Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Authors note: I know it's been forever since I've updated and I really can't give an excuse, well I can but nobody really cares that much. All that matters is that I'm back to finish this story and well the rest I'll try to finish as soon as possible.
Chapter 9 'Goodbye'
~~~~~```` Heero
Blood dripped from my fingers into a pool of gore surrounding my feet and spreading with each second I stood there. There was nothing but silence all around me the sound of the blood dripping from my fingers and falling into the grotesque pool the only thing I could hear. Blood, it covered my entire body. I could feel it hardening on my skin sinking into my pores and it wasn't mine. I knew whom it belonged to. I blinked my eyes and there they were. Their faces were void and their mouths wide open. They didn't bleed anymore, they weren't alive. I took life from them and selfishly claimed it as my own.
I backed away my feet splashing in the crimson puddle and I watched as their soulless empty mouths opened. A wail escaped their throats and tore into me. It shook my body making my insides rattle. A sharp pain raced through my body to my skull where the wail continued to hurt and threaten to rip me apart, but I deserved it. I deserved to die. I let my hands twine in my soiled hair and fell, splashing, to the ground unable to escape the pain. It was the pain I had caused and I would live in it forever.
"Heero?"
I opened my eyes the noise was gone. Blinking, I took my hands from my head and moved them into my vision. I looked at them closely. They were clean. I turned them over letting my gaze run over my palm and the back of hand as if I'd never seen it before. The blood that had stained his hands only moments ago and filled each and every crease and imperfection of his palm was gone. What had happened?
"Heero?"
The voice reached me again and forced me to look outward. The blood was gone. The floor was clean and in front of me she stood. I couldn't breathe. I didn't know why she was there looking at me a small smile on her face. I knew her. I knew that she had saved me that somewhere in my lost past I had saved her and I also knew that I had tried to kill her. A scream tore from my throat as I turned from her beautiful face. Why was she here? She had to know that I would kill her. Why did she keep coming? Why?
"Heero, why won't you look at me?" She asked her voice, so innocent and sweet, sinking into my mind and claiming it contaminating it with her essence. I couldn't escape her words. I loved her despite how wrong it was I loved her. I turned.
She was standing in front of me so much like an angel her blond hair cascading down her back and over her shoulders. She was wearing a dress I'd never seen before, or maybe I had, but I couldn't remember when, it was fitted to her features wrapping her every curve and a purple ribbon ran around her criss crossing across her body. Her eyes were violet, not at all the color they should be. She smiled at me her eyes sad and filling with violet tears.
"Why do you run from me? Why won't you ever let me in?" Her fists were clenched at her sides as she shook her eyes never leaving me. I watched fascinated and appalled as a single tear ran down her cheek and dripped off her chin. "What is so wrong with me?"
The words were so familiar, as if I'd heard them somewhere before. I wanted to go to her to tell her I didn't know, that I wanted to be with her, but I just stood there and she continued to cry. Was I always like this, doomed to make her suffer? It wasn't fair. What was wrong with me? Why was I a killer? What made me this way? I wanted to know. I wanted to know why I was forced to watch her cry. I turned my head away from her denying her anything and denying myself just as much. As soon as I turned there was silence and I was alone again.
"What do you think you are?
I looked up meeting her eyes again. They were brilliantly blue this time. I almost backed away, but my feet refused to move. Distantly I heard the same drip of the blood as it ran off my stained fingers and hit the floor.
"I'm a monster." I whispered at her as I brought my hands up for her to see. "I'm stained with blood. I'm a monster."
She smiled at me her mouth curving upward and whispered. "You're not a monster. I want you with me. I want to be with you Heero." She grabbed my hands placing them on her shoulders. I saw the red staining the white with a horrified expression, but she didn't pull away.
"I am." I pleaded as her face moved toward mine her lips meeting mine as I had always wished they would. She didn't listen as her arms came around my waist and my hands dripping still ran through her hair soiling it staining it.
I was lost in her. I didn't know what I was doing anymore and then I heard it a cry from her beautiful mouth and I let her go. She fell limply from my arms her eyes brimming with tears and a trail of blood running from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. Her white dress was covered in blood. The dark almost black liquid ran all over her body her cheeks touched with the red liquid. "No." I whispered as her body hit the floor splashing in the pool of blood. "No." I shook my head as I watched her stare at me with wide empty eyes. "No!"
Her hand reached from her side toward me for a moment until it wrapped around her waist pressing into a wound in her stomach. Her face was sad as she suppressed her anguish. "Why?" she whispered her voice echoing around me.
I followed her gaze to my hand were a gun was wrapped between my fingers. I stared at it lost and then ashamed I let it fall from my grip and it hit the ground with a clang and a splash. I looked back up horror knowingly written on my face as her arm dropped and her head fell to the side. I'd killed her. I didn't want to. I'd warned her. A scream escaped my parched throat as I looked over her lifeless body and cried.
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Duo flipped his bangs out of his eyes and stared sadly at the remains of the base. He had done his job, but he still felt remorse. Out of pure habit and nothing else he crossed himself and picked up the silver cross lying across his neck and clenched his fist around it as he let a small kiss settle on his fingers. 'I'm sorry.' He thought. He knew they'd deserved to die. All of them part of the organization bent on killing the only truly good people left in the world, but still they were people and still he had taken them from somebody. Sighing with repressed regret he turned his Gundam around and settled it on the ground. Right now it was time to tie up the survivors. Until the back up arrived he and Quatre were on their own.
His Gundam touched down with a violent jolt and Duo flipped on his com link and decided he better touch base with Quatre. "Hey Q-man what's the ETA on that back up?"
Quatre's weathered face appeared on the screen. "They wouldn't give up." He mumbled. "We spared as many lives as possible, but even I know that more than we thought died."
"Don't worry about it all right. We did what we had to. This was their base, we stopped them. They won't be coming after anyone any more." Duo said truly feeling better about it. "Right now we can rest because for now the fighting is over."
Quatre sighed. "Sometimes Duo I think you're the one who's better at this level headed thing."
Duo smiled. "Naw I'm just a lunatic in disguise. Now let's finish up here and get back to base. I want to check on Heero and Relena. I want to make sure they made it back all right."
"Same here, oh and we might get to do that sooner than we thought. I just got our back up on the screen. We can take Martin back to the base and they'll take care of the rest."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~````` Heero
I sat up my breathing coming in long gasping gulps that hurt my entire body. My head was pounding and my heart beating so fast I thought it would jump out of my chest. I looked around my blurring vision slowly coming into focus. The wall they were white, no red, no blood, a dream. An almost relieved sigh escaped my throat and I lay back down the dream running through my mind with painful succession. My thoughts jumped around wildly for a moment before focusing on my physical rather than my emotional pain. I couldn't remember ever feeling so tired. I didn't think having being blown up in the wing Zero had been this bad.
I sat up again as I remembered the old injury to my arm and I sighed. It was the same arm I had been shot in this time. Nothing seemed to be on my side. Then it hit me. I remembered. I remembered the wing, the explosions the war. I remembered all of it. A smile I knew was uncharacteristic spread across my face and I almost rejoiced in my pain. It seemed to have jolted my memory. I remembered Dr. J. I remembered the training, Odin, Relena… The smile slowly faded from my face as I thought of her. I had had no idea how deep my feelings for her had run. She had first sparked any semblance of humanity in me. She was literally my reason for living.
My head was pounding with the onslaught of memories and connections finally being made in the back of my mind. I remembered being lowered into the cockpit and Relena being lowered down there with me. I had to have been almost delirious with fever and fatigue, but still I remembered how it felt to hold her. Her cool yet warm skin pressed against my own shivering and fever ridden body, her heart pounding against my chest. I vaguely remembered wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her to me refusing to let her. We weren't safe yet I couldn't let her go. Her breathing had been slow and content and for the first time in my entire life I was happy.
It didn't make any sense. How could I think this was the happiest moment of my life when I'd almost been killed over a dozen times, when the one I loved was suffering in my arms? Was it the fact that she was there with me that I found joy in the situation? I didn't know. My eyes scanned the room lazily for a moment before settling on the IV drip just to my right. I watched as a small crystalline ball of moisture dripped off the side of the bag as if it had been jousted. It reminded me of the rain, and her voice begging me not to leave her.
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"Get up!" Her blond hair was soaked and plastered to her forehead. "Heero you have to get up!" Her blue eyes were so intense even in the darkness they refused to let him go.
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I was confused. Though it wasn't the first time it had happened it was the first time I'd felt confusion like this. Was this always inside me even before I lost my memory, before she saved me? I loved, I loved her, but I was a monster, a killer, and a creature of habit. My heart constricted in my chest as I thought about everything I had done. It was like watching myself on a movie screen. I had never looked at myself like this before, or had never been able to, now I knew. Of no fault of my own I would one day kill Relena, or maybe it would be my fault. I remembered how I had faced those men unsure of what to do and how my body had automatically reacted. I'd killed three men when I had promised myself I wouldn't kill anymore. I hadn't wanted to be a monster I tried to fight and it and I couldn't. I may have let one man go free but I'd killed three others. Sorrow like I've never felt before washed over me like a wave and threatened to pull me under. I'd never admitted that I loved her, only that she was foolish to care about me when I felt nothing for her but gratitude and a slight admiration for her strength. Some how my short lapse of memory had brought it out. In those few days of desperate attempts to get free to live, I grasped on the feeling I had been avoiding. It was devotion, obsession, fear, compassion, and loyalty…it was love. I loved her, I wanted her, and I couldn't have her.
My body still feeling weak and beaten I turned toward the door my vision swimming slightly with the movement. I need to see her. I wanted to look at her and make sure she was all right and then if she was I would leave. I want to say anything to her for fear my mouth would run away with me. I realized something and I wanted to tell her to let her now that I did love her, but I knew that would only make it worse. Holding my arm with one hand and my pounding skull with the other I slipped off the bed and onto the cold floor. My feet stung with the cool linoleum under them, but I ignored and I tried to keep my knees from buckling under me. It took a while but soon my vision cleared and my legs were holding me. I knew my clothes were discarded and thrown away, so I didn't have anything to change into. I didn't know what would look stranger me walking about in torn fatigues or a hospital gown. I slowly pulled the IV from my arm with a slight wince and straightened my posture. I had to look like I was better then well, I looked like.
I opened the door slowly peeking into the hall and making sure it was empty. It was. I slipped out of the room and into the hall. I didn't know where Relena was, but I figured she was on the same hall as I was. I started down the hall my feet reluctant to move and my entire body protesting each movement. As if by luck I turned the corner and there was Zechs Marquise, checking in on his sister I assumed and Hilde leaving a room. I knew that was where she was. I ducked back behind the corner and listened to them talking, waiting for them to leave. It wasn't long before their steps receded and I was alone. I knew where she was I would see her, make she was all right and I would leave. There was a deep ache when I thought about leaving, but I had to. I couldn't stay. It was selfish.
My body was shaking with exhaustion and effort when I finally stepped into her room. It was dark except for a thin stream of light that was running in through a slightly open curtain. The light spilled across her face bathing it sunlight and catching the bright golden glint of her hair. I stood there for a moment and just looked at her. She was beaten, badly, but she was still beautiful. Just like he'd seen when she saved him. It was hard to describe just what she was. I shut the door and relaxed my straight posture unable to keep it any longer and shuffled toward her using the wall for support. I sunk into a chair beside her bed and assessed her injuries. Under her hospital gown he could see a bright binding tape over her ribs, broken. There were bruises and scratches covering the rest of her body. Her head is wrapped in a white gauze and one of her eyes is swollen shut with purpled flesh the same side has a large bruise across her delicate cheek. Cautiously I reach my fingers out and touch her unharmed cheek and caress it with my thumb. Her skin is soft beneath my touch and I feel her breathe on my arm.
She'll be okay, I reason as I pulled my hand away. She'll pull through like she always does. I reason with myself as I watch her sleep. She doesn't need me. I remember the dream I'd had this morning. I remembered her dead and empty eyes. If I didn't leave that would be reality; yet my legs refused to move. It didn't make sense nothing made since to me anymore. So I sat watching her waiting for what I didn't know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~``````` Relena
I felt something warm on my cheek. I felt finger running over my face. The touch was unfamiliar, but the feeling was so familiar. I didn't know who it was, but I knew them. There were blank spots in my mind and I couldn't wake. As soon as his fingers left I fell back into the darkness and let go. I couldn't find my way out. There was no knowledge of time. I didn't know how long I'd been stuck swimming in the deep pool of darkness. I knew who I was, but it didn't matter. For a moment everything would be clear and then the darkness would pull me and I forgot. I was lost.
~~~~~~~~~~~~`````````
I can't stay here. I shake my head despite the nausea that follows the action. This is ridiculous I realize and I move away from her bed. I would be lying if I thought that loosing my memory hadn't changed me. It had. I forgot for a brief moment what I was and in that moment I was finally able to recognize the feelings for her. I didn't even think I had feelings but despite the knowledge I still had a logical sense that she didn't posses. I understood what she couldn't. I was a killer. I felt the blood rushing through my body as I turned from her peaceful face. I didn't want to leave her because I didn't want to be alone. I swallowed hard still not sure how to deal with this new revelation. I wouldn't have to worry about it though. In a couple of hours I would be out of this ward and she would be out of my life forever.
