Silhouette
By: Icicle Raindream
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or anything remotely related to the TV series/OVA, so I'm not making any money from this.
Notes: I was originally going to make this fic creepier than what it turned out to be, seeing as it was sort of a dream I had, but then I decided not to. I think it turned out better this way, anyway. Who needs creepy when you've got…well…read on and find out!! "^-~" Drop me a line!
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"I fear she is getting worse," Pagan's voice floated in from the hall. "I don't know what we can do for her, Miss Noin."
"Won't she be able to make it through this?" Miss Noin's worried voice answered back.
Pagan hesitated before responding, taking a deep breath. "I don't know. I really don't think so, not with the way this illness is going."
"This is ridiculous!" Miss Noin softly thundered. "We're almost at a breaking point in the war!"
"It is sad." Pagan's last words were barely above a whisper.
They thought I couldn't hear them. They thought that my fever had taken me away from the conscious world, when all it really did was make it incredibly blurry and hard to focus on. My bed had become my home, and my head had become detached, for the most part. If I really concentrated, I could come back and actually respond to the outside world. Usually, it was just too much of a bothersome task and I didn't even try. I just lay in my bed, the sweat soaking the sheets while I shivered with cold, my head swirling, my hearing blotchy, my eyes watery and unfocused. I think I had almost become used to my condition. Why not? After all, there was nothing they could do for me.
I barely made out Miss Noin's footsteps as she crossed my room and settled on the edge of my bed. I opened my mouth and forced the words out, figuring that some time or another they would be my last. "Do you think I'm dying, Miss Noin?" I glared at the ceiling, willing myself to stay connected with the real world to hear her answer.
"Relena, don't you think like that," she said, smoothing a hand over my damp forehead. "You'll pull through this. You have to because we need you."
"I think I'm dying," I told her, then rested my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. I didn't mean to sound cowardly, like I was giving up or I had lost all hope, I just wanted to prepare Miss Noin—tell her what had been on my mind for so long before I lost the chance.
I didn't hear her response. "Goodnight, Relena. Sleep well, for your own sake." I didn't know as Miss Noin stepped out of my room, clicking off the light, and left me surrounded in darkness. I didn't know that the moon was barely shining in through my half-drawn curtains, or that my covers were tucked around me. I didn't know that life on Earth and the colonies was still taking place as I slept.
*
My eyelids fluttered open slowly. That couldn't have been a noise I heard coming into my room. I turned my head on the pillow, blinking towards my door. I couldn't have seen a shadow in the doorway, outlined by the light of the hall. The shine was so piercing I had to look way quickly, afraid of burning my eyeballs. I couldn't have heard soft careful footsteps as they walked across my floor. My hearing was so blotchy I could have been making sounds up in my head.
The weight on my mattress dipped, tilting me one way and then the next as someone crawled across it, as close to me as they could possibly get. I shook my head slightly, trying to clear it of obscure dreams and mounting fever, but the weight didn't go away. Was I imagining this?
I felt a warm hand go over my forehead, tenderly stroking. Or was that more fever, ascending higher than it already was? Was I just desperate for human touch as I spent my days lying here? The fingers trailed down the side of my head; traced my right eyebrow. They were so gentle…but I couldn't see anything. The room was so dark the blackness swirled in front of my eyes. I blinked, my eyes widening, disoriented. Was it one of those dreams where you feel like you're awake? I squinted into the darkness, trying to see the figure of whoever had come into my room. I couldn't make out any definite form, it was just a silhouette of a body, a small one, and I gave up quickly, surrendering to the weakened state of my mental and physical health.
Then suddenly the covers were pulled back, and I gasped softly in astonishment as something hot slid into them—a full body. I could hear the breathing now, slow and steady, as one leg placed itself mindfully between my own. The person didn't weigh much as they sat gingerly on my upper right thigh. The sheet was draped over them, I think. I thought I saw the corner of it brush the side of the bed.
The hand reached back to my face and ran itself down my burning cheek, the skin of the person feeling cool and dry in comparison to my own. The spread hand continued down my neck, over my clavicles, then down to my pajama top, where the buttons lay. I didn't have enough energy or will to protest as the buttons were single-handedly undone. I took a deep breath as the shock of cold night air hit my skin, my shirt being pulled apart to rest on my shoulders. I shivered violently, the goosebumps crawling up my arms and prickling the skin as I hastily tried to cover myself with them.
"Cold…cold," I murmured, wracked with another bout of bumps. I still couldn't discern who was in the room, or even if I was really speaking. I hadn't been this attached to the real world for a long time now, and sorting realistic things out proved to be too difficult. "I'm so very…cold…" I took a few shaky breaths.
The weight on my upper thigh moved and suddenly all this heat pressed against my chest. It penetrated through my loose sports bra; rid my skin of the chilly goosebumps as the person was careful not to crush me into the mattress. I could feel the light breathing on my forehead, and something silky brushed over it.
Hair?
I took another deep breath, inhaling a scent I knew I'd smelled before, but couldn't place. The hair lightly kissed my head again and I closed my eyes as a firm arm wrapped underneath my body comfortingly. The other hand spread my arms out to the sides where I clenched and unclenched my fists, dazedly wondering what was happening to me on this very night in my pitch-black, isolated bedroom.
I felt the body shift on mine, as if the person was reaching over my head to grasp something that lay on the night table behind my bed. When the body moved back to its original position, the heat was drawn away, but kept at a close enough distance so that I could still feel its rays beating down on me. The hand touched my skin again, smoothing a cold substance over the bottom of my neck, out to my collarbone in slow circular motions, rubbing tenderly. The room was filled with some kind of strong aroma, one that broke up into your head and cleared your sinuses.
"Oh!" I gasped under my breath, jerking on the mattress. "It burns! It burns!" My fingers twisted the bedsheets, still stretched out to the side of the bed.
"Shhhh…." Someone soothed me, and I felt lips pressing on my forehead, kissing lovingly. This person was trying to distract me? "Shhh…"
The hand smoothed again, this time down past the collarbone, to the top of my bra, evenly spreading the thick cream over me as the arm beneath me brought me up closer to the steaming body heat.
"It stings," I whimpered, blinking tears back. My vision was connected to the ceiling, as it had recently become during this whole ordeal. I hadn't been able to figure out who was in my bed, but as long as they were trying to help me I guess I didn't care.
"I know…shhh…" The lips trailed down my temple, across my cheek, and rested lightly on my own for a second. "This is going to make you get better, Relena."
My eyes shot open wide, taking in more darkness. The person hadn't spoken but a hair above a whisper, but in that instant I recognized the voice. Nobody said my name as precisely as he did, pronouncing all three syllables, Re-le-na.
"Heero?" I stumbled out in shock, imagining his face imprinted on the ceiling.
"Shhh…don't speak…just concentrate on getting well. You need sleep."
What was that…something falling on me, drifting around my head… snow? I brought one arm up to my body, unsure what to do with it for a minute. Then I reached up and seized one part of his shirt, holding it tensely in my fist. I shivered again and pulled him closer, gasping slightly. He didn't resist.
My other hand rested outward on my forehead, and something light and feathery landed in it. It was silky smooth as I rubbed it between my fingers, trying to deduce what it actually was. It felt like cloth…very very soft cloth.
I put the material to my lips, still feeling Heero's breath lightly grazing my face. It smelled sweet; a few strings of its scent permeated my stuffed nasal passages and allowed me to realize its identity. Flower petals.
I brought my arm back to rest by my side and closed my eyes, gripping Heero's shirt tighter with the trembling fingers of my other hand. I sucked in a deep breath, already noticing that this time air flowed easier into my lungs. Heero's body came closer, and as I felt his mouth on my forehead again, I buried my face into his neck, closing my eyes, feeling the tears slip. We lay quietly for a few moments, and I couldn't even comprehend that Heero Yuy was in bed with me, holding me to him. The only person I wanted to see before I left the world to decide its own fate, and he was here with me.
Then Heero abruptly pulled away, and his arm settled me back onto the mattress. I felt my shirt being pulled closed, and his fingers worked swiftly to bring the buttons together as I shuddered once again. He climbed out of the bed and folded the sheet up to my chin; tucked it around me. Before he left, his strong fingers wiped the corners of my eyes and he smoothed my hair back from my face.
"Sleep. Get better."
I nodded to the ceiling and turned my face into the pillow. My head spun and my chest heaved heavily, longing for the air it craved and now, was finally able to capture. Somehow I managed to slip into sleep, but not after I noted how soaked the pillow and sheets were from my sickness. Somewhere in the back of my mind I asked myself, How could he stand being in here with me? Didn't I disgust him?
Where did he come from, anyway? I was too confused for my own good.
*
"How are you feeling… Miss Relena?"
I turned around and looked to the direction of the doorway, where Miss Noin stood, her skin paling to ghost shade and her jaw on the floor. I smiled brightly at her from where I stood, in front of my bed, on my own two feet.
"Miss Relena, what are you doing out of bed? Go back immediately!" Miss Noin rushed to my side, her arms landing on my shoulders, trying to hold me up as if I had lost my balance.
I chuckled lowly. "I'm fine, Miss Noin, really. You don't have to help me stand." I gently pushed her away and showed her that my balance was fully intact. "Bed is really the last place I want to be right now," I informed her, reaching across it and yanking off the blanket. "I've been confined to it for so many weeks now."
Miss Noin took a visible swallow. "Are you sure you're all right?" she exclaimed, putting a hand on my forehead. I waited, glancing at her with shiny eyes.
"No fever, right?" I asked. "It's completely gone. And my eyes don't water anymore, and I can hear you perfectly…I can actually say that I feel great. I just need to stretch my legs a bit, though. They're rusty from not being used."
Miss Noin stepped back and studied me, her brow wrinkling in thought. "What happened to you, Miss Relena?" she wondered. "All of a sudden you're just up and well?"
I picked up a pillow and removed its case, tossing it on the floor with the blanket. "Well, no," I admitted. "I had a little help with my recovery."
Miss Noin nodded skeptically. "You did."
I was glad she didn't pry. "Yes, I did. And now I'm fully functional." I grinned at her. "Call it a little dose of TLC." I glanced back at the bed. "I have to wash these dirty sheets of mine."
Miss Noin shook her head and turned to the door, but before she left me alone she looked back over her shoulder and grinned at me. I smiled back.
I looked back to the bed and yanked at the sheet. As I did so, it flung off and sprung up into the air. As the material rippled down, several multi-colored flower petals rained from its depths and landed softly around me. I held out an open palm and caught a petal as it floated down, sifting it between my fingers. I brought it up to my lips and smiled inside.
I knew last night hadn't been my imagination. No mind polluted with illness could conjure up such tangible delusions and present them to itself. I knew I had heard my door open, seen his outline there in the doorway, heard his careful footsteps as they crossed the carpet. I just didn't know why I had seen him, why he had come for me. Why did he climb into my sickened bed and hold me to him and cure me? Why did he even care?
"Oh, Miss Relena?" Miss Noin opened my door back up and stuck her head into the room.
I bent down and grabbed up the sheet; threw it onto the growing pile of dirty bedclothes. "Yes?" I glanced over my shoulder at her.
Miss Noin hesitated for a second, then she said, "I received a call from Heero Yuy early this morning, from where he was stationed with his Gundam outside of the L2 colony. He asked me to tell you something, but frankly I don't understand it."
I smiled at her. "Tell me what he said."
"He…he said 'flowers bloom in the heart to touch the minds and souls of all. There all the remedies lay.'"
I blushed lightly and looked down to my feet, where the petals were scattered. Miss Noin couldn't see them from where she was craning around the doorway, and I didn't point them out to her. "Thank you, Miss Noin." It was our little secret—Heero and me.
She nodded and left the room, and I finished changing my sheets into clean ones.
Later on that day, I noticed how Miss Noin and Pagan observed me for a full thirty minutes, as I spent the time outside, frolicking in the flower garden. I had to come back in with a bunch of hastily picked flowers in my hand, and Miss Noin dared not ask why I spent twenty minutes carefully mutilating so many of them, pulling the radiant colors from their stems.
The answer was quite easy. With each flower petal I kept to my lips, I could feel Heero kissing my forehead, my temple, my cheek, my mouth. His simple actions and courageous manner brought me back to the land of the living, and then he showered me with one of the most pure and cleansing objects on the earth--flowers.
He was always off on a mission, performing his duty as he saw fit. I had my own duty to fulfill as well, but that didn't mean that I had to forget everyone who had touched my life at one time or another. With flower petals always sprinkled around my pillow and the thick teasing scent of them always on my brain, how could I not remember him?