Original: Hey guys, it's been a while! Sorry I took such a long break, but I was feeling really dull and insipid over Thanksgiving and wasn't really in a mood to write. I cranked this out in two days without editing or proofreading, so please excuse the sloppiness. I've been really down lately - kinda strange, since I can't think of a reason why.
12/5/06: Proofread and edited. Sorry for the double update; I couldn't stand the crappiness of the chapter before.
Main Entry:vi·cis·si·tude
Pronunciation:v&-'si-s&-"tüd, vI-, -"tyüd
Function:noun
Etymology:Middle French, from Latin vicissitudo, from vicissim in turn, from vicis change, alternation -- more at WEEK
1 a the quality or state of being changeable...a difficulty or hardship attendant on a way of life...usually beyond one's control
- Merriam-Webster's
"He's coming to."
"What should we do?"
"Make sure he doesn't get loose. They're dangerous, you know, even unarmed."
"Pssh. He doesn't look that tough."
A cold steel presence on his forehead – the sound of a trigger cocking. The tip of the gun jolts a little as the hammer falls into place. He cannot see the bullet that is lusting for his brains. Around, the voices have stopped. There is a distant whirling of winds – sand against tarp? Then:
"Get that away from him! I'm telling you he's not dangerous!"
The weight is lifted. It leaves a cold circle of indented skin on his skull, and he swishes a hand up to rub it – can't. His wrists are linked together with brittle iron, rust-dry. He is not strong enough to break them. He opens his eyes.
A girl swims into focus – surmounting her, a flat expanse of oilcloth. She has leonine eyes and a mane of golden hair like stalks of fine-grained sand. Around, men with guns trained on his face. She steps back, startled, and then frowns at him. He stares at the men, then down at his tattered plasticine flightsuit. There is a splatter of blood on his lips. He makes to sit up, and safeties click in an array. Slowly, he lies back down.
There is the light sound of his breathing and the howl of the winds outside – more pronounced now, a frenzy of tiny teeth raking against the heavy canvas. The tent flaps and rails and quavers from the inside out, and the bulky walls compress, spilling sand onto the sand of the floor. No one talks.
The girl, fists clenched, takes a step towards him, menacing. She growls: "Ugh. This is stupid!"
A finger, accusatory, into his face. "What's your name!"
He makes to answer, the words on the edge of his tongue – they slip away. He scrunches his brow, tries again, fails.
"I…"
The pack surrounding him leans closer. She is inches away now, eyes curious.
He falters. "…don't know."
She throws her hands into the air. "What? I thought Coordinators were supposed to be smart! ZAFT's elite pilots can't even remember their own names?"
A burly man with wavy oil-slick hair settles his tanned hands on her shoulders. "Calm down, Cagalli. He's most likely holding out because of the interrogation setting. Don't worry; he'll talk."
She nods ferociously. "I should have expected this. Should we torture him?"
His eyes widen: they had been taught to resist this, but he hadn't really been much good at it.
Wait. Who were "they?" For that matter, who was he?
The girl is smiling predatorily in his direction. He makes to save his hide. "Wait! I really don't know. Why am I being restrained like this?"
She is vehement. "Don't think you can fool us again! As if you don't recognize this?" She slams a blurry photograph into his face. He sees a massive crimson machine, half-buried in sand, lying faceup in an ocean of dunes. The sun glares down from an eggshell sky. There are typed words in the lower left-hand corner of the photo.
"GAT…X303 Aegis?"
"Aha! You must have been really poorly trained." She whips the photo away, smugly triumphant. Again, the burly man calms her.
"Cagalli," he frowns. "That photo had the machine's name on it. He was descending from an extreme altitude – it's not impossible that he may have suffered head trauma. Still," the man scrutinizes him, "the symptoms he's exhibiting are very rare…"
"At any rate," A man with a green bandana wrapped around his head looms over the captive's blue hair. "he doesn't seem to be much of a threat, and it doesn't seem like we'll be getting any information from him. What should we do?"
The girl – Cagalli? - has loaded her pistol, aims it tremulously at him. "If he's of no use, then…for what ZAFT did…"
"We can't." The tanned man lowers her arm, eyes locked with the prisoner.
"Kisaka!"
"Don't be so rash. In ten years, will you regret this decision?"
She relents, sulky. He lets out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "Excuse me, I don't really know why you're treating me like an enemy, but I can assure you that I have no intention of causing harm to anyone here. Could someone please explain my situation before my awakening?"
The girl eyes him angrily. "We don't have to tell you a thing! Guys, we should discuss our plans out of earshot in case he's faking it."
Kisaka nods. "She has a point."
She stomps into the intervening tent, and, shrugging, the majority of the gunsmen follow her. Two sentries remain, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
One, umber skin and a greasy mop of hair, pokes him brashly with the tip of his rifle. "Don't get too comfortable, pretty boy."
Outside, the sandstorm rages with frustrated abandon at the walls of the tent.
---
"I don't think he's lying." Kisaka rumbled, leaning against a pole. "He's got a poor face for it. And ZAFT requires their soldiers to clam up on interrogation, refusing to answer even the simplest questions. The very fact that he tried indicates either poor training or something wrong with his defenses."
"Well, what makes you think it wasn't poor training?" Cagalli challenged, unconvinced.
Kisaka shrugged slowly, like an undulating mountain. "The fact that he's a ZAFT redcoat might have some bearing on it."
"Oh." Cagalli had been too busy staring at his ey- scanning his face for possible tellsigns to notice.
Cyan settled down into a folding metal chair, hands clasped meditatively on the table. "The question is, what do we do with him? We don't have the supplies to feed a nonproductive prisoner. I think our best bet would be to trade him with the Tiger for some advantages."
"Negotiate with that monster?" Cagalli smacked her palm onto the table. "That goes against everything we stand for!"
Kisaka crossed his arms. "I don't know, Cyan. The Tiger is an honorable man, but you don't have anything to trade for besides his desertion of this region – I doubt that any single prisoner is worth so much. We don't really have anything we can do with him."
"Perhaps hard labor?" Cagalli suggested, looking excited at the prospect, "Or, even better– wait." She turned to Kisaka. "Can he still pilot that mobile suit?"
The battered veteran furrowed his brow. "Some cases of retrograde amnesia wipe out the series of events leading up to the onset of amnesia, and may or may not influence skillsets. However, if his forgetfulness is trauma-based, he should fully recover his identity, unless he was in a catastrophic emotional state when the crash happened."
She cocked an eyebrow. "Wouldn't anyone be emotionally stressed right before they're about to crash?"
He shook his head. "You don't understand. The victim would need to be in a sustained state of extremely high emotional intensity prior to the event. I'm not a psychologist, but post-trauma syndromes don't incur identity loss."
She puffed out a breath, hands on hips. "I was thinking maybe we could use him against ZAFT – if he doesn't know who he is, he doesn't know which side he's on, either, but that would be useless if he has no skills."
"You kind of sabotaged that option by threatening to kill him…"
"Details! We can say it was a test or something; the important thing is to figure out whether or not he can still pilot the thing!" Cagalli marched out of the tent, was floored by the drowning whisper of sand.
---
There was a hand, cool and worried, on his forehead. The leaden veil slowly dissolved from his mind and Kira opened his eyes.
Lacus hopped back like a startled rabbit. "Hibiki-san!" Her eyes flicked down to his, and suddenly a torrid surge of guilt drove through his gut. Then, she regained her composure, backing away, shoulders politely cold, and began walking out of the room. "I was just checking on you. Forgive me for not obeying your wishes."
He tried to lift his hand and it trembled like a blown leaf. Gritting his teeth: "Wait. Stop."
"Did you need something, Hibiki-san?"
"I…" Damn. He had never had a problem with words. What was it he was trying to say?
The doctor came in, depositing his clipboard on the counter. "Good morning, Miss Clyne. You'd better get some rest; this one," nodding towards Kira, "will be just fine."
He gave an eyes-crinkled smile and Lacus gave a perky nod.
"I was just leaving, Sagara-san." A fleeting glance at his eyes and she was gone.
He tried to move again and managed a straining rise to a sitting position, then gasped, fell back down. Fire burned in his tightly corded muscles.
"Already awake?" The doctor shook his head. "I haven't had a lot of experience working with Coordinators, but recovering after a mere three hours…"
Kira glared contemptuously at his hospital shift, then propped himself, elbow sore, up on an arm. "Why am I dressed like an invalid?"
Sagara's eyes widened. "You hit the ground from the xenosphere with only a Mobile Suit to protect you – re-entry would have killed a Natural, and even the toughest humans would have suffered concussions and major heat stroke. We thought you'd be out much longer." His tone was somewhere between awed and disappointed.
Kira sneered. "Well, you thought wrong." He gathered his energy and leapt out of bed with a predator's poise. The world wobbled for a moment, then held steady.
"Where is my uniform?"
The doctor shrugged, somewhat blindsided. "I guess it'd be in your lockers, since we extracted you directly from Strike. If you truly feel you're ready to go, at least take a drink of water." He gestured towards a glass on the counter.
Kira loped over, downed it.
What had I been doing? Images: Searing lights across a plane of darkness, the press of g-forces on his machine, an explosion that smelled like brimstone and blood in his mouth.
His fist worked automatically, shattering the glass. Cursing, he dumped the remains into a trash dispenser, wringing the shards into the bin. It would be irrational to ask, but he was never sure of his own mind.
The Natural was gaping at him – no glass had broken the skin. He snapped the man back to focus with a barked question. "The shuttle! What happened to it?"
Gulping: "Didn't you see? That white Mobile Suit, Duel, destroyed it before you took its top off."
He inhaled sharply, then bent down to clear glass fragments off the floor. As the door slid aside, he peered left and right for human traffic, then stormed away.
---
Lacus huddled on her bed, arms wrapped around her calves, Haro on top of her knees. Her shoes lay neatly arrayed on the floor and she had draped the covers around her body, falling past her elbows so that her toes peeked out curiously from the cottony depths. She had heard Ki- Hibiki-san's last call, but had brushed it aside. The doctor had misconstrued them as a couple and Hibiki-san was too intelligent not to pick that up, too unstable to leave the man uninjured. And if she had stayed longer, the man's constant stream of innuendos would have visibly embarrassed – not something to display to Hibiki, who detested weakness in any form.
Hibiki-san was still confusing for Lacus. He had obviously suffered vastly during his life – the thought of those nightmares tormenting him daily shivered her spine – but she was having a tough time pitying him, with all the crimes he had committed. His complete lack of social tact also wasn't helping.
But she had seen him fight, had seen his suicidal dive to save the civilian ship, and had wondered whether there was something in him that could still be saved. The battle had been an emotional morass for her – torn between ZAFT's fate and her own survival, Hibiki's viciousness and the strangeness of her own feelings, her attentions had been disjointed and scattered. His one selfless act had been – well, she still didn't know how she felt about it, but whatever she was feeling – it was clear.
If that made sense at all. She groaned and buried her face in her knees. Whenever she thought of Kira, nothing made sense.
For the last time, it's Hibiki-san!
And then the door hissed open and Kira glided in, a bit unsteady but clearly fine, and she felt something in her chest give a little flutter. He sat down, fixed her with his lancelike gaze. She pulled the sheets tighter around her shoulders.
He remained still, glaring at her – no, past her, a little to the left and side: a trick used by public speakers who disliked eye contact and professional liars. His brow furrowed, and then he was looking at her, and for a moment she thought she saw contrition in his amethyst orbs. He looked to be struggling with himself, and she unwrapped her arms, sliding her legs softly down the sides of the mattress until the tips of her toes touched the heels of her shoes.
"I'm sorry." He looked tight and uncertain, as if he were tracking a shot gone wild from the mark.
She stared at him owlishly; then, dropping her blankets around her she scooted until perched on the edge of the bed. "You have no need to apologize to your captives, Hibiki-san."
He gave an odd flinch; she noticed he had been staring at her knee. "You…meant me no harm by entering my chambers. I admit my nocturnal habits can be a bit unsettling to those unprepared for them. I should have informed you before I slept."
He sighed, eyes drawing level with hers. "Because you saw what you did, however, I can no longer let you go free."
At that, she stiffened. "I wouldn't…"
He was unblinking. "No. But they would get it out of you. You think ZAFT is incapable of that?"
His eyes were on her face but he wasn't seeing her. She felt again the cold strike of air which had punched up from her lungs when the shuttle had been pierced. I am afraid to die.
Then their gazes locked, and she wondered whether he was capable of killing her, even when she already knew the answer. But she had to venture, had to ask: "What will you do with us?"
He planted his chin on the triangle of arms atop his knees. "You deserve an explanation."
He rubbed his eyes, and when those commanding pupils were closed she could see the tiredness sagging off his frame, knew that he had acquired it from protecting her, this ship. Or perhaps the other way around? That didn't seem to matter.
"We discovered you in the junk belt, after the Silverwind had been destroyed." Kira's voice had slipped into the lectures tones he was more comfortable with. She smiled inside, glad that he had decided to drop the mask of politeness. Apologies didn't seem to suit him.
"There was a ZAFT Reconnaissance-type GINN nearby. I launched in the Ambition and dispatched it. After making contact Aristotle hijacked the life pod's operating system and deduced that you were onboard.
"I sent orders ahead to prepare spare quarters for you – the crew was a bit thunderstruck by your arrival. At that moment, I had not made any plans for your future. After you disembarked, Aristotle and I discarded the idea of handing you over to the Earth Forces for G-Unit technology and instead decided to ransom you to PLANT for sums sufficient to cover and expand our long-term plans.
"Prior to ZAFT's assault on Heliopolis, I had been contracted by a man known as the Fool to steal or destroy the GAT-X series before it reached production lines. Immediately following ZAFT's attack I was again contacted by the Fool, and told to capture the series' technology without inflicting too much damage on the machines. The mobile suits I've been fighting against, thus, have all been G-Units. One of them, the crimson suit which destroyed my ship, was- is piloted by one Athrun Zala-"
Lacus gasped, her face horrified and her chest a stew of emotions. "You- Athrun?"
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Yes?"
"Athrun Zala was- is the man I will marry someday."
Lacus felt hatred flare in the room, tangible as a breaking storm.
Please remember to review! Hopefully it'll help me get out of my current state and write faster.