Title: Halcyon
Notes: Set to 'Halcyon' by Orbital, techno song that has no words but is -very- cool.
Pairings: 1+2, R+D (both implied more than anything else)
Warnings: mild angst, some shonen ai, shojo ai. Pretty mild.
Category: After EW, so not technically AU but not during the time line.
She very carefully folded down the flap of the small card, smoothing away all the creases, before setting it among the perfect white roses. It was cowardly, perhaps, not to give it in person, not to say goodbye in person. She knew she was repeating a painful past, but she promised herself it would be the last time. She left the perfectly arranged flowers on the ruthlessly ordered desk. The dark office held her slim silhouette made by the bright hallway light for a moment. She closed the door behind her with great dignity. It would be her last cowardly act.
[One Day]
Hilde stopped in the hall at the sound of ragged heartbroken sobbing. Her heart bled. She slowly pushed aside the door to reveal a brutally neat desk with a vase full of virginal white flowers and a girl bent double in her grief. Hilde hesitated a moment before her soft heart gave in and she delicately gathered the weeping politician into her arms and smoothed the gleaming hair. The girl stiffened for a moment, her formidable pride demanding that she deal with this alone, before the soft, soothing murmuring cracked her resolved. She clung to the diminutive ex-pilot and cried.
"She's gone. She's gone. She left me," sobbed the blonde and lifted eyes ravaged by tears to Hilde's startled face. "She left me, and all I have is a damned card. God damn her."
Hilde looked up from the grieving politician, who had gone back to sobbing into her hands, to look at the small note that lay on the desk. The two words written in precise script made her wonder when they were ever going to stop hurting each other:
'Forgive me.'
[Three Days]
The old woman looked over her narrow glasses at the composed young woman before her. As much as the little grandmother tried to understand it, she could not reason why the elegant child would want an old, abandoned loft in the run down quarter of the bombed out city. The frail woman had shown the slender blonde the cobwebbed, bare, and battered space, pointed out the rats, and the rusted faucets but the girl remained firm in her decision. But the girl could pay cash, up front, and not flinch, and that commanded respect here.
The former politician paid the old woman and walked up the crumbling steps to her new home without comment.
She refrained from leaning against the grime-incrusted walls and studied the place. It was really just a huge open space with metal beams freestanding, supporting the ceiling. Huge windows dominated one wall. At first she thought the glass was misted, and discovered, to her horror, that the windows were really just that dirty. She looked at her hand, now covered in soot. A small, determined smile slipped over her lips. Here they would never find her. And here she would find herself.
[A Week]
Duo and Heero lay tangled together. Heero's face buried in the waterfall of his lover's chestnut hair, and arm flung over Duo's smooth chest. Duo lay flat on his back, idly threading his hand through the messy mop of brown hair. The Deathscythe pilot chewed on one lush lip in thought.
"Ne, Hee-chan" He felt his lover growl at that name and chuckled. "Do you think we'll go looking for her like Hilde wanted?"
Heero grunted something unintelligible against Duo's neck, not particularly conscious.
"I mean, she's pretty important and all. Can't see why she just up and took off that way though. She had everything, pretty wife, lots of money, important job..."
Heero propped himself up on his elbows and looked down into his lover's heart shaped face. "She wouldn't want us to look for her while she's looking for herself."
Duo blinked in confusion, but never got the chance to ask his question. Heero claimed those lush lips and effectively changed the topic.
[Three Weeks]
The Milargro Foundation. She liked the name, even though only a few people would get the joke. It was to be the name of one the numerous charity foundations that she was setting up.
The sunlight broke through in patched, glinting off the wings of the gulls that dipped and wheeled over the broken skyline. The sunlight glinted off the heavy blonde hair of the girl who sat so perfectly straight in before the massive black desk in the abandoned loft. A sleek computer was the only thing that indicated the massive amount of wealth that the former politician controlled. She preferred it that way.
For too many years she had allowed that wealth to talk for her, act for her, and she had never found herself. The prized child of the gentle class was not her, but a dream created by people who needed a symbol of something they already had. But symbols can't do what she wanted. Symbols don't keep out the cold.
She pulled her now short hair out of her face finished the last of the documents that would irrevocably change her life. It was liberation, like cutting her hair, much lip gnawing had gone into it, but ultimately she felt so free.
[One Month]
Duo Maxwell ignored the neat, unremarkable man in the gray, unremarkable suit. The boy who called himself Shinigami had only eyes for the letter in his hand.
"She's lost her mind." He whispered, awed.
Dear Mr. Maxwell,
I realize that this must come as something of a shock to you, since we only know each other through others, but I have a favor to ask of you. I have just set up a charity for the children affected by the war, it will eventually grow into a foundation dedicated to helping children everywhere, but it needs someone to guide it. I unfortunately am unable to fulfill this position, but please, if you could become the steward for this project I would be most grateful. My assistant will have all the information that you need. My assistant will be our link.
Thank you.
There was no signature, but Duo knew from whom it came. Heero held an identical letter in his hand. They looked at each other with bemused faces.
[Two Months]
The battered loft was still battered, but the girl now truly lived there. She moved like a sapling in the wind and sang silly songs without thought.
[Three Months]
"Neee, Heero, it's been three months. Shouldn't we at least run a search for her?"
"Hn. Baka. She's more than capable of taking care of herself and hiding. She doesn't want to be found."
"But Heero.mhmppph. Well, if that's the way it is. Growl!"
"Hn, baka"
[Six Months]
The girl dashed down the stairs at a neck breaking pace, did a mad dance for her shoes, blew a kiss at her land lady, and yelped as she nearly plowed over a small girl drawing on the sidewalk.
The elderly grandmother merely smiled with irritated amusement. That elegant child had grown out of her unnatural stillness and silence. Now old woman almost wished she would shut up again.
[Nine Months]
Duo flipped his braid back and sat on the edge of the blonde politician's desk. "So, have they found anything yet?"
The girl shook her head, her long, long hair flowing like a veil behind her. "Nothing, except a possible sighting in the bombed out quarter of Kopenhaven. But what on Earth would she be doing there?"
"What she's been doing for the past nine months, learning how to live." Heero commented from where he leaned against the door. The girl gave him a withering look that he ignored.
[One Year]
The girl held the phone against her ear as she pounded at the ice in her decrepit refrigerator. She swore inventively in broken German. The voice on the other end laughed.
"Really, how much longer are you going to stay away? How much longer -can- you stand to stay away? What you have done is amazing. Five major foundations each dedicated to something different: one for the children, one for justice, one for the veterans, one for the homeless and abandon, and one for the widows. What ever made you put Wufei in charge of the Foundation for the Protection of Women? Either that was sadistic or very wise. I have yet to decide which."
The girl laughed before stating. "Sore wa himitsu desu. But really Une, I'm not sure how much longer I'll stay here. Thank you for keeping them away. I need the time."
Lady Une watched the Preventors as they moved seamlessly, if a little listlessly. "Well, Heero has helped buy you time as well. You ought to thank him."
There was a thoughtful pause. "Heero?" She sighed and stared out at the turbulent water. "Well, that was unexpected."
"Was it really?" Une asked quietly.
"No, but yes. I thought he hated me, but then I didn't even know who me was." The girl gave another liquid sunshine laugh and went back to swearing at the refrigerator.
"What will you do now?"
"Don't know." Came the succinct reply. "One day at a time. One day at a time."
Lady Une stared at the phone as it started to buzz with the empty line. The girl no longer bothered with the ritualistic and formalized greetings.
"Find yourself soon Relena."
The End
(:./dan/halcyon)
