Disclaimer: I do not own Duo, or Gundam Wing in general for that matter. All I own is this fic, so please don't sue me. All you'll get is lint.
Relive and Regret
Soldiers who have nightmares regret what they've done.
I'd never really given that phrase much thought. But can you blame me? It's not like I had time to go all philosophical and think about things like that. Most of the time I was too side-tracked with wondering just how much longer I'd survive, how much longer until my next mission, my next losing battle. I didn't have time to think about nightmares. Hell, I was lucky if I had time to sleep. When you're trying to stay alive and save the world with four other kids, normal things like sleep suddenly aren't the necessities they used to be.
I kind of miss those days. They kept me on my toes, ya know? Alive, ready to look death and danger in the eye without a second thought. While the war was going on, I was too wrapped up with the universe's problems to worry about my own. Come to think of it, up until the war was over I didn't even know I had my own problems. But Zero can stir up things in your mind you never thought were there to begin with.
The nightmares ... I hadn't had nightmares since I was a kid. But they started up again, just after I had my turn in Zero. They weren't so bad at first, most of the time I couldn't even remember them after I woke up. But soon enough I could remember bits and pieces of them, and from there everything just got worse. They started getting longer, and a lot more realistic. And in next to no time I was reliving things I swore I had left in the past, repeatedly. Except the nightmares made everything a lot worse, a lot scarier.
Sometimes I dream about Solo. I keep seeing it all over again. I'm just a kid, crying and freaking out because he won't take the medicine I worked so hard to get. He keeps coughing and telling me things that I'm tired of hearing at this point. Things like, "it's alright" and "everything's gonna be ok" and "big boys don't cry". I keep crying and then cry even harder when I feel his body go limp and lifeless. I didn't care then if big boys don't cry and I don't care now. I'll wake up with watery and glassy eyes now and then and curse Solo silently for worming his way so damn deep.
The nightmares with Solo are nothing I can't handle though. The nightmares that really get to me are the ones having to do with the church. Those are the real nightmares, the ones that make me wake up with a fright, drenched in cold sweat. It's usually always the same nightmare too. It starts out normal enough, kids here, Sisters there, Father somewhere within the chaos. And just when everything seems too normal, too good, it's like someone hit the fast-forward button and I'm standing in front of ruins. There're bodies everywhere, broken and battered, and the smell ... even if it is just a dream, the smell is enough to make me feel sick when I wake up. It's a mix of gun powder, dirt, blood and already rotting corpses; it's a smell I'll never get used to and I'd shoot myself in the head if I ever did adjust to it.
I usually wind up not sleeping for a day or so after those nightmares. I know when I close my eyes again, they'll be there, just waiting to replay. I can only take so much in one dose, you know?
This is the part where that line comes in. I've been thinking about it, churning it over and over in my mind. I understand that sometimes guilt is a nasty bug and it bites you in all of the right places at the wrong times. I suppose that could give way to some wicked nightmares. It's taken me a little while, but I found I do have a little bit of guilt in me.
I didn't get to Solo on time.
I took the mobile suit from the Alliance.
I've tried a million times not to blame myself but I can't help it. It's like I'm that little, nameless kid with an attitude again and I refuse to listen to anyone else but myself. That's where I figure the nightmares come in. They're just proving me right, making sure I remember what I did wrong and what I could have changed had I only done things a little differently. I could have changed things, maybe.
So, soldiers have nightmares about things they regret, huh?
Solo.
The church.
Things could have been different. I could have done things differently and ... yeah, I guess that saying's got some truth to it.
-End