Ice and War

By: Cecilia McCoy

Disclaimer: These aren't mine.

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Half of surviving is hiding, but that seriously gets in the way of living.

AN: Why did I choose this couple, you may ask, they're just as common as say Makoto and Wufei. I'll give you the condensed version of my explanation. Heero is the quiet, brooding one who focuses on the mission ahead to give himself a distraction. Ami is the quiet, smart one who buries herself in her studies to reduce the attention she gets. Both hide behind something, and I thought it would be fun to write them a story where they help each other, well, find themselves. So read, enjoy, and review!

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She was a survivor. Or the survivor, however one wanted to look at it. Nevertheless, it was something she had learned at a very early age when she was barely half a century old. First Love was gone; the leader dead in battle she had been forced to take up the position. The other girls wouldn't fit the role, one was too quick to temper, another too quick to violence, and the last was to be protected and not protect as a leader should. They saw so little of the other four that it would have been impossible for them to band together and only one of them to lead. So she had had to assume command and move the group forward without a shred of emotion for fear she would fall apart. She was a survivor.

Then one on the outer ring fell and Water was lost to them forever. Not a hard-fought glorious death in battle but a silent leave in sickness. They were supposed to have been immortal but it seemed that more than war could take them down. They had all come to her for comfort, even the strongest who had lost her loved one. From that day she had become the pillar of support for the rest. The shoulder they could lean on, the rock they could count on. She had taken their feelings, the emotions they gave to her and added them to herself, carrying it all inside her. She was a survivor.

Wind died in a flurry of speed and fire not long after the inner ring celebrated their hundredth birthdays. After her lover's demise she had thrown herself into her sport, taken comfort in its defiance of death until it brought about her own. Now with their nine down to six the two groups allied, pooling their resources but still she remained in charge. She was the rock, it was what she had to do. So when Lightening was gunned down walking with the wrong crowd, she could never let her mast fall, only lead the remaining five forward. She was a survivor.

Ages passed and for a while the rest thought that they might live until better awaited times came. But then Light was taken from them. And killed before they could reach her. Those that were left, Destruction and Time, Fire and Ice, each felt in their heart of hearts that it was their fault personally, but she felt it the most. She was their leader and she had allowed their princess to die. In not being able to move the team fast enough she had sacrificed one of their own. But she couldn't show it, while the others grieved she had to move on. She was a survivor.

Fire was the next to pass. An accident or a murder, no one knew, but one day they found her crumpled at the base of the stairs. Only three left, they held even closer to each other, they stopped fighting all together and laid low. The coldest were the ones to come through, Time, Destruction, and Ice., but it wouldn't be for long. One couldn't take it, too much death had taken its toll on she who ruled it. They were two centuries old, living separate under the same roof, when the city police showed up to tell them that they had found the smallest floating in the river. Facts would say that she had jumped. Accepting with heavy hearts that Destruction was gone, they parted ways, to each her own. Time returned to her gates to guard until the day came that one could take them from her and Ice remained on earth to her own devices. Only the strong survive, and she was a survivor.

Now she lived alone in the city of her birth, in the dark mansion she had once called home. She never met her neighbors, never bothered to introduce herself to the community. She barely ever left her house, in fact the only sign of life was the garbage that appeared once a week on the front stoop to be taken away. If she ever did leave the house it was late at night when the rest of the area was asleep. She made her living with investments, almost always coming out on top. She never associated herself with anything, didn't even pick a side in the intergalactic war with the colonies. Silent and secluded, Ice holed into herself, never wanting to face the world with her failure. So she hid away on her own. She was a survivor?

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starts out pretty dark. review please!