22-Jul-2000
Hi folks...
It's been a while,and I know I promised to get Wings4 out ASAP, but *hangs head* It's damned hard to get my hands on a computer here.
I'm nearly done, honest! Tyr'll have it any day now. In the meanwhile, I really wanted to get this out of my notebook, where it's been sitting in my scrawly words.
Title: Like India
Author: AKI
Category: I said I'd never write a deathfic...and I'm not entirely sure whether I've broken that promise or not. You decide.
Pairing: 2+1, but nothing happens, exactly.
Warning: Um, some angst, but really, not serious.
Notes: Thank you Tyr!! ^_^
C&C: PLEEEEEASE? *_* Without e-mail I get awfully lonely...
In September, twenty-five years after we first met, I lost him. I suppose I can't say that with any truth; he wasn't ever mine to lose. But when it struck me that I would never see him face-to-face again, my stomach felt like a stone - one that had been dropped into an ocean. Well, I didn't cry. It is something that I still have not yet learned to do. Nor did I attend the ceremonial service. Which is not to say I didn't grieve. Actually, it got to the point where Hirde wouldn't let me out of her sight - I think my eventual recovery was facilitated by the need for some privacy. Along with that, however, was a realization of sorts. I realized, you see, that Death isn't what I thought it was at age fifteen.
Perhaps this is because love is also not what I thought it to be at age fifteen. It's funny how things have a way of becoming more complicated as you grow older. Then I thought that I would never love anyone after him. Naturally -and fortunately- I was wrong. Love, I believe, is an unpredictable thing. Very. Complex. Not necessarily this my-heart-belongs-to-you-alone type of deal. It's true that at the most basic level, it's still a sort of exchange.
But it's not like giving someone a chunk of gold - indivisible, concrete.
It's very difficult for me to explain myself on this topic, and no wonder. Poets have botched it for years, and who am I to claim that I can do better? Still, I think it would be safer to go by example.
Years ago I met a girl. She was by no means remarkable. There were many things about her that did not suit me, with the result that I haven't heard from her since we separated. But I remember very clearly that there was something about her that I liked very much.
She was amazing with potted plants. And I don't mean that she had a green thumb. Every morning, when I woke up, I would come down to find her bending over, sprinkling the green glossy leaves. There was always a little half-smile on her lips as she did it, and sometimes she would hum. When she finished she would straighten up and give me this smile -I can't describe it- as if that humble joy of giving life had just sunk in. On my part, I would make her coffee.
I can't cook anything, but I do make damned good coffee. And she happened to be the kind of person who appreciated it. I could tell, the way she would close her eyes as she drank it. We never said a word until that much was done. So what was the exchange? I don't know exactly. But the perfect morning, in my mind, is always fringed with potted plants, and fraught with the aroma of coffee. I think it must be the same for her.
But like I said, love is complex. I didn't read the story of Pandora's box until many years later - finding pleasure in books was never my forte, and besides, there wasn't much time. Still I often think that meeting Heero Yuy was like opening Pandora's box. So many things came out and so fast that it's safe to say I didn't know exactly what had hit me. Hmm. Pandora's box. What was in it?
One by one, it seems, it seems that I am digging them out again, the old moments still buried somewhere under my mind. And yet when I unearth them, they are as fresh as unbroken snow.
<I hate the Queen of the World, even though I know that she has only the best of intentions at heart. Why? Just because she can make him smile, and I never do.>
I won't say it was anything to be proud of, but unfortunately that's quite within the bounds of human nature.
<Talk about your slim odds. Every time I see him alive it's a miracle. But even when I know that I have to anticipate his death, I'm greedy for his life.>
You know, the fact that he came out of that whole mess alive is almost enough to restore my faith.
<Again. I'm standing in front of him again and shouting at him silently, enraged that he could be so callous. Angry that he forces me out of my armor of detachment, then ignores me. I want to be able to see him like he sees me - another resource, maybe an ally.>
Imagine how I felt when I kept on viewing him as more than a comrade.
<I hate being weaker. I hate it! I want his strength. I need it just as much as he does.>
I didn't mean his physical strength, thought that's certainly nothing to laugh about; he punched me once and that was enough for a lifetime. But his real strength was his will. If he felt that something was necessary, he would pursue it through fire, water, insurmountable obstacles, whatever. If he was convinced it had to happen, he could have made the Earth stop going around the Sun. That was the kind of feeling I got from him.
You know, it's often puzzled me, the story of Pandora's box. Should she have touched the damned thing? Are we better off for it? I can never quite decide. Hope against a host of Evils. It doesn't seem very fair, does it?
I was always full of hopes when it came to Heero. Not that I mean anything as melancholy as wishing that we were truly lovers. I know him too well for that - though I didn't always. After Mariemeia's coup we were working on Preventer business to clear up the last of the illegal transactions used to procure her supplies. He was changed already, more relaxed, and once he even made a joke-at least, we took it for one. We worked comfortably, him in his silence, me in my chatter, in an unbroken rhythm. I was just thinking how strangely suited we seemed to each other at times, when I saw him lean back suddenly and look at me. My stomach jumped. Not quite daring to look up, I puttered over some files, until he said,
"Duo."
"Mmmm?"
"Things have changed, haven't they."
"Mm."
"The Gundams are gone.I can change too, can't I." His voice trailed off, his eyes still fixed on me. Finally I looked him square in the face. My heart ricocheted in my ribcage like a stray bullet. Then I realized that he wasn't looking at me at all. He was looking through me, through the wall, at something I couldn't see. "I can tell her. I'm not lost." He spoke with certainty, but his gaze was still distant.
"Aa" was all I could find to say. Somehow, I didn't think he was talking about Relena.
That was the moment that I was struck by the complexity of things. I didn't think it was possible to feel such a mess of emotions before.
I can't sort them out entirely, even now. But there were two things that I could feel clearly: I knew that I was happy for him, and that that was all I could ever do. I pride myself on being practical enough not to wish for the moon. I knew then, as I know now, that his was a language without pronouns. There could never be a "him and me" because for him there was no me, no you.
Afterwards I thought about him often, without bitterness. Perhaps that was our exchange: my strange loyalty for some understanding of him, however small. For example, one day five years after I last saw him, I figured out why I couldn't make him smile, while Relena (I still have trouble not seeing her as a rival sometimes; old habits die hard) could and did. To his way of thinking, I was just another soldier. A damn good one, with similar objectives, but still a soldier. Ano ojousan, on the other hand, was quite literally the future. We might have gone on fighting forever, without making an inch of progress to show for all our pains, without her to take the reins. Maybe her vision wasn't very practical, but it sure beat the hell out of killing each other. Heero, with a curious objective view of things, saw this a lot clearer and a lot earlier than anyone else. This doesn't seem like much insight for twenty-five years of dedicated affection, but I don't think my time was wasted. If there was ever anyone worth understanding, he was. Besides, too many great tragedies arise from small misunderstandings, even war - maybe especially war.
Even now that he's gone, I still can't stop myself from thinking back on him. And why should I, really? I didn't even hear about his death until two months after it happened, and in between he was in my mind like he always was. Disappointing, in a way; I always figured that when something did happen, somehow, I'd know. But maybe it's better that I didn't. When something went horribly wrong at work, when I heard a story that made me grit my teeth and shake my head, whenever I thought that maybe the human race really was going to drown in its own filth, I'd think about Heero. And that would do the trick. I figured that if anyone could give as much and try as hard as he did, maybe there was hope for us yet.
Rich people would sometimes donate to the Maxwell Church. It was mostly stuff that they didn't want and that we couldn't use - soiled finery, broken trinkets, etc. But Father and Sister Helen always thanked them anyway. There was one man, however, who would sometimes give us good things. I knew, because when Sister thanked him, I knew she was truly happy, even though she didn't smile as much and there were tears in her eyes as she did it. One time, he saw me playing in the dirt, making little piles with my hands and squashing them down again. He squatted next to me for a while, then asked me if I could read. I told him I couldn't. He thought for a moment, then went away. I didn't much care, it wasn't my fault that I couldn't read, and what good did it do anyway? Or so I thought at the time.
But the next time the man came back he brought a book with him. He said that I couldn't read the words -yet- (and he added that word loudly) but I could look at the pictures, if I pleased. Sister reminded me to thank him, and I did, looking at my toes. But I didn't open it until later, when I was safe in my room. It was a book of places around the world, and there were beautiful pictures on every page, photos of jungles and canyons and icebergs. I used to sprawl on my stomach and look at it for hours. But the picture I liked the best was the one of what Father Maxwell told me was India. There wasn't much in it, actually - just a child, sitting in the sand.
But the sky looked so blue, and the sand so soft - that kid was having a ball just sitting in it, you could tell. He was smiling like anything. And best of all, the whole thing looked so damn warm. Coming from a place like L2, which never had much water, especially not for street brats, you'd think I'd pick any scene over a desert.
But our colony, due to its position in relation to the Sun, got damned cold at night. A couple of kids nearly lost their toes when we were with Solo. The Church did the best it could for us, but at night, I'd go to bed hugging the picture of India in my mind. I'd looked at it so much I could make myself believe that I could feel that warm sand beneath me, the sun on my shoulders.
That man, I was later told, died in the war about a week after he came to see us. But ever since then, whenever I'm cold, that picture pops up in my mind, and it helps. I guess in a way Heero's like that, too. Months after I knew that he was gone, I had a realization. I realized that it doesn't matter that he's dead now.
What matters is that he lived in such a way that I have only to think of him to be inspired. I can still see him, so clearly, the determined look on his face when he destroyed the base, when he self- destructed, when he came back from the exploding Peacemillion. And it brings me hope, a sense of warmth that does not quickly fade.
Almost. Like India.
The End
(:./aki/india)
