Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Gundam Wing characters, locations, etc.
Acknowledgments and such: I can't be the first person to think of this basic idea, setting, etc. If you've seen a story that's more than a little similar to this, feel free to drop a link or a pen name and I'll give it a mention here. I wrote this all by my lonesome, and read many of the HeeroxSylvia stories here (after writing, but) before posting this, in an effort to make sure that I'm not putting up something that's too much like another person's work.
Requested by/Giftfic for Mazzie May.
Seriously mild HeeroxSylvia. Post-series, but not by much. Third-person, but Sylvia-centric. Present tense. It just sounded better that way.
I'll attempt to justify this whole thing with another note at the end. I always do. Enjoy and stuff. :)
A cool breeze. Hardly a cloud in the sky. It really was a beautiful day. A day she remembers like it was yesterday. The sun, warming her back, and shedding its light on the strange, determined, unflinching young man before her. The wind, blowing his dress shirt tight against his torso, and ruffling his already ruffled hair even more.
They went from walking, to just standing. He went from placing a bouquet on her grandfather's grave, to placing a gun in her hands.
Because in his world, the punishment for not knowing where to go next was death.
Coward.
Darkness creeps over Sylvia Noventa and the vision fades, confined, once again, to its residence in the corner of her mind. But he's still there - always there - mysterious and detached as ever.
He's still there, and she's still here. Well, she's here again.
The sun has nearly set and she knows she shouldn't be in this place. But she had to come. She had to come tell her grandfather that it was finally over. The war was over. For real this time.
The Gundams brought peace to the Earth and the Colonies.
She's not quite sure how he found her, or how he got past her bodyguards, and she's got absolutely no idea why he's here. It doesn't make any sense to her, but he does everything with such purpose, she can't help but trust that it all makes perfect sense to him.
She tilts her head and a curious, slightly concerned, "Heero?" is murmured.
He doesn't so much as nod in acknowledgement.
His eyes are as bright and as clear as ever, just like she used to see them in her mind, at times when thinking of him was the last thing she should be doing.
Almost as if she can't quite believe he's really here, Sylvia reaches out to his face and brushes a few strands of his eternally messy brown hair away from his forehead. A well-manicured hand caresses his cheekbones, soft fingertips just graze his lips. His hand is on hers before she can even think about what she's doing - before she can think about pulling away. She jumps a little; he's so quick. When he does nothing but stare blankly at her, and press her hand against his face, she thinks that maybe, she finally understands.
It's different than before, and yet, it's the same.
They're close now. Not quite holding each other, not quite letting go.
"...I'm sorry." Two words and she's choking on them, a quick, jerky head shake accompanying the hurried, desperate apology.
"You're sorry?" he echoes, his tone that of unmistakable surprise.
"I'm sorry," she repeats herself, more calmly this time. She hardly moves away from the awkward, lingering embrace. She keeps her body pressed against his, feeling the well-worn denim of his jacket on her palms, and beneath it, his shoulder blades.
He's tense. Stiff.
"For what I said here, that day. For calling you a coward, for saying you were just looking to take the easy way out."
A soft grunt escapes Heero's lips, sending a shiver down Sylvia's spine.
"What you did, out there..." Her voice trails off, her words whisked away by a wind that was never really there. "The battles you've fought. The sacrifices you must have made."
Sylvia and Heero both look up, to the sky, to space. The stars that were going to fall have already fallen and all is quiet. She hadn't seen any of it firsthand, of course, just all those shooting stars.
"You're no coward." Sylvia is shaking her head again. All of her is shaking now. She's even shaking him. She's moved her hands from Heero's back to his front, and has a white-knuckle grip on his shirt and jacket. "I'm so sorry."
Before even a stifled sob can escape her lips, he firmly insists, "Don't be. You were right."
Eyes wide, Sylvia watches Heero, studying his features. Just like before, they give nothing away. No, not nothing, just so very little. She loosens her grip on his clothes, letting her hands rest over his heart. She pretends she can feel his heartbeat. She pretends she knows what's inside there, what his heart beats for. What he feels, what he thinks, what he wants, what he's doing here.
But Sylvia doesn't know. She doesn't know what Heero's doing here, just that, whatever it is, he's doing it the only way he knows how.
A/N: I worry that my decision to set this at dusk might give off the impression that Heero came straight here after destroying that block of Libra, saving the world, all that fun stuff. Not the case. Evening just seemed to suit the story better. And yeah, maybe it's weird that I have Heero and Sylvia near each other at this point, just a couple days after the end of the series, instead of Heero and Relena. But hey, he sought her out before, and for as short as their time together was during the series, Sylvia seemed to have a pretty good idea about who this Heero Yuy guy was. But how did he know she'd be at the Marshal's grave, you ask? Maybe he didn't. Maybe he was just intending to visit Noventa's grave himself and Sylvia just happened to be there. We'll never know. Oh wait, at least I will. ;) Everyone else can speculate.
