3-Mar-2001
A while back, in December I think, I posted a fic that was the first part of a trilogy written with RavynFyre and Vonceia. It was called the Self-Destruct Trilogy, and the first story was called Protagonist.
Protagonist was written because of a situation I was going through - it was an outlet for my emotions under duress. Sometime later, I discovered that the situation that had caused me such anguish was not at all what I have believed. This had the effect of "tainting" the story for me.
Recently, earlier this week, I found myself, for a number of reasons, exhausted, on little sleep, and yet when the time came for me to retire to bed, I could not. A voice had spoken to me that I never expected to hear again, and it demanded that I write the following fic.
The last time this happened was when I wrote Protagonist and I was horrified and weeping. If I'm weepy now, they are tears of quiet happiness, from somewhere or other.
This was inspired in part by Ravyn's Daybreak. It's dedicated to all my internet readers, and "family", and 'specially for Ravyn, just cause. I never *never* thought I would write with these characters again.
Title: Unassuming
Author: bonnejeanne (bonnejeanne@yahoo.com)
Category: sap
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: 1+2 sorta implied
Spoilers: Series
WARNINGS: Original character POV
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing characters and universe are the property of the copyright owners. Our stuff is ours. No money being made here.
Sequel to the Self Destruct Trilogy
I can't think when I have ever felt so out of place in my life, as I did at that huge celebration at the end of the war. I found myself rubbing my palms on my skirt at least once a minute. I didn't do more than sip the champagne, and ignored the food altogether, although it was all very nicely done. The one good thing was that the crowd was thick enough for me to hide safely, as much as I hate crowds. This one was my protection and my camouflage.
I wasn't going to speak to him, no of course not. I just wanted to see him. You can understand that, can't you? I just wanted to see them all, just once, in the flesh. Be in the same room. Share the same air. Look once and go away with my private gift of memory. Never any more than that. Because basically, I'm a coward, and that's all I was brave enough to reach for.
My first glimpse of course was the same as everyone's - I got to see them on the platform. He looked uncomfortable. No, that's not right. He looked quite comfortable, much more so than any of his fellows, grinning, talking, even teasing someone next to him now and then. But he was uncomfortable. I don't know how I knew that. Just a fantasy probably, but I swear, I could see it, something in the tone of the slightly manic energy, or maybe something in the frequency of the way those violet eyes shifted around the room, never still for a moment. He wanted to be somewhere else, but he'd agreed to let them put him up there on display. Someone had talked him into it. A part of me was even angry for a moment, yes, angry, that was it. I wiped moisture from my eyes because I was angry, not because this was the second time they'd put him on display and the first time they had hounded and condemned him, and used him as a scapegoat for war. I had a tape of that broadcast and it hurt me physically to watch it, but I kept it, it was one of the only things I had and the first and only time I'd had a chance to see his face.
I deliberately put those thoughts away because they interfered with my concentration, and this was precious time, I could be maudlin later at my own leisure.
I watched him, but I also studied them all. I couldn't help it. They were... magnetic. Each one different, yet all of them tangibly united in some incredibly subtle way. I drank the impressions deeply, fixing them in my mind for later, when I was alone. The hours, days, months...
I worked my way as close as I could manage and then stationed myself near a beam support as an anchor, and perhaps a little bit, as cover. Though that idea was absurd, I was as good as invisible among these celebrants as it was.
After the ceremony, the crowd milled around, and I found myself moving again. Edging closer. Just a little. This wouldn't last for very long, a couple of hours at most, and it was unlikely they'd stay so long. The former Queen of the world was talking to a couple of them. The bodies around me moved and shifted and suddenly I lost sight of him.
I moved forward again, feeling an uncontrollable pang, that he might have ducked out, who could blame him, and if that were the case, I'd be going too. I found myself at the edge of the public area, next to the rope that kept the bulk of the celebrants from the VIP section. Yes, time to go.
Then I turned, sealing away my pang of sentimentality, and suddenly saw him. He hadn't gone yet, he'd just moved away from talking to an older man with some eccentric sunglasses, and then suddenly he pivoted in my direction and stopped.
I froze, rooted to the spot, feeling a sudden heat in my cheeks. He's looking at someone behind me, I thought, but I could feel my eyes locking with his. Dressed in black, slender and graceful, with that amazing braid... he was only a boy and yet he had the physical assurance of a man, and a damn capable one at that.
Why on earth would he be looking at me? What could he see? A nondescript woman, neither young nor old, dressed in unremarkable clothes, clutching a plain purse and staring...
I swallowed. Then I did the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life. I spoke. We were too far apart for him to hear me but my lips shaped the word clearly, an easy holdover from those long ago days when I'd performed on a stage.
"Partner..." I said.
His eyes widened. At that moment I felt a jolt of pure fear, and I wanted to run, or at least... at least hide my face. I didn't want him to see me, to see *this* me, to replace, if he had one, whatever mental picture he might have formed, with this all too mundane reality. But I stood my ground. I think my chin even lifted a fraction of an inch. I waited.
But only for a bare second, because his face lit up with an expression of quiet astonishment, and yes, joy, and he moved towards me across the space without hesitation, breaking into a run for a few steps.
A couple of feet away he stopped, and his expression suddenly turned shy, incredibly charming on that lovely boy's face. A slight gentle grin and the faintest of questions.
"Un?" he said, and it was just a confirmation.
I nodded, devoid for a moment of speech.
His eyes widened and his lips curved in a grin that was ... it was...
"You... my god, you actually came," he whispered. "To... to meet...?"
My hand fluttered out in some unknown gesture. "Just to see you," I said hastily. "I just wanted to... see you," I finished, my cheeks burning. "Once before..."
I don't think he heard those last two words because he was sweeping me up in a hug, and those strong young arms were squeezing me tightly, enough to deprive me of breath for a minute.
I hugged back, where I got the strength I don't know, but I folded my arms around his slender body, tensile as steel, and embraced him tightly, and everything suddenly felt right... it was all... all right.
Then I was crying and grinning and laughing as I looked at his face, and he seemed to be doing the same, all three.
"Un," he repeated, "It's really you."
I nodded foolishly, still grinning. "Nobody else," I said unnecessarily. "Partner..." I said softly, let's be honest, lovingly. Perhaps even longingly.
He hugged me again. Then he leaned back, looking into my face, searching, studying, just as I had been studying him.
Another wave of heat flushed my cheeks and my head ducked. "I..." I began.
Before I could struggle for the next word, he spoke, cutting me off again. "This is incredible," he said, his voice thick with some emotion. "I never thought I'd really get the chance to... to tell you... to say... thank you... oh Christ," he said, looking down, his face flooded with embarrassment. "That's not what I mean, I mean it is, but... it's not, there's so much... more..."
And suddenly I could do it. I reached up and took his face in my hands and kissed his cheek tenderly.
"I know," I said simply. I grinned and made it a kind of private joke. "I *know*!! I do know. And I never thought I'd have a chance to say... how grateful to the bottom of my soul I am that you made it through alive. Thank you for that... oh god and goddess, thank you for that."
He shook his head, as if he didn't know what to say. But he was almost vibrating with emotion. We simply stared into each other's eyes, some kind of primal communication taking place beyond my conscious reach. I should have known it would be okay. I should have known that it wouldn't matter to him, this outside me. I hadn't been brave enough to know that, except in some unconscious place that had moved my lips at the right moment. But as we stood there together, somehow that boy healed me of a thousand years of hurts without ever knowing it. Somehow as we stood there, he made real and manifest the me I'd always tried to be, wanted to be, for whom such things as the exterior shell didn't matter, wasn't a weakness. Standing there sharing his embrace, I became real. The mind and soul finally fused with the body and it was all... all right.
After a moment he suddenly looked up and over his shoulder, "Hey, come on, he's..."
And at that, I dug in my heels. "No," I shook my head emphatically. "No...Partner... not just now. Please..." I knew who *he* was, but in this, I would not yield.
He stopped and looked down into my eyes, his own somehow wiser than the few years his physical age might be. "Why? He'd want to meet you."
I looked into those wise, wide violet eyes and didn't try to hold anything back. "Not just now," I said softly. "Not today. Not here. Maybe some other time," I said.
My arms were still around him and his around me, and it felt so very comfortable. It didn't even take courage to say the next part, it was actually quite easy.
"If I met him now, it would be a great honor... but it could never be as great as the honor of knowing you both when I did."
He looked down into my eyes and after a moment he smiled. "I understand," he said quietly. His hand brushed my cheek tenderly. "It's not the same as what you and me went through together, is it?"
I closed my eyes and then smiled up at him, my vision blurring slightly but no pain in my heart. "It doesn't have to be," I said. "But you're right. It's not the same." I reached out and let one fingertip trace the line of his braid for a few inches. He smiled again.
"We survived together," he said, and I nodded. He hugged me tightly.
In my ear, he said softly, "This is what I wanted to tell ya. I wouldn't have made it without you, Un."
I squeezed him as tightly as I could. "Me either," I choked. "Not through that one long night."
He looked down into my eyes. "Or all the long nights that came after. You were always there when I looked for you."
I shrugged, blinking the tears away. "I never had anywhere else to be, you know."
"That's not why you were there."
"I know," I said softly.
He lifted my chin with his hand. "So do I," he said.
We talked a little while longer. At one point I became aware that a couple of people had noticed us and were casting mildly inquiring looks in our direction. I almost laughed. Let 'em think I was his mother.
I knew he'd need to go so I finally tugged at his hands and stood up from the seats we had found somehow.
"I need to go," I said, "And so do you from the looks of it."
He cast a look back at the VIP area and then nodded with a slight sigh. He hugged me tightly and we both hung on for a while.
"Don't worry," I whispered in his ear. It was the easiest thing in the world to say it and every word was true. "I'll be there when you look for me. We found each other before, we'll find each other again."
His smile was blinding. I was slightly dazed by it. "I'm holding ya to that," he said seriously. "You betcha I am. There are things we have yet to discover... answers to find."
I nodded. "Yes," I said. "Yes there are. And yes, we will."
I kissed him one last time on the cheek -- it was soft as velvet - and then patted him on the shoulder. "Scat," I said, and managed a lopsided grin. Then I turned to go.
As I did, I saw another boy on the other side of the roped area look over, and his deep blue eyes held a quiet question. I waved, and blew a kiss to my Protagonist. I realized I *would* talk to him one day, possibly even meet. But not today.
Today was for the survivors.
"Good bye for now, Unassuming," the braided boy said to me as I turned to go.
I looked back, my heart full of light that had invaded it from somewhere.
"Until next time, Partner," I said with all the love my heart would hold. "And there will be a next time."
"Always?" he asked, but it wasn't a question, just a confirmation.
"Always, Duo," I answered. And it was all... all right.
~owari~
bonnejeanne
Please send comments to: bonnejeanne@yahoo.com