Bel Niente nella Guerra
"Beautiful Nothing in the War"
A/N: As some of you may know, and some of you may not, I'm a great fan of story – back story, continuations, vignettes we don't see within the carefully planned and orchestrated throws of a series. I also tend to be a bit of a romantic. (Not a fluff-mushy one, but a guns and heroism sort of love story addict.) While working on the massive edits that had to happen to the third and "final" installment of my story about Sally and Wufei, I had the fortune (or misfortune) of coming across the music by Joe Hisaishi from Howl's Moving Castle. There are a lot of waltz-based songs in that soundtrack, and if you haven't heard it, I really suggest it to you.
ANYWAY. The Theme from that movie struck a chord with me, and helped me to put down, furiously, the first ten or twenty pages of the story that I'm finally starting to post now. Thank my GW soundtracks, the Joe Hisaishi score from Howl's, and my own personal avoidance of daily to-do lists.
As the chapters, as I wrote them on my computer, come out to about 15-20 pages or so, I'm posting them here by POV switch as a start. This will alter a bit as the story goes on and I need more stuff to fill the chapters. I really dislike overly short or long chapters, and so I'm trying to keep people from being over (or under) whelmed.
That said… I don't own Gundam Wing.
Please enjoy.
AC 192, June 11
Lake Victoria Specials Academy
Northwestern Tanzania
Outside, the rain fell softly. Upper level cadets were allowed, and could be awarded with a stipend, to live in on-base, non-dormitory housing. As the only female cadet at the Academy, and being ranked among the top five in her class, Lucrezia Noin had chosen the smart way.
Or perhaps it was just the easy way. Living in 'dormitory' housing among the cadets, as the only female, meant that she was living in rooms assigned generally to the librarians and the clerks, the non-combatant military personnel. She was pleased that these women were proud of her, but she could not quite accept that the backbone of any military organization was a bunch of women who did nothing more than swoon over their superiors and titter amongst themselves about marriage and retirement and children.
So she had applied to live elsewhere on the base, and because of her records, she had easily been given the necessary funds. It kept the male cadets from bothering her too much, or the excitable ladies from tittering too loudly when the boys came around to gawk at her like children would stare at a rare animal in a zoo. She could recall feeling their prying eyes even through the standard issue curtains she had been given. The female housing was all single-story units, much more home-like. Much easier for peeping toms.
She liked to think it was because they were more likely to be ignored in an attack… and a roof falling on you wouldn't necessarily mean you'd die right away. Or at least that you'd be less dead than if a barracks collapsed or blew up. Some sort of male over-protectiveness of some sort, she was sure. So moving out of the barracks had been, in a way, getting free of them keeping such a careful eye on her. Just like joining the Oz Academy had been a way to get free of her brother's watchful eye.
Her bravado, her ego, worked like that. She could be cocky and macho… but not in the rain. And unfortunately for her, Tanzania had four months of this sort of overcast, rainy weather. Straight.
The rain did not always overpower her so much as it did some days. Days like today when a little thunder crashed in the clouds overhead. On days like today, and thankfully it was a Friday this time when there were no required classes, she could not ignore her scarred spirit. All the strength she had gained in the three years since the battle… it all came crumbling down like some ancient piece of stone working. The rain eroded her foundations quicker than a sucker punch to the gut could bring her to her knees.
A year at the preparatory school where the other cadets did most of their scholastics, and another at the Specials Academy on Lake Victoria, and she had everything about the organization that she needed to know down to a science. Which instructors to study for, how to best pass PT exams, the proper way to disarm someone larger than her in fencing without ending up catching an 'accidental' flying elbow – the boys hated being shown up by a slender tomboy girl – even how to handle when she inevitably broke down. Her first roommate had been very good at comforting… a little too good. But before she'd moved out, Noin had taken the other woman's suggestion and gotten herself a comfortable set of clothes – warm sweats and a flannel robe – and bought herself a teapot.
Stupid, she thought to herself, how the little things could be such a comfort at times like these. She sat, as she had before during the past two years, and watched the continual fall of rain that blotted out the world that was the Lake Victoria Base. Even if she missed class, she never missed this show.
Lucrezia took a sip from the teacup, even though she knew her hand was shaking and that it wouldn't be long before the soft patter of the raindrops turned into the clatter of boots on cracked and broken stone. The panic attack was coming. The thunder was growing monstrous, turning into the crash of bombs as they exploded. The thunder the rumble of rubble as it collapsed, sinking into buildings. She leaned her head against her hands, her violet eyes cold and dead.
Her thoughts were lost in a haze of smoke thick enough that she still choked on it, coughing and spitting tea out on her hands, the honey doing nothing to ease her throat. 'Music,' she thought idly for the hundredth time since the rain had been able to snatch her into its panicked embrace. 'I should drown it out with music.'
But the memories would linger, waiting on some other trigger. Her body itched for activity, the feeling of some occupation, some movement that she could not seem to find as she sat with her nose pressed to the cool glass. A hundred times… twenty times… she'd lost count, but however many times, it was now two years worth of this.
Rising, she shrugged the robe from her shoulders and discarded the comfortable sweatshirt. The teacup settled with its steam swirling upwards towards the roof of her apartment and she ran a finger through her dark hair. It was longer, then, she thought absently. Longer and so much softer than the regulation issue soaps could make it. Her cheeks were fuller, her eyes brighter and not ringed with bags of tiredness. Her arms were strong… but nowhere near as strong as they had since become. She kicked her feet into her combat boots and shrugged on her camouflage jacket. The same tattered cap that she picked up from beside the firey building where her family…
No.
She jerked the door open and threw a leg over the bike leaning outside, not caring how wet the sweats got. In a while they would be even wetter. The ride to the PT training grounds was rocky, dangerous in the rain, but something she'd grown accustomed to after a year of it.
Her thoughts were angry as she tossed the bike down in the mud, her muscles shaking as she launched herself into the practice grounds. 'I was fourteen,' she screamed mentally at them, the nameless invaders that destroyed her family's estate, her chest heaving as she moved through the obstacle course. 'What right did they have to take that life away from me?'
But as usual the obstacle course had no answers for her. The rise and fall of her panicked, angry breathing was the only answer to her silent questions. The burn of her muscles the only indication that she was going way too fast through exercises that ought take much longer. A trained human body is still human, her muscles reminded her as she reached for the next rung and swung over to the rope wall.
And a human body can still give out.
Her grip faltered, she fell from the rope wall, six… seven feet at least into the mud pooling at the bottom of the course. The thud of her impact shook her right to the joints, and she knew, in this kind of weather, she'd be feeling that in the morning. But the pain, she knew as she tipped her head back, drinking in the damp fall air, is real, as the panic attack… as the memories… aren't.
She staggered to her feet and trudged over to where she left the bicycle, surprised to find someone standing there with it propped up. "Who's there?" she asked defensively, her hands flattening into weapons.
The person turned, and with the upturned collar moving, a familiar head of blond hair was revealed to her, though beneath it the owner's garments had otherwise changed. A thick black raincoat over a starched uniform, impressive though it lacked rank, and a pair of tall, shiny black boots. And the oddest thing of all was the shiny helmet that adorned the fair head. All that was left of the face that ought to be familiar was the lower half of it, but still she knew, unmistakably, who stood before her. A confident smile that was almost a smirk greeted her angry question, and a soft chuckle. "It's been a long time, Baronessa," the deepening voice said. "Two years, I'd think."
"You've changed," Lucrezia replied, swiping the hair from her face.
"I could say the same for you."
Spitting rainwater and mud from her mouth, Lucrezia stepped forward, reaching for the bicycle. "Yeah. Nice hat." She put a hand on the handlebars of the bike. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
"The same thing as any other cadet," the deep voice said. He tilted his head slightly, and she could feel his blue eyes looking at her through the glass. "Training to be an elite soldier for Oz. I should think that would be obvious." He let her have the bicycle.
"You're getting mud on your fancy hat," Lucrezia replied waspishly. Of all the people to see… now… Tears stung her eyes, hot despite the falling of the raindrops that hit her face. Why this? Why now? He had always been easy to cry in front of…
"It was raining that day too," he replied. "You didn't say that to me then."
She turned the bike angrily and started the long walk up the rocky path back. "It's been two years, give me a break."
The last person she expected to see, at the worst possible time… and he was following her as she pushed the bike up the hill. She wanted to shout at him to go away, but the panic of the rain was still holding her in its damp grip. Overhead lightning cracked the sky and the roll of thunder that followed had its usual affect on her. Her hands gripped the handlebars of the bike tighter, but her footing slipped and her knee hit the ground hard, striking a rock.
She let out a frustrated grunt as she felt her skin break. A pair of strong hands helped her up. "I don't need your help, Zechs," Lucrezia snapped.
That was how she had been introduced to the pale blond haired young man with his lengthening fall of pale hair, in a much similar situation, but then…
"Let me help you," he replied in a gentle voice.
For a moment Lucrezia was tempted to push him away, but she looked down at her knee and saw that not only had the rock ripped her sweatpants and her skin, but there was enough blood to change the color of the mud on her pants leg. Grudgingly, she put her arm over his jacketed shoulder and let him help her back up the incline.
"What brings you to our little base? It's not enough to be the top cadet at the Czech training facility?"
"My unit commander recommended that I transfer from that facility." A soft chuckle came from somewhere in his pressed uniform, unimpaired and unaltered by the silver helmet he wore. "Apparently they believed I needed more competition." They trudged in silence for a moment, and his hand, gloved against the rain, took the bicycle from her completely. "I was surprised to learn that you had enlisted," he said softly.
"I guess I've come a long way from when you saw me last," Lucrezia snorted. "The whole world's turning into a battlefield," she said, trailing off and letting the two of them walk, again, in silence. It was not the best idea, she knew, when the raindrops and the thunder that threatened overhead kept calling memories back to the forefront of her mind.
It was easy to get lost in them… especially…
Especially with him so nearby.
