Fortune Knocks But Once
Vice leapt out of the transport before it had fully landed, taking the impact with his knees. Even though he'd been only piloting those things for the last decade or so, he still remembered how to leap out of one. Even so, he winced as he felt the impact travel up his legs, but a few steps worked that out of his joints.
"I'll be waiting at the base!" His friend shouted over the whir of the transport motor, and Vice waved and watched the helicopter turn and head back in the direction that they had come. Daphne was a smaller planet than Midchilda, and it took him a few moments to adjust to how much lighter he felt when walking on the alien soil. The landscape was gorgeous, and he recalled that Daphne used to have quite the tourism industry before an increase in pirate activity had nearly destroyed the shipping routes.
Desperate to sustain itself, Daphne had applied to join the TSAB Administered planets. Yet because of its remote location, very few officers stayed on planet long enough to establish secure posts and patrol routes without being incompetent at the job, quitting or turning dirty. And so the brass had created the current thorn in his side—the Daphne Border Post Project.
A project that gave young officers a chance to become promoted to higher ranks and gain real experience in the field, in exchange for ten years of their life; in the hopes that they would settle down here, Vice knew. And now he was here to knock some sense into a stubborn young woman he loved like a friend and rascally little sister…
Purposefully, he strode towards the lone figure sitting by the cliff edge.
"I'm taking you back."
She turned her head back, raising an eyebrow. "We'll both be arrested," Subaru replied blithely, a wry smile on her lips. She rubbed at her face with a towel, taking a break from what looked to be a workout routine. Vice paused—Subaru must have heard the transport arriving, but she didn't seem surprised that it was him. He recovered quickly.
"I don't care," growled Vice, crossing his arms. "Tea's depressed and hiding it."
Subaru winced but she crossed her legs, gesturing at a spot of bare rock beside her. "Sit, Vice-san. Water?"
He sat, but waved off the water. "I'm taking you back with me," he repeated.
Uncapping her water, the blunette tipped the bottle back, drinking heavily. She finished and looked out over the valley their location overlooked. "It's a crime to forcibly break a military contract, Vice-san," she teased, but the mirth was only in her voice and not her eyes.
Vice rubbed his chin, feeling a faint stubble scrape against his fingers. Part of him wished that he had taken up on his friend's offer and cleaned up at the base before heading out right away to track down Subaru. But he had hoped that he could make it back as soon as possible…teleports took time, navy ship transfers took time…and he hadn't exactly told Teana that he was leaving…
"How have you adjusted to being on Daphne, Subaru?"
Confused at the sudden change of topic, Subaru chuckled sheepishly. "It's alright…it's a little odd, since most of the people here are older guys. Some people have their families here though, but most of them are little kids." She laughed. "I feel starved for young adult company."
Then come back to Midchilda. Instead, Vice said idly, "So, what kind of work have you been doing?"
He knew that Subaru wasn't as dim as she pretended to be, but still, Subaru answered his question brightly, as if also hoping to put off the inevitable real issue. "The rest of the staff haven't arrived yet, so I'm helping with just about anything that needs doing. I've been doing lots of mapping actually—although my writing is, as Tea put it before, 'still utterly illegible'..."
"I see." Vice threw a chunk of rock off the cliff, watching it land with a thump below. "They give you any vacation time?"
Subaru coughed. "I'm the assistant captain of my unit, and everyone knows that you have to be an absolute keener as assistant in order to—"
"Get promoted one day, yeah." Vice sighed, running a hand through his hair. Quietly, he said, "You know that she'd wait ten years for our wedding just so that you can be her Maid of Honour."
Subaru closed her eyes and turned away. "Don't."
"I'm sorry." Despite that, Vice pressed on. "But Subaru, don't you think that it was unfair of you to just leave her like that? Above all the other stuff, you're her best friend."
"I'm happy for you, Vice-san. I'm glad that you're both happy together, and that you…that you love each other very much." Her blue eyes stared keenly into his, unreadable only in his surprise to see an expression like that in such a young, normally cheerful girl's face. "But I couldn't have stood beside you at the altar and watch you two marry each other. I'm not robot enough to live through that, you see?"
Vice blurted out incredulously, "You're not a robot, Subaru!"
"Thanks," she smiled briefly at him. "I never forget it."
"Well, you should," he snapped, concerned and angry. "Do you consider your sister to be a robot?" He didn't need to hear her answer; the look on her face was enough. "So don't call yourself that again."
Subaru grinned again, this one for real. "Thanks, Vice-san." She bounced to her feet, limber and full of energy. "Want to go for a walk? This is a really beautiful planet."
"Sure," he sighed, climbing to his feet. "I thought you worked mostly on patrol routes?"
"I do, but we haven't set up extensive patrol routes yet. We've only been here for three days, after all." Subaru glanced sideways at him. "Speaking of, it was dangerous of you to come, Vice-san. Pirates on this border, remember? Imagine what it would have been like if I had to come and rescue you!"
"I wouldn't have minded," he said, amused. "We're friends, after all."
We both love the same girl.
"Besides, I took a military transport. I had to endure the smell of plastic and computers the whole trip—they don't allow civilians, except for military families, to just come by this area, so I had to hitch a ride on a supply ship."
"You…" Subaru scratched her head, puzzled. "Even so, out here? Don't you need authorization to do that?"
"A friend owed me a favour," Vice told her. More like now I owe Hayate-san…She'll likely come up with something when I least expect it. He could already imagine her gleeful, mischievous brain working away to think of recompense. But underneath it all, he knew that she sympathized. "Which was better than my stowaway plans, trust me."
Abruptly, Subaru stopped in the middle of the trail and turned, staring intently at Vice. "Vice-san, why did you come here?"
He stopped as well. "I told you before."
"You should be with Tea," Subaru said, frustratedly throwing her arms up. "She needs you right now!"
"She needs you too!" Vice countered, and he swallowed a lump in his throat before adding forcefully, "Maybe even more!"
"You're her fiancée."
He felt his irritation vanish in a burst, leaving him empty and sad. "She loves you too."
Subaru blew a breath through her bangs, her eyes turned upward and watching her blue hair settle again. "Vice-san, let me tell you something, okay? This whole thing between Tea and you and I…" She shrugged, lifting her hands helplessly as her shoulders drooped in dejection.
"You are the 'right place, right time' guy, while I'm the 'what if' girl."
"So you think that she does love you too." Vice hadn't meant for that to come out mildly accusing; he ducked his head in shame. But even though he had always known, or guessed, it was different hearing it said aloud. It was real now. Vice had always thought that he wasn't the kind of guy who would confront this situation resentfully—he felt ashamed of himself.
"I think that now it doesn't matter that she does, or did. We all made our choices, Vice-san, and she chose you." Subaru studied him, then patted his shoulder. "It's okay that you're angry."
"No, it's not. I care about you too, you know." Vice sighed and continued walking towards the downhill curve of the trail that they were on. They climbed down to drift towards the lakeside, and Vice felt the chill lake wind pull at his jacket as it rushed by them. Part of him missed the peace vast nature brought, bringing back memories of his childhood before his family had moved to Cranagan. Things seemed simpler here, as if it was easier to pretend that the chains of relationships didn't exist, and that everything was perfectly alright. He breathed in deeply, trying to settle the rolling emotions in his chest.
"I know," Subaru said, smiling briefly before facing away, watching the ripples flowing across the silvery lake, her expression falling back into melancholic contemplation.
"But what about you, Subaru?" He didn't have to flesh that question out; Subaru knew what he was really asking.
"I've got two options: I can angst about her and keep hoping, hopelessly…or I can move on. Try to move on, at least." She laughed, her first sign of real bitterness. "I think that three star-systems and ten years should be good enough, don't you think?"
Vice exhaled, grinding his heel into the gravel. "You'll have to talk to her someday."
"Someday," Subaru agreed. "Someday, when this has turned into a bittersweet memory…" She twiddled her thumbs, kicking one shoe idly. "And how about you, Vice-san?"
He grimaced, then smiled wearily. "I do have selfish reasons for asking you to come back. Even…even I need closure, too." When he had fallen in love with Teana, he had admired her straight-forward intensity most out of all her qualities.
Subaru nodded, understanding. "So when's the…" She choked slightly on the word, but rallied. "…wedding?"
"We haven't set a date yet."
"I see."
They were silent.
"I had asked her, 'If we were to get married tomorrow, would you be able to do it without having any regrets, without wondering what if'…." Vice sighed.
"What did she say?"
"She started crying."
"…I'm sorry."
"It's not you. It's her." Suddenly he slammed his fist into his thigh, exclaiming frustratedly, "No, you know what? Yes, it is you too. You shouldn't have left like that, it's something that both of you have to work out about each other, and you being three fricking star-systems away isn't helping!"
Subaru looked tired, and she didn't seem to have the energy to argue in her own defence anymore. So she asked him instead, "And what are you going to do, if she can't work it out?"
"It's cheesy, but I really just want her to be happy." Scowling, Vice put a hand into his side pocket, closing his fist around the hard metal there. "If she's happy marrying me, then that's what I want. If she wants you then I'll let her go, just like you did for me."
The blunette's lips twitched. "Are you then going to make a ten-year contract as far away as you can?"
Even though she was half-teasing, Vice answered her entirely seriously. "No, I wouldn't…because then everything would be a treasured memory, instead of harsh, cold reality every day. You need reality to get over someone you love."
"I'm still in the "immature young adult" phase, Vice-san." A trace of humour threaded through her voice as Subaru said, "That's all a little too grown-up for me at the moment."
He couldn't help laughing even as he said staunchly, "You're growing." They fell silent again. A bird chirped from one direction; another one answered before a whole flock burst out of the treeline and fluttered through the sky. Vice watched them, skipping rocks across the placid lake surface.
Part of him loved Teana because she believed that he was a good guy, even though he had failed before. Because she believed in him, Vice could fool himself into believing it too, whole-heartedly. He had grown too—but sometimes, in the still moments, he remembered pulling the trigger, and hearing a little girl's scream…
But Teana loved him anyways. And he loved her too, stubborn faults and all. It should have been as simple as that.
He hurled a stone, watching it bounce over the water. "So you've really made your choice."
"I have. I really hope that you and Tea are happy together, Vice-san. Because even if…even if…" She trailed off and sighed, broken. "I'm not the person for her anymore. I won't be." Even if she came to me, was unsaid.
"I hope so too," he admitted, putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing gently. They looked at each other, sharing a secret, an understanding, connected together in the rich words of unspoken intentions. Staring down at his other hand, Vice turned a pair of gold rings around in his palm, shuffling them between his fingers like expensive poker chips. He lowered his head.
"I hope so, too."
Author's Note: Blame this one on the Animesuki folk =D, they suggested to me that I finish this love triangle mess by making it a three-part series ^^. Lots of thanks to Dezopenguin and RadiantBeam for helping me out while I was struggling with what to do with this last short, and to all the Animesuki guys for their support!
So Subaru and Vice have their closure, and I've been convinced to do an epilogue of sorts to give Teana some closure. However, I do feel that the story is mostly complete with this one, so if you're happy with this ending then stop here ^^.
For those who want to see Teana grow some balls and make her own choices in life, wait for the epilogue "Long Time No See" =)…
Special note: F91/00-Raiser has written up his version of an epilogue to this series, "Tough Love", which will be posted when "Long Time No See" comes out ^^. His version will be more clear-cut and optimistic than mine, so you get a choice of the ending you want!