14-Jan-2002
Title: Peace
Author: bonnejeanne (bonnejeanne@yahoo.com)
Rating: PG
Pairings: R + D implied
Spoilers: Series
WARNINGS: Some angst. A couple of series characters are deceased.
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing characters and universe are the property of the copyright owners. Our stuff is ours. No money being made here.
Feedback: Any and all comments welcome, be they short or long.
Dedicated to Von - you know why. Love ya!
With Dorothy gone, there was nothing to keep me.
The funeral was beautiful. I'd made certain it would be. There were roses - she held them dear because of her cousin. But roses couldn't capture the enigma that was Dorothy, not even with their beauty and their thorns. So I kept one thing for myself, and waited until everyone else had walked away from the gravesite to place my armful of white lilies, so straight and proud, across the polished wood of the casket that held nothing more than what she would have chosen to leave behind at any time.
Dusting my knees absently, I moved back, nodding to the attendants who were waiting respectfully to lower the box into the earth. Not far away, a limousine waited for me, the driver too young and handsome - Paragan having left me nearly eight years before.
Ignoring the limo and driver, I walked the opposite direction, across the grass and up the hill, following a hint of a wind. I walked for what seemed like a long time. There would be consternation behind me, perhaps the cemetery was even being ringed with security, to make sure of my safety on this unscheduled deviation from the routine. I didn't care. I wanted to be alone among the stones and grass and trees for a while, and my patience with the explanations that would have been needed was at an end.
For a while, I was alone - I'm almost sure of it. But when I looked up, the silent figure standing in the shade of a silver-leaf maple was right where I might have expected. My breath caught for a moment. It wasn't girlish flutters that stirred my forty year old breast, nor fear, nor desire. It was gratitude. Gratitude and grief. I was grateful because it had been a long time since I'd seen him or even had a hint of his presence. Grief because... because somehow his being there released me at last to feel my own selfish, terrible loss.
I didn't take a step closer. I felt no need to. Though his face was shadowed, though there were random silver strands threading his still-untamed brown hair, I spoke from where I was, trusting him.
"Take me away from my life," I said softly, little more than a whisper.
I was too far to see the color, but I knew the deep blue of the eyes that met mine across the way. And I remembered how to smile in spite of my tears when he nodded.
No, I wasn't asking to be killed - don't jump to melodramatic conclusions. I've far too high a regard for the value of human life to think of squandering my own. I might have been reckless in my youth, but those days of excitement and hormones and risks were best kept as indulgent memory.
I wanted escape. It was time for me to go. The Earth Sphere had been peaceful for two decades, longer if you ignore a minor skirmish or two. The President and his advisors had had things well in hand for nearly half that time. My occupation of the office of Vice-Minister had been that of a figurehead for long enough. Yet every time I attempted to leave, they insisted that I had to stay, it was my duty. I had become a tangible symbol of the peace, you see. And while Dorothy was beside me, I could stand it. Her sharp remarks pricking the office, keeping it free of any opportunity to inflate kept it bearable, and with her help, I found a way to keep it useful, not altogether meaningless.
Now I just wanted my own peace. Selfishness.
Have you seen the novelized romances they wrote many years ago, after the war? How many heroines with names beginning with R, bastions of peace and inheritors of some ridiculous title one and all, entertained a dark and deadly midnight caller, falling into the arms of a perfect soldier for a kiss?
I had to smile, when the scene actually played. It was near midnight, and my room *was* dark, and he was every bit as mysterious as he had been twenty five years before. And as beautiful. But when he took my hand, I did fall into his arms - and he held me as I wept for the beautiful blond-haired woman who had unwillingly left me to play out the game alone.
It was good to lean against something as solid and strong as Heero. He held me as my little storm passed and even patted my back.
Wiping my blotchy cheeks on the handkerchief he offered me, I looked up, and he asked quietly, "Are you ready?"
I took a deep, shaky breath and managed a smile. "Yes," I said. "I am more than ready." The letter in the envelope on my desk had been written, I had one small bag of necessities. The rest I preferred to leave behind.
His hands rested on my arms and he took a moment to study me. Then he asked - because he is always thorough.
"Are you certain?"
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and asked it of myself, just to double-check.
"I am," I said, opening my eyes. "They don't need me, Heero. And they don't even really want me. I've... I've become a habit. They don't see me as a person, they talk about how much they admire me, but I don't think there's anyone left who even likes me. Not now that Dorothy..."
His arms tightened just a little and he brushed a piece of my hair, so much shorter than it had been when we first met, back from my face.
"I like you," he said. "But I understand."
I knew he would understand. He'd understood so much better than I, even as long ago as the end of the war, decades past. He'd somehow had an idea of what was coming for both of us, I think. But none of that really mattered.
I hugged him and then moved over and picked up my small case. "Take me somewhere that I don't have to worry about what anyone thinks of me. Take me where I can't be sucked into feeling important, just long enough to fall at my own feet. Take me..." I kept my voice low, but I couldn't have stopped the words, they were tumbling out of me, "Take me to a place where I can curse at Dorothy for leaving me here, and talk to Paragan without people exchanging looks over my head for being daft. Where I don't have to be perfect or even pretend to be."
"I will," he said, taking my hand.
So Dorothy, here we are. He was as good as his word, which should be no surprise to you, I'm sure. And I know you are laughing at my appearance - cut my hair again, colored it, started wearing glasses - I need them to read, anyway. Put on a little weight. I can hear you chiding me about that, but it's the over all effect that counts you know. And when I sit with Mary or Josh or Mei-lin or any of Duo's orphans, they don't know that they are hearing a story read by the former Queen of the World, the ex-Vice-Minister, whose whereabouts remain unknown. I have all the children I could want to help take care of, I have a friend or two who don't mind my being merely human. We do that for each other, you know, and it works - much the way you and I did, if never quite so dearly.
So don't worry about me, my love. It's true what you told me, there are many kinds of happily ever after.