From Crawl To Walk To Run
"Today is not yesterday. We ourselves change. How then, can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same. Change, indeed, is painful, yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope." - Thomas Carlyle
-
It wasn't until the middle of the next day that Noin realized what day it actually was: May eighteenth. She hadn't even been paying attention to the months, so preoccupied she had been with work.
If she still had her military dogtags, the plates would have read: Earth Alliance Officer; Captain Noin, Lucrezia; Born: May 18, AC 176.
She smiled a little wistfully at her reflection in the fiberglass window as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Happy birthday to me," she murmured, almost self-mockingly.
Was her reflection any different from what it was last year, or the year before that? Maybe a little older. Her eyes were darker, it seemed.
Twenty-one wasn't as much of an achievement or change for her as it would have been for any other adult. She was a woman long before what was considered "maturity." It made her a little resentful; once you've risked your life on the battlefield and survived, most other thrills paled in comparison.
The thought made Lucrezia's smile go just slightly wicked as she turned away from the window and started towards the docking area. Despite her spotless record in the military, she hadn't always been so . . . straight-laced. The ages of fifteen and sixteen were a less-than-sane time.
She hadn't become an instructor until a few months after her seventeenth birthday. Before that, well, her more rebellious side had shone through.
"Hey, Noin, why so evil-looking?" Elle asked, coming up beside her. "Thinking of what you're going to do for the big twenty-one mark today?"
Noin raised an eyebrow. "How did you know?"
"It's in your public profile. I like to make sure, you know, we don't get any psychos on this base, so I cruise the background of most everyone here." Elle grinned. "Now, what would you prefer? Clubbing, male strippers, or a good old-fashioned hell-raising?"
"None of the above," Lucrezia replied with a laugh. "Just want to make it to tomorrow in one piece."
Elle shrugged. "Okay, suit yourself. I'd bake you a cake, but with my cooking skills I'd probably torch the entire base. Just have a great birthday, okay?"
"Thanks." The other woman walked off, leaving Noin to reminisce on the last birthday she had - and the conversation that had come with it.
"But a woman should be surrounded by men on her birthday," Sally Po was saying as she and Noin went into the Preventer space station cafeteria for lunch. "Sexy, single men. No, scratch that. Sexy, single, willing men. Twenty has it's advantages."
Shaking her head, Lucrezia replied, "Not likely, Sally. My sex life is close to non-existant; soldiering takes all of my time."
"Who are you telling?" Sally rolled her sky-blue eyes. "I've been in this business for awhile, too. But there are some things guns just can't do for you when it comes to life."
Lucrezia sighed. "Tell me about it."
They took a seat at an empty table with their refreshments. The cafeteria was quiet that day because it was still early; most of the staff on the station didn't get their break until later on.
"It's not like you're a virgin or anything, right?" Sally asked with her usual bluntness.
"No . . ." Noin answered reluctantly, unwilling to get into the sordid details of her teenage experiences during base leaves and late-night affairs.
Looking mischievious, Sally put a finger to her chin. "Don't tell me. First time, Zechs."
The other woman nearly had an embolism. "Zechs?! Oh, no, never, not him. Not him, no way." Noin couldn't resist a chuckle, though there was a bitterness about it. His disappearance was still a presumed death, but she wasn't going to let it get to her. She would know it, just know it, if he died. There was no way she couldn't. Until then, she wouldn't mourn him.
"Really?" Sally sounded surprised. "Well, the way you guys acted, you'd think you had some romantic history."
"No history. Not even a footnote." Now uncomfortable with the conversational topic, Noin began to steer it in another direction. "Anyway, I couldn't find time for a relationship if I tried."
"Who said anything about a relationship? Those of the severe military lifestyle have to settle for pointless flings, one-night-stands, and those frighteningly long periods of time called celibacy." Sally sighed and sipped her drink. "Thus is the life of a woman with a sidearm and a rank."
They sat in silence for a moment, until Lucrezia saw her partner's eyes began to trail someone across the room. She followed the blonde's gaze, then raised an eyebrow.
The target was tall and very attractive, a dark-haired and green-eyed lieutenant just leaving the caf. His gaze went to both women at the table, and when he saw them watching him, he smiled slightly and winked.
Sally returned the expression and amended to Noin, "Of course, there are some exceptions. I can definitely see myself having his kid."
The two women burst out laughing.
Twenty-one. Hm.
Noin wondered if Zechs knew. They hadn't been anywhere near open about birthday dates at the Academy, since it was considered a frivolous thing to think about during training. And, of course, the years since had been too packed for any real recognition.
Of course, she knew when he was born: December fifth. He hadn't told her; she made it her business to know.
In any case, she didn't expect him to remember, and wouldn't put him on the spot by letting him know.
She had to meet him for a standard shuttle sweep of the area around the planet, making sure everything was in place. If everything went well, they could make it out of the job without a hitch.
Knowing Zechs, there probably wouldn't even be a ripple.
-
"Bye, you two. Be good while you're gone."
"And don't forget to bring us something nice!"
That was Xack and Elle, of course, from the control room of the launching bay. Zechs saw Noin roll her eyes and smile reluctantly. He himself maintained his image of stern professionalism, but Elle was cheerfully making faces at him through the plexiglass and he was having some trouble.
Finally, they made their way up the ramp. They would be using a weapons-laden cruisercraft, so suits weren't necessary at the moment, though a pair was packed away on board for later on.
Zechs found it a little strange that Noin was dressed in a pair of fashionably torn black jeans, boots and a blue tank top for a mission. He was so accustomed to doing things in uniform. But on the isolated planet, people didn't care about such things. He himself wore blue jeans, boots, and a white T-shirt.
As soon as they settled in, a voice came in over the radio. "Hey, you know, forty percent of serious accidents in spacecraft occur in planetary orbit," Xack said helpfully.
"Xack," Noin began, but before she could finish, there was a slight scuffle over the line, a muffled, "Move, idiot," and then, Grant's voice came in. "All right, you two, you know the game plan. Do some routine checks on the three orbiting satellites, look for signs of raider activity, the basics."
"Roger that," Zechs replied automatically. "Setting up for launch."
Ten minutes later - ten minutes of relative quiet - Noin announced, "There's the first satellite. You want to do this one?"
Nodding, Zechs rose from his seat and got his suit.
After twenty minutes of systems checks and data acquirement, they were off again. On the second one, Noin volunteered to go out, and in another fifteen minutes they were on to the third satellite. The same thing went with the last, and they were preparing to return to the planet.
Suddenly, Noin asked, "Zechs, would you mind if we just stayed here for awhile?"
He was puzzled. "Why?"
She shrugged, looking a little sheepish. "I don't know. To look at the stars?"
With a chuckle, he leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. "You always did have a soft spot for space."
She smiled. "Yeah, I guess I have," she said softly. "You know why?"
For some years he had a guess, but he decided to hear it from Noin's lips directly. "Tell me."
"Because out there, it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done, space is just empty and beautiful and infinite. It never changes, it never goes away. It isn't even enough to see it from a terra-surface. The stars are always the same, no matter what we do. Sometimes, I wish . . ." Noin trailed off, a little uncertain of her next words.
Zechs was intrigued. "Go on."
She sighed. "I wish that I could be out there. Not like now, just really IN space. To just drift forever and see all there is to see. Forget everything." Her fingers wistfully traced the surface of the window, copying the pattern of the stars. "To be part of it."
For moment, Zechs was silent, considering. Then he stated, "You could leave. If you wanted to."
When she looked at him, her dark purple eyes reflected in that glass reminded him of the stormy night sky on Earth. "I could. And I won't. I love space. But I don't need it."
They dropped into silence once again. Zechs looked out into the velvet emptiness of space and wondered just how eternal it was. How long it had been around. Humanity had a very, very long time to go before they even began to explore its depths, whatever secrets it held.
She could leave. But she wouldn't. It was like a message to Zechs: Don't you dare abadon both our world and our friends for your solitude. Decide what you want, and what you need.
But the truth was, he didn't know either.
"People go to empty space when they have nothing left to return to," he said quietly.
"You can go anywhere for that," Noin replied, the slightest sharp undertone in her voice.
"You're right." Zechs glanced at her. "People go to empty space to forget. To disappear."
"And to die." She looked back out into the topic of their conversation. "It's time we forgot what we used to think about space, Zechs. About a lot of things. We're not like stars. We have to change. We have to grow up and move on. And every year that we grow older and we can say we've changed somewhat, then we get a little wiser."
He didn't say anything at first, turmoiled. Then, "Yes. That's the theory, anyway."
Noin smiled. "Yeah. The theory."
"The hardest thing in the world is attempting to change." He was trying to explain, in his own obscure way.
"Maybe." She sighed. "But the worst thing in the world is underestimating your ability to change."
Zechs wanted to echo her sigh. He felt something inside of him slowly dissolve; she still didn't understand.
But maybe he understood her. Just a bit.
"It's time we went back," he said. She nodded.
As the cruiser was maneuvered back towards the planet, the star-studded darkness glimmered with its secrets and infinite wonders, and against the backdrop, something that could have been a metal ship gleamed red. In the next second, it was gone.
When Noin returned to her quarters, she was surprised to find a medium-sized, discreetly wrapped package leaning against the front of the door. When she picked it up and turned it over, she found that there was no outward explanation as to its sudden appearance.
Maybe it's a bomb, she thought with some dark amusement. In any case, her curiosity was going to get the better of her.
She sliced through the wrapping with her nails until it fell away. And her eyes widened.
It was a VR headset, the new modern kind. It was labeled, The Language of the Stars, as to the virtual reality views that would be loaded into her mind. Such a high-tech headset offered up-close-and-personal holographic images of Space, skillfully animated and real life footage combined. It would be like existing in that void for real, even if it was only in her mind.
Lucrezia was amazed. Who would know her so well as to give her this?
A small note was attached.
You may not be able to escape to the stars, it read. But you more than deserve one last dream before you wake up. Happy birthday. Zechs.
She smiled and wanted to laugh. So he hadn't forgotten after all. Of course, she would only use it once, for the pure thrill, then give it to one of the children on the base. He knew she would.
After all, she was too old for it.
I used to dream of space, Zechs, she thought, entering her quarters and closing the door behind her. She fingered the headset. But now, I dream of you.
Maybe there was hope for them yet.
Maybe.
-
It's time we forget what we used to think . . .
Noin's words echoed in Zechs's mind long after they returned from their mission, made him stop dead in the hallway on his way to his quarters from hers. The signifigance of what she had said made him wonder if she was speaking for the world, for herself - or speaking for him.
We're not like stars. We have to change.
He had told her that changing was not easy. But he hadn't been able to convey what he meant by combating the youthful, survivor's wisdom with which she spoke. Shifting your mind was one thing; becoming something new was something else.
Was that what she wanted of him? To change?
He couldn't do that. Not even for her, not even to save the world, his sister, his life, no, Zechs Merquise couldn't change. When he tried, he brought nothing but chaos and death.
That had been his biggest mistake in accepting leadership over the White Fang: He had been trying to be what he wasn't. Hoping a pacifist name could redefine his soul. Allowing a false shadow to fool him into thinking that the blood in his veins could change him, when really it was the blood he spilled from others that made him, kept him alive and fighting.
He could have the rights to neither of them. Not a pacifist, not a murderer, so what was he?
People go to empty space to forget. To disappear. And to die.
That was what he wanted to do. And he had his chance the year before, drifting in a mobile suit's remnants, slowly dying among the stars. It would have been a perfect end.
Yet, he was still alive at that moment, on Mars. For some obscure reason, he still breathed. He didn't deserve to die.
Zechs frowned, aware of the bleak expanse of Martian landscape beyond the tunnels he traveled, and the stars that stretched above the planet.
His reasons were pointless, childish. The subject of revenge . . . it was a lost topic to him, lost with the second death of his homeland. The subject of success, however apocolyptic, had been another story.
Victory . . . and then?
Nothing.
It's time we forget what we used to think . . . We have to grow up and move on.
Moving on was not one of his options. Self-pity was an atrocity to him. A recurrence of his insanity during that war was completely out of the question. All were idiotic. He was finished with everything that had been before.
But he had nothing to continue onto.
Standing still, in a void that cared not whether he survived or fell apart.
Why is Noin with me? Zechs wondered. She can do it, do what I can't. She can still live a clean life.
No life he touched remained clean. It wasn't something that deserved sympathy; it was what he was. If she remained by his side, there was every chance she would fall into whatever it was that still drew destruction to him.
He worried for her, but he was more concerned that he didn't know why she stayed. It puzzled him that he understood her love for freedom, her love for space, but couldn't fathom her reasons for feeling she had to change.
And every year that we grow older and we can say we've changed somewhat, then we get a little wiser.
Perhaps that was true. What did he care; he was fateless, if that was possible.
It's time we forget what we used to think . . .
That shouldn't be a problem. After all, people came to empty space for the sole reason of forgetting. Disappearing.
Dying.
His icy eyes narrow with thoughts of abyss, Zechs continued walking, unable to leave the past behind, unable to reach the future.