Disclaimer: They don't belong to me and I am making no money out of this work of fiction.
Author's Note: The song is 'Fields of Gold', and was written by Sting, but I prefer the version sung by Eva Cassidy - and I've taken the liberty of changing the gender of the possessive pronouns in the lyrics. I have very limited knowledge about the illness mentioned, so please forgive any mistakes. Also the real version of the mentioned poem can be found here: http://www.lcsheriff.org/donotstandatmygraveandweep.html
Thanks go to Kit for beta reading this for me and, as usual: please review.
[You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold]
We didn't forget, and it took us many years before we could move on. I think the war would have always haunted us, in one way or another: I still anger easily, and react with violence - I've even spent a few hours in a cell for starting a minor fight, much to my embarrassment, before Duo came to bail me out. It was a long time before he let me forget that one - he laughed so hard I thought he was going to hyperventilate. It was always like that with Duo - he never did anything by halves.
We lived on Earth, in a small house far away and close enough to civilisation to be comfortable. He loved to see the sunrise - he said that during the war it had given him hope, and I was unwilling to deny him anything so precious. The other pilots would come and see us occasionally - Wufei always looked a little surprised to find that yes, we were still together, and no, I hadn't killed the braided baka yet.
We did argue though: of course we did, we were so different. Sometimes about stupid things, like how I never left a note to say where I had gone - I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that it wasn't dangerous to write that kind information down - and he never bothered to put his goddamn dirty laundry in the goddamn laundry basket. It all seems so petty now.
We did have the occasional serious fight: I even hit him once. I kept having nightmares, and I wouldn't, couldn't let him comfort me. I didn't know why then, still don't. Maybe a psychologist would be able to tell me, but it doesn't really matter anymore. He was so worried, and Duo always turns fear into aggression - very useful during the war, but in peacetime it just means that he ends up saying things that he doesn't really mean. He called me a cold-blooded killer, and I hit him. I don't know who was more shocked - me or him. He picked himself up and walked out of the door, and I ran upstairs to the bathroom where I was sick.
Whenever we argued, one of us would always storm out of the back door and head down to the fields that ran for miles behind our house. We always made up there too - making love amongst the gold and green in the warm of summer and spring.
[So he took his love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms he fell as his hair came down
Among the fields of gold
Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold]
I don't remember what I said to him among the long, lush grasses and golden corn. Was it enough? Were the easily forgotten words that I panted into the heat of our intimacy, and whispered into the afterglow enough? My actions always spoke louder than my words, did he understand that?
[See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel his body rise when you kiss his mouth
Among the fields of gold]
We both worked from home, me putting hacking skills formed in the war too good use, and Duo did whatever he put his mind to in the local village. We'd spent too long apart, and had both seen enough of the darkness and death in the world - we planned to rejoin it someday - to see the goodness and peace that we had given so much of ourselves for, but the memories were still too real during those first few years.
It took me longer than it should have to notice that he was no longer going into the village as much as he had. We started arguing more - he was always bored - constantly winding me up for something to do.
I only really took notice of the changes when he started to sleep much more, and got out of breath going up the stairs. He joked when I first pointed it out, saying how out of shape he was with no war to keep him on his toes. When I think back now, I imagine that there was fear in those violet eyes. I think he knew.
There was always the possibility of illness - we'd been constantly exposed to radiation, toxins, and various plastics as we made our own bombs, sneaked into enemy power units, and slept in the experimental MS known as Gundams. Sally offered to check us all out after the Mariemeia Incident - we all declined. If we were ill then we didn't want to know - we'd rather spend our last days living than waiting for death.
I have a clear memory of standing in the bathroom watching him clean his teeth, and spit blood from swollen gums into the sink. I met his startled gaze in the mirror, before he said something about eating too many sweets. There were so many little things: he bruised easily, he caught a cold that wouldn't go away, and he no longer ran when we walked in the fields behind our house. I had to carry him back to the house a couple of times, when he'd fallen into a deep sleep beside me as we watched the sun rise. When I caught him curled up on our bed, obviously in serious pain, I finally called Sally. He kept making jokes that it was a little late for growing pains - he was 22.
I carried him down the stairs and I carried him onto the plane and I carried him into Sally's pretty little house in Belgium, near to Preventer HQ where she still worked.
She took him to the hospital where she did a blood test, and performed a biopsy, and other such things that reminded me that there is no room for dignity in illness.
We fell asleep in the waiting room later - my head in his lap as he sung softly in Latin, a prayer to a God in whom I had no faith. He knew how much I hate hospitals.
Sally had come in - hours later - Myeloid leukaemia, very rare, no cure: so sorry.
So sorry.
[I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in fields of gold
We'll walk in fields of gold]
My memories become disjointed:
Quatre: always crying - I think he was shedding tears for those of us who couldn't.
Wufei: struggling to understand a world that had always been better at the destruction rather than finding the cure.
Trowa: asking Sally the questions that I couldn't bring myself to - Any treatment? How long? Any hope?
Why?
Duo: holding me tightly while poorly controlled sobs racked my body, telling me that everything was going to be all right - the first and only time I ever heard him lie outright.
On a good day, we would still watch the sunrise.
[Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold]
He was cremated and his ashes cast into the wind - some people should never be still.
There is a marker, in a golden field behind a tumbled down house that bears his name and an inscription:
'Do not stand by my grave and weep;
For I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints of snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
Remember me, and I'll live again.'
The author is unknown, but it was left in an envelope by a soldier long ago, who had died for what he believed in - I thought it appropriate.
I love him so much.
I travel now - trying to see the goodness that Quatre believes in so fully; trying to remember what I fought for.
He made me promise to go on living, just before he died. I'm not very good at it, never have been, but I'll do the best I can - besides, he said he'd wait for me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Thomas - may you live to see another summer.