untitled Fanfic (another one)

-----part 1-----

Quatre Raberba Winner was awakened in the middle of the night by an odd sensation in his spaceheart. It was just a twinge, but Quatre had never felt anything like it, and it worried him. 

He remembered visiting the Winner Corporation's terraforming division, and examining one of the soil samples. That had been the only thing different he had done. Perhaps, he reasoned, some odd type of radioactive chemical in the soil was causing his uchu-no-kokoro to act a little haywire. 

"I'm sure it'll be fine in the morning." he decided as he climbed into bed and drifted off to slumber.

*****

Quatre woke the next morning with the odd sensation even stronger. He made himself some breakfast and was in the middle of eating it when Duo ran into the room. 

"Hey, Quatre, you're not gonna believe what just happened?" 

"So, what just happened?" 

"Heero just spoke." Duo grinned. "He actually said something other than 'hn'." 

"I do have the ability." Heero said as he joined them. 

"My god!" Duo pretended to almost faint. "He's doing it again! Stop him before he hurts himself." Then he noticed that Quatre wasn't laughing. "Quatre? What's wrong?" 

"I don't know," Quatre admitted. "I just know that something is." 

-----part 2-----

Trowa walked in, yawning and stretching his limber body. He poured a bowl of cereal for himself, then looked uncertainly at Quatre. Last night was the first time they'd slept apart in a very long time. "Quatre?" he asked. "Did I...?"

Quatre shook his head, smiling sweetly at his love. "No, Trowa. You did nothing wrong. My spaceheart was acting strangely last night, that's all. I wanted to be alone to figure out what the problem was."

"Did you?" Trowa asked in concern as he began eating his cereal.

Quatre shook his head again. "All I know is that there's a resonance of some kind. It's very faint at the moment, but I think it's getting stronger."

The phone rang at that moment and one of Quatre's servants answered it. The man handed the phone over to Quatre explaining that it was urgent.

"Thank you," Quatre smiled and took the phone. "Yes? Very well, then. I shall be right down. Yes, I'll see you then. Good-bye." he hung up then returned to breakfast. "There's been a development at the terraforming division," he explained, "something strange in the soil sample they were examining."

"Does it have anything to do with the glitch in your space-heart?" Duo asked.

"It might," Quatre answered, as he finished his cereal. "I'll know soon, however. I have go down and check it out. I should be back by dinnertime, however." he glanced at the calendar and saw it was Duo's turn to cook. "Actually, I think I'll grab something on the way home."

"What you do with yourself in Sandrock's cockpit is really none of my business." Duo shot back, having no intention of letting Quatre's little barb about his cooking go unavenged.

Quatre's face went beet red and he hurried out of the room, too embarrassed to think of a reply.

Duo blinked then turned to Trowa. "He doesn't really...?" he asked.

Trowa shrugged. "It's none of anyone's business if he does, Duo." he replied as he went to watch TV. There were no missions scheduled and Trowa Barton intended to relax. There was a big performance coming up at the circus that weekend and he wanted to be well-rested and in top shape.

*****

"Show me what the problem is," Quatre ordered as he walked into the terraforming division of the Winner Corporation.

"The soil," the head of the division, a woman in her fifties with light blue hair that was graying around the temples, explained, "contains a number of apparently harmless microorganisms. However..." she pointed to a rather overweight mouse. "This is the mouse that we placed in the sample last night."

Quatre's eyes widened as he realized the mouse was giving birth.

"The organism somehow causes pathogenesis in carbon-based life forms." the head of the division explained, "we still don't know how it will affect people, but until we do, I'd like to recommend a temporary hold on the project. Sir? Sir?"

Quatre was utterly pale as her words, the mouse's condition, and the resonance in his uchu-no-kokoro brought his mind to an inescapable conclusion.

"Great Allah," he whispered as he felt himself sink to the floor, "I think I'm pregnant..."

-----part 3-----

The project head, upon hearing this, quickly raced Quatre to the medical lab to be examined. 

"He says he thinks he's pregnant," she told the examiner. "I don't know if it's just a panic attack or if he might really be expecting."

"I sure hope he's not." the examiner replied. "Let me show you something." He held up a tiny baby mouse. "This is one of the babies born from one of those soil-impregnated mice." he told the project head. "Watch carefully." He placed the baby mouse in a cage with a small rabbit, dumping it from cage to cage instead of actually touching it, then quickly slammed the rabbit cage shut and backed away.

The project head watched in fascinated horror as the baby mouse devoured the rabbit with the speed and voraciousness of a school of piranhas.

"Dear god," she gasped.

"If Quatre's experiencing a pregnancy from this stuff, god knows what the baby will be like, or what it will do."

-----part 4-----

"Allah," Quatre groaned.

"Sir," the examiner soothed, "please relax. I'm sure when the results are in we'll find you've just had some bad food somewhere."

~Sheesh, Duo,~ Quatre thought for a moment, trying to cheer himself up, ~is your cooking *that* well known?~ 

It didn't help. Nor did the feigned dismissal of the problem on his part. 

"Would you excuse me? I have to get home." Quatre stood up with a certainty he did not feel and headed for the door.

"We'll phone you when we get the results." the examiner promised as Quatre departed from the office.

*****

"EEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The bloodcurdling scream sent Wufei, Trowa, and Heero racing into the kitchen.

The site before them was horrifying. Duo was staggering around the kitchen in a pain-induced panic with his right arm and his chest on fire.

Heero grabbed the nearby extinguisher and quickly put out the fire. "I'm taking him to the hospital," he told Trowa and Wufei as he scooped Duo up and raced out to their stolen ambulance with him.

*****

Quatre walked into the safehouse in a state of agitation and stumbled from a moment, sensing a residual feeling of pain. "What happened?"

"Heero took Duo to the hospital to be treated for burns." Trowa replied. "Quatre, are you okay?"

"There's a chance I might be pregnant, Trowa." Quatre explained.

"You mean we're...?" Trowa hugged Quatre. "I'd better be careful with you from now on then, koi."

"Not us, Trowa." Quatre couldn't let Trowa think he was to blame if the handsome billionaire gave birth to a monster. "That soil sample they brought down from the terraforming project has been causing spontaneous pregnancies in various lab animals. When I got some of it on me, I think it affected me the same way."

The phone rang. As usual a servant answered it, then passed it over to Quatre.

"Hello?" Quatre asked, Trowa's arms still around him. He listened for a moment, then dropped the phone and went limp in Trowa's arms. 

Trowa carried Quatre over to the sofa and laid him down gently upon it. Then he returned to the phone. "What did you just tell Quatre?" he asked. 

"May I ask who's inquiring?" the voice on the other end asked.

"This is Trowa, if I must give a name. "

"The Trowa that Quatre is dating?" the voice asked.

"Yes. That Trowa." Trowa confirmed. "And you are?"

"I'm a medical examiner working with the terraforming project." the voice replied. "I called to tell Mr. Winner that his test results came back positive."

"He's pregnant?" Trowa asked.

"Very pregnant." the examiner explained. "Although he conceived only two days ago, he is currently the equivalent of four months pregnant."

"The baby...?" Trowa queried.

"We can only pray it's human." the examiner replied.

Trowa started to ask what he meant by that when he heard a terrible noise on the other end of the line and the phone went dead.

*****

Heero looked up as Sally Po walked into the waiting area of the hospital. "How is Duo?" he asked.

"I'm afraid he slipped into a coma." Sally informed him. "However, we have stabilized his condition."

"Kami-sama." Heero whispered. 

"I won't lie to you," Sally told the Perfect Soldier. "There's a strong possibility we could lose him. Heero, when Duo was on fire, it might have triggered memories of the massacre and fire at Maxwell Church. The coma he's in is especially deep because it's both
psychologically and physiologically induced."

"Take me to him." Heero ordered. "If he's going to die, then I want to be with him."

Sally led Heero into a room with a single bed. Duo lay in the bed, unconscious. Bandages covered his chest and the arm that had been burned. Tubes and wires of all kinds were attached to Duo, monitoring his vital signs and keeping him alive.

"Duo," Heero said, sitting down and taking Duo's hand. "Listen to me. The doctor says she doesn't think you'll make it. But we know better don't we? You'll beat the odds, just like you always do. Hey, you know what I'm going to do as soon as you wake up. I'm going to ask you to marry me. I'm not going to wait any longer."

Sally started to to say something, then stopped. She stood in the doorway a moment longer, looking at the two pilots with sorrow in her eyes. Then she closed the door and went to check on her other patients.

-----TBC-----