Disclaimer: I don't own and Gundams or their pilots. The most I can do is rent one to take me downtown in this snowstorm to see Escaflowne.
Watching You
Part 4
I stumbled down the ladder into the bay, still rubbing my eyes with my sleeves, not having bothered to pull them up over my hands. Despite having showered, they still felt dirty and I couldn't explain why.
Sally looked up from her position on the floor next to Wufei. I realized that he was awake, propped up on his elbows and scowling as usual. I almost smiled at that – it brought a measure of normalcy to the scene before me. Nothing since last night had seemed normal – not that anything was ever "normal" anymore, but still… I needed something to compare things to.
Then Wufei looked up at me and his eyes narrowed and turned dark, and my stomach turned cold as I stopped three feet away from them.
"Ah, there you are. Heero told me you were sleeping," Sally said, pushing herself to her feet. She looked me over once or twice. "Hm, the scarring was worse than I'd hoped," she murmured as her eyes fell on my face, speaking more to herself than to either of us. That was right – she hadn't seen me since we'd left the old base to settle here.
I had to keep myself from flinching at that. Of course, I wanted to tell her, of course they were bad. I wished people would stop reminding me of that. The pilots had stopped, for the most part, knowing the effect it had on me, but whenever I was sent out for supplies or parts or food, people always stared at me. I hated it. It was like I would never be able to forget.
"You look tired; how do you feel?" This time Sally was addressing me.
"Fine," I replied shortly, nerves still rubbed raw from last night's stress and the unintentional hurt her words had brought just now. Not to mention the look of pure death Wufei was giving me now, because I hadn't seen his eyes go that cold for a long time.
And it was really bothering me. Why the hell was he looking at me like that?
"How is he?" I asked; Sally turned back to the boy on the floor.
"He'll be fine. I believe you got to the cuts soon enough to prevent any major blood loss or tissue damage. He does have broken ribs, which will need time to heal. As I was just telling him," she said, glancing down at the scowling form beneath us, "no more missions. For a month."
"Damnit, I said I was fine," he protested, pushing himself into more of a sitting position.
"No you're not," she insisted sharply, eyes just as sharp as her voice. "Koji here may have done a good job at bandaging you, but your ribs will not heal overnight. No more piloting until they're fully healed." She turned back to me. "That was a good job you did last night."
I shook my head, looking at my feet so that I wouldn't have to look at Wufei. "No, I was just doing whatever I could. I'm just glad you're here."
* * *
Not only was I glad that Sally had come, but I was just as glad that she had decided to stay on for a week to make sure that her instructions were being enforced. But that week had flown by and she'd had to leave this morning, putting Quatre and myself in charge and delegating us to helping out Trowa and Wufei. Heero had indeed been pronounced "fine" by Sally and had gone about beginning repair work on Wing. Trowa had needed to stay in bed for two or three days, just to make sure the concussion hadn't been more serious than it seemed, but by now he was up and about and working on repairs to his own Gundam. And Wufei had been limited to bed and "non-stressful activities" for at least another week.
That had sounded easier than it was. He had refused to stay in bed despite Sally's insistence and threats, and now that she had left this morning it was going to be all we could do to keep him from resuming his martial arts training. And aside from that, he'd been even meaner to me than usual. Every time I showed my face he seemed to bristle with hate and anger. And I'd thought he'd been maybe moving into indifference, before this accident. That maybe he'd begun to accept me. Well, count me wrong. And so he continued to ignore me, to ignore anyone and go right ahead and train, despite the strain he was putting on his broken ribs.
And what I still couldn't understand, after all this time, was how he could make me so angry. Wufei still managed to somehow strike up that chord that I never otherwise saw in myself – he would hit something with some look or some word and I would explode. I didn't know why, couldn't figure it out. No one really knew about it, since we really only had ever argued in private. Quatre would give me worried looks, when I would come back downstairs still fuming, but he hadn't said anything and somehow I couldn't tell him.
But even Duo had been giving me curious looks, as of late.
Nonetheless, it had resulted in six yelling matches in nearly as many days. So far.
Take for example, right now. I had just been sent up with a tray of food – sandwich, apple, and drink – for him. It had been one day shy of a week since he had been injured, and here he was, in the middle of a kata, and glaring at me for having opened the door immediately after knocking. As if I had been all that terribly rude for assuming he was in bed as he should have been.
And I was standing in the doorway, currently deciding which was better – to stare at my feet and avoid the look he was giving me, or glare at him and tell him off for doing something that could further strain his injury.
He didn't give me quite enough time to decide; he straightened and continued staring at me.
"What the hell do you want?"
I glared back, already provoked by his look and his words before I could think. Here we went again. And I was getting just a little sick of being treated like that. He was getting to me. I was breaking. I probably had been ever since this whole thing had started. But I wasn't about to admit it.
"I'm bringing you lunch. And you're not supposed to be doing that. Sit down." God, why could he make me so angry? I brushed past him and set the tray on the table beside his bed. "There. Now eat it and rest like a good little injured Gundam pilot."
He stared at me, blinking. Even I was a little surprised at the sound of my voice, not to mention the words that had just spilled from my mouth.
Suddenly the familiarity of the situation fell upon me, for the first time and I wondered how I could've missed it before. It was just like that day, however long ago it was, when he'd first showed up in my room with soup instead of Quatre and told *me* to eat. It was déjà vu, only turned around so that he was the injured one, and I was the…
"What happened to you?" he asked, the slightest hint of surprise bordering his voice but it was mostly sarcasm edged with apathy; nonetheless, he was eyeing the food.
I sighed. Well, I hadn't been having the best of days. Sally had examined me this morning before she left, and reported that the scars were as healed as they were going to get. It had just sunk in, for real, that I was going to look like this – scarred and torn and burned – for the rest of my life. It just hadn't hit home, before, I supposed. I hadn't had time to stop and think about it. I had been able to convince myself that they were still healing.
But they weren't. They weren't going to heal any more.
It was superficial and selfish, but I didn't want to look like this for the rest of my life.
"Nothing," I replied, not even bothering to let the fact that he'd asked what was wrong register, instead pointing to the food. "I'm not the issue here. You are. You and your food, which I don't see you eating."
His face twisted into a mask of anger then. I actually couldn't believe it hadn't done so sooner. Had I actually caught him off guard?
"Don't tell me what to do, *onna*," he spat, eyes going a shade darker as they fixed themselves on me.
"Fine," I replied. "Don't eat. See if I care. I know you don't care what I think. But this wasn't ever about what I thought – that's doctor's orders, right there," I said, pointing to the tray, "and she'll be pissed at you if you don't eat it."
"I don't care," he said, falling back into his kata, turning his eyes away from me and ignoring me. "Besides, she left."
That was it. "I *know* you don't care, all right? I know that. But *I* care, baka. Look – you wanted to break me? Fine. You've broken me. I'm damned sick of being treated this way, Wufei. What do you want me to be?!"
Silence. He had stopped his kata again and was staring at me; I could feel my face flush. I hadn't meant to explode at him like that… Taking my anger over my scars out on him wasn't going to do any of us any good. It would more likely than not result in something bad, especially on my part. Like pain. Induced by him.
"I don't want you to be anything," he replied finally, breaking the silence, but there was some softness, something unsure beneath his voice.
"But you must," I reasoned, still flushed but beginning to calm down, beginning to feel more desperate for an end to this than anything, "or you wouldn't keep… pushing me. Or whatever it is you're doing. What are you trying to do?"
He crossed his arms over his chest, sighed irritably. His eyes dropped from my face to the floor, studying the patternless metal flooring. "I don't know," he scowled. "But you know what I do know?" he asked suddenly, voice just as annoyed and sharp as ever, eyes rising to meet mine and I nearly shuddered.
"What?" I asked softly, suddenly almost afraid to answer, as if that would somehow scare him off, of all things. But the air was suddenly delicate – the situation was suddenly delicate – and it seemed like I could shatter it without a second through if I wasn't careful.
Which was odd. Especially for Wufei. And that bothered me all the more. What the hell was he pulling here?
He paused. His eyes narrowed, and when he spoke, he spoke with self-disgust. Something I had never heard in his voice before.
"I respect you," he said quickly, "I respect you and damnit, I don't want to. You're just a girl – some *girl* who wormed her way in here a year* ago, who got that baka Maxwell to fall for her and who happened to be good at fixing mobile suits. And then you turned out to be our enemy – you've done nothing but prove how weak you are – "
He paused; I didn't even dare to breathe, his words still ringing in my ears, my eyes wide, my stomach churning. What was he *saying* – ? And if what he was saying was true, he had a hell of an odd way of showing it.
"And yet you've done nothing but prove how strong you are," he went on, voice softer now, and he wasn't looking at me anymore. "I don't *understand* you. I don't understand why Winner wouldn't let me kill you. I don't understand why I *didn't* kill you."
He stopped, seemingly out of things to say. I dared to take a breath then, still watching him as he watched a patch of floor somewhere a yard away from his feet.
"I don't understand why you didn't kill me either, actually," I said softly, the anger over my scars slowly dissipating into despair, self-pity that I normally would've shoved off, but didn't have the mental capacity to right now.
His eyes snapped up from the floor, meeting mine once again. They were as cool and unreadable as ever. "I didn't know what to think about that, especially since… since I remember thinking at that moment that I wanted nothing more in the world than to die. I wanted you to kill me, and then you didn't, and then my life just fell apart…
"I don't know," I sighed. "I don't know anything anymore. I don't know what I want – I mean, I know I want to stay here, to help all of you, because I think you're doing the right thing. But I also think…"
My words were falling from my mouth just as quickly as they could form themselves in my mind, raw thoughts tumbling out as sound that I was sure he didn't want – didn't need – to hear, and some of the sounds articulated things that I'd been afraid to think of, even to myself, even in the silence of my own mind, which I still wasn't sure was a safe place for me to live…
But these things had been forming in my mind, for I knew not how long. And even with the events of the past week… they were still there.
"Listen. You matter to me. In some sick, twisted, I-don't-know-how way you matter, and the fact that you're never happy matters. You know that? I don't get it. But all I do get is that you're sad – you probably don't even know it, but you are. The same way Quatre is. The difference is that you're hurting and you just won't let anybody see." I laughed just a little. "I've seen you hurting, I've been watching you and I wish you would stop doing whatever it is you're doing to yourself. It's –"
"Then stop watching," he snapped.
"I can't," I snapped right back at him. He was at it again, able to pull out my anger and make me throw it right back in his face. "I don't blame you," I said shortly. "And I don't blame you for hating me, either. But I think… I think that you're selling yourself short."
I caught his eyes again, and despite my heart pounding in my head, throbbing in my ears, I held them; those cool, expressionless orbs that were right now holding… fear? Hate? Anger? I couldn't tell –
"I think that you force yourself to be alone. And I think that you're so intent on it that you refuse to let anyone listen to you, for real. And I'm sorry for that, because I think that deep down, hidden behind words like 'justice' and 'strength,' you really have a lot to say.
"I would listen to you, you know," I finished, although I could barely hear those words myself, and I was suddenly shocked that I'd actually uttered them out loud because I hadn't even believed I felt that way until the moment the syllables had passed through my lips. I stopped then, my words running silent as my thoughts ran dry. Oh *God*, what had I just told him…?
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me through the silence.
Then, "Onna, you have no right to say you're sorry for me. Why the hell can't you just say you're angry? Why can't you just tell me you hate me? I put you down all the time and you just f**king take it. How the hell can you be *sorry* for me, or whatever it is that you say you are? How the hell can you be so kind to me? I can't take it – onna, why don't you just get angry with me?!" His voice was rushed, angry, but somehow he didn't seem angry with *me*.
"Get angry at you?" I echoed. "What the hell do you think you've been making me do for the past week, *baka*? Hell, it's easy to get angry with you!"
"Then why are you still here? Why don't you hate me?" he asked, and if his voice hadn't been so full of acid-sharp hate, I would've sword it was desperate. "I never asked for your sympathy!"
But I couldn't hate him, not even after all of this. Couldn't he understand that?
Couldn't *I* understand that?
"And I never offered it," I replied, my own voice rising to match his. "I never gave you any –"
"You saved my life."
The words that had cut me off hung in the air, crystalline, silencing all else around us.
He had made it sound more like I'd cursed him than saved him.
And I hadn't saved his *life* –
Sally had pulled me aside, later that day, and told me that I had done more good than I had thought, by bandaging him so quickly. By binding the broken ribs. By stopping the bleeding. She told me she couldn't have done much for him if I hadn't –
Sound broke the air, finally. It startled me to hear that it was my own voice.
"And you saved mine," I told him softly. "So I guess we're at a draw." I paused. "I'm sorry." It suddenly seemed like the only thing left I could say.
But his eyes narrowed and he looked down at me, angrier. "Stop apologizing!" he said, somewhere between a plea and a yell.
"I can't," I told him, and suddenly the things that I had thought I had finally gotten in check were spilling out all over again. "You deserve it, Wufei. Somehow… I don't know. It seems like something terrible happened to you a long time ago, and you haven't gotten the apology you deserved for it. You don't deserve terrible things, Wufei," I told him, voice as firm as I could make it. "I'm sorry. For whatever happened to you. I'm sorry – I'm sorry until that can make it better."
He stared at me, and suddenly there *was* something in his eyes. And it was fear.
My stomach dropped.
"I never asked you to save me," he said flatly.
I started. "But I –"
"I never asked to *live* after that," he went on; his eyes had become unfocused, he wasn't really talking to me anymore. "I never asked for this war. I never asked to fight this war, damnit! It was all *her* fault," he accused. "Her fault, for dying, for being so damn stubborn. And she won't leave me alone!"
He looked up, eyes focused once more.
"Just like you won't leave me alone. Is that too much to ask, onna?"
The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could think about them. "When I care this much about you, yes."
He blinked. "Then stop caring."
"I can't."
"Baka."
"Baka."
"I don't deserve –"
"*I* don't –"
"This is pointless," he said.
"Hai."
"The last person I respected was her. And she went and died. I won't do it again."
I blinked, feeling my heart speed up, feeling my stomach drop.
"All right, then. So don't," I told him softly.
"Leave me alone," he scowled, and turned his back on me.
And that was it. It was over. Whatever it was.
I blinked again. "Fine. I'm gone."
I was out the door in less than ten seconds, now standing with my back to it trying to catch my breath. I hadn't noticed that I'd needed to catch it.
What was going on? Had he just told me he *respected* me? Well he sure as hell didn't act like it, that was for sure –
And he *wanted* me to hate him? Whatever for? Why was making the effort to spark my anger?
I didn't understand. And more than that, I didn't understand what the hell *I* had pulled back there. What had I told him, that he mattered and that I didn't like to see him hurting –
Was that how I really felt? Was *that* what had been sitting in my gut for…
I didn't even know how long it had been. I truly didn't. But suddenly I realized that it had been there so long that I had begun to live with it like it had been there forever.
I didn't want him to hurt.
Oh, God, what did that say about me?
I suddenly had to catch my breath again, and I didn't like that.
Enough.
But we hadn't resolved anything.
Had we?
"I respect you."
His words rang in my ears. But… He was obviously hurting. Someone else – "she" – had hurt him before, and apparently now I was doing the same. But that didn't make sense. And above that, I didn't want to hurt him – but what the hell was I supposed to do? Stop *being*?
Stop caring. That was what he had said. But – and I had told him – I could no sooner stop caring than I could cease breathing. And the more important question there was *why*?
I didn't know. But were these things ever logical? Was *I* ever logical? Probably not, I thought with a half-smile. My life had seemed pretty devoid of logic lately. But even so, I was still faced with the same problem.
What was I going to do?
