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Disclaimer: I do neither own Gundam Wing nor any of its characters or references and I make no claim to.
Notes: You know I was actually ready to update on Monday but ff.net wouldn't let me login and update and them my whole Internet shut down. Waves fists angrily at the Inter Nexus Gods. No more sacrificial offerings for you!
Chapter Nine
(Hockey and Letters)
Odin sat on the fallen trunk of an old tree and pulled on his skates. Ethan had been most insistent that he participate in this game. He pulled his knee to his chest and began lacing his skate while watching the other people glide across the ice and warm themselves up. He finished his right skate and pulled up his left. Lots of the older boys from the orphanage were pulling on skates of their own or were already on the ice. There were also other adolescents and a few men in their twenties that he didn't recognize. One of the men he didn't know had come up to Jinx and was ruffling his hair in friendly fashion. The man looked about twenty-one or so and was a good deal larger than Jinx. He was bundled up like the rest of them in winter layers, but his clothes were a bit shabbier then theirs. Odin could also see that under a thick cap the young man was very bald.
Odin stood up from the log and tested his skates on the ice. The skates were borrowed from Neon who was the closest to his size. Neon had admitted earlier that while he enjoyed skating around, with his leg he wasn't much use in this game. Odin took a few gliding steps to get himself in the rhythm and then skated around the pond they were going to use as a rink. He picked up his speed almost racing around the perimeter, enjoying the fluid movement required and the sharp air blowing in his face and through his lungs. He hadn't done nearly enough running this past month.
He came to a quick halt in front of Jinx and the other man. The man was laughing heartily at something Jinx had said, but he stopped when he noticed Odin standing next to them.
"Oh this is Odin. Odin, meet Borg," Jinx said nodding his head casually between them. Borg looked Odin up and down with a nonchalant attitude. It was a lazy look that had neither warmth, nor enthusiasm but was used to assessing people for a fight. Odin in turn took a closer, dissecting look of his own. A hard face, but not a strategically calculating one. Tall, heavily muscled, with many places in his clothes that could hide a weapon of moderate size and a slightly smoky stench to his breath. An intimidator.
"HAH." Borg let out a harsh bark of laughter, breaking off their quiet reviews of each other. He grinned and pulled out rolled up joint from one of his many pockets. A man of few words, Odin liked that. He crossed his arms over his chest and twitched the edge his mouth in a small smirk. It was a sense of instant camaraderie. The kind of understanding that comes with meeting someone of a similar soul as your self. Odin was briefly reminded of Trowa and the quiet, thoughtful air that he carried with him. He and Trowa had had a similar understanding.
"It's a pleasure," Odin nodded back. Borg grinned at Odin and Jinx and said,
"You have interesting taste in company Jinx-boy. Ah, I've got an errand for you after the game." Borg was about to light his joint when Ethan skated over. The tension in his body was clearly visible and he did not bother with any form of pleasantries. He stopped in front of Borg and snatched the joint from his mouth. Borg growled deep in his throat and Ethan glared back, taking advantage of the two-inch height difference to look down his nose at the man.
"It's no concern of mine how you sign your death warrant, but the rest of us aren't so eager to join you!" he hissed and threw the cold cigarette to the pond bank. "Come on, Jinx, Odin," he said and gestured for them to follow him. Jinx stubbornly stuck his hands in his pockets and made no move to follow.
"Borg already picked me for his team," he said. Ethan blew a hot breath out his nose. He looked at Odin, who made no attempt to move either, and glared at Borg, but did nothing else.
"We're going to start," Ethan said and skated off towards where the group was milling around by the edge of the pond. Borg cracked his knuckles and scowled at the other boy's retreating back. Odin nodded to Borg and Jinx and skated after Ethan.
The picking of the teams went relatively quickly. Anna's father Gerry arrived wearing a bright orange armband that proclaimed him the referee and carrying several bags of helmets, protective gear and sticks. There were too many people for just two teams so each team had a number of alternates they could bring in at any time. Odin ended up on Ethan's team as a forward player in an offensive position. Gerry took out some coherent fuse paint and drew a red line through the middle of the pond. They set up the goal posts and stretched the nets across them. Everyone took their places for the face off. Gerry blew his whistle, dropped the puck and the Hockey game began.
Odin had never played Hockey, nor had he ever watched it being played. He soon discovered it was a violent and frustrating game. Before they had begun Ethan had gone over some of the basic rules with him. The object of the game was to get the rubber puck into the opposite goal more times then the other guys.
Ethan had also been very adamant on the rules of checking (or smashing into another player to prevent control of the puck). Smashing into players who did not control the puck was against the rules and in bad form. There was no head butting, no charging, no elbowing, and no grabbing onto another player to hold them in place. Although you could get away with stretching your arm in front of there chest. There was no boarding, or in this case smashing the other player into trees in the absence of walls. There was no hitting another player with your stick over the shoulders. Unless it was an accident as in Jinx's case where he over accelerated his swing at the puck and spun around, hitting his fellow player on the side of the head. Ethan didn't say anything about below the shoulders so one of the opposing players lost the puck when Odin it him in the back of the knees. There was also no fighting. Borg had grinned at Ethan and said that it wasn't considered an actual fight until you took your gloves off. Officially there was no slashing another player with your stick either, though all the players got away with it quite a bit.
Odin skidded to a halt on the ice when a stop was called. Gerry blew his whistle and skated over to Borg's right wing forward. Borg and Ethan also skated over and they and Gerry proceeded to yell about the smashing that had just happened. They had been playing for a good while and tempers were running high. Gerry shouted at the top of his lungs and the two captains went back to their places. Gerry brought the puck over and stood next to Odin and a boy with red hair from the opposite team.
Odin leaned down with his stick to face the red haired player. He was hot underneath his clothes and his armor. Some sweat trickled down the side of his face and wiped his brow with a gloved hand. His hot breath puffed and clouded in front of him. The red head growled at him and stared at his nose. He stared back and remained absolutely still.
Then the puck was dropped and Odin moved to take it. The Red head blocked him and they battled it out with their sticks. Wood making a sharp clattering sound as it hit against wood and ice. As soon as he saw an opening Odin grabbed the puck with his stick and was away. A loud curse came from behind and he could hear the other players come together around him.
Odin flew across the ice, pushing the puck before him with his stick. The freezing air cooled his face as he raced along. Up ahead two enemy players moved into position to block him. Odin had just enough time to turn and avoid them. Skidding with his skates and sending crushed ice into their faces. The players of his own team were all around him trying to protect him from enemy players and ready if he should pass the puck to any of them. On the banks the people who weren't playing now were shouting encouragement and curses at each other and the teams.
Odin felt flushed and heady with the rush of the game. It was hot. Something stirred inside and for a moment he saw enemy Virgo suits bearing down on him instead of people. His fellow teammates became Gundam's and Zero was wailing in his head. Everything was red. He tightened his fingers on the end if his stick. He could see the screen guidelines over the ice, which was now as black as space. Enemy suits on your left, watch out! He's on my tail, I can't shake him, bogies coming in at four marks and three ten, I can't die like this, surround them, For the colonies! Oh my god! IT'S A GUNDAM! AAAAAAAAAAA
"AAAAAAHH!" Odin stopped and stood still on enemy ice, his shoulders rising and falling with his heaving breaths. His arms fell limply to his sides, the hockey stick dropping slowly from his hand. His blood was pounding in his ears and drowning out all other sound. The enemy Goalie was pulling himself up from the ice where he had been sprawled. There was a hole in the net that had been stretched across the goal posts and the puck was halfway buried in a tree behind it.
Odin reached up and undid the clasp under his chin. His hearing was slowly returning and he could here the whistle blowing and people shouting as if from far, far away. Raising one gloved hand he slid the helmet off his head and ran a hand through his sweat soaked hair. The helmet fell to the ice with a clatter and rolled away from his feet. The Goalie was looking at him as if he was some kind of demon risen from hell. Odin turned away from that look and spun around to look at the pond behind him. Gerry and the two captains were skating over to him. Behind them several players were getting unsteadily to their feet. One of Borg's defense men had a couple of people crouching over him and wasn't moving. When Gerry and the two captains reached him he just said
"I shouldn't play anymore," and skated off the ice with his helmet and stick.
~~~~~
Ethan rubbed the old towel through his clean, wet hair with a sigh. He dropped the towel onto his bed and pulled on his dad's old shirt. It was his favorite and the one that fit him best. His dad had been as big as him he was told. The shirt was nice and worn and had the comfort of good memories. He sat down on the bed to pull his socks on and made a face when he heard something crack underneath him. Shifting over slightly he pulled the letter disk out from under him and looked at it. He let his socks fall to the floor and stared at it, letting his forefinger wander along the crack in the protective case. He held it almost reverently, but made no move to open it. It had been several weeks since Christmas and he still hadn't opened it.
He looked up when Odin entered, also wet from a shower. Grateful for the distraction he called Odin over. Typically, Odin ignored him and settled on the windowsill with a data pad. Ethan rolled his eyes heavenward and asked or patience. Neon was downstairs gorging himself on leftovers and Jinx had said he had some important errands to run, so Odin was his only company. He shuffled over to the other boy, letter still in hand.
"Hey Odin, how you doing?" no response. "You know you really freaked us out back there on the ice…" nothing, not even a twitch. Ethan heaved a sigh and dropped himself on the other end of the sill. All right, he thought to himself. I guess it was too much to hope for that I could put this off. He brought the letter disk forward and spent a moment wishing it wasn't there. At least if he didn't get one at all it would bring his hopes up. "Look, uh, Odin, I need a favor." Odin looked up from the data pad but didn't move his head. Ethan gulped and handed him the letter. "…Could you open this for me?"
"Hn," Odin grunted in response and took out his novel chip, sliding the disk into the data pad in its place. Standard data pads did not have speakers but the little machine spit out a pair of earphones to listen with. Odin glanced at Ethan who was busy fiddling with the edge of his shirt and stuck one the phones in his ear, watching the screen.
Ethan waited anxiously for the letter to finish. After awhile Odin took out the disk and handed it back to him.
"So?" he asked.
"It was your mother," Odin replied in his usual monotone. Ethan ran his hands through his hair in frustration. This was worse then opening it himself; at least then he'd have it over and done with.
"I know that… what did she say?"
"That she loves you and misses you and that she will soon be out of the drug program." Ethan sagged back against the window feeling his heart drop into his pelvis with the disappointment. He should have known, he did know. He snorted in disgust as much at himself as at her. He knew he should be used to that response by now, should be getting numb to it. Unfortunately in reality he had the opposite reaction. Twice a year he would get a letter, twice a year he would hope she'd finally done it and twice a year he would have his hopes crushed. Damn her for getting his hopes up for nothing.
Ethan turned around and flung the window open with a violent CRASH. He leapt out onto the roof outside their window, his anger heating his blood and body enough for him to mostly ignore the cold. He stomped to the edge of the roof and threw the blasted piece of metal and plastic as far as his strength could make it go. Which was a considerable distance. Having thus expelled his anger he was left only with his disappointment. He dropped his large bulk onto the cold roof tiles and listlessly stared off in the direction he'd thrown the stupid letter. Sometime later when he was getting cold he noticed that Odin had joined him with a pair of jackets.
"Thanks," he mumbled and pulled on the one that was handed to him. "Sorry about that, you guys have enough to deal with without me turning red and getting steam coming out of my ears." He heaved a sigh, his breath making a little cloud in the air. "She could beat this if she tried, she doesn't need that… stuff. She's such a flake…" Odin said nothing, just scooted forward enough to dangle his legs off the roof over a four-story height. "Do you miss your home?" Ethan asked suddenly.
Odin wasn't sure what he should think about that. He was already working on the problem presented by Anna about what he would like to do with his life. It was a much more complicated question then she thought. Or was it? It was possible that she had known exactly the kind of question she was asking.
Now Ethan had posed another hard question that apparently was supposed to be easy. Of course in order to miss something one must have had it at some point. Interesting that Ethan had assumed that he had had a home. He hadn't actually, not that he could remember and his memory went very far back. What was a home anyway? What made it different from a place you lived in? He had wandered from place to place through outer space all his life. An old habit he'd fallen back on in peacetime. He wasn't really from L1, Dr. J just happened to find him there.
Outer space… Earth was fine, but it could never compare to space. It was so quiet you could hear the stars breath, and so beautiful. He remembered siting in the cockpit of his Wing Gundam, in the dark, just him and the silent vastness of space outside. It made you feel so small, staring into infinity, awe inspiring and endless. There were no words to describe it. This muddy little planet felt constricting in comparison. He lifted his face to the sky and the few stars that made it past the bright lights of the city. That was were he had soared.
"Yes," he said. Yes, he did miss outer space now that he thought about it, and it was a good a home as any; for all that it wasn't a building. Satisfied with having given an answer he lay down on his back on the roof with his legs off the side and stared up at the sky.
It was not easy to answer these questions. His rigid training tried to keep him from giving any more information then absolutely necessary to his survival, but it was also hard to think of answers to things that he had never thought much about. People would ask him these things in a way that indicated it was simply everyday information that everybody had. It was sometimes… disturbing that he had to think so much about it.
Thinking of space brought up other, not so pleasant memories. He knew they were there, dragged up from the bottom like a sack of refuse attached to one pure memory. He pushed them back under ruthlessly, refusing to look at them and concentrating only on the thought of space, not what had happened in it. It would be back though, that ugly sack. In the night it would come. When he was alone it would come. But for now, he could ignore it, tell himself it wasn't there.
"You lived in space?" Ethan asked, a little bit of awe creeping into his voice. Then he frowned, "how did you end up on Earth?" Odin just shrugged. Ethan settled back on his elbows next to him and followed his gaze upward. Odin lifted his left arm and pointed his finger at the L4 colony.
"Quatra," he mouthed. The space station was in its lower orbit at this time of year and clearly visible. With that as a guide he could estimate where all the others should be even if he couldn't see them. In turn he pointed to the L3, L2, the place where the L5 colony would be if it was still in existence and named each pilot. He pointed up to the lunar base for Noin, then to the empty space where the battle of the Libra took place for Treize and Zechs. He let his arm fall back to his side but never moved his eyes from the sky.
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