Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Reprieve ❯ chapter 18 ( Chapter 18 )

Title: Reprieve 18/?

Author: Lethanon

Archive: www.geocities.com/lethanon andraygunworks.net

Warnings: AU, Gundams, evil doctors, ooc, oc, sweepers, mayhem 5+2, 3+4

Notes: you may want to refer to the opening poem from this story to understand the full implications of this part. It's up to you.

Chapter 18

"Is he okay?" Heero glared over Sally Po's shoulder, trying to get a better look at what was happening but knowing he should not interfere. Sally was trained to do this, trained much better than he could hope to be, but…She was not a Gundam Pilot and for that reason alone Heero feared he would always harbor a certain degree of distrust.

"He's fine. He's in shock is all. A few cracked bones…nothing major." Sally's hands belied her words as they stopped working their way over skin and fell to her sides, exhausted. Heero couldn't keep himself from spending a moment just studying those hands. They were slender, feminine things, but scarred, hard, calloused. They were a soldier's hands. He had never really noticed that before.

"He wanted me to tell Wufei…" Heero was not sure he should pass that little piece of information on, but Duo had, albeit unintentionally, informed the entire Sweeper crew of his…infatuation. That alleviated a small portion of Heero's guilt. A very small portion.

"I know. I think Wufei already knew, too. Don't worry; Duo will be fine and he can tell Wufei himself."

Heero sighed heavily, a bastard mix of satisfaction, relief, uncertainty and desperation. The strings holding the resistance together were being cut one by one, and Heero knew the puppet would soon fall. Once it would not have mattered to him, but now…Heero did not trust the doctors. Did not trust that they could simply create another puppet to take their place. There was no time, for starters, and when Heero looked down at Duo lying still and bruised on the makeshift bed he doubted there was anything to replace them with. They were not…normal.

"Heero?"

Heero looked down into dark eyes surrounded by deep shadows. Weary eyes, tired of fighting, tired of giving, tired of living. It made him…sad. It made him…mad.

"Why?"

Duo looked confused, in pain and more than a little troubled. Heero knew he must be remembering, and feeling the consequences, as he tried to fathom exactly what Heero was asking. It was the way Duo worked, Heero knew, but for some reason the complete analytical nature of the action annoyed him. It was another sign. There were too many signs.

"Heero…I…" I don't understand…Heero didn't understand either, but neither spoke the words. Instead Heero let his hands ball into fists as he knelt beside the bed and for the first time allowed his head to fall, allowed himself to curl in upon himself.

"Why…any of this?" Heero choked out the words, unsure why he could ask them now when every other attempt to voice them had failed. He had thought maybe he could talk to Quatre, or doctor J, but it proved too difficult. He had imagined Trowa, Hilde…but while they were close and similar in very different ways that lacked some essential ingredient Duo did not. They lacked a reason to hate him for what he had done; truly hate him, and the ability to forgive him for it.

"For peace, Heero. For freedom. For a chance to have a life and not just a living."

Heero raised his head and met Duo's gaze, but he could not hold it. His gaze fell to the side as his hands came up to twist in the deceptive white of the sheet.

"There is no peace…There is no such place."

Duo studied him for a long time. Heero could feel that moment when he made a decision, and he sensed rather than felt the fingertips that lifted his chin, seeking his gaze once more. Heero allowed it, if only because there was really nothing else to do. He had started this…and he would finish it. However, Duo, it seemed, intended a very different end than Heero had started out with in mind.

"Why didn't you turn up for the mission that morning Heero? Why did you try so hard to push me away the day before? Why did you accept the second mission and not cancel the other? Why…why are you still…rejecting…the mission?"

Heero was stunned into silence. He had not been…rejecting...the mission, had he? Not intentionally, but when he thought about it…was he not now questioning its purpose? He had never done that before. Had he not refused to assist Duo that day out of some perverse need to prove he was better than Duo and subsequently better than the mission? And pushing Duo away, keeping him always at arms length, was that not just another means to get away from it, to isolate himself from the horror consuming everything?

Heero had rejected the mission. The realization of that fact was enough to completely destroy him, at one point in his life, but it had failed to do so. He was alive, whole…sane. He was still here, sent again and again into madness, to fight, destroy…kill. It couldn't be right, yet he alternative was worse. At some point Heero knew it had simply gotten too much. That afternoon at that school…it seemed a lifetime ago. He had been furious, but not at Duo. Duo had simply been there, a willing accomplice to his rage, a rage they shared. Heero had needed someone to take it out on, somewhere to direct the fury, somewhere to hide until he got himself together.

Only he hadn't. He was still confused, still filled with a gnawing madness that raged for acknowledgment, and finally, it seemed, its moment had come. He was breaking, falling apart at the seams, and by some strange twist of fate it was again Duo to which it directed itself.

"I…I'm tired." Heero replied lamely, realizing it was what he had thought when he first looked down on Duo after catching him as he fainted inside Shenlong.

Duo's hand snaked out and grabbed his hand. Heero's initial reaction was to pull it free, but he did not. Instead, he let it stay there and it calmed him. After a while he sensed the pulse in the lower palm, beating between his own pulse. It felt…warm. Safe somehow.

"I'm tired of fighting," Heero whispered darkly, mind turning to the memories of doctor J and his ruthless training regime. Endless days locked in darkness, caged in monotony only to be freed in slavery. "I'm tired of giving," he continued, recalling the countless times he had scrubbed blood stains from the walls and floor of Wing, washed it from his skin, cleansed it from his hands. He thought of Duo hitting the self-destruct button and could not comprehend the level to which they had been expected to give. The same level he had for so long demanded of Duo and finally been given. Would he have done the same, eventually?

"So am I."

Heero looked up, stunned. Some part of him knew Duo's fears. Some part of him knew Duo was not a killing machine as doctor G tried to make him…as doctor J had made him. But, at the same time, to hear agreement from someone's lips, anyone's, let alone another Gundam Pilot, was more than Heero could have asked for, and he realized this was why his word had come now, with Duo. Any other would have tried to encourage him, to boost moral or to convince him of the righteousness of the cause. Only Duo saw the world for what it truly was; only Duo had the heart to acknowledge the despair.

"You're right Heero. There is no such peace as that we were sent to fight for; no such place even. This world is an ugly, twisted haven of darkness. I have never seen anything in this world worth fighting for."

"Then why?" Heero had a lot of why's he wanted answer for.

"Because I have seen something worth fighting for in here," Duo tapped his temple, then reached over and tapped Heero's temple. "And here. I've seen dreams of a better place than this one. You're right; it doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean it won't."

Heero had nothing to say to that. He didn't much like the idea of fighting for a dream, but he could also not reconcile how it was any less worthy than chasing an idea. So he sat there, on the cold metal floor of the mobile doll carrier as they made the return journey to the Peacemillion, in near silence, Duo's words hanging in the air between them.

*

"I love you."

Wufei sat in darkness, numbed by the absence of sight, but not silenced as his mind raced, remembering, devouring, hoping. Hoping it was true, because if it wasn't Wufei was beginning to realize how completely it could destroy him.

It had not been what he had expected, the battle with the Epyon. He had thought he would be able to help Duo; to communicate with him the best course of action. He had thought he would be able to assist Howard, adding his own tactical skills to those of the veteran fighter in the hopes of overcoming the poor odds against Oz. He had thought he would be able to isolate himself and be judge and jury rolled into one. He had not expected his heart to freeze.

But it had. The moment Epyon got its hands on Shenlong Wufei had known it would end badly. They were too different, too unmatched and it was painfully obvious that the system the doctors had installed in Deathscythe was being controlled within the confines of Epyon.

Worse, he had seen the moment Duo gave in to the inevitability of the battle, and he had heard the fear in the voice; not fear of death but fear of life. Wufei could finally measure the damage the doctors had done and it was too high; life was too high a price.

"This is not right," Wufei whispered into the darkness of the room he shared with Duo. The rustle of the sheets as he brought his knees up to hug against his cheek was the only reply and he sighed. There had been a moment when he had wondered if that would be the reply for all time; if he would never again sense Duo's heart beneath the skin, hear his breath throughout the night, see his face first, before all else. A moment when the world had suddenly ended and the cost had been too high.

Then it had started again, and Wufei was still a part of it, and while Duo lived he could not reach out and touch; could not reassure himself of that fact, and it hurt. It hurt in a place Wufei had thought was dead, had known was stunned beyond comprehension yet was now awake. Wufei placed his hand over his heart and felt it beating…felt it speaking.

He did not understand. He should have died, on him home colony, along with his wife and half his clan, when the Alliance first attacked. He should have died countless times as they abruptly began training him for his new task as a Gundam Pilot. He should have died when he came to earth and failed his first mission, driven into the jungle to face Sally Po. He should have died when he accepted a fool's errand to provide cover for a fellow soldier as they awaited back-up that would never come. He should have died…but he had not. Each time some force beyond his control sent him back.

"What do you want from me?"

"I think the question is, what do you want from yourself?"

Wufei looked up, shocked and horrified that he had not heard Howard enter; had not heard the door or noticed the light that had no doubt flooded in. He had let his guard down completely, or something had torn it down. It didn't really matter which. His face grew cold and terrifying to behold but Howard showed no fear and Wufei realized the depth to which Howard had observed him; how completely he had inconspicuously come to know him. There were no secrets here.

Howard came forward, perhaps sensing Wufei's distress, perhaps just wanting to rest his legs as he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his feet. Wufei kept his distance, remaining in the middle of the bed, Duo's pillow clutched in one hand.

"I knew a boy once," Howard said softly and the darkness somehow made him seem closer, his words more intimate, his story more important as Wufei strained to hear it. "Not anyone special, just a boy. He lived on L2. He lived in a street gang; his family. He didn't have a name. Then one day, a plague came, and the gang died, but the boy did not. He lived and in time, fate delivered him to an orphanage. He was again amongst a family. The one day people burnt down the church and killed everyone in it, but the little boy was not there. He was at an Alliance military base, stealing a mobile suit for the rebels who had attacked the church…Later, starving and exhausted, he smuggled himself aboard a ship hoping to find food."

Wufei's brow crinkled, confused. Howard was not the world's greatest storyteller. In fact he seemed a man of few words. Only that which was important was revealed, but that made the story…odd. There did not seem to be a point to the story, but Wufei knew Howard would not have come without a point to make. Perhaps the story was true, but if so it was a horrible tale, and if not there must still be some kind of moral message.

"It was a Sweeper ship?" Wufei finally asked, reasoning that was the only way Howard could have known this boy.

"Yes, it was a Sweeper ship; this ship, actually."

So Howard was the captain. That made sense. He owned the Sweepers and had designed the Peacemillion himself. But if the Peacemillion was around it could not have been that long ago, and the boy would still be around. Wufei swallowed dryly. The story had too much of a point.

"Do you still know this boy?"

"Sometimes," Howard shrugged, a slight smile barely visible in the dark. "That boy…he was afraid of so many things that he doesn't fear now, but there is still one he welcomes."

Wufei shuddered. Was death truly such a hungered for companion?

"The children in the plague, and the people in the church…they are his….when the system…they're what he meant, in the nightmares….they're his…"

"They are his dead, yes."

Wufei hung his head, again unable to reconcile this piece of the puzzle with what he knew. It fitted together but the picture it revealed made no sense. None could survive what was described. But then, no one could survive after they hit the self-detonation switch in a Gundam either…

"So? What do you want from yourself, Chang Wufei?"

Wufei frowned. What did he want?

"I want to do the right thing."

Howard actually smiled this time, his teeth glowing a little in the dark.

"And what is the right thing Chang Wufei?" Howard asked, getting up from the bed and heading for the door. He didn't wait for a reply as he left, leaving his question in the air between them.

"I love you. I'm sorry." The words repeated, over and over, as if they were trapped in the room and ricocheted continuously off the walls.

What was the right thing? Wufei stood up and went to the closet. He took out a pair of Duo's black jeans and put them on, followed by a black singlet. He put on a pair of steel-capped boots and wrapped a tool belt around his waist. He then Marched resolutely from his brooding place to the hanger, nodding to an anxious looking Hilde and Baz on his way in. He stormed all the way up to Deathscythe and glared at the mobile suit for a full minute before grabbing the lift and heading for the cockpit.

"I love you. I'm sorry." Wufei steeled himself.

What was the right thing? The answer was simple.

Try again.