Winding Down the Day


Stephanie
November 12, 2001

Part 8





Life seemed to go on as normal after our visit to China. Heero and Trowa's traveling came to an end, and they once again settled into their lives in New Orleans. Trowa, however, slowed down considerably and left the daily run of the business to his managers. I thought at first that might upset him, but if he cared about it at all, he didn't seem to show it. He rather seemed to enjoy it and turned his attention to other things.

He continued to encourage and teach young Anastasia the flute, and even taught some of her friends the art as well. In his eye, however, none surpassed Anastasia's talent for the instrument. I had to agree. The talent seemed to run in the family. Though Catherine was not Trowa's biological sister, their resemblance, and the resemblance between Trowa and his niece, was undeniable, right down to Anastasia's musical talent and her quiet nature. Neither Trowa nor Catherine pursued the point as they did not believe it mattered if they were blood related. They were family, and that was that.

Trowa also began to paint, though he was never quite good at it. I don't think he cared. It was something that he enjoyed and it relaxed him, and that seemed to be enough for him. Heero framed everything though, and sometimes there would be a silent battle over what was hung for public view in their home, and what never left the privacy of Trowa's small studio. Heero found something wonderful with each one, and would go on about them to us at our reunions, like one might show friends endless baby photos of their children. Trowa would sit there awkwardly till Heero finished and then try to change the subject, which would never work, as by then we were all curious.

"They're just to help with my hand coordination," he'd say. "They're not very good, I'm afraid. I'm much better with music than the visual arts."

"But the vision," Heero would counter as he pointed to a piece. "Look at the emotion that spills out onto the canvas. There is more to art than just precision, Trowa."

"I like it," I'd say lamely, which was not entirely true as I was more classically trained and Trowa's art was representative of abstract expressionism. It was a difference in taste, and since I understood his motivations, I felt no need to criticize.

"Well, it's certainly better than Maxwell's stuff!" Wufei always made it a point to say, but only if Duo happened to be present. "Maybe what it lacks in is direction. It seems to be emotion without content. It needs more of a shape, that's what I think."

"Oh, no, no, no, no!" Duo would shake his head. "Trowa, man, what were you thinking when you mixed those colors together?" Heero would glare at him, and often I had to hold him back from saying anything. Trowa was color blind by then, an effect of the multiple sclerosis. Only Heero and I knew of this though, as Trowa did not want the others to find out. Occasionally, he'd lose complete sight in one eye, but that was never permanent to my knowledge.

Trowa would merely shrug and then look at his work for a moment and then back to us. "I'm not really an artist," he'd say again, believing none of us must have heard him the first time.

Sometimes he'd let Duo try to teach him when he would visit. Duo would be dramatic and tell Trowa that he had no form and that he didn't mix his colors the right way. Trowa would smile and tell Duo that he would try harder in the future, but he kept on doing things the way he always did them. Duo would simply shake his head. But it was all in fun, and I'm sure Duo got a kick out of teaching Trowa anything, as in the past Duo was sure Trowa, like Heero, was perfect in whatever he did.

Trowa seemed to have a special patience and love for Duo that not even Heero, who was Duo's best friend, could understand. I didn't quite get it myself until Trowa told me the story of the stolen Degas painting. Duo was simply the incarnation of a life well led to Trowa. He met every aspect of life on his own terms, and Trowa was endlessly fascinated with that - even if at times that made Duo overbearing and a 'pain in the ass', as Wufei would say. Trowa's quiet ways made it sometimes seem like he and Duo were diametrically opposed, but there was always something underlying Trowa's silence, and I sometimes wonder if the great difference between the two had more to do with style than disposition.

For several years Trowa contented himself to teach music, paint, drink coffee, visit with us and live out his life with Heero. He seemed to have skipped middle age and gone straight into retirement, though he still looked as beautiful as ever. His auburn hair had streaks of grey, which began to show when he turned forty. He never tried to cover them up, but I was never sure if that was because he didn't care about such things, or the fact that he carried off the look of the distinguished gentleman quite well. He wore glasses instead of contacts, because he hated the feel of something inside of his eyes. Many tried to explain that he wouldn't feel them, but he had insisted that he would know they were there and that his glasses would do the job just as well. He had lines around his eyes that spoke of pain and laugher, but those too seemed in place. He grew older as he did everything else: with grace.

His flare ups occurred with more frequency, sometimes leaving him bedridden, sometimes relenting enough to give him some mobility. I cannot imagine the internal hell it must have been for someone as active and flexible as Trowa to be so constrained by such a disease. But he never complained.

On our last visit to New Orleans, it was Wufei who finally got up the nerve to ask him, "Does it bother you that your limbs and muscles are too weak to even walk at times? I don't think that I could . . . accept . . . such a fate as well as you have."

Trowa smiled and shrugged. "I'd prefer not to have it, but there are worse things. I still have my mind and my family." And then he gave a cursory glance over to Heero and smiled wryly. "And my manservant. He gets me everything I need and he completes every small service with a smile. I'm very content with this one."

Heero raised his eyebrow and simply replied with a "Hn."

"I'd watch it, man," Duo warned Trowa. "You take too much advantage and one morning Heero's going to leave you in your bedroom with daytime TV blaring at you and no remote. Soaps and talk shows from dawn to dusk. None of that Animal Planet stuff you dig."

Trowa laughed. "Then it's a good thing I've been well lately. I'll have to make it up to him so he doesn't confine me to such a fate." And he looked at Heero, who was sitting next to him, with such a gentle and peaceful smile. A smile that said all the world was right before him and there was nothing more he needed. Heero smiled slightly in return and gave a slow, single nod, which Duo had once dubbed as his "as you wish" nod.

It was Heero, I believe, that gave Trowa a reason to both fight and accept his condition. For the longest time, Trowa resisted the idea of Heero dedicating his life to him. He could come to terms with himself, but not when his illness would affect another. Not when it would affect Heero. He knew early on what it would mean: that eventually, Heero would have to give up a good part of his own life to taking care of him. But Heero was persistent and showed Trowa at every available moment that taking care of him was exactly what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. So when Trowa was well, he gave everything that he could to Heero to make up for when he wasn't. And when he was sick, he let Heero care for him without much resistance. That was the compromise he made, and I believe he eventually was at peace with it.

They could have lived forever together as things were. Each had come to accept what life had thrown their way. They grew accustomed to it and found their happiness despite it. But as with all other aspects of life, nothing stays the same and change invades our lives again and again. And so it would for Heero and Trowa one last time.

It is said that people live long lives with this disease. Trowa himself was constantly reminding us that it was more of a nuisance than anything else. It certainly was not fatal, and we were to treat him the same whenever we were around him. So none of us were prepared to deal with what would happen shortly after our last visit.

One morning, late April in New Orleans, Heero had awakened and Trowa did not. He died in his sleep from a massive heart attack. There was a small hole in his heart, the doctor told Heero and Catherine. People can live their whole lives and never even know they have one, he explained. But with the weakening of Trowa's muscles it was too much of a strain and his heart finally gave out. He was only forty-seven years old.

Heero was devastated. There had been no warning for him. Nothing to tell him that the only love of his life was going to leave him soon and he would have to go on without Trowa. I do not believe the thought ever occurred to him. For the first time in his life, Heero Yuy did not know what to do.

It was Catherine who called us and Catherine who made all of the funeral arrangements. Despite our being Gundam pilots, I still feel that the women in our circle of friends were always the strongest. They were always there to pull together what needed to be pulled together, never minding how bad the situation was. When we had stopped fighting and our job was completed, it was Relena Darlian who drew the Earthsphere together under a peaceful world government. It was Lady Une who organized the Preventers, and Sally Po and Lucrezia Noin who kept it running. They picked up the pieces the men broke during the war and they mended them as best they could to keep everything running smoothly. And so it was with Catherine, who mended the hole in our hearts as best she could to keep those of us Trowa left behind running smoothly.

She proved to be every bit the stoic her brother once was, greeting each of us as we arrived, asking us how our trip was and how we were holding up. She would cry if she was left alone with her thoughts a little too long, but she never broke down. She'd find something else to do, make a fresh pot of coffee or comfort her children, and then she'd move onto the next thing.

She kept a close eye on Heero, who seemed in too much of a daze to really notice what was going on around him. "Please help me watch him," she asked the three of us. We did without hesitation, though I believe each of us were in a daze of our own. Death was bound to one day separate us and one of us would have to be the first, this we knew, but the reality of it seemed unfathomable. In as much as Trowa was Catherine's brother, he was ours. We had lost one of our own. Not even war could separate us, so how was this possible now?

Duo was speechless. He approached Heero, taking the first watch as Wufei and I helped Catherine with the guests, and sat in the chair next to him in silence for the first hour. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them both sitting in the parlor of Catherine's house completely inanimate. Heero was sitting up straight, face expressionless, though I could feel his heart breaking inside and confusion in his mind over how such a thing could have happened. Did he make a mistake? Was this his fault? Did he miss a sign that could have saved Trowa's life? His mind repeated the questions over and over in his mind. He was so lost, and my heart cried out in pain with his.

Duo sat with his head lowered and his hands folded between his knees, and in him too, I felt a confusion and possibly a touch of anger at the loss. I expected this of Heero, but Duo surprised me. I thought that of all of us, it would be Duo that would handle this situation the best. He was always the strongest of us in spirit. But on the day of Trowa's funeral, Duo remained quiet, and for the first time I could see how truly alike both he and Trowa were. Both knew how to pause when the moment called for it.

It was not until Wufei and I had joined them that Duo was finally moved to talk. Wufei made light conversation about some of the guests, commenting on how nice it was for Lady Une to show and that Zechs and Lucrezia brought such a beautiful flower arrangement, and wasn't it interesting that Relena arrived with Dorothy Catalonia to yet another event together. We all nodded and for a little while, Duo perked up a bit and joined in the light chatter. But when conversation turned back to Trowa, he became silent once again.

"It's too bad it happened in his sleep," Wufei said. "I think he would have like to have known it was going to happen. He would have wanted to prepare."

I disagreed. I think Trowa would have preferred to go in his sleep, peaceful, and so far removed from his earlier violent life as a soldier. He was not like Duo or Wufei, who would fight death to the bitter end. Or like Heero, who would deny the possibility until the mission was completed. Trowa was always more accepting of whatever came his way, and in the end, he would bow out with grace and take his leave.

But I kept this to myself and remained silent. It really wasn't the time to discuss such things, so out of respect for Heero, I steered the conversation elsewhere. Wufei took the hint and dropped the subject.


* * *


After the funeral, Heero disappeared. His only parting words to us were those left on Trowa's tombstone. They read:


The moon departs
frost falls upon the
morning glory
*


In a way, more than Trowa died that April. It was an end of an era, for never would the five of us be together again. Heero's disappearance seemed to finalize everything. We all searched for Heero in a vain attempt to bring him home, but after a few years, it was obvious that we would not find him if he did not want to be found. He left not a single clue to his whereabouts.

Life eventually went on for Duo, Wufei and me, and we tried to keep going in the face of our lost comrades. We continued to meet each other a few times a year and vowed not to lose touch. It was difficult in those first years, and often our meetings were punctuated by long bouts of silence and some times tears, but in time the pain faded and we found our selves reminiscing and laughing once again.

Duo still managed to get himself in trouble with the law, though he was not jailed so much anymore. Time seemed to mellow him, and his art transformed from political activism to self-introspection. Some say he lost his edge, but the more common analysis was that it had matured and that his most brilliant work was most definitely from his later period.

Wufei's political life took new form when he found himself elected to the governor's seat over the nation-state of China. He seemed more surprised than we by the turn of events, but he took his new role seriously and with pride. He made his nation proud in turn by making it the first nation-state on the planet to completely eradicate hunger and poverty. He was called upon by Relena Darlian, who was then the presiding leader over the World Senate, to implement a plan that each nation-state would then follow. Wufei stepped up to the challenge. At the time of his death in 255, four years ago, not a single person on the planet or in the colonies, was hungry. I am told he died at peace in his bed with a smile on his face.

Nearly two years after that, word reached Duo and I that Heero Yuy had died in the L1 colony cluster, apparently of complications due to his age. He was found in his home, slouched over his desk with a pen in his hand and parchment under his head. His neighbors did not know who he was, as he went by the name Hakuto Sato. I do not know if he made it up, or if it was his true name. But they searched his house looking for information on his next of kin. What they found were volumes upon volumes of writings, which spoke of the Eve Wars, the early political campaigns during the first years of peace, his work for Relena, and his hopes for the continuing peace.

Amongst all of his writings was the leather bound book Trowa had received in the mail so many years ago. It was still in good condition when it was turned over to Duo and I as per Heero's request should he die before us. We opened it together, not sure if we should dare such a thing. Both of us remembered how well Trowa guarded the book, never showing anyone the contents it held. But both he and Heero were gone now, and Heero wanted us to have the book, so we read it together.

On the first page, dated 197 AC, Heero wrote his first haiku for Trowa. The book was a collection of poetry from the years 197 to 215 AC, and all of poems were written for Trowa. Heero had been in love with him for years before they had officially become a couple. I finally understood why Trowa was so transformed by the book. What greater declaration of love could Heero make, then to give Trowa what had been written by his heart.

The haiku poems were masterworks, though not at first. The first few years were the clumsy beginnings of romantic ramblings. But as he went on, the poetry improved and the last five years were magnificent. Though from the look on Trowa's face when he first opened that book, he was equally impressed and in love with all of the poems.

More books were found in Heero's house, not all of them on war and politics. After his estate was finally settled and Duo and I were allowed access, we found that over half the books in his private archive were of poems written in Japanese calligraphy. Some were written on scrolls and hung on his walls. All of them, till is dying day, were written for Trowa.

There were those who were shocked by the books of haiku poems, but those who really knew Heero were not: for the haiku is succinct and profound, and there was never a more perfect way to describe Heero Yuy.

He was brought back to Earth to be buried beside Trowa, as was his wish. His final haiku, his epitaph, read:


K ri toki
yuku mizu kiyoshi
mune kiyoshi

Winter ice
melts into clear water–
clear is my heart
**


Gone was all the bitterness of losing Trowa. Heero was going home to him. And for that reason, I did not cry, nor was I sad for Heero Yuy's passing, but joyous that they would once again be together.

Now my own day is winding down and soon I too will be joining Trowa, Heero and Wufei. My heart is at peace and I find myself in growing anticipation of our reunion. Though I suppose in a way, Trowa never left me. He has been with me at every step, ever haunting my thoughts and my actions. When Duo and I are gone, his name may disappear completely, but his legacy of love, peace and common decency will live on in the works of the people whose lives he touched. The world has only a limited capacity for what it can remember, but the depths of its unconsciousness runs deep and the compassion and gentleness of Trowa Barton will one day surface again.

Duo still lives and somehow I find it difficult to believe that he will ever die. Perhaps as the God of Death he was handed down the fate of ushering the rest of us into the next world before he can join us. In many ways, he is much the same Duo he always was. His hair is as long as ever, still kept in a braid, only grey and wiry now. His age gives him the natural appearance of a demented mad man, refusing to grow old with any attempt at grace. "Quatre," he's told me many times, "there is no dignity in death. We are all food for worms and I am Shinigami. I must lead by example." He remains true to himself, and I cannot help but smile and think that Trowa would approve. When he finally leaves this life, a great force will have passed.

But for now, it is my turn to take my leave.


[From the memoirs of Quatre Raberba Winner, chapters 13 to 21]

QRW, 180 - 260 AC


~ finis ~



* Haiku by Kato.
** Haiku by Hyakka

Both poems taken from :

Japanese Death Poems, compiled and translated by Yoel Hoffman. Singapore: Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc, 1986.

Note: I realize that by taking these poems, I might as well have copied Keats and given the words to Heero - but I have no talent for haiku, and in an effort for keep him from sounding like a complete idiot, I borrowed. My apologies to both Kato and Hyakka.