Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ After Colony 198 ❯ About to Go Very Wrong ( Chapter 2 )

After Colony 198

By Iris Anthe

Chapter 2

"Huh? ...Resigned?"

"Yup. Resigned." Duo sounded like he was enjoying delivering this piece of gossip. "They kept it a secret for a week. Not only that, she's disappeared. Nobody knows where she's gone. I guess Miss Dorothy's little security service just couldn't keep tabs on our old Relena once she didn't want them to."

Heero stopped listening from the stairwell as Duo and Hilde continued their debate in the kitchen over Relena's likely whereabouts. He didn't want them to know he was back just yet, so he headed for his room.

"She's finally coming." The thought repeated itself over and over in his head, like a child's rhyme. "She's coming here. Relena is coming. She's finally coming. Coming to get me." The crazed grin across his face was so disturbing that the glance he saw of it in the hall mirror brought him up short. "I've got to get out of here."

He opened the door to his room, and could smell her before he even flicked on the light.

"Hello Heero."

She was taller, more angular. Her face was more severe, but still framed in a wash of long honey silk. The fabric of her jacket rustled as she clasped her hands in front of her.

"Don't worry, I won't bother you for long. I'm on my way to the outer colonies. I just wanted to see you one last time, before I go."

"Last time?" She was finally here. Her grace only highlighted the dinginess of his room. He found himself wondering how he looked after three years in her eyes. But she wasn't looking at him. What was she doing here if she wouldn't even look at him? That bit of anger brought him back to his surroundings. He closed the door behind him, and nodded at the computer chair behind her, then went over to sit on his bed.

How long had she been here? He'd been gone for four days. Duo must have been trying to warn him when he walked into the house. For some reason his anger was growing. She was so calm sitting in his chair. It was always a battle of wills with Relena. Her control was really irritating him. Why wasn't she looking at him, damn it!

"Relena, what are you doing here."

She turned her head slightly, and finally looked him in the eye. A current of pain ran through him at the vision of cold hatred in her eyes. This wasn't Relena. Those weren't the eyes of promise. This was a nightmare.

*****

What WAS she doing here? Look at him, the cold-hearted son of a bitch. He was no different. He was taller, broader, even more brutally beautiful than she remembered, with rough, feline contours of body and face. But he was still capable of breaking her with a word. Well, not anymore. What was she doing here? She just needed to have this final contact with him to finally put him out of her life. She wouldn't leave this unresolved any longer. She was feeling powerful in her ability to finally hate him completely, without a trace of her old simpering need for his approval. I'm here to kill you Heero, BANG.

Somehow, her mental gunshot hit its mark. She could see him wince as she thought it. She watched in fascination as his head lowered on his shoulders. Oh my God ... Heero?

Was he crying? What exactly was going on here? In a panic she felt her powerful anger draining out of her in the face of his pain. No, I have to stay angry. I can't let him do this to me. No!

"Heero?" Her voice was so small. She was losing. He was going to make her his fool again. But she'd never seen him cry; it was too upsetting.

He looked up at her, intensely searching her face. She felt her body flush.

"Relena. It is you."

Me? Is it me? Is this me? I have no me anymore. You took it away with you Heero, remember?

She moved her eyes away from his face, concentrating instead on her hand, picking at the lint on the armrest of his chair.

"I can't stay Heero. I just wanted to say good-bye. That's all."

"I waited for you to come here."

What? What was he saying? He waited for me? You waited for me? You don't know the meaning of the word!

"I knew you were here. Quatre told me months ago."

No response. Well that was only typical with Heero. Oh, she couldn't do this. She simply could not do this any longer. She suddenly felt so tired. Her eyelids drooped as her energy drained away, and she sagged in his chair.

"I loved you Heero." She closed her eyes.

"I needed you. The first time I ever met you. It was in your eyes. When my father died, all I could think was that I somehow needed to be as strong as you were. I needed to learn how to hold on to a sense of meaning in life, even if everyone tried to strip it from me. You were always so strong, so sure of what was right and what was wrong. You were my ideal. I offered up my soul to you for judgment, but you found me lacking. You shoved it back in my face, and judged me unworthy, over and over. I tried to become stronger, to be worthy of you. But in the end, worse than not loving me, you didn't even respect me. In the end you rejected both me and my vision of life. I can never be complete. I've given up. I'm going away."

While she was speaking, a feeling of numbness began to spread through her, sapping the last of her strength. It grew within her until she couldn't see, couldn't even feel the chair beneath her. She recognized this feeling. It was the nothingness from her dream. Only she wasn't asleep. And then she knew; it had finally come to claim her. If she wasn't asleep, she could never wake up. She tried to stand and had the vague sensation of falling, but the nothingness robbed her of the impact.

She was vaguely aware of someone removing her jacket and shoes, and then she was in a soft place. There was a definite something coming into focus through the haze of nothing ... a scent. A warm, safe smell, and she was surrounded by softness and warmth. The nothing was receding, and she fell exhausted into sleep.

*****

She woke into darkness, trying to clear her head. For a fuddled moment she thought her father was back, and she was snuggled up safe in her parents' bed. But then she remembered that her father was never coming back, and she woke a little more. In irritation she thought that Dorothy had managed to sneak into her bed again in the night. But everything was wrong. She was focusing on a wall; there was no wall next to her bed. Then she remembered. This wasn't her bed. Her body tensed, and the arm encircling her shoulders tightened around her, as if to keep her pinned into the curve of his body, but slowly the arm relaxed and withdrew. She felt his warmth leave her, and the blankets tug as he rolled away from her and out of the bed. Her mouth was dry as he opened the door and left the room.

*****

Duo was still in the kitchen, nursing his seventh beer of the night. Hilde had gone home at around two o'clock, with a drunken warning not to go in there, no matter what, and an invitation to stay at her place if he needed to.

"Now wha wou Wu ... Wu ... Wufffei do in a sishuashun liiike thish."

"He'd probably tell you to sober up and mind your own business."

Duo jumped as Heero sat down at the kitchen table across from him. "Oh, maaan! Don't do that! You are one quiet little fucker." Duo gave a grin at what he thought was a very clever double entendre. Heero crossed his arms on the table. "OK, not so little. But you don't scare me, no sireee." Duo noticed that Heero's sense of humor was intact at zero percent. "All well, can't blame a guy for trying." Slowly Duo focused on Heero's face. His bottom left eyelid was twitching, and his eyes were red. "Guess you've had a hard night, eh Heero buddy?" Duo couldn't help himself and started snorting at his wit, even though he knew he shouldn't.

Next thing he knew he was lying on the floor, three feet away from his overturned chair, and Heero was getting ready to really do some damage.

"Wait! Wait! Stop, Heero. Don't hit me!"

The last thing he wanted was to be pummeled by the man who didn't know the meaning of pain. Heero stood over him, clenching and unclenching his fists. Now THAT was the Heero that Duo remembered. Looked like Relena was bringing the life back into him already.

"I'm sorry, Heero. Too much beer. But really, no more bad jokes. You've knocked me sober, OK?"

Heero walked back to his abandoned chair and sat down. "Whew." Duo stood up, even though the room was leaning a little to the left, rubbing his jaw to check if anything was broken. He righted his chair and straddled it, leaning his elbows on its back.

OK, Duo. Don't mess this one up. This is what Hilde was talking about, how one day he'd try talking. For once in your life, keep your big mouth shut.

"I can't remember being young." Heero's voice was weirdly conversational, considering he'd just been in kill mode. "Can you?"

It took Duo a few seconds to focus on the question. Being young? Being hungry, alone, stealing food every day to stay alive. The Reverend Maxwell, and Sister Helen. The bastards who killed them, and everyone else at the orphanage. Flashes of his pre-Gundam days went through his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, do you remember a childhood. Playing. Not thinking about death."

Duo lowered his head onto his crossed arms. "No, not really. I guess I didn't have what you'd call a normal childhood. I think my only playmate was death."

After a long silence, Heero said, "How are we supposed to go on living now? No-one ever taught me how to live, only how to survive."

"I thought you said the only way to a good life was to follow your emotions."

Heero grunted, and another long pause followed.

"But what happens when your emotions conflict?"

Duo looked down at the tiles under his chair. "It seems to me, that sometimes the conflict isn't between emotions, so much as between what you want and what you fear."

Heero sneered, "Is that why you let Hilde hang around, but never let her get too close?"

"Huh?" What did Heero know about Hilde and him?

"I've been living here for almost four months. You're no better with her than I am with Relena."

Duo's head shot up. "Well at least I didn't run away from her after the war was over, and never come back!"

"No, you just tease her with the promise of your friendship, but you never deliver."

"I AM her friend. I just don't want to hurt her is all!"

Heero glared at the kitchen sink.

"You know what I mean. You never let yourself admit to loving her. You never listen to her calling you."

"What are you talking about?"

The intensity was back in Heero's eyes. Duo had to look down.

"I've seen you look at her when her back is to you. There's something in her that you need. She's the thing that keeps you going. She's the reason you're not dead."

Duo turned his head and rested it on his arms. His braid swung out and hung down in front of him, nearly touching the tile floor.

"She's so strong. Not the way you and I are strong. It's as though there's just more life in her than in other people. Sometimes I feel like a vampire, trying to keep this old corpse going by sucking on her blood. I'm afraid I'd just ruin her life if I ever got too close. The god of death has no right to love someone as alive as Hilde." His last words were bile in his mouth. Maybe Heero was better company when all he did was grunt. This was getting painful.

On cue, Heero stood up. He paused in the doorway. "Sorry I hit you so hard."

Duo smirked. "Well, I guess I deserved it. Feeling better?"

"No."

*****

He was thinking about the hours he'd just spent holding her sleeping body against him, using all of his self-control to just hold her and not to disturb her rest. Duo was right. What you want and what you fear, that was the battle. Her scent was around him like a fog, dulling everything else as he walked down the hall to his room. She was in there waiting for him, but this time he wouldn't run. He would stay. He would tell her the name his mother had called him, and promise not to let her die because he loved her.

He paused, leaning against the door frame, trying to gain control over his body. It was as though he was in the worst battle of his life. His heart rate was high, and his skin was feeling for movement in the air around him. How does she do this to me? All I can see is the pool of her hair falling from her neck as she's sleeping next to me. Can I do this? Can this work? She said she loved me. I can't let her die.

He ran his fingers down the smooth wood framing his doorway, and the feel of it sent a shiver down the front of his body. A soft groan of anticipation as he turned the knob to his door.

The scene before him was too confusing. His limbs were somehow heavier than they should be as he lurched into the room. Trying to take in his empty bed, the open window. "Where is she?" She left her shoes. Where did she go without her shoes?

"No, Relena! Not now, please." His body was so heavy now that it sank to the floor. He found himself on his hands and knees and craned his head up to look at the open window. Oh god, she might be hurt! What if she jumped? She could be hurt! He sprang to the window, and found no trace of Relena below. He erupted in anger. "Damn it!"

"Heero? Everything all right?"

Heero let his shoulders drop, and slowly removed his arm from the broken window he had punched through a moment before.

"I heard you yell, and then the glass breaking." Duo looked around the room. "Where's Relena?"

Heero lowered his head and noticed a folded piece of paper on his desk. With Duo watching, he fought to regain perfect control of himself. Perfectly calm, completely unemotional, Heero opened Relena's note and did not read it aloud.

Goodbye Heero. I won't let you hurt me anymore. Don't follow me, please.

"She's got to show up at the space dock at some point. She doesn't have that big of a head start. I'm ready to go as soon as you give the word."

"No." He watched his blood seep around the piece of glass wedged into the top of his hand, and drip down to stain the words on Relena's note.

"Come on Heero, what are you talking about? You're not just going to let her go are you? I thought you wanted to be with her?" If Duo didn't shut up soon, he was going to lose the bit of control he had mastered, and beat the living shit out of him.

"Oh Heero." Duo let out a sigh from the doorway. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up. You're bleeding pretty badly."

*****

Hilde was practically skipping along the familiar route to Duo's home. For the first time in ages, she was filled with a tingling hope that everything was going to work out.

If Heero and Relena can manage to get together, then so can Duo and I. We don't have nearly as many problems as they do. I wonder if Heero will actually be smiling from now on. That would be a welcome change! Maybe Relena will let me do a portrait of her. She was so beautiful when she showed up last night. If I were Heero, I'd be nuts about her too! I sure hope he didn't mess things up. He may be the greatest soldier ever, but he can really be an idiot when it comes to real life. Poor guy. Sometimes I wonder what he and Duo went through growing up to make them the way they are.

Hilde's pace slowed, as she began to near Duo's home, and doubts started gnawing at her happy state of mind.

It'll be all right. How could he possibly shove her away again. We're not fifteen anymore. I am certain that he loves her. Once she's right there in front of him, it'll all work out. But her face grew cloudy as she recalled that she'd been right there in front of Duo for three years, and he didn't seem to notice at all. Poor Relena. Poor me!

"Someone's got to love these crazy pilots."

She walked past the inactive machines in Duo's shop and opened the door to the upstairs apartment. She reached the kitchen and helped herself to a glass of water. She was just contemplating the fun of waking up Duo, when he stumbled into the kitchen, unshaven and looking like he'd barely slept.

"Wow. You look awful. Did the lovebirds keep you up? Too much noise coming from the next room? You know, you could have come over to my place. I'd always put you up for the night." Hilde's grin faded as Duo failed to react to her jibes, and sat down heavily, leaned his head back and gave a long sigh.

There was definitely something wrong. It was a cold queasiness in her stomach that never failed to let her know when things were about to go very wrong.