This is my first multi-part for Gundam Wing. I've been planning it and writing it for ages but, because I'm a flake when it comes to long-term commitments, I haven't posted until now when Calenheniel gave me the green light confidence to do so. So, please enjoy reading it as I really enjoyed writing it. I'm already ahead by a few chapters so I'll try to be prompt with instalments.
A House Upon a Rock
Part 1 – Location Location
Were it not for the hail of bullets and the smog of exploding mobile suits, Heero suspected he might have enjoyed Earth a lot more than he had during the war. The air in this particular mountain village was crisp and clean, almost entirely devoid of the presence of man or machinery and it was oddly therapeutic. Comparatively the air in the colonies was stale and everything seemed cramped and soulless. He would regret his past inability to enjoy the Earth for what it was but this unexpected and appreciated outcome of his post-war travels seemed to make up for it.
He drained the last of his tea and placed it back on the small bamboo tea tray that had been left for him by the keeper of the small inn. Japan had proven to be fruitless in terms of finding what he needed but he had, at least, gotten an indirect sense of closure through the exploration of his roots. He would never be someone's grandson, or nephew; he knew that now. Everything that Aiden Lowe was expired when he'd been given a new name and in hindsight, it was rather foolish to pursue that train of thought as a method for coping with peacetime life.
But what he had found were small things, new things, that would be forever built into his design. He liked tea, he discovered. It was refreshing and lacked the strong tastes he tended to avoid in his palette. Japanese cuisine as a whole fit that bill, using fresh ingredients and simple tastes, though the mystery of the existence of umeboshi still eluded him. He discovered how to meditate, something Wufei had sworn upon but he had previously scoffed at as a pointless use of the placebo. It had lead Heero to wonder just how much rage the other pilot had been bottling up before he'd taken to it, but Heero had no doubts of the effects it had on himself. The clarity of mind that came from it was eerily similar to the place he'd set aside for himself in the battlefield, a place where higher things governed over emotion and sentiment but with none of the adrenaline and red hot blood.
But, for all the novelty of new experiences in his life, he felt entire galaxies away from what he had expected to be at the age of twenty one. He knew peace time would be difficult. He'd fought for it not expecting to live to see it and now he was stuck between one plane of existence and another. He wasn't a soldier, not anymore. He no longer looked over his shoulder, or slept in a sort of shallow doze or kept his hand hovering over where his gun would be. But he sat and watched people milling around him, going about their lives and he felt so very far apart from them, and completely unsure and unable to force himself into that mould. Nothing felt right, and for all the progress he'd made in his mental wellbeing, he couldn't forget that the first sixteen years of his life were nothing short of extraordinary.
None of the other pilots were people you could particularly call well-adjusted. Even with the more sociable among them, Duo had a lifetime of death and trauma that would follow him around forever and it had resulted in the slow demise of his first adult relationship. Quatre was lucky to have found Trowa under such incredible circumstances; romance wasn't a common by-product of war, especially between soldiers, but he knew that everything they did to maintain that relationship was built on hardship and endless obstacles. But for all they'd been through, he didn't doubt that after one's death at the hand of the other, they would tough it out regardless of what life threw at them.
The rustle of a paper bag being plopped down in front of his disrupted his train of thoughts.
Trowa took a seat opposite him on the old wooden bench and began digging through it for a portion of steamed dumplings and Heero gratefully took his share. He hadn't expected to find Trowa in Japan of all places but as soon as she'd caught wind that the circus was in town he'd sent the other pilot a message on an email address only the four of them knew to use. He wasn't sure why he felt the need, but his friend's presence alone seemed to make all the difference to his restlessness. Trowa had a calming presence about him that seemed to induce logic where needed.
"It's not often we get messages from you," the taller man stated, taking a small bite from a sticky morsel, "Duo will be jealous."
Heero ignored the jibe and took a bite of his own. It was true he wasn't the best at keeping contact but in his defence, Duo wrote enough for the lot of them and, as was the case now, he wasn't sure what to say.
"How are things progressing with the files you found?" Trowa filled in the silence for him, and Heero inwardly thanked him. Trowa wasn't the most vocal of people himself but whatever he did say was often well times and on the mark.
"Dead ends," he supplied, taking a sip of fresh new tea and warming his hands on the ceramic, "this village was the last of them. Nobody here remembers my mother or knows about her clan. From what I gather, marrying a foreigner is nigh on a criminal offence here anyway. She would have been forgotten on principle."
Trowa nodded and took a sip of his own drink before his face twisted into a slight grimace. Heero had warned him; coffee here was not as he knew it. "Earth have some strange customs left over from history," he said, covering his coffee back up and setting it aside, "East Asia more than most. Wufei told me once that half of the traditions he had been raised on were never actually explained to him. I don't think people themselves know why they do what they do."
Heero nodded his agreement. Earth was a world apart from the colonies in terms of social progression but it was making valiant efforts in catching up with the new government at its helm. It was more noticeable in the more populated areas of the globe, with multiculturalism becoming almost a thing of fashion, but Heero didn't doubt it would be a very long time before they caught up to the colonies' one size fits all approach to society.
"I don't know where else to go," he confessed. The day he had found that file locked away on a secret server that had belonged to the late Dr. J, he was filled with a renewed sense of purpose. It was possible at that point that somebody out there belonged to him, and that was more than he could have expected out of his miserable existence. It was only now he was realising just how true that was.
Trowa, to his credit, didn't give him the look of pity he would have expected from Quatre or Duo, nor the hard-lined tough love he would have gotten from Wufei, and seemed to take his words for what they were without him needing to explain them. It wasn't a matter of where exactly. It was a matter of what. Heero was supposed to be enjoying the peace they, together, had levelled the foundations for and he had no idea how to do it.
Trowa popped the last dumpling in his mouth and reached for his coffee before remembering that he had cast it aside for a reason, and fixing Heero with a small, genuine smile. "Quatre told me that in order to find peace, you to have to go where peace is. It's different for everybody. For me it was with him. For Wufei it was with the Preventers."
Go where peace is.
Heero wasn't one for the abstract. He had been taught to take things quite literally; things tended to go wrong if orders were taken any other way. He let the words wash over his mind and he wasn't entirely surprised when blue eyes and long, golden hair flashed across his memory. She was, after all, as literal a definition of peace as it got. But what did surprise him was how much it made sense to him, when she had so often made no sense at all.
"You look like you've hit the mark," Trowa prompted, packing away their discarded wrappings into the paper bag before standing with his jacket in hand, "though I don't think you expected to. I have to go. Wherever you end up, let me know."
Trowa held out his hand and Heero pulled himself out of his own head before clasping it firmly in gratitude. He didn't need to say his thanks; somehow he knew that the taller man didn't expect it and would reject it if offered.
As he watched the Heavyarms pilot disappear down the long stone steps back down the mountain, there was no more company to be had than his head and his newfound sense of direction.
Relena was a unique presence in his life, carrying the legacy of his one-time mission into its ultimate purpose. While they had never quite defined it, he would comfortably call her a friend, albeit in the oddest circumstances. They hadn't seen each other in nearly five years. She had grown up in front of the entire world's eyes, broadcast on every page and channel under a bright spotlight, and he found himself checking often the small signs, digging where he technically shouldn't, just to make sure she was okay.
But he had been as neglectful as a friend to her as he had been to the other pilots. He didn't communicate much about himself nor did he do so often. But unlike the other pilots, she had no way of telling if he was even still alive and Heero thought then how odd it was that she had never made the efforts to find out for herself. It was a thought that left him feeling an odd sense of sudden trepidation. Would she even want to see him again?
Heero took a deep breath and looked up at the clear sky, watching the odd wisp of white cloud float by. It wasn't too far from here that he had first crash landed into her life and he found it strange that this was the first time he'd thought of the fact since arriving in Japan. It was one of the most defining moments in his life and he'd pushed it aside, like any other memory as mundane as brushing his teeth.
And in that moment it was decided. He may not find what he was looking for, but as a place to go, Relena was the best offer he'd had in years.