Chapter 5
"Lady Une, where's Preventer Sally Po?", Mariemeiya tugged on her foster mother's
sleeve. When she received no answer, the little child tugged harder.
It was then the drop of water landed on Treize's daughter's hand. It could've been
anything: dew from the morning, one of the many drops of drizzle that was falling. It was
quite a harmless drop of water, actually, but Mariemeiya gasped when she saw it. She
realized the Lady was crying. Mariemeiya herself hadn't cried in many years, but the tear
changed everything.
She knew that Preventer Sally Po was dead. The answer to her question, in a distant
and indistinct way, she had known the answer.
Not convinced wholly, Mariemeiya used the tone of voice that signified she wanted
something. "Lady Une, Sally Po has left the ranks of the Preventer institution, hasn't she?"
The Lady looked down with tear - stained eyes, and answered, "Yes. Preventer Sally
has left. Do you know why we're here, in the rain today, Mariemeiya?"
Mariemeiya shook her still - short red hair until it flopped down uselessly on her
wet head. "No. Is it a ceremony to commemorate her? For what she's done?"
Lady Une tried to smile at her little girl, but all she ended up doing was getting
tears mixed up with the windy rain that splattered all over her short uniformed dress. "Yes.
Of course, you're right, Mariemeiya. She has left us in physical comparison, but she will
never leave up spiritually. Sally Po will live on in our hearts, our history, our very
beings forever. She's on so many records, so many information packets, so many minds of
scholars around the world, that she will live on forever in everyone's hearts."
Mariemeiya took a moment to ponder this. "Will I be the same? Will you also live
in the hearts of many people forever? Will we be like Sally?"
The Lady dried her eyes and looked down. "Perhaps, if we try hard enough, we can.
But we must try first."
* * *
Trowa looked up from his book and glanced at the rapidly approaching figure of Wufei.
"Here comes trouble, minna."
Duo looked up from the apple that was rapidly diminishing in his mouth. "So what?
It's just Wufei. He's not going to hurt us. He's probably going to ramble on about
justice, honor, glory, yadda, yadda, yadda. What's the point, when we won't even turn a
head at that?"
Heero turned to stare at his friend. "Duo, I wouldn't be too sure of that. Wufei
looks like he's in a pretty bad temper right now. Though I agree on the fact that we don't
turn a head at his so - called 'justice ramblings', he looks fit to kill right now. Be
careful around him, Duo. Don't say anything to offend him; Sally just died, and I bet he
thinks it's his fault that she's dead. Of course, it's not, but still...be careful, he's in
a perilous mood right now."
"Why should I listen to you?", Duo glared a little at the L1 pilot, but heeded his
words and sat back down between the 2 roots of the apple tree, still eating the apple. By
this time, Wufei was already in earshot, and was approaching Duo fast.
Wufei shook a finger at Duo's hand that was still holding a half - eaten apple.
"Look at everyone around here! You are the only one who doesn't seem to care about Quatre
right now. Look at Trowa and Heero; at least they're doing something productive, while you
sit here, idling your time away eating a stupid apple! There is no justice in this; try
doing something to help someone else for once and not only think of yourself, Maxwell! You
act like a weak woman!"
Duo's temper flared. Before Heero or Trowa could react, he had thrown his apple in
the dirt and had Wufei's shirt collar in a tight grip above his hand. In a warning voice,
he growled, "Do you want me to punch you, or to kill you? You have the choice."
Wufei couldn't seem to get out of the situation. "Dying seems like the better
option here. At least when I'm dead, I can get away from insolent freaks such as you,
Maxwell."
Duo switched his hold to Wufei's neck, but didn't attempt to do anything. "Give me
the reason, Wufei, and I swear, omae o korosu!"
Wufei started to laugh, but Duo's hand had his throat, and he couldn't even breathe.
"Go ahead and kill me. Poor Quatre, he must be rolling in his grave right now, because he
can't be here to stop us from fighting."
Both Heero and Trowa started to get up, but a dangerous look from Duo's eyes that
they'd never seen before stopped them.
"Don't bring Quatre into this, Wufei! If you're so riled about Quatre, why did you
just say he's 'rolling in his grave'? You don't even know if he's dead or not, yet, so you
just shut your damn mouth up! And just before, you said that I should go save him."
Wufei chortled, almost happily, at the hand that was increasing his spirit towards
the gate of Death. "Death, come and claim me now, away from this wretched world that was my
haven, but now, I have found that it is my nightmare. Every day here means an even closer
road to death. Kill me, Duo, I have no regrets, now. As for Quatre, his existence has
meaning, but it doesn't have enough to persuade me to live."
"Really?", said a voice from the other side of the hill. "My words mean nothing to
you? Wufei, I'd thought you'd have more sense than to die, because there is not anything
more precious than life!"
Duo turned his head, and at that moment, he dropped Wufei, who crumpled to the
ground in a heap. He ruefully rubbed his neck, but he also stared at the brow of the hill,
on the other side of the apple tree.
The figure was illuminated against the sunset, marred by dispersing rain clouds.
From the silhouette, the 4 others could see that it was indeed Quatre.
"Quatre!", Duo ran right back the hill in shock and amazement, and saw he was
holding a figure, seemingly lifeless in his arms. He took the girl, put her on the ground
(not even bothering to see who it was) and threw his arms around Quatre's neck. "You came
back! Without a scratch! Why? How'd you get out of that place?"
Quatre smiled as he was pressed against Duo's black priest collar, and he
tentatively hugged his friend back. "I'll tell you back at the fort. Where's the other 3?"
He didn't need an answer, for Wufei, Heero, and Trowa were coming up the hill to
meet their seeming lost comrade. Trowa patted Quatre's shoulder, but as usual, Heero did
nothing but stop a few feet away and watch. Wufei did the same.
Quatre walked up the Wufei and looked firmly at the Chinese. "You know, as I said
before, there is nothing more precious with life. In death, you can only look on what you
could've become, but you can't do anything about it. But in life, you can do whatever you
want. You can make your dreams a reality, and with that, you become the greatest you can be.
Do not wish to die, because the more you wish for it, the sooner it will come, and if it
comes, the person that was Wufei will become nothing but a whisper in the winds, because you
did not become all you can become."
Wufei looked down guiltily, but Quatre smiled in comfort for his friend and steered
him with one hand back to the gate to the garden. "Let's all go back to the mess hall, and
catch something to eat. I'm starving." He picked up the girl again and they all proceeded
towards the main building.
The apple core lay forgotten between the 2 roots of the apple tree.
* * *
Everyone was crowded around something/someone when Lady Une returned to the mess
hall after attending Sally's funeral. The sound level hit her ears the moment she entered
the auditorium. "Quiet!", she yelled, but no one heard her. Mariemeiya somehow got her
hands on a megaphone and handed it to her mother. "Here. Try this."
Lady Une fiddled with the switches for a moment, then said, "Quiet, minna. If you
aren't going to eat, then go back to your chambers."
The megaphone projection worked. The hall was silenced and Lady Une was astounded
to see that it had been Quatre that everyone had been crowded around. She hurried over with
her daughter (who conveniently sat herself on Quatre's lap) and absentmindedly squeezed his
shoulders. "When did you get out?"
Quatre beamed. "They were either sleeping at noon or they purposefully unlocked all
the doors, including the main double doors, or I was very, very lucky."
Heero frowned. "Why'd you bring Dorothy back? She's a member of the Conquistadors,
you know."
Quatre shook his blonde head earnestly. "No, not at all! Dorothy somehow has been
doubled; the Dorothy we saw at the attack wasn't the real Dorothy. This is; look at the
burn on her left hand."
Everyone looked on as Heero turned over the left hand. There was indeed a burn, a
serious one. Heero nodded, believing Dorothy's story. Everyone with the exception of the
Gboys and Noin were nonplused; what attack?
Duo glanced around at the confused faces and explained, "We were attacked by a
battalion led by an impostor Dorothy Catalonia, and that's how I got the bruises, cuts,
whatever. This is the real Dorothy, so no need to kill her."
There was silence for a moment, then Lady Une and Noin spoke up together, "Well,
what are you going to do with her Quatre, kiss her? Put her in one of the spare rooms."
"When I have time", Noin told him, "I'll install a monitor so you can see her lovely face at
all times. Who knows, we might even catch you kissing the monitor someday."
Quatre blushed a million shades of red. In a low, bashful voice, he said, "'m not
in love with her."
Someone started to yell, "Quatre's in love with Dorothy! Quatre's in love with
Dorothy!" Soon everyone joined in, and Quatre ducked his head down over the table in
embarrassment. He happened to look down at Dorothy's head in his lap, and realized the blue
eyes were open. Yelping, he got up, and deposited Dorothy ungainly on the bench, almost
sliding her off. She rubbed her head and rearranged her headband. When she was done, she
looked at Quatre questioningly.
Quatre, still blushing profusely, stuttered, "G - go - gomen nasai!", then hurried
off to his room. The room burst into laughter, and amidst that laughter, Dorothy asked one
person after another, "Oi! What are you laughing about? What's so funny?"
* * *
"Sir, what will we do with the girl?", a soldier bowed in respect to the leader and
backed away a few steps after asking.
The man turned his chair around. The soldier couldn't see the face, but anyone
could recognize the voice, the voice that pronounced certain doom for whoever crossed his
path. "What do you think we should do with her, soldier? Maybe we should become cannibals
and eat her. Or maybe throw her out into space, without an oxygen mask", he gestured out
the window of the space ship. "Or, perhaps, we should torture her for information."
The soldier's throat gulped down slightly when the man rubbed his hands gleefully at
the thought of torture. Just be glad it's not you, he told himself. I may be a coward,
but at least I'm still a living coward, and not a dead one.
"Or, maybe, we should put your physical self to the test, and let you be the one
who's tortured for unsubordinance, since you answered none of my questions, soldier. Would
you prefer that? Or would you like the little girl to be tortured?", the man leaned
forward, and now the soldier could see glistening, white teeth, like the ones of a shark.
He stuttered a faint "Uh...uh...torture her, not me!", bowed, and left the room as fast as
he could.
* * *
Duo climbed slowly up the ladder, and opened the trapdoor to the roof. He stopped
to savor the soft but chilly breeze that blew in from the small crack that he had made.
Then he continue to slide the trapdoor against the roof, grating it against the metal tiles.
Once there was a big enough gap, he scampered up the last few rungs, and let the breeze play
with his meter - long braid. Stepping onto the roof, he paused and looked around, and
spotted Heero sitting with his hands around his knees.
The L2 pilot plopped down beside him, and flipped the braid over his shoulder in a
girlish manner. "Yo, there, man. What's the matter? Thinking about your girlfriend,
Relena?"
Duo cringed and waited for the punishing blow to come, but nothing happened. Heero
continued to stare out into space, never moving, except for the steady flow of air into his
nose and the blink that came once in a while. But other than that, Heero didn't even seem
affected by Duo's insult.
Dazed that he had gotten out of the mess effectively, he waved a hand in front of
his friend's face. "Oi! Anyone in there? Are you on Planet Relena? Or on Planet Daydream
Land? Are they the same planet? Hey, answer me, will ya, Heero! Ohayo! Earth to Heero?"
As he was waving, Heero caught the hand and proceeded to stuff it right in Duo's
mouth. After doing so, he got up and moved to another portion of the vast roof.
Duo was enraged. "Oi! What's the big idea, Heero?"
"Shut up. I'm thinking."
"Well, I think too, so look who's talking!"
"You think about unnecessary stuff. At least I'm thinking of something productive."
"Use your head a little more, and open your stupid eyes, Heero!"
The cobalt eyes turned to face Duo's, and Heero said (in his monotone voice), "Same
to you. Did you not hear me? I said, shut up."
Duo groaned in ecstasy, and sat down beside Heero again, farther away than last
time, lest Heero commence a sneak attack.
After a little while, Duo couldn't take the silence anymore, and asked, "What'cha
thinkin' about, Heero?"
The Japanese was silent for a minute, but Duo waited patiently. Finally he answered,
"The enemy. How we can put out his fire without hurting people, and sacrificing valuable
lives like Sally Po's. We must stop this fire, but now without more power. The Gundams
have been destroyed...it would take too much time to rebuild them, but still...the Doctors
are working on restoring them already, but that's going to take a long time, and I think the
Conquistadors know what we're planning. We can't determine their next step, but we must
prepare for it. I've broken my promise already. My promise to Relena, when I pretended to
kill Mariemeiya."
Duo was puzzled. "What promise?"
Heero's look waned. "I promised that I wouldn't have to hurt anyone ever again.
I've broken that promise. There's no way around it. I thought we wouldn't have to use
mobile suits anymore, but it looks like we weren't able to self - detonate all of them.
That's bad, because now the enemy has mobile suits and we don't. We only have shuttles and
patterns and blueprints of Aries, Serpents, Gundams, whatever. But we don't stand a chance
now."
Duo looked down at the ground below, a few floors away. "You know, I could just
jump, and so could you, right now, but that'd be betraying the will of Quatre and countless
others. So I won't do it. Plus, Hilde's promise is going to haunt me in the depths of
Reikai too, so that's 2 against 1. Why don't you do it? Hurting yourself doesn't count for
hurting others, does it?"
Heero turned to look at Duo. "I said I wouldn't hurt anyone ever again. The word
'anyone' includes myself. And I wouldn't kill myself anyway; there's too much trouble going
on. If I wanted to commit suicide, I'd do it after all the trouble's over. I'm not going
to, though. Your statement has merit; it'd be going against Quatre's beliefs. That's a bad
thing to do, especially because you're one of his friends."
Duo looked confused. "I'm his friend? Aren't you his friend too? You know, we've
gotten to know each other so well, I'm sorry that you don't think you're his friend. We'd
die for each other, if the chance arises, I think. At least I would."
Heero's insides squirmed guiltily. "I don't have friends. The friend I had once
died because of me, and I won't let that happen to another person I called a friend. I just
cause trouble to those around me, that's all. That's why. I'm a trouble child."
Duo glanced sharply at the figure next to him. "I am, too."
"You are?", Heero looked up at Duo.
"Yeah, I bring waste to all that I know. Happens too many times to count, already.
Sister Helen, Father Maxwell, Solo, everyone in my gang, all gone because of me. Everyone
got adopted but me. I just remained the child of the church. I was never adopted. I asked
the Father and Sister why, and they said because the person who will love me hasn't come yet.
I'm starting to think that person will never come. I've been alone all this time, and still,
no one has claimed me. Hey, at least you had Lowe as a kind of a father. I had no one. I
can't even count the Father and Sister as my parents, although I wished they were. They
were the only ones who really cared about me."
Heero was surprised, just as Duo was. "So, you never had a family too? Seems like
the only ones who don't remember our parents are us 2."
The L2 pilot nodded vaguely, lost in his own thoughts of bad memories. He stared at
the moon, interrupted only by one question from Heero.
"Why do you come up here every night to look at the moon?"
Duo started at that question, but answered it anyway. "Sister Helen used to show it
to me in the bedroom the kids lived in. It would stream though the window, and right onto
my pillow. The other children were asleep, but I was always the last to sleep, because the
moonlight always shone right in my face. It was annoying, but I got used to it."
"And still, to this day, you look at the moon."
"Yes", Duo sighed regretfully. "I look at it, to remind me of the days when I was
the happiest, when I was still untainted by the war. And to contemplate the giant mistake I
made in order to save the Maxwell Church. I still can't seem to forgive myself, though,
even after all these years."
Heero said nothing to reply to this comment. He knew very well what happened in the
Maxwell Church Incident, when the soldiers accused the Church of stealing a mobile suit, and
Duo went to get the mobile suit in order to keep his Church alive. When he got back with
the suit, the Church was gone and Sister Helen told Duo her last goodbye. He knew all this
from the news stories he had found on the Web, and the ramblings and ranting when Duo was
sleep - talking. Duo had further gone with an effort to kill himself, to blame himself for
killing the Church and its inhabitants. The suicide mission hadn't succeeded, and Duo came
out dazed but still alive. Quatre gave him a stern lecture on how precious life was, and
Duo stopped with the crazy suicide ideas.
The 2 stared at the moon together, in amiable silence, before Heero's watch rang
midnight and they soundlessly went inside the fortress one after the other.
* * *
A figure slipped between the bars of the fence, unnoticed by the petty, sleepy
guards on the top. A second later, 2 guards were dead, dragged under the bushes, and the
figure slipped inside the fortress, flipping back a seam of cloth from the loose turban he
wore to conceal his platinum - blonde hair. He slid the doors open, the door to the
resident corridor with a bit of oil. Unfortunately, the hinges still emitted a high squeak.
The man stopped to listen for approaching footsteps, and mentally cursed his
mistake. After a few minutes, he still heard nothing, and he crept further down the hall,
hugging the shadows. He stopped, every 2 doors or so, to listen for any sound. Silence
always proceeded these stops, and very soon he had reached the stairs to the second floor to
the sleeping quarters. Silently, he glided up the stairs and took a left, a map of the
corridors open in his mind.
Just a bit farther, he told himself mentally. Almost there. Hang on...
He stopped in front of a door labeled 205 in brilliant gold letters, and fumbled
with a tiny hairpin (it looked incomparably small in his palm), and with a click, the lock
opened. However, the man realized there was a password code box beside the door. He
thought for a moment, then punched in some numbers in a certain order. The stranger winced
when he heard the beep of each number being pushed. He punched in the last number, and
waited for the nonexistent someone to catch him red - handed, trying to break into someone's
room.
When it didn't come, he eased open the door, and peeked inside. After seeing there
were no sensors or alarms, he opened the door a little larger and stepped inside the
threshold.
The room was quite large, but it had little furnishing. Just a desk, a chair, a
rounded sofa set (complete with tea table), and a canopy bed. He almost tripped over a pair
of loose slippers in his haste to get to the bedside, and caught the bed just in time to
save his fall. He got up slowly, not to disturb the sleeper, and pulled away the material
of the canopy to see her better. He tilted her head up, and examined the face he knew so
well from years in the academy.
Rakey bangs curled down not quite to her chin, and her usually vibrant dark purple
eyes were now closed in peace and comfort of the bed underneath her. Her mouth was slightly
open, and eyebrows curved in, just a little, as if she was worrying about something. 2
hands sandwiched the pillow in between and brought it under her head. The moonlight
filtered through the other side's canopy cloth, and illuminated her hair, a black mop cut
boyishly short, hair reflecting a violet color. She was wearing a tank top and baggy, loose -
fitting sweatpants, the kind that people jog in.
Slowly, ever - so - slowly, he reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder and
shook it, as if he were afraid that his hand would shatter this vision of peace and
tranquillity. When she did not wake, he shook her shoulder again, a little harder this
time. Her eyebrows furrowed, and 2 eyes opened drearily.
"Huh? What?", Noin drawled a little, blinking from the brightness of the moonlight.
The man took his hand off her thin shoulder, and lifted the turban away from his
face and drew it back, like a hood of a cloak.
Suddenly Noin came awake. Her eyes snapped open, clearly taking in the scene before
her. Her mouth opened into a little gasp of noise, and she turned to get a better view of
his face.
It was unmistakably Zechs Merquise.
"Zechs! What are you doing here?", she half - yelped in her surprise.
The former Peacecraft clamped a large hand over her mouth and pressed a finger to
his lips. Only when Noin nodded did he let go. He bent low over Noin and put his lips to
her ear. The latter shivered from his closeness.
"Listen, Noin. We have to get out of here. Now."
Noin's eyes widened to their largest extent. "Why?", she whispered back into her
secret love's ear.
Zechs frowned. He answered her question. To her surprise, her dark eyes opened
wider.
"They're here. They're going to attack tonight. That's why I'm going to get you
out."
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
I know that Noin and Zechs were working together on the Mars Terraforming Project at
the end of Endless Waltz, but I put it here that Noin and Zechs were both working for
Preventers. Zechs *would* disappear on a regular basis, for his own personal needs. No
idea why. Just because it's that way. Sheesh, what am I rambling about? I'm the author of
this story but I don't even know why the characters' personalities are this way...
Andrea Weiling
"Lady Une, where's Preventer Sally Po?", Mariemeiya tugged on her foster mother's
sleeve. When she received no answer, the little child tugged harder.
It was then the drop of water landed on Treize's daughter's hand. It could've been
anything: dew from the morning, one of the many drops of drizzle that was falling. It was
quite a harmless drop of water, actually, but Mariemeiya gasped when she saw it. She
realized the Lady was crying. Mariemeiya herself hadn't cried in many years, but the tear
changed everything.
She knew that Preventer Sally Po was dead. The answer to her question, in a distant
and indistinct way, she had known the answer.
Not convinced wholly, Mariemeiya used the tone of voice that signified she wanted
something. "Lady Une, Sally Po has left the ranks of the Preventer institution, hasn't she?"
The Lady looked down with tear - stained eyes, and answered, "Yes. Preventer Sally
has left. Do you know why we're here, in the rain today, Mariemeiya?"
Mariemeiya shook her still - short red hair until it flopped down uselessly on her
wet head. "No. Is it a ceremony to commemorate her? For what she's done?"
Lady Une tried to smile at her little girl, but all she ended up doing was getting
tears mixed up with the windy rain that splattered all over her short uniformed dress. "Yes.
Of course, you're right, Mariemeiya. She has left us in physical comparison, but she will
never leave up spiritually. Sally Po will live on in our hearts, our history, our very
beings forever. She's on so many records, so many information packets, so many minds of
scholars around the world, that she will live on forever in everyone's hearts."
Mariemeiya took a moment to ponder this. "Will I be the same? Will you also live
in the hearts of many people forever? Will we be like Sally?"
The Lady dried her eyes and looked down. "Perhaps, if we try hard enough, we can.
But we must try first."
* * *
Trowa looked up from his book and glanced at the rapidly approaching figure of Wufei.
"Here comes trouble, minna."
Duo looked up from the apple that was rapidly diminishing in his mouth. "So what?
It's just Wufei. He's not going to hurt us. He's probably going to ramble on about
justice, honor, glory, yadda, yadda, yadda. What's the point, when we won't even turn a
head at that?"
Heero turned to stare at his friend. "Duo, I wouldn't be too sure of that. Wufei
looks like he's in a pretty bad temper right now. Though I agree on the fact that we don't
turn a head at his so - called 'justice ramblings', he looks fit to kill right now. Be
careful around him, Duo. Don't say anything to offend him; Sally just died, and I bet he
thinks it's his fault that she's dead. Of course, it's not, but still...be careful, he's in
a perilous mood right now."
"Why should I listen to you?", Duo glared a little at the L1 pilot, but heeded his
words and sat back down between the 2 roots of the apple tree, still eating the apple. By
this time, Wufei was already in earshot, and was approaching Duo fast.
Wufei shook a finger at Duo's hand that was still holding a half - eaten apple.
"Look at everyone around here! You are the only one who doesn't seem to care about Quatre
right now. Look at Trowa and Heero; at least they're doing something productive, while you
sit here, idling your time away eating a stupid apple! There is no justice in this; try
doing something to help someone else for once and not only think of yourself, Maxwell! You
act like a weak woman!"
Duo's temper flared. Before Heero or Trowa could react, he had thrown his apple in
the dirt and had Wufei's shirt collar in a tight grip above his hand. In a warning voice,
he growled, "Do you want me to punch you, or to kill you? You have the choice."
Wufei couldn't seem to get out of the situation. "Dying seems like the better
option here. At least when I'm dead, I can get away from insolent freaks such as you,
Maxwell."
Duo switched his hold to Wufei's neck, but didn't attempt to do anything. "Give me
the reason, Wufei, and I swear, omae o korosu!"
Wufei started to laugh, but Duo's hand had his throat, and he couldn't even breathe.
"Go ahead and kill me. Poor Quatre, he must be rolling in his grave right now, because he
can't be here to stop us from fighting."
Both Heero and Trowa started to get up, but a dangerous look from Duo's eyes that
they'd never seen before stopped them.
"Don't bring Quatre into this, Wufei! If you're so riled about Quatre, why did you
just say he's 'rolling in his grave'? You don't even know if he's dead or not, yet, so you
just shut your damn mouth up! And just before, you said that I should go save him."
Wufei chortled, almost happily, at the hand that was increasing his spirit towards
the gate of Death. "Death, come and claim me now, away from this wretched world that was my
haven, but now, I have found that it is my nightmare. Every day here means an even closer
road to death. Kill me, Duo, I have no regrets, now. As for Quatre, his existence has
meaning, but it doesn't have enough to persuade me to live."
"Really?", said a voice from the other side of the hill. "My words mean nothing to
you? Wufei, I'd thought you'd have more sense than to die, because there is not anything
more precious than life!"
Duo turned his head, and at that moment, he dropped Wufei, who crumpled to the
ground in a heap. He ruefully rubbed his neck, but he also stared at the brow of the hill,
on the other side of the apple tree.
The figure was illuminated against the sunset, marred by dispersing rain clouds.
From the silhouette, the 4 others could see that it was indeed Quatre.
"Quatre!", Duo ran right back the hill in shock and amazement, and saw he was
holding a figure, seemingly lifeless in his arms. He took the girl, put her on the ground
(not even bothering to see who it was) and threw his arms around Quatre's neck. "You came
back! Without a scratch! Why? How'd you get out of that place?"
Quatre smiled as he was pressed against Duo's black priest collar, and he
tentatively hugged his friend back. "I'll tell you back at the fort. Where's the other 3?"
He didn't need an answer, for Wufei, Heero, and Trowa were coming up the hill to
meet their seeming lost comrade. Trowa patted Quatre's shoulder, but as usual, Heero did
nothing but stop a few feet away and watch. Wufei did the same.
Quatre walked up the Wufei and looked firmly at the Chinese. "You know, as I said
before, there is nothing more precious with life. In death, you can only look on what you
could've become, but you can't do anything about it. But in life, you can do whatever you
want. You can make your dreams a reality, and with that, you become the greatest you can be.
Do not wish to die, because the more you wish for it, the sooner it will come, and if it
comes, the person that was Wufei will become nothing but a whisper in the winds, because you
did not become all you can become."
Wufei looked down guiltily, but Quatre smiled in comfort for his friend and steered
him with one hand back to the gate to the garden. "Let's all go back to the mess hall, and
catch something to eat. I'm starving." He picked up the girl again and they all proceeded
towards the main building.
The apple core lay forgotten between the 2 roots of the apple tree.
* * *
Everyone was crowded around something/someone when Lady Une returned to the mess
hall after attending Sally's funeral. The sound level hit her ears the moment she entered
the auditorium. "Quiet!", she yelled, but no one heard her. Mariemeiya somehow got her
hands on a megaphone and handed it to her mother. "Here. Try this."
Lady Une fiddled with the switches for a moment, then said, "Quiet, minna. If you
aren't going to eat, then go back to your chambers."
The megaphone projection worked. The hall was silenced and Lady Une was astounded
to see that it had been Quatre that everyone had been crowded around. She hurried over with
her daughter (who conveniently sat herself on Quatre's lap) and absentmindedly squeezed his
shoulders. "When did you get out?"
Quatre beamed. "They were either sleeping at noon or they purposefully unlocked all
the doors, including the main double doors, or I was very, very lucky."
Heero frowned. "Why'd you bring Dorothy back? She's a member of the Conquistadors,
you know."
Quatre shook his blonde head earnestly. "No, not at all! Dorothy somehow has been
doubled; the Dorothy we saw at the attack wasn't the real Dorothy. This is; look at the
burn on her left hand."
Everyone looked on as Heero turned over the left hand. There was indeed a burn, a
serious one. Heero nodded, believing Dorothy's story. Everyone with the exception of the
Gboys and Noin were nonplused; what attack?
Duo glanced around at the confused faces and explained, "We were attacked by a
battalion led by an impostor Dorothy Catalonia, and that's how I got the bruises, cuts,
whatever. This is the real Dorothy, so no need to kill her."
There was silence for a moment, then Lady Une and Noin spoke up together, "Well,
what are you going to do with her Quatre, kiss her? Put her in one of the spare rooms."
"When I have time", Noin told him, "I'll install a monitor so you can see her lovely face at
all times. Who knows, we might even catch you kissing the monitor someday."
Quatre blushed a million shades of red. In a low, bashful voice, he said, "'m not
in love with her."
Someone started to yell, "Quatre's in love with Dorothy! Quatre's in love with
Dorothy!" Soon everyone joined in, and Quatre ducked his head down over the table in
embarrassment. He happened to look down at Dorothy's head in his lap, and realized the blue
eyes were open. Yelping, he got up, and deposited Dorothy ungainly on the bench, almost
sliding her off. She rubbed her head and rearranged her headband. When she was done, she
looked at Quatre questioningly.
Quatre, still blushing profusely, stuttered, "G - go - gomen nasai!", then hurried
off to his room. The room burst into laughter, and amidst that laughter, Dorothy asked one
person after another, "Oi! What are you laughing about? What's so funny?"
* * *
"Sir, what will we do with the girl?", a soldier bowed in respect to the leader and
backed away a few steps after asking.
The man turned his chair around. The soldier couldn't see the face, but anyone
could recognize the voice, the voice that pronounced certain doom for whoever crossed his
path. "What do you think we should do with her, soldier? Maybe we should become cannibals
and eat her. Or maybe throw her out into space, without an oxygen mask", he gestured out
the window of the space ship. "Or, perhaps, we should torture her for information."
The soldier's throat gulped down slightly when the man rubbed his hands gleefully at
the thought of torture. Just be glad it's not you, he told himself. I may be a coward,
but at least I'm still a living coward, and not a dead one.
"Or, maybe, we should put your physical self to the test, and let you be the one
who's tortured for unsubordinance, since you answered none of my questions, soldier. Would
you prefer that? Or would you like the little girl to be tortured?", the man leaned
forward, and now the soldier could see glistening, white teeth, like the ones of a shark.
He stuttered a faint "Uh...uh...torture her, not me!", bowed, and left the room as fast as
he could.
* * *
Duo climbed slowly up the ladder, and opened the trapdoor to the roof. He stopped
to savor the soft but chilly breeze that blew in from the small crack that he had made.
Then he continue to slide the trapdoor against the roof, grating it against the metal tiles.
Once there was a big enough gap, he scampered up the last few rungs, and let the breeze play
with his meter - long braid. Stepping onto the roof, he paused and looked around, and
spotted Heero sitting with his hands around his knees.
The L2 pilot plopped down beside him, and flipped the braid over his shoulder in a
girlish manner. "Yo, there, man. What's the matter? Thinking about your girlfriend,
Relena?"
Duo cringed and waited for the punishing blow to come, but nothing happened. Heero
continued to stare out into space, never moving, except for the steady flow of air into his
nose and the blink that came once in a while. But other than that, Heero didn't even seem
affected by Duo's insult.
Dazed that he had gotten out of the mess effectively, he waved a hand in front of
his friend's face. "Oi! Anyone in there? Are you on Planet Relena? Or on Planet Daydream
Land? Are they the same planet? Hey, answer me, will ya, Heero! Ohayo! Earth to Heero?"
As he was waving, Heero caught the hand and proceeded to stuff it right in Duo's
mouth. After doing so, he got up and moved to another portion of the vast roof.
Duo was enraged. "Oi! What's the big idea, Heero?"
"Shut up. I'm thinking."
"Well, I think too, so look who's talking!"
"You think about unnecessary stuff. At least I'm thinking of something productive."
"Use your head a little more, and open your stupid eyes, Heero!"
The cobalt eyes turned to face Duo's, and Heero said (in his monotone voice), "Same
to you. Did you not hear me? I said, shut up."
Duo groaned in ecstasy, and sat down beside Heero again, farther away than last
time, lest Heero commence a sneak attack.
After a little while, Duo couldn't take the silence anymore, and asked, "What'cha
thinkin' about, Heero?"
The Japanese was silent for a minute, but Duo waited patiently. Finally he answered,
"The enemy. How we can put out his fire without hurting people, and sacrificing valuable
lives like Sally Po's. We must stop this fire, but now without more power. The Gundams
have been destroyed...it would take too much time to rebuild them, but still...the Doctors
are working on restoring them already, but that's going to take a long time, and I think the
Conquistadors know what we're planning. We can't determine their next step, but we must
prepare for it. I've broken my promise already. My promise to Relena, when I pretended to
kill Mariemeiya."
Duo was puzzled. "What promise?"
Heero's look waned. "I promised that I wouldn't have to hurt anyone ever again.
I've broken that promise. There's no way around it. I thought we wouldn't have to use
mobile suits anymore, but it looks like we weren't able to self - detonate all of them.
That's bad, because now the enemy has mobile suits and we don't. We only have shuttles and
patterns and blueprints of Aries, Serpents, Gundams, whatever. But we don't stand a chance
now."
Duo looked down at the ground below, a few floors away. "You know, I could just
jump, and so could you, right now, but that'd be betraying the will of Quatre and countless
others. So I won't do it. Plus, Hilde's promise is going to haunt me in the depths of
Reikai too, so that's 2 against 1. Why don't you do it? Hurting yourself doesn't count for
hurting others, does it?"
Heero turned to look at Duo. "I said I wouldn't hurt anyone ever again. The word
'anyone' includes myself. And I wouldn't kill myself anyway; there's too much trouble going
on. If I wanted to commit suicide, I'd do it after all the trouble's over. I'm not going
to, though. Your statement has merit; it'd be going against Quatre's beliefs. That's a bad
thing to do, especially because you're one of his friends."
Duo looked confused. "I'm his friend? Aren't you his friend too? You know, we've
gotten to know each other so well, I'm sorry that you don't think you're his friend. We'd
die for each other, if the chance arises, I think. At least I would."
Heero's insides squirmed guiltily. "I don't have friends. The friend I had once
died because of me, and I won't let that happen to another person I called a friend. I just
cause trouble to those around me, that's all. That's why. I'm a trouble child."
Duo glanced sharply at the figure next to him. "I am, too."
"You are?", Heero looked up at Duo.
"Yeah, I bring waste to all that I know. Happens too many times to count, already.
Sister Helen, Father Maxwell, Solo, everyone in my gang, all gone because of me. Everyone
got adopted but me. I just remained the child of the church. I was never adopted. I asked
the Father and Sister why, and they said because the person who will love me hasn't come yet.
I'm starting to think that person will never come. I've been alone all this time, and still,
no one has claimed me. Hey, at least you had Lowe as a kind of a father. I had no one. I
can't even count the Father and Sister as my parents, although I wished they were. They
were the only ones who really cared about me."
Heero was surprised, just as Duo was. "So, you never had a family too? Seems like
the only ones who don't remember our parents are us 2."
The L2 pilot nodded vaguely, lost in his own thoughts of bad memories. He stared at
the moon, interrupted only by one question from Heero.
"Why do you come up here every night to look at the moon?"
Duo started at that question, but answered it anyway. "Sister Helen used to show it
to me in the bedroom the kids lived in. It would stream though the window, and right onto
my pillow. The other children were asleep, but I was always the last to sleep, because the
moonlight always shone right in my face. It was annoying, but I got used to it."
"And still, to this day, you look at the moon."
"Yes", Duo sighed regretfully. "I look at it, to remind me of the days when I was
the happiest, when I was still untainted by the war. And to contemplate the giant mistake I
made in order to save the Maxwell Church. I still can't seem to forgive myself, though,
even after all these years."
Heero said nothing to reply to this comment. He knew very well what happened in the
Maxwell Church Incident, when the soldiers accused the Church of stealing a mobile suit, and
Duo went to get the mobile suit in order to keep his Church alive. When he got back with
the suit, the Church was gone and Sister Helen told Duo her last goodbye. He knew all this
from the news stories he had found on the Web, and the ramblings and ranting when Duo was
sleep - talking. Duo had further gone with an effort to kill himself, to blame himself for
killing the Church and its inhabitants. The suicide mission hadn't succeeded, and Duo came
out dazed but still alive. Quatre gave him a stern lecture on how precious life was, and
Duo stopped with the crazy suicide ideas.
The 2 stared at the moon together, in amiable silence, before Heero's watch rang
midnight and they soundlessly went inside the fortress one after the other.
* * *
A figure slipped between the bars of the fence, unnoticed by the petty, sleepy
guards on the top. A second later, 2 guards were dead, dragged under the bushes, and the
figure slipped inside the fortress, flipping back a seam of cloth from the loose turban he
wore to conceal his platinum - blonde hair. He slid the doors open, the door to the
resident corridor with a bit of oil. Unfortunately, the hinges still emitted a high squeak.
The man stopped to listen for approaching footsteps, and mentally cursed his
mistake. After a few minutes, he still heard nothing, and he crept further down the hall,
hugging the shadows. He stopped, every 2 doors or so, to listen for any sound. Silence
always proceeded these stops, and very soon he had reached the stairs to the second floor to
the sleeping quarters. Silently, he glided up the stairs and took a left, a map of the
corridors open in his mind.
Just a bit farther, he told himself mentally. Almost there. Hang on...
He stopped in front of a door labeled 205 in brilliant gold letters, and fumbled
with a tiny hairpin (it looked incomparably small in his palm), and with a click, the lock
opened. However, the man realized there was a password code box beside the door. He
thought for a moment, then punched in some numbers in a certain order. The stranger winced
when he heard the beep of each number being pushed. He punched in the last number, and
waited for the nonexistent someone to catch him red - handed, trying to break into someone's
room.
When it didn't come, he eased open the door, and peeked inside. After seeing there
were no sensors or alarms, he opened the door a little larger and stepped inside the
threshold.
The room was quite large, but it had little furnishing. Just a desk, a chair, a
rounded sofa set (complete with tea table), and a canopy bed. He almost tripped over a pair
of loose slippers in his haste to get to the bedside, and caught the bed just in time to
save his fall. He got up slowly, not to disturb the sleeper, and pulled away the material
of the canopy to see her better. He tilted her head up, and examined the face he knew so
well from years in the academy.
Rakey bangs curled down not quite to her chin, and her usually vibrant dark purple
eyes were now closed in peace and comfort of the bed underneath her. Her mouth was slightly
open, and eyebrows curved in, just a little, as if she was worrying about something. 2
hands sandwiched the pillow in between and brought it under her head. The moonlight
filtered through the other side's canopy cloth, and illuminated her hair, a black mop cut
boyishly short, hair reflecting a violet color. She was wearing a tank top and baggy, loose -
fitting sweatpants, the kind that people jog in.
Slowly, ever - so - slowly, he reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder and
shook it, as if he were afraid that his hand would shatter this vision of peace and
tranquillity. When she did not wake, he shook her shoulder again, a little harder this
time. Her eyebrows furrowed, and 2 eyes opened drearily.
"Huh? What?", Noin drawled a little, blinking from the brightness of the moonlight.
The man took his hand off her thin shoulder, and lifted the turban away from his
face and drew it back, like a hood of a cloak.
Suddenly Noin came awake. Her eyes snapped open, clearly taking in the scene before
her. Her mouth opened into a little gasp of noise, and she turned to get a better view of
his face.
It was unmistakably Zechs Merquise.
"Zechs! What are you doing here?", she half - yelped in her surprise.
The former Peacecraft clamped a large hand over her mouth and pressed a finger to
his lips. Only when Noin nodded did he let go. He bent low over Noin and put his lips to
her ear. The latter shivered from his closeness.
"Listen, Noin. We have to get out of here. Now."
Noin's eyes widened to their largest extent. "Why?", she whispered back into her
secret love's ear.
Zechs frowned. He answered her question. To her surprise, her dark eyes opened
wider.
"They're here. They're going to attack tonight. That's why I'm going to get you
out."
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
I know that Noin and Zechs were working together on the Mars Terraforming Project at
the end of Endless Waltz, but I put it here that Noin and Zechs were both working for
Preventers. Zechs *would* disappear on a regular basis, for his own personal needs. No
idea why. Just because it's that way. Sheesh, what am I rambling about? I'm the author of
this story but I don't even know why the characters' personalities are this way...
Andrea Weiling