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Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor any of its characters or references, I'm not sure who they do belong to but it's not me.

Notes: Warning, blood and gore ahead. I was planning to leave the bloody stuff behind immediately after the last chapter and not go into to it again, but it just wouldn't leave. Aspects of it kept popping up again so I figured I'd better come out of it more slowly, if in doubt always trust your fingers, they know how to write better then you do, at least mine do. The move in the first flash back is theoretically possible, it's a martial arts move, making an upper cut with straight fingers like that. Hypothetically if you had enough power behind it you could rip the flesh but I don't know if it's ever been done. One last thing before I leave you to the story, I regret to say that there will be no more new updates until new years. I'm very, very sorry but I just don't have time. We're visiting my sister for her graduation and I don't want to just spin something out as fast as I can on the night before Christmas and give you guys a crappy chapter, but I love you all and have no fear (drum roll, and Arnold swartzinegger accent) I'll be back!

Chapter Sixteen

(Reflection)

The tiles were milky white and squeaky clean. Sterile and pure of any sin, except for one bloody line of footprints trailing in from the back door. The kitchen was awash in shadows. Only a pale moonlight illuminated the counters by the windows, casting slivers of dim light into the gloom. The sticky tracks of blood were smudged as if by slipping feet and tiny beads of red fell from a dark shape that slunk through the room, leaving perfect circles of crimson on the floor. The silhouette was hunched over something it carried in its arms and mumbling.

"Dripping, I'm dripping," The shadow whispered. The black shape tried to bend down to wipe at the scarlet smears on the floor, but fumbled and nearly dropped its burden on the ground. The shadow slipped in its tracks and came down with one leg stretched far out to the side. The balance was precarious but the form never dropped its armful. "Wrong," it mumbled, "wrong maneuver." The shadow slid to its feet too hastily and backed into the pots and pans that hung over its head. CLASH, CLANG, BANG! The pealing clatter of kettles and skillets resounded through silence like a toll of doom. The shadow ducked its head and silenced the steal pots with a hand, leaving red streaks along their burnished surfaces. The silhouette hurried over to a counter and set its load down in the sink. A dark red hand moved into the light to use the faucet. Water gushed into the sink and soon went from clear to red as the hands ran the liquid over the small body in the sink again and again.

The shadow did not hear the sound of pounding feet, or the click of a light switch. The figure was too busy scrubbing away in the sink with frantic movements to notice any warnings. The lights flicked on and he stilled, blinking in the sudden brilliance. He did not lift his head or turn about. Caltha's head rested against his shoulder, as if in a pleasant sleep. He lifted a finger and brushed the hair from her eyes. His hands were clean up to the wrist and he left no mark. He raised his eyes to the black window before him and stared at the reflections of the three people across the room.

"Odin," Anna whispered, "what have you done?…" Odin was drenched in blood. His hair was slick and knotted with it, and she could see little dribbles running down the back of his neck. In the glass his face was painted a royal red. She watched a scarlet bead grow, and fall from his chin to the tiles with a plop. His clothes were black with gore, stained forever with another's life. Drips and drops trickled down his legs and spilled into a crimson puddle on the floor, a sharp contrast between the red and white of kitchen and boy. Anna could find no words to say. She felt sick and clutched a hand to her throat and closed her eyes in pain. How? Was all she could think, how had this happened? She felt her father shift behind her and step forward. She started when they were both shoved aside by the boy her father had brought in that night, asking about Odin.

Wufei strode across the kitchen and grabbed a pair of trash bags from a box on the counter. He said no words; there was no surprise on his face as he approached his old fellow. He shrugged out of his white shirt and shouldered his comrade aside. He hadn't been able to see what was in the sink from the doorway and frowned at the sight of a little girl with blood splashed onto her clothes and hair. He looked up and caught his fellow's eye, dark eyes, darker then he remembered. A glance between them was all that was needed. Wufei shoved a trash bag into the other pilot's chest and jerked his head towards the door.

Odin nodded and paused to take a last glance at Caltha. Her bloody overalls were now stuffed into a garbage bag and Wufei was pulling off her soiled shirt. Odin ducked his head and bolted past Gerry and Anna. Gerry shouted and followed him out the door and down the hall. Odin kept away from carpets and rugs, and slipped several times in his dash through the halls. He found a bathroom and fumbled with the doorknob, his hands slipping off the handle and pulling when he should be pushing. His hands were shaking. He shook the door open and slipped inside, slamming and locking the door behind him just as Gerry ran into it with a thud.

Odin stepped away from the door and watched it from beneath his bangs, waiting for Gerry to start yelling and breaking down the door. His breath came gasps and he couldn't get his hands to stop trembling, not even by gripping them tightly into his stomach. There was no sound from outside and the door did not quake from blows. He waited a few minutes more before he stripped off his clothes and stuffed them into the plastic garbage bag. The tiles were cool beneath his bare feet and he instantly felt chilled.

He made the shower hot, then hotter and hotter until the water nearly scalded the skin from his body, but no matter how hot it got the downpour couldn't warm the chill inside his bones. The water ran a bloody red, the grisly liquid swirling about his feet. His skin was rosy from heat and scrubbing, but he didn't stop. He could still see it on him, in his pores, in his skin and in every strand of hair. He washed and brushed and scoured every inch of himself and still he could feel and smell the stains.

The water had run cold; he brought his hands to his shoulders and sagged against the shower stall. A little shiver racked his frame from the cool water. He shut off the faucet and climbed out of the stall, careful to sidestep around the red pools on the floor. He dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist. Then he grabbed several long cleaning wipes from the cabinet and crouched down to mop up the remaining gore from the room. He dropped the absorbent wipes into the toilet and flushed, no evidence to be found in the trash. He stood and took antiseptic and gauze balls from a cabinet and applied them to the open cuts on his knuckles and ear. The only sound to be heard was the quite drip, drip of the faucet. The silence was solid and whole, pressing down on his discordant thoughts and pushing them to sleep.

A long sigh whispered through the room. Odin spun around, hunting for the source of the moan. The bathroom was pale and clean, empty except for him. The window was locked, the shower door closed and fogged. He slid the stall open and checked inside, nothing but tile and soap. He shut the door and returned to the mirror. His hand rubbed steam off the glass in a circle, leaving a hole to look through, and he stared at his likeness. His skin was wan, no longer flushed with heat and fire. His hair was wet, but no longer red. He probed his stomach with his fingers. The skin was already turning black and blue from abuse, but his hands no longer shook. His body was still, his breathing regular and his face calm.

Plop… plop… plop, sounded the faucet, leaking gleaming droplets into a puddle at the bottom of the sink. Odin closed his eyes and listened. The silence became heavier and thicker, the air felt stagnant with it. All the other tiny sounds struggled to survive under the weight of the quiet and in their struggle became much more pronounced. He could hear the creak of the walls, constantly shifting in their nervous positions. The plop, drip of water and the whisk of his fingers as they ran along the edge of the sink. He could hear his breathing reverberating through the room, rustling in and out of his lungs. An echo mimicked his every sound, inhale, and exhale. His heart thumped in his chest, dullump, dullump, and there was a similar throb each time. Almost as if their was another person… standing right ahead of him. A second body that answered him, breath for breath and heart beat for heart beat.

Odin tried to gulp down the clog in his throat, and opened his eyes. There he was, standing in the mirror and looking out at him with that still and somber face of his, the face that didn't fit. The eyes were dark and cool as a subterranean well, that boy was cold inside, cold in blood, and cold in mind. The reflection blinked at him and Odin sucked in a breath at the sight. He took a step back from the mirror and gawked at the likeness that was not him.

"You?" he whispered. The stranger in the glass nodded at him.

"You," it murmured back. The chill in the room tripled, as if his body heating had ceased to function altogether. He felt numbed from the inside out. Odin wrapped a second towel around his shoulders and hugged it to himself, but it did little good, his blood was still cold… cold, cold-blooded. Red turns to blue and the fire gets doused with ice. Dark ice, black like before, black ice for a soul. Or is it the place for the soul, a box to put the spirit in that's now all empty. No more soul.

"I'm cold," he said in hushed tones.

"Good," the mirror stranger replied. Odin frowned at his double… double… double trouble, trouble in the double. He moaned and leaned his elbows on the sink, letting his head fall against his chest and hang there, he couldn't think. Thoughts came and went as quickly as a match head burning out, avoiding him with ease and helping none. Now we are falling right back to the beginning, back to winter, lost to the snows, lost in the waste and soon I'll be too lost to be alive. He looked up at the mirror through his damp bangs, then it won't be me walking around any more; it'll be you.

"You can't have me," he hissed, and scowled at the mirror. I worked hard to get here. Me, I'm the one who should be out to play, you make the act a dull sham. The glass stranger smiled a pitiless smile.

"But I don't make the play a tragedy," the stranger in the mirror answered. Odin stopped and frowned deeper.

"Hnh…" he grunted, and the reflection raised an eyebrow.

"Don't tell me you don't remember," the image declared in a low, callous voice. Odin shook his head, then sniffed as a faint rusty smell filled the air.

FLASH… the man's face was a picture of undiluted terror. His skin was white with fear and the very roots of his hair seemed to pale as he fought back with the desperation of the doomed. The thug's clumsy blocks and punches were laughable. Odin's fingers were stretched straight out and curled at the end like claws. One quick upper cut to the stomach was all he needed. His hand connected with the man's belly and there was a sound of ripping flesh. Blood gushed forth and his hand was quickly incased in the thug's hot squishy innards. His opponent was bent over his arm, choking and spitting blood. He felt around with his fingers until he had a good hold on something relatively round, and pulled. Dark, red gore poured out onto the pavement. The man gave one last gurgle and crumpled to the ground in his own juices, followed by the plunk of entrails falling to the street.

Odin bent over the sink and gagged. He coughed and his stomach muscles clenched again and again, trying their hardest to retch, but his dinner was long gone and he had nothing to vomit.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten already," his reflection said.

FLASH… the shadow of the running goon grew larger as he closed in on his prey. His long legs stretched far in an easy sprint and the chase ended in a dead end alley not far from where they had started. He reached down, hauled up a long pipe and held it in front of him like a sword. His quarry fled down to the end and tried to scramble up the wall. He stalked through the entrance of the alley and up to the thug who was clawing at the wall in panic. He tapped his prey on the shoulder with the tip of the pipe, which had been shorn in half at the end, giving the metal a sharp edge. His victim turned around and pressed his back to the wall, eyes pleading. He snarled, raised the pipe and swung down with the force of a wrecking ball. There was a crunch and rip as the metal connected with the neck. Warm blood spurted into his face and dribbled down his chin while the thug's head went flying. The head hit the street with a thud and rolled down the alley. He dropped the pipe and grabbed the headless body by the collar, the ragged remains of the neck pumping thick, hot blood over his hand. He strolled out of the back street; dragging a dismembered body and kicking the head in front of him like a toy ball.

Odin was gripping the sink so tightly it creaked in protest. His mouth hung open and his insides cramped. He choked, trying to inhale and retch at the same time. Oh god, he couldn't breathe! He concentrated all his attention on loosening his muscles. He coughed and wheezed and finally succeeded in drawing a breath. It was like coming up for air just when you thought you would drown.

"Remember now?" asked the stranger in the mirror.

"Stop!" he choked.

"Stop what?" the reflection answered in his own monotone. "Stop your remembrance, recall, reminisce, and recollection? Don't you want keep track? You used to count them off, every one you killed you added to the list. What's the number now, twenty, forty?"

"Thirty seven personal, uncounted number of civilian casualties and people in sabotaged buildings" Odin mumbled and licked his lips. He looked up at the stranger in the mirror, his double, his twin, his shadow, him. He could still smell blood. What a to-do to die today, to lie today and fly today. I was going to fly, fly away with the bird on the wing, but left Wing behind and flew with men. I can still fly, I can, I can…so long as they won't know. He glared death at the thing in the mirror. Then you had to come; you ruined all, now I'll never fly without wings. He struggled to regain his breath. I can't breathe between you two, you and him, thing and thing, the ravager, the beast beneath. "That's why you're here isn't it," he hissed, "you off-set him."

"I've always been here," the glass stranger said. Always here not always there. Left or right, no right or wrong, only power, power of the hungry, power of the poor, power of the oppressed, power of the rebel. You can go where they can't, but careful in the dark you may trip and fall. Down the stairs with a broken neck, and make the suit a mobile wreck. The wolf comes out to play, but predator won't sport nice with prey. Cold! Odin blinked and panted; the freezing water running over his head from the faucet jerked him back to himself with a shock. He loosened his fingers from the iron handle and let his hand dangle into the sink with his hair. He stayed there until his stomach calmed and he could breathe well. Then he shut off the water and lifted his head out of the sink to face his image in the mirror.

"So," he said, drying his hands on the towel around his neck, "you are me." His voice was casual, as if he were holding a light conversation with an old friend. "You and the other, the violent one, I have to choose between the two of you?" His reflection nodded and Odin looked it in the eye, feeling his insides quiver at the intense stare before him. "That's not a choice," he whispered, and smashed his fist into the glass. A spider web of cracks spread outward from his fist to the frame. The mirror broke and splinters of glass showered onto the floor. He backed away and slid down the opposite wall, bringing his knees to his chest and holding his bloody knuckles. Outside he heard Gerry start to yell and pound the door.

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