06-May-2006
Title: Launch Epilogue
Author: TB
Archive: GWA and
http://www.geocities.com/brother_maxwell/TB_home_page.html
Category: yaoi
Pairing: 3x4, 1+4 (get your long-range binoculars out)
Disclaimer: The characters and plot of Gundam Wing are used here
without permission from their creators. Please to not sue. Our society is overly
litigious as it is. Save your money until McDonalds gives you hot coffee without warning you.
Badra slipped in to his outpatient room while Iraia was fluffing a mountain of pillows for the sofa, leaving Quatre to wonder if he would actually fit when they were all ready. He did, but just barely, and tried to balance himself with a foot on the floor without alerting his sisters.
"So when are you officially discharged from hospital?" she asked him.
"They're checking the sutures tomorrow, and if it all looks good, I walk out a free man," he reported wryly. She grinned widely at him. Badra was one of the eldest, nearly fifteen years older than himself, and he hadn't met her until he'd been legally named the CEO of WEI after their father's death in the middle of the war. She'd had a dry, teasing sense of humour, inclined toward practical jokes. She had reminded him then of Duo, and he'd been able to respond to her jokes with a few he'd learned from the unrepentantly dirty-mouthed L2 pilot. They had been fast allies by the end of their first meeting. He had needed her, because the majority of his sisters, especially those long-established in the family business, had seen him as an intruder-- the only boy, favoured even after he'd tried to throw it all away. Some of them had even resigned in protest, and he hadn't heard from them since.
Now Badra dropped a wrapped package in his lap, and took one of the chairs that Iraia had set up facing the couch. "It's carob candy," she explained. "If I'd known it was impossible to find real sweets in this hospital, I would have picked something up along the way."
"I don't mind." He picked at the edge of the wrapping without really opening it. "Thank you for coming. I know it's a long trip."
"I am resigned to the fact that you can't come to me," Badra said, with surprising sensitivity. "Some day when you're ready, you can come back to L4." Iraia spoiled the moment by trying to drape an afghan over his legs, and Badra laughed while he glared at their sister.
"Let me fuss," Iraia scolded, unruffled. "I've patched up your poor battered body myself, and I'm well aware that you're no super man. Only an idiot would think he has to put up a good front after what you just went through."
Just to prove that she was right, his eyes stung for a moment, and he had to look away while his vision blurred. He was painfully aware of Badra and Iraia lapsing into silence, sensing something had changed. Quatre fought it down, telling himself he could fall apart in private, and breathed through his nose until it passed.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled.
Iraia captured his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. "You've got nothing to be sorry for. You should see me during my monthly--"
Quatre flushed. "Iraia," he groaned. Badra erupted into a giggle at his embarrassment. "All right," she said, in the tone that signaled "meeting open; business only." "Why don't you tell me why I'm here, little brother?"
"It's-- well, in a way, this is all a part of it," he said, gesturing half-heartedly at the hospital ward. "I wanted... I want to-- " Iraia squeezed his hand encouragingly. "I want to cut back my hours," he blurted.
Badra blinked. "Cut back your hours?"
"I feel like I'm working all the time," he said lamely. "And at first I think it was necessary. There was so much that I had to learn about WEI, and everyone had to learn about me, too. About-- whether I could handle it, what kind of manager I would be."
"And you've been a very good one," Badra assured him, but her expression was thoughtful. She was going to hear him out, Quatre realised, and a big part of him relaxed. Iraia sensed it, and squeezed his hand again.
"I want to bring you on as co-chair," he said bluntly. "You practically are anyway. Maybe I wouldn't have suggested it even last year, but I think now it would be a good move. The trustees know me now and they won't take it as a sign that I can't handle it and I need to be pushed aside-- because I don't want that." He searched for the words. "I think I am good at it," he admitted finally. "At helping to run WEI and directing policy and-- and, all of it. But I've always felt a little trapped in it, too. I have other obligations, even if Father didn't understand..."
Badra only nodded. Quatre acknowledged her acceptance, and didn't try to finish that sentence. "I'll turn twenty-one in July. It sort of brought home that I never really-- I mean, I spent my teenage years in business academy and fighting a war," he said. "And then I went straight into the company."
"I don't think anyone would be really distressed if you took more holiday time," Badra answered cautiously.
"This is about more than that," he told her softly. "I'm not even sure I can explain. I know everyone will be furious that I ran off again to the IEO. I know they'll cover up my involvement as much as they can, but they can't cover up my temporary employment as a Preventer. It was a stupid thing to do. But it was also something that I had to do. It's-- about obligations. There is a part of my life that will always belong to the war and who I was then. Who I am. And it's my responsibility to do those things. I can't choose to sit on the sidelines when someone threatens the peace, because I already made that choice when I was fourteen years old and I agreed to pilot a Gundam."
She nodded once, but her concentration was turned inward, as she thought about his stumbling explanation. Iraia, to his surprise, looked much the same. He could feel slight tension in her fingers on his, see a strange reserve in her.
"So I'd like you to come on as co-chair," Quatre told Badra at last. "Because I owe it to WEI to leave them with good leadership. But I owe it to everyone else to be ready if someone shows up with nuclear warheads again."
She looked up at him squarely. "Is that why?" she asked directly. "Is there no other reason, Quatre?"
She'd caught him. He tried to let her see his apology in his eyes, but somehow it didn't show at all in his voice. "I owe it to myself to be able to breathe, once in a while," he said, and steeled himself against the selfishness of that.
But to his shock Badra let out a huge breath, slumping back in her chair. "I can't tell you how glad I am you said that," she muttered. Then she left her chair, perching beside him on the sofa, and gave him a gentle embrace. Stunned, he couldn't even return it. Her eyes, blue like everyone in their family, were bright when she pulled back. "Little brother," she said seriously, "if I had thought you were doing this out of obligation to every bloody person in the universe except yourself, I never would have agreed to it."
Iraia laughed at that, and laughed harder at his expression. Badra began to grin as well, and soon Quatre was frowning at both of them. "I don't understand," he said, a little sullen in the face of their obvious amusement.
"I know you don't," Iraia returned, rather kindly. "Have Duo explain it to you sometime." She ruffled the hair at the back of his head. She kissed him spontaneously, and he felt another dull blush creeping over his cheeks. They laughed at him again, but somehow, everything seemed to be all right. Badra opened his carob candy, and made him choose from the box while they began a new round of fussing over him. Quatre lay back obediently on his mound of pillows, and decided that no about of psychic ability would ever help him understand women.
Duo handed him a tall glass of squash, and eased into one of the beach chairs beside him. "I don't know if I can describe how glad I am to be home right now."
Quatre smiled as he sipped the tangy orange drink. Duo always made it strong. "I know what you mean," he answered, watching pink trace its way across the blue sky as the sun set. "There's just something restful about being home."
"I take it that means you're not going to finish the tour with the IEO?"
"I'm not sure yet. I want to meet back up with them someday-- I want to see it end. Smoothly," he added wryly. "Can you believe it only launched two months ago? It feels like forever."
Duo drained half his iced tea, and set it on the table between their chairs. "I think Heero likes it here too," he said abruptly. "I'm glad."
Yes, Quatre thought Heero liked their home as well. The townhouse itself was nothing special, just a place to live that had a little of themselves stamped on it; it was the mountains visible nearby, the clean smell of the air, the creek just below the hill. The quiet, still strangely unfamiliar sounds of birds and small animals that filled the day with chatter the colonies couldn't match.
Heero stood framed by the timbers of the porch, gazing out at all of it, and for maybe the first time in all the time Quatre had known him, he could identify something happy in the set of Heero's shoulders. Something at peace. It filled his heart to see it there.
Duo said, "You realise you're going to have to make the first move."
Quatre blinked at his friend, startled. "I'm sorry," he said belatedly. "First move in what?"
Duo's little smirk became a genuine grin. "For a couple of smart, intense guys, you two are sure oblivious to the subtle stuff."
"What-- Heero?" Quatre looked between Duo and the young man Duo was pointedly staring at. "Heero?"
"I think I'll leave you to ponder the mysteries of the universe," was Duo's smug reply, and his friend stood, striding back inside with the air of a man well pleased with himself.
Quatre watched him go, and turned back to contemplating Heero. Not long later, he decided that some things were probably best left unexamined. But he found himself rising, and bringing the light quilt that had been covering his own legs. He paused with it, then carefully draped it over Heero's shoulders. Heero's head whipped about to look at him.
"Chilly," Quatre said. He thought suddenly about that hint of Asian heritage in Heero's face, in the shape of his cheeks and the colour of his skin, so at odds with the deep blue of his eyes, one of those little genetic peculiarities that always spoke of Space.
Heero nodded, and caught the edge of the blanket as it slipped down his chest. "Yes," he agreed after a pause. "Thank you."
Quatre joined him on the edge of the porch, leaning against the nearest pole as they watched the last of the sunset. It was going to be a dark night with few stars, and Quatre decided he was glad for that. It didn't seem like the right night to be thinking about Space and the colonies out in it. For so long the ambition of their young lives had been arrival on Earth. They were finally there. They had proven beyond doubt, on their lives and on their souls, that they belonged there as much as anyone born dirt-side.
Heero sat on the stone floor, curling his knees up to his chest. Quatre slid down next to him, kicking his legs out in front of him, over the edge into the grass. He leaned back on his hands, and discovered that if he shifted just a little, his shoulder brushed Heero's.
They sat that way until dusk became evening, and Duo returned to fetch them for supper.
"So Heero and I were thinking of going into town tonight," Duo explained, serving Quatre a plate of curry and several pieces of garlicky naam bread. "He hasn't really seen any of it yet. I thought we'd see some of the old buildings, and then we'd head up into High Street for dessert."
"The town is really great at night," Quatre said, half agreeing and half advertising for Heero's benefit. "You know where you should go? The Albion. They have this amazing caramel pudding."
Heero's eyes came up from his plate. "You're not going to come?" Duo wore a look of surprise, which swiftly became accusation, and he was reaching for Quatre's side before Quatre even thought to stop him.
"I feel fine," he assured them both quickly. "I'm just a little tired tonight. I was kind of looking forward to going to bed early and getting a few extra hours of sleep. That's all."
"We don't have to go tonight," Duo offered.
"Were you planning on watching me sleep?" Quatre demanded crisply, shredding a piece of bread and dipping it into the steaming curry sauce. "Go do your sightseeing, and tomorrow we'll do something all together, when I'm awake to enjoy it."
It took a little more persuading, but he managed to get both men bundled out the door with warm coats and wallets full of coupons for the Albion's extensive menu. Finally free of well-meaning but rather restrictive gazes, Quatre indulged himself in a leisurely shower, wrapped himself in his terry-cloth robe, and settled on the downstairs couch with a book on new energy initiatives from the L3 Green Party that he'd been meaning to read for ages. Warm, content, and engaged, he stayed that way for several hours without stirring for anything more important than a pillow to put behind his back. The other two returned a few hours later, but didn't disturb him, and he heard them make their way upstairs without really thinking about them.
And then sometime long past midnight, Quatre realised he wasn't alone any longer. Without seeming to, he looked about carefully, but couldn't see anything out of place.
He swallowed. "Trowa," he said.
There was a shift, and a slim figure detached from the curtains. Quatre watched it shuffle toward him, resolving into a body with arms and legs and a head covered with a hood. Trowa reached up to pull it away from his face. "Quatre," he answered softly.
"I didn't really think I'd see you again," Quatre confessed, sinking back onto the sofa. He managed a smile with one side of his mouth. "I don't suppose you're turning yourself in."
Trowa's mouth quirked, too, and he sat cautiously on the opposite edge of the cushions, dropping his hood all the way. "You can tell Duo I'm sorry."
"Are you trying to piss him off?"
Trowa's little smile grew at that, then faded abruptly. "You can tell him I... understand," he amended.
He wanted to say, Tell him yourself, or something that implied staying around. He didn't. He waited, knowing Trowa wouldn't have risked showing up if he didn't have a specific purpose.
He had to wait a long time for it, but he didn't give in. When Trowa's eyes finally slid away from his, then looked back as if he was steeling himself, Quatre unconsciously sat straighter.
"I'm sorry," Trowa said.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. It was quite possibly the first time Trowa had ever apologised to him for anything, but it struck him as being a remarkably shitty way to say good-bye.
Trowa broke their gaze again, as if he couldn't hold it. "You don't forgive me," he murmured.
He swallowed. "I'll forgive you everything," he answered. "I always do."
Trowa nodded, but he didn't look up. Quatre reached for his hand, and took it before Trowa could pull away. He interlaced their fingers.
"You don't owe that to me," Trowa told him. "Not any more. The balance is-- I'm the one who owes you, now."
"But you're leaving," Quatre said simply. "So forget debts and balances and who owes what. I forgive you." His eyes filled suddenly, and he pushed it away viciously. Later, he thought. I won't waste this time with him. When he could speak, he finished, "That's how I want it to be." He tugged, and the other man came, shifting toward him as Quatre leaned back. It took a moment to make it comfortable, but when they settled, Quatre was propped against the arm of the couch with Trowa tucked against his chest, Trowa's arm loose about his waist. He laid his cheek against Trowa's coarse hair, and listened to their hearts beating out-of-time.
Trowa whispered, "You were the happiest part of my life, too."
Quatre gazed off into the darkness with his eyes wide, knowing that once he closed them, he'd wake up alone.
The End
(:./erin/launch21)
