The hall was in utter chaos.
That was the only way to describe what they saw when they reached the top of the stairs. The guards he had seen surrounding Usagi earlier were now all trying to get into the door he was presuming Usagi had been taken through, all at once. There was no room for any of them to maneuver, and even if they could, it didn't look like the door was willing to budge in the least.
That door was also the source of the blinding light. It was just as well that he had been able to find his way up the stairs without opening his eyes. It had been bad enough trying to go up the stairs in the pitch-blackness; trying to go up them in light so bright he still couldn't see was twice as bad. That was to say nothing of the fact he was still half supporting Duo's weight.
Of course, once they got to the top of the stairs, Duo stepped away from him. Not by much though: no more than a step or two. He could still feel the other next to him, get a sense of his general location. But when they started moving, they were going to get separated now, since neither of them could really see anything. There was a quick and easy solution to this, though. He grabbed ahold of Duo's loose shirt, gripping it tightly. He could hear Duo chuckle faintly before the other man took hold of his hand and transferred Heero's grip, so that they were holding hands instead of tagging on one after the other.
"I guess Usagi's wherever the trouble is, right?" And that definitely sounded like the Duo he knew and... well, and knew; he wasn't too sure he was ready for anything more than that just yet. Not until it was all three of them. "Ideas on how to get in?"
He shook his head then stopped. It wasn't like Duo could see him. "Not particularly. Break in through a window?" It was how he got into the house after all, and he didn't think his skills had atrophied to the point that he wouldn't be able to determine exactly which window all this damn light was coming from.
They got across the hall to the room he had come in through quickly, pushing the door back closed again behind them. It was still too bright, but it was almost bearable, like the sun on white sand, in here. It gave him the half second he needed to glance Duo over. He looked... better. He looked a lot better. Usagi must have wished something. No, it wasn't 'wishes', he corrected himself. She must have gotten the Ginzuishou to do something.
He thought he might have preferred the idea of wishes. He would take what he could get, though. If the Ginzuishou was willing to heal Duo while it was doing whatever else it was doing, all the better. He had been going to ask Usagi to heal Duo once they were clear anyway, if she didn't take the initiative herself. Knowing her as he was coming to, she probably would have taken the initiative before he could even suggest it. Actually, it looked like she already had.
He wouldn't say that Duo looked one hundred percent better just yet, but he was definitely a lot better off than he had been only a moment ago-and he was improving by the minute. His skin was a much healthier tone, the pain lines on his face were fading fast, and he was standing straighter and straighter by the second.
He certainly wasn't going to complain about that. Hell, his own minor aches and pains had faded away under the light as well, and he wasn't upset about that either. But they needed Usagi out of here, and they needed that to happen right now, before anything else could possibly go wrong.
'I'm working on making sure that doesn't happen, Heero,' Usagi's voice whispered. Completely without thinking, he whirled around, looking everywhere he could possibly see for her. She wasn't in the room. Great, was this something else she could do? 'No, not at all. It's the Ginzuishou.' And he was starting to feel like he could really hate that thing... but not too much for all its help with getting them Duo back. He could hear her. 'You have him then? Good. Is he all right? He won't say.'
And that sounded about right somehow. It wasn't the easiest thing he had ever done, but he tried to think back at her, 'He's better now than he was even a minute ago. I guess we have you to thank for this?'
He got this vague sense that she shrugged. 'I'm going to make everything right again, Heero, or at least do the very best I can towards it. I might even be able to do something about the dreams, if you want, maybe even make them go away for good. If you want.'
A part of him wanted to snap out an immediate 'yes' in answer to that, but something in him hesitated. He hated the dreams; frankly, if he had to have any kind of... ability like this, why couldn't it be something useful.
'It was very useful, though, Heero. Without your dreams, we wouldn't have known where to find Duo. We could have been searching for... for... for forever.' He didn't want to add that, if he hadn't had the dreams, he never would have known she even existed, much less found her and started in this relationship with her and Duo. 'Oh, Heero...' she sighed. 'Do you want me to get rid of them?'
To his surprise, he found himself responding in the opposite way he would have thought even an hour ago. 'No, I think I want to keep them. I'm going to need some way to keep up with you two, and this at least gives me some advantage.'
Her laughter echoed through his mind; it felt warm and bright, almost like a comfortable summer's day. 'You surprise me, Heero. All right, then: the dreams stay. I'm a little relieved. But no more surprises: tell one of us at least if the dreams pertain to us. The three of us can lay out a plan.'
Now that he knew Usagi was more than capable of doing just that, he might. Though he was tempted to warn Duo ahead of time that Usagi's plans apparently tended to be heavy on the risk to herself.
'Hey!' But beneath her affront, she sounded a bit amused, so that was fine.
But what he really wanted to know was what she was doing, what was happening, and what they could do to help. So he asked her.
In response, he got brief flashes of a very old man aging backwards to become a man in his mid- to late-twenties or early thirties. There was something with a woman involved, but that was much less clear. 'The man who took us, he wanted me to bring his wife back from the dead. I did it. I'm giving him what he wants: one more lifetime with his wife.' She huffed, and while it sounded vaguely annoyed, there was actually some affection there too. 'Hopefully they'll leave me alone after this.'
'How do you mean, Usagi?'
'It's a very long story, believe me, Heero. It would take me quite a while to explain it, and really, I would rather us just all be far away from here by the time they wake back up.'
'All right. So what do you need us to do?'
She was silent for what felt like a very long moment. 'Think of the hotel, Heero. I'm going to try to take us there--or somewhere safe--but I'm not sure I'm able to move us and focus on a location as well. Think of a safe place, and I'll take us there.' She snickered briefly. 'I asked Duo, and he said he would just take us back to his apartment, so we could all sleep for a week.'
Frankly that didn't sound like a bad idea. And if Duo had a place already... But there was something else to consider. 'What about Relena's? Maybe she could help out.'
He could almost sense Usagi nodding slowly. 'That's a good idea. Hold on. Let's see if I can do this.' There was another silence then quietly, all in a rush like it was an afterthought she really didn't want Heero thinking, she added, 'And if I'm out for a while, it's probably expected. Using the Ginzuishou can be... rough.'
It sounded a lot worse than she was trying to let on. In that case, once this was over and done with, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that there was never a need to use the Ginzuishou ever again. He was glad to have Duo back and all of them quite possibly safe, but he didn't want Usagi hurt to accomplish it.
'Oh, you can be sweet, can't you?' Her mental voice--or whatever it was--was beginning to show some strain. This was all definitely taking its toll on her. And maybe Relena's was the best idea. Usagi could stand to have one more person fussing over her right now.
Hurriedly, he slammed his eyes shut and pictured his room at Relena's mansion. It hadn't been that long since they had all been there, so it wasn't too difficult to call up all the details: the texture of the sheets, the view from the window, the way the air in the room smelled, even the exact firmness of the mattress on his bed there. Relena had designed the room with him in mind, and it showed, but it certainly did make it easier at the moment to recreate the room from memory.
The bright whiteness faded around them, dissolving into the familiar pattern of the wallpaper Relena used in most of the bedrooms in the house: a dark green and off-white damask pattern. He would recognize it anywhere.
Duo was still standing beside him. As the whiteness finally faded, Duo glanced around, apparently quickly figuring out exactly where they were and heaving a soft sigh of relief. He suddenly seemed exhausted, like he had just finished running a race and was ready to drop.
Honestly, he didn't feel much better, given his own lack of sleep over the past two nights... and not exactly resting the night before that, with the two of them. Come to think of it, Duo probably hadn't had a lot of real rest since before then either. None of them were in the best of shape, not even Usagi.
Usagi...
He glanced around the room, but there was no sign of her... at least not until she appeared in front of him.
Somehow she looked... different, almost radiant. It made him think back to when he had first started dreaming of her, how his mind had thought of her as an angel. Maybe that was what she was, at least for him and Duo: their angel. And that was entirely too sappy and needed to be banished from his mind.
That dress she was wearing, the one he had come to utter despise, was different now, though. It was clean again now for starters. There was also the fact that he was fairly certain she hadn't been wearing it when she first appeared in the room, but he wasn't too certain he was quite ready to get into all of that just yet. It smacked a bit too much of magic for his mind to easily handle right now. They had their angel and their God of Death back, and that was what mattered. And there was that sentimentality again.
If she was an angel, though, she was an unconscious one. The second she appeared in the room, she glanced between him and Duo, offered a weak smile, and promptly collapsed, wilting like her strings had just been suddenly cut. Without thought, he had both arms around her before she could fall; unsurprisingly, Duo had done the same, so that between the two of them they were holding her up.
His and Duo's eyes met over her head, and Duo let out a tired but amused snort. From a certain point of view, he supposed it could almost be funny. Maybe. Perhaps. Right now, though, all he wanted to do was be sure she was okay and then sleep. Her pulse was fairly good, if a little faster than he would have strictly liked, but it was far from being in a dangerous range, so he wasn't too worried. They maneuvered her between them onto the bed. He and Duo were asleep in moments.
23 August 2012
And here it is: the last chapter of Belladonna. But there is still the epilogue left to go. I'll post it Sunday when I get home again.
The first three chapters of Of Worlds to Fall are up here on FFnet. The fourth chapter will be going up tomorrow, followed by a chapter on Sunday as well. I'm currently on Thirty-Four, so I have some breathing room for posting.
As for Belladonna, it has taken a few forevers to get written, but it was certainly fun. I love the Duo/Usagi/Heero pairing. And at some point, I might go back and write a bit more in the same 'verse. (Or other people can play in it too! Just send me a link to what you write!)
Anyway, see you Sunday with the epilogue! Later!
Apollymi