Hello everybody! I started this but it wouldn’t open.. So I was a bit bummed so here I am writing this over… ok first things first… I do not own…… secondly.. Non-yaoi. Pairings are 5xs, 2xh, 1xr and a few others……. So if you have a problem with these pairings stop right now……. And leave…..

If You’re Gone

Chapter 5

This takes place two weeks later:

The young janitor looked around, pulling his bucket along behind him. As he came around the corner he saw a blinking light he knew didn’t belong. He came up to the object and peered at it. He poked it with his mop handle, then turned on his heel, almost running up the stairs.

He burst through the first floor door looking for the first Preventer he could find.

He spotted WuFei Chang and Duo Maxwell. He cringed inwardly, thinking about talking to Preventer Chang but …..

“Preventer Chang, Preventer Maxwell?”
WuFei turned and stared at the man addressing him. Duo leaned over and grinned.

“Can we help you, Um…Jared?” WuFei asked, looking at his name tag.

“Well, I think you should …um… maybe see this.”

“What?”
“Ah lighten up, Wu-man! Come on, kid, lead the way!”

~~~~~~

Hilde sighed as she looked out the window for the millionth time. The boy they had been protecting looked at her.

“Why do you keep looking out the window, Miss Hilde?”

“Well I guess I’m watching for Sally. She should have been back by now.”

She let the curtain drop and turned back to him. “Come on, I’ll make you some tea.”

He pulled himself of the couch and followed her into the kitchen.

“Do you miss your boyfriend?”
“Duo?” She sighed, ”Yeah, I miss him… I miss him a lot.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. I know I’m here for my protection, too.” She turned to him and smiled.” You said so yourself.”
He looked at the cup and sighed. ”Yeah, these are bad people , Miss Hilde. I don’t know how I got involved with them. I just thought it would be a good thing to do.”
She sat down and placed a hand over his. ”It’s ok, we all get sucked in sometimes.” She looked away thinking how she had been pulled in by OZ believing what they had said. She knew even in the back of her mind , it had be bullshit, but she had still followed them till Duo came along.

“You know if it hadn’t been for Duo I would probably be dead.”
He looked up at her, ”What do you mean?”

“I was an Oz soldier when I met Duo and he told me things I didn’t realize. So I helped him and got into trouble for it.” She looked out the window and the boy watched her face. He smiled. So that’s what love looked like. He sometimes saw it on the other girl’s face when she talked about that grouchy guy.

“Does Miss Sally love Preventer Chang?”
Hilde looked up and smiled.” Shhh, Don’t tell, but yes she does. But they had a falling out a while back.”
“Oh.” He said, softly, then he looked at her. ”Your shoulder. How is it?”

She smiled, “It ‘s better.” She rolled it to show him. “Now I wish Sally would let me take it out of this sling.”

She cocked her head at him, ”Why was your group after the pilots?”

“Revenge. I think. I don’t know for sure. They have a manifesto. A good hacker could get into their web site and get it out.”
“I’ll give Heero a call. He could do it.” she turned to him, “does it have a name?”

“I think it’s called “ ’The Black Death’ or something like that.”

“Ok.”

She stood and went to the wall phone.” I think I’ll give Duo a call, too.”

She dialed and leaned against the wall. ”Heero, I have something for you to do.” She grinned as he growled at her. ”Yes, it’s about the boy. He does have a name, don’t be like WuFei.”
She explained to him what she wanted and she could almost see him smile as they talked.

She could hear Relena in the background and told him to tell her hello and hung up.

She turned to the boy, ”Well James. Heero will get into the data base and retrieve the manifesto.” She turned back to the phone and dialed again.

It rang a couple of times, then she heard Duo’s voice. ”Hi, Duo!” She said softly.

She listened to him rattle away and tried to get in words occasionally.

She paused as she listened, then yelled into the phone. “DUO!!!!!!!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Duo and WuFei followed the young janitor to the basement, leading them to the place where he had seen the blinking red light. Duo frowned at it then looked at WuFei.

“You suppose there are more? How did they get here?”
“How the hell am I suppose to know.?! Just look around for more.’” WuFei turned to the janitor. “Go get more help. Hurry.”

Duo sauntered away from WuFei and answered his phone when it began to ring.

“Hey! Hilde! Hi ya, babe!” He said, a big grin on him face. He rattled on telling her what he was doing.

He turned back and continued to talk as he made his way back to WuFei. As he got closer to where WuFei was, he stopped and said. “Oh, shit!”
The phone dropped to the floor as he grabbed WuFei and pulled him away, just as the last second ticked down. WuFei shouted out in protest as Duo pulled him toward the door way, just as he too saw the last seconds tick down. The area exploded shoving both men through the small doorway as tons of debris tumbled down around them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“DUO!!!!!! DUO!!!!” Hilde screamed into the phone. “OH MY GOD!” She slammed the phone down and turned to face James. “Something has happened! We have to get to the Preventers office. I have to find Sally. Oh my god! Oh my god!”
James stood and grabbed her arm.
“Hilde! Calm down! We’ll go.”

She stared at him , then slumped, remembering why they were there.

“I can’t! You can’t! We have to….”

He grabbed her again. ”Listen! I’ll take the chance, ok? What happened, Miss Hilde? What did you hear?”

She looked at him as her face registered the shock of all what she heard. “It was an explosion! I Heard an explosion!”

James pulled her towards the door. “Shit! They’re at it again . Come on!”

~~~~~~~~~

Sally stood as the room rattled under the noise. Then the building shook. A wall buckled somewhere.

“What the hell?” She asked as she hurried toward the door.
Several people were running around with frightened looks on their faces. It was total chaos. She grabbed the nearest person.

“What’s going on? Are we under attack?”
He looked at her. “Someone said a bomb went off in the basement.”

The man started to pull away.

“In the basement?” She asked, shock registering in her voice. ”An explosion?”
“Yeah, it’s a good thing it’s reinforced down there or this whole building would have come down around our ears.”

“Was there anyone down there?”
He stopped.” Yeah, I think so…. A couple of preventers. Chang and Maxwell, I think.”
Sally’s mouth dropped open. “WHAT?”
“Yeah, that kid over there…” He said pointing to Jared.

Sally let go of his arm and literally ran to the boy. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down the hall, as she pulled him she was barking orders to every Preventer she saw. Une was standing at the end of the hall way looking at the huge crack in the wall, that was letting day light filter in.

Sally stopped in front of her and said. “There are two Preventers in the basement. We’ll need to get stuff down there to extract them.”

~~~~~~

WuFei coughed as he tried to move in the dark room. He felt trapped. ”Maxwell?” He whispered. It was quiet. “Duo?” He asked again.

There came a soft reply. ”Yeah…Ouch. What hit me? A truck?” There was a pause. “Ahhhh. What the hell is on my leg.?”

“Part of the building, baka.”

“Oh, you’re so welcome ,Chang.” Duo replied sarcastically.

WuFei swallowed but said nothing. He seemed to be unharmed, while Duo seemed to be trapped.

It was too dark to tell. He heard Duo cough, then heard him mutter something soft and to quiet to understand.
“Ah, Man! I think my leg is broken. Wu? Are you ok?”

WuFei sat up and moved around a bit. ”I seem to be.”

“You don’t have something on you? You can move around?”
“Yes.”
“Cool! Can you find me?”
“Why?”
“I have a mini flashlight in my pocket.”
WuFei shook his head. Maybe Maxwell wasn’t as big of baka as everyone thought.

“Just give me a minute to compose myself. I seem to have blood on my face and it running into my eyes.”
“Are you gonna be ok?”
“I am fine.”

“Ok.”
WuFei wiped his face and stood unsteadily to his feet. He thought it was strange he could stand but as he reached up his hands he could feel part of the ceiling. He let his hands slide down it till he was back on his knees. He could hear Duo shifting a bit in the dark. He smiled as he heard Duo whisper.

“Well, maybe it’s not my leg that’s broken…. Just my ankle.”
“Duo.” WuFei said into Duo’s ear.

“ERRRG!” Duo shouted and jumped. ”OWWW!”

WuFei stifled a chuckle, ”Flashlight?”

He felt it slide into his hand. He flicked it on and looked around the situation. HE could see the part of the ceiling on Duo’s lower body. He looked totally trapped. He flashed the light to the end, then let out a soft sigh. It wasn’t as bad as he as first feared, but Duo was defiantly stuck. He climbed around the chunk of concrete, trying not to put any weight on it.
“You seemed to be trapped.”

“No, shit, Sherlock! You are the king of the understatements. ”I KNOW I‘M TRAPPED!! Can you get me out?”
WU Fei moved around a bit more , flashing the flashlight around. It seemed the hunk of concrete was wedged against the wall , partially propped up by other pieces. To move it would have it all tumble down and crush the person under neigth it.

“I can’t. To move it would crush you.”
“Damn.” There was a bit of silence, as though Duo was contemplating his situation. “They know about this right?”
“Where is your cell phone?”
He heard a snort.” Buried just like me .I dropped it in the explosion.” There was a pause. ”Oh shit! Hilde! I was talking to Hilde!” He moaned. “Oh, god! What’s she gonna think?”

WuFei growled. “She’s a smart onna. She’ll know what to do.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” His voice brightened. “Hey, we’re gonna get out of here!” He sighed, and said nothing else.

WuFei frowned and spoke after a few minutes.” Duo?”

WuFei flipped on the flashlight and crawled to Duo’s side. He flashed the light over the face of the man in front of him. His eyes were closed. Wu Fei shook him. “Duo?”

“Umm?” Was his reply. “Trying to make the pain go away.” He gulped, “Not working.”

“Relax, take deep breaths. It will help.”

There was silence again as the two men waited to be rescued.

~~~~~~~

Relena sighed and looked at the paper work in front of her. She looked at the computer, then longingly at the door. She stood and walked to the door, she turned the knob. It didn’t move. She rattled it. She turned it and pulled. Nothing.

“GOD DAMNIT! HEERO YUY! LET ME OUT OF THIS OFFICE RIGHT NOW!”

“Hn.” Was all she heard.

“Omae o kuroso.” She muttered under her breath as she moved away from the door. She turned and glared at it, then went to the window. She grabbed the cord and pulled the blinds up, looking out into the court yard below. She glanced back at the door and then place her hand on the cool glass. Too bad she was 3 stories up.

“Don’t even think it.” Came a reply from behind the door.

“Oh, go to hell,” she murmured, as she balled up her fist. She swung around and looked at the other door in the office. It went into a connecting room. She stepped over to it determinedly, ready to push it open and escape. She pushed hard against it, it didn’t budge.

She sighed and leaned against it, he forehead touching the wood. She almost wished he was still wounded and still in the hospital.

She sighed and turned away from the door, walking across the floor back to her desk. As she got closer to the desk , she frowned as the floor seemed to sway. She reached for the desk just as she lost her footing as the room moved under her feet. She let out a small shriek as she tumbled forward. Suddenly the door burst open and Heero caught her before she hit her floor.

She looked up at him with wide eyes.” Heero, what was that?”
He shook his head and pulled her to her feet.

“I don’t know.” He pulled her out of the office and down the hall.

As they moved down the hallway, several people were milling around, wondering what had happened.

“Was that an earthquake?” was heard.

“I donno. “ was the reply most of the time.

As they came up to the elevators, Heero shook his head and pulled her towards the stairs.

She looked at him, in confusion.

“Until we know what that was, we better stay out of them.”
She nodded as they ran down to the lower levels of the headquarters. As they stepped in the main floor they were met with total chaos. People were shouting and yelling. Heero gazed around and spotted Sally in the center of the confusion. He pulled Relena over to her.

“Heero! Thank God! Some one with common sense.”

“What happened?”

“There has been an explosion in the basement near the temporary jail.”
“Any one down there?”
“Yes.” She turned to look toward the basement. “WuFei and Duo.”
“How ….. Are they alive?”

“I don’t know.”
Just as Heero was going to say something Hilde and James came up to them.

Hilde started to babble about talking to Duo before the explosion cut her off and wanting to know if he was alright. If anyone knew what was going on.

Everyone stared at her.
James shook his head, ”She’ been like that since we left the house.”
Sally grabbed her shoulders and shook her. ”Hilde, Get a grip!”

Hilde blinked and instantly calmed down. “What can I do to help?”
“Yeah, Me, too.” James piped up.

Heero was unusually silent. Sally turned to talk to him, but he was gone.

~~~~~

Heero moved to the door and disappeared into it. He expected the stair well to be blocked but it wasn’t. He wanted to assess the situation and see what could be done. Sally was organizing the rescue but he wanted to make sure it was a rescue and not something he really didn’t want to think about. He hadn’t had time to hack in to the web site yet, but he would find the time to do so now.

He blinked as the dusty air filtered around him. He frowned. The damage didn’t seem that bad, until he got closer to the end of the hall. There he could see huge hunks of concrete, lying haphazardly on the floor. He looked up at the structure beams and saw they were damaged. This whole thing could come tumbling down at any moment. Too many workers would collapse it in a heartbeat.

He could here soft sounds coming from the other side of the concrete pile.

He called out in a loud sharp voice. “ WUFEI? DUO?”
He heard a soft muffled cry back. “We’re here.”

He turned and went back the way he had come, prepared to tell Sally what he had found.

To be continued………………

Sorry this took so long… things have been hectic here.. Just when I think I’m going to have time something happens and I’m off and running again……. Please read and review….. No flames for my pairings……. Just the content of the story….

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