26-Feb-2001
Title: Daybreak
Author: Ravynfyre (ravyn @ famvid.com)
Archive: GW Addiction, Darkflame
Category: Angst, Sap
Pairings: 1+2
Standard Disclaimer: All parts of Gundam Wing are Not Mine. It's all Theirs. *sigh* Too bad, but otherwise, I guess I'd never get anything done *happy hentai thought*. Anyway, not makin' any money offa this so dun sue me. You'd only get some college debt, a few dogs, and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers anyway. Ya know... blood. Turnip. Do the math.
Rating: PG for mild adult language
Warning: a "what if". see notes below.
Spoiler: Series
Notes: First off, this is part of the True Awakenings arc. I suggest you read the first four chapters before this to get the whole plot. Second off... The orginal idea behind True Awakenings did not include a happy ending. However, one has been requested by several individuals, therefore I submit to you this chapter. I label it True Awakenings 5a because at some point in time, I do plan on writing the ending I originally intended, however, at this point in time, the emotions I need to be feeling in order to accomplish that are not present in my life. Personally, I count that as a victory. So for Jay and ExFam and BlueLemming and all my friends and everyone who was looking for the dawn at the end of a long, hard night... This one is dedicated to you all. Tyr? I'll get the original ending done for you someday.
Feedback: Yes, please. All comments welcome (although flames may be fed to my dogs, who, since they have notoriously gassy intestinal tracts, will be spending the night with the flamer afterwards)
I heard him leaning over me, even if I couldn't make him out in the pitch-blackness. Wufei, on the other hand, was as silent as a corpse across our cell. Probably meditating. I might have to have him teach me some of that stuff. Maybe I could learn the trick of finding some of that calm that seems to have pretty much permeated him lately. He's been different since we lost track of him after that whole New Edwards Base thing. I heard he went up against Treize. Musta been rough because they both walked away.
Another rustle of cotton fabric in the midnight murk. What the hell does he want, anyway? I've been listening to him slowly maneuver his way over towards me in the dark for the last few minutes. He's a lousy sneak. Then again, I guess I'm pretty arrogant, but everyone's a lousy sneak compared to me. Perfect Soldier or no, there's just no better teacher than survival.
There he goes again. I can hear him taking a deeper breath than normal, like he's planning on saying something, but then... Nothing. He lets out a soft sigh, and shifts uncomfortably again. This is getting ridiculous. I can't stand it anymore.
"What?"
Ouch. Maybe that might have been a little too sharp. He's gone stock still beside me, and I can almost feel the temperature drop a degree or two around him.
"Nothing."
Back to the old withdrawn uncommunicative stuff are we? Well, I'm not buyin' it. I flip over on my back and glare up at where I imagine his head to be. The effect is somewhat lost beings as it's dark as a tomb, but it mollified me at least.
"Bullshit. You've been sitting there for the last few minutes working up the courage to say something to me. Either say it and be done with it, or leave me the hell alone. I told you. I'm tired, and I wanna sleep."
Okay. That settles it. I've been brooding about him for far too long. That wasn't really how any of that was supposed to have come out. Honest.
"Duo?"
Aw shit. Could that have sounded any more pathetic? Okay, don't get me wrong. To anyone else it would have just sounded the tiniest bit uncertain. But for him? I felt like the big mean guy who's been caught kicking the puppy down the street.
"I'm sorry, Heero. I'm just... O packs one hell of a wallop and I'm tired. What do you want?"
I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt those cool fingers gently stroking my bangs out of my face. I don't think I've ever felt those callused fingertips acting so... tenderly.
"You're... hurt?"
"I'll live. Been beat up worse than this before. Sides... this is nothing compared to what you probably lived through back after Siberia."
I'm so proud of me. I managed to keep most of the bitterness out of my voice. I'm trying, I really am, but there's still this huge gaping wound inside me that's gonna take a lot more than him sounding pathetic to bandage.
"Gomen nasai."
It's not the light, or lack thereof, in the room that has me suddenly blinking rapidly. It's the wave of confusion that just slammed into me. That last bit was so quiet, I surely had to have misunderstood him. He didn't just apologize, did he?
I can feel his hand slip further down my cheek, barely ghosting over the bruise that I can already feel there, as if he knows it's there too. The pad of his thumb is strangely comforting, despite the roughness of the skin, as it brushes lightly across my lips.
I'll be damned. I think he really did apologize. It's gonna take more than that to fix me, but it's a start.
"Why?"
Crap. I was doing so good too. Why'd that slip out? And why in that desperate tone of voice? Oh well. Go with the flow. He'd damn well better not pretend to misunderstand the question. I know he's smart enough to know what I just asked.
I felt him shift beside me again, and I was suddenly afraid that I'd pressed too hard too fast, and now he was gonna retreat. Well, fuck him. If he couldn't answer such a simple que-
His arms slip carefully under my shoulders, lifting me cautiously. After a moment or two of being manhandled like a sack of so much baggage, I find myself cradled in his lap, his manacled arms resting over my shoulders so he can splay one hand across my chest... almost possessively. I'm not even gonna pretend to understand what the hell is going on. It feels too good to screw it up now, even if it is just an injury-induced hallucination.
That's what I've pretty much convinced myself it is. It has to be. He's never been quite this tender before. And I'm not *that* wounded. Don't fight it. Just go with the flow and enjoy it while you can before it gets snatched away too.
"I'm real."
What? He's a mind reader now? His arms tighten around me carefully for a moment before he shifts again and settles back against the steps, pulling me with him. My head is cradled on his chest now, and I'm euphoric, lulled by the steady thump bump of his heartbeat.
"I was... dead."
"Seem pretty alive to me now."
Good thing I'm so dog tired. If I'd had the energy to have said that any louder, it would have been a hell of a lot more bitter than I wanted. I didn 't wanna piss him off until I got my answers this time.
"No... before. Before... you. No... not dead... I... wasn't alive."
I could feel him struggling with the words. Words never were his forte to begin with, but the struggle meant he was trying. And from the sudden hitch skip in the rhythm of his heartbeat, I could tell he was trying hard. I nodded at him to continue, not so incidentally snuggling a little bit more into that familiar tank top of his. It obviously hadn't been washed in a few days and smelled strongly of him. God I missed that.
"Trowa found me. I was... down for a month. And then... another couple of weeks learning... how to be alive again. I... made a mistake... The pacifists..."
I could feel his body tensing up below me. No matter what else ever happened in his life, Heero would never be able to forgive himself for that awful mistake. The mistake orchestrated by OZ.
I concentrated on the cold of the floor seeping into my legs and dredged up a shiver, shifting to burrow into his shirt a little more. The distraction worked, and he relaxed marginally as he held me close.
"I had to... make it right, Duo. I had to let... let their families... I had to give them a chance..."
I had this sudden image of him tracking down every living relative of everyone on that shuttle and offering them all his life in return. It seemed a very Heero thing to do. Despite the seriousness of both our situation, and the topic, I couldn't hold off the wry smile.
"I understand."
His arms tightened around me once again, thanking me.
"I couldn't... I thought... I didn't want you to have to watch me die... twice."
I wasn't quite sure what I thought about that. No... I know exactly what I thought about that. If he'd contacted me, if I'd known he was alive, I'd have tried to talk him out of the cockamamie scheme. Which would have been just as bad as if I'd asked him not to go that fateful night. I would have killed him inside, and I'd get to be the guy in the black hood. Yay for me.
I nodded again, both in understanding, and encouragement. I could tell there was more. I wanted to hear it all.
"When we were done... I thought I was free... I wanted to. But Zechs. He'd salvaged Wing. He wanted a rematch..."
He shrugged helplessly. I knew what he was thinking. From one walking death to another. Once again, he had to set me aside.
Curiously, I found myself oddly comforted by that. I thought for sure I'd be jealous. Guess I finally realized that Heero's life is his missions. No. I knew that before. That's why I didn't ask him to stay.
And I couldn't exactly be angry with him for one of my own flaws now, could I? Okay, he's a little bit more... obsessively obvious about it, but we really are birds of a feather, he and I. That's why we'd worked so well together before. We clicked.
"I understand."
His breath rushed out of him, a small explosion of warm moist air rushing over my cheek as he apparently looked down at me. I'm sure I was confusing the hell out of him. Hell, I was confusing the hell out of me too.
"Go- I'm sorry... For... for not coming back to you."
I was only half right. It *did* take more than Heero sounding pathetic to fix that gaping hole inside me. Fortunately for my soul, Heero found exactly what it was. The righteous anger that had been fueling me, about the only thing that had been keeping me going over the last few months, drained from me like pus from a wound. The festering anger and self-recrimination that had been devouring me from the inside out slithered away, back to the rock they had crawled out from. Of course, with the loss of the flames that had been fueling my boiler, I felt the last of my strength rush from me as well.
I melted into his arms, sinking into his awkward embrace as a darkness even more impenetrable than the inky gloom of our cell settled over me.
"I won't ask you not to leave me again," I managed to murmur, "I know too well..."
His arms tightened around me, and I felt his lips settle against the crown of my head, the whispering ghost of a kiss to the matted tangle of my hair.
"I'll try not to anyway," he replied, his voice quiet, but earnest, like the voice he used to accept missions in, only softer, but no less vehement.
It was the tone of voice, more than the words that brought the smile to my face as I finally surrendered to sleep. He loved me.
Heero Yuy loved me.
Suddenly, it doesn't seem quite so dark in here anymore.
~owari~
RavynFyre
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