08-May-2005
Title: Burn
Author: Sol 1056
Rated: PG-13 for violence, language
Pairing: none for now
Warnings: spoilers for the entire series
I find myself thinking more of Duo, as the steel-gray ocean spreads out nautical miles between us and Venice, carrying us towards this fool's goal in Antarctica. Trowa reminds me of Duo in some ways. An almost proprietary interest in me, but I can't blame him for that. It's just one more on the list: so many now, and what can I call my own, in turn? Wing, but that's gone.
"Careful," Trowa reminds me. His legs hang down into the cockpit from where he sits at the opening. He leans over, elbows on his knees, watching me. Cool green eyes, always watching. Someone speaks at the door to the shuttle's bay, and Trowa's head comes up, eyes narrowing. I don't need to hear the voice to know it's that woman. I've not seen him react like that to anyone else.
The most I can manage in reply is a soft grunt. The wound's split open again with my exertions of trying to move Heavyarm's left grip. I can only guess that the nanobot technology maxed out somehow, in all the other injuries. I've almost become resigned to the fact that for once, I'll have to heal at a natural rate. It intrigues me, and sometimes I run my fingers along the bandage, curious.
"You give her a lot of shit," I finally manage, when the voices have faded, and my vision isn't graying at the edges from pain shooting up my arm and down my spine.
"I don't trust her."
I shrug, with one shoulder. I don't quite trust her, either, but what else is there to do? What else faced us—me—but endless days hiding from more dark sedans on crowded European streets? I've been abandoned, by all but Trowa, it seems, and this Zechs person who wishes to fight me. That's good enough. That's something to look forward to, however small.
"She's the enemy," he finally says.
"Former." I relax my hold on the throttle, and clench my fist, but stop when all it does is make me want to gasp at the sharp stab of muscle sliding across injury. "I doubt OZ would see Zechs' intentions as a sign of his loyalty."
"We don't know that." Trowa sees the political issue as a technicality, I'm sure.
"You didn't have to come," and perhaps that's the first time I've even broached the topic. It's just been assumed, up until now. I can't do this alone. I have trouble putting on a coat, let alone the notion of making my way on an Earth so alien to me.
Trowa just shrugs. What he doesn't see as worthy of discussing, he won't. Most of the time this makes for an easy silence, but sometimes I almost long for Duo's commentaries. It never told me anything, really; he never spoke of things that mattered. But I found it reassuring, sometimes. I wonder what he'd say about this.
I have no idea. I doubt I'll find out.
Zechs has rebuilt Wing. I don't trust him, and I don't trust his mechanics, and it feels... Is it wrong that I feel like it's not my Wing, now that someone else has covered every square inch? These panels have been shaped and blasted, painted and scored, like the original, but it's not. For a split second, I'd wanted to hope I'd been given back the only thing mine, the only thing I possessed, but it wasn't, and I pushed the hope away. It's simply a machine, and if it's what I must use to fight, then I will.
Working on Wing, adjusting everything to my preferences, is not helping. Nothing erases the awareness of the techs in the background, watching me with eyes as careful and cautious as Trowa's, only they watch because they see Wing as theirs, now. Not mine. I think of Zechs, and Noin, and Trowa, standing at the door to the hangar. I think of the upcoming battle, and that man's obsession with finishing a fight interrupted by my death. I think of his mask, and his voice, and the minute hesitation in his gestures, as if he's measured me up and found me greater than he expected. I think of the words he said, the fingerprints of strangers on Wing's screens, and the responses I gave.
What's most frustrating, perhaps, is that no one gets my sense of humor. I snort, and that will have to do. Even I don't find my humor very amusing, it seems.
The dream has returned, and I wake in a cold sweat. I think I slept for two hours. Maybe three. My arm throbs; my chest aches. My stomach clenches, empty, hungry, tight. Today I'll leave in Heavyarms, and fight that man. Kill him, if I must.
For a moment, I close my eyes and tell myself I'm lying on green grass, with the high silver-sky of the colony over my head. There are few birds on the colonies, but there's rushing water of a creek somewhere. For a moment, if I close my eyes, I can be back in the dream, but I open my eyes to the dark bunk before the dream unwinds further.
It always ends the same: fires burning into the colony sky. And then days and nights of darkness, with more fire, dancing along my muscles and into my broken bones. There's no value in remembering. It teaches me nothing but that failure has only one result.
And if Zechs fails, I'll show him that result. If I fail, perhaps I'll be fortunate and he'll be the one to show me.
I think maybe Duo was right. I just can't die, damn it. I stand in line at the shuttle port, my fake ID in hand, and nod politely when the woman takes my ticket. Outside, the rain pummels the shuttle-port windows, streaking fat tears down the windows. I consider picking up a chair, slamming it into the window, and throwing myself out.
Just as quickly, I have the rather sudden image of myself, face-flat against the pavement, spread-eagle, and still just as alive. Damn it. Maybe if the shuttle exploded into a fiery ball. I haven't tried fire, yet. Drowning, check. Falling, check. Self-detonation—does that count as fire? No, that probably counts as a second huge fall. Obviously throwing myself out the window is inadequate. Unfortunately, the shuttle is full of people: a woman with two children ahead of me, three men in suits behind me, two college students up ahead laughing and joking. No, cancel that flaming shuttle ride.
"Mr. Maxwell," a stewardess says, glancing at my ticket, at the door to the shuttle. "You're in seat fifteen-B. First time in space?"
"Yes," I manage, opening my eyes a little wider, like I'd imagine Duo would.
"Wonderful," she gushes, and turns away to greet the next person.
Right. Wonderful. I'm going home. I find my seat, and shove my one bag under the seat in front of me. My left arm still aches, but it's closer to healed. Another week and it should be fine. I take out the ticket, turning it over in my hands.
Maxwell, Duo.
I wonder if he got to space safely. I watched the news reports; I saw him fighting. Trowa and I had parted ways, by then. He seemed both pleased and disgruntled, oddly, at the notion that it was safe to fight again. I hadn't thought it'd be safe—the colonies are still at risk—but he insisted Quatre wouldn't fight without a surety on the colonies' behalf. It made no sense that he would be so certain of a stranger, so quick to follow another's lead—but then, he'd followed my lead, as inadequate as it may have been.
Putting the ticket away, I try not to think about the fact that it felt... How did it feel? What did I feel? My chest ached, just above my heart, and my throat felt tight. It faded once he stopped speaking of Quatre, this person whom he seemed to hold in such high regard—yet he'd never mentioned Quatre to me before. I recall seeing the boy, when we all met. A face on my view-screen: blond hair, goggles, a soft, cultured voice that spoke with authority and determination. I can't recall much else; I was rather preoccupied at the time. I wonder if Duo remembers me, and speaks of me like that, to anyone. I doubt it.
"Mr. Maxwell? Mr. Maxwell?"
"Ah... yes?" I look up. I need to remember it's my name, if temporarily. The stewardess holds out a drink, and I take it, sipping while I palm the anti-nausea drug. It's not going to do me any good anyway, even if g-forces actually had an impact on me. She smiles and goes on her way.
Duo. Two. I wonder why. Two of what? Why two? It's not like he ever introduced himself, either, no more than I did. But I couldn't help overhearing the techs on the Sweeper ship; they seemed to act like he was some kind of mascot. That old guy, with the sunglasses...Howard. He didn't seem to like me a great deal, but perhaps that was because I saw no reason to let them do work I was perfectly prepared to do myself—and fixing machines is their livelihood.
Maybe that's it. Maybe with this name, I can be something other than Boy. Something other than code name, Heero Yuy. The idea of Heero Yuy, as a code name, always raises a slight sense of discomfort. I don't like giving out that name. It's not mine, and I'm the absolute opposite of everything that man stood for. He spoke of peace, and unification, and creating connections with Earth. I'm not sure what I stand for, but it's something bathed in blood and baptized in fire.
I lean back, taking deep breaths, readying myself for the slingshot hurtle into space. Around me other passengers are tightening their belts, eyes drifting closed under the influence of the anti-nausea drugs. I think by now Duo would have struck up a conversation with the six nearest people, maybe. He certainly always had a quick smile for people, but he always had a way of cutting them off. End of conversation, he seemed to say, but with a smile and in such a way that no one seemed offended. He could draw a line in the sand. He did, and he dragged me over to his side.
Duo Maxwell.
I finger the edge of the ID in my pocket, then settle my hands on the arms. The countdown's begun. The pilot's voice drifts through the cabin, echoing, a deep baritone. It's nothing like the rapid-fire mutterings Duo made while taking off in the shuttle that time, or Trowa's absolute silence while piloting.
Tired, so tired, and going back to space. That's where OZ has gone, and that's where I must follow. But first, I need to get my bearings. Slip back down, rest up, and figure out where I can find OZ's soft underbelly. I may not have Wing, but I can still strike hard without it, and I will.
Duo spoke of going home when this was all over. I'm going home, and it's not over. I close my eyes as I'm slammed against the seat by the shuttle's force of take-off. The engines scream at an unbelievably high pitch; a child starts crying two rows in front of me. I'm going home, or at least back to space, the only home I've known.
I wonder what home Duo knew. I want to think about that, to turn that over in my head and understand, but I'm too tired and my arm throbs gently. I realize I'm rubbing my bicep, and drop my hand. I don't want to sleep, because that would mean I will dream. But by the time we reach the atmosphere and begin the eight-hour flight to L1, I'm drifting.
Cool grass, and my own excited laughter. A childish voice, and my own responses. I had no idea what to say; I had never met a child. My entire life, the only child in the room was me...but in the dream, a child offers me half an apple and a cheeky grin. I rub my eyes, blink, because the child flickers in and out like a bad transmission, there, not-there, grass writhing beneath my palms and under my knees, and I must scramble after the child as he runs off. He laughs over his shoulder at me when I call him back, begging him to stay away, no stop stop, but he runs, don't don't into the flame and heat shrapnel and fire, stop stop and the dream shakes me, pummels me, I'm knee-deep in dirt and blood and early snow on my lashes and I scream no stop claw through rubble, frantic, but the world grays stop no and I'm still screaming stop and the pain consumes me no no and I'm begging please please stop no—
I wake in a cold sweat, relieved I've not woken anyone around me. I don't sleep for the rest of the trip. I keep my hands in my lap, clasped together so no one seems the bloody half-moons dug into my palm. They'll be healed by the time we land on L1.
My home, the world of my nightmare.
End Part 6
(:./sol/burn6)
