Author: CONTACTcon-589113507 Sparkle Itamashii

Title: Advent of Trust

Warnings: Respect the rating. See profile for details

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing After Colony (AC) is NOT MINE.

Significant Note: The following happens prior to and affects the storyline of Through the Storm. Storm's storyline war lasted just over three years after the boys joined, instead of just over one.

Advent of Trust

There was a time when I felt for sure that I could say people were not to be trusted, ever, no matter what. You could give them jobs, ask them to do something, and they could tell you they would do it, but I knew even then that I could never count on them to actually accomplish what they set out to do. I never made a plan that relied on someone else doing something they said they would. How could I? If they failed, it often wasn't just my own life or plan at stake. It could affect hundreds, thousands… it could affect the entire world if the plans I laid went awry because I counted on someone else.

I suppose that somewhat accounted for my being away from the others as often as I was. It wasn't that I didn't like them, or that I thought they were not particularly capable of doing anything useful. But I didn't know them and they didn't know me. There was a war going on and I'd been thrown into the middle of it the same as them. Though we were scattered throughout space, I knew we were the same breed of person. I knew, or I thought I knew, everything that they were capable of doing. I knew my own limitations, how inadequate I felt at times even with all that I knew and all I had experienced. How could I count on them, or allow them to count on me, knowing those things?

I couldn't, and so I distanced myself from them.

Not that this was a particularly easy endeavor. Quatre, with his seemingly infinite resources, always seemed to find where I was hiding. He didn't always follow me there, but he always knew where I was. I think that was my first step toward trusting any of the other pilots. For years and years and years there had never been anyone who cared a lick about where I was, or if they did, they didn't have the ability to find me; either way was inadequate. Not even Catherine, as nosy as she was, as concerned as she always acted when I did return, matched up to Quatre.

Staying over at his place, playing music with him… I came to him later that night, to talk, but I couldn't bring myself to wake him. Instead I watched him for a few minutes, sleeping as deeply as though there was nothing wrong in the world, and I wondered what it felt like to be able to do that. Over dinner he had told me a little about his past, about his father, his sisters, his own origins- what little he felt he had, being born the way he was. I didn't know my mother and father… this kid didn't know if he had a real mother or a father. I'd grown up in a world filled with war; Quatre had had his life torn viciously from him and been thrust into war.

Yet he slept when I couldn't, trusting in all those people around him, trusting that they would do their jobs and that he would be safe enough to sleep with both eyes closed.

Of course, Quatre wasn't the only one who flew in beneath the radar. Heero's suicidal act, his obvious intention to do whatever was necessary to do his job, was reassuring in its own right. Towards the end of the war I had complete faith in him, knowing he would do whatever needed to be done… and more than that, I wouldn't have to tell him to do it. He just knew. Mentally, he was the quickest person I'd ever met. If a situation changed I could count on Heero being three steps ahead four seconds later. It wasn't always easy to catch on to his plans, even being privy to seeing the way he often worked, but I think most of us got the hang of going along with him.

It was better than following Duo's plans, that's for sure.

Not that he didn't have his own charms. After I'd met Duo I'd written him off as somewhat mentally ill and probably unstable. He was still a kid, always chattering, always coming up with hair-brained schemes, always looking for trouble. It took me a while to realize how much of a mask he wore; one more detailed, more complex, more convincing than any of the rest of us. One that rarely, rarely slipped. But those moments, those precious few moments I'd caught Duo unawares or been caught by him when he couldn't be bothered to put forth the effort of acting… those were sweet moments indeed.

But in the end, it was Wu Fei who cracked the shell of distrust.

It seems odd, doesn't it? I can only imagine how he seemed to others when they met him. Stand-offish, blatant, perhaps even crude in his ideas. He spat on the idea that women could do anything useful but if you knew him at all you knew it was only because he idolized the woman he had loved and lost. Meiran. He's mentioned her to me only twice in the entire time I've known him and the second time he hadn't meant to do so. I certainly wasn't inclined to get along with him, especially as he was questionably aligned with 'our' side at first.

Of course, that was before we got holed up together after an accident.

There had been a skirmish near the town I'd taken to ground in; only a small handful mobile suits from both sides colliding near a school. It wasn't many, four, maybe five if I recall. At the time there was nothing I could do; my suit was nearly three miles past the outside of the other side of town. Even if I'd taken a car or a bike and zipped over there, I doubt I could have done much in time. Catherine called an hour later, worried sick that children had been hurt but none of the news reports later made any mention. I watched the reports with her, counting suits, counting deaths, mapping locations.

Something would have to be done.

That night I took Heavyarms and headed for the base the suits had come from; when I'd looked for the location, all reports said the base should have been decommissioned three weeks ago, but apparently it was still active. Though the mission had been beeping insistently on Heavyarms' screen when I got to the suit anyway, I'd have gone without it. The fact that my intentions matched what my good Doctor had in store seemed a mere coincidence. Able to be disregarded.

So I did.

The night was unfortunately clear, forcing me to stay close to the ground as I neared my destination. My right-most screen lit up with the image of another Gundam as soon as it was in range. Shenlong. It was Wu Fei, obviously heading for the same place as I was. That was fine, as long as he didn't try to stop me. The screen flickered to a communication terminal and Wu Fei's cold black eyes studied me for a second before he spoke.

"The school?" he asked simply, and I knew exactly what he meant.

Fighting near a town, near a school, was unacceptable. I knew what it was like to have childhood ruined by accident and destruction. So too, it appeared, did Wu Fei. Very briefly I wondered if he had gotten the same mission or if, like me, he would have gone without it, but it didn't seem to matter. He was here and we would destroy anything that stood in our way.

I nodded and the line went dead.

The base wasn't very big, maybe a dozen suits and a handful more employees running it. However when we got there, not a soul stirred. It was eerie. No lights turned on, no light on any suit flickered to life. Sensors didn't even register any sound from outside to say that we'd been seen. Either we'd caught them with their pants down, or…

"There's no one here," the radio com flickered to life with Wu Fei's irritated voice. I could see the lights of his suit shifting across the base as he sifted through the darkness, searching for some sign of residence. "No vehicles." Shenlong straightened and I heard the beep and whir of scans. "They're not long gone. Tracks head south."

"Will they be back?" I asked, feeling a bit cheated.

There was a long pause. "They left close to a billion dollars worth of perfectly fine suits."

"Two choices," I replied, checking my ammunition supply. I'd just restocked.

"Take them or trash them," he agreed.

For a while there was silence. I didn't care what we did. The suits themselves had done nothing wrong; their actions depended on the actions of their pilots and that we had the power to change. Infiltration. Spying. The suits were of an unfamiliar make which meant they were fairly new and would have major use to our side for a brief window, until their registrations were logged as enemy suits. Any of a dozen uses skimmed through my mind as I waited to see what he was going to do.

An explosion lit the night sky and a second later the sound filtered through my com system. I cracked a half smile and raised my rifle as I stalked into the base. One suit. Two suits. I watched their remains tumble to the ground, sparking and twitching. A flashing light to my left caught my eye and I paused, rifle aimed at the third suit to be destroyed. A large blue light, like that from a police car, flashed, round and round and round in the night to my left.

"Wu Fei," I said after an explosion. I heard his suit fall silent and his radio picked up transmission.

"I saw it," he responded. "Automatic alert."

Another explosion, six suits down. Base was halfway clear. Another light, this time from the other side of the small air base. Blue, just like the first.

"Wu Fei," I said again and once more he stopped.

Round and round and round.

I lowered my rifle.

The ground imploded.

A tower of rock and cement shot into the air between us, cascading down atop us as our Gundams sank into the ground.

Nets in the rubble, wire netting, scraping against Heavyarms sides.

Cursing over the intercom and jostling in the cockpit, confusion.

It had been a trap, and we had fallen for it so easily.

I slammed my hand on the thrusters, engaging them as I scraped my way out of the hole. The nets, metal wiring, clung stubbornly to my Gundam, screeching and squealing in protest with every movement I made. There had to be some sort of anchor magnet beneath us with the way they clung and dragged downward. I could hear the gears and joints of my Gundam snapping off wires, could hear them getting wound up inside Heavyarms' system.

Not good.

The first underground explosion rocked the cockpit, sending me reeling face first into the dashboard. I could feel blood dripping into my eyes as my fingers flew over controls, trying to drag Heavyarms from the ground. The second explosion caused me to lose my grip along the edge of the crater but I caught on something before the rubble buried me. An explosion rumbled, farther away this time, and trembled my Gundam.

Metal against metal- the grinding noise was terrible in my com system, refracted and returned through my com link with Wu Fei. I looked above and saw Shenlong's glowing eyes, saw Heavyarms' right arm caught in the dragon's mouth. Blood sang past my ears, heartbeat thundering as he dragged me up from the hole in the ground. Scorch and scratch marks covered the Gundam's body but he was alive. One of the engines was half dislodged from its casing, but it didn't appear to actually be broken.

"Can't fly," he grunted. The video com link showed him clutching his side.

My mind raced. He should have gotten out of there. If he couldn't fly he had to move quickly, before anyone came to find out what had happened. "Can't stay," I told him, wiping blood from my eyes as I rolled Heavyarms away from the crater in time to avoid another explosion.

"Bay," he replied and a map flickered onto the screen. We weren't far from the coast, maybe a few miles. If he walked over land they could easily trail him- follow the giant footsteps. But if we could make it to the water… We could disappear.

"Still watertight?" I asked doubtfully.

I righted Heavyarms to a standing position, diagnostics already running. I could make it through water if I had to- it wouldn't be pleasant. Wu Fei's Gundam was in worse shape than mine, though not by much. I wouldn't have trusted Heavyarms to make it far by land, either. I rotated the flight engine but heard only a battered grinding noise.

Yep, not getting far.

Those damn nets, crafted to litter the system and joints with enough metal flakes to choke them up… it was the equivalent of having sad thrown in your eyes in a fight. Not particularly comfortable or fun, but not particularly damaging or deadly either. I cursed internally, feeling ridiculous for having walked into such an obvious trap. At least it had been us- at least we hadn't sent someone to retrieve the rigged suits and lead them to their deaths.

"Scans say yes. Only one way to know," he said and began to trudge in the direction of the beach.

I took a glance behind us at the ruins of the base. The building still stood, or part of it did, but the suits lay amidst the small explosions still popping in the crater; they were not as sturdy as the Gundams and I knew they wouldn't be salvaged. At least the night wasn't an entire waste, I thought as I hauled Heavyarms around to follow the other solemn pilot.

The walk, as I predicted, was not far. The night air was filled with crunching and grinding, whirring that was uncomfortable to my ears. We must have looks ridiculous, two huge mobile suits walking like the undead toward the sea. I didn't know how I was going to get the repairs done. The wires of the netting left tiny scratches all over, rough edges along joints, bits of metal where they didn't belong after the nets had been clipped by the motions of the Gundam. The rocks had not particularly damaged the machine- it was made to withstand impacts. It was the gravel in the parts, the tiny bits of metal blown into the joints by the explosions that made it hard to walk.

The trap hadn't been to destroy the Gundams- it had been to disable them and it had very nearly succeeded. Thank fully it seemed a good cleaning out probably fix the problem, if we could get someplace safe.

Light from the early morning sun was dazzling the waves around us by the time we climbed from the water. I had managed to get into contact with Quatre and explain our situation, hoping there was something he could do while trying to figure out how to fix everything without him. Whether or not he was able to send help, we had to repair our Gundams and get out of there.

Quatre found a place a few miles from where we surfaced, a resort that had been shut down six years ago because the front half was falling into the ocean. With minimal effort Wu Fei and I were able to hollow out the north end of the resort and set the Gundams there to rest as we trudged wearily inside the dilapidated building. It was not my first choice, but I had stayed in much worse conditions and it was as safe as we were going to get.

Wu Fei hunted down a sheet of metal while I wet the floor and made a circle of cement chunks to place it on so that we could have a fire indoors. Despite the warm climate the night was muggy and cold and the room we'd picked was hardly more hospitable than outdoors. Mold crept down from the ceiling, along the walls, curling in patterns that looked like wallpaper in the darkness. I scraped off what I could, tossing it into the hallway, but it didn't really help. When Wu Fei returned with a metal bowl from the kitchen, a pot, and a few utensils, I was never more relieved at the prospect of being able to see fire.

The first thing we did was repair ourselves. He sat gingerly on the floor, stripping out of his shirt and feeling along his rib lines. Nothing was broken but he sported two stripe-lines of bruises on one side that must have really hurt. Somehow I'd managed to nick a vessel on my temple and though it had bled profusely, it was not serious. Tender, yes, but not threatening. I silently let Wu Fei clean it with boiled water and squinted as I tried to remain still. I was going to have a headache in the morning and there was nothing for it.

From the depths of my cockpit I managed to produce two tins of food, though it escapes me what sort, and we sat in silence as we ate and listened. The waves lapped at the edges of the estate, gently tearing it apart, grain by grain. On the roof above us gulls squabbled over god only know what before settling into silence. Wu Fei prodded the fire with a stoke that was actually a cooking spoon and the fire crumbled into embers.

"Why did you stay?" I asked quietly, sloshing the water that was left in the bottle I held by only my fingertips. Looking over to him as he sat back, I wondered if he would even bother answering.

"Would you rather I'd left?" he responded after a moment. He didn't look at me.

"No." I sloshed the water, thinking. He could have chosen to wander toward the bay by himself and leave me- I'd have slowed down anyone chasing him. Obviously I'd have given hell to anyone trying to take me alive and he knew it. But he'd tromped his damaged Gundam across the rubble and pulled me out of the ditch. "But it would have been in your better interest to leave me. One Gundam is easier to hide."

"Hm," he said noncommittally. "We did all right, and She'd have been mad if I'd left."

My brows furrowed in confusion. "She?" I queried, wondering if he meant his Gundam. I'd known more than a few pilots that personified their craft.

"Meiran," he said softly, dropping his gaze to his hands. "My wife."

"Oh," I murmured. "I didn't know you were married."

"She… died." It was a tender subject- any idiot could have seen that.

"War?" I wasn't sure if that was a question I should ask, as the answer seemed fairly obvious. There was little else that was killing young people these days.

It was a long time before he answered, but I was accustomed to waiting as long as needed. "Not like you would think." He shook his head, nudging bits of plaster around on the floor with a finger.

Though I let it drop, staring into the small bits of fire that were still going, it nagged at my mind like an unanswered question. This boy wasn't older than me, but he'd been married- long enough to have lost the other person. There was something different about him, some quality I couldn't quite place my finger on at first. It was almost as if he had lived a life before this one, as though there were something separate about him, something unique from the rest of the world.

It wasn't until years later that I would truly understand what I innately felt that night. It wasn't until I understood that the same quality was reflected in me that I understood how separated we were from the world. It was the five of us, the Gundam pilots who'd been thrown into position to stop a war they didn't fully understand, that stood separate from everyone else.

Thousands of other people would be shoved into the war, put in places they didn't ask to be, asked to do things they didn't want to do. We weren't unique like that. In that respect we were soldiers like anyone else. However, of the thousands, perhaps millions of soldiers out there, we were the only ones with Gundams. We were the only ones who were pulled along on the puppet strings of destiny and told that of all humanity, we would be the five to put an end to all the fighting.

Of all the people everywhere, it was only the other four pilots who could fully grasp everything that meant.

"What happened?" I asked softly at last, glancing over and quickly dropping my gaze. "To Meiran?"

"Nothing happened to her. She wasn't a victim," he said slowly, brows drawing as he remembered the past. "She was a fighter. She had a lot to fight for, but she was too eager to fight for it. When she left, I… she shouldn't have died. I didn't get there in time. I didn't stay at her side like I should have."

We let the thought settle uncomfortably between us. Here was a boy who blamed himself for losing someone he loved when by the sounds of it, she'd run off without him to get herself killed. Given, I didn't know the circumstances, but I was fairly certain I didn't have to; it was just another case of why I couldn't trust other people. Even those in love couldn't keep from doing the unexpected and ruining plans. I sipped my water and set it to the side, leaning back again in the dusty old chair we'd found.

"I wouldn't have left you anyway," he said after a while, pulling me back to consciousness. I'd nearly been asleep. Glancing up at me, he gave me a strange, far-away look. "There's not too many people you can count on in the world."

Sitting up in my chair, I swallowed thickly. The words echoed my thoughts so precisely I felt as though I'd said them instead. "Oh?"

He leaned back against the wall and sighed. "How many people can you trust, Barton? One? Maybe two?" he inquired rhetorically, softly. "Winner is one of them- he was the first person you contacted. Yuy, if you can find him… there's not anything in the world he won't do to protect what he's working for, and that's enough for me to trust him. And that kid with the braid may be loud but he flies like he is part of his machine. I can't say I'd mind having him at my side in a fight."

"And me?" I asked curiously.

"You? You're not even supposed to be here," he said quietly, looking over with almost a smug expression. "You're a mechanic, or you were. Worked on parts, maybe some design. You picked up someone else's mistake." He looked away, back to the ceiling.

"You think I don't belong here?" I queried, a little offended. He was right, and that frightened me a little, but it made me angry. In the past two months, I think I'd proven my worth on the battleground.

He chuckled and raised his hands in defeat, wincing a little at the pain it brought to his ribs. "Hey, I'm not supposed to be here either. I was a scholar before… Nose in a book every chance I got."

I thought about that for a few moments, trying to puzzle out the guy across the fire. He seemed so cold most of the time, so completely bull headed. He was always yelling at people, mostly women, sometimes us pilots… this was different. Open. Awkward, I told myself. I didn't share information with people, yet this guy seemed to know more about me than anyone. My curiosity definitely got the better of me. "How did you know I was a mechanic?"

A faint smile traced his thin lips. "The way you pilot," he said, motioning with his hands like he was trying to express something intangible. "Like following a script." A pause. "How much time did you get, before they shot you down to Earth with the rest of us?"

"Couple days. Maybe a week." I closed my eyes, remembering being asked to pilot. I'd helped work on Heavyarms; I had loved the suit, made sure everything about it was perfect even knowing I would not be able to pilot it. The suit was practically my child, with how much time I'd spent with it. "The real Barton was shot." A part of me felt relieved to say it; relieved that I had not been the one forced to pull the trigger to take Heavyarms as my own.

"Mm. So what's your real name?"

"Haven't got one," I said, cheeks flushing a little. I had never been embarrassed of the fact before, but the way he asked… I felt the piece of information was suddenly far more personal than it ever had been. "The troupe I used to travel with, they called me 'no name'. Said… I had to earn it."

"Would you change the one you picked?" he asked curiously.

"Mm… no. This one is all right. It's just a name," I said, feeling resigned. "Quatre likes it."

He made a noise of amusement. "And you like Quatre."

"Hm," I said noncommittally, not caring how he'd figured that out. The kid was growing on me, I'm sure that was clear enough to everyone that knew us.

Above us the seagulls began to squabble and Wu Fei yawned deeply. I stifled my own response yawn and blinked slowly. Had we really been up all night, walking away from that base? It'd only been an hour or two since we abandoned our Gundams in the north side of the building, but it felt like an eternity. I was exhausted, but not quite tired enough to sleep.

"Wish I had a book now," he said wistfully, before I could say it. Startled, I looked over to him with wide eyes. He smiled to me and kicked the pan of ember so that they shifted and flared with flame. "You do too. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe," he yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. "Maybe you can ask Quatre to bring you one."
I tossed a musty pillow at his face and he laughed as he caught it and lobbed it back. "Whatever," I muttered as I slid to the ground and turned away from him, though I couldn't help the smile on my own lips. Sunlight glittered in through the broken window, dancing slivers of light over the walls and the floors. I stretched out on my side, back to the fire, and closed my eyes as I listened to him do the same.

That was the morning I learned to trust someone outside of myself. With those few words, that one, simple conversation, Wu Fei had shown me that not all the world was as distant as I assumed. Lying across the fire from me, sleeping as innocently as if he changed paradigms every day, there was a boy who had suddenly become a part of me. As easily as if he had known me my entire life, he had become a mirror, reflecting the things I had wanted to share, and telling me that I didn't need to share them.

He already knew.

/End Advent of Trust/