Daisies in the Snow

Diviana Foresman

October 1, 2001, revised in October of 2004

Heero fell to his knees. He was so cold, grasping the light snow in his hands. He was breathing heavily, sweat on his brow. Heero stood up shakily.

"Augh...?" came his muffled sound of surprise. The snow from where he had fallen was stained a deep crimson. He looked down. His hands were red with blood, his shirt tattered, shorts almost in shreds. Large gashes covered his bare legs and arms, blood pouring from them, leaving trails of riveting red down his olive skin.

Heero fell again. Not bothering to stop his fall, he landed face-first in the inches of snow. He turned his head so he could breathe, but otherwise stayed still. He was getting so tired, and the cold was giving way to a warm sensation that tingled up his spine.

"Mister," Heero opened his eyes at the voice. "Mister." It came again. He lifted his head to see who

was calling him. No one was there, so he sighed and laid back down, his eyes closing before his head touched the blanket of white beneath him.

"Mister!"

"Go 'way..."

"Mister, wake up. Wake up, Mister." Heero turned onto his back and stared up at the blue-grey sky. A small face popped up into his view. His heart skipped a beat. "Mister... please..."

It was her. The little girl. The one he had killed with the misplaced bombs. The one with the puppy.

/"Hi,Mister,"

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm walking Mary." The puppy yipped happily, wagging its tail as it hopped around her. "What about

you?"

"I'm thinking."

"Oh. What about?"

"Death."

"Well that's a stupid thing to think about," He looked at her. She smiled. "If you fear it, it will come."

"I fear nothing."

"Oh." She looked at him strangely. "Well then. That's dumb too, Mister."

"What do you mean?"

"If you're not afraid of anything, then you won't try to avoid it."\

"You..."

The little girl smiled. "I'm alright." She was as cheerful as she was before, but with an urgency in her voice that scared him. "But Mister, you aren't..."

Heero sat up, slowly, painfully. "How can you be alright... you're dead..."

"I'm alright, honest. I wasn't afraid of dying, not after I talked to you." She still wore the yellow dress, though her hat was gone. Her blonde hair fluttered in the wind, collecting snowflakes. "But Mister, please, you've got to get up."

"Why?" He laid back down, wincing as the snow managed to get inside his shirt and touch his pale skin. Heero closed his eyes.

"Because," The little girl leaned forward, "You are afraid."

Heero opened his eyes to look up at her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"But you are," she insisted. "If you weren't, you'd be dead right now."

"So what does getting up have anything to do with this?"

"If you get up, Mister, if you go back and continue fighting, you won't be afraid," she answered softly. "If you get up, you'll help me be with my parents, too..." the girl looked up into the blue-grey sky longingly.

Heero shook his head. "No. I can't."

"But you can," she begged, tugging at his hand. "You can!"

"No, no, I can't!" he yelled back. "No more fighting, please..."

The girl paused for a moment before jerking his arm up. "Mister, hurry, get up, get up!" She pulled harder on his arm, looking off in the distance. "Mister, you've got to get up!"

"Why?"

"They're coming. The soldiers, they're coming." Heero sat up. "Hurry, Mister, please," Heero wondered which would be worse, having his enemy finding him like this and kill him, or going with the girl only to be faced with the proposition once again.

"Mister, Mister, hurry, please?" By now he could hear the tires of the humvy belonging to the enemy. He could hear the voices, the laughter of the soldiers as they chanted. Heero got up slowly, the little girl holding onto him as well as she could.

She pulled him into the shadows, tugging at his arm when he got a step behind. She led him back to his suit, the fallen suit that was damaged beyond repair. "Hurry, Mister," she whispered. "Get inside." They crawled into the cockpit and managed to hide behind the seat. It was cold, the suit's heat gone in the bitter wind which forced snow into the cockpit with them.

The suit itself was already buried, looking like a mound of snow in the middle of the deserted street. As the snow piled up inside the cabin, Heero fell asleep, the little girl sitting in his lap.

When Heero woke up, the girl was gone, replaced by Duo's concerned face. "Hey, man, you okay?"

"No." he mumbled, trying to turn over. Duo reached over and grabbed his shoulders, keeping him on his back.

"You can't sleep, Heero, we've gotta get outta here," He pulled Heero's arm over his head, slinging it around his shoulders and picked him up carefully. Heero limply let him.

Duo pulled him out of the cockpit. The snow was still there, but pushed aside by hasty hands. A huge metal hand was waiting outside the cockpit door and Duo led Heero up onto it. He laid down, feeling the heat radiating from HeavyArms's metal. Duo let him, kneeling beside him as the hand rose and began to move over the fallen suit.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I think I cracked a rib," Heero murmured, half asleep. Duo blinked. "My head hurts... where's the girl?" Duo blinked again, then pulled a two-way radio out if his pocket.

"Trowa?" he said into it. "Could you hurry? I think he's delusional or som'thin',"

"How so?" came Trowa muffled voice, broken by the crackling static. Duo wavered slightly as the Gundam's feet fell heavily while it walked along.

"He's talkin' 'bout some girl..." Trowa chuckled.

"Alright. I'll get in to Quatre, you keep him warm, alright?"

"Got it." Duo put the radio back into his pocket and shook off his jacket. "Heero, put this on," He held it out but Heero didn't take it. He was asleep.

Duo sighed and shook his head. He draped the jacket over Heero, tucking it under him as best as he could.

Ten minutes later, the hand stopped, then lowered. Duo hopped down then slid Heero off the hand as well. He woke up as the hand rose again and Trowa left to hide Heavyarms away. "Duo?" he asked groggily.

"Yeah?"

"Where..." Duo put his arm around his shoulders again and led him down the snow-covered road.

"We're at the hospital," he said.

"No, no... where's the girl?"

"What girl?"

"The little girl... the one with the puppy... the one I killed..." Duo blinked, then shook his head.

"C'mon," He continued leading him through the snow to the lobby of the hospital. Duo sat Heero in a chair and went to talk to the nurse. When the two people came to take him, Heero was half asleep. "Hey, man," Duo nudged him.

"Hmm...?"

"C'mon," Duo helped him stand. Heero turned for some reason, to look out the glass doors leading outside.

Laughing, the girl ran with Mary through the snow as if it wasn't there. She had one hand on her hat, the little dog chasing her and running around her legs in circles. The girl paused and looked at Heero. She smiled, and brought her other hand into his view. In her small hand she clutched a little white daisy, and she held it out as if to give it to him.

Heero reached out, and she smiled, then turned and ran off into the snow, laughing, her puppy following her happily. Two taller figures walked beside her. Heero looked down at his hand, hanging by his side. He held a single green stem, with seven white petals arranged around a yellow center. He smiled.

owari

A/N: Don't sue 'cause I don't own. So there sticks out tongue.