Blundering Rain
By: Icicle Raindream
Disclaimer: I am not copyrighted to anything connected to Gundam Wing, so I am not making any money by using the characters and their backgrounds for my fiction.
Notes: This fic was inspired by the song "November" by Mythos. It's terribly pretty and horrifically soothing, and so it set me in a mood. A mood I'm sure you'll pick up on as soon as you start reading my fic. Let's just say that I wasn't about to throw any parties after writing this. But, I hope you enjoy! Tell me what you think!
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The rain.
The sky is so dark, a midnight blanket that has come to smother out the radiant rays of the shining sun. The pitch-blackness is dotted with sparkles of light, the stars burning ever so brightly in the heavens, each holding strength and power in their fiery touch, hanging suspended in space for us humans to revel at their beauty and mystical wonder.
And tonight, they brought me nothing but grief. It's funny how one can look up through the shooting rain and manage to keep their eyes open through it all, determined to see the stars as they shone, feeling the wetness splatter upon their face. It's a wonder how I kept doing that as I trudged along the sidewalk, the leaves falling from the trees messily and swirling up in the cold breeze only to be thrust down towards the ground, where my muddy shoes clomped heavily across the cement. It's funny how, for once in my life, my face had not yet adorned a smile today. I kept playing with the little pools of water that soaked through my pants into my pockets, the cold liquid squishing between my fingers. I had a destination to get to, and it seemed to take forever as my legs gained fifty pounds with each step. I'm not so sure I wanted to be where I had to go.
*
It all started with his impulsiveness. His knack for being on the ball, for being so well trained sometimes it could make one sick at the thought. It started with his determination, that cold look that set his face in harmony with his eyes. The frigid eyes. The cobalt colored spheres that warned outsiders not to judge or challenge the man within.
I remember the weapon he shoved in my hands. I remember how his stare stopped me cold from swinging the small handgun around carelessly and joking about our present situation. It seemed rather dumb to me for two Gundam pilots to be crouched low in a dark hallway with our ears pressed to the wall, and it was just my nature to be light-hearted, to joke, to push things off my shoulders with a laugh. And his tone had caught in my ears, ringing like a clap of thunder through the distance.
"Don't be so rash, Duo. That's how you make mistakes."
I don't exactly remember how I replied to him, because that part of our mission has been erased temporarily from my mind, but I'm sure I came up with some kind of smartass retort that doubtlessly didn't make him crack a smile. Not when he had something he needed to complete. And something this important to him.
Why did he even bother telling me to come with him? He never needed any help, especially mine. We were the two opposites in the group, like fire and water or water and electricity. We didn't mix. Our personalities together would be dangerous. And yet I still went with him. I still stayed behind him, listened to his plan, watched his back. I had been there for some unexplainable reason. Why?
To find the true path to fight for.
*
The building was tall and gray, a stone structure made of five floors all together. A rather small building in comparison to some of the buildings here on L…whatever Colony I was on. I couldn't remember, but at the moment it didn't matter because I'd made it here. Now what do I do?
I walked through the glass doors, completely oblivious to the fact that I was drenched and people were staring as I passed them in the lobby. I blindly walked down a thin, white painted corridor where my feet sloshed around in my black boots and left dirty mud tracks on the reflective coating on the floor, and only when I turned the corner did I come to a halt and hold my breath.
He sat there, in the next hallway, his arms and legs crossed, his chin tucked into his shirt, his eyes closed, in a plastic green molded hospital chair. I knew he wasn't really asleep; any moment now he could spring to his feet and clip the nearest person's head off with his fist if he wanted to. But for now, he was silent, still, and waiting. I knew what he was waiting for and I didn't want to face up to it. I cowered instead, leaning a bit past the corner in the hall, just observing him. Even resting he still looked determined, put-together, strategically manufactured in his mind. He heard every footstep that passed him, and that's why I drew the line in front of my own muddy feet. I wasn't moving from my spot. Not with so many things up in the air.
*
"Duo, move it! Cover me!"
I nodded to him as he glanced back, a quick movement of his head to confirm I had heard his hissing through the dark hall. Then, before I knew it, he had barreled his way through the heavy door, shoving it open with one of his small-boned shoulders, pointing his gun at his first target. I hadn't even reached the room before I heard the gunfire and yelling.
When I stepped into the room a mere seconds after him, three of the five soldiers were already on the floor, one writhing in shock as the blood soaked the front of his uniform. I smirked at him, proclaiming some nonsense about the God of Death paying a visit, and my own gun was suddenly in front of my face, being clutched so heartily in my own hands.
Heero was behind me now, driving the second to last soldier from the room, his back turned away from me, and I had the empty room to myself, save for the one last soldier who needing dealing with. I saw his evil smile as he turned to me and bent down, and I felt my own smile widen as I pulled the trigger. I felt the bullet as it freed itself and shot out in a rush of hot air. I felt my heart freeze and block up my chest as the soldier yanked her small form from the ground and used her as a shield. My heart died as soon as the bullet pierced her clothing, my ears were shredded at the sound of her bloodcurdling scream, and my brain was mush as it took it all in and tried to sort everything out.
Then they both fell. The soldier yelled as well, even louder as I shoved him roughly away and cradled her small body in my arms. I tried so desperately to get her to stay conscious, but by the time Heero had come back into the room all he saw was me on my knees, holding the body of Relena Peacecraft half-up and talking a mile a minute to her, with no soft response to meet my anxious pleas.
It was an accident. I had been rash in thinking she was safe, and I had made a mistake.
*
He stirred slightly in his chair, his head lifting up from the uncomfortable position it had been hanging from, and I saw him blink twice. His hand came up and rubbed the back of his head sleepily, and then suddenly a young man in a long white coat assaulted him. The doctor.
From where I stood I couldn't make out any words the doctor was saying, but it was so late in the night and he talked so lowly that I probably wouldn't have been able to hear him even if he'd been standing right next to me. Heero apparently understood him, though, but he didn't show any sign of it. He just stood up and stared at the doctor. As if it were the physician's fault. The glare continued to bathe the back of the white coat as the doctor strode apologetically away.
Then my number was up. Those eyes had targeted me, searched me out, found me, pinned me to the spot. My boots suddenly melted to the floor because as I tried to back away, they wouldn't listen. They stayed firmly glued to the shiny floor as he walked towards me. Who ever guessed that someone that small could have such a frightening effect on someone so carefree like me?
But I knew I deserved it--as his fist connected with my stomach I knew it was all payback for what she had been through. I knew that I should just take it all in stride, that this was supposed to happen. There was someone out there that wanted to protect her, and I took that away from him. He gave it all back to me in his punch. I deserved it.
I closed my eyes and turned my head into the wall as I was slammed up against it, his hands clenching the collar of my shirt so tightly I could feel them trembling. They pulled against the fabric, bringing it up to my throat and pushing harshly, knuckles unknowingly stabbing into my flesh. All I could do was grit my teeth.
Then suddenly he let go and I slid to the ground in a wet heap. My legs tumbled out from under me and I slumped, my hands coming up against the cold tile floor, my braid hanging lifelessly over my shoulder to sweep the floor with its tail.
I managed to look up as he walked across the hall and swiftly pulled open a door. Through the crack I could see Relena, tucked into her hospital bed, eyes closed peacefully. The monitor beeped loudly in my ears as my eyes traced the cord trailing from the machine to the device attached to her index finger.
Heero took a seat next to her bed solemnly, and then he was still. His head was turned away from her form on the bed.
I got up from the floor and trudged back down the hallway, back through the lobby, back out of the glass door. The rain pelted me again and my hands were deposited back into my pockets, to play with the puddles soon to be gathered there. My boots scraped along the cement as I walked halfway around the building and stopped in front of an open window. Thunder rumbled through the clouds above.
I stared intently, seeing nothing but the reflection of my own miserable body in the pane of glass that was the window to the hospital room in which Relena Peacecraft lay in hopeful recovery. I wasn't really sure if the doctor had said she would make it or not.
The lightning flashed, and suddenly he was there, standing in front of me, looking out into the darkness with those icy blue eyes. His arms hung at his sides, his body was still, and he just stared at me. I tried to read his expression.
What were his eyes saying? I don't know…there isn't a person alive I know of that can accurately read Heero's eyes. You can't tell what the message is radiating from them, it's just an impossible mission in itself, and so we stared at each other. The only movement coming from our breathing. Mine was barely there.
My throat felt tight and it squeezed inside, and without meaning to I narrowed my eyes. I couldn't see Heero's form anymore, but I could feel his presence standing there inside the hospital, gazing at my remorseful form with his hard structured stance. I wondered what he was thinking. Why did he bother so much for this one girl? Why had my accidental shooting struck a chord inside him and made him turn on me? Did he even know why he was here, standing in her room, mentally pacing like a wild animal? Did I even know why I was standing here? No, I didn't. So I left.
His eyes burned into my back, branding my soul with their coldness as I walked away and found the cement sidewalk again. The rain still poured down on my head, sending shivers through me as the wind blew. My throat was tighter now, and my eyes burned.
I hadn't cried since I was a kid. Since I had left Solo to die in the streets of L2 with no one to run to and nowhere to hide, since the realization that I would never see Sister Helen again or feel her fingers braiding my hair. The last time I cried I was just a small boy.
And now I cried again. The tears slipped down my cheeks, running like a river in rivulets down over my face after building like an ocean behind the sockets. I couldn't stop them and found myself not wanting to after a while. I just let them run their course. Took them all in stride.
I knew why I had been standing there. I definitely knew the answer to my tears. I knew why I had spontaneously lost my grin, my fervor to taste all the flavors of life, my flying by the seat of my pants attitude. I knew why it was all gone.
As I walked down the lonely, dark street with the rain washing over me but refusing to purify my way of life, I knew why I felt empty inside, why everything that defined me was gone.
I was sorry. I regretted ever going on that mission with him, ever agreeing to hang about him when he knew all the details and I never did, ever taking that gun and making those stupid, careless remarks. I regretted it all. The God of Death may have simply been just that…dead.
But what could I do…
It was all just an accident.
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There is something in this world that we all could have a little more of, something in this world that we all could use a little more of, something in this world that probably, we all need a little more of, and that something is only two words.
Self-confidence.
I want to take the time to thank everyone who has generously read and reviewed any of my stories; you will never guess at the amount of self-confidence you have instilled in me to continue my writing. I thank you from my heart, and bless you all for being so kind as to enjoy the juvenile style of my writing my ideas down.
I hope you continue to read my fics as I (hopefully) continue to spew them out as the weird plots come together in my mind. Thank you again, and don't forget to tell me what you thought of this fic here!! "^-^"
Icicle Raindream, signing off. (But only for now!! "^-~")