Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Willing Slave II -- Corazon ❯ the end ( Chapter 5 )

Epilogue

Disclaimers: Gundam Wing characters belong to Mixx Entertainment, Koichi Tokita, the SOTSU Agency, Sunrise, Kodansha and anyone I may have forgotten, not to me. I make no money off of this.

Warnings: yaoi; read the Willing Slave arc before this. No lemon, hardly any lime.

Setting: Last of the Willing Slave arc, set chronologically after Explaining to the Preventers.

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Dark rain clouds blotted out the sky for miles around and rain streamed down the street, rushing to form deep puddles before diving down sluices and gutters. Each streetlamp could only light a circle around itself, a golden spotlight on raindrops bouncing off the sidewalks. When the lightning flashed, it burned too bright to see anything but afterimages once it dimmed.

The museum lights stood out clearly in the darkness, but the shades and blinds had been drawn so no one could see inside. A banner reading Lagrange Kingdom Exhibit hung by one corner, the other pinned by the rain against the front doors. A few flyers lay soaked on the marble steps outside, next to some scattered notebook pages and empty pens. In the hard wind, several wet pages tore and flew into the grass on the side of the building. In the dark space between the museum and the building beside it, one window lay uncovered and wide open.

Dressed in his Preventer's uniform with his jacket over one shoulder, Treize leaned against the windowsill and put his hand into the rain, watching the droplets strike his palm and slide off into the grass. Water cascaded down the roof opposite him and spouted out a gargoyle's mouth, striking the dirt hard enough to make a hole. He was alone in one of the bathrooms, and though he could hear footsteps coming and going in the hallway, the rain came louder. The storm ran down his hand as he turned it over, letting the water stream off his fingers.

The door creaked open, then shut. "I thought I'd find you here," Wufei said, softly so his voice wouldn't echo. He stepped behind Treize and watched the rain play on his lover's hand.

"It's quiet in here," Treize said. "And I wanted to see the rain."

For awhile Wufei said nothing, but lay his head on Treize's shoulder and listened to the rain and thunder. Treize tilted his head against Wufei's and closed his eyes. The rain didn't feel as cold as before. Each drop felt more like Wufei when they were together, gently tracing patterns on each other's skin to remind themselves that they weren't alone.

The door opened so fast it struck the wall, jolting them both upright. Treize snatched his hand back in as if the window was a cookie jar, and Wufei glared at the intruder.

"Maxwell..."

"There you guys are," Duo said, out of breath. "I've been all over this place lookin' for ya."

"Why?" Treize asked. "We were right here."

"Well, yeah, but I didn't..." Duo shook his head and his braid flopped over one shoulder. "Never mind. Une just wanted to know you weren't...y'know..."

"Violating their bathrooms?" Wufei asked. "For heaven's sake, she knows better."

"That's what I tried to tell her--" Duo said.

"It's you and Heero she has to keep an eye on."

"Hey!" Duo straightened his jacket and glared at them. "Just 'cause you got no sense of adventure...look, you'd better come back out, or else she's gonna come looking for you."

Wufei's eyes widened. "She wouldn't dare--"

"Thank you for the warning," Treize said over him. "We'll be out soon."

Duo grinned and disappeared, the door closing after him. He walked back into the exhibition hall, stepping softly so his shoes wouldn't tap or squeak on the floor. Even the constant murmur of quiet conversation couldn't drown out the room's echo. The small group only made the echo seem louder. He spotted Heero examining a sword in a glass case and sidled up to him, leaning against his side just enough to force Heero to push back.

"It's too quiet," he whispered. "Feels like a tomb."

"It is," Heero said. "All of the work and effort of an entire civilization reduced to some rusted scrap and broken clay."

"You're in a cheerful mood," Duo said. He looked at the sword, the blade rusted, the handle rotted, and the inscription on the pommel nearly faded away. "Wonder what it looked like before."

"It must've been beautiful. The craftsmanship must be excellent if it's lasted so long. And the lettering near the hilt..."

They both leaned closer. Duo squinted and tilted his head, inches away from the hilt. "I don't even recognize these letters."

"Read the card on the side."

"...twenty-five thousand years old, well, no wonder. Wait a second..."

Heero smirked. "You noticed."

"I thought recorded history didn't go back that far."

"It doesn't. And for this type of skill to exist so long ago means that this may not be civilization's only cycle."

"What do you mean?" Duo looked around the room at the other artifacts, shields, swords, armor and arbalests. "That we got this far before and then...forgot?"

"It's possible. We went from the radio to the vidphone in twenty years. Who knows what we did thousands of years back."

Duo looked at the sword again. He held his hand up, making a loose fist as if estimating how the hilt would feel in his hands, the weight of the blade. "Then what was the point of having an empire? No one remembers them."

"In a few hundred years no one will remember the gundams. The world will have changed, with different problems and different priorities. No one will remember us. Does that mean what we did doesn't matter?"

Duo lowered his hand. "In the long run, maybe not."

"We don't do things to be remembered."

*

In another room, on top of a table nearly as wide as a Leo suit, stood a replica of the Lagrange kingdom, complete with a working model of its aquaduct. Sally pointed out different landmarks to Une beside her, but the Preventers commander paid more attention to the rows of miniature troops frozen as they marched down the main street.

"--and these...even in a desert, their baths must've been full..." Sally didn't hear a reply, so she looked over her shoulder at Une. "What's so damn interesting back there?"

"These." Une hovered her hand over the troops back towards the palace. "It's all wrong. No army would look this neat, not even on parade. There would've been sand everywhere, there would've been trash, a few people spitting on them..."

"Maybe the people liked 'em?" Sally said.

"No one likes their government until they need something out of it," Une said. "It's 'oppressive tyranny' this and 'evil idiots' that until there's an emergency, and then it's 'help us, we love you' until the emergency's over." She sighed and stood straight. "And then they hate you for being strong enough to help them."

"Bitter?" Sally asked. She stepped closer and leaned against Une. "I thought this trip would cheer you up a little. Securing a museum for a private exhibition isn't easy."

"Says Quatre. I think he's just trying to maneuver for a favor."

"Such faith you have in your agents."

"I'll be happy if they aren't violating the bathrooms."

"Une, you--" Sally stopped as the bathroom door swung open and Treize walked out snuggled against Wufei. "--obviously know your men better than I do."

Une followed her look and nodded slowly. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."

"I can hardly bear calling him Treize," Sally said. "He doesn't act very much like him."

"But he does," Une said. "When he was all alone, he was quiet. Meditative, almost. This new Treize seems very much like that."

"All alone? How would you know what he was like all alone?"

A small smile rose and vanished on Une's lips. "A good aide keeps close watch over her commander."

*

Glass cases lined the walls, each displaying a gray or brown outfit with an artist's rendering on the wall above them. Quatre lingered on every piece, slowly moving from peasant clothes to the rich folds of merchant tops to the elegant cut of the servant uniforms to the crown pieces of the collection, a king's robes and his slave's jeweled finery.

"They're beautiful," he whispered. His voice still echoed in the nearly empty room. "How did they survive for so long?"

"Buried in the sand, I guess." Trowa stepped behind Quatre and put his hands on his shoulders. "Nothing disturbed them for a long time."

"It feels a little wrong," Quatre said. "To unearth graves just to gawk at the remains."

"I'm pretty sure they don't feel it." He bent and whispered in his lover's ear, "I think you'd look good in that harem suit."

Quatre looked at the slave top, light blue with jewels sewn into the seams, slippers with gold embroidery, bracelets on his arms. A soft veil to cover his face.

"I think I'd rather be king," he said. "Just a cape and dark clothes. Looks a lot easier."

"I don't think that'd work," Trowa said.

"Why not?"

"The king's clothes are a little big for you."

Quatre turned and gave Trowa a punch on the arm. "You're not that much taller."

"No?" Trowa smiled. He pulled Quatre against him and held him there. "Don't be angry. You know I'm your slave."

"I know." Quatre hugged him back and closed his eyes. "I'm not angry."

Behind them on the other side of the room, Sally and Une started to walk in, then froze when they saw them.

"Oh good heavens," Une said. Under her breath she muttered, "now they're not even bothering with the bathrooms."

"Let them be," Sally said, grabbing Une's arm and pulling her out. "They're your best agents that just finished that arms deal assignment, remember?"

Une let herself be maneuvered out and down the hall. "Yes, and as I remember, Trowa led Quatre out of that mission tied up and on a lead."

"Okay, they your best hormone-laden agents. They weren't doing anything but a mildly inappropriate display of affection."

"Even Zechs and Noin have the decency to wait 'till they're alone."

"Well, they were..."

Une smacked Sally's head.

*

Inside the last room along the hall, Treize and Wufei stood silently together. They ignored the artist renderings on the other walls, the pictures of what life may have been like in Lagrange, what the markets would've been like, what a street view would be. Instead they stood before a tapestry torn around the edges but intact enough to see the stylized people represented.

After a few minutes, Heero walked inside with Duo, who started asking what they were doing all alone. Then they both saw the tapestry and stopped. After them came Sally and Une, and finally Quatre and Trowa.

"What...what is this?" Une whispered.

Heero didn't have to look at the placard beside the tapestry. "The king of Lagrange and his closest."

Before them, shown as somewhat flatter and thinner than reality, King Heero sat crowned on his throne, leaning back and staring out as if he owned what he looked at. Duo sat at his feet, his head pillowed on Heero's lap. Behind them to the left stood Treize in a military uniform with Wufei at his side, dressed in his familiar white outfit. A small dragon pin accented his collar.

In dressy servant attire, Sally and Une stood on the far left. On Heero's right, Trowa, who wore a small crown, stood near to his brother. Quatre also sat at his feet, but he looked up at his king and seemed to smile even under his veil.

"It's the clothes we saw," Quatre whispered.

"I was right," Trowa said. "You are beautiful."

"This doesn't make sense," Sally said. "This was thousands of years ago."

Heero nodded. Duo spotted the white cross in the tapestry that his image wore, and he touched the cross at his own throat.

"Maybe..." he said.

Heero looked at him. "Maybe what?"

"Maybe it doesn't matter that we don't remember." He glanced at Treize. "Maybe it only matters that we did something, and that good came from it."

"Maybe."

*

Thousands of miles away, lightning struck a cool stretch of stream running through moss covered stones in the shade of thick trees. The stream itself shuddered and rose, casting off droplets like scales. Reminded of itself, it snapped the end of its watery path like a tail flicking and glimmers like eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

Water splashed in a whisper, the voice indistinct and formless.

Wufei! Wufei, I am surrounded by bamboo. I am bathing as a stream in the mountains. Do you hear me?

Outside the museum now, they stood on the steps and waited for their vehicles to come around to the front. As the others leaned against each other or spoke, Wufei took a deep breath and gazed at the stars. The stars looked back.

I remember everything, with or without the gods' blessing. I remember. Do you hear me?

Closing his eyes, he slid his hand in Treize's and let his mind wander. He thought about the picture they'd just seen, how they'd all fallen silent, and thought about what life might have been like. Not the stylized artist's rendering, not the stylized tapestry, but the reality that the artwork would never convey. The cars came around.

Wufei, I am home. Do you hear me?

He opened his eyes and sat next to Treize.

"Yes. We are home."

He leaned back on Treize's chest. His general put one arm over Wufei's waist and tugged him closer. As he hovered between wakefulness and sleep, he spotted Duo smiling at him from his own pillow on Heero. Wufei smiled back, yawned, and closed his eyes. His mind filled with palaces and space stations, worlds and words to come.

Never The End

*

Egaite haruka na never ending story

Imagining a far away, never ending story.

--White Reflection

*

KC: Hello, everyone! I'd like to thank everyone who's come with us--

Duo: *snicker*

KC: through this long--

Trowa: *snicker*

KC: story. It's always hard--

Heero: *snicker*

KC: for an author to write epics like this, keeping the story flowing smoothly and staying prepared--

Wufei: *snicker*nosebleed*snicker*

KC: for any hardships that may rise.

Quatre: *hands Wufei a tissue*snicker*

KC: Dammit, stop that!

Treize: It's just the way it was coming out--

Wufei: *cracks up*falls over*

KC: *glares* I'd like to thank everyone who bugged me to write more and kept me going. I hope the show was entertaining.