Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Behind Closed Doors ❯ 17: the chair by the window ( Chapter 17 )

17: in the chair by the window

Heero stuffed the laptop in his backpack and climbed out of the truck. The postcard matched the vision he saw; a towering pink monolith with gaudy purple letters sprawled over the front that matched Quatre's handwriting. Heero walked through the doors and up to the desk without really taking anything in.

"Yes, can I help you?" The nurse behind the desk asks.

"I'm here to see Quatre Winner."

"Is he expecting you?"

"Yes."

And she dials a number and Heero can hear Quatre's voice on the phone. He'll be right down. And she smiles politely to Heero and leaves him alone. Heero just stands there, waiting, staring at his reflection in the plastic surrounding her desk.

"Heero!" Arms wrapped around him, almost taking away the cold, but when they leave it only makes him numb and he wishes he had not come. "It's been too long!"

Yes, it has. And look at us, we're getting old. Heero just smiles, wondering how old they are now. He hasn't been keeping track. But his reflection looks younger than Quatre, somehow unchanged while Quatre has moved on; become a man.

"Wufei?"

"Yes, of course, come this way!"

And Heero follows the leader through his hospice, for children, to the top level. This is where Quatre lives now, where he finds refuse from his corporation. It's nice, in a business, `I have a life' kind of way.

There is a chair by the window. Wufei is there, staring out the window. Heero walks over slowly and sits down on the floor at his feet.

"Wufei?" There is no reply. No response at all. Heero doesn't know how he got here, or why he came. He knows only that Wufei is gone, and that this is what remains.

Heero thinks Wufei went away with an angel one day and wonders if that's what will happen to him. It frightens him, the very thought, and he clutches his backpack like a lifeline, standing, moving away, ignoring Quatre's shocked pleas as he races downstairs and back to the car. From the driver's seat he looks up at the top floor.

And there is the chair. By the window.