Wasted Time
By Madd Mythe Maven
This has two points of view - Heero's POV and a third person omnipotent POV. There's no Hilde POV but you will know what she's thinking sometimes. This could've been better so if anyone has any suggestions, let's hear 'em.
*~*~*
"Gone?" She repeated, her voice shaking. "What do you mean, GONE?"
//Well baby, there you stand
With your little head, down in your hand//
He didn't know what more to say, he didn't know how to make it any more clear.
"He's gone, we lost the shuttle's signal during the battle." He said stoically, pretending not to notice as crystalline tears suddenly dotted her cheeks, shining like diamonds in retreating sunlight.
"G-gone." She repeated the word, as if trying to understand it's meaning. "Gone . . . gone . . ." It became a harsh whisper as she shook her head violently, sending water splashing out as her sides though her sobs were soft and silent.
//Oh, my God, you can't believe it's happening again//
Her arms moved to wrap around her as if she were trying to hold onto the concept itself. As if she might grasp his memory and pull it close to her. Her lips still moved silently, forming the word 'gone' over and over, as if the meaning escaped her.
He wanted to be apathetic. He wanted to turn his back and pretend that he could not see her crying. He wanted . . .
He wanted to wipe those tears away for reasons he could not articulate.
//Your baby's gone, and you're all alone and it looks like the end.//
"I'm sorry." The words were cool as the morning air and said nothing of what he truly did or didn't feel. She looked up at him with cornflower blue eyes dotted with shimmering tears, and her expression was one of unfathomable sorrow. Something so potent that even he took in a sharp breath without thinking.
"Don't you care?" She whispered, the question neither harsh nor bitter but sincere. And then when, for a moment, he merely met her eyes silently, she didn't ask further.
She didn't hear until later who else was on that shuttle. Who else was gone. And maybe if she had known then she would have understood why he was the same dark and distant person again.
Maybe she would've understood why he couldn't mourn for her.
He was too busy quietly mourning for himself.
He too lost someone very dear to him. He too lost his lover. She lost her laughing violet-eyed joker, and he lost a solemn, honey-blonde diplomat. And neither of them knew how to begin to move on.
*~*~*
Her boots made a dull clicking noise on the concrete as she slid down the sidewalk. How long? Three weeks if you must know. Was that all the time it took for her to fall apart at the seams?
No. Not even that long. All it took was one word - gone.
She didn't seem to even know what she was doing without him. Her business had ground to a halt, she found herself out on the street looking for 'help wanted' signs, as she had long before she got the old scrapyard up and running.
//And you're back out on the street.//
She had to figure out a way to get by, but all she did these days was wander. She hadn't fully realized how much she depended upon him, until he was gone. And now she had to figure out how she had ever gotten by before he came along. Except she didn't want to think of the times before his laughing violet eyes and quick smile.
//And you're tryin' to remember.
How will you start it over? You don't know what became.//
"Hey lady, what say you and I . . ."
"Drop dead."
Her response was ingrained. She didn't even need too look at him to know what he was going to ask of her. And she was not interested. It had nothing to do with the man himself, or what he wanted of her. She wasn't interested in ANYthing . . . anything but him.
She just wanted him back. And that was the one thing she couldn't have.
It hurt less when she was drunk. The horrible blinding pain receded into a sort of dull ache in the darkest recesses of her psyche, where she could leave it until the booze wore off and it returned, usually worse than before. But sometimes she embraced that pain as the proof of how much she had loved him.
She would be rather more concerned if she felt nothing at all.
And she would be even more concerned if she somehow sought comfort with the men that so readily offered it. There was no comfort in defiling herself. After all, she swore she would be his in life and death, and even if he never returned ::he must return he MUST return:: she would keep herself for him.
*~*~*
It's been almost a month now. A month since we returned without him. I can't tell you why I've been here. Maybe because I felt like I could have done something to bring him back. Maybe because I blamed myself for loosing him.
For loosing them.
Or maybe because watching out for her was the only way I could atone for letting it happen. I don't know how I could've stopped it, how I could have saved them, but I am filled with the pervading sense that there WAS a way, and I simply overlooked it.
I don't think she realizes how many nights I've dragged her home, to messed up to even stand. How many times that I've been the only thing standing between her and some horny guy who wants to take her home with him. Because she is pretty, I'll admit that. Duo had something extraordinary in her.
Stop. I must stop there. Because while the thought of him is more painful than I'd admit, it brings to the surface thoughts of even more pain. Of a sweet angelic face with wistful blue eyes and honey blonde hair. Thoughts of the woman who died along with him.
It was foolish of me to get so attached to her. And moreover once I had gained the power to be with her it was naïve of me to expect everything to remain that way. After so long alone, it was surprisingly easy to become disgustingly accustomed to sharing my life with another person.
Well, I no longer have anyone to share it with. So this is what I do now.
It is in my nature to protect. And since the only other person she could have relied on is gone, I'll protect her.
It is the least I can do, for both of us.
She blinks up at me blearily, leaning heavily on my shoulder as I help her out of the bar. I have watched her tilt back glasses of foul, bitter liquor all night long and now they are taking their toll on her. I doubt she even sees me, let alone recognizes me. Which is good for me, because as much as possible I just want to fade away.
She blinks at me once more, and finally decides that she really can't place me. So instead she buries her face in the sleeve of my leather jacket and pulls herself closer to me. I wonder why she does it, if she doesn't recognize me.
But maybe she just needs anything to hold onto.
//You don't care much for a stranger's touch,
But you can't hold your man.//
That's when I realize she's crying. I have watched her do many things. I watched through the window as she tore her house apart that first day. I watched her rant and scream at nothing and no one, but always, after that first moment, she refused to cry.
I had admired that. But now I saw that all it had done was make it more painful when she did cry for him. And she HAS to cry for him, because I have discovered that he was all she had.
//You never thought you'd be alone this far down the line//
She shakes her head against my sleeve, trying to wiped the sticky, salty tears from her eyes. I fish in my pockets and hand her a handkerchief. But she does not take it, so uncertainly I lift her chin and wipe gently around those bloodshot, cornflower-blue eyes. She sniffles, looking up at me uncertainly. I don't meet her eyes. I can't. I feel like if I do, I'll fall into them and then we'll both be lost.
I can't cry, I can't mourn. I can't even be human. I was not intended for such things.
"Heero?" She says uncertainly, and I nearly jump at the sound of my own name. She drags the back of one hand over eyes and blinks up at me again. "Heero. It is you, isn't it?"
Shit. She's not as trashed as I had thought.
"What are you doing here?" She asks, a perfectly fair question. And one that I do not intend to answer. One that I in fact do not even have an answer to.
"You need to get home." I rest a hand on her elbow. "Come on."
But she hangs back, wrapping arms around herself. "I don't want to." She murmurs, sounding a bit like a petulant child. "There's nothing there. It's too empty."
"Hilde . . ." I start, but she doesn't want to hear it.
"Why? Why did it have to happen, Heero? You guys aren't supposed to die. You are supposed to be invincible. You're the great Gundam pilots! Nobody can beat you!" She was becoming hysterical, and it disturbed me. "Why did he just have to DISAPPEAR? It's not FAIR! What am I supposed to DO?"
//And I know what's been on your mind
You're afraid it's all been wasted time//
*~*~*
I did take her home that night.
And that's where I've been ever since.
I don't know why I stayed that first night. I do know that she clung to me all that long way home, like a drowning woman clutching her only lifeline. Her face buried against her shoulder, blind to the night, crying against the leather I wore. Sniffling as she pulled herself so close to me that it almost seemed like she were trying to climb inside and hide.
Somehow I couldn't leave her then. Couldn't just turn my back and melt away.
A night had turned to two. Two had turned to a week. The week had become a month and after that I could not leave her. I told myself that he stayed for her sake. I still can't admit that it is just as much for my own.
She sits against the window, the cup of tea in her hand sending little swirls of steam up around her face. She leans her temple against the chilled glass, her eyes on the trees in the park, off in the distance. There aren't many trees or flowers on the colonies, and the seasons are artificial, but we have them. And right now it's fall.
"It was fall when I first met him."
//The autumn leaves have got you thinking
about the first time that you fell//
I think about that. It was fall when we returned to the colonies.
And it was also fall when…
"It's been almost a year." She says, stealing my own thoughts. "Almost a year since . . ."
She careful sets down the tea cup, delicately, not wanted to spill the hot liquid. And she turns to me, blue eyes dry but strained with pain that she has not for a long time had the strength or the will to conceal.
"It's been almost a year, Heero. So why does it still hurt so much?"
//You didn't love the boy too much, no, no
you just loved the boy too well, Farewell//
I have no answer for her. But for the first time I wish I did.
I wish I could tell her that someday it would stop hurting. I wish I could tell her that It would get better. But if I said that I would be lying, because I don't know what will happen. And I can't lie to her.
Heh. I'm starting to sound like him.
So I tell her the truth, the only truth I know.
"You just have to go on. Don't worry about anything but tomorrow, don't think about the past. It's over, it's done."
::It's wasted time.::
//So you live from day to day, and you dream
about tomorrow, oh.//
She looks up at me with a half smile. It's so insincere that even I am unnerved by it. The bitterness there seems to mar her beauty, making it cold and sardonic.
For the briefest second I recognize the expression. And I realize with a shock that I have worn the same one so many times. It is the type of expression one wears when they have nothing left to bring any emotion to their face. When there is no joy, no sadness, no anger. Just the numbness of one who has nothing left to lose.
So I do the one thing I remember Relena doing after the war, when I wore that expression.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to me, holding her tightly. It was awkward, I had no idea what I was doing. To comfort was beyond my expertise. But I had to do something, I could not let another person suffer our fate. Become one who's life means nothing.
She tenses for a moment in my arms, and I want to pull away, but I don't. I can't. And then she trembles and collapses against me, fisting hands in my shirt and crying against me. And I say nothing, I just hold her as she cries.
Nothing needs to be said.
//And the hours go by like minutes
and the shadows come to stay//
*~*~*
She looks longingly at the bottle that sits up on that shelf. Too high for her to reach, I made sure of that. I wanted to get rid of the liquor altogether, but I didn't. I knew that somehow it would be better if she could simply resist, rather than just to have it not there at all. It would mean more. But at times like these she doesn't want to resist.
She wants to return to the life she had in the in between time. A life I have tried so hard to distance her from.
//So you take a little something to
make them go away//
She twists her fingers together. Staring out the window at nothing. Pulling herself closer to me to protect herself from a chill that does not exist. Pressing her warm cheek against my collarbone.
And I let her. This is what shocks me. I do not tense or pull away. I need her nearness as much as she needs my warmth. The thought is both comforting and terrifying.
I knew I loved Relena. But did her loss make me this desperate?
Or is it guilt? Do I still feel that it is all my fault? For once in my life nothing is clear cut. I do not know the answers. Sometimes I'm not even sure I know the questions.
//And I could have done so many things, baby//
*~*~*
She need him. She's not sure if she loves him, but she needs him.
Because without him she has nothing, nothing at all. She had given up everything to be with Duo, and now that he was gone . . . well, what was she supposed to do? He was a part of everything that defined her. Without him she didn't even know who she was. She wasn't Duo's girl anymore, and it had been so long since she was just Hilde that she almost forgot how to be that.
Was she stupid to give so much of herself to someone? Should she have held back, denied him her soul?
No. Even now she was glad that he was a part of her, even if that part was now gone. The time she had spent with him was golden, even if she had squandered it. But now she feared she was only using Hero as a substitute . . . wasting time until she could find herself again.
But she felt better knowing that he was doing the same.
They were using each other. And she supposed that made it okay.
//If I could only stop my mind from wonderin' what
I left behind and from worrying 'bout this wasted time//
*~*~*
Maybe it was love, what I felt for her, in some strange way. I'll be the first to admit that I really wouldn't recognize true love if I saw it. How would I? But I know that I couldn't have left her if I wanted to. And I didn't want to.
But I never felt the same for her as I did for Relena. I never could. Nor did she ever feel for me the way she had for Duo.
And that was okay. We were big kids, we knew what we were doing. We understood the relationship we had was not true love. But we needed it just the same, the warmth and comfort of someone who, maybe not understood, but tried to.
Love is defined as two things. A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person, or a feeling of warm personal attachment. *
So I did not and probably would never love Hilde passionately. But that was why there was a second definition. To prove that somehow, I did love her.
//Ooh, another love has come and gone
Ooh, and the years keep rushing on//
It hurt when it was over. Not the raw, tender pain that Relena's departure left, but the sort of dull, empty ache that said something that should be there was missing. But I couldn't bring it back. There was no reason to.
//I remember what you told me before you went out on your own:
"Sometimes to keep it together, we got to leave it alone."//
She held up that letter with tears in her eyes. A different kind of tears than she had cried for the last two years. Beneath those tears was I glow that I had thought would never grace her eyes again.
Her hands trembled as she passed the twisted, folded paper to me. Her lips quirked in a smile that was weak from disuse but wrenchingly genuine.
She said two words.
"He's alive."
I wasn't ready for that. Of all the things she might have said, that was the last one I expected. Alive? Duo, her Duo, was alive? But there on that paper was his name.
I was angry for a moment. Where had he been all this time? Gone like that, leaving her to think he was dead. But it passed quickly when a thought came to me. The shuttle that Duo was on. Relena was on it as well. And if he were alive, then she . . .
//So you can get on with your search, baby, and I can
get on with mine//
"I have to go." She said, her voice soft and intense. I nodded, what else could I do? And her smile could have lit the world. She threw arms around me for the barest of seconds, and whispered one word into my ear.
"Arigato."
I didn't know what she was thanking me for. It was her who had saved me.
So now here I stand, watching her leave. And this dull ache won't go away, despite the fact that I now have hope. One can't replace one love with another. I learned that along time ago.
Now that he is back it seemed like the time in between was a dream. She is beautiful and joyous and I am cool and remote. It seems like the times where we so desperately needed each other never happened.
But for one second she turns and smiles, a smile not for her true love, but for another love. For a love she needed. For a love she gave up but will always carry.
And I smile back, for that brief second, before we forget it all.
//And maybe someday we will find , that it wasn't really
wasted time//
~*~*~*~
*Yeah, I'm a dork. I actually looked this up. Webster's Dictionary, 1997