I don't own Gundam Wing, just this teeny tiny scrap of a story. Many, many years after the wars. Hilde POV. There may be a whisper of shounen ai, but it's pretty damn innocent.

A couple of people have told me that they can't access the little related fic I posted as Chapter 2. Since I've found some stories with "hidden" chapters as well and solved the "missing link" problem, the link to Chapter 2 (which is not a continuation, but a side fic) is: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=854798&chapter=2

Thank you for the feedback, public and private!



After All

by Kamchatka



It's snowing again, fat slow flakes against the purple sky. I can't help but watch. The weather of Earth still captivates me, even though I have called this ancient cottage home for many, many more years than I lived in the L2 colonies where I was born. The climate is constant there, its minor fluctuations planned and announced days in advance. Only here can a flutter of snowflakes catch me by surprise.

Their mesmerizing dance weights my eyelids and I nestle deeper into the comforter. Such a silly name for a blanket, comforter. Especially now.

My best comfort, my true comfort, lies in a simple pine coffin below stairs. For the first time in more than 70 years, I am sitting in a bed that is mine alone. It's cold and it's empty. Dear God, how will I ever sleep without him here?

Why doesn't my heart stop as well?

But I know the answer to that question. I must endure, if only for a while. There are promises I must keep, hands I must hold, tears I must dry, children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren I must comfort. And I must allow them to comfort me.

It is for their sakes, not for mine. I am sad. I ache. I am lonely. But I cannot let myself stay miserable. My life has been too full and too happy for me to turn it sour at the end. He taught me to believe in forever. I know that soon we will be together again, and this time there will be no parting. Soon. Everything comes soon when you're my age.

There is much to be grateful for. The end was so peaceful for him. We sat here in our cozy bed by the window, watching the sun rise, as we so often do. His breathing was a bit harsh and shallow, a little worse today than yesterday, and I caught myself wondering how many more mornings like this we would have. As though he'd read my thoughts he squeezed my hand and whispered "Love you, Hilde Babe." And just like that I knew the answer to my question. I could barely remember the last time he called me "Hilde Babe". Many, many pet names we've had for each other, but that one was from our earliest years together. I looked just in time to see him watching me with the same wistful, wicked half smile that won my heart all those years ago.

And then he died.

The light faded from his eyes and he went heavy against me, and he died, my beloved, between one breath and the next. God's gift to him, I think that gentle passing must have been. He had known so much violence and horror. He had seen and authored so much death that he called himself Shinigami while he was still a child. God's gift it was to me, too. I will never have to see him suffer again.

We knew his heart was failing. He had grown steadily weaker over the past few weeks. Our little boy doctor, who is younger than my youngest grandchild, told us what we already knew. His body had simply worn out. No medicine is proof against time.

The last two days he hadn't gone downstairs at all. But he was my Duo, and if he wasted even a minute feeling sorry for himself, he said nothing of it. We talked more about the old days in those last days than we had in decades, not with longing, just with remembering.

Our lives were often... interesting. Chang Wu Fei once told me that "May you live in interesting times" is a curse. Perhaps so, but I never felt cursed. Life has never been easy, yet I would not change a minute of it, even now.

Wu Fei will be here tomorrow. And Heero. Yes, Heero will come. They are the only ones left now, the only ones who have to remember being the boys who saved the world.

A tiny noise makes me realize I've been dozing. Softly, very softly, the front door closes. Someone is downstairs.

I am not afraid. There is nothing to fear. The sound of a motor would have awakened me sooner. Only one person I know would have walked the four miles from the village at night in the snow.

I toe into my comfortable old slippers and pull on my warm robe before taking up my cane and moving to the top of the stairs. It takes me so long to get anywhere these days.

The door is firmly latched again. An unfamiliar overcoat hangs on the peg next to mine. Warm light and drying footprints lead me into the parlor. He has switched on the little Tiffany lamp at the head of the coffin. His shoulders shake ever so slightly as he rests a gentle hand on the still chest and strokes the white braid that reposes there.

"Baka," he whispers, and the rude word is a term of endearment.

My descent has hardly been silent, and after a moment, he turns to face me. He is still handsome and sturdy, this dignified, bespectacled Japanese gentleman, though he has begun to look his age. His lips are trembling as he manages, somehow, to dredge up a smile for me. Those still intense blue eyes are full of tears.

I am the only living person who has seen Heero Yuy cry.

"Hilde," he says as he reaches out to me with both arms. "Oh, Hilde…"

And so we hold each other and weep, unashamed. Tonight is hard and the services tomorrow will be harder still. He will be my strength and I will be his. There are no secrets between us and no artifice. Our bond is so strong. After all, we have been in love with the same man for the better part of a century.