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Hollow 5
Hollow 5/7
Rating: NC17
Pairings: 1x2, (1x2)+4 (friendship), 3x5.
Warnings: Angst, post EW, language, empathy. Heero's POV
Summary: After the war Heero has found his way, but some of the pilots are still trying to find theirs.
Very special thanks to Anne for the beta, and to everyone I ever spammed with snippets of this fic, and encouraged me to write. *hugs you all*
Previous chapters can be found here.
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Chapter Five
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Hilde apparently came in while I worked and took Wufei and Trowa to her place to get them settled. The sun was setting and Quatre and Duo still hadn't come back. I thought about going to look for them, but neither of them would appreciate it.
I heard the door and I knew instantly Duo was home. I saved my work, powered down the laptop and headed downstairs.
"They're gone?" he asked, sitting on the sofa, his legs spread, his head resting on the back of the couch and his eyes closed.
I stood behind him and started to massage his temples and scalp with my fingertips. "Hilde took them."
"Damn, I love her!" He opened his eyes, looked up and me and smiled. "If I had known I would have come home earlier. How's Cat?"
"He's not back yet."
"What!?" Duo sat us straight and then knelt on the sofa to look at me straight instead of upside down. "It's been hours! Where is he? What if he left again?"
"I didn't. I promised I'll be back."
Quatre was standing in the kitchen doorway, a glass of water in his hand. He looked tired and his clothes were dirty.
"Are you alright?" I asked, noticing how he kept his right hand behind his leg and out of our view.
"I'm fine."
He was lying.
Apparently Duo had also noticed how Quatre seemed to be hiding his hand, so he moved forward and took a hold of Quatre's right wrist. Quatre resisted for a few seconds before he sighted and allowed Duo to take his hand to examine. I didn't have to be close to see the open cuts on his palm that had just been cleaned but were still bleeding slightly.
I took the glass of water from Quatre and put it on the table before inspecting his right palm. It wasn't as bad as the other. The cuts there had stopped bleeding and there seemed to be fewer. "What happened?" I asked, pulling Quatre into the kitchen and making him sit before I took the first aid kit from one of the drawers.
"You could have at least taken some gloves." Duo was glaring at Quatre, still holding onto the bleeding hand. "Of all the stupid things, Quatre! I thought we'd gotten it through your thick head that you need to take care of yourself. You aren't allowed to pull any more of this shit."
Quatre opened his mouth and then closed it. "I'm sorry. I just needed to keep my mind occupied. Do something. I wasn't thinking."
"Damn right you weren't." I could see Duo's anger drain out of his face before he smiled at Quatre. "Next time, Q, just come to the junk yard, we'll take the Leos out and have some fun. Anything's better than cleaning junk from the shuttle port." The cuts on Quatre's palms and his tired look suddenly made sense.
Reaching into his pocket, Quatre put some credits on the table. "It isn't much, but it's all I have right now."
Duo glared at the money. "What is this?"
"I'm living here, Duo. It's right I share something."
"What the fuck, Quatre? Would you have ever let me pay for crashing in your place, or visiting you?" Duo pushed the money back at Quatre. "We aren't taking it."
Quatre looked at me and I glared. He lowered his eyes, took the money and replaced it in his pocket. "Thank you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…" He looked at Duo and then at me. "I didn't mean to offend you."
Duo smiled at took Quatre's hand. "It's okay. We know you are a little slow sometimes, but we love you anyway."
Nodding, I wet a small towel, took Quatre's right hand from Duo, and cleaned the blood. Then I took a few light bandages from the box but Quatre stopped me before I could put them on. "It's not that bad," he said. "I don't want to worry them."
They were just scratches, and as long as he kept his hands and his wounds clean then there was no risk for infection. In fact, the wounds would probably heal faster without the bandages, but his right hand was still bleeding. "Let me put them on, so the bleeding will stop. You can take them off before dinner." Quatre nodded.
After I was done, Quatre asked softly, "Did they leave?"
"Hilde kidnapped them for the day." Duo grinned but it was forced. "Well see them at dinner."
Quatre nodded slowly and then stood up. "I need a shower." He left. He would take the bandages off.
Duo slumped on one of the kitchen chairs and sighed loudly. "Shit!" He buried his face in his hands. "This is fucked up."
I sat beside him and finished Quatre's water.
* * *
Dinner was tense.
Hilde kept trying to make polite conversation, breaking the various awkward silences but she wasn't very successful.
Quatre kept his eyes on his plate, eating slowly and avoiding everyone's gazes. Trowa hadn't said a word all evening and Wufei limited himself to answering Hilde's questions now and then. Duo talked, mainly with Hilde, but he didn't chat nearly as much as he usually did, especially considering it was the first time in months we had seen Trowa and Wufei. They had hurt him with their actions, and even though Duo was trying to hide it, it showed.
As soon as we were done, and the plates were cleared from the table, Quatre volunteered to help Hilde with the dishes. The four of us were left alone, without the food to use as a distraction.
In the end, Duo was the first to speak. "Quatre needs us now, and you aren't helping." Wufei opened his mouth to say something but Duo stopped him with a gesture and continued. "His empathy problem's major and us, fighting, accusing each other, isn't helping. Whatever issues we have, we need to work them out fast."
"I'm sorry for what I said before." Trowa's voice was firm and he looked at Duo in the eyes.
"And I'm sorry for assuming that too," said Wufei, looking at Duo and me.
Duo nodded and then waved his hand. "That's all very nice and well but you need to apologize to Quatre."
"And I think you need to talk with him, alone," I added.
They both nodded but Trowa hesitated a moment before he did. I didn't let my gaze linger on Trowa. I just hoped that Trowa sorted his feelings for Quatre, whatever they were. At this point, three of my best friends were about to get very hurt, and that wasn't something I wanted to see happen.
I stood up. "Duo and I are going home. Talk to him, and listen."
"See you, guys," Duo said and followed me to the kitchen.
Duo stood behind Hilde, looking at the sink over her shoulder. "How's the washing going?"
"This is the last one." Hilde grinned and rinsed the last plate.
Quatre was drying his hands on a small towel hanging over the sink. "Are you going?"
"Yes. Trowa and Wufei want to talk to you." I walked closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Duo and I will be at the house if you need us."
Duo grinned. "So yell or something if you do." He laughed nervously.
Hilde took the towel from Quatre's hands and used it to dry her own. "I'm going out so you all can talk privately here." She smiled.
"You're what?" Duo glared at her. "Going out with who?"
Hilde sighed. "I'm not telling you because you are a big overprotective brute and will scare him away." She put her hands on her hips and returned the glare.
"What if something happens to you?"
"Duo Maxwell, I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and unless you smile and wish me a good night, I'll kick your ass, and you know very well I can!"
Duo didn't quite smile but he did mutter the requested words. Hilde gave us a sunny smile, kissed all of us goodnight, and left out the front door.
"I'll take the couch tonight," said Quatre, after Hilde left. He didn't give us an empty smile as he walked into the dinning room.
Duo and I went home.
* * *
I woke to the feeling of an empty bed. I didn't need to open my eyes to know that Duo was no longer beside me. I sat up at glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning. Standing up, I ran my hand through my hair once and searched for my slippers in the dark. After I found them, I left the room and went downstairs to look for Duo.
The kitchen light was on so I headed there, noticing that the blankets and pillows we had left for Quatre on the couch hadn't been touched. As I walked closer I heard voices.
Duo and Quatre were sitting at the table, a mug in front of each of them. They both looked at me as I entered the kitchen and sat on an empty chair.
"How long have you been here?" I asked Quatre but it was Duo who answered.
"Just about ten minutes." He took a sip of what I could smell was hot chocolate. "I woke up, not sure why, and came down here to find Q. He was..." He let the sentence trail off and made a gesture with his hand.
"I was doing it again." Quatre sighed. His hands were around his mug but he made no move to lift it from the table. "Wufei and Trowa were having sex."
I looked at Duo. "Was he glowing?"
Duo nodded slowly. "You know about this?"
"That first night here, I found him in the back yard. He was glowing then too."
"I glowed when I put my sister in a coma too. It's happening again and I can't control it." There was a cracking sound. Quatre had broken the handle of his mug. He stared at the broken piece of ceramic in his hand for a moment and then whispered, "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," I said the same time Duo said, "I didn't like that mug anyway."
"How did the conversation go?" I asked. If we were all awake we might as well talk.
Quatre shrugged. "I told them what happened. Why I left, where I went, why I can't go back." Rotating the mug to avoid the broken part, Quatre took a sip of his chocolate. "Wufei doesn't believe me."
"Did he say that?" Duo asked, and I noticed an edge on his voice. He had always been very protective of Quatre.
"No," Quatre replied. "He didn't have to. I could feel his skepticism."
"What about Trowa?"
I expected my question to get some reaction from Quatre but he replied calmly, as if I had been asking about the weather. "He's worried."
Noticing that Quatre didn't want to continue with that line of conversation I asked, "How often have these empathic episodes occurred since what happened with your sister?"
Quatre remained quiet for a moment and his eyes had a distant look. "Nothing until that first night here. Then once at Hilde's, earlier today just before I left, and now."
"So it just works when you are in the proximity of people you are close to," said Duo. "Do you feel my emotions stronger than some dude's on the street?"
"I always feel emotions, I just have them muted," Quatre reminded us. "But if you and someone on the street would feel something that demanded to be noticed with the same intensity, for me, his would be a call while yours would be a loud scream."
I chuckled. "Nice choice of words."
Quatre shrugged. "I'm not sure how else to explain it."
"And apparently, you only take someone else's emotions when they are strong," I said, thinking of the incidents. "Sex, anger, love, lust, happiness."
Blushing, Quatre nodded slightly. "They were screaming to be noticed, but that's not all I did, at some point I started taking them, and I didn't know how to stop."
"How did you?" Quatre looked confused, maybe because he was tired, so I added. "None of us is in a coma. We still retain our emotions so you must have stopped somehow."
A small frown appeared on Quatre's face. "That first night you came. Then, at Hilde's," the frown deepened, "I don't know. I went to the restroom, so she wouldn't see, washed my face, and…" He shook his head, frustrated. "I don’t know."
Duo wasn't quite smiling, but there was something in his eyes that let me know that he found Quatre's confusion a good sign. "Cat, you stopped it somehow. None of us were there; did Hil interrupt you or something."
"No. She waited for me in the kitchen."
"What about earlier today?" I asked.
"I'm not sure. I walked, and by the time I reached the spaceport I was okay. Maybe the distance helped?"
"Or maybe you're slowly learning to control it instinctively, Q." Now Duo was smiling.
Quatre looked thoughtful for a moment and then the corners of his lips curved.
"Come to bed. It's late and we are tired."
Quatre looked like he was about to argue, but one look from Duo was all it took for him to nod and follow us upstairs.
* * *
I was dreaming.
I was walking thorough the halls of the Sank Kingdom school, looking for someone. Dorothy was talking with Relena in a corner, smiling at something. I walked right by them and opened a door. There was music in the room. It was our living room, but instead of the couch, in the middle was a large piano, and Quatre was sitting behind it, playing softly.
He wasn't looking at the keys. His eyes were fixed on the window. I turned around and saw space, endless black, and Trowa, no flying suit, floating, his eyes sad and looking at Quatre. I moved back, feeling like I was intruding on something, and bumped into someone.
Wufei's hair was down. "We are all soldiers," he said. And suddenly I had a gun at that little girl's head, and I was squeezing the trigger. There was no turning back. She would die, and I with her.
And the music stopped me.
I was in our living room again. Duo was holding me, and we were sitting on the couch watching Quatre play, Trowa float and Wufei repeat, over and over again, that we were soldiers.
And I woke up.
* * *
Quatre was looking at me. I blinked a couple of times and noticed that he was sitting on the bed, looking down at me. He didn't say anything.
"Do you still play?" I don't know why I asked that.
"Not since I left," he replied in a whisper. I looked beside me and noticed Duo sleeping, hugging his pillow.
"Want to talk about your nightmare?"
"I woke you," I said.
He shook his head. "Your emotions did."
"You didn't take them this time."
"No, I didn't."
"Why?"
"You had it under control."
I frowned. It was the music that had pulled me back, taken me to Duo's safe embrace. "You were playing. You brought me back."
He shook his head again. "I can't interfere with your dreams."
"You need to play again," I said, and buried my face in the pillow. Within minutes, I was asleep.
* * *
Duo and Quatre left for work. I wasn't sure if there really was something for Quatre to do in the scrape yard but he probably needed to spend sometime away from Trowa and Wufei. Duo would find a way to keep him busy.
Wufei and Trowa came after breakfast and asked me if there was anything they could do. They were getting restless, not used to spending a lot of time with nothing to occupy themselves with. I had managed to do enough work yesterday so I could take the day off if I wanted to, and there were a couple of errands I wanted to run.
"I'm going out," I told them, grabbing my jacket from the closet. "You can come with me; it's been a while since we talked."
They nodded and we left the house together. Duo and I had a vehicle that we shared with Hilde but hardly ever used. It was an old jeep that Duo had put together from scrap. It didn't look like much but it ran perfectly and didn't need a lot of fuel. The place we needed to go to was on the other side of the colony so we needed the jeep.
Trowa took the front seat and Wufei climbed in the back. Usually I like to drive in silence, but today the silence was annoying me. Thankfully, Duo had insisted on installing a music system in the jeep and I turned it on. A loud song came through the speakers, electric guitars and heavy percussion. I drove in silence, with just the music taking the edge off the situation. I was surprised to see Trowa mouthing the words of the song, too low for me to hear him.
It had been about twenty minutes when Wufei finally asked, "Where are we going?"
"Saint Francis Hospital."
They waited for me to elaborate but I didn't. Trowa turned the music down and asked, "Why?"
"We are meeting Doctor Sophia Dresdner." She had replied to my mail and had invited me to discuss the problem in her office today. I hadn't told anyone about her, and I wouldn't until I knew she could help. Her credentials had been impressive, and her field of research showed that she was probably the best person for the job, at least in the L2 cluster.
"Why?" Trowa repeated.
"I have a few questions to ask her." I didn't want to tell them exactly why I wanted to talk to her. I would rather they see it, especially Wufei.
The hospital was only a few minutes away. I could see they wanted to keep asking questions but they wouldn't press on. They were here, so they would find out eventually anyway.
Saint Francis was a private hospital, one of the only two in this colony. It was a modern clean building that belonged in the north part of the colony; a very small part reserved for the few rich people around. We walked inside and, after I found direction to the offices, I headed straight to 308B.
The door was open and a woman around her forties was sitting at the desk. "Mrs. Dresdner?" I asked.
She raised her eyes from her notes and gave me a questioning look.
"Heero Yuy," I said.
"Oh yes." She stood up. "Please, come in, Mr. Yuy. Who are your friends?"
I didn't answer. It wasn't my place to do that. Maybe they didn't want to give her their names.
"Chang Wufei." Wufei followed me into the room. "That's Trowa."
"Charmed," said the doctor, but her smile wasn't quite as bright as before. She turned to me. "I was just revising the information you asked for. I'm glad you decided to come for it in person. I have a few questions I hope you don't mind answering."
There were two chairs in front of her desk but the three of us remained standing. "You can ask, but I can't promise to answer," I said.
She didn't sit down again, and was looking decidedly uncomfortable. "Yeah," she said, and started rummaging through the papers in her desk. "Well, I made you a copy of all the information I have about empathy. There's more about receptive than projective, since very few people develop the ability into the projective level." She cleared her throat. "I'm curious about this person you mentioned in your mail, what are exactly the problems with their empathy?"
I was aware that Trowa and Wufei were giving me questioning looks, but I ignored them for the moment and glared at the doctor. "I didn't say he had problems."
"You didn't?" She looked at me but lowered her eyes quickly.
"I said there were unusual developments."
"Oh yes!" She smiled, still avoiding looking at me. "So what are these developments?"
I shook my head. I wasn't giving her any specifics. "They are not normal receptive or projective developments." I frowned. "But they are active."
She didn't look put out with my refusal to give her specifics. "Active? We associate active as projective. How do you know it's not projective?" She didn't let me answer. "Empaths are complicated. Any ability ties into character but empathy is the one that does it more intimately. Projective empaths can affect other's emotions in various ways; it doesn't necessarily mean making others feel what the empath does." She smiled at me. "I can see you are not willing to tell me much about your friend." Picking up the scattered papers on her desk, she handed them to me. "Read this over, and if you have any questions, contact me again. What's happening to your friend might be more normal than you know."
I took the papers from her. There were three folders, the thinnest one labeled 'Projective'.
"Thank you," I said, and turned to leave. I heard Wufei and Trowa thank her too before we left her office.
* * *
The drive was quiet. I could see through the rearview mirror how Wufei sometimes gave Trowa strange looks, but Trowa never turned around, not once. I stopped the jeep in front of a diner, the same one where Duo and I had found Quatre. "Lunch," I said, turning off the engine.
They stepped out of the car quietly and followed me to a table. The waitress came almost immediately with three menus on her hands. She smiled at us but left quickly when none of us returned the gesture.
We placed our order and managed to wait for our food without speaking to each other. Wufei was looking straight ahead, Trowa watched the people pass out the window and I looked at the people entering and leaving the diner. It wasn't awkward, but it wasn't a comfortable silence either. I waited. I knew sooner or later one of them would ask the first question.
Our food was delivered and I was half way through my chicken sandwich when Wufei put the fork down, looked at Trowa and said, "You believe him."
Trowa finished chewing slowly, had a drink of his soda and the said, without looking at Wufei, "You know I do."
Wufei turned to me. "You believe him too."
I put my utensils on the plate and pushed it slightly away. I was done eating. "I know he tells the truth."
The sound Wufei made wasn't quite a snort but it came close to it. "I thought you had an analytical mind, Yuy. I never figured you would be prone to believe in spiritual explanations."
"I'm not sure I believe in spirituality," I said. "I'm not sure I don't either. But Quatre's empathy is a fact of science. One that hasn't been studied very much, but it doesn't mean it's not real."
Trowa looked surprised. I wasn't sure about what. He knew I believed Quatre. Wufei didn't answer me but I could see he wasn't convinced.
No one spoke another word.
* * *
Knowing that Duo and Quatre wouldn't be home for a few hours, I settled in the living room and began reading the files Doctor Dresdner had given me. The information on receptive empathy didn't give me many new details. Most of what it said I had already investigated on the net. I read it all anyway, knowing even a small fact could explain Quatre's condition, and I didn't want to miss it.
Receptive empathy had various levels that had been ranked from one to five. The first level was for empaths who could merely sense only the emotions of people they were close to and only when the emotions were very strong, and even then the feeling was fleeting and almost always ignored.
The receptive power increased with each level, the last one being for those who could sense anyone's emotions as strong as their own. The empathic abilities didn't manifest at birth, but a couple of years later as level one and they grew as the child developed, but very few grew to level five, and most stayed between level two and three.
Considering the information Quatre had given us and what I'd seen, he was between level four and five receptive.
Projective empathy was trickier. It only manifested with empaths who were over level four receptive. It was also divided into five levels although there were no proven cases of any empaths with levels four or five projective. The first level was the most common with highly receptive empaths. They could transmit a basic sense of emotion to the people around them, making the people around feel almost like level one receptive empaths themselves.
Level two empaths could project the feelings more strongly, making them feel like real emotions instead of just a sensation. There was a big leap between level two and three. Level three could not only project emotions but take them away. It was a twist on the receptive ability, meaning that empaths with this projective level could sense someone's emotions and take those onto themselves, making them disappear from the other person. There were very few documented cases and in all of them level three projective only manifested when the empath was really close to the person affected and the emotion was strong.
I stopped and reread the information on level three. Quatre's condition seemed to fit into this category. If the research was correct, then at some point Quatre's projective abilities had grown beyond what he expected and could control. The question was why.
One theory said that empathic abilities could grow with hormonal changes but this last development in Quatre's condition had happened recently, and we had all hit puberty a few years ago. There were other theories relating to woman's menstrual cycles and finally a third that stated that since the empathic abilities were such an integral part of the subject, they could develop if the subject suffered a handicap.
There were a few examples of how the abilities grew if the empath lost his sight, or hearing. The empaths used the emotions of the people around them to help them deal with their own shortcomings. There was story about a woman diagnosed with heavy depression who pulled through without the use of medication, thanks to the fact that her empathy allowed her to feel emotions around her as if they were her own. She had the ability to feel happiness again.
What if Quatre's ability was acting in a similar way?
He had been lonely. Trowa had gone to Wufei, I was with Duo and none of us were there for him. His sister was having an engagement party, another reminder of what he didn't have, and the empathy had taken over, drowning the loneliness with stolen emotions.
Quatre's empathy had acted to protect him, but the result had left Quatre in a heavy state of depression, alone, and scared.
The problem was loneliness and I didn't know how to fix it.
TBC tomorrow ^_^
Rating: NC17
Pairings: 1x2, (1x2)+4 (friendship), 3x5.
Warnings: Angst, post EW, language, empathy. Heero's POV
Summary: After the war Heero has found his way, but some of the pilots are still trying to find theirs.
Very special thanks to Anne for the beta, and to everyone I ever spammed with snippets of this fic, and encouraged me to write. *hugs you all*
Previous chapters can be found here.
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Chapter Five
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Hilde apparently came in while I worked and took Wufei and Trowa to her place to get them settled. The sun was setting and Quatre and Duo still hadn't come back. I thought about going to look for them, but neither of them would appreciate it.
I heard the door and I knew instantly Duo was home. I saved my work, powered down the laptop and headed downstairs.
"They're gone?" he asked, sitting on the sofa, his legs spread, his head resting on the back of the couch and his eyes closed.
I stood behind him and started to massage his temples and scalp with my fingertips. "Hilde took them."
"Damn, I love her!" He opened his eyes, looked up and me and smiled. "If I had known I would have come home earlier. How's Cat?"
"He's not back yet."
"What!?" Duo sat us straight and then knelt on the sofa to look at me straight instead of upside down. "It's been hours! Where is he? What if he left again?"
"I didn't. I promised I'll be back."
Quatre was standing in the kitchen doorway, a glass of water in his hand. He looked tired and his clothes were dirty.
"Are you alright?" I asked, noticing how he kept his right hand behind his leg and out of our view.
"I'm fine."
He was lying.
Apparently Duo had also noticed how Quatre seemed to be hiding his hand, so he moved forward and took a hold of Quatre's right wrist. Quatre resisted for a few seconds before he sighted and allowed Duo to take his hand to examine. I didn't have to be close to see the open cuts on his palm that had just been cleaned but were still bleeding slightly.
I took the glass of water from Quatre and put it on the table before inspecting his right palm. It wasn't as bad as the other. The cuts there had stopped bleeding and there seemed to be fewer. "What happened?" I asked, pulling Quatre into the kitchen and making him sit before I took the first aid kit from one of the drawers.
"You could have at least taken some gloves." Duo was glaring at Quatre, still holding onto the bleeding hand. "Of all the stupid things, Quatre! I thought we'd gotten it through your thick head that you need to take care of yourself. You aren't allowed to pull any more of this shit."
Quatre opened his mouth and then closed it. "I'm sorry. I just needed to keep my mind occupied. Do something. I wasn't thinking."
"Damn right you weren't." I could see Duo's anger drain out of his face before he smiled at Quatre. "Next time, Q, just come to the junk yard, we'll take the Leos out and have some fun. Anything's better than cleaning junk from the shuttle port." The cuts on Quatre's palms and his tired look suddenly made sense.
Reaching into his pocket, Quatre put some credits on the table. "It isn't much, but it's all I have right now."
Duo glared at the money. "What is this?"
"I'm living here, Duo. It's right I share something."
"What the fuck, Quatre? Would you have ever let me pay for crashing in your place, or visiting you?" Duo pushed the money back at Quatre. "We aren't taking it."
Quatre looked at me and I glared. He lowered his eyes, took the money and replaced it in his pocket. "Thank you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…" He looked at Duo and then at me. "I didn't mean to offend you."
Duo smiled at took Quatre's hand. "It's okay. We know you are a little slow sometimes, but we love you anyway."
Nodding, I wet a small towel, took Quatre's right hand from Duo, and cleaned the blood. Then I took a few light bandages from the box but Quatre stopped me before I could put them on. "It's not that bad," he said. "I don't want to worry them."
They were just scratches, and as long as he kept his hands and his wounds clean then there was no risk for infection. In fact, the wounds would probably heal faster without the bandages, but his right hand was still bleeding. "Let me put them on, so the bleeding will stop. You can take them off before dinner." Quatre nodded.
After I was done, Quatre asked softly, "Did they leave?"
"Hilde kidnapped them for the day." Duo grinned but it was forced. "Well see them at dinner."
Quatre nodded slowly and then stood up. "I need a shower." He left. He would take the bandages off.
Duo slumped on one of the kitchen chairs and sighed loudly. "Shit!" He buried his face in his hands. "This is fucked up."
I sat beside him and finished Quatre's water.
* * *
Dinner was tense.
Hilde kept trying to make polite conversation, breaking the various awkward silences but she wasn't very successful.
Quatre kept his eyes on his plate, eating slowly and avoiding everyone's gazes. Trowa hadn't said a word all evening and Wufei limited himself to answering Hilde's questions now and then. Duo talked, mainly with Hilde, but he didn't chat nearly as much as he usually did, especially considering it was the first time in months we had seen Trowa and Wufei. They had hurt him with their actions, and even though Duo was trying to hide it, it showed.
As soon as we were done, and the plates were cleared from the table, Quatre volunteered to help Hilde with the dishes. The four of us were left alone, without the food to use as a distraction.
In the end, Duo was the first to speak. "Quatre needs us now, and you aren't helping." Wufei opened his mouth to say something but Duo stopped him with a gesture and continued. "His empathy problem's major and us, fighting, accusing each other, isn't helping. Whatever issues we have, we need to work them out fast."
"I'm sorry for what I said before." Trowa's voice was firm and he looked at Duo in the eyes.
"And I'm sorry for assuming that too," said Wufei, looking at Duo and me.
Duo nodded and then waved his hand. "That's all very nice and well but you need to apologize to Quatre."
"And I think you need to talk with him, alone," I added.
They both nodded but Trowa hesitated a moment before he did. I didn't let my gaze linger on Trowa. I just hoped that Trowa sorted his feelings for Quatre, whatever they were. At this point, three of my best friends were about to get very hurt, and that wasn't something I wanted to see happen.
I stood up. "Duo and I are going home. Talk to him, and listen."
"See you, guys," Duo said and followed me to the kitchen.
Duo stood behind Hilde, looking at the sink over her shoulder. "How's the washing going?"
"This is the last one." Hilde grinned and rinsed the last plate.
Quatre was drying his hands on a small towel hanging over the sink. "Are you going?"
"Yes. Trowa and Wufei want to talk to you." I walked closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Duo and I will be at the house if you need us."
Duo grinned. "So yell or something if you do." He laughed nervously.
Hilde took the towel from Quatre's hands and used it to dry her own. "I'm going out so you all can talk privately here." She smiled.
"You're what?" Duo glared at her. "Going out with who?"
Hilde sighed. "I'm not telling you because you are a big overprotective brute and will scare him away." She put her hands on her hips and returned the glare.
"What if something happens to you?"
"Duo Maxwell, I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and unless you smile and wish me a good night, I'll kick your ass, and you know very well I can!"
Duo didn't quite smile but he did mutter the requested words. Hilde gave us a sunny smile, kissed all of us goodnight, and left out the front door.
"I'll take the couch tonight," said Quatre, after Hilde left. He didn't give us an empty smile as he walked into the dinning room.
Duo and I went home.
* * *
I woke to the feeling of an empty bed. I didn't need to open my eyes to know that Duo was no longer beside me. I sat up at glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning. Standing up, I ran my hand through my hair once and searched for my slippers in the dark. After I found them, I left the room and went downstairs to look for Duo.
The kitchen light was on so I headed there, noticing that the blankets and pillows we had left for Quatre on the couch hadn't been touched. As I walked closer I heard voices.
Duo and Quatre were sitting at the table, a mug in front of each of them. They both looked at me as I entered the kitchen and sat on an empty chair.
"How long have you been here?" I asked Quatre but it was Duo who answered.
"Just about ten minutes." He took a sip of what I could smell was hot chocolate. "I woke up, not sure why, and came down here to find Q. He was..." He let the sentence trail off and made a gesture with his hand.
"I was doing it again." Quatre sighed. His hands were around his mug but he made no move to lift it from the table. "Wufei and Trowa were having sex."
I looked at Duo. "Was he glowing?"
Duo nodded slowly. "You know about this?"
"That first night here, I found him in the back yard. He was glowing then too."
"I glowed when I put my sister in a coma too. It's happening again and I can't control it." There was a cracking sound. Quatre had broken the handle of his mug. He stared at the broken piece of ceramic in his hand for a moment and then whispered, "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," I said the same time Duo said, "I didn't like that mug anyway."
"How did the conversation go?" I asked. If we were all awake we might as well talk.
Quatre shrugged. "I told them what happened. Why I left, where I went, why I can't go back." Rotating the mug to avoid the broken part, Quatre took a sip of his chocolate. "Wufei doesn't believe me."
"Did he say that?" Duo asked, and I noticed an edge on his voice. He had always been very protective of Quatre.
"No," Quatre replied. "He didn't have to. I could feel his skepticism."
"What about Trowa?"
I expected my question to get some reaction from Quatre but he replied calmly, as if I had been asking about the weather. "He's worried."
Noticing that Quatre didn't want to continue with that line of conversation I asked, "How often have these empathic episodes occurred since what happened with your sister?"
Quatre remained quiet for a moment and his eyes had a distant look. "Nothing until that first night here. Then once at Hilde's, earlier today just before I left, and now."
"So it just works when you are in the proximity of people you are close to," said Duo. "Do you feel my emotions stronger than some dude's on the street?"
"I always feel emotions, I just have them muted," Quatre reminded us. "But if you and someone on the street would feel something that demanded to be noticed with the same intensity, for me, his would be a call while yours would be a loud scream."
I chuckled. "Nice choice of words."
Quatre shrugged. "I'm not sure how else to explain it."
"And apparently, you only take someone else's emotions when they are strong," I said, thinking of the incidents. "Sex, anger, love, lust, happiness."
Blushing, Quatre nodded slightly. "They were screaming to be noticed, but that's not all I did, at some point I started taking them, and I didn't know how to stop."
"How did you?" Quatre looked confused, maybe because he was tired, so I added. "None of us is in a coma. We still retain our emotions so you must have stopped somehow."
A small frown appeared on Quatre's face. "That first night you came. Then, at Hilde's," the frown deepened, "I don't know. I went to the restroom, so she wouldn't see, washed my face, and…" He shook his head, frustrated. "I don’t know."
Duo wasn't quite smiling, but there was something in his eyes that let me know that he found Quatre's confusion a good sign. "Cat, you stopped it somehow. None of us were there; did Hil interrupt you or something."
"No. She waited for me in the kitchen."
"What about earlier today?" I asked.
"I'm not sure. I walked, and by the time I reached the spaceport I was okay. Maybe the distance helped?"
"Or maybe you're slowly learning to control it instinctively, Q." Now Duo was smiling.
Quatre looked thoughtful for a moment and then the corners of his lips curved.
"Come to bed. It's late and we are tired."
Quatre looked like he was about to argue, but one look from Duo was all it took for him to nod and follow us upstairs.
* * *
I was dreaming.
I was walking thorough the halls of the Sank Kingdom school, looking for someone. Dorothy was talking with Relena in a corner, smiling at something. I walked right by them and opened a door. There was music in the room. It was our living room, but instead of the couch, in the middle was a large piano, and Quatre was sitting behind it, playing softly.
He wasn't looking at the keys. His eyes were fixed on the window. I turned around and saw space, endless black, and Trowa, no flying suit, floating, his eyes sad and looking at Quatre. I moved back, feeling like I was intruding on something, and bumped into someone.
Wufei's hair was down. "We are all soldiers," he said. And suddenly I had a gun at that little girl's head, and I was squeezing the trigger. There was no turning back. She would die, and I with her.
And the music stopped me.
I was in our living room again. Duo was holding me, and we were sitting on the couch watching Quatre play, Trowa float and Wufei repeat, over and over again, that we were soldiers.
And I woke up.
* * *
Quatre was looking at me. I blinked a couple of times and noticed that he was sitting on the bed, looking down at me. He didn't say anything.
"Do you still play?" I don't know why I asked that.
"Not since I left," he replied in a whisper. I looked beside me and noticed Duo sleeping, hugging his pillow.
"Want to talk about your nightmare?"
"I woke you," I said.
He shook his head. "Your emotions did."
"You didn't take them this time."
"No, I didn't."
"Why?"
"You had it under control."
I frowned. It was the music that had pulled me back, taken me to Duo's safe embrace. "You were playing. You brought me back."
He shook his head again. "I can't interfere with your dreams."
"You need to play again," I said, and buried my face in the pillow. Within minutes, I was asleep.
* * *
Duo and Quatre left for work. I wasn't sure if there really was something for Quatre to do in the scrape yard but he probably needed to spend sometime away from Trowa and Wufei. Duo would find a way to keep him busy.
Wufei and Trowa came after breakfast and asked me if there was anything they could do. They were getting restless, not used to spending a lot of time with nothing to occupy themselves with. I had managed to do enough work yesterday so I could take the day off if I wanted to, and there were a couple of errands I wanted to run.
"I'm going out," I told them, grabbing my jacket from the closet. "You can come with me; it's been a while since we talked."
They nodded and we left the house together. Duo and I had a vehicle that we shared with Hilde but hardly ever used. It was an old jeep that Duo had put together from scrap. It didn't look like much but it ran perfectly and didn't need a lot of fuel. The place we needed to go to was on the other side of the colony so we needed the jeep.
Trowa took the front seat and Wufei climbed in the back. Usually I like to drive in silence, but today the silence was annoying me. Thankfully, Duo had insisted on installing a music system in the jeep and I turned it on. A loud song came through the speakers, electric guitars and heavy percussion. I drove in silence, with just the music taking the edge off the situation. I was surprised to see Trowa mouthing the words of the song, too low for me to hear him.
It had been about twenty minutes when Wufei finally asked, "Where are we going?"
"Saint Francis Hospital."
They waited for me to elaborate but I didn't. Trowa turned the music down and asked, "Why?"
"We are meeting Doctor Sophia Dresdner." She had replied to my mail and had invited me to discuss the problem in her office today. I hadn't told anyone about her, and I wouldn't until I knew she could help. Her credentials had been impressive, and her field of research showed that she was probably the best person for the job, at least in the L2 cluster.
"Why?" Trowa repeated.
"I have a few questions to ask her." I didn't want to tell them exactly why I wanted to talk to her. I would rather they see it, especially Wufei.
The hospital was only a few minutes away. I could see they wanted to keep asking questions but they wouldn't press on. They were here, so they would find out eventually anyway.
Saint Francis was a private hospital, one of the only two in this colony. It was a modern clean building that belonged in the north part of the colony; a very small part reserved for the few rich people around. We walked inside and, after I found direction to the offices, I headed straight to 308B.
The door was open and a woman around her forties was sitting at the desk. "Mrs. Dresdner?" I asked.
She raised her eyes from her notes and gave me a questioning look.
"Heero Yuy," I said.
"Oh yes." She stood up. "Please, come in, Mr. Yuy. Who are your friends?"
I didn't answer. It wasn't my place to do that. Maybe they didn't want to give her their names.
"Chang Wufei." Wufei followed me into the room. "That's Trowa."
"Charmed," said the doctor, but her smile wasn't quite as bright as before. She turned to me. "I was just revising the information you asked for. I'm glad you decided to come for it in person. I have a few questions I hope you don't mind answering."
There were two chairs in front of her desk but the three of us remained standing. "You can ask, but I can't promise to answer," I said.
She didn't sit down again, and was looking decidedly uncomfortable. "Yeah," she said, and started rummaging through the papers in her desk. "Well, I made you a copy of all the information I have about empathy. There's more about receptive than projective, since very few people develop the ability into the projective level." She cleared her throat. "I'm curious about this person you mentioned in your mail, what are exactly the problems with their empathy?"
I was aware that Trowa and Wufei were giving me questioning looks, but I ignored them for the moment and glared at the doctor. "I didn't say he had problems."
"You didn't?" She looked at me but lowered her eyes quickly.
"I said there were unusual developments."
"Oh yes!" She smiled, still avoiding looking at me. "So what are these developments?"
I shook my head. I wasn't giving her any specifics. "They are not normal receptive or projective developments." I frowned. "But they are active."
She didn't look put out with my refusal to give her specifics. "Active? We associate active as projective. How do you know it's not projective?" She didn't let me answer. "Empaths are complicated. Any ability ties into character but empathy is the one that does it more intimately. Projective empaths can affect other's emotions in various ways; it doesn't necessarily mean making others feel what the empath does." She smiled at me. "I can see you are not willing to tell me much about your friend." Picking up the scattered papers on her desk, she handed them to me. "Read this over, and if you have any questions, contact me again. What's happening to your friend might be more normal than you know."
I took the papers from her. There were three folders, the thinnest one labeled 'Projective'.
"Thank you," I said, and turned to leave. I heard Wufei and Trowa thank her too before we left her office.
* * *
The drive was quiet. I could see through the rearview mirror how Wufei sometimes gave Trowa strange looks, but Trowa never turned around, not once. I stopped the jeep in front of a diner, the same one where Duo and I had found Quatre. "Lunch," I said, turning off the engine.
They stepped out of the car quietly and followed me to a table. The waitress came almost immediately with three menus on her hands. She smiled at us but left quickly when none of us returned the gesture.
We placed our order and managed to wait for our food without speaking to each other. Wufei was looking straight ahead, Trowa watched the people pass out the window and I looked at the people entering and leaving the diner. It wasn't awkward, but it wasn't a comfortable silence either. I waited. I knew sooner or later one of them would ask the first question.
Our food was delivered and I was half way through my chicken sandwich when Wufei put the fork down, looked at Trowa and said, "You believe him."
Trowa finished chewing slowly, had a drink of his soda and the said, without looking at Wufei, "You know I do."
Wufei turned to me. "You believe him too."
I put my utensils on the plate and pushed it slightly away. I was done eating. "I know he tells the truth."
The sound Wufei made wasn't quite a snort but it came close to it. "I thought you had an analytical mind, Yuy. I never figured you would be prone to believe in spiritual explanations."
"I'm not sure I believe in spirituality," I said. "I'm not sure I don't either. But Quatre's empathy is a fact of science. One that hasn't been studied very much, but it doesn't mean it's not real."
Trowa looked surprised. I wasn't sure about what. He knew I believed Quatre. Wufei didn't answer me but I could see he wasn't convinced.
No one spoke another word.
* * *
Knowing that Duo and Quatre wouldn't be home for a few hours, I settled in the living room and began reading the files Doctor Dresdner had given me. The information on receptive empathy didn't give me many new details. Most of what it said I had already investigated on the net. I read it all anyway, knowing even a small fact could explain Quatre's condition, and I didn't want to miss it.
Receptive empathy had various levels that had been ranked from one to five. The first level was for empaths who could merely sense only the emotions of people they were close to and only when the emotions were very strong, and even then the feeling was fleeting and almost always ignored.
The receptive power increased with each level, the last one being for those who could sense anyone's emotions as strong as their own. The empathic abilities didn't manifest at birth, but a couple of years later as level one and they grew as the child developed, but very few grew to level five, and most stayed between level two and three.
Considering the information Quatre had given us and what I'd seen, he was between level four and five receptive.
Projective empathy was trickier. It only manifested with empaths who were over level four receptive. It was also divided into five levels although there were no proven cases of any empaths with levels four or five projective. The first level was the most common with highly receptive empaths. They could transmit a basic sense of emotion to the people around them, making the people around feel almost like level one receptive empaths themselves.
Level two empaths could project the feelings more strongly, making them feel like real emotions instead of just a sensation. There was a big leap between level two and three. Level three could not only project emotions but take them away. It was a twist on the receptive ability, meaning that empaths with this projective level could sense someone's emotions and take those onto themselves, making them disappear from the other person. There were very few documented cases and in all of them level three projective only manifested when the empath was really close to the person affected and the emotion was strong.
I stopped and reread the information on level three. Quatre's condition seemed to fit into this category. If the research was correct, then at some point Quatre's projective abilities had grown beyond what he expected and could control. The question was why.
One theory said that empathic abilities could grow with hormonal changes but this last development in Quatre's condition had happened recently, and we had all hit puberty a few years ago. There were other theories relating to woman's menstrual cycles and finally a third that stated that since the empathic abilities were such an integral part of the subject, they could develop if the subject suffered a handicap.
There were a few examples of how the abilities grew if the empath lost his sight, or hearing. The empaths used the emotions of the people around them to help them deal with their own shortcomings. There was story about a woman diagnosed with heavy depression who pulled through without the use of medication, thanks to the fact that her empathy allowed her to feel emotions around her as if they were her own. She had the ability to feel happiness again.
What if Quatre's ability was acting in a similar way?
He had been lonely. Trowa had gone to Wufei, I was with Duo and none of us were there for him. His sister was having an engagement party, another reminder of what he didn't have, and the empathy had taken over, drowning the loneliness with stolen emotions.
Quatre's empathy had acted to protect him, but the result had left Quatre in a heavy state of depression, alone, and scared.
The problem was loneliness and I didn't know how to fix it.
TBC tomorrow ^_^
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This story will be one of the first things I'll want to read when I get back home. I'm going to miss it!
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Just a quick note on language - After I was done, Quatre asked softly, "Did they left?" - left should be leave. *hugs*
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And thanks for spoting that mistake! I already fixed it. Than you!
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