a story about Midi Une and her meeting with Trowa years later. Midi Une is a character in the Episode Zero manga.
"Why did you save me?" said Trowa to the young woman standing next to the window. He lay in his bed, looking at her, trying to figure out what would motivate her to do such a thing. She had just broken him out of the detention facility and had helped him find shelter at this beat-up motel despite the fact that she had been an OZ soldier. As it was, she could never go back.
"Because I owe you."
"Owe?"
"It's been a long time, Nanashi."
Trowa blinked at that name. "You are... "
"I am Midi Une."
Trowa narrowed his eyes and his mouth became a very thin colorless line. "I have not forgotten you."
"I never forgot you either, even if it's for different reasons."
"Do you have a tracking device with you?"
Midi seemed to wilt at the accusation. "No, I don't. I wouldn't be here at all except that by the time I figured out an escape plan that would actually work, you'd been beaten up horribly. I couldn't leave you by yourself in your condition."
Trowa closed his eyes. She sounds so sincere, but she sounded truthful when I picked her up that last time. She made took advantage of my friendship and used it against the people who were raising me. Whatever happens, I will not lead her to the others. I would die first.
"What happened to you after we last met?"
"I joined another group of mercenaries, traveled, worked odd jobs. And you?"
"After we last parted, I went back to the group I worked with. Eventually, I got tired of the endless travel and scrounging. You know how hard that life is. I signed up for the army, hoping for some stability. They found that I had a knack for electronics, so they sent me to one of the Academies on a scholarship basis. I was planning on becoming an electrical engineer eventually but first I had to work for the army for a number of years to pay for the training, so I was sent to the detention center and there you were."
"Coincidence... "
"I never told anybody about you. I didn't even know you were a Gundam pilot until I saw you in your cell and they told me what you'd done. I thought we'd never meet again." She walked away from the window, then said, "What do you want to eat?"
"Anything will do." I should go back to the circus, he thought. At least I can trust the people there. He sat up and winced from the pain. The soldiers had had fun playing kidney soccer and rib hockey.
"Lie down."
"I have been injured before and will be again. This is nothing."
"You won't be any good on the run if you try to heal and run at the same time. I may be the last person you want helping you, but there really is no helping it."
"... " He lay back down on the bed. She's right about it being a bad idea for me to run and heal at the same time. However, I can't simply stay here. Two days at most, he thought, then I will leave in the middle of the night without telling her where I'm going.
Midi took out a bag that had a loaf of sliced bread, some salami and some lettuce and made a simple sandwich for him. She then took a insta-noodle cup and poured the hot water she'd gotten from the coffee maker in the lobby. She put the cup, sandwich and a glass of milk on a tray and put it next to his bed. "I'll have to go out and get some more food. I got some aspirin and acetaminophen. I didn't know how you'd react to anything stronger."
"Those will do," he said.
"Trowa?"
"What?"
"Nothing." With that, she left the hotel room.
He looked at the food and decided to eat. It would make no sense for her to poison me, he thought. And starving myself will do no good. With that, he polished it off. Prison food was neither plentiful nor particularly appetizing.
He got up slowly and glanced out the window. The neighborhood was run-down with empty storefronts and graffiti. He could tell from the light that it was late afternoon. He stepped back from the window and looked around the room. Hmm, he thought, all I have is the clothes on my back. That makes things a little difficult.
He looked through the knapsack that Midi had left on the floor. A small wad of cash, clothes, a few clips, some fake IDs. Nothing mechanical, he thought. There's no transmitter in her bag, anyway. Unless it's on her person. Well, there's nothing more I can do at the moment. He placed everything back into the knapsack. Why, he thought, did she have to be the one to break me out of prison?" He then went back to bed and went to sleep.
"Why did you pick me up?" said Midi as they sat in the back of a truck, rumbling slowly down a dirt road.
Nanashi replied, "Because we are the same."
"Same?"
"We're both orphans, both alone."
"What are you going to do with me?"
"You can come along with us until we reach a city that's relatively safe."
"Why are you fighting with them?"
Nanashi pointed to the group of men drinking beer and telling tall tales about their exploits. "They take care of me. Miguel said that he found me next to a bombed out road. They didn't see anyone looking for me, so they supposed that my family must've been in one of the wrecks on the road. That's how I became a mercenary."
Up ahead, they noticed a large encampment of trailers and animals in cages. There were several men hammering some iron spikes into the ground to get the big top ready.
"Oh, look a circus," said Midi. "Maybe you could get your friends to stop."
Nanashi looked at the trailers and the animals and said, "It seems familiar for some reason." He noticed a girl standing along the outskirts, frowning at them. "I don't think people like me would be welcome there."
He opened his eyes. It was dark in that room, no wonder, it was 4 o'clock in the morning. That girl at that circus looked a lot like Catherine. Maybe it was her... who knows, he thought. These are the types of dreams I hate. They don't do anything but make me feel depressed and remind me of things that I prefer not to think about. He looked to see Midi Une asleep in the other bed, a couple bags of groceries at the foot of it. He suddenly felt the urge to talk to someone, but pushed it away. I will talk to Quatre next time I see him or perhaps Heero or maybe even Wufei. We will talk about many things. I should try to get some more sleep. He closed his eyes again.
He opened his eyes when he heard a rustle. He turned toward the source of the sound. He saw Midi Uni got up from her bed and began to dig into one of the bags at the foot of the bed. What? He thought. Then he watched as she pulled something out small. She was beginning to fiddle with it.
Trowa then sprang from the other bed and knocked her out of bed, sending the object skidding across the floor.
"Kyaaah!" she screamed. "What the hell?"
Trowa flipped on the light to see that what she had been hold was a tube of ointment, part pain reliever and part antiseptic. He picked it up and smelled it. Nothing suspicious, he thought. "What is this for?"
Midi looked very pissed. "You're not the only one who was hurt in that escape you know." She pulled back her hair to reveal that part of her right ear lobe was missing. "One of the bullets just managed to clip the top part of it off."
"Why didn't you tell me?" he said, handing back the tube.
She began rubbing some of the ointment on her ear, wincing as she did so. "You had your own injuries to concentrate on. Go on, look in the bags if you want." She emptied them on the floor. "I'm tired of this."
Trowa looked down at the spilled canned goods, then picked them up and put them back in their bags...
"I have a question for you and I want you to answer it truthfully."
"All right, as long as it isn't about things I must keep secret," he said.
"How far would you go for the people you care about?"
Trowa blinked in surprised at the question. "Why do you ask?"
"If your mission depended on it, if your friends' lives depended on it, what wouldn't you do? All those years ago, I was told that if I did this, I'd make sure that nobody in my group would get hurt. I wasn't really thinking about what would happen to your friends, but even if I did, I couldn't refuse. In order to get you out, I lied and hurt a lot of my friends to do so. I know that, like you, they will never forgive me but I did it anyway. Because it needed to be done."
Trowa digested this slowly. "Then why did you feel guilt? If it was so necessary, so unavoidable."
"I think you know the answer, don't you? I'm tired. I'm going to sleep." The next morning she was gone.
Trowa looked in the mirror. He was wearing the uniform that OZ handed out to every soldier. "It seems to suit me," he said.
"Trowa Barton is our new recruit. Please make him welcome."
The End
(:./mk/repentance)
