15-Sep-2000
Category: songfic
Rating: PG-13, I suppose
Pairing: 3+4 (Woo-hoo! Lilias is branching out!)
Disclaimer: Don't own them, would let them live happier, more boring lives if I did! The song is Sting's "A Thousand Years," and I don't own it either.
Warning: Angst, references to shounen-ai.
Spoilers: Slight ones, for Episode 25 Notes: The bit toward the end is meant as a kind of tribute to fanfic writers--since Trowa's sort of rehearsing some of our favorite AU plots/roles. Hope you like it! Feedback: Always welcome.
My long-suffering pre-reader Q-sama is, as always, the best--but this one is especially for my xiaomeimei, since I'm borrowing her favorite boys! (I won't keep them out too late, I promise.)
/x/ denotes lyrics
/A thousand years, a thousand more
A thousand times a million doors to eternity
may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls/
It's cold. Not nearly as dark as I had thought it would be, though. The lights are far away, but there are so many--it's like I'm swimming in fireflies. Icy, distant, they dance just out of reach. I am weightless among them, turning endless somersaults in space--performing without a net, again. And it's so cold.
My flightsuit wasn't built for this, but at least it doesn't seem to have been badly damaged. If its integrity had been compromised, every one of my cells would have exploded by now, turning everything that used to be me out into the vacuum. It hasn't happened yet, but it seems likely. One collision with a halfway-sharp bit of floating debris, and I'll be a burst balloon.
I still have air, although there can't be much of that left, either. Oz isn't that concerned about retrieving pilots careless enough to be left outside their mobile suits--I have two high-density tanks, but that only gives me about half a day's worth of oxygen. No way of knowing how much longer I'll be able to stay conscious. I ought to care.
If you were able, you would have come for me already. So Heero must have killed you.
Quatre, will you wait for me just a little longer?
/If it takes another thousand years, a thousand wars,
The towers rise to numberless floors in space
I could shed another million tears, a million breaths,
A million names but only one truth to face/
Something was hurting, not so long ago--constellations of pain, actually--but eventually even the broken pieces stopped screaming. It's much easier now to hear myself think. I wonder again what the end was like for you. Did death come for you bearing steel, or fire? I hope it was quick--not this slow, dreaming death that seems to be cradling me. You couldn't bear this, I think, though you too would find these stars beautiful. The darkness would be too much for such a believer in light.
Could you have survived? Under any other circumstances, I would say no--almost by definition, he is unstoppable. We have both seen him fight, and delighted in that skill. But I saw what that suit can do, I heard that voice that was not quite yours, and so I start to allow myself to hope. Oz's Mercurius might have been just weak enough to give you the advantage, in spite of its pilot's perfection.
The thought that you might still be alive is almost worse than imagining your death--I don't want to leave, if it means leaving you behind. You probably think I'm already gone, if you're still out there at all. Except that you would know better, wouldn't you? You always know.
Tears are floating inside my helmet again, dancing like the fireflies that light the dark. I want to string them on a chain and give them to you--it would be only the beginning of what I owe. How many times have you cried for me?
/A million roads, a million fears
A million suns, ten million years of uncertainty
I could speak a million lies, a million songs,
A million rights, a million wrongs in this balance of time/
It's been so long since I came out here alone.
I haven't even seen you since we all left for Siberia, and that seems like years ago. It wasn't hard to lock myself away inside an Oz uniform and bend myself to their will, not when I had left everything that mattered back on a sweep of tundra. And if I could convince myself that this was the best way to end the war, so much the better--infiltrate, conduct espionage, get home alive.
Home, of course, being wherever you had gone. Except that I had no idea where that was--a good thing, since if Oz didn't know where to find you, they couldn't kill you.
The others came, eventually, but not you. I sat next to the web with the other spiders and watched as they tangled themselves in its netted cords: Heero, cursing himself; Wufei, cursing injustice; and Duo, cursing everything. But you never came, love. I thought perhaps you were just planning your attack, biding your time.
I didn't know that something terrible had already caught you.
/But if there was a single truth, a single light
A single thought, a singular touch of grace
Then following this single point, this single flame,
This single haunted memory of your face/
When they said an unknown suit was tearing up colonies, I knew it had to be stopped. When I heard enough to be sure it was you, I knew I had to be the one to bring you in. I thought you were just drawing their attention, that you would join us and we would stand together again. Nothing could have prepared me for what we found out there. What have they done to you?
Because that voice wasn't yours, not at first. Such anger, such coldness--these things weren't you, _aren't_ you, and I was afraid they had broken you beyond repair. I suppose I fought you with more despair than determination, still not sure anything could reach you. Heero had enough determination for both of us, as usual, and didn't have my memories to stay his hand.
And you didn't have your own memories--or, perhaps, something too horrible to be borne was taking up all the room inside your mind, pressing those memories down into insignificance.
But at the end--that was you. You called my name, and for all the pain, the shock and guilt and horror, it was your voice. It was the least I could do, to give you back yourself.
You gave it to me to keep for you, a long time ago.
/I still love you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head/
For someone who wants to embrace everything--immediately, if possible--you were unbelievably patient with me. I must have looked at you a million times before the message in your eyes finally made it through. How can you want this, how can you want me, when everything else in your life is beautiful?
But you came to me, and you chose me. Knowing everything I am, everything I have been, you chose me.
And you called me love.
I have never wanted anything as much as I wanted your lips--and you gave them to me. So then I wanted more, and you gave that, too. On and on, until everything was heat and light and wonder. I think I laughed--I know I cried, because you held me even closer and wouldn't let me go.
Best beloved, most wonderful of all things under the sky--or in it, or beyond it. If there is a heaven, it can stop creating things now; the sculptor should lay down the chisels, and spend the rest of eternity staring at what he has made. My dear one--oh, most dear.
In the language of my grandfathers, the word is caro: beloved, and costly. But how worth the cost.
You are my life, and you let me into yours.
Oh, Quatre. How is it I can still feel you holding me?
/I may be numberless, I may be innocent
I may know many things, I may be ignorant
Or I could ride with kings and conquer many lands
Or win this world at cards and let it slip my hands
I could be cannon food, destroyed a thousand times
Reborn as fortune's child to judge another's crimes
Or wear this pilgrim's cloak, or be a common thief
I've kept this single faith, I have but one belief/
This time would be better spent with you, of course.
And so I tell myself stories. In them we are kings, or winged warriors, or regular people going to the market, and I bring you to life with memories of your voice, your hands, your eyes. I fill my mind with pictures of you in this costume, or that one--wood elf, high-school student, pilot of some antique fighting plane--and in every change of dress, you are still the same. I imagine you riding beside me, laughing, speaking, favoring me beyond all measure with that look that goes deeper than love, deeper than understanding. When it starts to break my heart, I switch to another plot, another setting--I have plenty of storylines saved up.
Lives we have never lived, warming me while I float in the dark.
But it's really just the same story, over and over and over. Whether I imagine you as a boy, or as a grown man, or as an old one, it's always the same.
You are mine, and I am yours, and this time it never ends.
/I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times these memories unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head
On and on the mysteries unwind themselves
Eternities still unsaid
Til you love me/
Consciousness is coming and going, now--I'm almost warm, and that can't be a good sign. One more story, just one more. Is there time? Yes.
You're standing in front of me, and you're holding out your arms. Don't cry, don't ever cry again--I'm right here, and I'll never leave you. There. I can feel your hands on my back, your hair against my face. Tell me about the place where we'll live when it's all over--the fountains, the balconies, the stairway made out of real Italian marble. I couldn't care less where you found a truckload of stone, but it makes you so happy to build your dream-castles out of the best materials, so I nod and smile. Tell me again about how it will be.
It's the best story of all--a good place to wait for the stars to stop wheeling, for the darkness to become absolute. I'll be here until you come for me, caro.
The End
(:./lilias/galaxies)
