Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Falling ❯ Falling ( Chapter 1 )

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Falling

By Lt. Noin (imnutz@hotmail.com)

Status: complete
Category: vignette, TCP:GW, crossover
Spoilers: none
Season: none
Rating: G
Content Warnings: none
Summary: Some people will do anything for love.
Disclaimer: the people aren't mine, the show isn't mine,
the original storyline isn't mine, and The Common People
concept belongs to Kielle and Phil Foster and is used with
permission; nothing here is mine but the prose. Be nice
and don't sue?
Author's Notes: This is a GWing/Sandman crossover...
Actually, there's not that much Sandman except for a main
concept. I dare not write Neil Gaiman; he is too good. But
I figure I can write a reaction to his stuff, ne? Also,
please just ask me for permission if you want to archive
this? I'm usually very nice about this; I just like
knowing where my stuff is. Other fics of mine can be
found at http://www.geocities.com/tmtestosterone in the
library. And C&C is always greatly appreciated!! ^_^
=========================================================

I am falling.

I have been tumbling in free-fall through my life since I
first met her. So I decided to seek her out. It is not
that difficult in the world I live. She is everywhere, as
present as the faintly metallic smell in the air, and she
will last longer than that does. She is beautiful, in a
way that only someone who brings an end to the humdrum
messiness of life can be.

I must have first edged a hesitant toe over the precipice
when I was swallowed by her eyes. It would have happened
even if I were not willing to be taken in, because to
simply know that I was a part of something, that I somehow
fit, was something I would have and still will die for. It
was all there when she looked at me. I slipped a little
further when she spoke to me -- I don't remember what she
said. It was the most important thing I had heard, and it
wasn't. Not as important as the sound of her voice in my
head. She filled my head with the sudden spurt of laughter
that bursts through when you least intend it to, with the
quiet murmur of water lapping on stones, and curiously,
with the most uplifting sound I have heard.

She sounded like hundreds of birds taking flight. Soaring
into a sky full of open air and possibilities.

And then she smiled at me. And I forgot her eyes, and I
forgot her voice.

Then she kissed me lightly, a benediction, and took my
hand and led me to the world.

I hate my world.

It has tried to make me forget her from the start. Things
got in the way. Instead of searching for her, I had to sit
in a hard wooden chair at a hard wooden desk day after
day, with the dry chalk dust irritating my nose. Then when
I was let out, there were the necessary human
interactions -- the constant social sidestepping, asking,
"How are you?" and replying with a brief, skin-deep smile,
"Fine," even though I am really not fine because I am
falling through the world without a thing to catch on to.

And I won't be fine, I can't be fine until I find her.

So I have gone looking for her. I went through the sterile
training they give soldiers here, because we are all
simply cannon fodder to hold some ground before they bring
in the truly special ones, the ones who have formed their
own elite brotherhood. But I am finally here. And she is
everywhere.

She is there when they have to bring in machines to cut
my classmate's body out of the twisted wreck that was his
cockpit.

She is there when the monitor in the overcrowded hospital
flatlines, as an already too-still body ceases to inhale
and exhale.

She is there when a civilian screams as she is crushed by
the weight of a building bombed.

And she is there when someone tired of the ceaseless
hurting examines the taste of a cold gun barrel in his
mouth.

Not me. Not yet.

Not quite yet.

But so close now, so near that I can nearly smell her
elusive scent, a mixture of salt and sweat and tears that
somehow escapes the mundane. So I asked to be sent into
space, where the true action is. Only there, I lost her
once more. They pit us against and beside dolls, shells
of MS's controlled by computer. Now, when we fight, the
beauty of it, everything that makes it hers, has
disappeared, and all we are left with are the empty
explosions, no matter how they light up the darkness.

I thought about calling her, getting her attention, but I
don't think she would have appreciated it. She would have
understood, of course. She understands everything. But
she would not have liked it much. Even so, I can watch
her work. But with the dolls, there is nothing.

So perhaps now is the time. It is not as though I'm
fighting for anything. No, untrue. I fight to see her,
I fight so that I can brush against the her each and every
day, so that I can in some way know her. My reason. No
better, no worse than anyone else's. At least the
knowledge of her will last in a way that peace, or the
memory of war, or nobility or bravery or cowardice or
evil shall not. Now, then.

But as I decide, new orders are given to me, to intercept
and destroy a shuttle coming my way.

Intercept. Such a strange word. I have spent my entire
life attempting not to intercept any of the petty human
things that do not belong to her. Yet, as I edge closer,
for some reason, I decide to board it.

Maybe to destroy myself along with it.

Except, there is a boy inside. He is blond and petite.
He looks exhausted, even in his sleep. And it is odd, but
I feel as though I have been intercepted from my long
fall. I cannot fathom my sudden growth of morals, or
ethics, or whatever the academia may call it, yet there
he lies, and here I stand, and I have decided not to
destroy the shuttle. I don't even realize when I know
he's a Gundam pilot. Technically, I'm not on his side,
but I have never been on anyone's side. Not even my own.

So I unfasten the restraints and guide him into my own MS.
Then I buckle the restraints again, around myself. And I
notice that I have not thought of her, nor of meeting her.
There are only he and I in the world now.

As my MS fires off into space, another approaches,
prepared to board this shuttle. Apparently I have been
taking too long, and my superiors are growing impatient.
Never mind. I swing the shuttle away, quickly, and never
anticipate the shock of light and heat that intercepts me.

And there she is, smiling at me, like I always imagined
her. It's rather ironic. I always thought she would be
there to catch me at the end of all things, but I have
already been intercepted from my downward trajectory into
nothingness. And by no more than a young boy, no older
than a high-school student, with a halo of gold hair.

She looks into my eyes then, and laughs at me kindly. I
think she knows. Then, she nudges her elbow into my ribs.
Get it? she seems to ask. And in bask of her smile, I
think that perhaps I do.