AN A very depressing look at war, this is a sequel to my fic 'Everybody's Fool' but you don't need to read that to read this, all you really need to know is that Heero killed Relena just after her speech to Romefellar.

Rating: PG

Summary: What happens after Relena's death, Heero's own ending and his views on what he's done. Deathfic, Sequel to Everybody's Fool, but you don't really need to have read that.

Disclaimer: I don't own them but if anyone's offering to share…

Parting Shot

Slowly I glance around the cell, it doesn't look any different from the last time I did, same walls, same stone floor, same video camera and recording equipment embedded in the wall. I could destroy them but what would be the point? I still wouldn't be able to escape.

Gradually I turn my dark-adjusted pupils towards the spot where my imagined window is; imagined, it's always imagined, no one in their right minds would put an ex-gundam pilot in a room with a window.

Then again, they might sooner or later, people are getting careless, we're dying out, people are still enamoured with the fact that we look like teenagers, so harmless. That's why Quatre was always so dangerous.

The rest of us looked like something that they should be afraid of, even in capture, especially in capture, blood thirsty, deadly, looking exactly like the terrorists we were. Quatre never did, he looked as innocent as the day he was born even when he was cursing, kicking and spewing insults in a manner that Duo would have been proud of, he always looked helpless, weak. Like a child disobeying daddy for the first time and waiting to be punished, still defiant but just acting that way for show, no real danger.

They realised the truth after what became universally known as 'The ZERO Incident'. There's no one, on planet or off who hasn't heard the story at least once, it was the best piece of anti-gundam propaganda that Romefellar could have wished for. Quatre still looked innocent though. Even with the blood of thousands of soldiers and innocents alike on his hands.

He still looked… childlike, even when they were leading him to his execution. Parading him in front of the people of the colonies who cheered at the sight of one of the terrorists who had plagued them and given them a bad name. I watched with the others, on a vid-screen thousands of miles away as the bravest of us all walked forward; head held high, into the chamber at the end of the tunnel of people, at the end of his life. Then the shot rang out, the cheer went up and we knew it was over, for one of us at least.

We fought with a kind of numb disbelief after that, I don't think we had actually accepted, after cheating death for so long, that one of us could die. Overall nothing really changed missions still came and we still carried them out, sometimes meeting with the scientists in person and sometimes via a computer.

I remember having to hold Duo back after J made a comment about how he knew Quatre would be the first to go and I remember wondering if Duo's capture and subsequent murder on live, sphere-wide television was a set up, to get him out of the way. After all a terrorist who questions is a danger to everything and everyone around him.

He didn't look like a terrorist though, when he was fighting, struggling with the guards as colony citizens who had managed to break past the barriers attacked him, beating him into submission, wanting to say that they had attacked a gundam pilot and not only that but the one calling himself the God of Death. He never attacked one of his own though, it would have been so easy to break free and use a citizen as a hostage for him to get out. But he knew that if he did that then he'd have to kill them and he could never compromise himself that way. He didn't look like a terrorist then, if you knew what you were looking for he looked like a scared child and I could imagine the accent he'd had a street kid on L2 coming back to say that he knew 'the Ozzies' would get him in the end.

It was about then that people began to realise that we were mortal, we could die, we weren't robots or killing machines or death personified or perfect soldiers. We were dangerous terrorists who would eventually die no matter what; we were human, humans who weren't perfect, humans who made mistakes. And somehow that knowledge made us easier to capture, it gave soldiers who had once had nightmares about us the self-confidence to risk their lives to beat us and slowly but surely we began to weaken.

That's the reason I'm here, in this cell, about to be killed by the man with whom I first fought, Milliardo Peacecraft, Zechs Marquise, head of the Whitefang… and Relena's brother.

Relena… I still think about her, wonder what would have happened if I hadn't killed her, if we had done things differently, if she'd had a chance to build her dream, her 'world nation'. Instead she was used as a propaganda martyr for OZ and Romefellar. They turned their most frenzied attacks on us all at once, seeking revenge for their assassinated queen, some of them actually seemed to believe the nonsense they spouted to the press, maybe there had been hope for them after all…

But it's too late for all that, Relena is dead, killed by my own hand, Duo and Quatre are dead, killed by the people they had fought to protect, the people who had betrayed them, the people who ended up costing them everything.

I look around again, pretending I can see the sky but even if I could I don't think I'd want to, all out war is what reigns now, fighting and killing without any order whatsoever, if I looked outside all I'd be able to see is the lights of battles, blotting out the stars, both close and far away as dolls and suits fought, senselessly slaughtering.

This was my plan, my solution to a war that had carried on for as long as the colonies had been around, all out chaos, let mankind kill it's own attitude for war.

Hearing the footsteps coming down the corridor I scratch one last mark into the wall next to me, there are five, five years of fighting for us, five pilots originally and five days I've spent in here, there won't be any more marks though it; ends for me today. Today Trowa and Wufei are left to continue on their own. I can't even bring myself to regret my own end but then again I've always been a bit suicidal.

Almost silently the cell door opens and instantly there are the barrels of four guns trained on me, I don't move or flinch, I expected this. Milliardo Peacecraft walks in a second later and I look up at him, towering over my crumpled form.

'I'm sorry,' my eyes tell him.

'I know,' his reply.

I hear the shot a split second before I feel the burning pain rushing through my chest.

Maybe mankind will burn out it's passion for war or maybe they'll become extinct trying to, I don't care, either way, for me, it's finally over.

Owari

AN Okay, that was depressing but hey I like writing depressing stuff. On another note I've got ideas for a couple of Harry Potter/Gundam Wing crossovers, would anyone be interested in reading one?