09-Jun-2000
Disclaimers: Don't own them.
Warnings: Cussing. Timeline? We don't need no stinkin' timeline. And, of course, the story takes place in one of the multitude of oh-so-convenient Winner estates... hey, just following fanfic convention.
I looked up at Wing with a grunt. The damage wasn't severe, but it would have to be repaired quickly. Another mission could come at any time. Around me swirled a mass of Quatre's mechanics, working on the other Gundams that had taken shelter in yet another of the numerous Winner estates.
Well, the others might trust these mechanics to take care of their Gundams, but no one touched Wing but me. Training and experience inclined me to trust no one but myself. It wasn't that I believed the mechanics were OZ spies; I would have killed them all at the slightest hint of such a thing. I knew Wing best, that was all. I trusted my own expertise, my knowledge of its systems, its wiring, every inch of its metallic skin.
"Heero!" I sighed inwardly, but tried not to let it show, focusing instead on the schematics in my head. I would need more than a few parts to fix the gaping slash in Wing's side - "Heero!" The schematics vanished in a burst of irritation.
"Aa?" I responded, not turning to face the source of the interruption, who I knew without looking would be sporting his traditional cheeky grin.
"Come on, man, it's time to eat!" he called from the mouth of the hangar. I wasn't particularly hungry, but long habit added to my initial training had taught me to keep my body fueled and ready for anything. I sighed and turned to go into the house.
"How's Wing?" the idiot asked, falling into step beside me. I grunted. At this point, I didn't really hold out hope of him getting the hint and going away, but I wasn't about to encourage him, either. "Not bad? That's good. Shouldn't take too long to repair, then." I grunted again. "Yeah, any time at all is too much, I know. Still, it's impossible not to get damaged during a mission like that." I glanced at him and snorted. "Yes, even for the perfect soldier," he responded.
I reflected that he was getting a little too good at that.
I twisted two wires together and capped them, then glanced at my watch, which revealed that it was past midnight. I was no longer functioning at optimal capacity; it was time to sleep. I squirmed out from under the control panel and swung myself out of the cockpit, sliding down Wing's body to the ground.
As I brushed myself off and stowed my tools, I glanced over the other Gundams. They'd all taken a beating during this last mission, and all of them were worse off than Wing. Well, that made a certain amount of sense; my job had been to take out the base while they guarded my back.
Still, looking at the damage the Gundams had suffered made me ... uncomfortable. Although I knew that the mission had been set up for maximum efficiency, I still wished I had been able to fight alongside my fellow pilots. I didn't like the thought that they had been taking shots and blows meant for me. Especially... especially near the end, when Sandrock, Shenlong and Heavyarms had been pulled away by the currents of the battle, and only Deathscythe had been left to guard my back. No, I corrected myself, only Duo.
Faced with ranks of Leos, his reaction had been typical, telling me to hurry if I could, and proceeding to wreak as much havoc as possible without moving from his position directly behind me. All without losing his edged grin. Some part of me had hurt at the sight of that grin, at the all-too-real possibility of its loss. Obviously, at some point, I had become attached to my fellow pilot. And attachment, with all its accompanying sentimentality, was a weakness I could not afford. Something would have to be done.
The following morning found me awake at dawn, as usual. Stepping outside after a brief breakfast of toast and coffee, I noticed two large, black birds flying above the trees in formation, one directly below the other, mirroring each other perfectly as they turned and climbed, catching a thermal. I acknowledged the impressiveness of their aerial abilities and continued on to the hangar.
Fortunately, it wouldn't take too much longer to repair Wing. As soon as it was fixed, I was leaving. It was just too dangerous for me to stay around the others, especially Duo. They were distracting me from the mission, making me soft.
As I began unscrewing one of Wing's panels, I found my mind wandering. Wondering, perhaps, if I wasn't being too harsh. After all, I was human, a small voice argued. Humans were social creatures by nature, weren't they? They needed other people in order to function properly.
I snorted as I returned my attention to my task. Humans might be social creatures in general, but that was no excuse for weakness. A good soldier, a disciplined soldier, knew that allowing himself to care about specific people would only compromise him. And led to situations just like this, in which concentration on the task at hand was nearly impossible.
"Kuso," I muttered and tossed the screwdriver back into the toolbox, sliding to sit against my Gundam's leg. If I went on like this, I'd end up welding my own leg instead of Wing's, and that would really cut into my effectiveness as a soldier. Jokes aside, what was I going to do? It really seemed as though I wouldn't be able to put my fellow pilots out of mind even if I did leave.
I could kill them, I supposed, but that would just leave me with guilt. And a lot more work to do on my own. What did that leave me with? If I left I would worry about them. If I stayed I would worry about them. I dropped my head into my hands and cursed with all the inventiveness I could muster.
"Heero!" Dammit, not now! I glared at the silhouette in the hangar doorway.
"Go away," I growled, picking up the screwdriver and turning my back to him. Was there emotion on my face? I couldn't risk letting him know how confused I was, not when I didn't know yet what I was going to do.
"But-"
"Go away." I glanced up in time to see his face as he turned - anger, frustration, and... pain? - and then he was gone. Damn, damn, damn. I leaned forward to rest my forehead on Wing's cool metal.
Dirt coated my hands in a thin layer of brown as I pushed mounds of earth over the still body of the puppy. "Are you lost, mister?" "I've been lost all my life." The grave was insatiable, never filling, and the puppy's body seemed to hover in the forefront of my vision. I pushed more and more dirt into the grave, desperately, sweat from my face dripping onto my hands, making little rivers of mud in the grime.
My own strangled whimper woke me, and I found myself shaking in my bed with the strength of my dream's grief and desperation. I had never felt a dream like that before, the illusion of tactile sensation lingering still. I stared at my hands - they were pale in the moonlit room, drifting ghostlike against the dark covers. Part of me actually registered surprise that they weren't covered in dirt from the dream.
I remembered the incident, of course. Dr. J had been less than pleased with my "inappropriate emotions." My training had been intense before, but afterwards it was nothing short of brutal. I felt a sudden wave of anger pass over me, and realized that the grinding sound I had barely registered was my teeth. Who the hell was Dr. J to tell me my emotions were inappropriate? I had followed his training, buried my feelings, and cut myself off from the rest of humanity, and I had done so well that when the extraordinarily vivid, laughing Duo started teaching me what friendship was, I couldn't handle my response. How was that supposed to help me fight? Running away wasn't an option anymore; I couldn't run away from my own heart.
I remembered, more faint than any dream, Odin Lowe telling me to follow my emotions. But what was I supposed to do when I didn't know what my emotions were? I stared at the ceiling. Maybe, if I wanted to understand emotions, I should watch how the others dealt with theirs. Reconnaissance, after all, I did understand. Ninmu ryoukai. Comforted by the thought, I drifted back to sleep.
"Morning, Heero!" Quatre said, smiling from the breakfast table as I walked into the room. I nodded at him. So far, an apparently earnest expression of goodwill. Trowa glanced at me from whatever far-distant point he was contemplating and nodded. Right. A completely unrevealing expression of ... um ... well, I had no idea. Wufei followed me down the stairs, glared at me and growled. It took me a moment to realize I was blocking the direct path to the coffee pot. Mental note: Observation of Wufei is meaningless before caffeine has been incorporated into his bloodstream. Duo, I knew, wouldn't appear before noon, which is why his subsequent appearance startled me. (Not that I would let that show, of course.)
"Morning, Duo!" Quatre said, but the smile was different. A mental comparison with his earlier smile revealed slightly downturned corners, and certain overtones in his greeting matched with what I believed was concern. A second glance at Duo revealed the reason, as I took in the slumped shoulders, shadowed eyes, and tiny, tiny smile. Trowa glanced at Duo and glanced away again, but I saw the muscles in his neck tense. Wufei, beginning to guzzle his first cup, paused, and I saw his muscles tense as well. Hmmm... So, both of them are concerned, but they won't openly show it.
"You're up early," Quatre continued. Duo's smile gained a little sincerity as he looked at the smaller boy.
"Well, I thought I'd be virtuous for once and rise with the sun," he said. He was trying for cheerful, but even I could tell it didn't come out quite right.
"Likely," muttered Wufei into his coffee. "You're not sick or anything, are you, Maxwell?"
"Nah, just turning over a new leaf!"
"Now, why don't I believe that?" Quatre was desperately trying to signal Wufei to shut up, but the Chinese pilot either couldn't see or was deliberately ignoring him. I wasn't sure what Quatre was reacting to, but I could see that Duo wasn't quite taking Wufei's comments in stride, as he normally did.
"Look, Wu, just because I don't get up at the crack of dawn to worship my damn Gundam - "
"No, you wouldn't, would you, since this whole war is just a damn game to you! Just a big adventure for you, right? Maybe if you took something seriously for once - " Wufei stopped in mid-rant, appearing to be frozen by the expression on Duo's face, which had gone absolutely white. The indigo eyes were dark purple, stained with a mind-shattering grief so profound that we all just stared, caught by the horror. Then Duo turned and walked out, spine perfectly straight, movements so tight and self-controlled that for a moment he reminded me of me.
"I didn't mean - " Wufei whispered, then stopped. He, too, had gone white. "I just wanted to find out what was wrong with him!" he finally managed to say.
"I guess he didn't want to talk about it, Wufei," Quatre said apologetically and comfortingly.
So Wufei was just trying to help? And that's what came of it? What if I made the same kind of mistake, trying to express my feelings? What if I hurt one of them like that? The painful clench of my heart was my only answer.
"But - what is wrong with the idiot?" asked Wufei.
"I don't think he slept very well last night," Trowa said, not looking at anyone. "I heard him mumbling in his sleep, something about 'solo.'"
"What, like a solo mission?" Quatre asked. Trowa just shrugged, and Quatre turned back to Wufei. "You know, you should apologize to him." Wufei stiffened.
"For telling the truth? He doesn't take this war seriously," the Chinese pilot snarled.
"You can't really believe that! Just because he tries to be cheerful most of the time doesn't mean he thinks the war is a joke!" Quatre cried, staring.
"Doesn't it? Come on, Heero, you agree with me, right? Duo can't be trusted to be serious about anything," Wufei asserted, turning to me. I blinked, wondering how I'd gotten dragged into the argument all of a sudden, and just shrugged. How was I supposed to know what went through the American's head?
"Heero, you spend more time with Duo than any of us do; surely you have some opinion," Quatre plead. I looked at his stricken expression and sighed inwardly. Anything to keep this from getting even more out of hand.
"Duo is an excellent pilot. I don't know what his feelings about the war are, but I trust him to complete missions successfully." Quatre grimaced, as though he had been hoping for a more enthusiastic testimonial. Wufei nodded.
"That is true. I meant no denigration of his abilities. It would only be just to tell him so." With that, he left the room. Quatre rested his chin in his hand and groaned.
"Please tell me he's not going to go explain to Duo that it doesn't matter what Duo thinks as long as he gets the job done." Trowa nodded. Quatre dropped his head on the table.
Hmmm... I think I may have enough for analysis at this point.
Preliminary report on emotional expression of Gundam pilots:
Pilot two refuses to express negative emotions except under extreme stress. Memory replay and analysis of current situation indicate that his cheerfulness may be camouflage.
Pilot three resists all attempts to elicit a visible emotional response. He possesses extreme control of his facial expressions, making it difficult to gather data for analysis.
Pilot four reveals his emotional state through facial expressions, body language, and voice tone. May possibly be the pilot closest to "normal" human behavior. Openness of expression appears to carry a correlating openness to emotional hurt from the outside.
Pilot five evinces little or no experience in controlling his emotional state and its expression. He has therefore adopted a defensive state of irritability, allowing him to keep potential emotional catalysts (i.e. people) at bay.
Preliminary conclusion: None of us know what the hell we are doing.
I stared at the letters glowing at the screen. Possibly fifteen-year-old terrorists were not the best observational subjects for determining normal ways of expressing emotions, I admitted to myself. So now what? I rose and went to the window of my room, looking out over the forest that nearly backed up to the house. The same large black birds were circling over the trees, flying in tandem once again.
I had thought that writing down my observations would help, but I was still confused. There wasn't any convenient program on my computer for this problem. I snorted, suddenly overcome by a memory of my last stint with Duo at a boarding school.
"You pay more attention to the computer than you do to me!" The complaint was familiar, and more playful than anything else. normally I wouldn't bother to respond, but I was in an exceptionally good mood. Our last mission had been completed successfully and Duo had brought me coffee from the dining hall when he realized that I was too busy writing the mission report to bother with breakfast.
"The computer doesn't talk as much," I replied, almost smiling as I saw his astonishment in the reflection of the laptop screen. "It doesn't leave manga all over the floor, or long hair in the shower drain, or -- "
"Okay, okay, I get the idea already," he said, laughing. "By the way, did you just make a joke?" That, I decided, wasn't worthy of a response.
Remembering the scene made me almost smile. That had been a comfortable feeling, teasing Duo and being teased in response. I wanted more of that sort of feeling. But at the same time, the risk of hurting or being hurt was still rather disturbing.
I replayed the morning's conversation in my head. The real difficulty, I decided, came because neither Duo nor Wufei was being honest. Duo wasn't admitting that something was bothering him, and Wufei wasn't admitting that he was concerned. Perhaps honesty could alleviate some of the risks of being hurt.
As for losing a friend in battle ... I had said, when pressed, that I trusted Duo to finish a mission successfully, and I was almost astonished to discover that it was true of all my fellow pilots. I respected their abilities and acknowledged their skill. I trusted them, not only to successfully complete a mission, but to come home afterwards. I trusted them to stay alive. Because, after all, our real mission wouldn't be over until the war was.
The first time I tried to shoot a gun I missed the target by five feet. It took time to become the perfect soldier. It would take time to learn to become a friend, too. But I would never have learned to shoot a gun if I hadn't taken the first shot, and I would never learn to be a friend by sitting in my room, shutting the other pilots out.
A sudden movement caught my eye, and I looked down to see Wufei and Duo arguing on the lawn, their body language filled with tension. I guess the "apology" didn't go over very well. I pushed away from the window as Quatre came to join them, intent on making peace.
Verbal communication is not my area of expertise. I'll have to find some other way to express friendship. It looks like everybody could use some tea, I decided, heading for the door of my room. I glanced at my laptop, my constant companion ever since I had come to Earth. Yes, it was far less difficult to deal with than a person, and it didn't talk as much. But it couldn't make me almost smile, either, and it didn't bring me coffee on cold mornings, and it was a lousy conversationalist. It was time to try something new.
Ninmu ryoukai.
End Part 1
(:./tiercel/thought1)
