Author: Sparkle Itamashii

Title: Stay with Me

Warnings: Respect the rating. See profile for details.

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing AC is NOT MINE.


"I believe in love surviving death into eternity…"


Chapter Seven


I had to get out, fast.

People were going to start showing up because of the horrible, droning noise in this room and the next. If I didn't leave they were going to find me here, where I wasn't supposed to be, standing caught between two dead bodies- definitely not where I needed to be found. My own survival instinct took over at that point.

Ducking out the entrance of the room, I skirted around a corner in time to miss being seen by the doctor practically running down the hall. I almost blew it when I stepped into the corridor after him and realized there were more people behind him. Luckily none of them seemed to notice me- I expect they were rather preoccupied with getting to the room I'd just vacated.

I sank back against the wall as soon as I was far enough away, dropping pathetically to the ground. Light, what was I going to do? Running away really wasn't going to do any good and I doubt it would stay a secret that I'd been in the hospital. After that point any chance I had of changing the situation would be gone. If I was going to get the attention of a god, I was going to have to think fast. How could I possibly draw such a powerful focus to myself?

"Every raindrop causes a ripple." I whispered, recalling again the words I had remembered Howard speaking to me when I was a teen.

When I was younger, just after I had gotten transferred to Howard's care, I had questioned everything- especially death. I was so angry at my parents for dying and I was even angrier at the world for taking them from me when I still needed them. I couldn't understand why. My parents had never done anything to merit the short end of the stick. They hadn't done anything wrong. They weren't bad people. So why had god killed them?

"The world has got a design." Howard had told me when I'd finally stopped crying that first night. "Everyone has a place to be and a role to play. There is an order to everything that happens, even if you can't see or understand it. Everything affects every other thing- if you change even one element the original design fails."

Just because that is the way things are supposed to happen, though, didn't make them fair. It hadn't been fair for the design to take my parents then and the situation wasn't fair now. Heero shouldn't have died before me. What was I supposed to do now? Wait? Obviously I wasn't supposed to die any time soon if our deaths were going to be out of synchronization enough that the design didn't allow for me to find him next life. So-

"The world has got a design…" I whispered, groping my way quickly to my feet. Oh god, it was so simple. "Change even one element…"

That was all I had to do.

I picked my way back to the first floor, waving distractedly to that lady at the counter as she rose from her seat and started calling me. Something about tags or something… I didn't really hear and she didn't chase me past the front doors so I don't suppose it could have possibly mattered.

Slamming the car door, I cranked the key and waited for my engine to roar to life. I wanted a chance to bargain, a chance to get Heero back or at the very least be allowed to follow him. I couldn't do that alone- I may have been a lot of things but I was still just a single, lowly mortal. However, I had one advantage most people would never have.

I knew I wasn't supposed to die yet.

Every death changes life. Change one element and the design fails.

I wanted to get the attention of a god.

Screwing with the most complex, intricate pattern ever crafted by their hand seemed like a good start.

After all, I'd already lost the only person that mattered- what did it matter how things happened now? If I died, I died. If I never saw him again because of what I was about to do… well, I wasn't any worse off than I already was. What could they possibly do to me- send me to hell? Bit late for that if Heero had already been taken from me.

The highway wasn't very far. It was very peculiar how everything inside me had seemed to just shut down. I felt oddly calm at first as I merged into traffic, coolly speculating at the tons of worked metal flying all around me as people rushed to get to their jobs on time. It was the perfect time. Any one of them… All I would have to do is swerve a little and…

But I couldn't do it.

Fury coiled in my gut- fury at my cowardice, my loss; anger at the situation and at how Death had taken Heero from me again. This time right in front of me, practically snatching him from my hands. I let my anger smolder, fanned the flames of my hatred until it was a roaring fire within me.

I couldn't leave myself a choice.

I had to do this.

Swerving suddenly, I veered through three lanes of traffic and rumbled across the median. The flustered, indignant honks of the people I cut off were drowned in the violent rattling of the car as I crossed. With a shuddering thump, I was free again, hurtling toward home down the wrong side of the road.

The headlights of oncoming traffic were blinding. I could hear myself, above the roar of the adrenaline in my ears, shouting and shouting for attention I didn't think I would receive. Death had heard me once but that didn't necessarily mean he was still listening. I was taking a chance, not even knowing if he paid attention to anyone who was still alive.

Distantly I heard sirens squeal to life behind me. I realized it was the same cop I had passed on my way to the hospital. It didn't matter; she wouldn't have to chase me for long at this rate. All I had to do was draw the interest of one god as I royally screwed his delicate little web.

"Come on! Take me!" I screamed again as I barreled down the highway going far, far faster than any speed limit allowed. Cars were racing at me but they swerved to my right and left, horns blaring and tires screeching in protest. I didn't care. I didn't want to stay here, not alone. "Fucking take me like you took him!" I shouted, voice cracking over the words. "I know you can hear! I know you're listening!"

The crunch of metal on stone sounded off behind me as a car swerved to miss me and hit the column of a bridge overpass. I closed my eyes, breath catching so that I could not yell again. There had been two young people in that car- a guy and a girl. There was no way anyone could survive what I'd watched happen in my rearview mirror.

The air turned to ice around me and an ageless, eerie feeling prickled all over my skin. Startled, I opened my eyes, but there was nothing to see. The God of Death had heard my cry and answered- or at least was pissed that I'd gotten two people killed. It didn't matter why he'd come, only that he had.

"Give him back." I let my anger seep into my words, coloring them with venom. "Give him back or take me too."

The presence that weighed so heavily upon me began to diminish, as though deciding this was not worth the time. My grip on the steering wheel tightened, my knuckles going white. I wasn't going to give up yet. I couldn't just let Heero disappear from my life forever. He meant too much.

"Wait! I… I have an offer." The dissolving touch hesitated, surrounding me as though testing me for lies. The sirens behind me seemed slow and eerie in the background, almost surreal in quality.

Everything was waiting for me.

There had to be something I could do to shift the situation into my favor. I needed control, even if it was only a miniscule amount. There had to be something I could offer him that he would see as worthwhile. But what did you want when you had everything you could ever want; knowledge, power, infinite longevity-

Immortality.

An entire eternity without an escape, without any hope for peace and rest.

Death.

"Trade places with me." I breathed, thinking fast. I was sure he would hear me now no matter how quiet I spoke. "Mortality is the one thing you can't have for yourself. You could rest."

I concentrated on staying on the road and avoiding the now sparse oncoming traffic, not daring to speak further, should he be considering the offer. The police seemed to be multiplying behind me, meaning I didn't have a whole lot of time before they decided to do something drastic like a road block that would inevitably result in someone's death- mine or theirs I wasn't sure.

There was an instant of disgust before I could feel the presence drawing away from me, leaving me alone in the world again.

"It's not stupid!" I shouted, hands tightening painfully on the steering wheel. "It's not! God, please just give me a chance! Give me a fucking chance! You owe me that much for what you've done!"

Cold fury hit me like a brick wall and I was almost sick at the overwhelming sensation. I released one hand from the death-grip I'd had on the wheel, clawing uselessly at my chest to try and rid myself from the pain it caused. A strangled noise that should have been a scream escaped me, incoherent and robbed of volume.

The feeling began to subside, leaving me wrung dry of energy.

"One chance, that's all I ask." I gasped before I could be left. It couldn't end this way- I couldn't let it. Heero was dead, the police were chasing me; I probably wasn't going to make it much longer without hitting something or getting hit. There was nothing left to lose. "I can be the God of Death and you can lead a mortal life. Don't you want to rest?"

It wasn't working. All I could feel was the fury, burning icy cold at the edges of my consciousness, and the receding touch of a disbelieving, irritated presence. Death must have thought it very preposterous, the idea of letting a mortal take a god's job. I'm sure I would have found it just as ridiculous if I had been anyone else.

But I wasn't. I was me.

"Let me prove I can!" I could feel the desperation taking over me as the scream of sirens echoed in pulsing waves behind my car. "Please! Without your help I'll lose him. Forever. I can't let that happen! Don't you know what it is to love?!" I cried, letting my head fall to the steering wheel as tears welled in my eyes. My fingers ached from retaining such a tight grip.

An unexpected soul-deep sadness rippled through their air. The feeling stuck in my chest like a dagger, stealing my breath from the shock.

No, it didn't.

Death took too much; hurt too many, too often.

It knew no such thing as love.

"Wouldn't you like to?" I whispered around the lump in my throat, voice cracking. There was no response and my hopes crumbled along with the rest of me as I surrendered to a sob. "Please…"

Sound gently dropped out around me, muffled at first and then silenced. I couldn't feel anything but terrifying cold all around me, closing in and pressed so close it hurt. I cried out, reaching for anything to hold onto but I was no longer in my car. I was no longer anywhere I knew. There was nothing but darkness, a roiling black void all around in every direction. Fear gripped my heart- had I failed? Had I crashed?

Death's voice rang evenly through the emptiness, deep and rich with age.

I accept.

My heart seized and suddenly there was nothing.


/End Chapter Seven, Stay With Me/


Notes:


Aw, I love you guys and the reviews you have been giving me! ::grins:: I know I do some wild things with my plot lines (c'mon, aren't you used to it by now?) but who isn't having fun? Trust me when I say I know what I'm doing. You… DO trust me, right…? ::winks::