Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ After Colony 198 ❯ A Hole in Her Heart ( Chapter 1 )

After Colony 198

By Iris Anthe

Chapter 1

Duo muttered a stream of obscenities from under the colony's postal van he was servicing that day. He sucked the blood out of the cut on his hand, his nose crinkling with a grin at the metallic taste of his own blood mixed with grease. His auto repair business was really taking off, if only he could manage not to chop off his own damned fingers. This business suited him fine. He got to help in the daily functioning of the colony, without having to deal with too many people. Everyone always pegged him for the outgoing, fun-loving guy, but to be honest, his idea of fun just didn't seem to fit with everyone else's. He was most comfortable with other guys when he was playing zero-g-ball on Tuesday nights, but he never felt like sticking around after the game for a beer, and gossip.

He was eighteen years old, and from how the girls always flirted, he figured he wasn't that bad looking either. Chicks loved the long braid. But there wasn't a soul he could really relate to his own age, except for the other defunct Gundam pilots, and to some degree his old friend, Hilde. He was sure that the others all felt the same way, now that the war was over, and warriors just weren't needed...unable to trust, unable to care, but wanting to so badly. Wanting to have a reason to live.

He'd always kept up a carefree attitude, as a matter of survival. His philosophy was one of pleasure and honesty, otherwise what was the point? Gloominess just gave him a headache. Of course, during the war he had had as much of a secret death wish as any of the other Gundam pilots...that was except for Heero Yuy.

"What's with that guy anyway?" He could see Heero's tightly laced boots across the room, past all the automobile parts and general heaps of scrap metal and mechanic's tools strewn across his shop floor. Like a dejected, surly bird of prey, Heero had shown up on his doorstep a week and a half ago, dirty, smelly and obviously malnourished. Duo was of course happy to see him; it had been so long since Heero had done his last vanishing act. But his presence didn't bring as much comfort of "old times remembered," or a shared past as you would think. From the first, Duo could see that something had gone very wrong in Heero, and all Duo could do for his old friend was to offer him food, shelter, and something to keep his hands busy during the day.

"How're the repairs on those old microchips going, Heero buddy?"

A grunt was all the response he got, not that he had expected much more from the master conversationalist in the corner. "All well," he sighed, "at least he's not trying to kill himself. Gotta count your blessings."

There was definitely something missing in Heero's eyes this time around. There used to be such a burning inside him, a constant thrill of danger pouring out of him like the smell of electricity and gunpowder curling around his limbs, a spark of immediacy that sent a thrill through anyone who could stand to look him in the eye. Duo had seen crowds part around the guy, people instinctively clearing a path for him, without even looking up to see just what it was they were trying to get out of the way for. But now he was somehow shrunken in on himself. He was sure that Quatre would say something about his aura being off, but all Duo knew was that Heero needed help, and for some god-awful reason he had shown up on HIS doorstep looking for it.

"Well that's it for my day's work," he said as he finished his adjustments under the van, and pushed himself out from under it. He stretched his compact body and jumped up with a grin on his face. "I'm starved. Whadya say I cook us up a Duo Maxwell original culinary masterpiece, and pop open some beers?"

With not even a hint of a response from Heero's hanging head, Duo walked over to see if he was maybe asleep. When he got closer, he could see that though the rest of him was apparently inanimate, Heero's hands were clenched tightly around the chipboard he'd been working on all afternoon. "Heeey, Heero..." he said softly, "anytime you feel like talking, just let me know." After a pause, he straightened and sighed quietly, and turned to enter the door to his living quarters upstairs. But as he turned, Heero's arm shot out, and he gripped Duo's forearm with a strong, dry hand. Heero looked up with searching pain in his Prussian blue eyes, let go of Duo's arm, looked down at the floor and said, "Thank you ... thank you, Duo." Surprised, and a little flustered by this show of emotion from his old warrior friend, Duo raised his arm behind his head, shrugging slightly, and said with a half grin, "Hey, no problem," and choosing to make light of the situation, added, "but to be honest, I can't promise that anything but the beer will taste good." And to his further surprise, he actually saw a nearly imperceptible smile twitch across Heero's mouth, just for a second.

"Well, that's progress," he thought to himself, flicking his braid out of the way, before starting on a quick vegetable-tempeh stir-fry, and turning on the rice cooker. "Maybe the guy just needs some good nutritious meals? Lord knows what he'd be eating now without good old Duo Maxwell here to bail him out." And an off-tune whistling was heard emanating from the kitchen.

*****

I can never be normal. There is no happy ending for me, no fresh new beginning. Heero's thoughts were circling in on him, as he lay sleepless on the mattress in Duo's small, ad hoc, guest bedroom.

Quatre's got his entire colony's well-being to look after, and Trowa of course has Quatre, as well as his sister to live for. Wu Fei, hmmm, he seems to be doing all right with his cloak and dagger job down on Earth with Sally Po. Even that poor bastard, Zechs, is probably doing OK, what with Noin determined to guard over him, and give him all the love he can handle ... even if she is turning him into a farmer in one of the outer colonies. Heero turned in bed, only tightening the trap that his sheets had turned into through the course of the night. Duo somehow has always hung on to life. He's the only one of us truly making a stab at fitting in with the rest of humanity, and that girl, Hilde, I've seen how she watches over him ... never crowding. Sooner or later, he'll probably even get to have a family.

"Aaarrgh!" he fiercely ripped the sheets away from his entangled legs, and sat up in bed clenching his jaw and digging his fingers into the brown mess of his hair.

"I'm so weak!" he thought, and then aloud, "so weak."

If only I could have died in battle. Now my only way out is the coward's bullet to the brain. His thoughts led his eyes to the gun that was never out of his reach ... an old habit, hard to give up, even in this "new era" of peace.

"Damn it, Relena," he muttered. "You wanted to keep me safe, make us a world where I didn't have to die. But killing was my only way, only reason to live. I have no-one left to kill but myself."

As usual, thoughts of Relena sapped Heero's strength, causing him to sink back into the bed, curled loosely on his side.

He could hear her voice, so clear with faith, belief in the capacity of life to bring happiness ... undiluted belief in him. "We could be happy together, Heero. I know we could. I believe in you."

He rolled over and stared into the darkness of the ceiling.

"Relena."

These days, her name would pass his lips without his even knowing it at times. When in public, especially in front of Duo, he would try to avoid thinking at all, knowing how his thoughts always led back to this, to her, to the open love in her eyes, to the promise of forgetfulness hiding in the hollow of her neck, and the scent of her hair. And he would look around, startled by the sound of his own voice whispering her name.

He raised an arm over his eyes, blocking the light from his clock.

Three years running from her, wanting to be near her. Why? What was he afraid of? He knew perfectly well why she terrified him. As the "perfect soldier" he had always followed his emotions on the battlefield, and suppressed them while waiting for his next assignment. With no goals and no one to kill, he had lost control of his heart, and it wandered into the uncharted waters of Relena's body. What did she even look like now? He just didn't know what would happen to him if he gave in to the abandon of that call. Perhaps it would shatter him completely. But that wasn't the real fear. No. He knew, without a doubt, that the moment he let himself truly love Relena, she would die.

It had happened to everything, everyone he had ever loved, even the random animals he had resorted to caring for in his childhood's loneliness. Somehow his heart was a curse, not just to himself. Someone always killed the ones he let himself care for too much. And it would certainly happen to Relena. His distance from her was the only thing keeping her safe. She was too fragile, too vulnerable in her dazzling cloud of ideals. How could he protect someone who would rather die than kill? Someone who was content to die so long as it was at the hands of the man she loved?

He snorted. A derisive laugh, barking out of his throat. "I thought she was crazy." Sweet, soft, tearful little Relena Dorlian had really surprised him with her strength of will. Time and again, facing him down with his gun pointed at her head. "I never could kill you."

He found himself drifting, images turning into the strange sequences that only make sense in sleep.

"Relena."

*****

She sat up in bed, blinking against the darkness. The same dream, over and over. She is getting ready for her daily routine of paperwork, press conferences and hopeful, tired people, but she is numb, not feeling herself touch anything, even the rug under her feet, she reaches for the door handle, thinking she hears someone outside, but when she swings the door open, there's nothing there, and then the nothing is all around her, pressing in on her, encasing her body, numbing her mind. And she wakes up, gasping in air, sobbing with relief at the feel of her sheets and the sweat dripping down her sides.

"Heero."

It is an ache made into sound, as though the very meaning of his name were loneliness.

"Where are you? I can feel you calling me. Why can't you leave me alone!"

Unable to stay in the chafing case of her bed, she sheds her pajamas and showers herself awake into normalcy. After cleaning away the nightmare and once again burying the pain of Heero's rejection where it can't wear away her will to live, she sits down at her computer, tucking the soft, plush robe in under her curled up legs. The blue glow of the vidscreen casts odd shadows with the yellow pool of light from her lamp, causing her honey colored hair to appear grayish, and darkening the blue of her irises until they merge indistinguishably with her pupils.

"Hmmm, so they want to try trading Valencia oranges with the outer colonies. Perhaps the rumors are true that the farming efforts are having trouble out there. Well, I'm sure that if anyone can make nature bend to his will, it's my brother." Relena surfed the world news updates, and her favorite newsgroups, checking for the hidden messages and trends that only a master of human nature could pick up from the varyingly factual articles. She had to try to keep ahead of world trends, if she was going to keep relations on a smooth track between the Colonies and Earth. In a way, it was a blessing that her sleep was always punctuated at night; otherwise her busy schedule would leave her no room for the thinking that kept her at the top of the political food chain.

"If only I could talk to Heero, all this work would seem like more than an endless job." She clamped down hard on that thought, surprised it had managed to surface through her concentration. "There is absolutely no point in thinking that way, Relena. He doesn't love you. It was just an adolescent crush. You have too many responsibilities now to spend your time pathetically moaning over a man who could only ever toy with your life."

If she let herself wander into thoughts of Heero, she'd be out of it for days. She knew, from experience.

She opened her email account, and discovered a message from Quatre Raberba Winner, ex-Gundam pilot turned colonial head of state. "I wonder what's wrong." She couldn't recall there being any issues on the table from the Winner family right now. Upon reading the message, Relena's legs dropped off the edge of her chair, and her fingers turned pale as she gripped the desk to steady her spinning soul.

Hello Miss Relena. It's been a long time since we last spoke. I am very impressed with the work you have been doing between the Colonies and Earth. You are a very strong person, and I'm glad you are here to guide us out of our warring past.

I hope that this news will be welcome. I just heard from our old friend Duo, and it seems that Heero has been staying with him for the past month on Colony L2. I hope you don't feel that I'm meddling in your personal affairs, but I just thought you might like to know. Trowa always said that you were the only one who could bring Heero back into the world of the living.

I hope you will visit our colony soon. You are always welcome in our home.

With fondest regards,

Quatre Raberba Winner

So short, so direct a hit. It seemed all the Gundam pilots were capable of hurting her.

"Ahh, don't shoot the messenger, Relena."

*****

"Well, Duo..."

Hilde was waiting for his answer, but he couldn't remember the question. The space between her eyebrows crinkled as she tilted her head slightly to the left. The dark blue of her eyes squeezed merriment through even darker lashes.

"What's the matter Duo? You're not sick are you?"

"Sick?" Yeah, I must be sick, having a thought like that...about Hilde. He shook himself and closed his eyes, willing himself to stop seeing what Hilde obviously didn't know he could see when she bent over him like that.

He jumped out of bed, and muttered to himself... "I'm up, I'm up," and sought shelter in the privacy of his bathroom, the one place his former housemate didn't seem to think of as open territory in his home.

"So you didn't answer my question." He could just hear her through the door and over the sound of running water. "Is that pile of scrap over by the lift fair game?"

Duo emerged from the bathroom with a clean-shaven face, combing out the night's tangles from his hair. Hilde's eyes lit up at the sight of his unbound hair. "What is it with people and my hair anyway," he thought to himself. "Especially the chicks, always wanting to play with it. Like I was some kind of doll or something."

"Can I brush your hair Duo?" Hilde bit her bottom lip, knowing that she was way out of line. Duo never let anyone touch his hair. Not even for a trim. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. I don't know what I was thinking."

Duo looked at his friend and wondered how he'd gotten so lucky. He was so proud of Hilde. Somehow after the war, she had found the strength to start out on a completely new path, following her own inner calling. Her weird, welded metal sculptures were cropping up all over the colony ... sometimes even in places where they were asked for. Her latest triumph was a commission from the colony government for a two kilometer sculpture park over in G section. Duo seemed to be her favorite source of old, abused scraps of metal, destined to find salvation in one of her oddly beautiful creations. He was glad for the excuse to see her more often. Inside her was a will to live and a lust for beauty that he needed to be around. Even if it was only for a few times a week. He certainly craved her cheerfulness, what with Mister Doom and Gloom still hanging around after two months. He grimaced. The Death God and the Suicide King, together at last.

"Ahhh, he oughtta let go a little."

"What?" Hilde's confusion at his apparent non sequitor was pretty funny to watch.

"And I oughtta too." Duo looked down with a small smile, shrugged and tossed Hilde the hairbrush. He sat down in his computer chair and said, "Well, if you're going to brush my hair, you'd better get cracking. I still have to shower and get to work, or fifty school brats over in the W section won't have a bus on Monday."

Hilde only hesitated in shock for a moment, and then went at it with reverent excitement. "I must be the luckiest girl in the colony!"

Duo's body went limp with relaxation as Hilde gently ran the brush through his meter long hair. "Aahhh...why haven't I let you do this before?"

Hilde smiled behind his back. "Everything in its time."

Hilde's voice was so gentle as she said this, that Duo immediately tensed, jerking his head slightly, and causing a sharp prick of pain as the brush snagged on a knot she was working through.

"Oh! Are you all right? I was trying hard not to pull."

He let out a sigh. "I may not be Heero Yuy, but I can still stand a little pain every now and then."

Hilde grimaced slightly. "Heero. Boy talk about a hard nut to crack."

"Tell me about it." Hilde began brushing again, and Duo found himself talking before he even knew it. "He's been living here for over two months now, and I know there's something really getting at him, but he never says a word." Duo let out an exasperated puff of air. "I've never understood that guy."

"Hmmm..." Hilde was finished with the knot now, and moved the brush under his hair to the nape of his neck, and started a long stroke that made Duo's eyes close and his mouth hang open. "He's really hurt inside, Duo. I don't know what will make him better, but I do know that you've been helping. I think he'll talk when the time is right. Maybe he just needs a safe place to hide for a while. You're his friend, and sometimes knowing you have a friend is all you can ask for to keep you going."

A friend...a friend like Hilde...to be honest, Duo could barely think. She was now running her fingers through his scalp and had begun massaging his neck. As she moved those welder's fingers into the muscles of his shoulders, Duo started to tingle down the length of his body. He imagined swiveling the chair around and running his hands over her thighs.

He opened his eyes and jumped out of the chair.

"Well, I'd better get a move on. I'll just take a quick shower, and help you load whatever metal you want into your truck." His eyes were over-bright, darting everywhere but Hilde's face. If he had looked, he would have seen an open look of frustration and hurt, turn gradually into a sigh of forbearance.

"I can load it myself, Duo. See?" Hilde flexed an enormous bicep in his face and walked out of his room.

"Wow, never noticed that before!" His body still buzzing from the Hilde overload, Duo headed for the shower. "I guess she's tougher than she looks."

*****

"I'm telling you Quatre, I'm really worried. Lately, he's been wandering off for days at a time. I think he comes back just to have a place to reset his bones. One time Hilde followed him to the top of the communications tower. She said he just walked over to the guardrail and sat on it for two hours. She was afraid to call me in case he made a move. Not that any of us could ever stop Heero when killing himself was the objective."

"Well, Ms. Relena always seemed to bring him back."

"Hnh." It came out in a grunt. "If she cared about him, she'd be here by now."

"Duo, don't be angry with Relena. We've all got our wounds from the war. I'm sure she has her reasons for staying away." Quatre looked at his friend through the vidscreen, and his heart constricted, feeling his pain. "I'll try contacting her again." Maybe if he could help Relena, he would be helping Heero as well.

"Thanks, Quatre. By the way, how are things going over in the Winner Empire?"

"Oh, well enough." He laughingly answered. Sometimes he felt guilty for being so lucky. Twelve of his sisters now had children, who ran through the halls of the family home with merriment and mayhem all day long. It was a constant reminder to him of why he had had to fight and kill for so long, and how wonderful it was to never have to fight again. Trowa's circus was in town for the season, and he and Catherine as usual stayed in his home while they were here. His nights were heavenly with Trowa to hold on to. He wished he could somehow give his friends a piece of his happiness, but it seemed like Trowa was the only one who knew how to accept.

"Well, I'd better get down to the shop ... make sure Heero isn't drilling holes in his head."

Quatre could see the concern behind his friend's sarcasm. "Try not to worry too much Duo. He's a very strong person. He'll make it through this."

The vidscreen blanked off. Quatre sat at his desk, his eyes closed in concentration, his soul searching for the root of all this pain. "We all suffered so much. Our innocence was sacrificed to the altar of peace. Trowa and I are the only ones with a family left to return to. I know what Catherine has meant for him. Even though his childhood was stolen from him, Trowa never lost his yearning for a family. Sometimes, I think he loves my enormous horde of a family more than he loves me." He smiled at the vision of Trowa surrounded by his nieces and nephews, teaching them back flips and flying somersaults while they plotted on how to wrestle the gentle giant to the ground. He understood the urge.

"But why hasn't Miss Relena visited Heero?" He sent her that email almost three months ago. He knew she had a busy schedule, but in the past she would have broken through an OZ barrier to see Heero if she wanted. What was holding her back now?

He let his mind relax, not asking questions, breathing deeply, letting his soul expand around him. Before it escaped him, he focused, seeking out her essence in the webwork of energy he was a part of. He was close, feeling her particular energy, when suddenly his body tensed, he snapped back into himself, and his eyes shot open. "Ah!" His eyes clenched shut. "How horrible. She has a hole in her heart." He shivered, and focused on the picture he kept on his father's old desk of he and his father long ago, when he was only six or seven years old. "Why must the kind and giving people always suffer, father?" For a moment Quatre's face seemed to shrink in on itself. His eyes closed, and even the light in his translucently pale hair seemed to fade.

Suddenly, warmth flowed through him and a smile spread slowly across his face, as a frond opening after rain, while a familiar, dark scent tickled his senses. He looked up to see Trowa leaning silently against his desk.

"Everything all right, Quatre?"

Wow. It's unnerving how he knows when I need him.

"I think it's time," he said aloud, "for this colony to have a trade problem that only the Foreign Minister can mediate." And he pressed the intercom to his secretary's office.

*****

The artificial sunlight slanted in through the stained glass Winner family crest, embedded in the arched windows of Quatre's office, casting a momentary red halo around her host's head as he sat down behind the large wooden desk.

Hmmm ... this is good tea. If she didn't know better, she'd swear that this charming blond man had spiked it with some kind of restorative drug; she was feeling so relaxed. "That was a long session, Quatre. I'm very happy to know that your colony's textile industry no longer feels threatened by the new polymers coming out of the Earth's southeastern quadrant."

"Thank you Miss Relena." She couldn't quite read that smile. "Do you like the tea? It's my special blend."

Hah! "Yes, it's delicious. You must send me the recipe. I feel better than I have in days."

Again, that smile. "I will arrange to have a regular supply shipped to your home from now on."

She sighed, tilted her head in a graceful nod and said, "Thank you Quatre. You have always been a kind person." But then again, the kindest people can also be cruel.

"Are you all right Miss Relena?"

She quickly erased whatever facial expression he had noticed. She had to be more careful. There was nothing to gain in letting her guard down just because someone made her a good cup of tea.

"I'm fine."

Composure, Relena. Don't let him mention that email. You are a master of cordiality, do your job. "Tell me, Quatre. How have you been? It's been so long since we were all together."

Damn! That wasn't what she'd meant to say. Bringing up the past was out of the question. She'd have to make this visit short.

Luckily he didn't pick up on the cue.

"Lately, I enjoy my life so much, Miss Relena. I have my family around me, and it has been a constant source of joy, helping my colony recover from the chaos of war. There are moments, though, when I admit I am tempted to run away in the night and join Trowa at the circus." He gave a little laugh.

She tried to laugh with him, but what escaped from her throat, just didn't sound right. Quatre refilled her finely decorated china cup with tea. Just the aromatic steam rising from its rim helped calm her a little. She put on her cheeriest smile, tilting her head as she spoke. "Yes, I know what you mean. Sometimes I want to run away too."

There was something so intensely quiet in Quatre's eyes when he looked up at her reply. She suddenly found herself speaking as if from another body entirely.

"They always want something from me, Quatre. Day in, day out. They file past me with the same look in their eyes...wanting some part of me. And then, all I have to do is tell them that they're doing a good job, and that they're stronger than they think, that I believe in them, and that it will all be all right in the end ... and for some reason they believe me. As though I were a drug, sustaining their deluded hopes. But then there are more of them. They just keep coming back. Taking more and more lies, and treasuring them, as though they really meant something. I'm beginning to wonder if my dreams of peace weren't just adolescent stupidity after all."

"Miss Relena, they're not lies." Quatre kneeled at her side, and firmly held her left hand. "Your dreams of peace are attainable. We're all working to make them real." Here he shifted his weight, gaining her full attention. "But you cannot give peace to others; you cannot be an emissary of peace to the world, if you do not have it in your own heart."

Ah, there's dagger he's been hiding behind all that sweetness.

Her breath came in, and her chin puckered in her attempt to keep herself from crying. But it was no use. Maybe it was the tea.

Slowly she brought her breathing under control, gathering up the tatters of her dignity. She released her hand from Quatre's gentle grip and wiped away the mess of moisture on her face. No peace in my heart. Nothing to give. No one I want to give it to.

"You're right. I'm not fit to lead. I will resign today."

"What?"

"I have no peace to give."

She raised herself with as much grace as she could muster from out of the plush chair in Quatre's office, gently setting the teacup back on its tray. Smoothing her skirt, and arranging her hair brought her more control over her limbs.

"Thank you for the tea. My assistants will help you with whatever paperwork is left from the negotiations. Everything is much clearer now." She gave him a swift bow, and turned for the door. She didn't respond when Quatre asked her to wait. She just kept on walking.

Back in the office, Quatre stood shocked. "What have I done?"