Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam 0080 or it's characters.

Remember the Pocket

By: Danny Roboguy

01:28 AM January 01, 0087 U.C., Side 6, Libot, Izuruha Residence…

Al shot up off the mattress in his old room. His brow was drenched with sweat and his breathing was ragged. Al had to clear his head and remind himself that it was no longer 0080, and he was no longer eleven years old. It was only a dream right? Al turned off the bed and put his feet on the cold hardwood floor of his parent's home. He walked over to a nearby mirror and was thankful to see a nineteen year old man look back at him.

It had been only a dream. The nearby clock read that it was nearly half past one. It was the start of a new year and it was time for a special ritual that Al undertook just for that occasion. It was a ritual so he would be sure to never forget a friend's sacrifice. Al walked over to his desk and pulled open the drawer closest to the floor. Inside was an old RCA camera. He took out the camera and looked at it with a particular sadness in his eyes. He placed the viewing lens up to his face and pressed the play button.

There was a short burst of static and then there he was. Al couldn't help but smile slightly upon seeing Bernie again, even though it was only through a video recording. Al listened to Bernie's instructions.; instructions that Al never had the chance to follow. The package that Bernie had given him had been destroyed long ago. He had been afraid that no adult would believe him and then there had been the fact that the nuclear attack had been stopped long before Libot was reached.

Al listened to Bernie's advice. It had been hard, but he held no hard feeling toward Chris. He didn't hate the federation either. It was like Bernie had said. They were just people doing what they thought was right. Sometimes that tends to make people hurt one another. Al knew that very well he had his fair share over the years.

To this very day though there was something that Al, just couldn't understand. Why did he have to fight when he knew he was going to die? He said it would have been like running away. What did he really mean by that? How was saving the colony in a safer manner running away? That was what they had set out to do in the first place, right?

Bernie said his goodbyes and once again there was static. Al set the camera down. It had been seven years since the day Bernie died, and still the memories of the One Year War would not leave Al. He closed his eyes and he could still see it. Zaku's coming through the Colony walls. GM's falling to the ground in wrecked heaps. Then there was the Gundam, that damn Gundam. Al opened his eyes.

He started to feel sick. He needed some air. Al put the camera away and slipped on a pair of shoes. He quietly made his way out of the house. He took extra care not to wake his parents, and thankfully they didn't. It seemed those years of sneaking out had finally paid off. When he made it outside he kept on walking. He stopped in front of the neighboring house, Chris's house.

Al stood out in front of the old house, with only a street lamp lightly illuminating the front of it. The house now belonged to a young couple that Al never had the pleasure of meeting. As the cool nighttime air filled his lungs he began to see the ghosts again. He could see Chris in the window. Her red hair shimmering in the moonlight that shined in off the colony mirrors. Al remembered the countless times that he would go over to Christina's house and just hang out there. She always was very friendly and would always share snacks with him. It was a simple time.

The house was dark now though. Christina no longer lived on Libot her and her family had moved down to Earth. In truth he hadn't heard from Christina since the day she left. It wasn't because he didn't want to. It was just a lack of contact between Earth and the colonies.

Al started walking again and left the old house behind. He walked on and on. What had turned out to be a quick outing for air turned out to be a full on stroll. He didn't know where he was going. Eventually Al ended up in front of his old Junior High School.

The school looked totally different now. It had been fully repaired since it had been damaged in the one year war. The playground had been painted a different color. Al paid close attention to the side walk. The chalk drawings were different now.

There were chalk drawings of people, animals, the sun, and several other peaceful things instead of the drawing of mobile suits that Al grew up drawing. On the gate hung a Happy New Year banner. The Phrase "Happy New Year" looked like it had been drawn by an excited hand. The first year students must have made the banner. As he looked at the banner he couldn't help but reminisce a little.

It was the New Year of 0079 and his class had gathered together to take a picture with the "New Year" banner they had created. There was an old picture of the moment back on the mantelpiece in his parents' home. Al chuckled as he remembered his friends Chay and Talcott. He even remembered how Dorothy, the prissy class president, used to get mad at them for goofing off too much. Since then they had all gone their separate ways; all except for him and Dorothy.

Al was brought back to that day Dorothy saw him crying at the big student meeting after the war had ended. Her attitude toward him had changed that day. His own attitude had changed that day too. Dorothy was really the only one he kept in contact with now, but that was because they attended the same University at Von Braun City on the moon. That brought a strange thought to Al's mind.

He began to wonder why in the world he decided to go to school on the moon. It would have been a lot cheaper just to go to school on Libot or another school within Side 6. Why the moon? Why so far away?

Al started walking again. As he walked he tried to figure out why he ran off to the moon a few months ago. He and Dorothy had grown really close over the years. Had he decided to go to Von Braun because of her? No that couldn't possibly be the reason. Did he want to get away from his parents and be an independent man? No it wasn't that either. Was he running away? That was a strange question. If he was running away, what was he running away from?

Al continued walking only stopping a certain places. At each place he kept remembering something from his past. Each memory brought a smile to his face. Most of the memories were of the times he spent with Bernie. The more he tried to figure out his own reasons behind leaving Libot the less he understood. Why did he go so far away from Libot when everything about it brought around good memories?

Why did he run away from a place he loved so much? Al kept walking until he finally stopped in a large clearing in the middle of the woods. Al jerked his head around as if suddenly aware of his surroundings. It was almost as if he had been sleepwalking, because he didn't even remember walking into the woods. He stared to feel nervous. He had no clue where he was. Suddenly the world lit up as the Sun shone through the colony walls. It was already dawn? Had he really been walking that long? Suddenly he knew where he was.

It was the clearing where Al had met Bernie for the first time. The same clearing where the two of them rebuilt a Zaku together from the salvaged parts of other mobile suits. In this place though Al didn't immediately flow back to a memory. His mind stayed grounded in reality as he laid his eyes on two grave markers built from the remains of an ill fought war. One marker belonged to the Capitan and the other belonged to Bernie. Al remembered building the grave a few months after he finally came to terms with Bernie's death.

He walked up to the grave markers and stared down at them. Tears started to well up in his eyes. There were no good memories here. There were no memories at all. It was the final resting place of memories. Here was where all memories died. Here was where life died.

Why did he have to fight? Why did he think he was running away? Al starred down at Bernie's grave marker. It represented a memory that Al did not want to remember. He didn't want to remember Bernie dying. Then thought suddenly struck him and Al understood why he went so far away from Libot to go to college.

It was because he hated Libot. He hated those memories. They were memories that made him feel good for a short time but in the end they always brought him back to one ugly truth. Bernie was dead and he wasn't coming back. Al had been running away from that truth.

He understood now why Bernie fought the Gundam and why he said doing otherwise would have been running away. Bernie said he would not have been able to live with himself if he ducked out of fighting. As Al stood in front of that grave marker on that damp morning he finally understood what it meant to run away.

A Few Days Later…

The holidays were over and it was time to start heading back. Al followed close behind Dorothy as they ran to the space port elevators. They were running a little late and they were trying to make it in time so they wouldn't miss their flight. Al was carrying most of the luggage and he was starting to have a little trouble breathing.

"Hey slow down would ya!" Al called out in between gasps.

"No way, it's your fault we're almost late anyway!" Dorothy snapped back. "I swear, it takes you longer to get ready than it does a girl."

"Sorry, I had to finish packing and mom wanted me to have breakfast before leaving."

"No excuses, Al. It's not very becoming."

"Whatever you say, Dorothy." Al just ran on and eventually they reached the elevator. Dorothy led them over to a seat by the window. Dorothy sat down to catch her breath and Al stood next to her using the wall of the elevator as a brace so he could do the same. Inhale and then exhale, that's all it took. A draft blew through the elevator rustling the bangs of Al's hair. He looked up and saw that the window providing a view of Libot was open. Al walked over to the window and stared out it.

He sighed. It was so sad that this would be the last time he would ever see him home. It was what Al had decided though. He wanted the nightmares to stop. He wanted to move on with his life and the only way he knew how to do that was leave it all behind. While standing next the window he closed his eyes. He went back to 0079 one last time. He was standing next to Bernie's Zaku and was watching as another Zaku carried Bernie with it up into the sky. He opened his eyes and was once again staring out across the vast Libot landscape.

Al reached in his pocket and pulled out a small cloth badge. It was the same one that Bernie had gave him so long ago. Al held tightly to the badge as all the memories of Bernie and the Gundam made a whirlwind in his mind. Then suddenly it was over. Al opened his eyes and stuck his hand out the window. He opened his hand and the badge lifted off and drifted away in the wind. Al watched the badge fly away until he could no longer make it out against the Colony in the background.

"I understand now." Al sighed as he took his hand back inside. He turned and walked away from the window and muttered under his breath, "Goodbye, Bernie."

Later on Al boarded a shuttle heading for Von Braun and left Libot for good, and the ghosts of his past were never heard from again.