First the technicalities: This story is AU and therefore I assert the freedom to make the characters whatever I need them to be for this story, so you might find them OOC. And be prepared, someone dies, or rather: has already come to pass.

Author's note:

I know many of you would rather have been alerted to another update for Warheads, but I have just been too busy with upcoming exams to invest time in the continuation of that story. To anyone I have disappointed by prolonging their wait for an update on Warheads I apologize. This story suddenly came to me and practically wrote itself, in a single sitting. It was another instance of having to write it.

It's a sad story, at least, to me it is, but that may just be because of my personal affiliation. I hope that maybe someone else is moved by this little story.

I remember a scene on the beach

I remember a scene on the beach. I hate the sand, but I didn't hate it then. There was a long time that I cried at the memory. That has changed. Tears have dried and my sadness has been exploited to a bone dry pit in my heart, with not a drop of water left to spill from the eye across the cheek. I still can't smile at the memory. People say someday I will. But I don't think I will. Ever.

I remember a scene on the beach, like I am I watching an old family video, poorly shot with shaky movements. But no video of that day has ever existed. Only in my head it remains. Without proof of that day, without documentation, people accuse me of romanticizing the scene, replacing it with an ideal based on snippets from happy-ending novels and movies. Then they tell me it is natural to romanticize, like that further affirms the validity of their assumption. I do not romanticize, maybe someday in the past I have, but I never will again. The scene at the beach was what I say it was and I wish people would believe me, so at least someone could reminisce fondly.

I remember a scene on the beach. Halfway through a perfect day. One of 365 perfect days for a time as long as four years - that I wished would have lasted a century, but feel like a fleeting moment; a fraction of a second. There were ominous clouds above the ocean, obscuring the sun and relieving a drizzle of a rain. Weather does not determine, or even contribute, to the perfection of the day. Of any day. The sandy steps up to our beach-house, raised above the surf of the high tide during stormy nights on stilts and poles, partially buried in the dune, were behind me. I had slipped on the way down and included in the memory was the pain in my bottom. And his laughter at the prime example of my innate clumsiness.

I remember looking up at him, starting at his feet that were rhythmically licked by the forward and backward, rolling motion of the ocean. Up long, muscular legs, clad in the tight bottom half of his black wetsuit. Around his hips he had tied the upper half allowing shameless view of his athletic torso. His proud, endless neck held up his head in a slight, bemused tilt. With his laughter his cheeks had dimpled, his eyes had narrowed and the skin around his eyes had wrinkled. His hair was wet, matted and sandy. He never looked as beautiful as he did that day.

I remember a scene on the beach. I walked up to him, the ocean then, too, lapping at my feet. I kissed his smiling, salty lips and ran my clean hands through his dirty, hard, sandy hair. He felt so warm, even though the water of the ocean had been ice cold.

I told him he was beautiful. The comment was free of heavy meaning or persuasion, just a mere, objective observation. His reaction was lighthearted, without doubt, without question, without challenge. He accepted it with a confidant chuckle and a cocky "I know." and then he kissed me and told me that he loved me.

"Forever?" I asked him teasingly on that beach, on that perfect day.

"As long as God allows in life and for eternity in death." He snorted at his own quasi-poetic sentiment.

Nothing more of that day existed in my head. The video comes to an abrupt halt, pausing at a close-up of his happy, carefree face.

He was so beautiful. He wasn't a model without reason. He wore the clothes he was given by photographers and designers after photo shoots and runway shows, they showed off his body, a physique that came to him without effort; without exercise; without diet. He used to join me as I worked out tirelessly on the treadmill, panting and sweating, taking a seat by the window and working his way through a bag of potato chips or a slice of cake.

I didn't like him at times like that. I used to think to myself, not seriously: "God, I hate him", but I don't like to think that way anymore, or even admit to ever thinking those things.

I blame myself for not seeing, for not noticing, though people tell me the fault is not mine. I shared my entire life with him, every day, every breakfast, every lunch, every dinner, every evening in front of the TV, every walk in the park, every night, every passionate episode of love-making and every quick sexual encounter in every imaginable place in our house and outside of our house. I should have seen. Yet I did not. That guilt will eat away at me till death would mercifully take me. People say I shouldn't let it and that I shouldn't think those things. But what do people know? They are stupid. Stupid like me as they, too, did not notice.

I remember a scene on the beach. And I remember a scene at home not many months later. In our large home, tucked in the back overlooking the spacious wild-flowered garden, I had claimed the third bedroom, on the ground floor, as at-home-gym. There was a treadmill, my favorite, and weights and a stepping machine. I was running on the treadmill, exhausting myself. I was happy when the door opened and Heero walked in and I was happier still when I saw he was wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants and a loose, old T-shirt. I watched him climb on the stair-master next to the treadmill. I was happy because I didn't have to not like him and watch him stuff saturated fat into his smug mouth. We exercised together and when we were filthy with our own sweat I opened the double doors to the back yard for some fresh air and we spent the last of our energy having sex on the deck. It was another especially perfect day and another one of which my happiness at the memory was stolen from me. Everything now was bitter sweet. I cried remembering that scene a long time too. But I have used up all those tears, which took me longer than I thought it would. I was relieved when one day the tears stopped coming and my cheeks remained dry, but even that positive feeling has withered away. Nothing is "happy" or "glad" or "relieved" or "light" or "positive" anymore. Everything is dark and heavy, weighing down on my heart. Happy feelings withered away as he did.

I remember a scene on the beach and the first time I told someone about that day and the following - no longer perfect - days, it was to my psychiatrist, I said it had been AIDS. It had been a time, nearing the end of the period of tears, when more and more of the sadness was being replaced with anger and betrayal. I said it was AIDS because it seemed easier, it seemed less accusing towards me. It made me less of a guilty, bad man, more of an innocent, helpless bystander.

The next time I spoke of that scene on the beach and that scene at home, it was to my doctor, I said it had been Leukemia. Another terrible, unforgivable lie. The sadness and the anger had dissipated by then, I sought revenge. He had hurt me to the core and I wished to hurt him back equally so, not granting him the sick pride that he felt regarding the true diagnosis. And I did not visit his grave. I did not dignify his dead, stupid, worm-eaten remains with a visit - that's what I explicitly thought. The doctor had merely professionally inquired about my health during a regular check-up. I assume by the time I left, he had reached a full understanding of how "well" I was. That same night I woke with a start, a scream and in a cold sweat, haunted by the nightmare in which his lifeless, rotten body appeared before me. I threw up and then I cried all through the night and when I noticed the sun was rising, I stopped. That was the last time I had cried.

The third time I spoke of that scene on the beach, the scene at home and everything else, it was to my mother, I was honest. I had not seen her since the wedding. She had moved to Spain, to spend her retirement under the warm Mediterranean sun, in the company of her new husband. To spare myself an expensive, long distance phone call, I bought an expensive plane ticket to Malaga. On the steps at the front door of her white plaster villa I could not cry, but she saw and understood my pain. I hugged her and then she invited me in to hear the story I had only told to the psychiatrist and the doctor. The story of the end of his life and consequently also mine. I told her of all the signs I had missed, signs that in hindsight appeared so brazenly obvious. The sudden exercising that increased quickly in vigorousness. The extreme lack of appetite. The loose fitting - very unfashionable - clothes.

After I shared the scene on the beach and the scene at the house and everything in between and shortly after, I shared a scene within our bed. I was not embarrassed, it was not about sex, it was about an epiphany. I was kissing him and touching him, desperate for his body because he had been shying away from me for a long while. He was equally desperate, kissing back hungrily, his hands wandering hastily and aimlessly as if he wanted to touch everything all at once. I fully undressed myself and then undid his pants and impatiently yanked them down his long legs and threw them into the, then, non-existent space surrounding us. My feverish hands grabbed the hem of his big, grey shirt, to pull it up and over his head, so I could see all of him and kiss all of him. His hands clasped my own, with desperation of a different kind. Our gazes locked. His eyes were black pools. They told me "No". My hands at that time knew something my head was yet to find out. They did not release his shirt, after my body had taken a few deep, panicked, anticipatory breaths, the hands pushed the fabric up to his chin and exposed a lover I no longer recognized.

It had been no longer than two years since the scene on the beach, during which time he had emaciated himself to a mere shadow of who he was. His abdomen was no longer muscled, but had fallen down to create a deep hollow between the protruding bones of his hips and his showing ribcage.

I don't know how or why but we ended up having sex regardless and for too long I didn't speak of what I had seen, not to him and not to the few friends we had. I ignored the severity of the issue and tried to encourage his eating habits with loving compliments like the one I had given him during that scene on the beach. "You are so beautiful". But even though the words were the same, it never sounded like it had that day on the beach again. And he never seemed to believe me.

When I finally confronted him, I told my mother truthfully, he didn't seem to take my concerns seriously. I became angry at his almost lethargic attitude towards me, not just then, but for days on end. I could not contain that anger and I had walked to our closet and at random took a pair of his old designer jeans and thrust the pair towards him. I had ordered him, with a tone of voice that left no room for argument: "Put it on." He undid the belt that held up the loose pair of slacks he was wearing. Gravity guided them down to his ankles. He stepped out of them. In the sunlight it struck me how fragile even his once strong legs had become. He pulled the pair of jeans up to his hips and fastened them. He lowered one hand to his side but with the other he held up the jeans. If he had let go they would have pooled at his feet like the baggy slacks. I admitted to him that I was scared and confused and didn't know how to help him. He said nothing back, offered no assistance, assurance or comfort. I took him to see a doctor. Then I didn't know why he didn't resist. Now I know, he wanted to hear it. He wanted to hear it from as many people as possible - and especially from the lips of a doctor it would have meaning and impact - "You are too thin".

The doctor kept repeating one word that stopped my heart and made me believe I had died, then and there, in his chair, with my husband's shadow beside me.

"Anorexia" He kept saying, with a hint of fascination as he explained to us it was quite a rare phenomenon in men. He nodded with some stupid sense of understanding when I asked him if his modeling was related to... it. "Yes, yes, quite possible."

I drove us home. He was purposefully quiet. I parked the car at the side of a lonely road crossing through horse paddocks and corn fields. I didn't say anything for a long time, hoping he would. But he didn't. He didn't even look at me. Eventually I asked, with my voice hoarse as I was still overwhelmed by all that had been said by the doctor: "How do you feel about what he said?" He only shrugged in response. That was the first time I cried. Demandingly I asked him: "Didn't you hear what he said? This could kill you! "Your heart could give out and just stop beating", that's what he said! Do you want to die, do you want to leave me?"

"No." His voice was uncharacteristically timid.

"What do you want than?" I practically screamed.

"I just want to be thin." Something tugged at his lips, a brief twitch that seemed insignificant then, but now I remembered it as the beginning of a shy smile as to him "Anorexia" was not a frightening diagnosis, but the best compliment he could ask for, because nothing said "thin" as convincingly as "Anorexia". At that memory I realized just how sick he had been and that he really didn't want to, it was just the sickness.

We started therapy, together. But it only increased my despair and seemed to have no effect on him. It was a waste of precious time, time better spent making more scenes like the one on the beach, but I didn't know that then. I had faith everything would be okay, because where his rationality had failed our love - my love for him and his love for me - would prevail and would save him and would bring him back: make the shadow a real person again. The person with whom I shared the scene on the beach.

I found out when it was too late, when I came home from work one day.

It had been a good day. Like every morning I woke up and gave him a kiss and told him I loved him. At which he would smile and say he loved me too. I wasn't looking forward to spending the day away from him, my heart clenched as I got dressed in my suit, in front of the mirror in which I appeared exhausted and he apparently appeared fat - neither of us saw this in the other.

I kissed him goodbye and told him, again, that I loved him. He smiled, returned the sentiment but added jokingly that I kept repeating myself, like a parrot. We shared a smile that was novel in the gloom that had been suppressing us.

I left my home and returned seven hours later to a mere house.

Unknowing I opened the door. The day had been good. Not perfect like the day at the beach and the days before that day, but work had been easy and time had gone by quickly and I was just looking forward to holding him, even though in a warm embrace his fragility and skeletal body became all the more obvious and all the more painful.

In the hallway I called his name, there was no answer. I wasn't worried. Now I think I should have been, considering the circumstances, but my mother assured me it is another hindsight-thing. I rifled through the mail, it didn't make me suspicious that though it was usually delivered only shortly after my departure it was still scattered on the doormat. He had been very tired lately, left without energy for nearly everything, more household chores were neglected, not just picking up the mail. I was not concerned, or annoyed that after a long day at work I had to do the dishes. I figured that rest would do him good and time to think would help him convince himself to delve into a bag of chips like he had before.

Sorting through the mail my feet took me to the kitchen that opened up to the back yard. I placed the unopened letters on the kitchen table, casting a sideway glance at the dishes in the sink. Then I looked outside. The sun was shining beautifully. It was about to set, but after many dark months of winter I was happy to see the sun was lasting till evening, till my arrival home. It felt like a warm welcome. I looked to the left, to the large outdoor table and surrounding chairs on the deck. He was sitting with his back towards me, his head leaning back and I thought with a smile that like me he was enjoying the endurance of the new spring sun. The doors to our modest gym were open. After a work-out - which was unnecessary - he liked to take a seat on the deck to revitalize after exhausting himself on the equipment.

I opened the kitchen door to outside and called his name. He didn't answer, he didn't move. Even then I just thought: "He has fallen asleep." and I thought that was cute. I walked over to him to wake him and surprise him, because I had come home early. I knew he would be happy. But a few steps away from him I stilled and my heart started beating furiously. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted. His face and his bare arms were white and frozen still. I took in a shaky breath and exhaled with something that sounded like "No..."

I stopped every thought process. My mind went blank and unusually quiet. I turned on my heels and walked away, back into the kitchen. I closed the door behind me because it was getting quite chilly outside. I opened the faucet and let the kitchen sink fill with hot, soapy water. I did all of the dishes, not aware of or not remembering how much time passed. But when I drained the sink it was dark outside except for the lights against the outer wall of the house and randomly sticking up in the garden between wild, colorful flowers.

My whole body started shaking, like I was very cold. And my stomach felt like I was nervous, like I used to get nervous when I had to give a presentation in school. I suddenly let out a loud gasp and then tears came with loud sobs as my inner voice started talking in my head, saying the worst things, saying things I had wished and prayed for to never hear. But he was saying them over and over like the doctor who wouldn't stop saying "anorexia" and "cardiac arrest".

Dead. Dead. Dead!

"No." I said again. With slow, reluctant movements my feet took me back outside and brought me to stand beside his unresponsive form, slumped in the chair, face up towards the stars but the eyes not open to see and admire. I brushed a lock of hair out of his pale face and it felt soft to the touch and brought a sense of relief and comfort that sickens me now.

"Heero?" I asked tentatively.

In dreams I've had since, he opens his eyes and looks up at me and with a tiny smile as he responds: "Yes?" In the continuation of that dream we share laughter at my stupid fear - "Of course I'm not dead!" he says with a chuckle that I remember from a long time ago - and we have dinner in the warm house and cuddle up on the couch in front of the TV afterwards and eat an entire bag of potato chips, together.

In reality, his face remains impassive and white.

I touched his cheek gently with the back of my fingers. He was so cold. My tears dripped off my chin and landed on his face, creating the illusion that he was crying too. We cried together, mourning his death. Mourning our separation. I stood by him a long time, stroking my hand through his soft hair. I didn't want to call anyone, because then they would take him away and I realized I would never be able to stroke his hair again. Morbid as it may have been, I kissed his cold, still lips. Crying harder at the lack of a passionate response, as he usually melted into my kisses. I didn't know what time it was when I decided to pick him up, sobbing at how feather light he was, and carry him into the living room, where I placed him on the couch and covered him with a warm plaid. Because he felt so cold, I guess, I wasn't thinking straight. I don't remember exactly what was going through me.

I didn't know who to call when someone had died so I called a friend and the only thing I said to him was: "Heero is dead. Can you make calls?" Thankfully he didn't ask any questions that I was in no state to answer. He arranged everything. He called someone to come pick him up. He called the friends and the families. And he set up the funeral, only occasionally inquiring about possible specific requests there were regarding the service. I didn't know about anything like that. Being young and stupid in love, you don't consider things like that.

At his funeral they played our song, the song that we danced to at our modest, intimate wedding. The song that had accompanied the beginning of our life together, then accompanied the end of that blessed life. From what I remember of it, the funeral was beautiful, as beautiful as you could expect a funeral to be. What I remember most were the clear skies and the blossoming tree in the graveyard, casting a protective shadow over his humble head stone. I like to think nature was celebrating his life and God was expressing His exuberance at having him with Him. I hated that then, I wanted him to be with me, but I would find peace, knowing that if not with me I would prefer him to be with God and with no one else. I hope he found peace in that knowledge as well.

At the end of my story my mother offered me what neither the psychiatrist, nor the doctor could: a comforting embrace. With a cracking, loud voice I wondered in her arms why I couldn't cry. Even though by then his death had been three years into the past - three years of denial and empty living-, there was still pain and I presumed there should still be tears. She said: "Because now it is time to be happy when you remember him."

I didn't tell her that I thought that was stupid, that I didn't agree and that I couldn't believe I would ever be able to do that, I just told her I wasn't ready for that yet.

I went back to the house we had shared, none the wiser. Every week I visited his grave, watching the seasons change in the branches of the overlooking tree.

I remember a scene on the beach, I relive it every week, whispering it softly to his engraved name. And every week, as I finish the story of that last truly perfect day I remember, I wait for the smile that I am told will come.

E.S.