Disclaimer: This one's boring - I don't own Gundam.
AN - Somehow (I don't know how, must be my switching computers in the lab all the time) I skipped this part when posting "The Lost Girl". So this goes in between parts 9 and 10. ::shrug:: Did that cause confusion? I'll re-number and re-post eventually Sorry!! :O
The Lost Girl
Part 9b
I didn't know how I managed to land. I didn't even really remember it.
I remembered seeing the Gundams, from high above, and seeing their pilots, standing in a circle, getting closer, and closer
"Alison!" Quatre's voice was high and worried - he scrambled into the cockpit and began working the buckles that held me in.
I just hung my head and let him work.
"Alison, what happened to you? Are you all right?!"
Suddenly all I could see was his green eyes, boring right into mine, worried, scared. His hands were gripping my shoulders so hard it hurt.
"I oh God, Quatre - I killed someone! I killed three people! I killed them!" I suddenly sobbed, unable to remain silent any longer, and he grabbed me in a tight hug.
"Shhh it's okay, Alison. It's all right," he whispered, but I didn't know if I believed him. I didn't care if Heero killed me now - I deserved it.
I wasn't supposed to kill people.
My ribs hurt terribly from the wracking sobs, and I was beginning to get lightheaded and hot all at the same time. Quatre was still clinging to me fiercely, as if he were afraid that I might do something terrible if he let go.
Maybe he wasn't wrong.
Slowly, though, other sounds began to wash over me.
Other voices. Wufei's voice.
"That baka woman can't believe she's so torn up over killing a few OZ bastards"
Quatre suddenly released me and turned around; now I could see the other three pilots standing nearby, glancing up at the cockpit. Heero looked impassive. Trowa looked a bit worried, but like he was trying to hide it.
Wufei just looked pissed.
"Wufei, shut up! She's our mechanic! She's not the one piloting - she's not the one killing!"
"But she knows how to use a gun. And she knows how to fix our suits - killing machines."
"That's different!" Quatre insisted angrily.
I knew it was, but it also wasn't. If I had been their mechanic, I had been helping them kill, I reasoned.
The tears were beginning to lessen, though, and something else was taking over. The need to go on. I had to get over this - at least for now - because I still wasn't done yet. I still needed to save Duo from that hell, and I couldn't think about anything else until that was done.
If I deserved to die for killing people, it would have to wait. If I was going to tear myself up over it - and I knew I was - it would have to wait. Because Duo couldn't.
Push it down, I thought, and it won't bother me. At least, not for a little while.
I got the feeling that was what they did, these five boys, more often than not. It worked for them
Maybe it would work for me.
Push it down.
"Quatre" I said softly.
He turned back around. "Are you gonna be all right?" he asked softly.
"I don't know," I answered truthfully, sliding around him and out of the cockpit, landing clumsily on my feet, trying to ignore my burning side. "But I have to be for now. We have to find Duo."
Wufei muttered something under his breath. "Traitor."
But I was at the breaking point.
I'd just killed men - three men - to get out of a base so I could help them get themselves to safety. So they could help their friend get to safety. My friend. Duo.
"Just shut up, Wufei!" I screamed, and he even looked almost taken aback. "I'm not a traitor, and Duo sure as hell isn't one! We're going to get him out of wherever he is, because we have to! He's your friend! He's my friend! So you're going to help! I just *killed people* over this, dammit!"
There was silence for a long minute.
"She's right," Trowa finally said. "It does us no good to stand here and bicker. We have to find Duo."
"Why?! Why not just leave him to rot, if he is a traitor?" Wufei asked, eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me you *believe* this - "
"I do. But that's not the point," Trowa said evenly, but firmly, so that Wufei didn't interrupt as he went on. "But if you don't believe that, look at it this way. If OZ has Duo, they have two things we can't afford for them to have. One of our Gundams, and one of our pilots. Like Quatre said - we can deal with anything else later, if you still feel there's something to deal with. But if this is the motivation you need, I'm giving it to you. Do you want OZ to have a Gundam? *And* its pilot?"
Wufei stood there, looking at Trowa with fierce, angry eyes, and I could tell he couldn't come up with a reasonable argument for that.
It almost made me feel better when he finally growled, "Fine."
"Heero?" Trowa turned to the brunette pilot, who hadn't said a thing, at least not that I'd heard.
"Let's get him. Then we can discuss this," he said, but there was something in his eyes something human.
Friendship? Loyalty?
Something.
"Good," Quatre said, taking my hand and leading me over towards his mobile suit. "Why don't we all get some sleep and discuss our plans in the morning." He didn't end it as a question - he ended it as a statement.
At first, I'd gotten the impression that Heero was in charge.
But no - now, I realized, it was Quatre. He was rational, but with a touch of compassion in his logistic reasoning. He was a leader, and they were obviously listening to him, even if no one had ever actually said so.
"What?" I asked, but he just let go of my hand once we'd reached the suit and waved a hand at a nearby rock, motioning for me to sit.
I did so, stiffly. My side
He went over to one of the side panels in the leg, and pulled out a metal box, bringing it back over to where I sat.
He opened it, and took something out, handing it to me.
Pills. I looked at my palm.
"You look like you're in pain," he said softly. "Those'll help a little."
" Thanks, Quatre," I said weakly, then swallowed them dry.
"I've got some extra blankets you can use," he said, then pulled something else out of the box. A roll of medical tape.
"You look like you need this, too," he said.
I blinked, confused, and he pointed to my shirt. Around the middle, in a neat band, the white shirt Sally had given me had become rusty brown with dried blood. My previous bandages must not have been holding up
"Yeah. It was beginning to hurt a lot thanks," I muttered again.
"I know you miss him," he said softly, suddenly getting up. But it was only to pull a few wool blankets from another compartment. He brought them over and handed two of them to me.
"I it's my fault, Quatre. If I hadn't been there - "
"But you were. It's no use thinking about what might have been," he said. "So don't agonize over it. What's done is done. Now we'll fix it, all right?"
I looked up to see him smiling, a smile that reached up to his eyes.
He meant so well, and I was grateful beyond words for his freely given friendship.
"Quatre Thanks." I reached out and gave him a quick hug, in thanks, and then headed off to find some privacy so I could change my bandages.
When I came back, Wufei was sitting by Shenlong, polishing a katana, Trowa was sleeping near Heavyarms, and Heero was sitting with his back to a tree, playing absently with a handgun, spinning it around his index finger while looking out at the trees, eyes slightly unfocused but still sharp and aware.
Quatre had laid a blanket on the ground, and was snuggled beneath a second one, curled up like a little boy. It almost made me want to laugh. I set my own blankets on the ground, and crawled beneath them. My side was sore from the change of bandages, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to sleep.
I just wanted all the horrible images to leave my mind. Duo. Binns grinning. The dead men.
I closed my eyes, not seeing black, but seeing Duo's blue eyes, staring at me, asking me silently why I wasn't there to help him.
I was trying.