Institutionalized Part 8

 "Duo..."  I hear him whisper.  Oh thank the God of Death.  He's alive.  I let out a sigh of relief.  "You really scared me there!"  I tell him.  "I thought you were dead!"

 "I don't die that easily,"  he answers.  I laugh bitterly and climb back into the car.  Off we go.  We're never stopping.  I'm in my car and I'm driving, the unkown future plummeting towards me as I embrace it with my wide open arms of death.  It seems an eternity that we drive, before I ask Quatre where his house is.  He gives me directions.  We're there in nearly an hour, no police, no one chasing us.  We're free.  We've gotten away.

 We all climb out of the car and Trowa helps me carry Heero inside.  We lay him down on the sofa in the living room and Quatre runs to get some things to bandage him up.  It's just me and Heero and Wufei now, alone in the living room.  Wufei's near sleep in a chair, but I sit on the floor beside Heero's head, brushing his hair back from his face.  He's breathing fine.  He looks like he's asleep.  I kiss his forehead.  He'll be fine.  Everyone will be fine.

 Quatre and Trowa return with some gauze and tape, a bowl of warm water, and some towels.  I wipe the wound with the warm water.  It's not bleeding as bad anymore.  He's going to be okay.  Trowa helps me with the dressing, seeing as how I've never done this before.  I'm guessing he has.

 I decide to call an airline.  We'll take a flight somewhere out of here.  Good idea, right?  Well, we can't stay in this house.  You know they'll be searching it, looking for us.  I mean, Heero did kill that doctor.  I start to feel sorry for her.  Then I think better of it.  If I think about things like that right now, I might lose my will to get free.  I'll start thinking, what's the point, and give up.  I don't want to give up.  It may have been murder, but she deserved it, didn't she?  Well, didn't she?

 I scan through the phone book and find the nearest airport.  Southwest on highway 103.  That's not very far.  I call them and reserve five tickets to someplace overseas.  Jamaica, I think she said.  We'll go there.  It sounds like a nice little island.  The flight's tomorrow at nine am.  "We can't stay here tonight,"  I tell everyone.  "They'll be looking for us."  Quatre gives me a nod and goes to gather up some of his things.  He comes back carrying two bags stuffed with possessions and a large wad of money, that he gives to me.

 We decide it would be better to ditch the stolen car and take one of Quatre's, so I drive it off a ways and find a steep hill.  Good enough.  I stick a bar inbetween the seat and the petal and put it in gear.  It speeds off and over the cliff.  When it lands, it doesn't burst into flames like I'd hoped it would, so I slowly climb down the cliff.  I'd taken along a can of gas and a lighter just in case that happened.  I douse the car in the gas and light it on fire.  I think I'm standing too close.  I can feel the flames on my face, so hot.  They burn me.  I'm in the fire, it feels so warm.  The flames dance around me, and I smell the gas, but I'm not hurt.  I'm not in the fire.  I'm still standing away from the car, in a daze, wondering why I don't just jump into them.  Why don't I?  Heero.  That's why.  I want to see Heero again.  I'm pulled out of my daze by a car speeding by overhead.  I shake my head and climb back up the hill and run back to the house.  Apparently, I'd driven farther than I thought, because it took me a while to get back.  A good thirty minutes, running full speed.

 When I got inside, Quatre tossed me the keys with an unsure look on his face.  He seems to be very upset by all this action.  Sure, we'd done some damned bad things, but we had to.  And there's no time for me to be worrying about him now.  I shuffle everyone out to the car.  I have the keys dangling from my belt loop and they're clicking as I walk.  I like the jingly sound they make against my thigh.  Heero's able to walk with little assistance, and he's helped into the passenger seat by Trowa.  I climb in the drivers' seat and, after everyone else is in the back, I start the car and off we go.  Quatre tells me there's a little motel not too far off.  It's by the airport, conveniently.  So we head in that direction.  When we get there, we get three rooms.  Wufei gets his own room.  I'm with Heero and Quatre's with Trowa.  Heero lays down on his bed and goes straight to sleep.  I try to do the same, but I can't seem to close my eyes.  I don't want to take them off Heero.  I set the alarm and close my eyes.  I think I fall asleep, because I wake up to the alarm twice.  I say twice because it happens in my dream, the alarm going off.  I wake up and sit up before the alarm goes off again.  Then I wake up and sit up again.  Deja vu.  It was an eerie feeling.

 Eight o'clock.  One hour until the flight.  We all meet outside and go down the road for breakfast.  Heero doesn't eat much.  He says it hurts to eat, so I don't bother him about it.  Thirty minutes before the flight, we wait in the airport, Heero asleep on my shoulder.  I can smell his hair and his breath flows steadily against my chest, causing me to get goose bumps.  It feels good.

 They call our flight and we all board the airplane.  We wait awhile onboard before it takes off.  We charge the runway and the engines scream and we're off.  We're really flying away from it all.  We're free.  I fall asleep in my seat until we land.

 We're on the flight a few hours.  When we get there, we exit the plane together and rent a car.  From there, we get a hotel on the beach.  We spend that night in lawn chairs in the surf, drinking exotic drinks called marguiritas.  They taste bitter sweet and they tingle on the way down my throat.  For one of the first times in my life, I'm happy.  I'm surrounded by four friends in a paradise, palm trees swaying in the salty-tasting wind blowing off the ocean, and a beautiful, oil painting of a sunset to stare at and relax.  The colors mix together in the light.  Yellow flows to red and deep violet turns to black with star specks flickering here and there.  It gets colder, so Heero and I go inside.  I watch as he lays down on the bed to get some more sleep.  He needs some rest.  Maybe tomorrow.  Tomorrow I'll tell him how much I love him.  And maybe then, we'll live happily ever after.
 

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