Kelp
.
.
.
His feet are bare, and though his soles are hardened and rough he still feels the squirmish, slippery texture of rotting kelp as he trails the shoreline.
Years ago, this was the Earth, and it was beautiful.
It's AC 217 now. Precisely 13 years after the completion of Operation Meteor.
Trowa does not want to remember the blurry transmission of L4 plummeting down against the lonely blue planet. He does not want to remember Catherine's stoic, quiet tears as they sat together before their rusty TV set, somewhere in another colony cluster -he forgets which.
But he does, some times. He also imagines Quatre's face, or Duo's face, sometimes even Wu Fei's. But never Heero's, because, that day, he was on Earth.
Heero. Trowa thinks he always got the better deal out of life. Or death.
And death.
It's the first time he's been on the planet since it was declared uninhabitable. It's been only one year since the first scientific mission to ascertain the extent of the damage descended through the thick, perilous cloud of atmospheric debris and dust, and ash. It detected no radiation. More missions began. The space-shuttles, no more a common sight, became grey emissaries of high expectations and miserable outcomes.
Trowa volunteered, 3 months ago. They were in need of pilots, mechanics, soldiers, nurses -he was all of that; and hope for his friends in space.
Now he walks back to their temporary base, once a seaside resort, and his lungs protest the intake of air dirty with failure.
The horizon fades, in all directions, into a grayish, bleak miasma, and the beach, in all its extension, is covered with putrid seaweed.
His feet are filthy, but he has been through worse.
'You sure took your time,' Duo comments, when he returns. Former 02 pilot though he is, he looks boyish and unfazed. He wears his hair short, and a plastic rosary round his neck. And a smile, always a smile.
Trowa nods at him. 'I was just thinking.'
'That sounds terrible,' Duo says, and ushers his friend inside, where something that looks like raw oil sits in a smoking cup. Trowa recognizes it to be Duo's peculiar coffee, and drinks it.
Something will kill him some day, it might as well be that.
'Ya think we'll find something living here, other than these stinking kelps?'
Trowa looks at Duo, languidly. He takes a sip of his coffee, and frowns when he finds it bitter.
'Perhaps,' he replies, cryptically, and reaches for a sugar packet.
'You're aware that you're gonna have to wash your feet, right, buddy? No smelly footprints in the house.'
Trowa nods, and offers him a calm smile.
'Your place must be tidy to a fault'
'You mock me, but you'd be surprised,' Duo smirks, 'With a messy wife and two messy kids, someone's got to see to the basic living conditions...'
Duo gets coffee.
They drink together, relishing the warmth and hating the taste, while outside ferocious winds pick up, and the aging house howls and screeches.
A member of their surveillance team, off-duty as well, comes downstairs, looking like he's seen a ghost.
'This wind, it's killing me. It's like it's a living thing.'
'It matches the reports of the winds in Mars,' says Trowa, unaffected.
'Yes, sir. But it's gotten stronger since we're here...'
Duo reassures the kid, Trowa says nothing.
A few days later, they find him hanged, in his room.
The wind does get stronger and stronger.
Communications with the colonies become unreliable. Through the communcator's screen, Trowa sees Hilde's frown and Catherine's encouraging smile. Next to him, Duo's endurance.
His feet are bare every morning when he goes for a run despite the savage winds, and though his soles are hardened and rough he never stops feeling the squirmish, slippery texture of rotting kelp as he trails the shoreline.
Eventually the time comes to return to space. Duo is thinner, and, out of the 25 men who integrated the surveillance mission, only 17 return. The rest was lost exploring the terrain. Or to suicide.
As for Trowa, he come home yet again to Catherine and the troupe. He tells them little of what he saw and scant about his flightmates, but he does tell them about the wind. About the relief of having a friend there, for the coffee and for the talk.
But, about the dismal feeling of rotting kelp on his bare feet, he says nothing to no one.