Warnings: none

"Trowa, look out behind you!" Quatre screamed as he fought against four mobile suits.

Trowa moved Heavyarms in time to avoid a blast from a cannon held by two Aries. The two pilots were on a mission to destroy a coastal mobile suit base. Unfortunately, reinforcements had arrived before they could complete the task at hand, and they had been forced to continue fighting just to stay alive. Both pilots were rapidly tiring, but neither refused to accept defeat. Suddenly, Trowa screamed.

"Trowa!" Quatre cried, turning Sandrock. Trowa had been hit by a second blast he hadn’t been able to dodge, and Heavyarms went down to the ground. Quatre turned back to the suits he was fighting, tears filling his eyes. With renewed vigor, the blonde pilot doubled his efforts to fight, refusing to acknowledge the tired ache in his muscles. The other suits ignored Trowa’s Gundam, seeing it was unable to fight effectively. Instead, they all targeted Quatre. Sweat appeared on the Arabian’s forehead as he kept taking hits. If this kept up, they would both be captured. Quatre’s face showed grim determination. He would not let Trowa get taken, no matter what! Quatre moved the fight as far away from Trowa as he could, ending up next to the large bay. The remaining enemy mobile suits surrounded him, completely cutting off escape, but escape was the furthest thing from the blonde’s mind. Trowa lay in Heavyarms, helplessly watching. His Gundam was responding very slowly, and he had barely managed to get it to its feet when he saw Quatre’s position. Immediately, he knew what his fellow pilot planned. Trowa’s mouth suddenly went dry.

"Quatre, don’t!" he cried, but if Quatre heard, he didn’t listen. Sandrock ceased fighting and stood still. The surrounding mobile suits didn’t know what to make of it. Then the hatch opened and Quatre stepped out, leaping into the air.

"Goodbye…Trowa," he whispered as he watched the ground getting closer. It seemed for a few moments that time slowed to a crawl. Trowa watched, horrified, as Quatre’s body sailed through the air, free-falling. Sandrock seemed to light up as its self-destruct mechanism counted down until it exploded, destroying the enemy suits. The blast hit Quatre, hurtling his small form into the bay waters, debris falling down around him. Then time returned to normal.

"Quatre… no," Trowa whispered. The horrible truth hit him. "QUATRE!" Heavyarms stood alone amidst a pile of smoking debris.


 

Wufei was sitting under a tree reading a book when Duo bounced down the front steps of the pilots’ current safehouse and bounded over to him. Duo flung himself onto the ground next to the Chinese boy and began tickling Wufei’s ear with the end of his braid.

"Hey Wufei, whatcha doing?" he asked cheerfully. Wufei batted away the intruding hair and turned toward the hyper pilot, giving him an exasperated look.

"I’m plotting to take over the world, what does it look like I’m doing?" he replied. Duo just grinned and tickled his nose with the braid. Wufei wrinkled his nose, itching it with a forefinger.

"So how far have you gotten with the take-over-the-world plan?" Duo asked, still grinning cheekily. Wufei snorted.

"Sarcasm is just wasted on you, isn’t it Maxwell?" he sighed. Duo nodded happily.

"Yep!" he said. Wufei sighed again.

"Why are you here bothering me?" he asked. "Why don’t you go bother Heero or something?" Duo rested his chin on his hand.

"Because he’s busy at his laptop and you know Heero when he’s working. Say one word to him and it’s ‘Omae o korosu’ with a gun in your face," Duo answered, giving his best imitation of Heero’s death glare. "So I got bored and decided to come out here and see you!" he finished. Wufei groaned quietly.

"Go work on Deathscythe, then," he said. Duo let go of his braid and sighed.

"Been there, done that," he answered. Duo dropped his chin into his hand again. "Do you know when Quatre and Trowa will be back?" he asked. "At least I can always count on Quatre for some conversation around here," he commented, seeing that Wufei had started reading his book again. Duo huffed, blowing his bangs. Then his eyes lit up and a smirk appeared on his face. "I know! I’ll stay here with my good buddy Wufei. I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to have me keep him company, won’t you Wufei?" Duo asked. Wufei rolled his eyes.

"Lucky me," he said dryly. Duo picked his braid up again. Wufei turned and glared at him.

"You tickle me with that thing one more time and I’ll cut it off!" he threatened. Duo hid the tail of his braid behind his back.

"Chill, Wufei, I wasn’t going to do anything with it, honest!" he exclaimed. Wufei was about to retort when both boys were distracted by the sound of an approaching mobile suit. Identical expressions of surprise were on both faces as they saw Heavyarms come in slowly, the suit looking battered and worse for the wear. When it came to a halting stop, Wufei and Duo rushed over. They saw Trowa descending from his Gundam, holding onto the cable that lowered him down. When he was a few feet from the grass they were waiting for him.

"Hey Trowa, what happened? Wasn’t Quatre supposed to be on the mission with you?" Duo asked before the tall pilot reached the ground and looking around for Trowa’s blonde love interest. Trowa staggered slightly as his feet made contact and Duo quickly steadied the exhausted pilot.

"Reinforcements came, and I got knocked down. The enemy mobile suits surrounded Quatre and he self-destructed to keep both of us from being captured. The last I saw of him, he was blown into the bay waters by the shock wave," Trowa reported, face expressionless and voice flat and void of emotion. His eyes, however, held a touch of despair. Duo and Wufei glanced at each other as they helped the taller pilot into the house. Trowa and Quatre had started exploring their feelings for each other just a couple of weeks ago, and it was obvious now that Trowa had a deeper affection for the blonde pilot than the others had realized. Trowa was helped to his room by Wufei, while Duo went to the room he and Heero shared to tell the other pilot what had happened. He peered around the doorway to see Heero still typing away at his laptop. Duo inched forward until he was standing directly behind Heero.

"Duo, haven’t I told you to not disturb me while I’m working?" Heero asked without looking up from the screen. Duo moved beside the Japanese pilot.

"Something’s come up, Heero. Trowa came back alone," he told Heero, who looked up from the screen.

"Wasn’t Quatre supposed to be with Trowa?" Heero asked. Duo nodded.

"Trowa said that Quatre self-destructed to prevent them from being captured. From what Trowa told us, it sounded like Quatre was blown into a body of water next to the mobile suit base," he concluded. Heero turned back to the computer.

"Tell me what you know about the location they were at, and we need to get Trowa in here too," he said, manner distant and professional as his fingers moved furiously over the keyboard, but his eyes were worried.