/We want more than this world's got to offer

We want more than the wars of our fathers

And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

We were meant to live for so much more/


Chapter Twenty Nine


The park is beautiful today, despite the fact that we're stuck here on the colony for another couple hours. I hardly even notice I'm not in a real park any more because I've gotten so used to it. Somewhere in the back of my mind I can still remember the blue skies and wide open fields that I'd seen while on Earth. Everything is always so much greener there, so much more vibrant. This park isn't so bad, though- it has lush green grass and the trees are thick with emerald leaves that flutter in the artificial breeze. I can almost imagine myself back on planet side.

Heero doesn't like it as much here- I know that now. Up until a few days ago I wouldn't have guessed he felt like that. I can see him across the park, tossing Loki's worn green tennis ball as far as he can lob it- she never fails to catch it before it's even stopped rolling, no matter how much effort he puts into it. I love watching them play. Heero's never really stopped being reserved, though he is certainly a lot more expressive and emotional than when I met him. He just seems more… well, human. But I suppose there will always be things which he can never let go and over the past three years I've learned that there are some things I can never change.

Most things though, I can. At first I thought that there was no way living in the background of society was going to be at all comparable to living on the cusp of battle almost all the time. I know that the first year was certainly the hardest. Bored didn't begin to describe my thoughts on life, every day doing menial things. It had been like that the year I had spent blind as well (where nothing terribly exciting was happening) only this time there was no handicap to occupy my time learning to live with and one to fall back to when things got unbearably tiresome. A million times I picked up the phone to call Quatre or Trowa or even Wu Fei (if that shows just how utterly desperate I was) only to remember that we still had years before I could talk to them for real.

Heero didn't have as much of a problem with that as I did. He seemed perfectly content to settle down and find a suitable job. I had rather grumpily followed his example when he pointed out that people would be suspicious if we kept living where we were without any visible source of income. I hated when he was so damn logical. Not that I was about to give up our new place- oh no, I liked it way too much for that.

We had moved into a loft on the softer side of town. After all, there were always two sides to every city, the good and the bad. I knew where the slums were on this colony so I knew exactly where to avoid. Heero had been the one to find our new home, after an extensive search. It was roomy, at least for something that wasn't a house all on its own. We had three bedrooms and ample living space as well as a full kitchen and the most beautiful bathroom. The shower had a huge full bath tub that doubled as its own Jacuzzi- I think everyone knows how much I love Jacuzzi tubs.

Loki made a huge fuss when we moved into the loft, however. She'd been horrible ever since we got to the colony, whimpering and whining, keeping her tail tucked firmly between her knees and growling at phantoms. Heero and I were both baffled until he suggested that perhaps her first experience on a colony had not been the best of first impressions. I felt awful, of course, for not thinking of that sooner, so we took her straight down to the park and she seemed to calm down at having grass beneath her feet once more.

She settled right in after she learned that not every trip to outer space ended in bleeding, trauma, and near-death experiences. I had wanted to keep up with her training, seeing as it had come in so useful in the past, but Heero had other plans. He spoiled that pup rotten at every chance he got. I suppose neither one of us had ever really had a chance to spoil anything properly- we couldn't while Loki was acting as a guide dog. She was a working dog before, no doubt, but she took to the life of treasured pet with relish.

I guess we all took to our new lives, once we got used to the idea of safety. At first I couldn't get used to the fact that no one was gonna jump me on the streets or invade my home- especially after what happened with Mariemaia and her lot. I was so jumpy that I almost shot Heero on two occasions when he came home early from work without calling. I got in a bunch of trouble over that. It took a lot of time and a lot of almost not harmless incidents before I came to terms with the fact that… no one recognized us any more.

No one was looking. We were dead to the world and no one expected to see us walking in the streets. All we would ever be, so long as we were careful, was phantoms, ghosts of heroes from a war everyone wanted to forget.

It helped that my hair had been cut from that incredibly identifiable braid. It took getting used to but I think it was to my advantage. If I was a while getting used to my own hair it was forever before I got used to Heero's. I kept thinking that Quatre was walking around our place, or that some strange boy had wandered into the loft looking for… something. It was unnerving, to say the least.

It was completely necessary, though. If anyone recognized us for sure then everyone's cover would be blown. It wasn't just my own safety, or Heero's safety that was on the line… It was everyone's. Quite possibly the peace of the world depended upon out ability to hide from the world itself.

Then again I've always been dramatic. Maybe it didn't matter at all.

At any rate, Heero stopped dying his hair over a year ago after an very unfortunate incident. I still hold that it was not entirely my fault- if he'd been a good boy and just let me have my way it would never have happened. I had finally forced him into a chair in the kitchen so that I could trim his hair and he was bitching and moaning about it. I tell you my hand slipped listening to all those complaints and just like that a good chunk of that pretty blond hair went missing. Of course I started laughing so hard I almost fell over, though he was furious with me when he nicked the mirror from the counter to take a look. After wrestling all the hair care tools and products from me he locked himself in the bathroom and didn't come out until he'd shaved his head just to spite me.

Needless to say I hadn't spoken to him for days for that. Fortunately his hair grows so fast that he didn't have to worry about it for more than a week or two before he had that delightfully short, dark brown fuzz. I took every opportunity presented to me to pet his head and run before he could get me. God I love buzz cuts on occasion.

Now his hair was back to being that shaggy, deep-brown mop he'd had when he was younger. I've let mine grow out, although it's slow going. I've managed to make a braid of it again, one that reaches down to my shoulder blades. As much as I hated those people for taking it without my permission, they had done me a service by doing so. I would never have made the sacrifice of my own free will. Yes, I still regret having lost my hair like I did but I think it's a constant reminder to be careful and to cherish that which I still have.

Which was all well and great but… It's been four years. Four whole, entire years since I've had everything that I wanted to have. I needed to see everyone again. I was itching to talk to my past.

Thankfully they were even more eager than I was.

A week ago I'd been curled up on my couch with a book I'd been trying to read for the past week. I hadn't gotten more than a couple pages before that inevitable interruption… interrupted. The phone jangled so loud in the complete silence I thought I was going to fall right off the hook. I just about fell off the couch and I lost my page in dropping my book on the floor. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning and anyone with common sense would know better than to call so late.

"Hello?" I asked thickly.

"Duo? It's me!"

Honestly, I drew a blank. I sat staring into space for a second thinking who the hell would call me at one in the morning and expect me to know who I was, much less who they were. "Who?"

"Don't tell me you don't recognize my voice…" Before I could say anything he cheerfully supplied the answer. "It's Quatre!"

"Of course it is." I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes. "Has something happened?"

"Nothing's happened. Nothing's happened for four years." I could practically feel him grinning with every word he spoke. "That's why I'm calling."

That was one of the longest conversations I have ever had in my life. It's particularly hard to cram four years of life into a couple hours of conversation but we seemed to do a fair job. Like those times where you could have said a million different things until someone asked you and then your mind goes blank, I could think of nothing truly important to say to Quatre. The past four years could have not happened and we would have been basically the same people as we'd been when we parted.

Quatre had done considerably more than I, mostly because… well, he'd had a world to manage instead of just a household. What I had taken for the cheerful note in his voice began to show through as a forced effect. I could tell, just by listening to him, that he was dead tired. I couldn't blame him- he'd been shoved into his position so early in life and it wasn't as if he'd had a reasonable choice. What was he going to do? Tell them no, he wouldn't run the world because he had better things to do? I'm sure that wouldn't have gone over well.

I found out that we were the last two of the group to be phoned. Quatre was trying to put together a dinner for us. He didn't want to make a big deal of it so he explicitly said that he wasn't going to make it official anything. I laughed when he told me how good he'd become at shirking his duties to disappear for a while. I would suppose he had to be, to get any alone time at all with Trowa.

At any rate he invited Heero and I back to the surface for a week so everyone could catch up on life. I hastily agreed, far more than ready to see all of my friends again. I know it seems weird- we'd cut them so totally out of our lives as far as communication goes but… I could never let go of them. I watched the news constantly for anything involving Quatre. The circus Trowa sometimes traveled with visited our colony last year. On the off chance that Trowa would actually be with them I had attended. He must have known where the troupe was headed because he was actually there. I hadn't said anything to him but I had caught him looking our way more than once and smiled.

I ended up turning the phone over to Heero when he woke sometime around five thirty. He gave me a strange look as he fixed the collar of his shirt, growling at me to go to bed before giving me a quick kiss and turning his attention to the phone. I waited on the edge of the step to hear him react to who was on the phone, as I hadn't said anything. He gave me a sharp "I'm going to get you later" look but his voice never wavered as he greeted our friend. I just grinned and high-tailed it upstairs to start packing.

Getting to earth wasn't so bad. I mean aside from being reduced a quivering mass of nerves every time someone looked at me twice, we got on and off the shuttle with relative ease. It took us a while to settle into the hotel room we'd rented and I'd had to make a call back home to check on the kid we had watching Loki and the loft. We hadn't been gone more than a day but I couldn't help worrying. Since we'd gotten Loki I'd almost never been apart from her.

I love Quatre and his meeting-making abilities but he really could have picked a better place to eat. We arrived at the restaurant and Heero immediately groaned and tried to sink into the passenger side seat of the car. I couldn't blame him. It was one of those loud, obnoxious places families go to in an attempt to hide the fact that they've got three screaming children. When we made it inside the walls were littered with junk that had been pasted up to promote a friendly atmosphere and the air smelled like cooking meat, fresh bread, and cigarette smoke.

We were nearly accosted by the lady hostess but I managed to spot the small knot of people we were really here to see. Trowa had taken a seat against the wall, directly across the table from Wu Fei, and they appeared to be discussing something to the exclusion of everything around them. Hilde was across the aisle listening to Sally chatter about something that seemed to be boring our young friend. Alternating between watching Trowa and the door, Quatre was the first to spot us.

It was a deer-in-the-headlights moment for both of us. As soon as our eyes met it was like the rest of the world dropped away and the past came flooding back. Everything that had happened- all the war, all the death, all the trials and grief, the happiness and the stolen moments of peace- everything that I had been shoving to the back of my mind for four years came wrapped up in one, split second glance.

Then he smiled, giving a little wave, and the moment was gone.

We were just guys getting together for dinner to catch up on a brand new lifetime.

It was strange sitting with everyone again. My logical brain said that it had been years, so many years that these could not possibly be the same people I had survived a war with and nearly given my life for on numerous occasions but my heart said nothing had changed. It felt like I hadn't skipped a beat at all. I remembered details I had no business remembering, like the way Trowa's eyebrow quirked just the slightest bit before he smiled, that bothersome strand of golden hair Quatre was always shaking his head to move out of his eyes, or the way Wu Fei looked at everyone just a second longer than he had to as if he were still paying attention to them after his attention had shifted. All if it was right there in front of me like it had never been stripped away.

It wasn't until near the end of the dinner that we learned the real reason Quatre had asked us to meet. He turned to me with a smile that I knew would be a precursor to a more serious conversation. I set down my glass and nestled back into the seat, returning the smile in a silent gesture that I was ready.

"Everyone…" He spoke softly and yet somehow every last one of the mini conversations stopped as all attention was turned to him. "It's been four years, almost exactly, since Dekim's strike. Nothing significant has happened and no one seems to remember who you four are." He motioned to Trowa, Wu Fei, Heero, and me. "I'm not saying it's time to broadcast the fact that you're still alive but I think… enough of the threat has passed that hiding from one another is going to be bothersome more than helpful."

We all stared at him, as though waiting for a point, but he only looked back at us as if we were expected to glean a point. When I saw that no one else was going to say anything, I leaned forward and rested my forearms against the edge of the table. "So what are you saying? We can call each other again. Maybe even do this sort of thing more often."

"There is a very specific reason I've asked you here now, instead of next year like I had planned. The people who bought your old house managed to contact me about two weeks ago. They said they were interested in selling the house and recalled that I had mentioned wanting to know." He looked directly at Heero and then to me. "I thought you might like to come back."

Heero tensed beside me, I could feel it against my leg, and I glanced over nervously. At the time I had known I missed Earth horribly. When I was living on the colonies I hadn't known about Earth. I'd ever been there so I didn't know what to miss. But after living there, after experiencing the difference between real grass and colony grass, real breeze and ventilated areas, bird song and mechanical gears- it was hard staying stuck someplace so confining. Heero though...

Heero loved order. He loved everything to be in the right places, loved everything he did to have a pattern and a schedule. I had never once heard him complain about living on the colony or even agree with me on the rare occasions I was tired enough to actually voice a problem. As far as I knew, he loved colony life.

"Have they sold it yet?" Heero asked anxiously.

"I asked them to wait. The offer is still open." Quatre's glance wavered between us and I saw a flicker of fear and doubt there.

Heero sat back and little and I slipped my hand into his, reassuring him with a quick squeeze. Whatever he decided I knew I would follow. Both places were home for me, in different ways, and there was no way I could make a decision if it were being asked of me. Quatre and I shared a nervous look for a split second before Heero cleared his throat.

"When," he spoke carefully, "can we move in?"

If it took longer to work out a few details than it should have it was only because I couldn't sit still. When I'm really happy I fidget and get excited at every little thing. I think it was only the mercy of me leaving to go to the bathroom that Quatre and Heero managed to work anything out at all. But they did and Quatre called the people before we'd even left the restaurant.

On the way out, Hilde gave us all bear hugs and promised to keep in contact, apologizing for having to leave so quickly. Sally gave Quatre and I a knowing glance before she turned to interrupt Wu Fei and Heero to ask if Wu Fei would like to follow her to the mall before they left for the evening or if he'd prefer to stay and talk for a bit. Of course that wasn't much of a choice for Wu Fei and Sally knew it. Quatre gave her a grateful look as she walked away, silently thanking her for giving us five boys a chance at alone.

It was as we were standing there, watching her leave and letting people pass us by as they entered and left the restaurant that I realized perhaps the most important thing the day had to offer- we really were a world apart. Even amongst friends, even with Hilde and Noin, Sally and Relena, Milliardo and Treize… The five of us were alone. Even though the world had forgotten who we were and remembered only what we'd done, we would never be allowed to dissolve into the normal world like the others.

We can't leave the past behind like they can.

We can't ever forget.

We can't ever be normal.

We can have normal jobs and live in normal places. We can have normal friends and normal pets, eat normal food in normal restaurants and do normal things like shopping afterwards but… we will always be separate. Different.

As exiled from normality as we have been made, though, it is that very same difference that binds us closer. No matter what, no matter where we go or what we do or who we meet along the way we will always have one another. I will always be able to pick up a phone and call them, regardless of the hour or place, and know that if I ask there will be help. There will be someone to lean on, someone to share hopes with, someone on the other end that knows. That understands.

It's been over eight years since we stepped into those gundams and spiraled down to Earth, shattering Operation Meteor at its root and beginning a three year long war that irrevocably brought together five young boys. We battled ourselves deeper and deeper into a war none of us wanted for people who changed their alliances almost daily. We'd been caged, beaten, tortured, and released and in the end we had come out of the fight bruised and broken, but alive.

Now it was over. I could stand there, outside that cheesy restaurant, watching the sun set with my three best mates in all the world and the one boy I loved more than anything… and I knew the world was finally where it was supposed to be.

It's just a couple of hours now, until our shuttle leaves. Heero has just managed to wrestle the tennis ball from Loki and is sitting here with me, watching me write. I'm pretty sure he can read it, even upside down, but I was going to let him read anyhow. It's not like it's anything he doesn't know, right? He's insisting that we have to go, to get to the shuttle on time. After all, customs takes forever because people are so lazy getting us through. I can't help but smile at that. He's so excited about moving back to Earth.

Secretly? So am I.

It feels like the final page of a story. Like I can finally put down the worst chapters of my life and start something new. Something better. I've been through a lot in my life- some of it was good, most of it was bad but… I mean everything I've done and survived sort of adds up to who I am and at the end… I think that alone makes it worth living through the storm.


/For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable

But in the end there's right

I hope you had the time of your life…/


/End Chapter Twenty Nine, Through the Storm/


/End Through the Storm/


Notes:

Well, that's it, finally. I hope you've enjoyed the ride, I know I had a lot of fun writing this. For anyone who cares the official disclaimer with citations for the lyrics used in the story is going to be posted directly after this chapter (it got a little long to add to the end of a chapter). Thanks for sticking with this to the end!

For anyone who is interested, I am signed up to do Beta reading.