Aishiteru

Chapter Eleven

Twilight

6:12 PM Local Time, Winner Mansion, L4-A01


Grownups made absolutely no sense, whatsoever, Ezra decided for the hundredth time. If they weren't asking questions they already knew the answers to, they were making up reasons for things or worrying over nothing. He cast a look across the long table to where Hope was sitting, primped and posed in a classically girlish dress of green watered silk. She was sitting up in her chair with her hands in her lap, but by the way she was staring blankly ahead, he guessed she was as bored as he was, just better trained. He gave his tie another tug, trying to keep it from choking him, and dropped his arm with a melodramatic sigh at his mother's disapproving look. His father gave him a sympathetic glance, looking like he wanted to pull at his own tie. Mother's, he amended. Mommy was the one who had made them dress up uncomfortably and rushed them down so they could be on time to wait. Daddy, at least, seemed to understand.

Dinner was supposed to be served promptly at six, and it had been, spread out mockingly in front of him as he scowled at his empty plate. Dinner was at six, it was served at six, they were there at six, so why couldn't they just eat? If Quatre had wanted them to wait for him, he wouldn't have had the food served, right? He voiced another loud sigh and was rewarded with a light slap across the back of his hand from his mother. Trowa had said Quatre was at prayers, and that made him nervous. Daddy had taken him to church a couple of times, and if that was what Quatre's prayers were like, he was afraid they might be waiting for hours.

The grownups were making small talk amongst themselves, none of it very interesting. Hope's mommy and the new blonde lady were very politely arguing over something he didn't understand about historical borders on Earth, and Mariemaia looked like Mort, the stray tom that begged meals from their neighborhood, watching a fly on the other side of the window. Uncle Wuffie and Sally had been talking with them too, but had wound up in their own argument instead. Uncle Trowa was just listening and Mommy was talking about recycled colony air with the Lady Une; Daddy just looked bored.

He had already had his shrimp fork, swan-shaped napkin, and finger bowl taken away from him (the swan, it turned out, was too big to swim in the finger bowl), and was coming dangerously close to starting an orchestra with his family's water goblets and his spoon when Quatre made his grande entrance into the dining room, eliciting a single cheer from the table. Mommy glared at Daddy. Quatre looked surprised and promptly began gushing apologies for the wait, so Ezra tuned him out, turning his attention to the baked ham sitting bare inches from his woefully barren plate.

Taking a deep breath, he started counting in his head. His record was twenty-three before he couldn't stand the burning feeling in his lungs anymore. It wasn't the best way to kill time, but once he had passed out at the pool and Mommy had spoon fed him pudding in bed all afternoon. He was up to sixteen and was starting to squirm when Daddy dropped a spoonful of whipped potatoes on his plate. He grinned as it was followed by a slab of ham and a variety of dollops of things he couldn't identify. He was vaguely aware that the conversation around the table seemed to get louder and more cheerful while he was eating, but they were still talking about grownup things.

*

7:42 PM Local Time, Winner Mansion, L4-A01

Relena sighed as her reflection looked back at her from the gilded mirror above the vanity in her room. Hope was with Ezra and his parents, spending more quality family time with a normal family. Well, she amended to herself, a more normal family. Her silent reverie was interrupted by three crisp knocks at her door.

"Come in." She was only remotely surprised to see Wu Fei's silhouette appear in the light from the hallway. She turned, rising from the upholstered bench to meet him. "What can I do for you, Wu Fei?"

"Lady Relena. I thought I should share with you the conversation your daughter held with me last night." She set her jaw with resignation and lowered herself onto the edge of her bed.

"I'm sure you would not wish to bother me unless you thought it was important."

"She asked me specifically if Ezra's Uncle Heero was the same man in the photograph in Quatre's office, and if that man was her father."

"And what did you tell her?"

"That most of the things we decide are not what we know to be the best. We say yes, merely because we are driven into a corner and must say something. She is an intelligent child; I doubt proverbs and evasions will satisfy her for long."

She released a long, defeated sigh, her eyes looking past Wu Fei for a moment while he held a respectful silence. "I knew the time would eventually come when she'd need to know more, but I always hoped it wouldn't be until she was older ... old enough to understand. . . ."

"Unfortunately, there is no age when a child can understand such a decision."

"I suppose you're right, I just ..." she looked up at him wearily, squaring her shoulders. "He's gone again, isn't he?"

"Lady?"

"He was here ... I know he was. . . ."

A shadow flitted over his eyes a moment before answering. "He was. And he knows. He left sometime this morning."

"Did he say anything. . . ? At all. . . ?"

"I am sorry, Lady Relena."

*

9:26 PM Local Time, Winner Mansion, L4-A01

Artificial moonlight crept mournfully over the stretch of garden visible from his window, and it seemed to Quatre somehow very barren. The decorative birdcage was empty; it's inhabitants temporarily relocated, and most of the flowers were covered, all in preparation for the gradually dropping temperature. By Christmas Eve the colony would be cold enough to host a carefully contained blizzard, as promised. The impression of quiet melancholy was fostered as he closed his eyes, by the echos of emotional discomfort seeping deeper past his defenses from various parts of the house.

Duo and Hilde were worried ... neither had said a word to anyone but each other, but after Hilde's arrival and the unexpected touch of what she carried, he had a good idea of what it was about. Relena was somewhere downstairs ... he had a defined impression of her sadness and worry pacing wakefully beneath him. The source of her anguish was equally easy to guess. Hope was having a 'sleep-over' in Ezra's room, and opening his senses further he could feel their peaceful slumber, and, with a slight smile, the lively aura of their comprised dreamworlds. Wu Fei, he couldn't quite pinpoint, but there was certainly something troubling the solitary dragon as well, while he kept fitfully to his room ... probably something to do with Sally, on the other end of the hall, giving off an equal amount of unspecific frustration. The most poignant to him, though, were the all too familiar feelings of anger and loneliness that never quite faded completely from Mariemaia's carriage, and welled up in torment now that she slept.

With a shaky sigh, he withdrew his mental feelers, willing away the emotions permeating him, momentarily floundering as he was lost in the sea of sensation, unable to separate the others' feelings from his own. He jumped reflexively as a hand touched his arm, unaware that anyone else had entered his room during his reverie, but the press of skin against his, carried with it a subtle warmth of comfort and compassion that he anchored to until he could force all the rest out of his mind.

"A falter in your defenses." He nodded slowly in affirmation, closing his eyes again before moving his hand to cover the one settled on his bicep. "I could hear you. Your silence can be quite resounding at times."

"I'm glad you came ..." he trailed off lightly, opening his eyes again before turning away from the window. "This was supposed to be a celebration ... but so much has happened, so quickly. . . ."

He received a thoughtful nod in return, "That is simply what life is. We have all had more than our fair share of troubles, but we try to enjoy the few celebratory days on the calendar despite it."

"I'm glad you came ..." he repeated, tightening his fingers faintly over the thin hand he still held. The added weight of his words brought a hint of amusement to his companion's voice, "I was under the impression that Islam strictly forbade intimacy during Ramadan. . . ."

"It does," he agreed, bowing his head for a moment, "but I think it would kill me if I couldn't touch you right now. . . ."

*

December 21st, 1:13 AM Universal Time, Public Space Port, Winner Resource Satellite L4-III

It would be another two hours before he could get on a shuttle that would take him back to Winner Resource Satellite SE-IV, where his own shuttle was still moored. For three hours he had barely moved, rooted to an uncomfortable metal chair in a row of uncomfortable metal chairs lining the broad viewing window of Lobby 5. Ordinarily, he would have spent the time sleeping, old training prompting him to eat and rest whenever the opportunity presented itself, but instead he had been silently observing as the crowd around him ebbed and flowed while travelers boarded and alighted from their shuttles.

A higher ratio than usual seemed to be families, he noted; a statistic he chalked up to the rapidly approaching holiday. And those traveling alone were quick to strike up conversations with the complete strangers around them, trading explanations of where they were headed and who was waiting for them. Even the continual broadcast being piped in between schedule updates was particularly friendly; news casters breaking from their perpetual coverage of political battles and progress to highlight different celebrations taking place throughout the ESUN, and the activities of newsworthy celebrities towards the events. Every now and then he couldn't help looking up at one of the monitors when mention was made of Vice Foreign Minister Darlian's long vacation with her alleged lover, Quatre Raberba Winner, at his primary estate on L4. He could not, however, pinpoint exactly what the reactive tightening in his chest each time the subject came up was.

Strangely enough, it seemed his attention gravitated most towards the younger invaders of his space. Every few minutes a child would run up beside him, thrilled by the panoramic view of the universe the lobby offered, ecstatically pointing it out to an amused elder or stuffed toy, which ever seemed more interested. Heero watched with the detached concentration of a man studying rather than existing. In the intervals between these enthused specimens he found others that caught his interest as well; an exhausted young woman by herself, juggling a carry-on duffle bag in one arm and a sleeping two-year-old in the other; a pre-pubescent boy secretly watching the window from the corner of his eye, fascinated by the panoply but feeling too old to show it; a bonafide teenager slumping across two seats in a bored fashion, ignoring everything her parents tried to say to her and turning up the volume on her earphones. But just what, exactly, he was looking for in all of these observations, he didn't know.

For the extent of his wait, people had, for the most part, steered clear of him, intimidated by his stony silence or stern expression, so he was startled when one young woman stopped at the chair beside him, trying to dig through a diaper bag one handed while holding her infant's carrying seat level. Somehow obligated to help someone in such close proximity to him, Heero stood, not saying a word and held the carrying seat. The woman flashed him a grateful smile, releasing the handle long enough to delve deeper into the bag to retrieve her shuttle schedule and a pacifier. She placed the diaper bag back down on the floor, reclaiming her baby from Heero and sitting down with a sigh, balancing the cumbersome carrying seat in her lap. To his dismay, she took his gesture of common decency as an invitation for conversation.

"I've never traveled with Benjamin before," she confided as he sat back down. "I had no idea it was going to be this difficult. And this is only our first layover; we're going all the way to Earth."

Heero nodded politely in response. The woman paused a moment, but continued enthusiastically despite his limited reaction.

"My husband's with the Preventers, he's stationed at a North American base. This is Benjamin's first Christmas, so we're going to spend it with his Daddy."

"That should be nice." Heero offered non-committally, as it seemed it was his turn to speak.

"Are you on your way home? You look like a college student ... philosophy, right? You're too serious looking not to be a thinker."

Heero nodded slightly, finding it easier to affirm her conclusions than offer a different lie.

"David studied philosophy, before he enlisted. That was right before the war broke out. He was stationed at New Edwards, he was there for the Gundam attack. That's how we met, I was with a volunteer EMT and he was brought into our hospital," the hint of pride in her voice compounded his sudden discomfort at the turn of subject matter, and then, for some unknown reason, he replied.

"I was at New Edwards."

The woman looked surprised, "You must have been a baby then. . . . I thought neither side started recruiting juveniles until after that attack."

"Special circumstances."

"God, everything was a special circumstance to those people, wasn't it? Rules of war and basic human decency meant nothing to those bureaucrats." She sighed as her sudden burst of anger tapered off, and then smiled as she noticed his attention on her baby. "He's eighteen weeks old."

"He's small."

"He's a baby," she grinned. "They come that way. He's already gotten so much bigger, though. It's amazing how fast they grow."

"Hn." Heero shifted his gaze back to the wall across from them.

"Everyone told me he'd grow up fast, but I didn't believe them. More like I didn't understand them, you know? But, God, he's already rolling over and sitting up, pretty soon he'll be walking and talking, and then he'll start school..." She laughed and glanced down at her son, "But I'm sure a young, single guy like you isn't interested in hearing about my pre-empty nest syndrome. You'll understand someday, when you get to hold this tiny, innocent human being you created and you wonder how someone as tainted and imperfect as you are could possibly be a part of something so pure..." she smiled as the child in question gurgled and cooed whilst playing with her fingers. "Something with no knowledge of war or hate or pain, and doesn't care who you are or what you've done, so long as you love them as much as they love you. That's when you'll find out what love really is." She looked up at him again and he was still watching Benjamin, but he didn't seem to be seeing him. She mistook his unreadable expression for disinterest and assured, "... You'll understand."

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