I don't own anything in this fic but my imagination
AC 199, x-mas eve
Memories of the past
The door opened quietly to allow for another beam of light to enter the room, which was small for this house. It clearly revealed a youth sitting on the other end. In front of him stood what looked like an altar, with candles mostly in green and white, standing on simple wooden shelves. On the left and on the right, similar dragons were drawn, their bodies thin and long, almost tangling themselves. Their eyes, though powerful, did not look angry and neither fire nor smoke came from their mouths. They were merely facing the altar and the small items it held.
Carefully, but certain to make a little noise as he walked, Milliardo entered the room, walking up behind the one kneeling on the pillow in front of the altar. The young, Asian man did not look up from his kneeling position, but kept his head down, toward his hands, which were placed palms together in front of his chest.
Milliardo knew the picture that stood on the altar's top shelve. He also knew the three items in front of the boy's knees, placed on a simple plate. One of them was an elastic band. It did not look like anything special, but it was to the one sitting down and praying. It had belonged to Wu Fei's father, who had used that to keep his hair in the traditional style the day he died. The second item was black belt. Though Wu Fei had another for when he was training, this had belonged to the fiancé who had been forced onto him, but whom he never got to actually take his vows for. She died before he could admit how much he admired her. The third and last item was the detonation switch he had used when he had blown up his dragon Nataku, the gundam better known as Shenlong.
Quietly, Milliardo knelt next to his housemate and looked at the altar. It was a sacred place to Wu Fei, and he honoured that, so he put his hands together the same way Wu Fei was doing and said a small prayer to a God he didn't really believe in. When he was done, he looked up at the picture on the top shelve. He knew only one person in there, the young child standing on the left side, trying to look as proud as all the others in the picture did, but somehow failing at that. The hand on Wu Fei's shoulder had belonged to his father, a proud man, looking almost as if he wished to defy the camera. All the males in the picture had their hair in the same style, bound back so tight that it had to be painful. Wu Fei still wore his ponytail like that.
Milliardo glanced around the room. The candles were nearly burned down and there were only two lights that were turned on dimly. His gaze ended at Wu Fei's kneeling figure. Remaining on his own knees, he spoke quietly. "Do you truly intend to spend the evening here?"
No answer.
"You have been here for nearly two hours. Please, Wu Fei, join me on this X-mas Eve. It is not right for anyone to spend it alone."
"Then go sit with Marie." Came the quiet answer.
"She is finally asleep." Milliardo answered. "But it is you I am referring to, not myself. Sitting here by yourself, praying again and again will not change anything, Wu Fei. Do you intend to spend the night here?"
The young man again refused to give an answer and that in itself was answer enough for Milliardo. With a sigh, he shifted, pulling his legs out from under him. He could not maintain this position for long.
The movement caught Wu Fei's attention only when he realised the taller, lighter man was not moving away.
"Forgive me, I mean no disrespect. I was just brought up with chairs." Milliardo murmured, rubbing his knees.
Wu Fei resumed his previous position and Milliardo let him. He remained there on the floor beside him.
It took ten minutes before Wu Fei finally spoke on his own, and that without breaking the kneeling position. "You are still here?"
"I do not believe you should spend this evening alone."
"But I deserve it." Wu Fei answered, looking up at the picture on that top shelve. It was showing signs of its years and was wrinkled badly, but Wu Fei had taken as good care as he could to straighten it out and place it in the frame so at least most of the faces could clearly be recognised. "While my friends fought to spare lives, I helped nearly start a war on this day two years back. The least I can do is give myself to my ancestors and those who died that day."
"You have done so faithfully for the past two hours." Milliardo answered. "Let that be enough for tonight. You came to your senses and not because of the victory or defeat you were aiming for. Had that truly been your goal, you would not have awaited Heero's arrival in outer space. You would have followed Dekim Barton to fight your other friends."
Wu Fei remained quiet for a while, but he did not resume his praying position. That was a hopeful thing to Milliardo.
"When I failed to kill Treize Kushrenada," he spoke quietly, "I believed I had no right to fight because I was weak. It was Sally Po -who, despite knowing she was weaker than the oppressive force, still continued to fight- who had to teach me weakness was not a reason to give up. Then I killed Treize in the next duel, but only after finding out he was human after all."
Milliardo nodded "Treize was very much human. An individual truly like no other. He knew the war was coming. It is my belief that he fought for power so that he could determine how the war would end. He wished to see it end as quickly as possible, but also to show the people an image as harsh as he could, in hopes of people remembering those images and working to carry on the peace once it was obtained."
"The end of the war..." Wu Fei took the detonation switch from the plate and looked at it. "It came so suddenly for me. I was lost when I was defeated by Treize and I was lost again when I defeated him in return. Was I strong now? Or was I still weak? Had I brought on the peace? Did I have that power? Did that mean I had the power to start a war again? The victor writes history, Milliardo. I had to see for myself whether that was true. And again I needed an outsider to show me. Sally Po showed me the value of fighting when you are weak. Heero Yuy showed me the value of peace when you were strong. How could I have been so evil, so wrong?"
Milliardo knew all this, but Wu Fei hardly spoke of it. He had learned from Heero what had passed between them and he understood Wu Fei's feeling he needed to redeem himself. He had spent a year trying to find a way to do so for himself. But he had only been able to come up with one thing.
"Living in the past, it is futile. You may remember it, carry it close to your heart, you may regret it, but what was done can not possibly be undone. Please, My love, come with me to the living room. Let two hours be enough and let us enjoy the privilege of peace together. It is what tonight stands for."
There was slight hesitation, but finally, Wu Fei put the detonation device back on the plate, put the palms of his hands together in front of his chest en bowed a final bow to the altar. Then he stood up and nodded. "Will you spar with me tonight?"
"Empty hands, swords or fencing?"
The rush that a fight brought along was still there. Both young men knew it and neither held back much, for they knew their partner could take it if a hit accidentally landed harder or different that what they had intended. Hardly any blow or kick ended wrong. They blocked and faked. They avoided and countered. Their faces were all concentration and neither the tall blond nor the short Asian would back out easily. This was one way they knew how to show each other respect. Losing on purpose would not be showing respect.
It was still just sparring, though, which allowed the match to go on for ten minutes, in which they often caught their breathes by circling each other and wondering what the next move would be and who would make it. They were not out to kill, only to hit. They knew it was the end when Wu Fei attacked on an opening that was not there. They knew it was over when he jumped in the air and aimed his foot for Milliardo's shoulder. They knew it was over when Milliardo caught the foot and twisted it and stepped aside to use the boy's own moving force against him. Wu Fei felt himself turn and miss. He landed hard on the mat and Milliardo towered over him.
"I forfeit." It was the right thing to do. Sometimes Wu Fei won, sometimes Milliardo won. It did not matter. The outcome was not what mattered, the fight was. For ten minutes they had felt part of the thrill they had felt when they had been soldiers fighting a real battle. Only a soldier could understand the bitter reward the body gave when you set out to harm and kill people. This time Wu Fei had made the mistake and Milliardo had won the match.
Wu Fei knew how to break his fall perfectly, but still Milliardo knelt by his lover's side. "Are you hurt?"
"Only my pride." The usual answer, but this time Wu Fei did not look up to him as he spoke it. "I have been meaning to ask you this, but I could not because I was afraid of the answer. Tonight I must know."
"What is it?" Milliardo asked him quietly.
"Promise me first, Milliardo." Wu Fei answered. "Promise me you will answer with the truthful answer, not the rightful one."
"On my honour." Milliardo worried slightly. Would Wu Fei really think he would lie to him? "The only rightful answer I can give you is the truth."
Wu Fei nodded and sat up. He lowered his head. A few strands of hair had come loose from the tight ponytail and now decorated his face by clinging on to the sweat. "Will you forgive me for what I did two years ago? Can you forgive me for knowingly going over to the evil side, for my own selfish reasons? Can you forgive me for being willing to find my way over other people's lives?"
"My hands are stained with blood no less than yours are and I was born and raised the pacifist way." Milliardo quietly lifted Wu Fei's head to look him in the eye. "I forgive you, Wu Fei Chang. I forgive you for all the evil you believe you have done, all the lives you took, directly and indirectly, for the sake of world peace and the peace of your own mind." He drew the young man's head closer and placed a kiss on his forehead. "You are clean to me. I forgive you." He pulled the other man against himself. He smelled the sweat of his partner and could not help but enjoy the scent. Only Wu Fei smelled like that.
Cushions had been placed by the hearth and a good fire was burning. Only a few Christmas decorations decorated the room. They wanted no more. Though Milliardo had been raised in a country that was Christian from origin, Wu Fei had not been raised so. Aside from that, Christmas, which was now originally spelled X-mas, no longer stood for the birth of Christ, who was not born in a stable, but a cave, as Duo had once seemed to explain. X-mas eve was to be together with those closest to you. The first X-mas day was used to remember all those who had died in the war. Many gatherings were organised where previous soldiers got rewards and good words for their brave deeds. The second X-mas day was widely accepted as the day to celebrate the peace, to celebrate life.
Neither Wu Fei nor Milliardo believed they belonged somewhere on those days. Both had played the bad guy. True, for Milliardo it had been to end a war and Wu Fei had not directly killed with this method, but that was merely an excuse to the facts. They sat together on the cushions, shoulders touching, staring into the fire as they each had a glass of wine.
"I like it here. We should sit here more often." Milliardo remarked without looking up. "On the ground like this, right in front of the fire."
"Yes, we should." Wufei also kept his gaze to the fire and he sipped his wine.
They heard the creaking in the hallway before the door opened and an electric wheelchair carrying a little girl stood in the door opening. Both men looked at the visitor.
"Marie." Milliardo said quietly. "What are you doing here. You should be asleep."
The nine-year-old girl looked at him doubtfully. Her teddy bear pyjamas was all she wore and she shivered. "Father Milliardo. I couldn't sleep. I had a nightmare."
"What did you Dream of?" The prince asked, getting up from the floor.
Marie looked down at her hands in her lap.
"You dreamt of the past, didn't you?" Milliardo knelt in front of Marie's wheelchair and the little girl nodded.
"Do you want to walk about it?" Wu Fei had moved as well and stood now behind Milliardo, a blanket in his hands, which he placed over the shivering girl.
Marie looked up hesitantly and then shrugged.
"What do you remember of it?" Milliardo spoke again.
It was silent for a moment before the little girl spoke. "My mother always spoke of my real father." She said quietly. "It's one of the first things I remember. And when she died and I was taken in by my grandfather, he taught me that the world would be a great place soon. We would be victorious. We would rule. And if anybody retaliated we would show them the endless waltz of war, peace and revolution and how a revolution would be meaningless under his rule."
He voice was quiet and she seemed to hesitate. But then she continued.
"Then the war ended, and we were not victorious. He never really saw me before, but now he told me my father was dead and finally he seemed to care for me. He said he was old, and I was young. He said the war was not over. He said I would be victorious in the end. He would take care of that." She frowned. "I was brought up with expensive words, I guess, but the words he used were more expensive. I didn't really understand what he was saying. I still don't understand what happened, but he finally gave me attention so I learned his speeches to keep him from turning away. Eve if I didn't know what they meant."
Tears were now in the eyes of the girl and her voice had faltered at those last words. Milliardo gently picked her up from the chair to move her to the cushions, where the three of them sat down, in front of the fire.
"I'll tell you the same thing I told your Father Wu Fei." Milliardo said to the girl. "Living in the past, it is futile. You may remember it, carry it close to your heart, you may regret it, but what was done can not possibly be undone."
Wu Fei added to that. "You will learn about the war in school and you will learn that most people you know fought in the war. We fought willingly and you will learn in time of what we have done. You were a seven-year-old girl reciting what you had been taught by someone who should have loved you even without your heritage. You will learn that we were grown ups, or nearly so, when we did what we did."
"You fought for my father's real ideals, didn't you?" The young girl asked her surrogate parents. She may be only nine, but she had been through a lot already and she had seen so much. They knew she was strong and tough. They both knew they did not need to sugar coat the war layers thick. So they spoke the truth to her, mostly at least. She had asked what they had done and all they had said was that it was not all pretty. The rest she would learn in school, as the victor chose to put them down.
"Midii Une and myself were the two people closest to your father and we often have discussions of what his ideals really were." Milliardo answered. "Father Wu Fei fought your father on a level where he also got to see some of him and he believes something different again. Your father was a very smart man, Marie, and my closest friend since I was your age. I don't think anybody ever really understood what went on in his head. But all three of us agree that he loved mankind and sacrificed himself to end the war."
"Will Midii be here tomorrow?" The young girl asked with a yawn.
"No. We will be going to her, remember?"
"Oh. Right." The girl tiredly rested her head against Milliardo's chest. Wu Fei brushed the red hair out of her eyes. It was growing well, that hair. She wanted it to well over her shoulders, like on the picture she had of her real mother. Trowa had given it to her when she came to live with Milliardo and Wu Fei.
Gently, Wu Fei brushed the girl's right eyebrow. She'd wanted that to be forked, like her father's, so she had taken a pair of scissors once and played with it to get that fork. The wound had needed stitches, but luckily only a small scar remained and you had to look for it to see it.
The young girl's breath evened out. Wu Fei and Milliardo looked at each other. Tomorrow there would be gathering to attend, and the day after would be for the celebrations, where everybody would act happy even if they were not. Then they had to act as well. Not that it would be so bad. They all lived far away from each other and it really was good to see the other pilots again, so once a year. It would be fun.
But tonight was their night, just the three of them together on the floor. Forgiven, but never forgotten.
The End
