Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ After Colony 198 ❯ One Person's Creation ( Chapter 7 )

After Colony 198

by Iris Anthe

Chapter 7

His own saliva, slick metallic weight to his tongue, and a flash of vertigo plunging through his stomach. Zechs was left gripping the armrests of the cargo shuttle. He had found working passage as the pilot's assistant.

The ship was as unkempt and stubbornly functional as its owner, a deeply jowled man in his late forties who showed no signs of ever having been domesticated and who no longer tried to make himself attractive in the great mating pool of humanity. He gave his temporary help a wary look. "You OK?" It was more a warning than an inquiry. The implication being that the airlock wasn't far, and Zechs might find himself on the other side of it if he started acting too strangely.

"I'm fine." Feeling this wasn't enough he added, "No need to worry."

The man grunted and said, "Don't need you now. Be needing sleep in six hours. Til then you stay back there." He jabbed a thick knuckled finger towards the small, partitioned area with a cot and toilet which served as a bedroom for whoever might need it.

Without even a twitch of pride, Zechs silently headed for the cot and hopefully some sleep. As he lay there waiting for the only form of oblivion allowed him now that his whiskey was gone, he pondered that last "attack" of his detoxification. It had felt different, external. For the first time, he began to truly worry if Relena might be in trouble.

*****

Hilde was relieved to change clothes. The smell of shuttles always brought back bad memories from the war, and it had a way of invading everything, even her hair. So a shower and a different set of clothes did a lot to settle her nerves. Being the kind of person who didn't make a habit of holding stress inside, Hilde began to pace around their guest room in Quatre's "house," if you could call something this large by such a small name. She began picking up one beautifully crafted object after another that adorned Duo's and her room and once again thought thankfully how some rich people had an appreciation for something more than just business. If Quatre's entire house was filled with art and craft as fantastic as this, then she wanted to see the whole damn place!

With that in mind, and with Duo still off chasing the youngest Winner children, Hilde decided to wander around this physical ode to beauty. Three floors down, and countless treasures later, she stopped dead in her tracks. Was that an Ito-Rodolfo Midori? Hilde paused to gape at the only weaving by the famous L1 artist she'd ever seen in person. No-one had ever been able to figure out how the great textile artist had managed to generate holographic thread so flexible and gossamer, which she then wove into a sculpture of fabric so ephemeral it seemed to glide in its own private breeze even when completely still. Rumor had it she did it all by hand. Hilde was about to reach up and touch the masterpiece when a door whooshed open behind her, causing her to jump guiltily.

She smiled shyly at the tall, auburn-haired man who came to stand by her side. It had been a while since she'd last seen the silent circus performer, ex-Gundam pilot and was afraid he had seen her reaching for the priceless hanging sculpture. To her relief he gave no indication of having noticed, not that he gave any indication of anything at all. Boy, was she glad Duo at least used chatter to cover his more private emotions. Heero and Trowa were way too sealed up inside!

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Did he just say something? What? Oh!

"Yes. Yes it really is."

"I asked Quatre to hang it outside his room to give me a reason to open his door and step out in the morning."

Hilde was faintly embarrassed by the glimpse given by the usually silent man into his private life, so in the awkward silence she joined him in returning to meditate on the artwork before them. It was said that in some of her pieces, if you stared at them long enough, you began to see faces in her patterns. Hilde had a habit of finding faces in just about every organic surface she looked at, so she wasn't surprised to find a shimmering demon wink in and out of her peripheral vision along the lower right edge of the piece. If only she could run her hands over it.

"Would you like to touch it?" Trowa was looking at her now, but she could as usual only see one of his eyes. He had a strange habit of obscuring one eye with a very long forward thrust of hair so that she always had the feeling something wildly emotional was going on in the eye she couldn't see. Crazy Gundam pilots, the lot of them. At the moment, she wasn't sure if he was testing her or if he was really serious. Feeling oddly annoyed by his jarring presence interrupting her once in a lifetime enjoyment of this piece, she decided to test him back.

"Yes. I would very much like to touch this masterpiece that is worth more money than my entire sector on L2! Have you ever touched it?"

Her irritating companion raised an eyebrow at her tone and she suddenly felt incredibly childish. For all she knew this was his version of being friendly. She took a small, calming breath and tried to convey non-verbally that she was sorry for her snappish remark. To her amazement, Trowa Barton smiled.

"Wow, you've got teeth!"

"Yes, but don't tell," he winked at her conspiratorially.

Hilde burst out laughing at the suddenly hilarious man standing next to her and managed to choke out that his secret was safe with her. With a final sigh of mirth, she turned back to the wall hanging and asked him again if he'd ever touched it. After a quiet moment he reached out his arm and gently traced long fingers along its bottom edge.

"I only ever touch the bottom corner." He looked at her and she nodded in comprehension. It wasn't that someone might catch them touching an expensive collector's item. This piece was sacred, a culmination of humanity. When an artist reached this level of harmony, meaning and skill and put all of their heart and soul and years of practice into one piece, you didn't just lay your hands on it like an everyday item. You approached it in awe, hoping to somehow grasp the divinity manifested in this one person's creation. You only ever touch the bottom corner.

Silently, Hilde put out her hand and retraced the contour that Trowa had just caressed. To her surprise it was warm, as though it held a bit of life in itself. Feeling thrilled and contented, she breathed in and smiled.

"Thank you, Trowa."

The auburn bang couldn't obscure the genuine happiness her companion felt in sharing this secret with someone who understood.

All of a sudden the smile disappeared and a look she could only interpret as absolute panic filled his face. Before she could ask, he was gone, in a dead run down the hall.

"Oh shit." With no better thought than a vague notion of helping her new friend, Hilde took off after him.

*****

Someone else. There. Here...where? Where? There was no where, no when in the nothing, only the strain of her own disconnected mind, and something new, something else. Someone else was in the nothing with her, only she couldn't see them, hear them, touch them, having lost all of that some time ago. It was an itch of invasion, a sinuous violation that told her she was not alone here in hell.

"Hello?"

A ripple. The act of speaking created her voice anew, forming her throat and tongue to shape the sound, her lungs to give it breath, her lips to give it passage, her ears to register the sound. Suddenly, she came into existence.

Marveling at the pleasure of her skin, she traced her fingers tentatively over her face and gave a harsh bark of triumph at her renewed existence.

"Hello? Hello? HELLO! I'm alive!"

The statement brought her up short in the midst of her giddy celebration.

"Am I?"

*****

Duo stopped to give a long, delicious stretch to his tired body. He felt two vertebrae crack and sighed in relief.

"It's all finally going to be all right," his smile spread further as he popped the last bit of stolen cookie into his mouth. Heero is nuts, but all we need to do now is get Relena to come back from wherever it is that Princesses go to relax, and it'll all be OK.

Thinking about the former Queen of the world brought back the guilt that had been nagging at Duo since that night, almost five weeks ago when Relena had bolted. Heero had come to him for friendship when he was obviously close to snapping, and Duo had tried to help. There were even times when he thought maybe he was helping, but it was Relena and only Relena who could save the Suicide King. Duo should have gone after her that night. He shouldn't have listened to Heero. He should have known better, should have been a better friend. He could have left Heero in the apartment to be as self-destructive as he liked and gone after the one person who could truly heal his friend. But he'd chickened out, staying to bandage Heero's hand and convincing himself that he couldn't force Heero and Relena to help each other. The truth was, he just didn't want to get that involved, and that selfish act was his complete failure as Heero's friend.

Then of course there was the unfortunate "kitchen incident," as Hilde had dubbed it. Duo had honestly wondered if Heero would view it as a betrayal of their friendship. For all Duo knew, Heero had returned that night looking for help and seeing Duo so "obviously" happy with Heero out of the picture could have been a blow to his unstable mind. But he looked all right now. Hell, he looked better than Duo could ever remember him. Lollipops, I'll have to remember that one! "Yep, maybe this'll all turn out OK after all."

That thought instantly vanished as Trowa raced past him, a look of panic spread across his normally placid features.

"Hey! What the... oh, man."

Duo spun around and followed in Trowa's wake, already knowing where they were headed.

*****

"Relena?"

Her scent? The bloodhound trail of her soul's essence weaving erratically before him. He had to find her. Through the stifling obscurity, this deprivation of all things rational, Heero knew that Relena was close.

"Relena!?"

*****

I am alive. I exist. Here is my body. My thoughts are real. But where is everything else? What does it mean to exist within nothing? Is this not life? Perhaps afterlife? Perhaps a dream? When do I wake up?

Relena stood looking at her hands, trying her best not to look for anything beyond the boundaries of her body, knowing the terror of finding nothing there. The implications were too horrible.

I don't want to be here. I don't want to be alone.

"There has to be a way back."

As if summoned, a hand appeared. Lightly, tentatively it touched her fingertips sending a tremor of relief through her body that was so acute as to feel like grief. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing beyond all hope that the nightmare was over and someone had finally come to care. She could feel tears collecting at the corners of her eyes. She felt a warm brush of fingers at her cheek and gasped in recognition.

"Heero!"

But when she opened her eyes to see if it was real, a scream of denial raged in the space around her.

"No!"

It roared in her mind, it pounded against her skin, it collapsed her limbs and left her whimpering in a ball.

*****

Quatre reached. He stretched his hand, his arm, his shoulder, every joint and muscle strained to catch the hand before him. Suddenly the weight that had been pulling him down released and he surged into Trowa's embrace.

He could smell Trowa's fear as he came back to consciousness. Was something wrong? It was so warm and right, how could anything be wrong? Quatre burrowed his face into Trowa's shirt and breathed a sigh of content.

"Quatre."

"Mmmmph." Why did they have to change? Couldn't it stay this safe?

"Quatre, wake up. Please."

Maybe there was something wrong. Quatre tried to sit up, but found it difficult to move...or rather, exceedingly painful to try. He groaned in protest and felt Trowa move to support him into a sitting position. He cracked open his eyes and quickly shut them again against the swaying of the floor he sat on. Why am I on the floor?

"What happened?"

He winced at the loudness of his own voice. But the stab of pain cleared a bit of the cotton that seemed to be clogging his brain. He began to remember something.

"Heero!"

The former pilot of Wing Zero was curled tightly into a fetal position on the floor next to him, oblivious to all attempts by Duo and Hilde to shake him awake.