a tour, okay?” 

Heero nodded, glad he had decided to come here in the end. Maia would ask for information, but she wouldn’t push him when she knew he was upset. He drank the rest of the coffee and then let her lend him a hand in getting to his feet before he took up the umbrella again as a pseudo walking stick. 

“You can’t use that, it’ll collapse with your weight,” Maia said with a frown as she looked a how he was holding the umbrella. 

“It helps for now,” he said with a small shrug as he took the coffee mug to the trash. 

He heard her let out a sigh from behind him before she was looping her hand through his elbow. “No. We have a gift shop that has some very pretty canes. I’m getting you one before I take you through the museum. I’m not going to have you slip cause the tip of your umbrella isn’t meant to be gripping the ground.” 

Heero wasn’t sure he wanted a cane. The umbrella was a help, but to actually have a cane felt a little like he was giving in, throwing in the towel and saying he couldn’t hack it without help anymore. But, he knew he wouldn’t win this argument and, he reasoned, having it for the museum didn’t mean he had to use it forever. 

Despite Maia’s presence, he still stumbled as he walked, feeling as though the more steps they took from the cafe he was unspooling a long thread between his legs and himself. He let her lead him on, knowing he wouldn’t get the understanding of his legs back even if he returned to the place his brain thought they were. He let out a small sigh of annoyance with himself and the whole situation. 

Maia looked up at him and gave him a sunny smile, mistaking his sigh for something else. “You’ll like the new exhibit, I think. We have some very rare pieces on display.” 

Heero nodded, he was sure he’d find something to like about it. Mostly, he thought he would like that it would be something he could think about that wasn’t Duo.