I could hear her sobbing loudly from where I was standing. "Oh, Heero, Heero, why did you leave me? Just when you said you loved me..."
I closed my eyes and pretended not to listen, but there was something about her incessant, whiney voice that I just couldn't block out. "Barton, that's it, your time's up. We have to leave."
Ah, time to go back to the pretty, confined, and barred van. I didn't reply but started to walk steadily towards the automobile that would be taking me back to my cell, back to the place where I would only be living for a short time after this.
You could account my crime as... loving Heero Yuy, I suppose?
--
This trial was beginning to become insufferable. I was the only one not allowed to speak, really, having not really cared to anyway. I had convinced myself that I was guilty of Heero's death, maybe not being the one who shot him, but being the only one who could take the blame for it anymore.
I couldn't blame it on Relena. What, the queen of pacifism? Shooting a man for no reason? I could see a hole in that argument about the size of a watermelon. Me, on the other hand, there was no real evidence that it wasn't me. My fingerprints where on the gun, and I was nothing to the public but an ex-Gundam pilot with a motive.
I had been sitting in the living room when I first heard the arguing. Heero had said he had company and told me to go sit in the other room, just for the sake of keeping me out of it. Once their voices reached the point where I could swear I was in the same room, I stood up and walked into the room, and the deadly discussion.
Heero was standing there, hands in his pockets, keeping his voice at a steady pitch, but a loud measure. Relena, on the other hand, was whining, her voice rising and falling between stifled sobs. I had walked in behind Relena, yet she didn't notice the addition of my presence. That's when I saw her pull out the gun. I must admit, having sat around for the past couple of years, my reflexes had become slightly out of tune.
As I grabbed for the gun, I heard the shot. I was able to grab the gun from her hand, but it wasn't much help, Heero still lost his balance, falling to the ground. I looked at the gun and then at Relena, and then dropped it, suppressing the urge to hit, or possibly shoot, her with the gun. "Heero." I refrained from shouting, but couldn't help but run for him, instantly going to his side and propping him up so that he could breath better.
"Trowa," he gurgled, spitting up blood slightly.
I looked him over, seeing that though many thought Relena was inept, she certainly new how to aim for some one. It was in his chest, possibly too close to his heart for comfort. "Shh, no talking." I tried to put pressure, but he grabbed my hand softly.
"It's... useless..." he coughed, letting go of my hand. "Too close..."
"You've survived worse," my voice cracked slightly under the emotion of the moment.
"Shrapnel, not bullets."
"Damnit..." I sighed and felt my throat constricting. "Heero, I don't know what to do."
A smile, for once, curved on his lips. "All that's... left is... good-byes... Trowa, ai..."
"Heero, don't-"
"Ai... shiteru... Trowa..." He coughed, which sounded more like a grotesque gurgle, and laid back, his eyes rolling back slightly.
"Heero? Heero?" I checked his pulse, finding nothing. "Damnit! No, Heero!" I sat there, trying to avoid the emotion, but I couldn't. There were tears, and blur, and things I can no longer remember, and no longer wish to remember. The next thing I knew, the police where there.
--
"Heero said he loved me, and then Trowa pulled out the gun and shot him!" Relena then broke out into sobs, something more to baby the jury into loving her more.
My head was throbbing. I hadn't killed Heero, Relena had, he'd said he loved me, not her, but that was only during his death and... I had to stop thinking about it. I'd never win.
--
I received the letter today, addressed from Trowa, from his cell. I supposed that the delivery system from the jail was delayed, considering it had already been a week since Trowa execution. I had trusted Trowa so much, and it had come to me as a shock when I heard that he had actually shot Heero... and slowly, as his trial proceeded and his execution came around, that shock had turned into disgust.
As I received the letter, I considered throwing it away. Why would anything he had to say now repair the horror he had inflicted? My common sense overruled it, and possibly my door-mat like nature as Duo liked to call it, and I opened the letter. It read as follows:
Dear Quatre,
I know that you will have some difficulty in deciding whether or not to actually read this all the way through, but I hope that you can finish it, for it is my proverbial last will and testament.
Though the evidence was stacked against me, I can assure you that my innocence was not a lie. As we all know, Relena can be a manipulative person, and I must admit that in this, I have allowed myself to receive the ultimate manipulation.
The day that Heero died was not as Relena had transcribed it. I had, instead, accidentally walked in at the wrong time. I could hear the loud argument between the two of them and had wandered in, hoping to act as some kind of mediator. Instead, I was apparently only there to place my finger prints on the gun while trying to pry it from her fingers, and to eventually take the blame.
And I know that this all does not add up to my innocence, considering my lack of rigor in my trial. Instead, I ask you to look at it from my point of view. I had lost Heero, the only person that I could consider ever having any true feelings for (and I am speaking past the friendship bar on the relationship scale), and at the hands of a girl that was a once named the "Queen of the Earth." In other words, the situation seemed utterly hopeless.
I gave up, something that wasn't exactly normal for me. I had come to the conclusion that if I could not end my own life, why not have the state do it for me? And now I find myself in that position, writing to you from a cell that will be my very last home, ever. I am not afraid of my death, considering I have always been ready for something like this since I allowed myself to sit in the seat of Heavy Arms.
I hope that you can forgive me, for I am sure that in hell, forgiveness is an added perk.
Sincerely,
Trowa Barton
I then turned out the light, not only wishing to extinguish Relena's life, but my own.
--
I come home now to three dead friends and a mailbox full of mail.
I had come home just as soon as I had heard of the death of Heero, a murder they said, exacted by a jealous Trowa. I could not determine how anyone, other than a completely brain-dead idiot, could hold Trowa accountable for Heero's murder. Though, I was not able to get back in time to convince anyone of that, considering I was about a month's distance from Earth. As I came back, my hopes were destroyed by the fact that Trowa was convicted, and killed, for Heero's sake.
As I walked off the ship, my stomach could not hold an ounce of food since I had heard of the two deaths. Since I wasn't a macho-man like Heero, I wasn't ashamed to cry, and had done so many, many times since the issue of the first fatality. And, as I read my mail, I found a letter from Quatre, the third in the anti-life group, who had sent me a letter to explain the reasons for his suicide.
Three down, and only two of us left, though no one had heard from Wu Fei since the last battle for the peace of our colony. After reading Quatre's letter thoroughly, I still could not decide why he had really ended his "petty existence" though, I can say I think it has something to do with the fact that he, unlike me, had immediately agreed with Trowa's guilt.
I was at my wit's end, considering that three of my best friends in this world, a company I had spent many desperate months with, where now deceased. Though, no matter what it comes to, I will take the advice that Trowa gave me in his final letter to me, one while he was still being held in his cell. I will, as he asked, "... continue living, since the rest two of us [now three] could not."