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Disclaimer: I don't own anything thing from Gundam Wing. I am poor, penniless college student , please don't hurt me.

Notes: Some of you seem confused in your reviews (hint to me, I actually got a review saying, "I'm confused") It would help if you could tell me what you're confused about.

Chapter Thirteen

(Looking Glass)

He woke up on the floor, flat on his back with an aching headache. The pain was the first thing to receive his attention. That throbbing feeling in his skull stating he'd just fallen on his head. He noticed his fingers next, buried under a pile of small solid shapes. There was a cube by his thumb, a diamond shape, pyramids and others that were far more round, all of them smooth and covered in tiny engravings. He opened his eyes in confusion. Dice, Jinx's dice had fallen on the floor and covered his hand.

He pulled himself up into a sitting position and brought his other hand to his head. He realized that his breath was coming in gasps and his heart was beating hard enough he felt like it was going to push right out of his chest. His thoughts and movements were coming much slower then usual. He could only manage to bring himself together one sense at a time.

It was cold in here and no lights were lit. He wrapped his arms around himself when a night breeze flew through the darkened room. There shouldn't be any draughts; the window was closed. He looked up to confirm this thought and gulped. The window of the shared room was smashed. A gaping hole with ragged edges of broken glass was all that was left of the windowpane. A wind whistled through the opening, bringing in a light drizzle of rain and causing the curtains to lift and billow outward like a lady's skirts. Outside on the roof, Jinx's nightstand lay on its side with the rain pattering against the wood and shattered glass surrounding it.

Odin gulped and blundered to his feet, and the rest of the scene grew clearer before his waking eyes. Jinx and Neon stood in opposite corners of the room, as far away from him as they could get. Ethan was leaning unsteadily against the wall by the window and clutching his right arm. Even in the dim light from the open window he could see Ethan was pale and the lower part of his forearm hung at an odd angle. Both bones snapped above the wrist and looking like a second joint.

Odin backed away, his eyes locked with Ethan's. The silence was like a portly mans massive belly that took up all the room and was heavy enough to push you to the floor with its weight. He could feel it weighing him down already. His back hit the door and his hand fumbled about for the knob. He could smell the fear in that room, a stale and unpleasant stench. The urge to run increased, to run and not look back, so he wouldn't have to see that look in their eyes. The poorly concealed looks of dread that are given to a bedtime monster come to life.

His hand found the object of its search. The door swung open behind him and he fled. There was no coherent thought in his head as he escaped through the maze of halls and rooms within rooms about the orphanage. He moved on pure instinct, no thought of where he was going or what to do when he got there, only the need flee from something he couldn't fight, the undeniable evidence of the monstrosity he was.

He slid to a halt in a windowed hall on the first story. The sound of feet pounding on the ceilings above and through the walls of his own level was loud in his ears. They were looking for him. He must have screamed again; they said he always screamed. He whipped his head around in search of a hiding place. The hall was bare except for the full-length windows that made up the left wall. They stretched from floor to ceiling and each had curtains drawn across them. No time to think, he could hear them getting closer.

He slipped himself between the curtains and the glass panes of one window, pulling his knees to his chest and scrunching into a corner of the window frame to present a less noticeable target. He heard someone enter the hall and concentrated on remaining perfectly still and keeping his breathing shallow. A pair of footsteps entered the hall, came closer and closer. They searched through the corridor, then passed, walking quickly out of the hall to meet another pair beyond.

He sat there for a long time curled up on himself, waiting while the noise of the search became quieter, until silence once again reigned in the building. Only then did he let the tension drain from his muscles and allow a long sigh to escape his lips. He uncurled his legs and let his head fall against the glass with a soft thud. He was tired, but he knew he would get no more sleep tonight.

His legs ached from being curled up too long and his head was no better, but it was his heart that hurt the most. A deep pain that went all they way through to the core. What have I done? He wondered. He felt himself bleeding from the inside out. The glass was cold and real against his forehead. It served as a solid thing to keep him anchored above himself. He was sure that without it he would fall and drown in the muck of his own psyche.

He hated these nights, hated them a with such an intensity he could frighten himself. He hated what the nightmares did to him. He hated what they made him do to others. He hated the fact that he couldn't remember what they were and hated even more that in some deeper way they did make him remember.

He lifted his head from the glass and stared at his reflection. He brought his fingers up and gently touched the face in the window. It was pale face, smooth and still. It looked more ghostlike then any living thing. For surely nothing living could be so, blank, and still. There was small crease between the eyebrows that made it look as if the face always wore a vague frown, but he was not frowning. Stone had more expression then that face revealed. It gave no hint of the turmoil within. Raindrops splashed against the person in the glass and ran down the windowpane in long rivulets.

He pulled his mouth wide and opened his lips to show his teeth. It was a poor imitation of a smile at best, at worst a gross transgression of nature. He tried another expression, sad this time. Trembling lip and lidded eyes, but it made no difference. The most he could accomplish was a small hint. The odd feeling in his gut increased, he felt sick at himself. Why can't I… make a face?

He turned himself completely around to face the glass. He could have sworn he was looking at someone else. Some stranger who had come to stand outside the window and was looking in at him. The difference between them was too broad to be one person. He ran his fingers across the glass, tracing the familiar shape of the window boy's face.

"Who are you?" he whispered. His breath fogged against the window hiding the other face from view. He hurt so much; he wanted to do something. Something other than to dully stare at that thing in the glass. He wanted to let loose and give voice to the bloody river of grief within. He wanted to wail and sob and mourn, but he had nothing left to weep with. He had used up all his tears and ran out of water before he ran out of sorrow.

He breathed on the window and ran a forefinger up the clouded glass, collecting the condensation on his finger. He carefully lifted the precious bead of water and brought it to his eye. Then with deliberate slowness, ran the droplet down his cheek with the wet finger. He collected another drop of water from the window and drew another tear track down his other cheek. The rest of the fog on the window faded away and that strange boy reappeared, this time with tears running down his face. He leaned in until their noses were touching and glared daggers at the identical boy.

"I hate you," he hissed. The youth in the window mouthed the words back at him when he spoke, but made no other sign of feeling. Will I ever be rid of you? He wondered at the other boy. His eyes widened as the boy in the window smiled a false smile and shook his head. Odin scrunched his tired eyes closed and firmly shook his head back and forth to dispel the vision. He was not seeing things again, he was not seeing things again, he was not seeing things again.

What the hell is wrong with me! He thought. That mirror face wasn't the only thing disturbing him. Something had moved deep inside him. Way, way down some thing had shifted in its place. He could feel it down below, beneath the surface, beginning to move. Like some great beast beginning to wake. Or a leviathan, swishing its tail and churning up the waves. He knew the feeling well. Knew it from past experience. Knew that the little accidents that had happened up till now would be nothing if that thing awoke from its sleep. It frightened him, almost terrified him at times. That beast that slept down deep inside.

I've been here too long, he told himself. I have to leave. He stood up and slipped through the seam between the curtains, his mind already whirling with plans of escape. Unfortunately he discovered to late that he was not alone in the hall. As soon as he left the safety of the curtains he walked straight into Anna. The two looked at each other in surprise and all he could think was, damn

"Odin, thank god I've been worried sick!" he bowed his head and resigned himself to his immediate fate. Anna pulled him into a fierce hug, forgetting for a moment that he hated that. "We didn't know what had happened to you."

"I'm fine," he grunted and shoved her away. Anna checked herself from casually touching him again and shook her head,

"Silly boy, you weren't thinking of running were you," she whispered. She looked at him, taking in his wet cheeks and empty face. "Odin, have you been crying?" He snorted and shook his head. I only wish, he thought. He turned away from her and pulled one of the curtains partly open. Holding up the cloth with one hand and touching the stranger in the glass with the other. The rain had gotten heavier and was now coming down in solid sheets, turning the ground to mud. He wondered how Ethan was doing, he hoped he would be all right. He had to do all the hoping he could because that boy in the glass, who had stolen his face, couldn't care less. It was strange really; he hated and envied that boy. It would be nice to be so stable. He went up and down, up and down, trying to endure through emotions that would seethe like a gale and then become as calm as the doldrums. That boy in the window, he never changed.

"I have to leave," he said. He watched Anna's reflection come up behind him. "I want to stay, but I can't." he turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. Hoping against hope that something would make it through the face that wasn't his, something to help her understand, no such luck.

"Don't say can't, I hate that word, it's just an easy way out." Her voice was sharp and laced with hurt. Why should she be hurt, he was leaving, she should be happy. "That's what this is isn't it, the easy way. That's what you do when things get hard, run away and pretend it didn't happen. Do you honestly think you'll be any better off if you leave."

"I'm no coward, it's more complicated then that," Odin growled.

"Then enlighten me!" she snapped back. Odin threw his arm in the direction of his room.

"I've already attacked Ethan, who do you want to be next, you, Jinx… Caltha? I can assure you there will be a next! There's always a next." He turned back to the window. He wanted to explain, to warn her, but he was reluctant to mention the boy in the glass. "I'm not safe," he said. Anna sighed,

"Here," she said and reached up to wipe the tear streaks off his face. He jerked his head away from her fingers.

"No, leave them," when she didn't withdraw he added "please." Anna shook her head at him and dropped her hand into her lap.

"Odin, what happened with Ethan was an accident, you didn't do it on purpose," she said. "Ethan knows that. You shouldn't isolate yourself from humanity just because you might accidentally hurt someone."

"I broke his arm, it doesn't matter if it was an accident or not," he whispered.

"Yes, it does. Running away from people isn't the answer; you'll be running all your life. This isn't something that will just go away if you ignore it long enough. Besides," she smiled "We'd miss you an awful lot." Odin stared down at his knees and just shook his head again and again.

"I can't be around people, every one I get near gets hurt." Anna cupped his face with both hands and made him look at her.

"Maybe you just haven't found the right people yet." Odin blinked and seemed to consider this. Anna released his face and confronted the window, wondering what fascinated him so about it, it looked liked any ordinary glass to her. Odin had turned his away from her and the two stood watching the rain patter against the window. She hummed an old lullaby her mother used to sing, a soft and nimble tune and reached up to pet his hair, which he tolerated.

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