9 Sep 2000
Category: Angst, I suppose (surprise, surprise!)
Rating: PG (a wee bit of violence)
Pairing: 1, Sylvia
Warnings: Slight spoilers for ep 14. My Sylvia may be a
bit OOC (much more shellshocked than in the series), and
I've tweaked some peripheral plot details, so let's call it AU
as well. Dialogue toward the end is almost faithful to the
dubbed ep (gomen, gomen--I don't have this one on DVD yet!).
Disclaimer: I have no title to the G-boys or their little
friends (well, except you ML darlings--mine, all mine!).
Song: "Macchine da guerra," from Andrea Bocelli's album
Romanza. By A. Smith. (c) 1996 Insieme Srl. The
translation is theirs, though I have taken some liberties
with punctuation. I'm using the song mainly to divide
the story into sections, so I wouldn't call this a songfic,
really. Apologies if the accents &etc come through all
wiggy--lemme know and I'll fix it.
Thanks, as always, to Quatre-sama and Shih-Hou, who
read stuff. You guys are the best! (And this was partly
inspired by Q-sama's Silvia, of course!)
Feedback: always welcome!
Se fosse una cosa semplice,
io te la direi;
ma c'è una confusione dentro
e qui attorno a me.(If it were simple,
I would tell you;
but there is confusion within
and here around me.)
AC 195: Marseilles, Vieille France
She curled around herself in the worn leather armchair, trying to bury the painful present in memories of the comforting past. Her familiar surroundings should have helped: the mellow smell of the cracking brown leather, the lingering scent of pipe smoke, the mindless chirping of the birds in the garden below.
Stupid, stupid birds, who apparently didn't understand that the world had ended.
Even as she tried to burrow farther into her grandfather's favorite chair, she heard artillery fire echoing off the distant hills. They were almost upon the city, then. Hear that? Be silent, birds. There are no more safe places.
By the time the young soldiers burst into Marshal Noventa's office, Sylvia had pulled herself to her feet. They were so young, barely out of the Academy--the wars had claimed all their elders and most of their superiors, leaving these cadets to carry the Alliance banner into battle after hopeless battle. So brave they were, coming to her rescue. She gathered her things with numb obedience, preparing to evacuate.
As she bent to pick up a fallen photograph, her eye was caught by a spot of color under one of the document cases against the wall. Her fingers closed over a small object, and she drew her arm back out from under the heavy case. It took her a moment to identify the pointed pink shape: a doll's shoe. Belinda: that had been the doll's name, one of the motley collection of toys that she had spent hours casting in a series of pageants, parties, legislative sessions... Her whole childhood had revolved around this room.
She had waited almost too long to leave this place, clinging to the memories within these walls as if lingering here could bring back the safe haven that her grandfather had been. At her parents' funeral all those years ago, he had gathered her up in his arms, telling her she was strong enough to bear the loss. And her seven-year-old self had believed, because he told her it was so.
He had been that sort of reassurance to the world, she knew--a rock amid shifting sands, a light against the growing shadows. And now he was gone, blasted out of the sky.
Nothing stood against the darkness, not any more. She could feel the ground slipping out from under her feet.
Leaving the building as if in a dream, she felt only mild surprise when a half-destroyed Leo fell toward her in the otherwise deserted street, letting the shock wave of its explosion lift her bodily and toss her like a discarded doll to the opposite sidewalk.
It was only slightly more surprising when an army truck careened around the corner--looking up in resignation, she met shocked blue eyes an instant before the driver wrenched at the wheel, rolling the heavy transport several times before it came to rest on groaning axles and shredded tires.
The driver slid from the cab in obvious pain, holding one arm carefully immobile against his side. He was only a boy, she realized--had her grandfather's troops been so decimated that children no older than herself had been drafted, or was Oz putting together a crack juvenile unit? It was almost funny, that thought.
He stopped only a little way away from where she half-knelt on the pavement, and she was suddenly struck by the way the morning light fell across the planes of his face. Not a boy's face, at all--the idea of a junior guerilla squad didn't seem quite so ludicrous.
"Sylvia Noventa?"
"Yes?" Her voice was even, almost calm--this was so far from plausibility that it had to be some sort of dream.
"Come with me. You're not safe here."
Tu preferisci evitare,
e forsa la colpa non è tua;
portrei tentare un'altra volta,
ma non sono io che devi sentire.(You prefer evasion,
and perhaps it is not your fault;
I could try again,
but it is not me you have to heed.)
The boy offered no explanations as he led them cautiously along the ravaged streets, darting from alley to arch to doorway until they had reached the edge of the city. She sat down exhaustedly on a low garden wall; the shelling had stopped, and the smoke from two armies' worth of demolished mobile suits was starting to dissipate over the bombed-out disaster that had been Marseilles.
He was gone for a moment, but returned with a canteen of water that she accepted gratefully before handing it back. As he sat down some distance away, she noticed the redness seeping through his sleeve.
"You are hurt," she pointed out.
"It's not a recent injury."
But recent exertion had reopened the wound in his arm, and he was bleeding through the layers of bandages. She gathered an armload of dressings from an abandoned ambulance, and waited for him to remove his once-white shirt. At the sight of his back and shoulders, she drew in an involuntary gasp--the golden skin was almost a solid mass of scars, from star-shaped shrapnel wounds and the raised insignia of old burns to narrower lines that looked almost like blade cuts.
He did not respond to her gasp, but continued to unwind the blood-soaked strips of cloth until he had revealed the angry gash in his bicep. He extended a hand for the fresh roll of linen in her nerveless fingers, but let her take over when she recovered herself and batted his hand away. Re-wrapping didn't take long, and direct pressure seemed to get the bleeding back under control.
"Now. You know who I am--who are you? Why did you come for me? Who sent you? Are you--are you with Oz?"
"My name is Heero Yuy, Noventa-sama. And I am not with Oz." There was a lifetime of bitterness in his voice.
"Then who...?"
"It's a long story, and it would be dangerous for you to know too much of it. I am here because of your grandfather."
"Did you know him?"
He didn't answer, but his face hesitated between anger and what might have been self-loathing.
She stood up. "If you're here because of him, there's something you should see."
It wasn't a long walk to the cemetery where they had left Marshal Noventa in the earth. On the way, she gathered an armful of white roses from the bushes that rambled beside the lane.
"Here." She stopped in front of a modest stone. When she held them out to him, he took the roses and laid them on the young grass that covered the grave.
He knelt there for a long moment, the red-gold light of the descending sun slanting through the low branches above them to lie across his tumbled hair, his bowed shoulders. She turned away, giving him space for whatever peace he was seeking.
When she turned back around, she froze--no longer kneeling, he was holding out a pistol by its barrel, offering it to her.
His words froze her further, turning her blood to ice: "I am the one who killed Marshal Noventa."
She recoiled in horror. The looming mobile suits she had seen in the news reports--this boy had been piloting one? Grandfather-- he had called them misguided heroes, applauding their cause even while he deplored their violent tactics. How his hawk-like opponents within the Alliance had gloated when the great pacifist fell victim to the very colonial renegades he had championed! And now one of them, the guiltiest of all, was in front of her, trying to explain. As if there were enough words in the world.
"I made a critical mistake and accidentally shot down the shuttle that Marshal Noventa was on, killing him and other people who had also been advocating peace."
"What happened? How could you?" The rage she had felt when she was first told of her grandfather's death came blazing back through her, driving out the past months' inertia in a fireball of anger.
His voice was calm. "I can't undo my mistake. I can only hope that the anger felt by the Marshal's loved ones, and the regrets of the Marshal's soul, can be somewhat eased if you pull that trigger."
She swung the gun on him, eyes accusing. Did he think she wouldn't do it? Maybe he was hoping she would take his miserable life, so he wouldn't have to take even that responsibility upon himself. Her hands shook, but she fought to hold the muzzle steady as she groped for the trigger. "You're such a coward. It's obvious that you just want to take the easy way out of this."
"This is the only answer I can offer you right now." There was no fear in his voice or his eyes, which held the relieved confidence of someone in the process of accomplishing an important task. Something in his bearing took all the fire out of her, toppling her resolve.
The pistol wavered, and dropped to aim harmlessly at the ground. She watched as tears rolled down her nose to fall along its gleaming barrel. She should have felt defeated; vengeance was right in her hands, and she was letting it go. But the bitterness seemed to drain away with the tears, leaving her bereft, empty, ready to be filled up with something that wasn't angry helplessness.
"Try to understand. I didn't come here to make you suffer any more than you have. I'm leaving now, to pay a visit to your grandmother. I hear she's living in Sicily." He spoke quietly, outlining a mission of atonement that went far beyond anything she had ever expected from her grandfather's murderer.
Sylvia shook her head, still uncomprehending. "Wars are nothing but repulsive killings--so how is it you can be so clear-cut about it all?"
His voice was almost gentle, but with an undercurrent of iron. "It's the only way I know how to live."
She closed her eyes against the rising tears. How could he even exist, in this miserable, cringing world? How had they suffered him to live this long? It was cruel, the hope offered by his strength, by his very existence. She could not bear it.
"Noventa-sama."
She opened her eyes. The steel-blue gaze was steady, though immensely tired. "Your grandfather was a great man. And you are worthy of his memory. Do not forget this."
She nodded, unable to speak. He bowed once, the movement managing to be both tight and graceful, and turned away.
Ascolta il tuo cuore se batte,
guarda dove corri e fermati,
ascolta il dolore del mondo;
siamo persi per la via,
orfani di vita,
macchine da guerra,
ma perché?(Listen to your heart and see if it is beating,
look where you are running to and stop,
listen to the pain of the world;
we are lost along the way,
orphans of life,
war machines,
but why?)
Sylvia watched him go, her heart twisting at the weariness in his measured steps. He climbed with only slight difficulty into a huge transport waiting at the cemetery gate, and she kept watching until it had disappeared down the curving street. Then she bent, gathering one white rose from the carefully-placed bouquet. This much she would keep--everything else, she could leave behind.
The ground was steady under her feet for the first time in months, she noticed with a hint of a smile. The numbing shadows did not seem to be stealing her breath any more, either. She could bear this, and the losses to come; he had said it was so.
End
(:./lilias/unaltra)
