Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Shatterglass ❯ Don't Stop Me ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Gundam Wing character and I'm not making a profit by writing this. This is purely for pleasure!

Warnings: Language, eventual lemon, ATTEMPTED suicide

Authors note: Okay. Here's the next chapter! : ) I'm sorta sorry about this chapter. It does a little back tracking and is basically Heero's POV of the last couple of paragraphs in chapter three…. I hope all the stuff about Saratine is believable to you all.

For FF.net, the number of reviews must total 32, before you get Chapter 5!

Artymuse, I tried to e-mail you about your review, but it wouldn't work. Are you sure you typed your e-mail address in correctly? I still have the e-mail and would like to send it to you.

Also, if you are interested in see the GW pic that inspired this story, go to: http://www.geocities.com/ladyampris/Shatterglass.html

Chapter 4: Don't Stop Me

Heero's POV

"Teach you?! Heero, I wouldn't even know where to start!"

"Oh," I said, drawing my knees to my chest, starring at the carpet between us.

Emotions swirled inside me like snakes, coiling around each other and tying knots in my stomach. At least, I assumed they were emotions, I thought bitterly. Howe the hell would I know? The only think that I did know was that I'd never felt anything quiet so strongly before. Whatever it was seemed to rage inside of me and it was confusing. I didn't seem to have any control over my body. These things, these emotions defied all logic, instead twisting my perception of right and wrong, friend and foe, telling me things that I didn't understand and wanted to ignore, but couldn't. That was the scariest part of all. I couldn't ignore these new things inside me, I couldn't control them and I've never been so out of control of my own body before. My body has always done what I've told it to do. But now it's hard to breath and my eyes are stinging, and I've got the strange feeling that I'm about to cry, except that Perfect Soldiers aren't allowed to cry. This is so different than what I thought it would be like. Despite what some might think, I actually know what emotions are. I know what it feels like to be scared or angry or confused. However, emotions were always something that I felt at a distance, thanks to Dr.J's drug, Saratine. They were always annoyances that I could turn off and on at a whim, so that they didn't impede my judgment. When I was seven, I came to the conclusion that everybody felt things distantly, the way I did. Of course, the logical side of me demanded that I tested this hypothesis. So, going against all my training and disobeying orders, I skipped my normal dosage of Saratine.

And nothing changed. I had still felt emotions the way I always had: distantly. I conclude that Dr.J's drug didn't really work after all. I kept taking Saratine anyways, of course. Saratine might not work, but I wasn't about to disobey orders again. Even at such a young age, it had already been drilled into me that I didn't disobey orders. It had taken me over three months to work up the courage to do it just that once.

Of course, now I know that the drug has residual affects, and that it built up in my system overtime. Missing that one dose wouldn't have stopped the affect of the drug then. And after the war ended, Dr.J stopped sending it. It had taken nearly the whole year to flush the drug out of my system.

Not that all these emotions had hit me at once. I'd first realized what was happening four months ago, when I'd woken up in the middle of the night crying and I couldn't figure out why. After that, I could feel my emotions building up strength, chipping away at my drug induced barriers. I tried to hide the occasional outbreaks, of course. The others were oblivious about my past with Dr.J and I had wanted to keep it that way. So I hid it as well as I could, behind my familiar mask of cold indifference, all the while hoping that my mask wouldn't shatter under the force. I never knew something intangible could be this strong, this ferocious. I never knew anything could feel quite like that. Even if most of the time I didn't really understand what I was feeling, I did know that I'd never felt so alive before.

That's why it hurt so badly when the drug kicked in again, shutting everything down. Saratine hadn't completely left my system yet, and I was beginning to wonder if it ever would. If permanent damage hadn't been done. It was like I died every time those strange, powerful, liberating emotions were cut off and locked so far away that I could only feel a pale echo of them. It was like giving a blind man sight, opening up a whole new, exciting, scary world for him to explore. And then taking it away.

It reduced me back into the machine. The Perfect Soldier that had no place in a peaceful world.

Less than an hour ago, I'd tried to kill myself because Dr.J had ordered me to. However, the truth is, I would have done it anyways. It's hard to go between the extreme highs and lows that the drug put me though. In the beginning though, the highs had been few and far between and were more manageable. However, the highs were happening more frequently now. They only lasted from fifteen to twenty minutes-not long enough to adjust or adapt or understand what I was feeling-but they occurred two or three times a day now. Which meant that two or three times a day I died all over again, like a deadening my entire body. Every time, I wished I could go back, to feel things like that again, like normal people. But I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't.

I still haven't figured out what triggers the highs. They happen unexpectedly and without warning. This time, it occurred the moment Duo's hand grabbed mine, stopping my decent towards death. The wave of emotions threw me so much that I let Duo have his way and pull me back onto the cliff, and then later drag me into our room.

And then Duo had kissed me. Duo had said he loved me.

And I wanted to love him back. I've come to accept that the braided baka is important to me, but I couldn't tell you why. Just that he is. I think that, given the chance, I could love him. If I knew how. I'd give an awful lot to be able to do that. But he's just said that he couldn't show me, he couldn't teach me. As if he's already given up on me. That one really hurt.

Then, without warning, the rush of emotions receded, condemned to being locked away inside me again. I tried to stop it, tried to pull them back, but they slipped away, and all I was left with the Perfect Soldier. The machine.

I realized then that I would never be normal. That I could never love him. Even if I could figure out how, what would be the point if I could only feel it for fifteen minutes at a time? Trying to love him wouldn't be fair to him and it would drive me insane in the process. So where does that leave me? The answer: I'm right back at the beginning. The only thing that was sill important was the mission.

And I still had my final mission to fulfill.

Suddenly, I stood. Highly aware of Duo's watchful eyes, I strode towards the door. I had a goal now, a mission. Dr.J had been right, emotions were a hindrance. They had already made me hesitate and prevented me from fulfilling my mission. Not this time though. Nothing would get in my ways. Not Duo, not my traitorous emotions. Nothing.

I was at the door now, and I stopped. Staring straight ahead, I said coldly, "Don't stop me this time," and walked out.