Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ I. The Great Escape ❯ Live and Let Live ( Chapter 4 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Live and Let Live

It was morning. The morning Natalie was returning to the base, when I realized it was time for me to go. She had a look in her eyes, a veiled pain. She’d stayed for a month, and we’d talked several times. She understood what he would do to me. She completely understood why I had run away…and what he would do to her village.

I said my goodbyes to her quietly, calmly, knowing in my heart that even if it took her all day, she was going to tell him that she’d found me. I knew he would reward her, and possibly not harm the villagers. She would be favored…and I would be in hell.

I waited quietly at the end of the boat dock with her family, and even after she’d disappeared, I stood there.

“Eh, Oi?” Indra muttered, moving up behind me.

“She’ll tell him I’m here,” I returned, focusing on him. “He’ll come here…in a rage…but if she’s with him, she’ll be able to appeal for the village sanctuary.”

Indra gave me a confused look, looking after his sister with a thoughtful expression, then met my eyes again and nodded once in consent.

I pulled him into a tight hug and held him a moment. “Thank you so much,” I muttered. “You saved my life.”

“Will you come back?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it back—if I’ll be able to find the place. I’ll try, though, when things settle down. I’ll try and come back.” I turned and darted up the ramp, moving into our hut as Mama gave me a confused look. I threw things in a bag—mostly the foodstuffs. I could get more clothes with the money. Finally, getting everything I thought I wanted, I moved to Mama and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, I have to leave.”

“What? Why?” she demanded, her face turning saddened.

“Your daughter…she’ll tell them I’m here. If I’m not here…she’ll be able to control him. I’ll write him a note, okay? Tell him a version of what’s happened here.” I kissed her cheek again and flew to the desk, scribbling down a quick note in English. I explained to him that I had stayed in the village, then that I had left it, and that the people wouldn’t know where I was going.

“What does it say?” Mama asked of me through the tears in her eyes.

“It says I was here and now I’m leaving,” I explained, pulling her into another hug and kissing her tear-wet cheek. “I love you, Mama.”

Narsi came into the hut with a scared expression on her face, and as I looked out the door I saw the other villagers moving up as well, staring in. I pulled the girl into a tight hug and kissed her cheek, repeating that I was sorry and loved her, then grabbed my bundle.

“Take Vasu!” Nassaiya tried to insist, thrusting the boy at me—and I knew that it was the one family too many.

“Both of you,” I said. “Quickly.”

That brought a village lull as the woman ran off to pack.

“It will make it easier here—the widows’ children are getting old enough now to start helping fish and take care of the families. Without me here…I’m sorry, all of you,” I said louder. “Natalie will tell those at the compound that I was here. I don’t begrudge her this. It is her right to protect the family. I can’t go back, though. I’m leaving now. Can someone tell me how to get to the city?”

- -

Vasu wasn’t crying. I’d expected him to cry, he was sitting excitedly in the boat as I rowed and strained against the current. Nassaiya had an exulted and worried expression on her face as well.

Djara had refused to come.

I swallowed hard at the memory of her huge eyes before she turned and ran off, the confused look her father gave me. Her mother wailing when I realized there was no point in waiting for a girl who didn’t want me to take her. I’d re-launched my boat, and the mother had keened like there was a death in the family.

Nassaiya, on the other hand, would be of very little use to me in the cities. She spoke no English and was uneducated. Vasu would learn quickly if I kept them with me; they would be fish out of water if I left them behind. I was now Vasu’s father…and Nassaiya’s husband. I had a family, and even if we weren’t married, I knew everyone would expect it of us.

Hadn’t I decided not to do that?

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I had to leave the one place I’d felt safe, to break my back rowing a boat against a current alone. The only issue was the distance, however. I was used to rowing the boats, though Indra…Indra.

Uprooted from home…again.

I wasn’t scared this time. Uncertain, for sure, but not scared. I didn’t dread going to bed for not wanting to wake up. I wanted to wake up now…and run. I’d have to find an embassy.

Was this city big enough? How much could I get for my boat? Had the water lowered so much that I couldn’t get it to the city? Empty boats meant death, and any village they floated near took them as a bad omen. If I did have to leave my boat, it would be securely tied to a tree.

“Oi?” Nassaiya muttered after an eternity of silence.

“Yes?” I grunted, rowing on.

“Why are we here?”

I studied her eyes a long moment, realizing the true logic would belittle her and make her feel useless. “Do you want to go back?” I asked quietly.

“No!” she exclaimed immediately. “Please, don’t misunderstand…but…Djara refused to come with us, and here I am.”

“Djara is still too immature,” I muttered, looking away.

“And am I so much more mature?” she asked.

I met her eyes again and shrugged. “You’re a woman, not a girl. If I left you in the village, I’d always worry if you and Vasu were getting fed enough, if that fast job I did on your house would hold…if when the next rains come you’d be washed away.”

She offered me an embarrassed smile, lowering her eyes demurely.

“And then it helps the village,” I added. “Vasu wouldn’t be of age to help them or for another five years or more…and I didn’t want to leave everything behind.”

“So there are many reasons,” she noted, looking to my face again. “Many, not few.”

“I could keep coming up with them if you’d like,” I noted.

She giggled, flashing that smile at me again, then leaned down and lifted her son to her lap to hug him tightly.

Maybe I’d be a good father…maybe I wouldn’t do something wrong by her…

And maybe it would be a disaster.

- -

I rowed and rowed and rowed, and when my arms got tired, I rowed some more, when my back got tired, I changed things up…and rowed.

The men who’d go to town had misled me slightly. Their trips would be all day trips, but I assumed most of their day had been spent in town, but as the day wore on, I began to realize the flaw in that assumption…or maybe it was because only I was rowing. The men who’d go into town would usually be a group of six or seven…depending how many they could fit with the amount of stuff they intended to buy.

I’d come to the conclusion over my five months of exposure, that we were speaking Portuguese and I was fairly certain we were in the Amazon Rain forest, and while we’d all loved the huge vastness of it while fighting in our gundams, being the soul rower in a little twelve foot canoe left something to be desired.

For her part, Nassaiya made sure we stopped so I could eat lunch, and made sure I drank enough water…and kept her little boy entertained by singing old songs with him and fishing. They didn’t manage to catch anything, but he was trying. Finally, as sunset darkened to night, Vasu fell asleep, curled in his mother’s lap.

“We should sleep,” she informed me, looking around. “In ten minutes, you won’t be able to see.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, sighing and looking around. It didn’t take me long to find a sizeable tree, and I rowed toward that, making sure our boat fit into the center, protected on almost all sides from any floating debris. She helped me tie up, and within moments, I groaned and pulled my seat out, shoving it into one pointed end as she copied the motion with the other and dug out the blankets she’d taken from her home.

“We can wake up with the sun,” she informed me as I hopped out of the boat onto one of the branches to walk up and down#151;it had a long flat surface. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, you should wake him up,” I noted, stretching my back. “I’ll be back,” I added, hopping from one branch to another until I was a reasonable distance downstream. I had to go to the bathroom, and we wanted that as far away from our boat as we could.

“Where’s oi?” I heard Vasu ask in concern.

“Going to the bathroom,” she informed him in an affectionate sort of voice. “We’re going to eat and go to bed, so you should probably go, too.”

“Okay.”

The process of getting ready to sleep was quick and easy. After we’d all taken care of our business, Nassaiya set our food out so we could all eat. The boat was about four feet wide, and after we’d cleaned up our supper, I stretched out lengthwise along the bottom, relaxing entirely since my hardened muscles had been worked more than I could ever remember…at least since the wars.

Nassaiya stretched out beside me, curling somewhat into me as Vasu climbed between us to use my stomach as a pillow. I hadn’t been this close to a woman, aside from the hugs I exchanged with them there…since I was about nineteen, and if my muscles hadn’t been so sore I might have enjoyed it a little more.

- -

When I woke up again, the sky was still very dark, but light enough that I could see a fair distance in any direction. My muscles screamed at me when I moved to stand, but I knew that by this point, he would be looking for me, and I needed to get away. By the time I got back from going to the bathroom, Vasu darted by me to do his own business, and Nassaiya was sitting in the boat rubbing her eyes.

“Sleep good?” I asked, sliding back into the boat and pulling my bench back to put it in place again.

“I did, did you?”

I smiled at her, watching her climb from the boat and folding up the blankets. I stretched my muscles out as Vasu rejoined me with one of those happy child smiles.

“Morning,” I muttered, winking at him.

“Can I call you dad?”

Wow.

I blinked at the boy in disbelief as Nassaiya wound her way much more delicately to me. Her feet were bare…and very cute…and I really shouldn’t be noticing that at this particular point in our expedition of me running like a fucking dog with my tail between my legs.

“Mom,” Vasu turned to look at her, “can I call him dad?”

She blinked at her son, about as astonished as I was.

“Mom?”

“What a thing to say!” she reprimanded, focusing on him. “You can’t expect him to be your father!”

They didn’t even know my name.

“I don’t…mind,” I muttered, meeting her eyes earnestly. I was very aware that taking her with me from the village was along the same lines as marrying her. I’d been married to her in one form or another since my leg had healed and I’d started feeding her…we just hadn’t consummated yet.

I really really needed to focus on more than this.

“Yay! Dad!” Vasu darted forward to hug me around the middle, and I returned the hug with a smile as I dropped back to my seat. “I’m hungry, mom,” he added, turning to her. “Can we eat?”

“I’ll make food,” Nassaiya agreed, studying me with almost curious eyes.

“My name is Duo Maxwell,” I informed her quietly.

She turned to look at me with a more thoughtful curiosity before nodding and smiling at me. “Should I take on your last name?”

“How about we wait and see if we get along in the real world, huh? This heaven of yours is misleading.”

She laughed at that, turning back to the food.

I unhooked the boat from the tree and pushed away, taking a moment to use my compass to get my heading again before starting to row.

Vasu decided to start talking to me, which actually made the trip seem to go by much faster…or maybe it was just that we were so close to the end of our journey…I hoped.

- -

E/N: Sorry about that, I didn't mean to let this sit so long...I'll get the other stories of this series up...tonight, lol.