13-Dec-2003
Genre: General
Rated: PG
Critiques: Always welcome, especially constructive.
Disclaimer: I just like to take them out and play with them. I promise to put them back where I found them.
This one-shot was written for Psyche's Women at War challenge, "a fanfiction challenge created to generate non-romantic stories featuring the women of Gundam Wing." If you're interested, there's still time for you to write something, too – the deadline is December 24, 2003. You can find more information at the following site: www.happyfangirl.org/womenatwar/index.htm
Sally leaned the chair back and watched the crowd passing the café, out enjoying a fine spring day after a week of rain. The sunlight was warm on her shoulders, and she leaned forward to rest her chin on her hand as she watched a huddle of college students chattering as they piled into a taxi. Sally's gaze studied the moving bodies, looking for a familiar face.
"Great place to pick up a hot date," an amused voice said behind her.
Sally twisted in her seat to see Lucrezia smiling down at her. "I heard this way the place to see and be seen," she replied dryly. Sally accepted Lucrezia's hand and gave it a quick squeeze; unsurprised that the other woman was still not one for hugs.
"I didn't make you wait long, did I?" Lucrezia said, a little breathlessly as she sat down.
"Twelve years, at last count," Sally replied, and grinned. She leaned forward to sip her drink, watching as her old friend perused the café's menu.
Lucrezia's blue-black hair was long now, nearly past her elbows, and tied loosely at the base of her neck with a blue band. She was wearing a pale yellow tank top, and her strong arms were pale from lack of sun. Sally raised her glass, and motioned with it at Lucrezia's arms.
"You'd better be wearing sunscreen," she said.
"Bathed in it this morning," came the nonchalant reply, while at the same time the dark-haired woman scooted her chair forward to get under the shade from the table's umbrella. Lucrezia glanced up, her blue eyes merry. "Cool cut."
Sally frowned, and then remembered she'd chopped her coppery hair to chin-length a few years back. "Did that awhile ago. I've been thinking of growing it out again."
"I missed so much," Lucrezia said, and sighed. Setting the menu down, she nodded to a waiter, who approached with a smile and took Lucrezia's drink order. "The letters and videos were always good, but it's not the same as being here."
"Just glad you came back in one piece. That scare with the communications relays had us worried for months."
Lucrezia nodded, and shrugged. "It's hard to realize it's been so long. Sometimes I feel like it couldn't have been longer than a year or two since we left for Mars, and yet... it feels like forever."
"It'd feel like a great deal more of forever if you knew we're in history books now," Sally retorted. "Duo sent me a scan of a page from his son's history book, talking about the resistance movement during the One Year War. I felt ancient."
"Shit," Lucrezia muttered. "My kid's going to be reading that stuff?"
"What kid?" Sally raised her eyebrows when Lucrezia blushed lightly. "Thought kids weren't allowed yet on Mars."
"They're not. That's why we came back." Lucrezia nodded to the waiter as he placed a fruity drink in front of her, and sighed. "Finally back planet-side, and all I want is some real caffeine. And I can't have any," she grumbled. Seeing Sally's look, she grinned self-consciously. "Two months."
"I'd say you work fast, but you've been together for years. So I'll say... you two work slow."
Lucrezia laughed quietly. "It was kind of a... " She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we got to the point where working together and living together, in isolation with only a hundred other workers... if we didn't come up with something new, we were going to self-destruct."
"I wouldn't call that the best circumstances for having a kid," Sally commented, sipping her tea.
"No better or worse than any other, and the kid was more of a side-benefit, since we were coming back to Earth," Lucrezia said, and shrugged. Then she paused, and frowned slightly. "Wait... you said Duo's got a kid?"
"Two," Sally replied. "Not his... he adopted. Thought the pilots kept in touch with you."
Lucrezia shook her head. "I heard from Quatre and Duo regularly for the first two years, and then slowly things tapered off. I didn't exactly keep up with them, either. Those first four or five years, there wasn't really time to do anything but focus on the project."
"Amazed you didn't get burnt out," Sally said.
"Same here. But I guess it was something that mattered so much, and we all kind of had a gung-ho spirit. But that's boring news... to me, at least. I want to hear about those five rascals."
Sally laughed. "Duo's an engineer, running a company that does rehab on old colonies and satellite architecture. Let's see... Heero works in computers, designing mainframes for ships. And I'm sure you know Quatre and Relena are neck-deep in diplomacy."
"They're welcome to it," Noin replied with a smirk. "We got the video of the wedding." She sighed. "Zechs was quietly depressed for several months that there was no window for us to return."
Sally nodded, but didn't say anything.
"We're supposed to see them next week, when they get back from L4. They met us at the shuttle port but really had no time to talk. On their way to space, for some big groundbreaking. If you can call building something in a colony ground-breaking," Lucrezia mused, and then shrugged. "It was less of a visit, and more of a thirty-second hug-fest. Next thing I knew, they were gone in a sea of flashing cameras and people wanting their autographs."
"They are the celebrity couple," Sally said. "Let's see... Oh, Trowa's the director for the Natural Ecology Foundation."
Lucrezia frowned a little, concentrating, then shrugged. "No idea what that is."
"Started about five years ago. It's an off-shoot of one of Quatre's foundations, I think." Sally leaned back in her chair, shading her eyes from the sun as she grinned at her old friend. "Trowa did his double-major in ecology and colony management, and now he's pretty much the driving force behind diversifying animal ecologies and plant life on the colonies."
Lucrezia whistled. "Kid always was a smart one."
"They all are."
"Wufei?"
"Still working for Preventers. He's one of the directors now, but he also runs a dojo here in Bremen. He should be back in a few days," Sally added. "He left to be on a panel at an L1 conference, I think it was. Something about incorporating Asian martial arts into school programs on the colonies as a way to combat the low-grav bone damage that's been plaguing the children for so long."
"Impressive. What happened to that girl... the one who was Duo's friend?"
"Hilde," Sally replied. "She runs a salvage and restoration company on L2. I think she married a year ago, to a woman named... " Sally paused, and frowned. "Shit, my memory's going. I went to the wedding, and I can't... oh, right. Denise. Gorgeous woman, amazing mechanic from what I recall. Duo introduced them."
"She was a spitfire," Lucrezia said, smiling. "I remember wondering if Hilde would have been much sweeter without Duo's influence."
"Hard to say. Much as I tease him, not everything can be blamed on that boy."
"A boy who's... twenty-seven now? Twenty-eight?" Lucrezia eyed Sally over her drink, making a face at the drink's sweetness. "Not used to so much sugar," she muttered, looking at the drink in distaste. "Enough about the rest of them. What about you?"
"Working administrative," Sally told her. "I got out of front-line duty a few years back. My knees couldn't handle it anymore."
"Sounds like my lower back," Lucrezia said, and leaned her cheek on her fist. "Can you believe we used to muscle around mobile suits like they were made of goose feathers? I wonder where that body went. I'd like it back, now that I can appreciate it."
The copper-haired woman threw her head back and laughed. "Yeah. I look back at the stunts I pulled then, and think... man, we were fearless."
"We had good role models," Lucrezia replied easily. "Couldn't let a bunch of pre-pubescent guys show us up, y'know."
"They did anyway," Sally told her old friend. "We were the sidekicks, I'd say."
Lucrezia snorted. "I'm not, nor have I ever been, a stinkin' sidekick."
"Okay. You were the utterly reliable and dependable warrior who just happened to be at a Queen's side."
"You make me sound like Old Faithful."
"Old is right. We're thirty-one. In the eyes of a good number of the next generation, we should be dead any day now."
Lucrezia made a face and shook her finger at Sally. "You've gotten worse, you know that?"
"Worse?" Sally laughed.
"You always had a smart mouth on you." Lucrezia's lips quirked, and she gave up, grinning. "I'll never forget hearing about your run-in with the Magaunacs."
Sally grinned widely. "Now there are some sidekicks. You know they're still following Quatre around? They adopted Relena, too. She's like their den mother."
"Yeah, I saw Auda and Abdul at the shuttle port. Auda's still wearing sunglasses." Lucrezia looked amused. "And they're still hyper."
"We are old," Sally said, her chuckles subsiding into a contemplative look. "Sitting around talking about those were the days... "
"Those weren't just the days," Lucrezia countered. "Those were the year."
Sally nodded, leaning forward until her face was shaded again under the table's umbrella. Her voice was low, and a little puzzled. "You ever feel like life is over now? Sometimes I wake up in the morning and wonder whether anything will happen today, that will make me feel alive."
"I try not to think about it." Lucrezia played with the straw in her drink, pushing at an ice cube and watching it pop back up. "As long as I was working every day, it was like... I could ignore the fact that I was... " She shrugged.
"Working?" Sally smiled, but wryly.
"Yeah. In a job that's dangerous but hardly life-threatening, where everything has safety mechanisms and the biggest injury was when Zechs' lead mechanic broke his toe." The dark-haired woman smirked. "Idiot was always dropping things. Sometimes I used to fantasize about people coming in and hijacking the project, just so I could pick up a gun and fight back. You know, something exciting. Something... "
" ...That could make you feel like every minute counts," Sally replied. "I carried a gun for years, as a Preventer. Used it once, and that was to hit some moron over the head." She grinned, and gave a half-shrug. "I think working as an administrator is less depressing. At least I know the chances of anything happening are nil. I don't get my hopes up."
Lucrezia rubbed her nose. "How do the pilots handle it? If we're like this, they've got to be worse."
"Heero is a risk-taker. He and Duo are constantly climbing mountains, or skydiving, or jumping off tall buildings or some other ridiculous stunt. Don't know if it helps, but they seem to enjoy it. Trowa always seems to have too much work to have time for vacations, unless Duo drags him away from his desk. Wufei competes in eight different martial arts, at last count. He insists competition relaxes him." Sally grinned. "And Relena keeps Quatre so busy I don't know if he even has time to breathe if she doesn't make sure to schedule a half-hour each day for oxygen."
"Guess that's the secret," Lucrezia said. "Keep busy. I'm certainly not going to be jumping out of any perfectly good airplanes in the next seven months, that's for sure."
"Or ever again," Sally commented. "I tried mountain climbing, a few years back. Wufei and I headed back to China for two weeks, for the ten-year anniversary of the One Year War." She paused, her brow furrowed as she watched the crowd pass on the sidewalk.
"Did it work?"
"Not really. It was like... " The copper-haired woman pursed her lips, thinking. "It was like reading about sex, after having had amazing sex. It's good, but you know it's a fantasy. The adrenaline is there, but something's missing."
"What's missing is that one moment where you don't think you'll make it out alive," Lucrezia observed quietly. "And you can never fake that. It's there, or it's not."
"Are we crazy for missing that?" Sally shook her head. "I'm not so anxious to die young, now. I don't miss people shooting at me, for starters."
"Or having your mobile suit smashed in deep space with the knowledge that if you go down, you're too far from help and no one's coming after you." Lucrezia smiled sadly, and played with her drink some more.
"Drink it, or order something else," her friend told her with a grin. "No, I don't miss the frantic moments of deep space fights. Or ramming a full-sized cruiser into a space station, for that matter."
"I miss not being bored."
Sally raised her eyebrows. "You just came back from twelve years of terraforming, you're about to have a kid, and you're bored? I'm bored. I sit at a desk and answer email and make spreadsheets on officer efficiency all day. You are not allowed to be bored."
Lucrezia laughed softly. "I am, though." She leaned back and stretched, grimacing as the muscles complained. "It's like I don't know what I'm gaining with my actions. Like someone else could do what I do, and I'm just... interchangeable. Replaceable."
"I hardly doubt someone else could be having your kid. Zechs, at the least, might protest."
"Oh, well, true." Lucrezia leaned her elbows on the table and grinned at her friend. "But you know what I mean. Remember that time we hijacked the suits to get Wing from the bottom of the ocean?"
Sally laughed suddenly, nodding her head as she remembered. "Quatre would say--" and she mimicked his cultured accent perfectly "--that has a two percent chance of succeeding--"
"--But a zero percent chance if you don't try," Lucrezia finished.
The two women chuckled together, then fell silent in their own thoughts.
"We mattered," Sally said. "We're not in the history books. Not by name, not by picture, just maybe an oblique reference to those who aided the pilots... but what we did mattered."
"You mattered," Lucrezia replied. "You tracked down Sandrock, and then Wing, and brought Heavyarms to space for Trowa."
"Yeah, and you stood around and filed your nails," Sally countered cheerfully.
"I'm not the one whose hair was always perfect," Lucrezia retorted. "You could be in the middle of battle and still look flawless."
Sally rolled her eyes. "I was making up for my lack of fashion sense." She grinned as Lucrezia immediately rose to the bait, sitting up straight with an indignant expression.
"It was a phase! I was nineteen. I thought country-western was cool," she added, making a face and stabbing at her drink with the straw.
"Whatever you say, cowgirl," Sally replied, grinning as Lucrezia faked a swat in her direction. She grew quiet, then, studying her friend for a long moment, seeing the wrinkles around Lucrezia's eyes, the lines at her mouth that were deeper from years of smiling, and the few strands of silver in the deep black, catching the sunlight. "People talk about having that one moment that defines you. I've never gotten that. I don't think there is one, for me."
"Not me, either. We didn't have one moment," Lucrezia replied evenly. "We had a year of moments."
"Although it was a big moment, that time you crashed through the window at the OZ headquarters." Sally smiled, but it was a distant expression. "What was it Duo told me once... Oh, right. The quiet ones are always the flashiest."
Lucrezia had the grace to blush. "Well, it got you out of there in one piece, didn't it?"
"Something like that."
"Would you say that's when we first met?" The dark-haired woman pulled her hair over her shoulder and combed it absently with her fingers. "Or later, when we finally introduced ourselves?"
"You mean when you introduced yourself," Sally replied good-naturedly. "I seem to recall you knew who I was all along."
Lucrezia smirked. "You were pretty notorious."
"Notorious," the copper-haired woman replied, skeptical. "Hmph. I'll have to put that on my gravestone. For one year," Sally intoned, "she was notorious. But not enough for the history books."
"To hell with those," Lucrezia replied. "You're hung up on that. People will remember us. And if they don't, we'll remember us."
"I wonder. When I'm senile and doddering, what will stick with me?" Sally leaned forward and finished off the last of her tea. "I've always pondered writing a tell-all autobiography about the One Year War. But I keep talking myself out of it."
"You write that, and the pilots will kill you," Lucrezia teased.
"Forget them! I'm worried what Relena would do to me," Sally told her. "That girl frightens me sometimes." Sally pretended to shudder. "Besides, I don't think she's excited about the world ever finding out just what a silly girl she could be."
"Well, when you're fifteen, things are different," Lucrezia observed. "Including being infatuated."
"Infatuated with a man who knows twenty ways to kill you with his bare hands," Sally said. "But then, I guess we all have our weaknesses."
"What's yours?"
"Mine? You mean my weakness?"
Lucrezia nodded, waiting, as Sally considered the question.
"Fear, I think." Sally shrugged a little, and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table. She steepled her fingers under her chin and gave Lucrezia a rueful look. "Fear that the rest of my life will pale in comparison to that single year."
"Same here, I think." Lucrezia sighed, then smiled a little. "When I was at the Academy, they had signs up for the winter dance our senior year. And the slogans all said something ridiculous like, the best night of your life!" Lucrezia rolled her eyes as Sally chuckled. "I remember telling Zechs that if one dance was the best night of my life, I might as well give up and check myself into a nursing home pronto."
"I envy kids," Sally said, unexpectedly. "Just... mentioning things like winter dances, or proms. Or concerts, or the circus... I got to see Duo and his kids last winter. They're both great. Bright, active... and have absolutely no understanding of the meaning of fear."
"Everyone keeps telling me that's the way parents would want it."
"Not the kind of fear I meant." Sally gave her friend a small smile. "I mean... they're so naïve. They honestly believe that things will always be fine, and that they'll live forever. They think they're invulnerable."
"We did, too," Lucrezia replied, her tone light. "I doubt you would've taken on six mobile suits with only a portable surface-to-air missile box if you hadn't thought you had a chance."
"If I were smart, I would've run like hell." Sally laughed.
"No, even the smart ones stay," Lucrezia whispered. "It's the ones that are too afraid of dying that run."
"Were we afraid of dying?"
"I think so. Sometimes." Lucrezia shook her head. "Sometimes it didn't matter."
"I don't recall ever having much time to consider it," Sally admitted. "Life was too precious and short and risky to stop and count my chickens."
"You were hastier than I."
"Not the way Relena tells it," Sally replied, her eyes squinting in humor. "I recall the stories about you protecting Sanq."
Lucrezia chuckled, her expression abashed, and stared up at the underside of the table umbrella. "I never would have thought I'd be sitting here, pregnant with my first child, years down the road. Damn, Zechs is even talking about having to buy a car based solely on how safe it is. My dream of getting a convertible once we got back... " The dark-haired woman grinned widely. "Bastard shot that down the minute I showed him the test results. He's even making noise about me not getting a license, just so he'll have reason to drive me everywhere."
"You took on an army of mobile suits outside the presidential palace," Sally replied. "I think you could handle driving while pregnant."
"Tell that to the dead guy," Lucrezia retorted. Seeing Sally's look, she shrugged. "Zechs had this thing about being dead for a year gave him the freedom he didn't have as Zechs, or as Milliardo. It's been long enough now... it's kind of a joke between us. He pisses me off, I tell him he's a dead man."
"You've been married too long," Sally observed.
"Maybe, but I've put enough years of my life into him, I figure I can do with a few more before giving up completely." Lucrezia cocked her head at Sally with an inquisitive look. "You've not mentioned anyone in your life... "
The other woman shook her head. "There isn't anyone. I was seeing someone a few years back, but it just didn't work out. And I haven't really made the effort since then." She ran a hand through her hair, pulling the copper strands back before letting them fall into place again. "Although if Wufei tries to set me up one more time, I think I'll strangle him."
"That bad?" Lucrezia grinned. "I know a few guys... "
"If you tell me they have good personalities, I will shoot you," Sally snapped, but grinned. "Not everyone has to be paired off, you know. I rather like living on my own, being by myself. It gets lonely sometimes, but... it's comfortable."
"I'm glad to hear you're okay with it," Lucrezia said. "Sometimes I miss having time to myself. Live with someone else, you feel like you're losing yourself. Like there's no you and me, but only us. I guess that's why I try not to think about the war. I acted for Zechs' best interest, but I had my own interests, too."
"Like getting out of there alive," Sally suggested, but in a wry tone.
"Among other things," Lucrezia replied. She sighed and sat up, checking her watch. "Did you want to get some dinner? I have a few more hours... "
"Sure, if Zechs isn't going to be cranky about it."
"I live with him. He gets to see me all the time." Lucrezia rolled her eyes. "And besides, I think there's at least a few moments we've not reminisced about."
"Oh, you mean like the time you took on Barton's headquarters with only Preventer shuttle ammunition?" Sally grinned as Lucrezia made a face.
"Not like I was alone in that, if I recall. Seem to remember you were right in there, too."
"We always were."
"We should do it more often." Lucrezia grinned and beckoned to a waiter. "Let's get some dinner. I'm eating for two now, remember?"
"Yeah, next time some crazed maniac wants to take over the Earth Sphere, drop me a line." Sally accepted the dinner menu from the waiter with a nod. She watched as he set down water glasses in front of them. "It'd be good to feel so alive again."
"A moment's brush with death will do that to you." Lucrezia noticed the young waiter's startled response as he overheard their conversation, and she raised the menu so only Sally could see her smile. "We had enough moments in the war to last a lifetime."
"Then we'll be alive until we're two hundred," Sally said, raising her water glass to clink it against her friend's. "I take back what I said about things being so bland now. I think I might be looking forward to it, after all."
Lucrezia smiled, and raised her own glass to the sentiment.
The End
(:./sol/one)
