Title: To See You Again
Author: Ponderosa
Pairings: 2x1
Archive: Anyone with prior permission, others please ask.
Warnings: [G] Heero POV
Disclaimer: Characters belong to their respective copyright holders, like Sunrise, Sotsu, Bandai. Plot, if you can call it that, belongs to me.
Notes: The first in my "Sweet Avenue" ficlet arc.
To See You Again
The bus crawls across the city. I'm just one of many passengers. The woman sitting in front of me doesn't ride very often; I see her neck tense up at each turn, and she clutches the seat when the driver applies the brakes. I remember when the shriek that accompanies every stop sounded as loud as gunfire to me, but now the sound is so familiar I hardly register it anymore.
Rain streaks the windows and renders my view a gray blur. Occasional blobs of colour appear and disappear like headlights in fog. The bus stops again, outside the little market that carries your favourite brand of ice cream, and a woman in a bright red coat ushers her children up the steps. They move down the aisle to sit close enough that I can smell the new plastic odor of the little girl's clear raincoat. It's patterned with little penguins and, for some reason I can't quite pinpoint, it reminds me of you.
'Why don't you just buy a car like any normal person and drive over here?' you're fond of asking me when I visit.
I never have an answer that satisfies you. I can certainly afford it, but there's just something about the ritual of flashing my metro card to the driver and finding a seat among the multitudes. It's individuality and anonymity coexisting. It's liberating sitting back and letting someone else control where I'm going. Contradictory, perhaps, but it all makes perfect sense to me. After years of worrying about everyone, it's during moments like this that I can relax and not even worry about myself.
"Hey, Mister. Have you been on TV?" I look over to see the little girl in the raincoat is waving at me.
"No," I reply, and shake my head. I don't have your policy on lying.
"Oh." She slumps back in her seat. Her mother looks at me apologetically.
Everything is slow: the bus, the rain, my pulse. The woman and her kids get off five stops down, and I realise there are only two more, and then a short walk before I get to your place.
Not for the first time, I find that I fail to be entirely at ease. I end up perched on the edge of my seat, hand drifting towards the cord to request the stop, even though I've got six blocks to go.
It took me a few weeks to understand why.
When finally I request the stop and the bus lurches to a halt in front of the church, I hide a smile and swing out of my seat. I jerk the hood of my jacket up over my head and decide to run the rest of the way. If you ask why I'm out of breath, I'll claim it was because I wanted to get out of the rain. But if you ask why I've shown up on this dreary Monday, I'll tell the truth: I just wanted to see you again.