Blue. Endless blue, undulating in rhythmic ribbons below and stretching
in expansive emptiness above. Over the ocean, the eye can perceive nothing save
the infinite azurine spectrum, and only the occasional, faint reflection, rather
like a tiny, persistent radar echo, of interspersed amethyst from the window
hinted at existence beyond the reigning shades. I blinked, and the reflection
dissipated back into blues.
Ocean. Sky. Two things I thought I would
never truly see growing up on L2. Yeah, the colony matrix generated something
approximating the reflective properties of Earth's atmosphere, but the slightly
grey-kissed heavens had always vibrated with a subtle tang of wrongness. Even if
we're born in space, do we long for home? Real home? Is it indelibly written in
the infinite mystery that defines us as human? Or stamped right into our very
genetic code? Fighting a war and piloting a Gundam had left little time for
sightseeing and otherwise experiencing the wonder of the home planet.
Admittedly, during the times Heero and I were masquerading in schools and that
too-tiny room simply couldn't contain me, I wandered quite a bit, but it was
never enough. The mission always called me away from what I wanted to do most.
Live.
I had embraced nothing but Death since I was a child.
Death was the only thing I believed in. It was the only certainty a boy with no
family and broken faith could cling to. And in believing, I became Death.
Bringer of Death. Shinigami.
Imagine, then, the irony of an attempted
suicide breathing life into me. The day Heero flung himself out that window,
ready to fall to his death or to become so much human refuse cast on the
cliffs...awoke something in me. Desire might be a good word for it. Passion.
Fire. Lust. Not for his body--not yet, at least--but for his soul. For the
utter, unswerving commitment he possessed. A fierce, powerful phoenix rose
ascendant from the blackened ashes of Shinigami in my heart. A will, a need, to
live; not merely to exist and be classified as alive, but to truly live.
Since then, I've tried to minimize and simplify it in my mind as merely
the infinite force of the universe striving for balance; this psycho seemed
destined to be my partner in crime and warfare, and thus my urge to survive must
stand fast against his to perish.
But Duo Maxwell doesn't lie, even to
himself. Something in me dedicated itself from that moment to living for him. To
showing him that there was more to life than dying. At first, I think it was
sheer stubbornness; I wasn't about to let Mister Congeniality get the better of
me. I persisted, I pestered, I dragged him places whenever I could, never
receiving any sign of progress but unwilling to admit defeat. When it made him
mad, or irritated, or anything but indifferent, I celebrated, for it meant I was
winning. I had made him feel.
Some days I don't think I really believe
in God. Or Shinigami. But oddly enough I find myself with far more faith in that
mythical, half-baked notion of an infinite force in the universe, one that
demands balance. Why wasn't Heero able to pull that trigger and put a bullet in
my brain? Why didn't I suffocate on the moon? Why didn't Deathscythe
self-destruct for me? Simple; the balance hadn't yet been achieved. I don't
think I'll die until it has. Heero's still alive; I'm still winning the battle.
Suddenly weary, I closed my eyes. But this war is far from
over.
***
Upon reflection, I realized that I was preparing
myself for this as I would a mission. It was either that or be
terrified. I don't do well with terrified, and I'd been feeling that way a
little too much for my comfort of late. My own insecurities had been laid to
rest, thankfully, so I spent the time on the plane going over the remaining
possible strategies in my mind. Duo was hell-bent on this plan, to the point of
playing less than fairly when it came to securing my approval for it. It didn't
bode well for the possibility of deterring him from it.
Therefore I dismissed
that course of action as being inefficient. The remainder of the choices
involved damage control. Exerting my influence over the choice being made seemed
the only real answer. I think it was a means to find a little control when my
life had spiraled so violently out of control.
That begged the question,
why did this disturb me so much? I felt a twinge of shame at being so unnerved
by what should have been an irrelevant subject. A house was nothing more than a
place of shelter. Duo's demand for permanence was a potential security hazard,
but the hazard could be minimized with caution. I kept finding little answers
like that, they weren't necessarily the most efficient answers, but they fell
within acceptable levels.
Realization came slowly, mostly because I didn't want
to accept what I already knew to be true. Dying would have been easy. The book
would have been closed on the tragic affairs of Heero Yuy, and I never would
have needed to be more than a soldier. A soldier forged of cold steel and ice.
Living was the hard part. I had my reason for staying alive and I would
not forsake it, but a soldier was not required to be happy, to know joy or peace
or...love. Part of me knew that this was what his desire for a house was all
about. He considered it the first step on a long road, a path designed to teach
me what he knew by instinct, and had been beaten out of me long ago.
I
closed my eyes, searching for an answer. The question being, of course, was I
willing to learn?
***
I woke up when Heero shook me awake, the
sudden influx of sunshine painfully bright against my eyes. I scrunched them
shut and with a protesting moan tried to curl back against my pillow. It moved,
rising and falling in what sounded rather like an impatient sigh. One eye
cracked back open, giving me a bleary view of Heero's shirt. Added to that was
the growing awareness of a not-unpleasant weight across my shoulders and a
feathery flirtation by something with the fine baby-hairs on the back of my
neck, the ones that didn't fit into my braid. Try as I might, none of these
disconnected sensations seemed to come together into a cohesive thought. I
closed my eye again and took a deep, luxurious breath.
Both eyes snapped
open this time. Every inch of my being knew that scent. I must have made to jerk
upright, for that weight held fast, securing me in place. I felt a rumbling
beneath my cheek--vibrations traveling up from the chest, some semi-conscious
part of me chimed in--and the touch of strong, agile fingers against the top of
my head, stroking my sleep-tousled hair back into order. Carefully. Gently.
Reverently?
A warm sensation started just below my rib cage,
rising like bread dough to fill every space inside me with shining joy.
Heero had let me sleep on his shoulder, draped an arm around me and played with my
hair. All incredibly tender things simultaneously incongruous with and
appropriate to him. I glanced up at him, found his eyes beneath the lowered
shades of his lashes. "How long?" I asked, my voice rather sleep-scratchy.
He shrugged with his other shoulder. "Not quite two hours. You should
sleep more," Heero added, and I had the distinct impression he was filing that
thought away like a mission parameter. "The agent is checking on the car. Can you
walk?"
Walk? If he'd asked, I could fly. Grinning crookedly, I nodded,
drawing in one more greedy breath from his shirt before sitting up completely
and slowly unfurling to my feet. Heero caught my elbow, as though to steady me. "What part of America are we in?"
"West. Far west. She said
something about it once being called California." Still steering me by my elbow,
Heero produced a pair of sunglasses--apparently, that sleight-of-hand phenomenon wasn't limited
to his spandex-wearing days--and slipped them on my face, careful not to poke me
with them. A warm wind feathered our clothes when we stepped outside,
comfortably warm and with a heavy, refreshing tang of salt that lingered on my
tongue.
As expertly as if he did such things every day, Heero guided me down the
stairs from the plane and into the back seat of a charcoal-grey limousine.
Sinking back against the plush upholstery, I made a mental note that asking
Quatre for help equaled traveling in style. And yawned.
"Feeling better
now, Mr. Maxwell?" Becky asked politely, peering at me over the rims of her
glasses. She sat facing the rear, the deep royal purple of her trendy yet
feminine pantsuit a bright splotch of color against the creamy seat. With a
brief, envious glance at Heero's comfortable shoulder, I stretched my arms
over my head and nodded. "Mr. Yuy said you hadn't slept well the past couple of
days and that it was best if we let you be." Translation: she'd observed as much
to Heero and he'd responded with the appropriate noise.
The car lurched
forwards, and she grabbed at the paperwork in her lap to keep it from falling.
"This will be old to him, since we talked about it on the plane," which again
meant she'd talked and he'd pretended to listen, and I prepared myself to do the
same. "But, we've got a short ride from here to the house, and there's a little
bit of history behind everything here."
"First of all, southern
California was where all the film and TV stars lived." The motor rumbled beneath
us, the air-cushioned shocks making for such a comfortable ride my eyes nearly
closed again. History was never my favorite subject in school. "Original
resistance against OZ destroyed a lot of it, the early days of the war finished
it, and the industry never really recovered. Most everyone moved away to
someplace safer; even though this area is to the north, it's
reverted to a very small-town lifestyle."
She crossed her legs in
the other direction; the ease with which women can do that never ceased to amaze
me. " These days, the coast is largely quiet
fishing towns. This one," and Becky adjusted her glasses on the end of her nose,
peering intently down at the folio in her lap, "was renamed 'Esperanza por el
Mar.' The locals tend to call it just Esperanza." [1] Her tongue effortlessly floated over the words; at full consciousness I have a decent
understanding of Romance languages--they're all bastardized dialects of Latin-- but still groggy it meant nothing to
me. That firm shoulder in my peripheral vision was looking better all the
time. Until I followed his gaze out the smoked-glass window, all further
thoughts of sleep vanishing like the morning mist.
***
It was the
kind of place that only existed in picture books and on glossy postcards. The
kind of place that filled the dreams of the masses as they trudged to their
means of employment and made another day pass by. I'd never dreamed of such a
place simply because I never would have dared to believe that it existed. Glass,
steel, plastic, the faded attempts to make the colonies into a likeness of
Earth, that was all I knew. It was rather like trying to make a prostitute into
a princess. With the right clothes it could almost be believable...but you can't
change the truth underneath.
The town was small, quiet. The main street
was lined with white houses and brick sidewalks, the local fire station manned
by a few whistling men washing their rig with a spotted dog in attendance. The
car pulled away from that idyllic scene after a few moments, finally turning
onto a road that ultimately put us parallel to the water.
I've seen the
ocean before. Much like space, it inspires a sense of mortality, of being but
one small part of a puzzle of which there were infinite pieces. After that
first, humbling glimpse, it was framed in the less expansive sight of the docks.
The water swarmed with small fishing boats, the barren forest of their masts
occasionally broken by the brightly colored sail of a pleasure boat.
I
glanced at Duo and had to suppress a smile at the sight of him. After a moment,
I let the smile have its way.
***
The road was winding, following
with ease the curvature of coastline. Pressing my face to the glass, I felt
rather like an excited kid--or like how I suspected a kid should feel--watching the
wondrous scenery streak by. The sun, only about noontime now, glittered over the
water like a spill of tiny diamonds, lighting the entire path to the shore in
sparkling motes. "How many places are we going to look at?" I asked, reluctantly
tearing myself away and rubbing at the smudge my nose had left on the window.
"Here?" Becky glanced down at that folio in her lap again. "Just one.
Mr. Barton was very specific about the type of home you were to be shown."
Barton? "I thought Mr. Winner contacted you." I exchanged a glance with
Heero; Trowa wasn't exactly known for love of aesthetic design. Form
followed function in the extreme for him; 'utilitarian' was a kind description
of his tastes.
"Mr. Winner did," she confirmed, "but the selection was
conducted by Mr. Barton. Lanky gentleman, quiet...unusual hair?" The agent
raised a questioning brow. "In fact, he was quite certain you would be joining
Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Yuy. I was rather surprised that he was right."
Quatre
put Trowa in charge of finding a house for us? Frankly, I was a bit miffed;
out of all the people who should have understood exactly how much this meant to
me, Quatre fell at the top of the list.
Then again, to be fair all I had said
was that I wanted something near water, and there was an ocean of that out the
window.
The car rolled to a stop, giving us all the slight inertia-jerk
that verified at least one of Newton's laws still applied. "We're here," Becky
said, gesturing with one slender hand towards the car door. Being closest, I
climbed out first and then helped her from the car, leaving Heero to bring up
the rear. Even with the sunglasses, I shaded my eyes and glanced across the
street at Mr. Barton's expert selection.
Indeed, the house was Spartan,
simplistic in line and design and painted a light slate-blue. Exactly what I
expected from the master of minimalism. I felt almost disloyal for my
disappointment, because Trowa, for all his reticence, is a steady, stable
friend. Trowa is like gravity...you can't always see him, usually just the
effects of him, but you always know he's there, and he keeps us from flying off
into space. "Is this it?" I asked unnecessarily, jerking a thumb in the
direction of the house.
"Oh, no!" Her voice was so shocked I wondered if
perhaps I'd insulted her. "No, yours backs up to the beach." She put her hands
on my shoulders and turned me around, pointing past me, her girlish voice
dropping an octave in whisper. "This is your home."
The first thing I
saw was light, glinting white and brilliant and unashamed in its pristine
invitation. With the exception of my Gundam, I have never been one to attribute
human, living characteristics to inanimate objects, but I have no other words
for it. This house...called me. Spoke my name with the kind of intimacy only a
lifetime lover should have. Reached possessive tendrils into my heart and,
finding it already occupied, opened wide to embrace us both.
It was made
almost entirely of glass; at least, it appeared so...closer inspection found
metal and wood and plastic interspersed infrequently enough to preserve its
illusion. The front staircase ascended to a landing, then turned the other
direction to lead unerringly to another landing, a small porch and the front
door. The door was the only spot of immediate color, painted a deep, marine blue
with a glittering crystal doorknocker at just the right height. In fact, I'd
lifted my hand to grasp it when Becky Peterson gently brushed past me with the
key.
Biting my lower lip, I dropped my hand, feeling my fingers nudge Heero's. Neither of us said a word nor exchanged glances, but with the certainty of a pigeon coming home, our fingers found one another and laced together.
Together,
we took a breath and walked inside.
***
[1] "Esperanza por el Mar" is Spanish for "hope by the sea".
