Hoodoo
"I've done such awful things, Mr Waltfeld."
When Kira says that to him, Andrew's first reaction is to say, Haven't we all?
But he bites his tongue, not sure if it would help or hurt, and just stares out at this scarred land that surrounds them.
The desert is the same everywhere he goes. Each place is a little different—rather than dunes and crumbling limestone cliffs, it's vermilion, smooth-cut hoodoos the sun illuminates from high in a sky as deep and clear as space—but the feeling, the heart beneath, the subtle madness it breeds in men, is always the same.
The sensation that here out of all the places in the world can a man find forgiveness for his bottomless sins. Here, more than any place in the world, is a strange purity that can cleanse him, like fire putting out fire.
Like the legend the people who inhabited this country long ago told to explain how these queer formations came to be. There was once a race of giant men, they said, who were so wicked, when Coyote saw their sinful nature, he froze them all forever in stone.
So it comes as no surprise to Andrew to find the young man having wandered away to gaze out over the wind-weathered plateau, catch the breeze that whistles through those pinnacles of rock, standing in their silent judgement, as though the Earth itself could judge him.
If it could, if it couldn't forgive every abuse like a mother her children, it would have tossed them all into space long ago. That is what Andrew believes.
But Kira. . . .
His name has a ring of clarity to it as it is. Like a stream running clear as it cuts its way through an unforgiving world. Objective and righteous, like the focused look in his violet eyes. Humble and dangerous, like some wild thing eking out a living, never knowing just what he was put on this Earth to do.
Not like Andrew, who knew the first time a gun was placed in his hand. He hadn't liked it, but he knew it then.
The desert sun has turned them both brown, yet there's something in Kira's face that seems as young as ever despite all he's seen. He hardly blinks as the wind blows his hair into his eyes, and tangles the strands in his lashes—he pays no mind as if he's already been turned to stone like the hoodoos around him; but even the weakest wind still wears them down, and those lips that are drawn so tight still somehow retain their softness, some vestige of innocence the heart beneath it all just can't let go of.
In the ArchAngel's indoor hot spring, Andrew has a difficult time keeping his eyes from lingering occasionally on the young man's shoulders above the water, and how defined the life of a gundam pilot has made his eighteen-year-old body when that face still clings to its youthful purity.
He's not alone. Kira stares at him as well, when he's not paying attention, at the plastic web that crisscrosses Andrew's bare chest, and the arm attached to it that doesn't quite match the color of the rest of his body, like a junkyard car door.
When he catches Andrew staring back, he quickly turns his eyes. He says, "Does it ever hurt?"
"Does what hurt?" Andrew will ask.
And Kira will just say to the water's surface, "I'm sorry. It's nothing. I'm just. . . . I'm really sorry."
Sorry that every time you look at me—Andrew thinks but never says—I remind you of what you did? Would it be easier if you had succeeded in killing me? Would that have freed you from your pain?
Of course, he knows the answer to that. It would have changed nothing, except perhaps the precise flavor of Kira's guilt, like the slight variation in taste between one bitter cup of coffee and the next.
He's too young for the battlefield.
That's what Andrew thinks at times like those and that's what he thought back when they first met. When Kira groggily stirs himself awake after falling asleep in Freedom's cockpit and rubs the sleep out of his eyes like a child. When Andrew lays his hand on the young man's shoulder and it fits too easily under his fingers. He was too young for it the first time around. What cruelty of fate had to subject him to this role a second time?
And why is that something Andrew admires about him when he knows it's wrong, that Kira will keep fighting until he's completely torn apart? What makes him think he could ever find that distant savior he forgot he was waiting for in the young man's eyes?
Perhaps because it's simply all too easy. DaCosta warned him. Ramius warned him. Even she warned him, all those years ago, her warm breath whispering it in his ear: If Andrew let him, Kira would take the brunt of it all, and carry the world on his slender shoulders. He would take the blow for everyone. He knows no other way to be.
And—that stubborn part of Andrew continues to reply—what truer religion is there than that?
A bird cries, and the sound echoes off the hoodoos, ricocheting among them like something trapped. That's when Kira turns back to look over his shoulder at the man he almost killed a few years ago, and tried to, and the smile that's in his eyes doesn't quite match his words.
"Now I finally understand what Lacus meant by those words. 'While we still can'. . . ."
The young man lowers his eyes at those words, which are brimming with a meaning Andrew can't entirely guess at. It takes an effort to reveal what for so long every instinct wanted to keep hidden, to reach out for some understanding he's not sure he wants.
"I don't know if you know this, Mr Waltfeld, but when I started this, you know, the war, I cried all the time. Athrun used to tell me I was something of a crybaby when we were in school together. He said it was one of the things he liked most about me. Back then I couldn't understand why he'd say that, but now—"
Andrew says, "It's nothing to be ashamed of," as though that thought had actually crossed Kira's mind.
"No," Kira says. But by the way his gaze unfocuses just a little bit, that hadn't been his point. "But lately. . . . After all the things I've done, I just can't do it anymore. Sure and I feel the pain. . . . It just builds up inside me, heavier and heavier until I feel like I just can't go on, and yet nothing comes out. Not even a tear. Not a single one."
Is there something wrong with me?
That's the question he leaves unspoken. It hangs heavy between them even in this breeze. Because it would be less shameful if he could show just a little of this overwhelming remorse he feels for the dead he's made—not just hold it inside like a lead ball slowly expanding in his gut, but actually express it. Like if he could just shed some tears, could just prove to everyone else how he truly felt inside, it wouldn't be so bad, and some of the guilt would be released like pressure from within.
Then Andrew thinks he understands what Kira means when he asks if it hurts. He isn't talking about the phantom pains or the shrapnel wounds. Not really. There's guilt in his words, sure, but there's also envy.
For the penance he can never quite pay. The penance he, with this perfect Coordinator body that has survived God knows how many explosions intact, cannot show the rest of the world.
The wounds of his battles will never show long on Kira's smooth skin, like the calluses that never develop on his hands, and somehow Andrew doubts the light he's come to need could ever leave those hopeful eyes. The young man who stands beside him was designed at the most basic level to be protected from harm and pain. No matter what he does, he will never bear the proof of his crimes.
To him, the powers that be could hardly issue a harsher sentence than the prison of this perfect body.
"It's like," Kira says, and his voice is almost swallowed up by the elements, all but the earnestness straining to be heard, ". . . I've forgotten how."
And Andrew can't help wondering, as he refrains from placing his replacement hand on the young man's shoulder, if Kira's creator knew this would happen all along. Did he just not care, or did he see his son as a worthy sacrifice for progress?
Andrew wants to say that Kira isn't like that at all. Even if his tears have all dried up, even if he could never believe it himself, he's a better person than everyone would have him believe. For all his own battle scars, they really aren't as different as they look. As different as Kira seems to think they are. He said at the beginning that they were in this together, and the only thing changed since that day is that they're both on the same side of the gun.
He would have liked to say all that, if he thought any of it would make a difference.
Because he knows all too well that war can only ever lead a person to one conclusion, and Andrew. . . .
Well, he must have turned to stone years ago.