Title: Outrun Sorrow
Rating: PG
Characters are not mine I am just borrowing.
Poetry is mine.
A/N: Written for Jilly-chan

Everything about the time he found himself living in felt as if it would give anything to be something different. The retro aspect of fashion and music perpetuated everything to a point that kids talked about how there would never be anything original ever again. And, he almost agreed with them as he sat on a rusted out heap of a mobile suit leg drinking cola from a synthetically made glass bottle. All the feel and taste of the past, the nostalgia, but with none of the environmental impacts. There was a strange song tripping noisily out of a radio that looked like it was made a thousand years earlier. It sounded like bluegrass, but refused to be defined with the lyrics that ushered forth from the female singer's throat and the strums of her acoustic guitar.

He rubbed his face with a greasy palm, and tried to focus on what remained of his break as the manager of the junkyard he was working in talked loudly with a customer. And the conversation was inane with numbers, and facts and figures that just didn't add up in his head. So, Brandon Nichol stood up and walked into the small shack that served as the Maxwell & Co. offices and tried not to bite his tongue too hard when he saw who his boss was talking too. He almost made a move to hastily retreat back outside into the heat brought on by a faulty colony weather control, but he was caught, and by too much in what was a simple greeting.

"Ah, Lieutenant."

Nichol's lips smacked together as he scratched his overgrown sideburns and what was nearly a full beard at that hour of the day. He nodded to the men and said, "Haven't been in service for some time."

The man who had addressed him gave him a strange look, steely blue eyes wanting to cut away Nichol's seeming self deprecation. Then he relaxed and nodded politely, which gave Nichol the opportunity to flee and get back to work.

I want your pity like a smack in the face
Like a tick in the neck
Unregarded solitude is what I came here for
Unregarded labor is the job I perform
And what right do you have to ruin it
You ruin it

Nichol's boss, who was not the masterful Gundam pilot Duo Maxwell but a nice old man who had been hired to run this particular yard, called Nichol back into the office near what was supposed to be sunset. Weather and day and night controls both on the fritz that day. A perpetual noon was imminent until repairs could be made, and the cost to those living on the colony was sure to be steep. The future was not perfection.

With little care Nichol bounded down a scrap heap with a part that was still useful in his hand. He stepped back inside the shack and saw a familiar look in his boss's eyes. One that seemed to follow him wherever he went. He set the part in his hand on the counter and nodded.

"Because I was an officer?"

The old man shook his head. "Nothing like that, son." He held out a piece of paper.

Nichol wandered over and took the missive in his hands. Read it over twice to be certain of what it said. "But I was discharged," anger rose in his voice, ",happily discharged."

The old man shrugged. "Looks like they need some sorting out. The gentleman left a ticket for you."

Nichol spied the shuttle ticket on the counter and nearly spat. He picked it up and stomped out of the yard towards his very small apartment. Leaning against the wall just outside his building to greet him was Zechs Marquise. Nichol winced, and then corrected, no, probably going by Peacecraft. Nichol brushed passed the man and said, "You look even more like a girl with that damned shorter haircut."

Zechs followed him inside, watching from the doorway as Nichol shoved a few things into a bag.

"It's not personal, Mr. Nichol, just protocol."

"It bloody well isn't," Nichol replied. "I know I was discharged, and properly. This-" He waved his hands about, bag clutched tightly in his hand. "This is prerogative just because someone has the power."

Zechs arched an eyebrow. "You'll want to shave."

"I'll do it on the shuttle."

My life is ruin under endless stars
Ruin, wracked with a blight of fortune
And ruined again just for measure
If ever I were free
I'd hide away and work the land
Forgetful of the ruins my past life had left behind

Nichol emerged from the shuttle restroom freshly shaved, and in what was his only good shirt. He sat down next to Zechs, and tried to form words around his wounded thoughts. He thought he had performed his last duties by making sure Lady Une made it safely off Barge. And again, when he had been called back as a Preventer for a very short term he had done what had been asked. Then he took his leave, asked for his walking papers, and thought he had been granted a civilian life. That was all he wanted after his last mission had gone south, and his poor judgement found a mark it never wanted.

"You should just tell me if you're going to throw me in jail," Nichol finally said.

"If you were being arrested I would have slapped cuffs on your wrists at the junkyard. Charming place, by the way," Zechs stated. "A good use of all those skills you learned in the military."

"It's an honest living," Nichol replied. "That's all I wanted."

Zechs nodded. "Living and forgetting aren't the same things. I should know."

Nichol gritted his teeth, but kept his mouth shut. Arguing never seemed to get him anywhere, and even if his points were right, being right hadn't gotten him far either. He crossed his arms over his chest and let out a long breath.

"Brandon?"

"What happened to protocol?" His eyes slid towards the view out of the shuttle's window. Emptiness and the light of stars, but emptiness keeping the light from ever touching.

"Brandon, no one blames you-"

"I blame me," he interrupted sharply. "I blame me, and that's all I need."

"But you warned us, and we didn't listen," Zechs added.

Nichol shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter she got passed me, and because of that-"

"We lost good soldiers."

"No, good lives." He shut his eyes. "Leave me alone. I want to get some sleep. You're terrible at comforting people. You always have been."

If you press me I can tell you
But it isn't about what got lost
It's what tried to be gained
All the noise on the forefront
The pretended despair
But I lost and you lost
Together there should be some relief
But you mock it and ignore it
Run from the sound of our grief

Nichol felt the eyes of former colleagues on him as he entered the Preventer building. He kept his own just slightly ahead of him and towards the marble floor that lacked its former shine. Zechs had stayed with him the entire time, a tedious chaperone.

They reached the office doors of Lady Une and Zechs knocked. They were given the command to enter, and there was something on Une's face that questioned Zechs. It made Nichol slightly uneasy, and yet there was hardly a moment since Barge that he had felt at ease in Lady Une's company.

Une shuffled through a few files on her desk, and then found the one with Nichol's name on it. She flipped it open and arched an eyebrow. "Ah, yes. Preventer Nichol," and she said his name as if she had forgotten it, but she clearly had not. There was recognition hidden in the tone, remembrance. She looked up and said, "You wish to be discharged?"

"Yes," he said as flatly as possible.

"There must have been a mistake with our files. It says here I did discharge you." She glanced over at Zechs and narrowed her eyes slightly. "Am I missing something?"

Zechs shook his head. "I was merely following protocol."

"Were you?" She smiled, and nodded at Nichol's look of disgust. "There is simpler protocol. I believe a mailed form letter." She looked back down at the file on her desk. "You caught Midii Une after-"

"Yes." Nichol said quickly. "Yes...after."

"Yes," Une said. She closed the file. "We are sorry to lose you, but you are free to go."

"Thank you." Nichol put his hand to his face and then left the room.

Lady Une crossed her arms over her chest and said, "Zechs, you and I hardly ever see eye to eye about anything, but this…" She tapped the file on her desk. "This is the last time you game the system for your personal intrigues."

"Understood."

"Good."

You ask it and I will
I will not forgive you
Cannot forgive you
For every bold feeling of wanting
I won't do it
Even as so many have forgiven me
Even as so many dare to forgive me

Zechs allowed himself to be gripped by the lapels of his jacket and pushed into the wall just outside the Preventer building. He was ready to allow for anything, but he was summarily released as Brandon Nichol stepped away from him.

"Stay away from me, Zechs," Nichol warned. "You think...What? That I'm like Lucrezia. That I'll run away and just wait for you to reenter my life. I will never do that. I stepped away, and I chose a life for myself."

"Some life," and he couldn't keep the mocking tone out of his words, and so Nichol charged and pushed him back up against the wall.

"My life," Nichol spat. "Mine. Not for anyone else to judge but me. You have no say. You never did. You got lucky once, and keep trying to press your grief on me. Find comfort in other arms for what you lost!" He let his grip ease away. "You think I'm living in a prison to pay for my crimes. I may be. I may be, but you don't hold the keys. I decide when to release myself." He shoved his hands into his chest, and stormed off.

I am the keeper of my own regret
The champion of ruin in ruins
And I beg for pardon I can not forget
That my life is the play I have written
And I exit and enter the scene of my own will
Redemption is fixed at a point for me
And when I get there you will not be waiting

Brandon Nichol sat amid heaps of abandoned junk. He sipped cola from a retro bottle and stared into the distance of a perpetual night. Nothing ever got fixed properly on that colony. He looked up and saw the curve of the other side of the colony. It was not a recommended view. It threw people off balance, but he looked. He looked so he would know what he would collide with if the gravity ever gave way. He sighed, and realized one of his hands was shaking slightly. He nodded. The medial officer had told him about it years ago. He assured himself he would get it looked at soon, knowing he probably wouldn't.

A confirmation of his discharge had come in the mail, stamped twice and signed by Lady Une. He almost framed it, but instead tucked it away with his other inconsequential papers. His degree, his promotion, his discharge all tucked away together as a life he had let go of.

He turned his gaze to that of the crushed mobile suit beneath him. He smiled at it. Free from all sins, and praise for his good service. Free from ruin amid ruins.

End.