Title: Catholic Schoolboys Rule!
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairings: 1=2, 3=4, mentions of others
Stuff: AU, pokes at religious institution, fluff/sap, angst, lemon topping and a bit of drag XD
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Sunrise, Bandai and a lot of other people who aren't me. +5 skill points if you guess the title reference.

Filling a request for Rainya, because she feeds my geek needs. Thanks to Natea for the once-over.

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XXI.

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"I told Wufei what happened. I felt like he ought to know," Quatre said to Trowa as they sat on the docks, enjoying a calming Saturday lunch together. It had been days since the incident in the bathroom, and everyone involved seemed to have each taken it upon himself to keep it more or less under wraps. Still, for the initiated, it was apparent that the weight of it still hung like a thick aura about them.

Trowa nodded and leaned back on his elbows, chewing on a straw as he stared up at the puffy clouds gently rolling across the sky. "Not a bad idea if he notices anything odd going on with Heero, I suppose," he replied. Trowa personally felt at a loss as to what he ought to do about the situation: he didn't think it was his place to intervene, but he knew that things would just keep crumbling at the rate they were going. He'd since decided the best course of action was to do nothing and wait for a sign. Strangely enough, it always seemed to turn out well in the end, though exactly how it did would probably always be a mystery.

"Heero's been acting relatively normal, considering, though," Quatre commented, also tilting his head back to watch the clouds. He paused for a moment, and then added, "Almost too normal, really. It's almost like he's gone back to the way he used to be when he first got here."

"Can't blame the guy for retreating inwardly," Trowa said with a shrug. "I might be a little concerned if he wasn't."

Quatre sighed, his shoulders drooping. "But Duo...."

"-Isn't helping the situation," Trowa interjected, catapulting back into an upright position. He started chomping harder on the straw and went on: "I've been that kid's roommate since we were freshmen, and I can assure you there's no one more stubborn. Talk about someone who's willing to cut off his own nose to spite his face." He ripped the straw out of his mouth and tossed it into the crate they'd used to carry their lunch. "Trust me when I say that despite the attitude he's giving, he'll stay lonely for Heero as long as it takes to forget him."

"I don't believe anyone ever truly forgets a person," Quatre said obstinately, crossing his arms as he pondered what Trowa had just said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Trowa's face change to suggest he agreed. Quatre turned to face Trowa more directly, the river breeze tossing his blond hair as he stated blankly, "You're saying Heero's not like the others, though, aren't you."

Trowa had started taking off his sneakers and rolling up his jeans so he could dip his feet into the water. He made a show of going through this process before answering. "I've seen Duo go through more guys than either of us would like to count," he began, gently paddling his feet in the running water, "but all of them have been no better than dolls to him. He could have cared less who any of them were, where they came from or what they felt about him, but Heero...." Trowa shook his head, chuckling privately to himself as he thought about the whole thing for a moment. "Heero was different because he was more like Duo than anybody else Duo had ever seen. To be perfectly frank" - and here, Trowa looked back at Quatre, his stare grave with sincerity - "I think that part of what scares Duo so much is how much of himself he sees in Heero: when Heero nearly died that night, I can promise you that Duo felt like he saw himself lying there on the bathroom floor with him - or maybe even instead of him."

"I think Duo is just afraid of actually caring for someone that much," Quatre retorted candidly, meeting Trowa's even gaze with one of his own.

Trowa arched his eyebrows, almost taken aback at how succinctly Quatre had managed to sum things up, though perhaps in a fashion that was a bit less cynical than his take. After a few more moments of searching Quatre's bright blue eyes, he nodded in acceptance of Quatre's statement and said with a nod, "Fair enough."

A bird chirped from a nearby tree and Quatre reached for one of the extra sandwiches tucked into their lunch crate. Unwrapping it, he took a big bite, made a face when he realized it was one of Trowa's triple-fried-egg-chili-chutney sandwiches and discreetly set it aside. He sighed and dropped his already bare feet into the water, kicking them back and forth as he wondered if he ought to share the thought that had suddenly come to mind. "Trowa," he started, straightening his back and catching Trowa's eye again. When he had his attention, he proceeded to candidly ask: "Trowa, do you ever have that fear? Of caring for somebody too much?"

Not expecting such a question at all, Trowa could only stare back at Quatre, unsure of what to say. Certainly, it was not a farfetched question in the least, but to have it broached left Trowa at a loss - especially when it came from Quatre, who was the very one such a thing would have the most relation to, if anyone at all.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to," Quatre was saying before Trowa had a chance to think of some kind of aversion to the topic. Quatre was twiddling his hands in his lap nervously, and the display left Trowa wondering what this was really about. He didn't have to wait long for Quatre to expound on the matter, though.

"I mean, sometimes I wonder if I worry too much about what my parents think - because I care about them and respect them, you know?" Quatre went on almost absently. "I do what my father says and I get good grades because it would displease him to do otherwise. I... I wouldn't tell him that I don't think I'll ever marry the daughter of a powerful family, because that would displease him too. If... if my mother knew that, it would take away what little life she has left, I'm sure of it...." At this, Quatre bowed his head and clasped his hands behind his neck, just short of sobbing. "I found out the other day she's fading fast, Trowa. I... I have to go back sooner than I thought - back to L4...."

As Quatre's emotions became more unbridled, the reality of what he'd just said sunk in on Trowa, and it felt like someone had just cast a heavy net dragging his insides down towards his feet to drown in the river. "So that's... that's it, huh?" he managed to warble, his gift for rhetoric suddenly lost. Frowning, he, too, stared down at the river as it lapped passed their bare legs.

Trowa's silence caused Quatre to glance over at him again, and it disheartened the blonde to see Trowa hunched over and looking so despondent. "God, no, Trowa, don't feel bad! It's my family, my problem!" Quatre cried, reaching out to put a reassuring hand on Trowa's shoulder. His own posture drooped as he added softly, "I just... didn't have anybody else to talk to about it, I suppose."

Trowa slowly rolled his head in a circle as if he was trying to iron out a pain in his neck. He kept his eyes focused downwards even as he spoke, though. "I guess I'd just been expecting you to say something else when you... you know... started," he admitted, feeling completely selfish to say so.

"Oh," Quatre hummed distractedly.

"Quatre." Trowa's firm grip was suddenly wrapped around Quatre's nearest forearm, jarring Quatre out of the mental box he'd closed himself into. Startled, Quatre stared back at Trowa with wide eyes, unsure what to make of the serious weight in Trowa's unwavering stare. "You and I both see what's happening to Heero and Duo, and even if we're just as doomed as they are, I refuse to make the same mistakes," he said, the very emotion of his words trembling in his fingertips. "I mean - what I mean to say is that... is that I love you. More than I've ever loved anybody before."

Quatre sucked in a breath. He supposed he had always known it was true, but to hear the admission seemed to give that unspoken understanding a new kind of life. And yet, with all his education, he could hardly find the appropriate words to reply.

Trowa seemed worried he'd said something wrong and was quick to retract his hand and turn back towards the river. He jammed his fingers between his knees and tried to amend. "No sense in hiding it anymore, I guess, and if you're leaving, it can't hurt to say it," he said. "I suppose I was just overwhelmed with the urge to just... check."

Any uncertainty Trowa might have had after that was immediately washed away, for in a moment, he found Quatre kissing him with no restraint in passion. There was a certain memento in the action that seemed to mirror the arc of their relationship: all the uncertainty, shyness, the magnetism they shared and the final crescendo in what they felt for one another. Neither of them cared that they were sitting in a public place where anybody might see them, no longer ashamed or even caring of what someone else might think of their feelings.

When they parted, Quatre's hands lingered on Trowa's cheeks. "Just because our paths are diverging doesn't mean this is farewell," he said with the deepest of sincerity. "I will see you again in this life, I'm certain. I will make it so."

Trowa could only smile back, allowing his thumb to sweep across the fine stubble on Quatre's chin. He didn't know what such a promise meant for their futures, but he was willing to believe in it. He would believe it because Quatre did, and that alone was enough.

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Stretched out on his back, Heero felt as if he was floating. He wasn't quite sure where he was, but he felt safe, and though eyes were closed, he could see he was surrounded by a hazy whiteness. There was a blurred figure nearby that signified he was not alone, which served as a further comfort.

The figure was familiar, and Heero was fairly sure he knew who it was, even though the voice sounded distant and warbled when it echoed around him. "I guess it's too late to run and hide, right?" it said, filling the whole space around him.

Only the corners of Heero's lips moved as they lifted his mouth into a tiny smile, though he could hear his response filling the air around them nevertheless. "Once you extend your hand, even if you recoil, you can't undo the certainty with which you lifted it," he said serenely. "That's why I never regret anything I do, even if I later decide I've made a mistake."

It took a few moments for the figure to reply, but Heero didn't mind: he was happy to stay in this heady limbo forever if he could. Here, in the warmth of his own subconscious, there was nothing to run from but himself, which, he'd discovered long ago, was an awfully long way to run.

When Heero's companion spoke again, his baritone was laden with a certain sadness: "Some people fall in love and touch the sky, and some only find quicksand," he said slowly. "I'm hovering somewhere in between, and I swear, I can't make up my mind...."

"What are you waiting for?" Heero asked with a dreamy thought. "You're throwing your life away, lost in your own head. Your life will change - has already changed! You aren't stuck in vain unless you, yourself, are to one to bury your feet."

"So said the eagle to the snail," bemoaned the voice with a familiar sense of defeat.

Heero answered from the depth of his heart, voicing the things he wished he had the courage to say aloud when it mattered the most. "You know, even if you find that your life is a crime, it's alright with me. I think we're the same."

"And yet, here I am, waiting, waiting for you to wake," the voice continued sadly, as if it hadn't heard Heero at all. "The sun climbs through the window and into your bed, and I wish... I wish I...."

The next breath that Heero drew filled his lungs with such ferocity, he startled, his eyes stinging with the glow of the late afternoon as it spilled over the woolen blankets tossed over his legs. He was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of loneliness, his limbs heavy like he was sinking into the hard mattress he found himself lying on.

"Oh, thank God," came a relieved sigh. The sound of it was wizened and feminine, a far cry from the baritone from his dreams. He slowly turned his head to find Mother Superior sitting on a nearby bed in the school's infirmary, the black skirts of her habit rumpled in her clenched hands.

Heero let his head sink back into the flat pillow. "I feel I've been blown away, as if borne on an unsteadying gust of wind," he murmured, mostly to himself, hardly taking notice of the elderly nun as she called out for the nurse.

"He's come to," Mother Superior announced as the nurse made an appearance in the doorway that separated her office from the patient ward.

Nodding, the nurse moved down the aisle of beds to Heero's and sat on the edge of it, beginning a preliminary examination of his health by pressing her stethoscope against Heero's chest and listening to the rasp of his breathing. "He was drifting in and out of consciousness for so long, I was getting concerned he was too weak," the nurse was saying to Mother Superior, speaking as if Heero wasn't even there to hear it. "He would wake long enough to remind us he was still alive and then fall back into a lucid sleep. Sometimes he'd cry out, as if in great pain, and I suppose he was hallucinating then. To say the least, I'm glad we found him when we did and that we decided to keep him here in the meantime since...."

The nurse's voice faded into a monotonous drone that was easy for Heero to ignore as his eyes took to roving the otherwise empty ward in search for the one who had been speaking to him in his dreams. He knew that it had been too tangible to have been entirely envisaged. But much to his dismay, he found only unoccupied cots and an open window that allowed the gentle breeze to flutter its translucent curtains. Frustrated, he grimaced aloud, "Where has he gone?"

"Who, dear?" asked Mother Superior, immediately attentive to Heero in a fashion that made Heero feel almost ill at ease. He hadn't thought the old nun even knew his name, and yet, to have her at his bedside like she was his doting mother was surreal and uncanny.

After a few moments pause, Heero said definitively: "Duo. I know he was here. I heard his voice calling out to me."

Mother Superior's mouth dropped into an ambiguous line of thought as she pondered what to say. Certainly, she knew Duo had been there, for when she had first come to the ward to check on Heero's status on behalf of the Lowes, she had seen him loitering forlornly at Heero's bedside. Of course she had known that Heero and Duo were friendly since the incident that had led Doctor Jay to be caught up at the local hospital, but as she'd lingered unseen in the doorway to watch, she had been unprepared to discover that there was more to Duo's attachment to Heero than she'd originally surmised. Duo had been haggard, clenching one of Heero's limp hands against his lips as he sat there, merely waiting. Later, when she reported back to Heero's father, she told them only that Heero was still recovering alone.

"Nevermind, then," Heero said when he got no immediate answer. "His absence says more than enough." He hung his head as he spoke, as if the conclusion he'd drawn was not the one he'd wanted to. "But I wish I could go see him again...."

"Shall I send for him?" Mother Superior asked almost a bit too eagerly. She seemed to be battling some kind of inner guilt, which had most certainly been seeded during the conversation she had shared with Duo the night she'd found him in the bathroom and dragged him into her office.

"No!" Heero snapped with unexpected intensity. He slumped as the reaction dulled within him and he added halfheartedly, "No, don't do that. He wouldn't want to come, and I don't want to pressure him any more than I already have."

Mother Superior and the nurse exchanged slightly concerned glances before the dull ringing of the phone called the nurse back to her office. Watching the nurse go and unsure why she remained, Mother Superior then asked Heero, "Is there some reason that Duo should be here?"

"All I have is all he gave to me," Heero answered, staring down at his clenched fists. "I somehow found peace through him and I...." He looked away, deciding halfway through his sentence that he didn't think Mother Superior was someone he needed to be sharing his innermost feelings with. He cleared his throat and restated his thought more succinctly: "I'd just hoped he'd stay with me."

Mother Superior stared back at Heero's downcast profile, unsure if she was reading too much into what seemed to be a confession of sorts from Heero. It was then clear to her that something had transpired between the pair of them, though the exact nature of it was still a mystery to her. She had known Duo long enough to know that he would only ever get upset about something he cared about. She supposed it was something that could be chalked up to family nature - a behavior that Duo could have only learned from his own father.

Just then, the nurse poked her head back into the ward and called out to Mother Superior: "There's a call for you from the main office," she said. "Apparently there's someone ringing for you, so Noin transferred the call over here."

It took Mother Superior a few lingering moments to register what was being said as her gaze wavered on Heero, who was still ignoring her with that melancholy air of his. For a second, she almost thought she was looking at Duo before she realized her mistake. Shaking herself of it, she wordlessly stood and marched out of the ward to receive the phone call.

Heero hardly noticed the nun as she left, still too lost in his thoughts to really care who was there. Now that he had nothing left to try, it seemed as if there was only one decision left to make, and that was when he ought to leave, though it killed him to think of what he was going to leave behind. He almost didn't even care if Duo never wanted to see him again: walking away was still going to be the hardest thing he would ever have to do. It was ironic, really, considering how easily he'd written off other elements in his life. He was determined, however, not to remain grounded anymore.

His thoughts were cut short by a vehement shout from Mother Superior issuing from the nearby office. Heero jolted in surprise at the sound of her raised voice as it cut through the dull ward, staring at the door with the expectation that it would reveal some kind of answer, but there was nothing but the wind as it continued to flutter through the window drapes.

There was a pause before Mother Superior spoke again, but her voice was still trembling with the anger that had caused her to raise her voice in the first place. "Are you trying to suggest that you don't care at all that your son nearly died? He's your son!" Heero couldn't hear the other voice on the phone, but from that excerpt, it didn't take much for him to figure out who had called. "No, no, I don't care about the circumstances: I cannot - will not - agree to that!" Another pause fell, and then a word of finality from Mother Superior: "How dare you! Just because you're the boy's father does not mean you know what's best for him! Good day, sir!" The clatter of Mother Superior throwing the phone back onto the hook echoed down the row of empty beds.

Heero was still staring at the doorway when Mother Superior reemerged looking far less intimidating than Heero ever remembered seeing her. Instead of the imposing nun who usually patrolled the halls of Saint Magdalena's, there stood, instead, a woman of far more humble origins, unconcerned with appearances and regulation, but rather troubled by the complexity of her own morals. She entered the ward and sat down rather ungracefully on the nearest bed, folding her hands over her lap again as she hung her head, her eyes shadowed by the brim of her black bonnet. She let out an uncharacteristic sigh before announcing in as regimented a way as she could muster, "That was your father, Heero."

Heero only stared back at the nun, even though she wasn't looking at him, waiting. He felt oddly indifferent to the news; not even a wisp of anger or negativity crossed his mind.

"Your grandfather is being released from the hospital today. They wanted to come and collect you immediately to bring you back to the lunar colony with them on an evening shuttle," she continued, still averting Heero's eyes. "When I informed them of what had happened to you and suggested that perhaps a few more days of rest and supervised care would be in your best interest, they were apathetic. Your father could only express anger that you had set their lab work back a month by running away."

Heero was unsurprised by this story, so he said nothing and continued to wait, though he was aware that a well of urgency was starting to bubble in the pit of his stomach.

Here, Mother Superior lifted her chin, swallowing when she met Heero's unwavering stare from the other side of the ward. "I staunchly refused their bid to retrieve you," she said firmly. "I told them it didn't matter to me that you had come to Saint Magdalena's under false pretenses: you were nevertheless under my jurisdiction and it is my duty to look after what's best for those who are a part of this community, temporary or otherwise. I was...." She realized her words rang hollow upon Heero's ears and quieted.

"It doesn't matter what you said," Heero spoke finally, his voice flat. "They will come anyway."

"Then I will stop them," Mother Superior insisted resolutely. "I will do it on behalf of the things my nephew...." She trailed off, realizing that her relationship to Duo was something that was unspoken of at the school. Softly she finished her train of thought, whispering it mostly to herself as some sort of self-preservation: "...for the things my nephew cares about...."

But Heero wasn't listening: he was already half the world away and trying hard not to cast a glance back over his shoulder lest he lose the courage to keep moving forward.

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At the end of it all, it was no surprise that Duo found himself alone in the Madonna's chapel. It was late and the little vestibule was dark, barely lit by the candelabra near the altar. Duo slouched in one of the pews, staring blankly forward as he brooded to himself. He thought he should have been used to this kind of solitude by now, but that it felt like he had nothing to prove anymore, such reprieve seemed almost meaningless. For a moment back there, he'd almost had the feeling that he might have belonged somewhere - that he could have been someone.

He wasn't sure how long he had been sitting there by himself before he realized he was no longer alone. He didn't have to look up to know who would know to come looking for him there, either, but he kept his head bowed, even as his hands twitched uncomfortably across his thighs in his effort to ignore the nearby presence of his ghostly lover. He didn't care if the silence between them was awkward: he wouldn't have known what to say anyway.

Sitting at the other end of the pew Duo occupied, Heero could only stare down at Duo's bent figure, also unable to convey the feelings that had swollen his broken heart. He had come to this place knowing that he would never see Duo again once he turned his back in farewell. And yet, despite the fact he doubted Duo would even want to see him, he knew he had to try and hold onto what he could. Starting again at zero, he had nothing to lose, so he gathered his courage and laid down his final ultimatum: "You've got to make a decision, Duo. You could leave with me tonight, or live and die this way."

Duo's hands curled tightly into his legs, but he still couldn't bring himself to look at Heero. He wasn't sure how to express complexities that he wasn't even sure he could explain to himself. He desperately wanted to just let go of everything and fall into Heero's arms, desperate to go anywhere that wasn't here, and yet, there was still a part of him that was afraid that if he gave Heero that second chance, he would only be betrayed again. It terrified him to think of being left alone in a strange place, further from home than he'd ever been and without a single friend to lean on if things fell apart again.

"Things will get better," Heero tried again, his voice just shy of hopeful. "Mother Superior is turning a blind eye while I go, and I've saved up that little bit of money. With the Zero plans I took from my grandfather, we could get jobs building custom engines on L3 for the racing circuit.... We'd finally see what it'd be like to really be living!"

The timid eagerness in Heero's voice was touching to Duo, and it only served to make his train of thought more painful. Gritting his teeth, he finally managed to look at Heero, his eyes disclosing the truth of his emotions. "You can't fly fast enough to carry both of us out of here, Spaceboy," he said.

Heero could feel his already shattered heart crumble further with each word, but he could only persist. "It's like you forgot everything you ever believed in. Isn't freedom what you'd always wanted?"

Duo frowned and hung his head again. "Even if I thought I could, I wouldn't be able to," he answered lamely, though his words rang with honesty. "My old man's got too many problems and everybody in my family's too busy to take the time to look after him. He might hate me more than life, but he's the only father I got, so I oughta take care of him...."

It was a sentiment Heero had never thought Duo had the capacity to express, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. In that moment, despite Duo's youthful looks, he saw a mind that had been wizened by a youth weighted by too many hardships. For someone who was as infamous as Duo, it was almost surreal to see how emotionally stunted his life at Saint Magdalena's seemed to have made him. Feebly, Heero tried one last time: "You can always hope for better, Duo. You can't keep letting life define things for you."

The prospect of what Heero was offering was truly beginning to come down on Duo as something frightening. "Maybe I am defining things for myself!" Duo retaliated with unexpected vehemence. "Maybe you should just take off on your own and just keep on flying, Spaceboy! I ain't got no plans, ain't going nowhere, alright?" Duo crossed his arms and pointedly drew his hard-lined stare in the opposite direction.

Heero closed his eyes as if to cleanse himself as the last bit of his heart fall to pieces within his chest. He forced himself to look away, unsure how he could still feel anything at all. "Then I suppose I'll be leaving now," he said, shakily getting to his feet. He stood, supporting himself on the nearest pew. "I'll walk away, and if you don't follow me, then that will be our farewell."

He waited a few moments for a response from Duo, and upon hearing nothing, he took his first step towards the back of the prayer niche. It was the hardest step he'd ever taken in his life, anguished that he was walking away from the only person he'd ever cared so much about, but with each subsequent footfall, he found it easier, as if he were growing lighter with every one. Still, when he reached that final moment before he began ahead on his way, he couldn't help but take a hopeful glance over his shoulder in case Duo had changed his mind. He felt a knot of disappointment deep in his stomach when he saw that Duo still hadn't moved and let out a sigh. Finally resigning himself to the way things were going to be, Heero said finally, "You know, maybe one day we'll wave hello and wish we'd never waved goodbye." He paused, almost as if he was expecting Duo to say something, but he was still only met with that lingering silence. "But at least we tried to hold on a little longer."

With that, Heero Yuy disappeared from Saint Magdalena's in the middle of the night, never to be seen there again. And as the mysterious boy from the moon faded into nothing more than a memory, Duo threw himself forward onto the pew in front of him, burying his face into his folded arms as he wept bitter tears of remorse over what he'd had and what he'd lost. The next morning, when he'd wake up alone in his bed, he would still be haunted by memories of the stolen season he'd found in that beautiful dream they'd once shared together.

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END

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[last]
[epilogue]