Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Creed Arc ❯ The Creed: Almost ( Chapter 9 )

-Almost-

They seated me at the breakfast table. It seemed now I was awake they were determined to make me eat, drink; do all those things I had `failed' to do. Did they realise I had also failed to kill myself and save them? No. And all because I promised Heero, and I never lie.

I stared at the bowl they placed in front of me. I needed to think, but I also knew they would not let me out of their sight, and certainly not when I hadn't eaten. So I ate. I shoved that spoon down my throat a thousand times until there wasn't a speck of food left in that bowl. And when I was finished with that, I drank not one but two whole glasses of that dirty water and plastered a smile on my face as I did it. It wasn't the mask, exactly, it was just…a part of the mask that had rubbed off on me. Maybe even it was now a part of me. Maybe I wasn't me any more, but the mask, and me was gone.

I think I am losing my mind. I know I can't continue like this. I have to think. I have to work. I have to…get up, move away from the table, ignore them, block them out.

So I do. I rise, move away from the table, and making sure they can see me at all times I walk into the living room, sit myself on the old dusty window seat and look out the window, at the sky; at the ceiling that is ever changing yet ever the same.

It will be a very sad day when the sky falls in.

Today it was slate grey, a few lazy white clouds drifting low enough to separate themselves from the mass of stormy wanna-be's above. It was easy to block out the way the splinters dug into my thighs from the broken window seat. Easy to block out the light sound of laughter coming from the house next door. Easy to forget they eyes on my back. So easy to lose myself in the nothing above. To become nothing.

But the point of this exercise is to think, so I do. Some people find it hard to think. I cannot understand why. All you have to do is find they key word; the one that triggers all subconscious thought on that topic and its suddenly like your burst a bubble; it all comes floating up and explodes in your mind. It's terrifying, but its not hard.

I knew the word I needed, and I still hesitated. Not because I was scared, but because it is hard. It's so hard it hurts, and I never was one for pain. Still, I am not as cowardly as I think either.

Solo.

The bubble burst. The memories came, and with them the thoughts I had held at bay so long. The fears of a child not quite dead and the thoughts of a boy not quite a man who wishes he were dead, all rolled in to one neat bubble that when broken can destroy you. Note I said Can.

I'm five. I'm fast. I'm damn hungry and I've food in my hands. There is shouting behind me, but they won't catch me. I don't stop running, don't look back, and I'm small; I can fit where they wouldn't dream of going. And I go there, slipping between the broken ally's to the hide-outs of equally broken beings. They're all there. I haven't been back in days. I wasn't coming back without the food they asked for. Without the food he asked for.

He's there, waiting. I pass it over, no questions asked thought my stomach growls in protest and my hands shake. I need that food. I can feel it. My eyes watch hungrily as he breaks it into the too well known portions, passing them between the others, waiting until the very last to give it to me. But I won't take it. I've noticed what the others haven't, as they eagerly chew at their meal. He didn't save one for himself.

I run out of the room before he can grab me. I'll find more. I'll keep searching, always until…

I am older. I don't know how much older. I have returned with food, but when I enter the hide out it's different. It's hot in there. It should be cold. I look at the two guarding the door, and they're looking back at me, but…not looking at all. Shaking I make my way to the bed on the far wall. These eyes watch my every move.

"I told you not to come back."

"If I didn't, would you be sad?"

"Yes, and no. If you are safe, then I am happy."

"But…if I'm not here, how will you know I'm safe?"

He smiled, grabbed my hand and squeezed. It was the lightest touch he had ever given me. It was weak, but filled with more heart than ever before. He watched me the whole time, waited for e to say something, but what was there to be said? I found the food? It didn't seem appropriate. It wasn't food we needed; it was a miracle.

The moment for miracles passed and then he was looking at me, but not looking at all, like all the others.

And the next thing I know I'm older again, but I'm struggling against grabbing hands, blocking out their curses and moving every part of my body, trying to break loose. I only needed a moment. But I was fast learning you never get that moment. Never get that miracle.

I'm clean. That seems…almost divine. I have a warm bed to sleep in, and my stomach is full. There is a Nun who is teaching me to read. She says I'm clever and teaches me more than the others. She teaches me numbers, and tells me stories that she says have meaning. She calls them fables. She reads me newspapers so that I will understand what is happening in the universe. I don't mind. I just like to hear her talk; hear her talk to me. She likes me. She's not just pretending. She really likes me.

Then I'm driving a truck. It's huge. I barely know what I'm doing. My foot hardly reaches the pedals…the clutch is so heavy I have to jump on it. But I do it, forcing myself forward. I don't stop, don't look back. I'm fast. Faster than them.

But when I return to the warm place its as hot as that room all that time ago. That look in their eyes is back. They aren't looking at me. I want to see what they're seeing. I run through the ruins, searching, seeking. I see the dead priest; the one that was always kind. The one who took us all in. I don't stop, I keep searching, and I find my goal.

She looks like him. The past is overlapped and she's grabbing my hand as I kneel before her.

"You're alright! We were so worried." She was so happy.

"I'm sorry! I wasn't quick enough!"

"Shhh…all that matters is that you are not hurt."

"I'm…fine." There it was…those two words. I knew they were in there somewhere.

"Make people happy, little dove. Make them smile."

And I'm older yet, staring at that hulking black metal and pushing that damned switch, but nothing changes. It's still lying there and I'm still standing there. Then that doctor is there and he says the two magic words. Steal it. So I do. And I make people cry; thousands of them. But in the end, people will smile. I know it and it pushes me forward. And when I meet the other pilots; those cold, mind-numb pilots, I make them smile too and it makes me happy. Almost.

Almost.

I blink and the sky is still there, still that dull grey. Nothing has changed, but time has passed. I can hear Wufei and Heero in the kitchen and I smile. It makes me stop thinking as my fingers rise to touch it, that crease on my face. It feels…strange. It is…the first genuine smile I have made in years. It is mine and mine alone. And yet, why am I smiling? Because Heero and Wufei are in the next room…

What does that mean?

Make people happy. I do, every day. I try so hard to make them happy, but these days I seem only to make them cry. Why can't I make them happy? What does it take? What's the key? It's on the tip of my tongue, but it's not quite there…

"Heero! Wufei!" Why did I call for them? It doesn't matter. They stopped immediately. I can almost see them looking at each other through the wall. Then they're running and stumbling through the doorway together, eyes devouring me. It makes me…warm. And things make sense. In a way. They make me happy. Not because they make me laugh, or because they touch me a certain way. They make me warm because they are. Dead or alive, they make me happy because I have known them, and they have known me.

I smile. Their jaws do that perfect fish imitation and I can't help but laugh. It only makes them gape more. They've never heard this sound that's spilling from my mouth. I've never heard it. But I like it. I like the feeling of it, the sound of it. I sound…

Almost fine.

Somehow that's enough. Almost.