One-shot. Enjoy.
Blue Moon
by Mirror's Image
"Many things only happen once in a blue moon. Have you ever heard that saying? Well, that might not be the exact saying, but still, you understand what I mean, right? Good. I guess I should start off with my name, but you already know what it is. So, I'll start off a different way. Last year, on my twenty-eighth birthday, I received a pair of expensive, silver sunglasses with shiny black lenses from a friend. Actually, I'm not really sure if he was a friend or not. You see, I don't have very many friends. I don't want very many friends.
I don't want anything, really.
That's impossible, one would say. Everyone wants something. Everyone needs to want something. It's part of being a person. It's human nature. Well, I don't want anything. I guess that makes me inhumane, right? Fine. I'll continue with my story, now.
The sunglasses were, to be exact, four hundred dollars and sixty-eight cents. They were the most beautiful, shiny, perfectly crafted sunglasses I'd ever seen. Just wearing them would have made me feel like the royalist of the royal. I unfolded them and traced my fingers over the sleek silver, the cold metal. My reflection stared blankly back at me as I peered at myself in the lenses. Then, I folded the glasses back up, set them on the table before me and slid them toward my friend. My acquaintance. The person sitting across from me at my table and in my house.
He knew I didn't accept his gift. He cried. Can you imagine? A grown man of twenty-nine bawling like a child. The side of my mouth lifted slightly. I was smiling.
Cruel, you say? How could I be so heartless? So uncaring? So rude? You've just missed the whole point.
He stood, my acquaintance, grabbed the beautiful glasses and stuffed them in his overcoat. When he took his hand out of his pocket, a thin stream of red slid down his finger, dripping and splattering onto my round, glass table below. You see, he'd grabbed the glasses so hard that the lenses had shattered when he'd pushed them into his pocket. Yes. He's quite strong.
With tears still streaming from his eyes and a permanent scowl plastered to his face, he said, "One day you're going to have to learn to trust people. It's part of being a person, damnit." Then, without looking back, he turned and began to leave my home, my sanctuary, with his bleeding hand---I believe it was his palm---and broken, four-hundred-dollar sunglasses.
I called him back.
He turned, still scowling awfully, and wiped his hand on his coat. "What?" I'd never heard him this angry before. Angry, yes, but never this angry.
I'm a war veteran. I've been fighting since before I was fifteen. I stopped when I was around nineteen. Four years of violence, bloodshed, tears, anger, pain---you name it, I experienced it. Hell, I was probably the one who caused most of it. What does this have to do with my acquaintance, you ask?
I left him standing on my patio. The blood that had dripped from his palm onto my glass table had started to dry in the sun. A dark, rusted-looking stain served as his only company until I emerged from inside my home with a small, tightly wrapped, paper-encased package. It was so small that it fit into the palm of my hand.
He stared at it for a moment, contemplating, I suppose, whether or not he was going to open it. After a long moment of silence had passed, he took a deep breath and looked at me, looked into me, with wide eyes.
"You're proposing to me," he said, and began to chuckle. "But I'm already married."
"And I'm not proposing to you." I didn't blink. I didn't smile. I barely breathed. "Open it when you get home. Show your family. The glasses were nice." I should have smiled. But I couldn't. It's not in me to show true happiness. It's not who I am. It's not who I want to be.
He left my home with a renewed hope of my friendship, trust and respect. He left with a bleeding palm, broken sunglasses and a package that had come directly from the core of my heart.
He left and never came back.
A week later, as I sat at home watching the news program, my acquaintance popped up on the television screen. I barely recognized him. Why? For starters, half of his face was missing. I'll spare you the rest of the details.
But it didn't stop there.
Next, his wife popped up on the screen. Then, his children. One-by-one. The five-year-old, the three-year-old and the one-year-old. He had a stunningly beautiful wife. He had adorable children. All were mangled, battered, bruised, barely recognizable and dead. Just like him.
And yet, it didn't stop there, either.
Within hours, my front door was taken down by force. A swarm of men in black coats armed with powerful weaponry invaded my home. My house, my sanctuary, my safe-haven was torn apart with each room they searched as they hunted for me. I have a window in my bedroom. I could have climbed out and run.
But I hadn't done anything.
I sat and waited patiently, still watching the news program, until my door was blown off of its hinges and the television screen was blocked by a bulky body burdened with pounds of metal and padding. Slowly, I raised my head and stared at this man. Angry brown eyes glittered back into my own.
"Suspect secured, sir." He spat the words at me, but he wasn't speaking to me. He was speaking to the tall man who walked into my room next.
I knew this man. At one time, I'd been friends with this man.
"You.." he barely breathed the word. I'd never noticed, until that day, what sad eyes my former friend has. They're so blue and deep that you'd think his eyes were made of tears. Sparkling tears that never fall.
"And you," I nodded to him, watching, waiting for what I knew would happen next.
The room was eerily quiet. The scene was questionable. The men surrounding my bed and crowding my house and my room knew something was knocking the scene off-balance.
And then he did it. With those sparkling eyes and a misplaced air of serenity about him, my former friend ordered his men to restrain me.
As I was being pushed into the patrol car, I spoke to him. I said, "It's good to see you, again." That's all. What else could I say? He didn't even offer me a sad smile. He didn't even look at me, actually. He never spoke, either. He only stepped into his car and led the way to the place I'd be calling my new home for a while.
My prison cell was small and smelly, and the man I shared it with was blind. He frequently urinated on himself, the floor and his cot because he couldn't see the toilet. His name was Able. I spoke to him once.
"Tell me," he focused his unseeing eyes somewhere in the room. Over my shoulder, yet facing me. "What's it like to see?"
I said nothing for a while. Saliva dribbled from his chin as he talked, and his two front teeth were replaced by black holes. Finally, when he wouldn't turn his face from my direction, I spoke.
"I see nothing but my memories."
He never spoke to me again. He died the day before I was released. Died in his own filthy urine. Blind.
Like I said, I was released the next day. I'd been in that prison for a good five months. Who released me, you ask? Relena A. Peacecraft. I've known her for years. At one time, I was even infatuated with her. Because I loved her? No. I wanted to destroy her. Why? She was always in my way. Always. When I tried to remove something from this world, more often than not a person, there she was, skirt fluttering in the false breeze, hair flowing, mouth open, eyes wide and curious. Too curious.
Obviously, I never killed her. He always saved her.
But when she took me home to her house, she tried to kill me. She held me at gunpoint and began to cry. She asked me how I could be so heartless. How I could murder someone so close to me. She told me she hated me. She told me she loved me, which was very surprising to hear. I told her to hurry up and shoot.
She did.
I woke up in a hospital. Keywords: woke up. Relena never had good aiming. From what the doctor told me, she'd shot at me not once, but twice. The first time she had pierced the wall behind me. The second time she'd hit my shoulder. I'd fallen unconscious from blood-loss, so Relena had her servants dress my wound as best they could, then take me to the hospital.
When I asked where she was, the doctor didn't answer. The doctor's name was Amy. Doctor Amy. Her hair was the strangest shade of black that I'd ever seen. So black that it looked blue. And not just a dark blue, but a very bright blue.
I asked again where Relena was and the doctor reached forward and slapped me so hard that her hand was trembling afterward. It wasn't the pain that made me flinch, because I've been hit in the face before. It was how loud Doctor Amy could yell. I have sensitive ears. She called me names that sounded funny when they shot out of her mouth, then told me that my killing streak was over.
What 'killing streak'?
I never asked. She would have yelled more.
After I had healed, the 'proper authorities' checked me into an insane asylum. That's the only way to describe it. That's what it was. The place was called Greenland Asylum.
I had my own room with a camera that monitored my every move. The walls weren't made of huge mattresses, like you see on television. They were padded, yes, but they weren't nice and spongy. If I had been slammed against one of them, I would have suffered a concussion just as if I'd been slammed against a concrete wall. I had a cot, again, except it was a bit larger than the cot in the prison. And I didn't have any roommates. I also had a white table and two chairs. My door had a window, barred, which, I suppose, was there to make me feel at home. Ha.
My clothes were thin, cotton sheets. A shirt, underwear, pants and some type of cotton shoe. The color was almost white. Comfortable. I had the privilege to walk around, walk outside---of course, it was fenced in---and speak naturally with the many doctors and nurses that surrounded each patient everyday. I didn't take advantage of these privileges. I spoke to no one. Medicine came daily. Each pill they ever asked me to take was regurgitated and hidden under my cot after the nurse left.
As for the camera? That had been re-wired on day one.
Overall, my stay at Greenland Asylum was a peaceful one. For six months they kept me locked away at that place, expecting my behavior to somehow blossom and grow. I was expected to speak when spoken to, react to everything---basically, to become part of the Insane Asylum Family.
Never happened.
I kept my distance from everyone. The pills stayed out of my body. The food? Edible. Doctors and nurses loved to challenge my humanity. Loved to ask me all sorts question that they'd never get an answer to, question my morals, feed me bullshit. That sort of thing.
After a short while, I was deemed 'unresponsive.' From what I gather, the doctor in charge told you that I was exceedingly intelligent, yet stubbornly unresponsive. Am I right? I suspected as much.
That's why I was checked out of Greenland and sent to you, isn't it? Your job was to get me to become human again. Actually, it wasn't even that deep. Your job was to get me to confess to his murder. And we both know who 'he' is. Well, I told you everything. Now, make your assumptions..."
The tape ended. The television screen flickered once and was blank a moment later. She could have easily re-winded the tape and watched it again, searching for anything she'd missed the first time, but what good would it have done?
Trained assassin. Attractive. Deadly. Dangerous. On the loose.
Trowa Barton.
She sighed, rubbing her temples. The package had been a bomb. Duo Maxwell and his entire family had been gathered around Trowa's tiny packaged present in awe and wonder, and it had exploded. Duo, having the reflexes and experience, had jumped back---too late, yes---and because of that, only half of his face was missing. His family, however...
Her head hurt. Everyone knew Trowa had murdered Duo and his family, and would have murdered Relena had he known where she was, so why didn't the police just lock the bastard up and give him the death sentence?
Because Quatre Winner owned the police.
Trowa's files showed that he had ties to Mr. Winner, the world's richest man. They had been war buddies. Quatre stopped Trowa from getting the death penalty.
But why did Trowa murder Duo and his family?
She sighed again, confused. What was she, a psychiatrist or a special agent? She was a psychiatrist. Her job was, as Trowa stated, to get him to confess to the murder. And he had. Hadn't he? He'd confessed to giving Duo that package, hadn't he? Yes, he had.
So, then, why was he on the loose? Why was there a warrant out for his arrest? Why wasn't Trowa dead and buried?
"Mystery," she muttered to herself. "I hate mysteries. Why can't everything be easy? Why does everything have to be complicated?"
On her desk, messy as it was, stood a picture frame. In that picture stood a woman and a man. The woman was her.
The man was Trowa.
She stared at the picture until her eyes hurt from her lack of blinking. The picture had been taken a month after Trowa had become one of her patients. It was during New Years. Psychiatrists were instructed not to get too attached to their patients. It was a rule. A law.
She'd broken it.
"I think I love you," she'd told him after the third week of knowing him. Pitiful, even for her, a hopeless romantic. How could she love him? All he did was give her one-word responses and answer questions with questions.
He'd just stared at her, as if studying her. After a while he'd said, "Not my problem."
Not my problem. He could be a cold little ass. But she'd known that before she'd met him. She'd had his files on call.
And now, she was stuck thinking about this cold little ass, the same one she was currently still in love with for some crazy reason beyond her reach. Technically, she'd done her job. Trowa had sent her the tape just yesterday. She'd made a copy of it and sent it to the proper authorities. Case closed. Still, Trowa was on the loose. How had he escaped? She remembered all too well...
"I have to go."
She had glanced at him and laughed, then pointed to the camera. "You see that? It watches us. You can't leave until the doctor from Greenland comes and gets you. Think of this as daycare. Mommy isn't here to pick you up yet." Had he left and been on his own, free, he would have gone straight for Relena. Why? To kill her. She shot him. Payback.
He hadn't found it amusing. In fact, he'd stood up without word and started to walk out of the room. Her job, right then, would have been to call security and have them bring Trowa back to her. As she was reaching for the phone and as he was walking out the door, he turned back to her.
She was about to dial, ignoring him, but he just had to go and speak to her.
"Don't."
Her throat had gone dry, her heartbeat had sped up. Her scalp had become prickly and uncomfortable. He'd only had to say one word. One word! Don't.
And she didn't. And now he was on the loose.
Because of her.
If Relena winds up dead tomorrow, she reminded herself, it's your fault. And if you go to jail for letting him leave.. That's also your fault. Nobody had stopped Trowa when he'd walked out of her office. He was wearing normal clothes. He looked like a normal man. A normal, handsome man.
Her phone rang. She watched it ring. If she picked up, it could be Trowa. Or somebody. Everything was complicated. Life was complicated. So many complicating complications. So many endings to a story that she'd never wanted to be a part of. So many confusing twists and turns.
Her eyes pricked. Her head hurt. Her throat tightened. Her heart pounded.
Rei Hino began to cry.
And still the phone rang.
::END::