Part 7: Dust Cloud

Author's Note: I know, I kind of abandoned this story for a while because of a lot of things, but I'm going to finish it asap. In fact, all I have left to write is the last chapter, which I plan on doing from today until Tuesday. (Don't ask me what the date will be; I don't keep track of stuff like that. Anyway, it's this Tuesday.) Tomorrow (Monday), I'm going to post the second to last part, which is already written, so that's definitely going to happen. Why am I not posting it today with this part? Because if I did that, then everyone would wait to review until after they had read that part, too. *wink*

            Ilya ducked as he slipped quickly out of the alleyway and ran across the street, tucking himself into an alcove in the wall that surrounded the governor's mansion.  He swiped at a thin stream of sweat that trickled between his eyes and across his cheek then wiped his moist hand on his shirt, his nose wrinkling in disgust at the thought of how bad he was going to smell after all this was over.  His boots and pants stank of the refuse that he had had to wade through in his journey through the maze of alleys in Moscow.  The oppressive air in the narrow passages of the city underworld had made him sweat even when he had been standing still.

            I'll go to Oleena's when this is done and give her a hug.  He grimaced as he realized that it was a totally irrational thought.  People who were about to commit murder shouldn't joke.  I'm once again proving my inexperience.  Maybe I'll be lucky and get caught right inside the fence so I don't foul things up even more.  He pulled his gun from his back pocket and twisted a silencer on the end of the barrel.  He had fired a gun before, in drills with the makeshift army that Oleena and the other members of the lowest classes of Moscow—those who weren't caught up in the misery of their own lives, anyway—had managed to scrape together.  However, he had never shot a man, and he didn't know anyone who had.  There were veterans of the war of 195 in his neighborhood, even some in the fighting force, but they always described the battles by saying how many mobile suits had been destroyed, not how many men had been killed.  Only the Gundam pilots were ever referred to as people in the fighting talk, and even then it was rare.

            It's all going to change after this.  Maybe for the worse, maybe for the better, but something's going to start with his blood.  How will it change me?  Will killing come more easily to me after…?

            The sharp tap of precise footsteps echoed around the narrow crack he was crammed into.  The light that shined into Ilya's hiding place was stifled as a guard walked around the edge on top of the wall.

            The first guard--I have fifteen minutes.

            His arms scraped along the rough bricks as he maneuvered them in front of him so that he could shimmy up the alcove.  He braced his fingertips in a crack a couple feet above his head and grunted slightly as he hauled his body off the ground and jammed his feet into two other cracks.  The metal of the gun squealed faintly as it scraped the back of the alcove, and Ilya winced, glancing up at the square of sunlight he could see, blinking as sweat poured into his eyes.  It felt like he was baking.  He moved his arms up again, and then pushed the rest of his body up with his legs.  The bricks of the wall were crumbling beneath his fingertips, and he had to constantly move them to new places to keep from slipping.  When he was near the top, he quickly twisted his body around so that his back was against one side of the alcove.  Then he raised his head cautiously to look for any danger.

            The guard was walking down the side of the wall perpendicular to the side Ilya had just climbed.  His back was toward Ilya, his long rifle slung over his shoulder.  Ilya boosted himself onto the top of the wall, swept his hand back to check for the gun, and quickly slid over the other edge of the wall.  Pain stabbed at his leg muscles as he landed sloppily in the governor's garden, rocking back on his heels before finally recovering his balance.  He pressed himself into the shade at the bottom of the wall, looking for a place to hide until he could get to the governor's room.  A gnarled, old oak tree stood under the open window that Ilya had determined belonged to the governor's room.  After checking once more to make sure that the guard couldn't see him, Ilya sprinted across the garden and dove behind the base of the tree, the tree concealing him from the open garden that he had just crossed.  He slumped against the trunk for a moment.  His hands were shaking, and he wrapped them around two clumps of dew-soaked grass, trying to steady them.  His heart was fluttering, and he was clammy with sweat that chilled on his skin.  His breath misted in the cold morning air.  He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and trying to take deep breaths.

            Maybe if I don't think about it—just let myself do it.  The gun dug into his back, and he heard the echo of that fateful shot in his mind.  Violent trembles ran through his limbs.  He leaned forward quickly as his stomach heaved, and he retched on the grass.  Coughing and gagging because of the stench on his lips and coming from the ground in front of him, Ilya sat back on his heels weakly, too worn to shake anymore.  He didn't want to kill this man.  Damnit.  It wasn't fair.  If this was a mistake…  Maybe the governor wasn't an awful person like Oleena had insinuated; Ilya certainly hadn't met him.  How was he supposed to know?  Maybe people's lives were the same everywhere in the world, not just here, and maybe Relena Peacecraft was the one to blame.

            Ilya stood, supporting his weight on his weak knees by bracing his arms against the tree.  He rested his forehead on the rough bark.  No.  Oleena knows what she's doing.  It might not be right, but she believes it's necessary.  She hasn't ever led us wrong before.  We might end up fighting Relena Peacecraft and the whole Earth Sphere United Nation at some point.  But right now, it's necessary…

            He pulled the gun from his back pocket.  It was cold and heavy in his hands; his muscles were still weak.  There was no time left, though.  He had to start now.

            He checked the wall top from behind the tree.  No guard.  The governor seemed to the outside eye to be a very foolish man.  He had no alarms or security systems on his property.  However, he wasn't entirely without protection.  Guards constantly patrolled the wall and rooftops, and many of his employees were trained in one form of fighting or another.  The reason Oleena had been hired in the first place was her physical strength.  Plus, the mayor himself was a very formidable man, and a forbidding target.

            The curtains of the window above Ilya's head billowed out as the governor leaned over the sill, a scowl on his heavy face and his shoulders hunched over.  Ilya darted to the wall of the mansion, pressing his back against it.  He took quick, shallow breaths, and the rapid beating of his heart played a tattoo in his ears.

            When the governor disappeared, Ilya moved swiftly to the tree.  Ignoring his still trembling limbs, he scrambled up the trunk and pulled himself onto a thick leafy bough, from which he could see into the governor's room.  The large man was pacing and railing silently at an absent annoyance.  He face tinted red, he whipped around the room in a rage.

            Ilya used both hands and feet to tread softly down the branch.  He couldn't keep the leaves from shaking, though, and every time the governor's head turned toward the window, Ilya's heart stopped.          

            All too quickly, the branch thinned enough that it could no longer hold his weight.  Ilya gauged the distance between himself and the windowsill, taking his gun out and clamping his hand around the trigger.  He gathered his muscles and threw himself at the window, hitting the sill with enough force to bruise his ribs.  He was half-in and half-out when the governor saw him.

            The governor charged toward him with an animalistic snarl that almost shocked Ilya into letting go.  He latched on to Ilya's upper arms with hands that could probably pound through a wall.

            "Oh God, I'm sorry!" Ilya shouted, surprised and terrified by the governor's speedy attack.  He didn't want to do this.  He didn't want to kill anyone…  Bile rose in his throat, and his vision danced with spots of grey.

            Surprise flashed across the governor's face but cleared when he saw the gun in his assailant's hand.  He raised a fist and struck Ilya across his face hard enough to tear his grip from the sill.  Ilya's mind numbed with fear as he fell, and unconsciously, his finger squeezed the trigger.

            Pain stabbed through his whole body as he hit the ground.  His breath exploded from his lungs, and he writhed on the grass, gasping for air.  After several eternities had passed where he couldn't think and could only see tendrils of black, he was able to breath again and lay in a state of utter weakness.  Then, he saw the blood coursing down the brick wall of the mansion.  Above his head, the governor hung limply out of the window, framed in spattered red.

            Relena straightened her jacket with more force than she intended and heard a couple threads snap.  She was standing with a maid outside the door to the governor's personal rooms, waiting with impatiently jangling nerves for the man to answer his servant's timid rapping.

            "You're sure that he's in here?" Relena asked in a carefully schooled voice that kept her nerves and her impatience hidden.

            "Yes, ma'am," the maid said with a curtsy.  "He said that he would be in his rooms all morning, ma'am, and that he should only be bothered if it was something important."

            "Would he mind too terribly if I just walked in?  Instead of waiting for an answer, Relena slipped around the maid to the door.

            The maid's hands fluttered to her face in shock.  "No, ma'am!  Please don't!  He won't like it!"

            Relena knocked sharply on the door once and waited a moment before turning the knob.  The maid walked swiftly away, murmuring to herself.  Relena opened the door to an opulent room with cream-colored carpeting and intricately but tastefully carved furniture that looked like it was made from cherry wood, its rich brown-red complementing the lighter decorations in the room.  A decanter of wine stood next to a half-empty glass in the center of the room, and the light from the fire burning low in the hearth made the burgundy wine glow and refracted on the crystal goblet, scattering rainbows whimsically over the carpeting.

            With all the fuss that the maid had been making, Relena was surprised when she didn't even see the governor in the room.  She walked hesitantly further into the room, not sure how the governor would react if he saw her here.  There was a closed door in the far right-hand corner, and Relena headed resolutely toward it, stepping carefully around the small table with the wine.

            She saw the first spot of blood only because she had glanced down at the rainbows glittering on the floor.  It was a dull, dark red, lighter around the edges where it had seeped into the carpet; Relena found that she couldn't keep her eyes from casting about the floor, especially when she saw that more drops had fallen around the first.  They finally fell on the sole of a polished black shoe.

            I don't want to see this… Relena thought, even as she realized that she was in a room with a freshly dead person.  She was still now, her hands and arms prickling with goosebumps.  She heard the dripping through a silence that seemed to roar in her ears and forced herself to look. 

            A stocky man was hanging halfway out of the window, draped there as if he were no more than a carpet that needed airing out.  Relena moved cautiously toward him, avoiding the drops of blood like they were snakes and looking at the body like it was a wild animal poised to strike at her.  She touched his shoulder cautiously.  The muscles were already stiffening.  It didn't feel like a real body but like an overstuffed doll, instead, and Relena couldn't help the little whimper of disgust that escaped her throat.  She clamped both hands on his shoulders and flipped him over, starting back as his pants' leg brushed against her.

            "Oh…" she murmured.  She said it with little emotion.  It was more like uttering an expected response than gasping out a shocked exclamation.  It was the governor.  His face was pale with dark hollows under his eyes.  His thick neck was a mess of bloody gore where the bullet had ripped through muscles and arteries.  She should have realized that it was him before, maybe part of her had known that it could only be him.

            I wish it hadn't happened like this.  They've started to help themselves, but they shouldn't have killed him.  That thought came with the strange calmness that comes over people when something pounds their senses past shock or grief.  Then came the horrifying thought that ripped her out of that state of calm.  What do I do now?

            She went to the window, intending to look out over the city, as if it could bless her with some answers.  As soon as the wind brushed light fingers across her face and she felt that she'd be able to get past this feeling of lost helplessness, a gasp caught her attention, and she looked down to see a young man lying on the grass, a silver gun a few feet away from him.

            "You did this," she said softly.

            The young man pulled himself up to lean on his arms and began scooting backward, finally stopping with his back resting against the tree.  He moved restlessly, pulling his legs up in a defensive gesture.

            "Yes," he finally said, his voice as low as hers with no trace of pride or viciousness.  He was moving more steadily now, keeping his gaze turned downward, away from her and the blood on the wall.  Pulling himself onto his knees, he turned and reached for his gun.  Relena looked up past the tree.

            "Don't," she said suddenly, startling him.  He whipped around, pointing the quivering gun at her.

            "What?" he asked, his voice strained.

            "Wait until the guard goes past."

            "You're…you're helping me?" he asked, lowering the gun.  "But I just murdered a man."

            Relena nodded.  It was against her ideals, and she thought that he must know that.  "Yes, but you had reason to.  That was my fault.  I could've stopped this situation long ago, but I was following the wrong path."  She looked up again.  "The guard's gone."

            "You're letting me go?"  He still couldn't believe it.  His shock showed plainly on his face.

            "Hurry," she said, willing him to be sensible and leave.  "Not many other people will understand that this," she gestured at the blood that she had refused to look at, "is actually for good."

            He nodded once to her in affirmation.  "Thank you," he said solemnly, "but I myself don't think that my actions were good."

            "But it's what you believe in isn't it?"

            "I don't believe in killing, but I'm taking orders from a woman whose decisions can save us all."

            Then he was gone, leaving Relena to ponder what this other woman was doing that she wasn't.

            Trowa trudged slowly down an alleyway that was narrow enough so that only one person could walk comfortably through it, keeping his head down and his back hunched slightly, the way that so many walked here.  A gun lay cool and still in his pocket.  His fingers brushed lightly against it as he left the cover of the alley.  Before him was a pewter gray wall that stretched twenty feet into the air, ragged wisps of insulation hanging despondently from underneath a loosely-shingled roof.

            He let himself into the building through a small side door.  After it swung soundlessly shut behind him, the broken lock crashed against the metal.

            His footsteps left clear imprints on the floor.  Dust hung in the air, stirring occasionally in a stale breeze, blurring Trowa's view with filthy glitter.  He froze, muscles tense as a hoarse cough, muffled by the dust curtain, reached his ears.  There was  a stirring in the corner.

            Heero crept across the top of a partially fallen brick wall that had been built, he assumed, to keep the pathetic remnants of the dying city's people out, trapping them in the twisting alleyways, like rats in a maze that had to watch carefully for food or electric wires.

            The warehouse building before him looked as though it had been decaying for years. Heero raked his eyes over it, looking for the best entrance. He was surprised that he could easily see the company's name emblazoned across the wall in front of him in crisp white letters.

            NOEL TOY CRAFTERS

            A toy company…?

            He dropped off the wall, one hand bracing him as he landed. As he strode resolutely to the building where he knew that Trowa was searching for the rebels, a totally irrelevant thought crossed his mind that he quickly pushed away.

            What happened to all the kids?

            He entered the dust-laden warehouse though a window near the roof, pulling himself through with clawed, straining fingers until he was able to kneel on the top of a crate that crowned an untidy mountain. Below him, Trowa stood center stage, and to the far right was a dark bundle of rags in the shadows.

            Heero wobbled down the stack of crates. Before he was even a third of the way down, Trowa's head whipped around. He watched Heero with narrowed eyes and a hand on his gun.

            "Did you find anything?" Heero asked as his feet touched lightly on the ground.

            Trowa jerked his head toward the bundle in the shadows. "Him."

            Heero walked over, feeling as though he was wading through a shiny sort of fog, until he reached the place where the man lay, a heavy overcoat twisted and bunched near his shoulders. His socks were different colors, one up, one slouching around his ankle.

            "He's dead," Trowa said from faraway.

            Heero took his eyes away from the dead man and looked behind where he lay. Tucked into a corner was a ragged recliner, stuffing pouring from the armrests. A pattern of flowers in full bloom was faintly visible beneath a heavy layer of dust. A red stain shone near the head of the chair, a badge honoring its worn misery. Heero gazed at the man again, imagining how his body must have bounded from the chair, noticing that his limbs were sprawled untidily in the dust. He felt cold suddenly; his stomach clenched.

            "Why did you kill him, Trowa?"

            He turned when he didn't hear a reply, but Trowa had vanished. He cast a glance to his right and saw a vague form advancing toward him.

            "Calm down, Heero." Towa's outline gradually became sharper. He appeared out of the dust cloud as if he were pushing aside a veil, and he was pointing his gun at Heero's head.

            Trowa felt a vague sense of panic as he threatened his comrade. He had thought that Heero would have enough control… Obviously, control had nothing to do with the current situation.

            It could easily go either way now, Trowa thought. He felt as though he was hanging on the edge of an immense drop. His feet hit the ground heavily.

            "Trowa—what are you doing?" Heero asked, hesitantly reaching for his own gun. He looked as though he refused to recognize the need for it, and Trowa had the mouth of his gun pressed to Heero's temple before his comrade could change his mind.

            "You shouldn't have come back, Heero," Trowa said, putting steel into his voice as best he could. "I told you that they needed to heal—you're only in the way. The best thing that you can do now is leave again, and if that means permanently then—"

            "Trowa, I promised Relena that I'd help her."

            "What about Quatre?"

            "…Why would he have an objection? She can't do this alone. He knows that."

            "Be honest. Would it stop there? Would you be able to think of her as a friend only? I saw you before you left the first time. You were falling in love with her. I can't let you do that to him."

            "Will you help her, then?"

            "I've been helping. I came here to protect her."

            "You didn't come here for her, though. You know she wouldn't approve of what you're doing. Only a soldier would even understand it."

            Trowa stared hard at Heero, wondering what he was suggesting, what he was thinking.

            "I told Quatre what I was going to do," Trowa said carefully, "but he didn't have anything to do with my decision."

            Heero smirked slightly and tried to hide it. Both of them, he saw now, were fools. Trowa couldn't help his actions any more than he could help his own, but it bothered him that neither of them could control what was happening. Heero wasn't even sure he could describe it in words; he only knew that something had gone wrong at some point.

"What do we do now?"

            Heero's voice came out in a soft rumble, and Trowa's hand jerked a little in surprise.

            "Disappear. It would be the best thing."

            Heero's cheek twitched as if he were about to smile. He shook his head.

            "I don't like that answer."

            Trowa pushed the safety down with his thumb and restlessly moved his finger on the trigger.

            Heero felt the mouth of the gun press harder against his head, but Trowa did nothing after that. Adrenaline flooded Heero's veins, his muscles bunched, and he felt as though he was hovering breathlessly a thousand feet above ground.

            "If you're going to shoot me then do it!" he growled.

            The only answer he received was the muffled pat of Trowa's feet on the ground as he shifted.

            He couldn't be still any longer. If he couldn't move the way that he wanted to, then he'd rather be in a position where he wouldn't know or care what happened to him.

            "Do it!" he shouted, vaguely aware that his hand was reaching for the trigger.

            "No!"

            Eventually Relena backed away from the window. She turned a heavy gaze over to the wooden table that held the wine decanter and found herself beside it without knowing how her feet had gotten her there. She absently ran her fingers over it, and it shone back at her, like the depths of light in the eye of a benign animal. It comforted her, that and the lack of emotion she felt inside. That noticeable absence left a hole that she could crawl into to hide.

            She was only interrupted from her dazed meditation when punishing footsteps rattled the table. A drop of wine fell from the edge of the goblet and slithered down the side. Relena looked over to see a huge hand wrapped claw-like around her upper arm. A voice rumbled in halting English from somewhere above her.

            "Ma'am, I have to ask you to come with us."

            Us? Relena thought foggily. There was only one hand, one voice. She didn't look around for the other. It didn't seem important. The hand led, and she followed.

            Heero stared at Trowa, feeling his heartbeat slowing and knowing that Trowa's was doing the same as he knelt down to run his fingers across the only spot of the concrete floor that was free of dust, the scar that the bullet had made.

            "Well," Trowa said slowly, his voice and face calm. Heero wondered then if he had been right, or if Trowa's heart had stopped beating long ago. "Maybe you two are meant to fall in love."

            Something in Heero's chest tightened, painful and exquisite and thrilling at the same time. He stepped after Trowa as the other turned to leave, slipping his gun into his back pocket.

            "Trowa, what about—"

            "Leave it alone, Heero," Trowa interrupted, his voice cool and veiled.

            Trowa opened the door carefully, knowing that he didn't want to hear that clanging lock again but not really knowing why. He held the door for Heero, let him go out first, and stood for a moment feeling a silly flutter in his chest. He probed at it for awhile before giving up, exasperated. There was no sense in feeling that way; it was only a door, after all.