Title: Peace on Earth

Notes: Introspective, non-pairing, non-character specific piece. ::shrugs:: It's rather like diet water or something.

Disclaimer, Claimer and Such: Don't own Gundam Wing or the song "Peace on Earth". (It belongs to U2. The song, not the show.) I can't even really claim the ideas, cause it's so bleeding clichéd (at least I think so. ya'll can tell me what you think.)

//Heaven on Earth, we need it now

I'm sick of all of this hanging around//

AC 197

Christmas Eve

It's been a year since the Marimeia incident. A year older is all I am- nothing gained or lost in 365 days. There are carolers on the street, singing a song about Heaven on Earth. Right. Some heaven- this bright electric city, home to God knows how many soldiers, killers like I am.

//Sick of the sorrow

Sick of the pain

Sick of hearing, again and again

That's there's gonna be

Peace on Earth//

I can barely live with the sadness and pain I feel. I've killed so many, so thoughtlessly. Yes, we have peace. "Joy to the World and Peace on Earth." But at what a horrific price. This peace is stained in the blood of thousands. A scarlet safety, crimson peace.

//Where I grew up, there weren't many trees

Where there was we'd tear them down and use them on our enemies//

I look up at the sky, trying to pick out our colonies from the stars. They look so similar- yet how you they be more different? The stars are distant, fiery, beautiful. The colonies are twisted metal creations that have brought nothing but war. Then again, the whole human race is inclined to do that.

//They say that what you mock

Will surely overtake you

And you become a monster

So the monster will not break you//

We- all five of us- became monsters. Killing machines to fight the war machine. And we won. Against all the odds, we *won*. But we're still monsters. We can cover it with pretty smiles and hopeful words, but we'll always be killers. All of us.

//It's already gone too far

They say that if you go in hard, you won't get hurt//

It never should have happened. We shouldn't have ever had to fight, to kill, to die. Yes, we died. They told us not to think about what we were doing, the lives we were taking. That way we wouldn't get hurt. Well, we did think about it. We did get hurt. Our souls, our humanity perished in those battles.

//Jesus can you take the time to throw a drowning man a line

Peace on Earth

Tell the ones who hear no sound

Whose sons are living in the ground

Peace on Earth//

The graves of the soldiers always have something about fighting for peace on them. They died for peace. Tell the orphans their parents died for peace. What peace do they know, now?

//No whos or whys

No one cries like a mother cries

For Peace on Earth

She never got to say good-bye, to see the color in his eyes

Now he's in the dirt

That's Peace on Earth//

A woman- about 50 or so- is kneeling in front of a grave, crying. Probably for her son. Maybe he died a year ago. Maybe I killed him. If I killed him, did he die for peace? Because they tell me I fought for peace. If I killed him. who's right?

//They're reading names out over the radio

All the folks the rest of us won't get to know

Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda

Their lives are bigger than any big idea//

I read the names of those who died fighting. So many- and how many aren't here, are simply nameless, forgotten forever? Did they die for peace as well? I don't think I'll ever know.

//Jesus can you take the time to throw a drowning man a line

Peace on Earth

Tell the ones who hear no sound

Whose sons are living in the ground

Peace on Earth//

How did this happen? How could we allow this to happen? If there's a God, He obviously didn't see fit to intervene. Maybe He was hoping we'd destroy ourselves so He could start over. How can we justify the deaths? We can't, we never will. And so, one day we will answer for them. We will pay for our peace.

//Jesus this song you wrote

The words are sticking in my throat

Peace on Earth

Hear it every Christmas time

But hope and history won't rhyme

So what's it worth

This Peace on Earth//

The war ended nothing. Two, three, four generations from now, the war will begin again. More will kill and be killed. Another boy like myself will walk through a cemetery on Christmas Ever and wonder why. It will never stop. It's endless. War will always lead to a bloodsoaked peace.

//Peace on Earth

Peace on Earth//

CFEOSN: Well. Huh. Aren't I just one big f!%$#&@ ball of sunshine. ::sigh::