Category: angst
Rating: PG, if that
Disclaimer: Don't own, neither do I intend to infringe. Poem is by Emily Dickinson, and has been rather brutalized (stanzas are presented intact, but the poem is much longer than this).
Warnings/Pairing: Relena-centric 1+R, bitter sappiness OOC? Not to me! ^_^
Spoilers: some, for the end of the series (refers rather vaguely
to the collision of Libra and Peacemillion; gestures even more vaguely at the end of EW)
Feedback: always welcome!
// denotes thoughts
Notes: For now, goes between "Interlaced" and "Complicated"
in the Comp arc. How can this be the same 01 we saw in
"Interlaced," you ask? I would argue that part of the reason Heero has survived this long is a well-developed ability to compartmentalize--so I'm willing to believe that he could be alternately besotted with both of them. (In other words, Lilias is perfectly willing to deep-six petty things like fidelity in favor of more besottedness!) This will bother him in the next section of the story; but he won't figure out how to reconcile things until the end of "Complicated," so it's all consistent-like. (Come on, humor me!) He's about to
get all moony over the Peacecraft, by the way, so if Relena icks you, now'd be a good time to run screaming. ^_^ And now, the fic (at last!):
I cannot live with You--
It would be Life--
And Life is over there--
Behind the Shelf
No one had told him how dangerous contact could be. And no one had ever touched him like that before--no one had wanted to, as far as he knew. So everything about her had come as a total surprise.
He could still remember every time she had touched him: gentle fingers pushing back his wet hair after the sea grudgingly gave him up to the sand. The same fingers, but cooler (or had he just been warmer?), clasped in his during that surreal dance. Her hair had been touching him, too: spilling over his hand where it lay barely grazing her back, as they turned around and around under the colored lights.
He hadn't known how to dance, but it had not proven to be any more difficult than most forms of unarmed combat. Except that his skin felt like it was humming wherever it touched hers, and he did not trust himself to look into her eyes. Even afterwards--after the battle that followed the dance, and the strange hypnotism that kept him from shutting those wide blue eyes forever--what haunted his dreams was the contact. The curve of her waist, the weight of her hair, the small movements of her fingertips against the flat of his hand.
Some part of him was always caught up in remembering her, even now--even as he aimed Zero through the desolate stretch of space between Peacemillion and Libra. Coming to her rescue again--a dark knight, a bloody excuse for a savior, despite the whiteness of his armor.
I could not die--with You--
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down--
You--could not--And I--Could I stand by
And see You--freeze--
Without my Right of Frost--
Death's privilege?
When the first shock jolted through Zechs's fortress, she stumbled and fell hard against the bulkhead. He caught her before she rebounded to the floor of the storage bay, and the familiar, dangerous contact jolted through him again. He held on only long enough to steady her, then drew back as if she might burn him.
"Get down and cover your head," he managed. "Peacemillion's plowing into us."
She nodded, and looked purposefully for some sort of shelter; she was headed for one of the bay's arched supports when a heavier shock rumbled through the piled crates, sending them sliding and crashing. He reacted almost without thinking, carrying her with him in a forward roll until they ended up pressed against the wall under the ceiling support.
His mind managed to stay mostly focused on the logistics of surviving the crash, even while it insisted on cataloguing in exacting detail the precise pressure of her shoulders against his chest, the sliding silk of her hair under his cheek. She didn't scream, didn't even whimper--not even when the hold's badly-stowed cargo came tumbling onto them. Tucked sideways under him, she held on with both hands to his encircling arm. He could feel her wince every time he took another hit.
The grating crash seemed to go on forever, until at last the shriek of tortured metal, the thud of minor explosions, ground to a halt. When he finally opened his eyes, he had to drag them away from the curve of her face before he could focus on the wreckage. He shifted to rise, easing out from under the debris that had ended up on his back. She stirred under him, pulling herself up until she could sit. Her eyes were huge, but not afraid--she almost smiled as she looked up at him with utter confidence.
Those eyes--he pulled himself up and out of them again. "I'm going to need Zero."
They found suits that came close enough to fitting, in a hallway that was far enough from the rest of the station that they aroused no notice.
And from here, he had to go on alone.
She held on to the edges of the hatch, not backing down. "Please. This is suicide."
He took her helmet between his gloved hands and tried to communicate everything there wasn't time to say, tried to say more with his eyes than he could force into the words. "Believe in me."
She looked back at him, and again he was struck to the bone by her apparently limitless willingness to trust him. /That's what you have given me, Relena. I can ride the sky forever on the faith in those eyes. Let me carry that with me--I can't take anything else./
But she was too close, again--the layers of plexiglass were not enough to keep him safe from her eyes. He pushed, and the light gravity of the shuttle bay did the rest; she drifted to the rail in time to hang on before Zero's thrusters caught.
Back into space, then--the dark was always waiting.
/When you are gone, her world will only flex, only ripple a little, before it returns to normal. You are nothing compared to her. You are nothing. Zero./ He repeated the words until the litany rang in his ears, until both weakness and self-reproach became background noise, and he could concentrate on Wing Zero's slow, destructive dance.
/But what if I survive? What if I can--/
It was a deadly sort of hope--even if he made it out of this alive, he could still be fatal to her. And there were other claims he had to honor. But--
/One more time, Relena. Just once more, and I'll be through with the killing./
They'd judge Us--How--
For You--served Heaven--You know,
Or sought to--
I could not--Because You saturated Sight--
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise
He had been wrong. And if the violence could come back once, it could come back again and again...nothing he could do to stop it, or to change who he was. What he was.
He looked up only once, but it was almost enough to do him in.
She stood watching him with a face that had should have given up on expectancy long ago; somehow, those eyes were still bright with a hope so huge it was terrifying. Not innocent, not any more--she carried the weight of all those deaths just as surely as he did--but her eyes were pure in their weariness, and their resolve. Their light was blinding, and for a moment he almost let himself believe she could remake him with those eyes, turn him into the prince she had been waiting for.
/Who exactly are you seeing, when you look at me like that? It can't be me, not really--I've seen the disgust in your face when you talk about killing. About killers. And you won't be able to pretend you don't know I'm the worst of them, not forever. You're in love with someone I can never be./
He had to look away, and it had to be now. Otherwise he might take root here. Or worse, he might forget everything that was wrong with this picture, and go to her.
/Don't try to bring me with you into this peace, Relena. We were useful incarnations for one another: I gave you strength, you gave me hope. Leave it at that. Don't make me see you as anything more than that, because that would make you real in ways I can't face. Stay over there, on the other side of the audience hall, the courtyard, the world--let me keep you distant and clean, far away from these hands./
Otherwise, he might remember what it had felt like to touch her.
/I can't take this thing that you are trying to give me; not with these hands./ He turned away from her, feeling the light die in her eyes even though he couldn't see it. /This is the last thing I have to do to protect you, and the peace we won for you. I wrote myself out of this world while I was writing it into existence--don't follow me this time, Relena./
So We must meet apart--
You there--I--here--
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are--and Prayer--
And that White Sustenance--
Despair--
End
(:./lilias/wouldbelife)
