Disclaimer: Trowa Barton, Midii Une, Heero Yuy, Relena Peacecraft-Dorlian and any other mentions of the show Gundam Wing are strictly the property of Bandi/Sotsu Agency and I claim no right over them. However, the concepts for this story (plot, irony, bad grammar) are mine.
Awake in Dark
Part One:
The room was still with pungent aromas hanging dead in the air. The shutters were drawn, blocking out the pale beams of moonlight threatening to filter into the room. She wanted it to be dark. The blackness seemed so appropriate to the void of numbness that consumed her.
Midii Une lie sprawled on the twisted, mangled sheets of her bed. The blankets wrapped around her ankles and arms, pinning her there like the shackles of her mind.
The fan hummed slowly, doing nothing to disperse the stillness hovering above. She breathed heavily, holding each breath until her lungs burned. Then she slowly let it out again, counting the seconds as they slowly ticked away.
She knew then that she needed to escape. Her head tilted slightly, to an angle where the red, luminescent numbers of the clock were visible. Three thirty a.m. blinked back mockingly, taunting her to fall asleep.
But sleep was beyond her grasp, just as it had been for the past few months. She was forever bound to the constant nightmare of reality, and the incessant reminder of her past. It was these, and not the physical bonds, that she wished to escape.
Her body often cried-her muscles sore and her eyelids hooded over dry, blood-shot eyes. She usually ignored them, staring at yet another unfamiliar ceiling.
On the rare occasion she was granted passage into sleep, it was never deep and restful. Sleep always gave way to dreams, and dreams to nightmares. And that's where he would be waiting for her…in nightmares.
She could always see his face, just as clearly as the day he had first found her. It was never a coincidence they had met, she and the boy that bore no name. I had been a betrayal set from the start, and a betrayal she longed to forget.
But there were so many things she had already forgotten; she no longer cried, no longer prayed, no longer smiled. To her, she no longer lived.
The memories resurfaced within her, unbidden like countless times before. She had learned to accept them...them and the bombardment on her conscience. It had never been easy for her, to watch those people die and know that their deaths were her fault. But she hadn't cried, not yet anyway. By that time, by merely the age of ten, she'd grown accustomed to the howls of agony rising form the battlefield. They were in the middle of a war, and during wars, death was inevitable. All that mattered was how long you managed to cheat him before death finally caught up with you.
But then he had found her. He had no name, no family, no place to call home. They all simply called him Nanashi.
They were the same age. He was war torn orphan, trained to be a soldier since before he could remember. He had told her once that they were the same, and that was the reason why he had saved her.
She would habitually watch him as he worked, never taking offence to his clam exterior and the silence shared between them. She would watch his nimble fingers and the all around dexterity he possessed as he worked.
They were so much alike, and yet she knew, even to this day, they were so very different.
She had been his only grasp on reality, a force that bound him in return, to life. She was his reason for survival, and she knew that in more ways than one.
She had been a spy for the Alliance, and he a member of a rebel guerrilla troop. The Alliance had given her two transmitters, should one become…discovered. One was a simple gaming necklace, while the other a cross. She had given him the second, as a gift for saving her. She had thought, in some odd instant that with the gift, she could save him too. Would the Alliance really know she had given her gift to the enemy?
Then she had gone and betrayed them, the group that took her in as one of their own. They had never seen it coming, never expected a poor little girl to be the traitor among them. But Nanashi knew…he always knew.
Nanashi had killed them all, every last Alliance military soldier. The ambush was supposed to wipe out the rebel troop, but he had managed to survive.
Midii's breathing became heavier, a thin sheen of sweat sculpting the sheets to her body. Wisps of blonde hair were plastered over her flushed cheeks. She started into the darkness, the shadows molding into undistinguishable figures. Her eyes burned with restrained tears as the memories continued along their programmed track. She wouldn't cry…she couldn't cry. She had forgotten how. But still the stinging sensation was there as a reminder of what was and what had been.
He had hated her; hated her for her betrayal, hated her for her lies, hated her for her gift and her pity. She could tell all this from a glance of his usual jaded eyes.
And by the silver barrel shoved in her face.
'So, even you can get mad sometimes.'
She had loved him, and perhaps she even still loved him. She never regretted what she had done though, giving Nanashi her transmitter so that he could live. She had needed to betray those people…the money earned as a spy for the Alliance would save her sick father and three younger brothers.
But none of this mattered to him.
That's when she had cried.
She had loved him, wanted to be with him. They were so much alike, yet they were so much different. She blamed the war, she blamed the Alliance…but most of all, she blamed herself.
Midii turned to her side, tugging the sheets along with her. She could see his face, even in the darkness of shadows. He was always there, staring accusingly back at her; his unfeeling green eyes, masked by a sweep of hair.
The heat pressed against her body and suffocated her lungs. It had been eight years since Nanashi should have shot her, and still she could replay every instant as if it were burned into her memory. By all rights she should be dead. She had killed those men, she had betrayed Nanashi and she deserved to die.
But then why had his two shots missed her?
It was the one question she couldn't answer, and she hated herself for it.
She flung herself again onto her back, her head sunken into the deflated feather pillow. For years she had lived with the twinge of pain that stitched itself into her very existence. Every time her finger lingered on a trigger or her lips muttered information, his face would resurface within her memory.
The laptop near her bed blipped softly, a file appearing on the screen. She slanted her head, glancing over the new mission through glazed and blurred vision. The text shone for a moment, before it began to fade like all the other of her assignments. She returned to staring at the ceiling.
The Earth Sphere Unified Nations Peace Summit was to take place three days from now. Her target, Vice Foreign Minister Peacecraft-Dorlian, was to be the head speaker. Security would be nearly impossible to penetrate.
But even with the Preventer squad on duty, nothing could stop Midii Une from completing her mission.
The shadows danced, configuring into the face of a boy. His green, piercing stare was looking at her again. She slammed her eyelids shut, wincing slightly at the dryness. But he was still there, with the same look of accusation.
She screamed into the darkness, her fingers grabbing fistfuls of hair. She yanked, the madness overwhelming. She needed to escape, to relieve herself of the constant nightmare she lived. She couldn't bear to see his face anymore.
Her fingers unclenched themselves from the hold in her hair, then slightly eased under the pillow to run over the cool metal of her pistol. She could end it now; she could so easily end all the tourture.
'No…' her conscience commanded. 'You still have a final mission to complete.' She sighed, the stale air no longer hard to breathe.
Yes, she would make this assignment her last.
A smile gently snaked its way across her features. Her ultimate assignment. Then she could finally sleep without the worry of seeing his face haunting and hanging above her. She would no longer have to lie awake in the dark.