Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Death Throws ❯ Record 1.3 ( Chapter 3 )

Death Throws: Record 1.3

By: Kiamirei

~I don't own Gundam Wing. Please review this, or email me with your questions and comments.

THE LIFE OF CIRCLES

Quatre's life seemed to be ruled by circles. They were everywhere. He had started out living in his family's huge estate and surrounded by his myriad sisters. Those girls had coddled him, supported him, bickered with him, and had protected him from the sorrows of the outside world for as long as they could. But no one remains innocent forever, and eventually the coming war had gotten hold of him, and he had been given the responsibility -and the privilege, he grudgingly admitted- of piloting Sandrock. Then the battles had ended, to his immense joy, and he was back at home once again. There had been peace, war had reigned, and now there was peace again.

It was not prevalent only in his own life. Nature, too, was filled with circles. The sun was circular. The moon was circular. Clouds were circular. Trees were circular. Flowers took circular shape. Bushes were circular. Drops of water were circular. Grains of earth and sand were circular. Rocks were circular. The Earth itself was circular. Animals migrated in circular patterns. The bodies of all living organisms were circular, from the shape of the head to the shape of the toes. Cells were circular. Nowhere in the nature were there straight lines or angles; those were man's invention alone, for better or for worse.

On the other hand, the natural state of an animal was eternal conflict. One either killed to eat, or was killed in turn. Would man follow suit? He sincerely hoped not; Quatre was enjoying his life. It had not been easy coming back home at first, though. The problem had not involved dealing with the end of the war, as it had for others; on the contrary, he had celebrated it wholeheartedly. Nor was it finding a home to go back to. Rather, the problem was actually bringing himself to do it.

He and the four other Gundam Pilots had stayed with one another after Heero had destroyed the falling piece of Libra, in the beginning. They had made some pointless repairs on their mobile suits, and had talked with each other about their feelings on the war and the enemies that they had faced. Zechs. Treize. Une. Noin. Random soldiers who had shown surprising bravery and ethics on the battlefield.

As they had mulled over what had been the most important -if the most depressing- time of their lives, Quatre had affirmed something that he had only vaguely contemplated before. Zechs Merquise, Treize Khushrenada, Lady Une, and Lt. Noin were not really the evil people that he and his fellow pilots had forced themselves to regard them as in order to fight against them with a mind feeling slightly less guilty than it would normally would. It was true that during the war, they had held respect for those opponents, but it was only when the fighting ceased that he and his friends were allowed to regard them as people with feelings and emotions, beings that could love and feel pain. Well, perhaps they had not been so unseeing as that, but they had been rather reluctant to explore the human side of their enemies.

Shoot first; think later, he thought to himself somewhat bitterly. The soldier's -no, the terrorist's- art.

Before returning to his home colony, the Arabian had realized that he would have to do something about Sandrock. After all, he could not take it to his home, could he? But neither could he destroy it. The boy had considered that option seriously, so seriously that he had put it in the middle of a field and was holding the self-destruction switch in his hand -from a safe distance, of course. However, as he looked at the machine that he had come, strangely enough, to regard almost as a friend, and said his farewells, he found that he could not press the button. The Gundam had seemed to look at him helplessly, and appeared hurt that he would even think about destroying it. After he stood gazing at it for a half-hour, waging some silent battle with himself, he had slowly taken his thumb off of the button and climbed back inside. Then he had loaded it back onto its carrier, and gone back to Rashid, in whose company he was temporarily in.

When the boy told Rashid about his inability to destroy the mobile suit, the man had promptly volunteered to hide it at his base. Azure eyes shining, Quatre had accepted the touching offer. He had accompanied his friend to the base, and had made adjustments to the weapon right in the hangar that it was to be left in. For security purposes, he rigged a security system that would prevent anyone from trying to open the cockpit, and had then made sure that no one would be able to work it but him, even if they were able to get past the initial protection.

After staying with the Maguanacs for a week and a half, he acknowledged to himself that he needed to go home, no matter how nervous it made him. He wondered if he would be turned away at the door, or if no one would be there when he arrived. Perhaps his sisters were selling the business, and would soon move off out of the L4 colony area, leaving him alone once again. Maybe they would all hate him, blaming him -justly, he felt- for the death of their father and sister. It was with great trepidation that he contacted the place, informing them of his return. Some of his worries were alleviated by the conversation he had had, but he was still frightened as he walked up to the gate of his house.

He need not have been worried. The three sisters still at the estate had called all the rest, and all twenty-nine siblings had been waiting for him. There had been a great homecoming party, and he could not remember a time of that day that he was not being either hugged or kissed. It was a nice memory. But no matter how cheery they had all seemed he had sensed that some of them did not want them home. Oh, they attempted to hide it, of course, but Quatre had spent much of the past year analyzing Heero and Trowa, who were nearly incomprehensible when it came to telling what emotions they were feeling, or if they even had emotions at all.

He did not blame them in the least. After all, he had left just before the war had began, nowhere to be found, until he had made the brief visit in which his father and sister had died. Then he had left again, unreachable. Yet, here he was again, shortly after the war had ended, hoping to be taken in. He could understand why they would be angry; for all they knew, he had been hiding somewhere, too cowardly to face reality. They did not know that he had actually been risking his life and killing his heart in order to fight for something nearly unattainable. There was no way he could tell them that he had been a Gundam pilot. Not only was it dangerous, but also they would despise him all the more.

But they deserve to know, he told himself as he thought it over. Wufei was right. You really are weak.

At least none of his sisters criticized him to his face. He did not know if he would be able to bear that. But there were those who did love him anyway, and they had stayed after many had gone back to their lives and their jobs. He was eternally grateful to them, even if they were so overprotective it was suffocating. Quatre had explained it all to Duo once.

"It must be nice to be back home," Duo had commented.

"Yes, it is."

"And your sisters must be overjoyed that you're back."

"Not all of them…but yes, some are," he had replied, smiling. It hurt that some of them disliked him, but it was deserved, and he could bear it.

"I'm glad."

"Thank you. It can get a little hard to take, though, as thankful as I am to them."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you remember Catherine, don't you?"

"Yes, I do! That was one protective lady. I don't know whether to envy Trowa or pity him."

"Imagine being surrounded by several Catherines all hours of the day."

Duo winced.

"Oh. I see."

Still, there was nowhere else he would rather be at the moment. His life had come to a full circle, and he was happy again. But what about the circle of war and peace? Would that, too, continue? He hoped not, because peace was much, much better than war was. War did nothing but destroy lives, and in the end, there really were no winners. He had been lucky, he knew. When the war ended, he had both a home to go back to and a loving family at that home. There had not been any problems adjusting to the new era, save for nightmares of the Zero System. But those were few and far between, and he did not worry about them. He had enough wealth that he was not in want of anything, and although most of his friends had left him, he had his sisters and he had Duo. Others had not been so lucky. Soldiers drunk themselves senseless, or killed themselves, or could not stand peace. Families who had lost people to the war fell apart and descended into chaos. Both individual and multiple lives were ruined.

However, the World Nation would do well, and now that the fighting had ceased, people could pick up the broken pieces of their lives and begin anew. Quatre knew that he would be happy in this new era, and was glad that he had fought for it, no matter how useless his efforts might have been to the cause. Despite the pain, the world was a good place and he had high hopes for it and for his life. Certainly this once circle of war and peace would be broken.