"An Oldie But a Goodie" by: the archduke

disclaimer: I don't own GW, but I do own Samantha. I also don't own this premise. It belongs to the owners of "It's a Wonderful Life".

Chapter 8

The smell was the first thing that Heero noticed. That cold, disinfectant smell, the kind that was only found in hospitals. The smell that he always associated with death.

Heero looked around and he found that he was indeed in a hospital. Dressed as an orderly, no one questioned what he was doing there, just standing in the middle of the hall.

"Let's see", he thought to himself. "There are only a few more people that I could be looking for. I've already seen Wufei, Trowa, and Quatre, so that leaves Duo, Zechs and," he paused before he went on. "Relena." Just the thought of that one name always made his insides feel as if they were dissolving, and this situation wasn't any different. That girl had some kind of a hold on him, and no matter how hard he tried, he could never escape from it. Composing himself, he went in search of a familiar face, hoping that it wasn't a particular pacifist princess.

"Get away from me! I know you're stealing my stuff, so get the hell out of here! Just because I can't see dosen't mean I can't beat your ass!" There was the rapid sound of footsteps as the nurse ran from the room. She was in such a hurry that she didn't see Heero and ran right into him.

"Oh, excuse me. That patient," she said pointing to the room she just vacated, "is once again yelling about his belongings being stolen. Crazy old coot," she muttered as she made her way to the next patient.

Something told Heero that he found the room he was looking for. He went to the door and looked at the chart on the front of it. He read the name and sighed. Sure enough, the room's occupant was one Duo Maxwell.

Heero quickly scaned over the chart, making mental notes of why Duo was in the hospital. Duo was blind and paralyzed from the waist down, as well as suffering from a severe case of post traumatic stress syndrome, such a severe case that he had to be confined to this hospital. Heero steeled himself to enter the room and see for himself just how bad his friend was.

"Who's there? Identify yourself before I kill you with my bare hands." Duo's greeting was less than the friendly acknowledgement Heero was used to, but he persevered and sat himself in a chair beside Duo's bed.

"Hello Duo. My name is Heero, and I just want to talk to you."

"Just want to talk, huh. Well then start talking, and don't even think about making a move. I was a soldier, so I'm not reluctant to kill you if need be."

Heero saw his opening and took it. "You were a soldier? So was I."

At this remark Duo seemed to lighten a bit. "A fellow soldier? Well, why didn't you say so in the first place. You fought in the Great War?"

Heero nodded, and then remembered that Duo couldn't see him. "Yes, I fought for the colonies."

Duo lightened even more. "A colonist! Boy, am I glad to see you. I've been stuck around all these Ozzies for such a long time now it's good to talk to a fellow colonist. Hey, did you ever hear of the Gundams?"

"Yes. I heard that they were piloted by the greatest soldiers in the world." Heero knew exactly where Duo was going and decided to make the trip a bit easier for his friend.

"Damn straight they were! And you know who one of those pilots were?" Duo didn't even wait for Heero to answer. "Me! I was one of the original Gundam pilots, the only one who bothered to finish the war." He said this last part with bitterness.

Heero couldn't stop himself from asking the next question. "What happened?"

Duo's fairly good mood vanished in an instant. "Treize and OZ happened. After the other Gundam pilots gave up, I was the only one left to fight for the colonies. I was good, but I wasn't that good. There were just so many of them, so many, and they kept coming, even after I went down, they kept on coming, and coming, and coming."

Heero could tell that Duo was now in a world of his own, reliving whatever hell he had been through.

"They just kept on coming, never stopping, never slowing, going full blast everytime, always coming, always coming."

As Heero sat there, looking at his friend slipping further and further into his memories, the need to weep began to well up inside of him.

Heero turned around when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked down and there was Samantha, with a forelorn expression on her face.

"I know it's hard Heero, but there is just one more person to see. I think you know who it is."

Heero did know, and he was afraid of what he would find.

"Relena."