Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Gundam franchises…If I did…ooohhh, then you don't want to KNOW what would happen.

Summary: (Oneshot) I found a boy today. He doesn't remember much. Not even his name, but he plays the piano beautifully…

What would happen if SOMEONE ELSE were to survive a totally UNSURVIVABLE situation? (Come on, even Mwu did it, and his helmet was floating in outer space!)

speculation + obsessed fangirl equals:

Selkie

It was a normal day, that day that I found my selkie. I was 10 years old at the time. I was walking along the beach, collecting some seashells as a gift for my mother. I walked over a dune, and I saw a small lump in the sand. It took me a while to realize it was a body.

"MOMMY! THERE'S A DEAD BODY ON THE BEACH!" I heard my voice rip out of me. My mother came running instantly. She looked at the stranger while I hid myself in her skirt.

Turns out, the boy wasn't dead. Mother took him to the hospital. My father worked there, and he took care of him.

They talked a lot back then, Mother and Father. I didn't realize it at the time, since I was only ten years old, but they were discussing whether or not they should take care of the boy. He was, after all, a Coordinator.

I didn't really care that he was a Coordinator. We were a small village, kind of isolated. We were all Naturals, but we had nothing against Coordinators. We had a TV, a radio, a phone and a small computer. That was all our contact with the outside world.

My parents didn't care either, and their attitude towards Naturals and Coordinators alike gained him a place in our home. Just until he recovers enough, they said.

I visited him often. Mother taught in the local school, and father was a doctor. They were both too busy to give the boy undivided attention. So I went to do it instead. It just seemed right, in my mind.

I stared at him sometimes. He was so strange, and different from the rest of the people in our village. His hair was green, the kind of green that I imagined seaweed was. But he was bandaged heavily, especially around his midriff. Mother said that he had a really bad injury there, and that it would leave a pretty nasty scar.

I told Mother that maybe he wasn't a Coordinator. I thought he was a selkie. We were just told that story in class, when we were taught about myths and legends. I thought that perhaps he was a selkie, and that he lost his seal-skin somewhere. It would explain his nakedness. Mother didn't believe my story; she just laughed.

Then the boy woke up. He didn't remember anything; not even his name. Mother and Father felt so sorry for him. I gave him the name Sel Grey, after an ancient legend about selkies that my teacher told us about.

When he was able to walk again, I took him with me to the beach. I was so determined that he was a selkie, and I wanted him to help me find his skin. He tried to help me, all the time having a clumsy kind of smile on his face. He told me that he didn't know whether or not he was a selkie, so he wouldn't be able to remember where he put his skin. We searched all day, but eventually we gave up.

Mother took him home with us. She felt sorry for him, and father did too. It was a sad thing to happen, they said. He probably had family elsewhere who were worrying endlessly about him.

But later, when it truly sunk in that he was a Coordinator, and not a selkie, "skin" became a metaphor for "memory." And as hard as we tried, we couldn't help him to remember. We couldn't help him find his skin. The closest thing that he had to the memory of his past life was the piano.

We had an old piano in our family room. The first time we realized his connection with this strange instrument, this thing that tormented me ever since I was five, was after dinner. He was looking at it with a strange sort of hunger on his face. Then he went over to it, and played a few notes. We were all holding in our breaths, waiting for something.

"I think I used to play," Sel had said, his face in deep concentration. The next few days, he was at the piano, painstakingly playing pieces from memory. He could take a whole day to remember a line of notes. All the time, he had a strange look on his face, the look of a person who was trying to catch the last few bits of a dream before it totally faded into the sunlight.

But it never got better than that. Besides the piano, he couldn't remember anything…except, perhaps, a few recollections of "Mother," whom he said was a very warm lady, and very beautiful. But the finer points, like her name and appearance, were beyond his memory.

The war ended, and we were all relieved. Weeks past, then months…pretty soon, it was a whole year. He became part of our family, the son my parents never had, the big brother I wished I had. But with a start, I realized that my family and I had stopped trying to prod him to find his past.

My mother and father had their reasons; they said that maybe his past was too painful, and that's why he couldn't remember. But I had a more selfish reason, I realized. I didn't want him to go. Or else, when he found his memory again, he might leave us forever, like when the selkie-wives found their skins.

Then the next war started. That's the first time Sel and my parents had their first big fight. Sel wanted to join the Earth Forces, to help protect our island and the earth. My parents wouldn't allow it. He was a Coordinator, they said. The Earth Forces would sooner kill him. He said that he didn't care; he'd dye his hair or something, just as long as he could fight to protect. He didn't want ZAFT to try and blow up Earth again. But even though he said it, he didn't want to go. His face trembled when he said it. And I didn't want him to go either.

"If you go there, then what use to us are you here?" I blurted out. Though harsh, the words made their intention. Sel stopped arguing, and stopped talking about going to the Earth Forces. He stayed with us, to our relief.

He held me during the scarier parts of the war, when we could hear the fighting of the mobile armors. And that's when I found myself thinking of him more than a big brother.

We long stopped talking about him regaining his memory/ "skin." I thought that maybe, if his real parents ever came for him, we would sooner fight them to the death than give Sel up. And if Sel ever went back to them…well, it would probably feel like losing a brother.

But I knew, that whether or not I liked it, he'd find his skin again. It might take years, sure, but he'd find it, whether he liked it or not. I just hope that we could survive through that.

Sel didn't find his skin, nor did he express any intense interest for finding it, after the first year. He said that we were his family now. But then, his skin started to find him.

It started with an announcement. Something about politics, a strange and feral world that I tended to avoid like the plague. I was about 15. The TV said that there was a minor political scandal and a lot of fan girl swooning over the union between Representative Yula Attha and Chairman Zala.

When the camera went to Chairman Zala, Sel started in his seat and leaned forward, staring into the television. He had that look on his face again, the same look that he had whenever he started recreating piano pieces. Then, it was gone. But I knew, even if he didn't, that it was going to come back.

I'm twenty years old now. The Zalas want to take a small vacation on our island, and get away a little from political life for a while. 7 months pregnant with a vivacious baby boy, I just can't deal with the sudden propaganda burst over our little island. Whenever I have cravings, Sel, the great husband that he is, fights his way through the crowds to get it for me. He may look gentle and meek, but when he fights for something, he fights for something.

I'm cutting up vegetables for tonight's dinner. I look through the window, and I get a surprise. There I see Sel, speaking to the Zalas. I can tell by the diverse looks their heads have, one green, one blue, and one blonde. The blonde, Mrs. Cagalli Zala, looks baffled, but the look of surprise on her face is calm compared to the one on her husband, Mr. Athrun Zala, talking to Sel urgently. Suddenly, I know what's going on. His skin…

"So he's found it," a small voice on my left said. My mother, and soon-to-be grandmother of my child.

"Will he go to the sea now?" I asked, my voice quavering slightly. The threesome are still talking out there. They talk well past sundown, and the three trek back towards the house.

"Nike, darling," he said, entering the house, his face smiling uncertainly. "I found some old friends." I feel a spasm of terror, but his calming eyes send me a message: Come what may, we'll face the wide ocean together.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.

-Ernest Hemingway

How was that? Review please!