Cat's Paw - Part 9 by Zooie
Standard disclaimers apply

Duo POV

---

It’s visiting hours. I hate visiting hours. Especially if I’ve been having a bad day. Which I have. I’d woken up this morning feeling especially crappy and, of course, since today was the one day where I just wanted to sleep uninterrupted, the physical therapist had to come pay a visit. Showed up at ten AM, all perky and hyper and, “let’s use the hand weights!”

Yeah. I have a better idea. Let’s shove the hand weights up your ass. How’s that for physical therapy? But no. She made me do 24 reps with each arm and then made me lie on my back and push her upright when she leaned her fat, paunchy self against my feet. It only took her twenty minutes to reduce me to a shaky, sweaty mess.

As if I weren’t P.O.ed enough to begin with, she decided to do a joint session with Heero. Turns out Coma Boy is also a closet Mr. Universe. Just watching him made me tired. It also made me feel grossly inferior. Not that I didn’t have good reason to be weak as OJ Simpson’s alibi, but nobody wants to have their feebleness thrown in their face. It was damned depressing.

Heero liked the exercise so much, the therapist agreed to take him to the hospital’s gym and allow him to use the weight machines. They got the doctor’s permission and then disappeared together, leaving me alone to sulk and await my shower. The nurse finally showed up and helped me in, then plunked down outside the bathroom door to make sure I didn’t drown or eat the shampoo or something. When I’d emerged, freshly clothed in new flannel PJs, I’d discovered they’d changed my sheets while I’d showered. And they’d taken my black bag off along with the dirty laundry.

I sleep with it under my pillow. They hadn’t noticed it when they gathered up the sheets. I mean, that’s understandable, right? Black and white hardly contrast at all. There’s absolutely no reason for them to have seen it. When they lifted the pillow to strip it of its case, there is no reason that they should have perhaps noticed a black cotton bag. None at all.

When I discovered the bag was gone, I’d... well, I’d had a wee bit of a panic attack. That thing is damned important to me and I wasn’t about to lose it to some goddamn hospital washerwoman! It’s the only thing in this world that I count as important and God help whoever attempts to pry it from my vise-like grip!

It wasn’t until I was drugged up to my eyebrows with tranquilizers and Quatre tracked the bag down in the laundry room that I relaxed, my prize once more safely beneath my pillow. The nurses even printed out a little warning sign to hang above my bed, letting the cleaning staff know the bag was there. The letters are bright red and it’s written in both English and Spanish. The only way this will happen again is if someone’s illiterate, incompetent, or both.

Heero had returned sometime while I’d been asleep. Not only had I slept through Wufei’s visit, also I’d missed lunch and dinner. I’d awoken an hour ago to find that visiting hours were in full swing. Swell. Parents and their children walking up and down the halls, laughter drifting in from next door, and this prevailing aura of love and concern and belonging. An aura that I’m not a part of.

I don’t even have Quatre to visit with. His shift ended sometime while I was in a drug-induced stupor and visits from the rest of the hospital staff aren’t precisely thrills and chills. Heero doesn’t exactly have family up the wahzoo, pounding the door down for a visit. If we get really desperate, I suppose we could invite one of the policemen in for a little chit chat, but I’d prefer not. I’d rather maintain some of my tattered dignity.

Between the two of us we can’t even dredge up one decent visitor. Yippy skippy for us.

I’m still a bit out of it, but not so much so that I can’t be cross. I might have the hand-eye coordination of a blind gorilla, but I can still bitch like a “Survivor” contestant.

“This is all your fault,” I tell Heero petulantly.

He continues reading his book. “What is?”

Ohh. I just want to take that book and ram it up his- “This. Today. Everything. Life in general!”

“Oh. Okay,” he says, not even listening to my self-indulgent rant.

“Everyone else has visitors and we’re sitting here all by ourselves,” I whine, flipping rapidly through the television stations. “the Nanny.” “Seinfeld.” “a Dating Story.” “World News Tonight.” “Hamtaro.” “Murder, She Wrote.”

“Uh huh,” he mutters, turning a page. I crane my head to read the title. “Military Aircraft of the Twentieth Century.” Now that’s a pressing topic. So much more important than a fellow human being. I wonder where the damn book came from in the first place. Maybe the Conservative Book Mobile came driving through, driven by Rush Limbaugh. Free war propaganda for everyone!

“You’re not even listening to me,” I accuse.

“That’s interesting,” he says blankly.

“Sure. Be that way,” I grunt. I click the TV off and flop back into my pillows. Fine. If no one wants my company, I’ll just go to bed. Sleep likes me. Visits with me on a regular basis. Stays for hours. I fumble with the overhead light and manage to turn it off without maiming the thing. I curl into a ball and pull the sheet over my head. I’ll just sit here in my nice little cave, breathing my nice, hot stuffy air, until I suffocate. Not like anyone will care.

“Sulking again, Duo?” a female voice breezily asks. Ehhh? I peek out from beneath the covers to see Hilde enter the room, followed closely by Relena. Lo and behold, they have not one, but two gift baskets. I assume one is for Heero. Not that he deserves it.

Instantly in a better spirits now that I have some company, I sit up with a big grin on my face. If I had mood swings like this and was female, I‘d probably be menopausal. My disposition improves further as I take in how attractive my visitors are. This is the second time I’ve seen them without the damn surgical masks and I’m still a little intimidated by how pretty they both are. They have the kind of faces you expect to see in body wash commercials or on the fashion network, not standing in your grungy hospital room. Relena looks like she belongs on the cover of “Good Housekeeping” and Hilde... Well, Hilde looks like she should be in the “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.”

Actually, it would be really easy to imagine Hilde dressed in skater clothes. I can so picture her with bright purple hair and a spiked collar. Avril Lavigne without the mane. Relena... I honestly can’t picture her in anything besides what she wears: Chanel suits and Tiffany jewelry. The kind of woman who doesn’t even know self-serve gas pumps exist.

The two of them are partners and own their own law office, Darlian and Schbeiker. They’re defense attorneys and though it’s unusual for two young, female lawyers to own a practice so soon, they hadn’t had any problems getting started, mainly because Relena’s father is a foreign ambassador with more money than hair coming out of his ears. Not that they don’t deserve the practice. The two of them are good, really good. They’ve already covered several high-profile cases and won them both. And they won’t take a case where they believe their client is guilty. I know for a fact that this drives Hilde crazy because it severely limits their clientele, but Relena will not be dissuaded. Her ideals are her life.

Hilde chucks one of the baskets onto my bed and flops down in a chair. “What’s up with the cops, Duo? Before we could come in we had to fork over our driver’s licenses and wait while they-”

She is silenced when Relena slaps her hand over her mouth. “For an attorney you have a remarkably short-term memory,” she frowns, but her attention isn’t on Hilde. Her eyes are locked on Heero. I can practically see the little hamster wheel in her head spinning.

“Hello,” she says quietly. “My name is Relena Darlien.”

Heero lowers his book and meets her gaze calmly. “I’m Heero.” And then he returns to reading.

Relena frowns and moves to stand near his bed. “This is for you,” she says, placing the gift basket on a nearby chair. “We heard Duo had a roommate and thought you might enjoy a little present. It’s just a few things we felt would be helpful.”

“Thank you,” he returns, not even looking up. Relena hovers uncertainly for a few seconds, then turns and returns to my side of the room. “Friendly boy,” she mouths.

I snicker and Hilde, who isn‘t so hot at reading lips, looks confused. “I missed the joke,” she complains. “Here, open your gift basket, Duo! I packed it myself, this time.”

Translation: it contains a bunch of random, fun, but otherwise useless crap.

Translation: I’m going to love it.

Relena and Hilde take turns packing the baskets. You can guess who gives me flannel pajamas and who gives me rubber tarantulas.

I begin exploring the basket’s contents. Silly putty, a pair of slippers that look like hairy feet, a Nerf football, a copy of “the Devil’s Dictionary,” earplugs, a rubberband gun, a bag of “ammunition,” a t-shirt that reads “I’m with Stupid,” more Mad Libs, and half a dozen bandanas. “Awesome,” I exclaim happily, already loading up the rubberband gun. “Thanks, you guys!”

Hilde looks smug. “I told you he’d like the gun best,” she says to Relena.

“Hey, it’s not like it can actually hurt anyone!” I defend my choice of preference, taking careful aim at Heero’s head. I press the trigger... bull's-eye! The rubberband hits him just above his ear. He jumps, startled, and shoots me a dirty glare. I stick my tongue out and reach for another rubberband.

“Now, now. I didn’t give you that so you could torment your roommie,” Hilde plucks my weapon from my fingers. “Play nice, children.”

“Aww, you’re no fun,” I pseudo-pout and, accepting the temporary loss of the gun, proceed to tie one of the bandanas around my head.

Hilde sighs in mock relief. “Phew! About time! The glare was making me go blind!”

“Would that be the glare of my extraordinary smile or the glare of my luminous baby blues?” I ask her, batting my eyelashes.

She wrinkles her nose. “How about the glare of your amazingly large ego?”

Relena sits delicately in one of the chairs, her back perfectly straight, her legs crossed at the ankle. She watches Hilde and I rag on one another, looking a little sad and slightly confused. Sometimes I feel bad for her. She was raised to be so prim and proper, her personality seems to be trapped behind her manners. I wish she would just break free and go psycho once in a while. Just lose control. Maybe do something drastic like eat a whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s all by herself.

“Hey, Relena!” I invite her to join our conversation. “Bitch-slap any criminals to the courtroom floor lately?”

She looks at me gravely, an unidentifiable emotion in her eyes. “You know I’m a pacifist,” she sniffs. Thinking I might have really offended her, I start to apologize, but she continues. “If I want someone on the floor and bleeding, I just tell my cousin Dorothy.”

I crack up. “So that’s what you use all your money for! Dial-a-Thug!”

She smiles faintly. “What good is money if you can’t play with it?”

Hilde squawks. “That’s not what you said when I suggested we take a trip to the Riviera!”

Relena looks exasperated. I get the feeling they’ve been arguing about the proposed vacation for some time. “Hilde, we can’t just up and leave. We have responsibilities and obligations! For goodness sake, we‘re in the middle of a trial!”

“Why do you think I want to go so much?” her partner bleats pathetically. “I swear, if that man tells me one more time that I’m a ’sweet child’ and then sends me for coffee, I’ll...”

“You’ll calmly go and refill his cup,” Relena finishes. “I know he’s a sexist pig, but until the trial is over, he’s our sexist pig. And if he really thought we were that incompetent, he would never have hired us. This is merely his way of coping with a stressful situation.”

Hilde sits up in her seat, an aggressive look on her face. “Well, I wish he’d go cope with it somewhere that begins with an ‘h’ and ends with a ‘l.’”

“We’re all adults here, Hilde!” I announce jovially, interrupting their argument before it can escalate further. The growing tension between them is intimidating. I begin to see how they‘re so successful in court. “We’re quite well-versed in the art of profanity! Shit piss cock fuck ass bitch...”

The tension is gone and Hilde is grinning at me, her head tilted to one side. “You know,” she says conspiratorially, “if you combine words, you can make curses so vehement people and their pets spontaneously combust when they hear them.”

“Really?” I make my eyes purposefully wide. “Pray tell.”

“Certainly. Tell me, have you ever heard the expression ‘llama-raping cock-waffle?’” Hilde delivers the phrase in such a serious, documentary-like tone that it’s all I can do not to bust out laughing. National Geographic, meet Hilde Schbeiker, queen of the Obscenity Safari.

“Personally, I’ve always been partial to ‘pie-fucking uncle-humper,’” I tell her nonchalantly.

She nods, a look of understanding on her face. “Ahh, yes. Fice is nice, but incest is best.”

“Precisely.”

“I’m not hearing this,” Relena says abruptly. Her cheeks are pink and her hands are fluttering nervously in her lap.

Hilde rolls her eyes. “She can listen to criminals recount inhumane crimes for hours, look at police photographs of murder scenes, and interrogate rapists, but she can’t withstand a good, old-fashioned cuss session. Pathetic.”

I cluck in consternation. “I guess she’s not as tough as she looks,” I say sadly.

“Poor little girl,” Hilde shakes her head. “All grown up and...”

“Shut up, you... you shit-faced cockmasters!” Relena suddenly sputters. Her eyes fly wide and she claps her hands over her mouth. Hilde and I cheer.

“All right, Relena!”

“Welcome to the gutter!”

“Say it loud and say it proud, sister!”

“I’m trying to read,” a monotone voice states loudly, bringing our fun to a screeching halt.

Oh ho ho. Looks like we disturbed I’m-too-superior-and-mighty-to-talk-to-you Yuy. Well, too effing bad.

“Here,” I say, rifling through my gift basket. “Use these.” I chuck the earplugs across the room at him. They land on his covers and he eyes the small plastic package emotionlessly.

“Thanks” he says evenly. “I need these if I’m to live with you.”

“Fuck you,” I yell, all creative expletives flying from my mind. I start to climb out of bed, but then Relena is up and out of her chair, moving between us. She sits down on the edge of Heero’s bed and snatches his good hand up in hers.

“So, Heero,” she says, “I understand you’re a big fan of times gone by. I’m a bit of a history buff, myself. Have you ever read, ‘the People’s History of the United States?’ It’s quite intriguing.”

Heero stares at me for a few seconds more, then turns his attention to the blonde sitting next to him. “I read it,” he states flatly. “I didn’t like it. Too emotional. History shouldn’t be about emotion. It should be about facts.”

Hilde tugs on my arm, diverting my attention. “Want to play some Scrabble?” she asks brightly. “I might as well put my $200,000 education to good use!”

“No, I don’t feel like it,” I tell her bluntly. I lay back down in bed and cross my arms behind my head. I stare up at the ceiling, examining the ugly gray tiles.

“Oh, come on,” the petite lawyer prods. “You’re the only one worth playing. Everyone else is so easy to beat. It’ll be fun!”

“I’m tired,” I say flatly. I roll over so my back is facing her and pull my arms down to my chest. “I’m going to sleep.”

I shut my eyes and listen as Relena and Heero argue over the accurate interpretation of the past. Hilde rubs my back until I fall asleep.

~+~+~

Mmmm. Don’t wanna move. Fuzzy.... Soft....... Warm.... Comfortable...... Drifty.....

“Duo! Wake up, Duo!” Suddenly a female voice is whispering harshly into my ear.

Nooooo..... Fuzzy..... Soft....Comfortable.

“DUO!”

I crack open my eyes and see Hilde crouched beside my bed, an intense look in her eyes. I blink at her, my eyes gummy.

“Wha?” I grunt back. Drifty.... Warm.... My mind won’t focus.

“Relena and I thought something was wrong, but we didn’t want to scare you,” Hilde says quickly, still whispering. “But we talked it over and thought we should warn you. She recognized Heero’s name from recent buzz in the legal system. His dad was a private investigator and he was working on a really big case when he died. They think he might have been murdered.”

“Wha?” I mutter, feeling a little more awake. Mmmmmm. Blanket.... Soft......

“That’s why there are so many cops around,” Hilde continues. “They probably think the killer might come back for Heero because he’s a witness to the crime. Relena’s speaking with the hospital administrators right now. She’s trying to get you out of this room. You could be in danger.”

“But why?“ I mumble, my mind racing around in stupid little circles. Drifty... Warm...

“Who knows?” Hilde whispers. “Diversionary tactic? I don’t know! The point is, we’re trying to get you out!”

“’M I in trouble?” I manage, trying hard to concentrate. She seems so upset.... I get the distinct impression that Hilde is afraid. I begin to feel frightened as well.

She bites her lips, looking thoughtful. “Probably not immediate danger,” she admits. “They have this room under really good guard. I had to sneak in here under the premise of finding my purse. Shit! I really need to get going. But don’t worry,” she assures me hurriedly, seeing the way my eyes are turning huge. “Like I said, you’re not in immediate danger. Just be careful! We’ll do our best to get your room changed!” She plants a kiss on my forehead and stands. “Be safe, kid!” she murmurs on her way out the door.

“Hilde?” I whisper after her, but she doesn’t come back. I’m alone in the dark, uncertain that she had even been in the room. The conversation seems that surreal in my mind.

I lay there, thoughts churning through my skull. I break out in a cold sweat. Did that just happen?

Drifty... Warm... Soft... Back to sleep....

NO. Must. Wake. Up. Must. Focus. Must. Think.

With a valiant effort, I kick start my brain into motion. It goes from zero to mach twelve in about two seconds. NASA would kill for rockets like that.

This cannot be happening. It just can’t be happening. This is the kind of shit that happens on crappy TV shows with massive budget cuts. It’s the kind of plot device writers use when they’re out of ideas. It’s not the kind of thing that actually happens to people. Especially me. Nothing exciting happens to me. Shit, the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in the past six months was discovering Halls Fruit Breezers!

Cough drops that taste good and work. It’s just unnatural.

This stuff just doesn’t happen to people like me! My mind screams furiously that this must not be real. It must be a product of my sick imagination. Yeah, it must be a nightmare. A nighttime figment. I always was really good for coming up with those. Convinced myself one time that a chair was actually a cave troll crouched in the corner, ready to gouge my eyes out if I so much as twitched. When the nuns found me in the morning, I couldn’t move because my muscles were so tense.

Yeah. This is just like the cave troll. It’s not real. It’s not. It’s just one more case of my imagination running away with me, kit and caboodle.

My eyes lock themselves involuntarily on Heero’s sleeping form and all my assurances fade. I stare blankly, wishing like hell I could be elsewhere. Then I realize I can be. I hit the call button for the nurse.

I swear I don’t breathe until she arrives.

“What is it?” she asks in a low voice.

“I don’t want to be in here! I really don‘t want to be here! Really, really don‘t,” I stutter in a high-pitched voice. Shit. That wasn’t what I was planning to say. I was planning on being cool and collected, nicely informing her that no, I didn’t want to be an innocent bystander in a murder case and yes, I would like to move to a different room. Instead I sound like a hysterical teenage girl who just discovered her acne medication ran out the night before the prom.

“Okay, calm down,” the nurse soothes, rubbing my arm through the blanket. “What happened?”

“He’s gonna get me killed!” I say, jerking my head towards Heero. The nurse flicks her eyes in that direction, then returns her gaze to me.

“What gave you that idea?” she smiles. I can tell she honestly doesn’t believe me in the least. A glimmer of hope arises in my chest.

“You mean he’s not a witness to a murder?” I whisper. The nurses know everything. They rule this ward like they’re fascists. If she hasn’t heard about the murder mystery, that’s pretty good indication it’s just a rumor. And Hilde and Relena are trial lawyers. They’re used to jumping to the worst conclusions. If Hilde had even been here in the first place.

The nurse laughs quietly. “No, honey, he’s not. That must have been some nightmare you had.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I admit. Now that my panic is receding, some semblance of logic instilling itself in my thoughts, I find myself more perceptive to the idea that Hilde’s visit was a nightmare. It made sense. I had just seen her and I was all worked up over Heero. Why wouldn’t I dream about them? Yeah. It was just a dream.

“Do you think you can go back to sleep?” the nurse asks. I start to nod, then catch sight of Heero out of the corner of my eye. I must have looked panicky, because she sighs and tells me she’ll get some sleeping pills.

I don’t move and hardly breathe while she’s gone. Then I make her stay with me until I fall asleep. By then I’m almost positive I’d dreamed the entire thing. When I wake up the next morning and I’m still in the room with Heero, I’m certain of it.

Relena Darlian always gets her way.

*******

TBC

*******

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