Tourniquet
Chapter Four
By Jillian
(Disclaimer: I love Nichol. I love Hilde. I love Gundam Wing. Because I love them, I must be honest and say that I have no true claim to them. Lyrics from Coldplay's "Daylight.")
~*~
To my surprise and my delight
I saw sunrise, I saw sunlight
I am nothing in the dark
And the clouds burst to show daylight
Ooh and the sun will shine
Yeah on this heart of mine
Ooh and I realize
Who cannot live without
Ooh and come apart
without daylight.
Slowly breaking through daylight
~coldplay
~*~
His memories of the war and his time with OZ surfaced without preamble. Occasionally, he'd be reading a newspaper article and he'd remember an off duty moment on Barge playing cards with his crewmates. A particular smell from the garage might remind him of a shift spent polishing up his Mobile Dolls. They came back to him like snapshots. Frozen moments that ignited every sense in some way, yet did not contain movement.
Moments of shame were chiseled and unforgiving. Moments of peace and success seemed overwhelmed by displays of inadequacy.
Douglas Nichol shivered as he made his way home from his sister, Hilde's, house. He'd lived in space for years, this colony itself had been his home for a couple of years consecutively. However, for all that time, he still felt restless. The sidewalk under his feet and the grass just to either side seemed real enough. If he stopped to run his fingers through the vegetation or strayed from his relentless pace to walk into someone's yard, he knew it wouldn't feel any different from Earth. Still, he couldn't help but complain about the subtle gravitational shifts he could feel as the colony made its rotation and the unnerving unplacable "sunlight" that shown from every which way.
Hilde would indulge him until she determined that he was being insufferable and would gently make him remind her why he persisted in avoiding Earth.
"Golly, Nicky," Hilde would put her hands on either hip, her nose smudged with grease or flour depending on if their conversation started in the shop or in her kitchen, "Why is it that every reason why you're avoiding your home planet is of the female gender? I swear, you wouldn't go back unless you could find some agreeable woman up to your standards. Impossible as those standards are." She'd add the last with some sisterly flair, waving her wrench or wooden spoon.
In most every way, Hilde was right. He was avoiding the home where he grew up because of his mother. He avoided the military position that had been offered him because he felt like a disgrace around his former commanding officer.
He stayed on the colonies because of Hilde. With his sister, he felt like he had acceptance.
And with a recent addition, Nichol realized he wasn't the only one who craved Hilde's attentions.
Heero Yuy had transferred to their colony. The transfer had started as a vacation and then Heero had requested an assignment to become the Preventor liaison with the local peace keeping authorities. Of course the colony had been more than eager to welcome an ex-Gundam Pilot and war hero into their organization.
Hilde had been quite open to letting Heero stop by and visit. The infiltration of Heero Yuy into their daily lives had all started out with a slobbering yellow lab named Daisy. Apparently, Heero had a soft spot for puppies and Daisy apparently liked to take nightly walks past Hilde's neighborhood needing frequent breaks at Hilde's house.
Nichol snorted even as he kicked a rock sitting on the sidewalk. He'd never pegged Heero Yuy for having a soft spot for any person, let alone a pet.
Of course, having Heero appear had triggered more of the memories that Nichol would rather leave behind him. He remembered a younger countenance of the Asian man with the slop that OZ considered prisoner's rations splattered across his face after a moment in which Heero Yuy's smart ass comment had been a fast trigger to Nichol's insecure rage. He found himself wiping clammy hands against his thighs while Heero lounged on the living room carpet with his dog and secretly stole glances at Nichol's sister to make sure he had her attention and her amusement.
Of course, Heero was always very cordial with Hilde's older brother. Everyone knew within seconds of meeting Hilde that she would not accept anyone tormenting her brother except herself. He vacillated between relief that she'd never abandon him and aggravation that he seemed pathetically dependent on her. But the one torment that Hilde couldn't fix was his own unresolved defeats from his past.
Solitude wasn't helping him either. He stared ahead, hands deep in his coat pockets, hating the fact that the colonies mimicked sunsets as the uniform lighting started to change from yellow into orange.
The suburbs were changing to shops as he entered the business district. After his first lease was up, Nichol had moved above one of the local restaurants. They closed at a decent hour so that noise wasn't an issue, sometimes he got free food giving him some independence from eating at Hilde's, and he didn't notice the lingering smell of cooked meat that Hilde claimed she could smell on his clothes. Besides, the rent was so decent that he was actually saving as much money as he spent out. With his military funds suspended, Nichol had struggled to find a frugal side in his personality.
Ironically enough at that moment, Nichol saw the sign above the door which read "The Sunrise." Most of the restaurant's customers were retired colonists. On his days off, Nichol and one of the colony's oldest citizens, Alistair Lewis, would play checkers while drinking lukewarm coffee. His entrance was up a flight of the fire escape in the alley just to the side of The Sunrise.
Nichol turned the corner without a thought and found his feet tripping over some knee high metal box and barely had time to catch himself before his skull hit the concrete.
~*~
Hilde watched her brother leave with a cheery smile on her face, but reservation tugging at her stomach. She watched as he grew surly and dark while Heero's presence lingered uncontested in her house. While she most wanted Nichol's approval, she was determined not to let him dictate whom she kept for company.
She turned to sit on the couch that Nichol had vacated, and she felt the familiar weight of Heero coming up to sit next to her. Heero could become just as surly and dark as her brother, so having both of them to take care of taxed her patience. But she couldn't deny that they'd both been trying noticeably hard to get along in the past few months.
Heero's lab, Daisy, lolled on the floor full and sated from the attention she received.
Heero himself seemed rather full energy still; although, he kept himself in check sitting with his hands on either side of his knees and glancing at her from underneath the dark fringe he seldom had cut.
"I think I make your brother uncomfortable," He said at last, watching her for a reaction. Hilde was trying to get used to having him track her. Heero always seemed to know where she was so he could simply look up and find her at all times.
"Nicky's always uncomfortable around anything that makes him have to deal with the past," She tried smiling and watched as Heero's eyes softened and his mouth relaxed. After Christmas, she'd been baffled with a strange new attraction for the war hero with the most suicide attempts listed on his record. Of course, he wasn't easy to be attracted to when his features drew her with frightening intensity. She'd found Trowa Barton pretty and Duo Maxwell had enough personality to make her heart flutter. But Heero Yuy made her forget to breathe.
Hilde knew that his transfer was no coincidence. His persistence gave her some reassurance that such strong emotions were not in vain, but she was terrified nonetheless.
And watching how she could influence his own comfort frightened her as well.
She felt him lift her near hand with his own and gently touch his lips to her knuckles, "I feel peaceful around you, Hilde." He wouldn't meet her eyes with a sudden bashfulness which he tried to cover up with quick words, "I'm sure that you help heal your brother's heart as well."
"It's," Hilde started, then realized that his leaning toward her was very purposeful, "not quite the same. No."
She saw the gently possessive light in his dark eyes as he was too close for her to see the actual smile, "No, not quite the same."
And then he kissed her.
~*~
"Damn it. What the hell?" Nichol tried to roll on his left side, one foot still hooked over the obstacle that had sent him sprawling once he'd turned into the alley on his way home. His hands hurt, his heart still hammered from the close call of breaking his skull open and he knew that half of his body was going to bear painful bruises to remind him of the clumsy fall for days if not weeks to come, "Who the . . . who are you?"
Nichol scowled finishing his roll to sit in the alley street with his legs crossed up onto the curb of the sidewalk. He tried to compose himself, already embarrassed enough as it was that he'd fallen and then let his vocabulary slip into something less than wholesomely admirable. In most cases he would care, but right then he found himself confronted with a rather pretty woman with a look of shock on her delicate features. Her mouth was working but no sounds were coming out.
"Okay," Nichol rubbed the back of his neck, and the breeze coming around the corner was starting to cool the perspiration of panic that had instantly developed there. "I know it wasn't intentional, and I accept your apology. My name is Douglas, and you are . . ." He lifted his eyebrows and waited to see if her slim lips were merely polished decoration or would form words.
"I'm sorry," She said clearly, as if having recaptured her voice. Her own eyebrows lifted into an amazed expression, "But I suppose you've already assumed that. As for my name." She paused for a moment and glanced at the silver object Nichol had tripped over. He realized it was a suitcase, "You can call me Sally."
"Sally," He nodded curtly, nursing his bruised pride and trying to regain it with verbal composure even as he sat and hoping the ache from his fall would diminish, "Alright, Sally, I am rather curious why you've set up business right outside of my home."
"Your home?" Then she glanced at the fire escape and up the stairs, "You're the renter." She surmised.
"Quick thinking and yes," Nichol quipped, but still felt ill at ease. She hadn't answered his question. He doubted she was terrorist material, and his gut instinct had proven itself reliable even during his time on Barge. Barge. His eyes narrowed, "You're military, aren't you?" He didn't recognize her, but he did have an idea what was in the suitcase now.
"I believe it takes one to know one," She was still on guard, that he didn't doubt, but she hadn't identified him as hostile either, "But yes, military. But lets not put on labels, you can consider me a free thinking defender of peace."
Nichol couldn't decide whether to cringe at the insane concept or admire her upfront honesty. Most soldiers identified with a group or at best a cause. Seldom did they admit to flexible loyalties hinged upon a greater truth. At one time, he would have said his career was balanced on a greater truth. But since then, he'd suffered disillusionment at the purity of 'duty' divorced from . . . love.
He watched her warily.
"I'm retired," he said at last, realizing she expected her courteous revelation of intentions to be reciprocated. He chose her route of vagueness.
"That's good," her blue eyes twinkled, and he again felt an odd balance of annoyance at being teased and interpreting the emotion as affectionately warm, "It's the whole reason why I find purpose in continuing to built the foundation of peace. So soldiers could return to their former way of life."
He choked on her idealism, and nearly sputtered, "That's all well and good for you to say. But you don't know me."
"I've offended you. I didn't mean to," Sally watched him with some interest. Even so, she quickly packed up her equipment, but not before Nichol had seen through her current purpose.
"Who are we tracking, Sally?" He crossed his arms, and even as he stayed seated, the pain of his fall having faded, he managed to feel some of his old authority when addressing another military person.
She looked at him as an officer evaluates a potentially useful cadet, "A banker." She said at last, "One who does not defend peace."
"Anything I can do to help?" Nichol said, "I do live here after all. Right across from," he glanced at the buildings on the opposite side of the main street, "A bank. This is where I live, and what soldier truly retires from his responsibility?" Responsibility. Nichol tasted the word and remembered he had been missing it.
"I see the advantage of your offer and accept," Sally stood up and offered Nichol her hand, "Douglas, was it? You can let me into your apartment."
He took her hand, but made sure to lift most of his weight himself. Her fingers were slightly cool in his own. Without speaking, he indicated that she should go up the stairs ahead of him. She nodded, closing her angled blue eyes in the process so that he realized how distracting they had been when fixed on him.
On one hand, he couldn't wait to make a tale out of his evening adventure of taking a woman to his apartment with Hilde. On the other hand, he was letting this woman go into a bachelor's apartment he hadn't even let his sister see.
He scrambled up the stairs behind her, pulling the key out of his pocket, "Um, maybe I should go in first. Wait here."
He gave her a desperate and insincere smile as he slipped into his apartment, paused, then shut the door in her face leaving her outside on the staircase.
~*~
After watching Heero's affections for Daisy, Hilde shouldn't have been so surprised to find that the universe's most perfect soldier was a snuggler. She vaguely remembered the harsh precisions of their first dance together the past December, but it seemed that since then he'd accepted a new mission. Simply to try to be happy.
He had her wrapped by his arms full length on the couch and after a while had taken an interest in smelling her hair. He looked into the oddest things to find happiness.
"I have a memory of you," he spoke into her hair, and she murmured acknowledgement against his shoulder blade, "The information you brought from Libra. I remember taking the disc from your hand while we were trying to stop your internal bleeding and hook you up for a medical transport back to earth."
"Oh, I'm sure I looked very cute," Hilde scoffed, torn between feeling proud and incredibly silly that he'd seen her and remembered her.
"Not really," He breathed a warm laugh into her hair, "I hadn't seen anything like you before. I filed you away as an ally with above average mobile suit and infiltration skills, with a tendency toward suicidal missions."
"Did you," Hilde chuckled, feeling the edge of his shirt collar with her fingertips as if she could read his thoughts like Braille, "Well, you weren't far off."
"You still have those skills," he began again, more tentatively, as if trying to speak a language he had only heard but never spoken. Heero captured the hand that was near his collar and pressed it against his chest, "You still have infiltration skills."
"And is this a suicide mission?" Hilde whispered, tearing up at his gesture.
"In some ways," Heero replied.
~*~
Nichol opened the door to find Sally patiently leaning against the railing with her legs crossed and the silver suitcase of surveillance equipment in front of her, "Okay. It's safe to come in now." He tried to joke, but found his traitorous hand rubbing at the back of his neck in a repeat of his sheepish habit.
"Hide everything I shouldn't see?" She teased. Her smiles were small and barely creased her smooth cheeks, but they still communicated the same mocking wattage as he's seen from one of Hilde's widespread grins.
He chose to ignore her comment, "The window here," he shuffled across the poorly lit room to the front window, "has a nice angle on your bank. Employees all enter through the front door as they most park in the lot just to the left." He paused, watching as Sally started to balance a camera on his windowsill and checked the video feed in a mobile monitor. Even with the light quickly fading, the camera automatically switched to night vision and kept a clear image.
Nichol restlessly shifted his weight, "Preventer, I'd imagine?"
"Yes," She nodded, starting to fix the camera in place with sturdy tape.
"I hope that doesn't peel up the paint," Nichol grimaced, then shrugged when she shot him an inquisitive look, "Anything I can do to help, I'm a good guy here."
"I can tell," she responded to his comment without turning again. He frowned, but she didn't have the benefit of seeing, "Douglas. Douglas Nichol?"
He grimaced, "Yeah, that's me." Knowing his name usually brought predetermined opinions on his character even if she didn't see him as an immediate enemy. She pointed at the pile of unopened mail on the desk next to where she'd set the briefcase.
"I work with a unit that tracks potentially hostile or mentally unstable ex- military," Sally lifted her hands away from the camera gently and went back to adjust the electronic equipment.
He glanced at her sharply, but her fingers continued to type on the fold out keyboard unhurried and uninterrupted. His abrupt personality bubbled to the surface like acid, "Not here to keep an eye on Douglas Nichol are you, Sally? That's been done before."
Sally did turn hearing his tone, she regarded him with a passive expression, "While I do have some curiosity as to why you're the only established military individual to turn down an officers position with the Preventers, I can assure you that I am only here to monitor this banker."
"You're awful free about giving me what is probably classified information," Nichol said, his suspicions not put at rest.
She stood straight and in the shallow lighting of his living room, Nichol could not determine her expression, "For all your talk about responsibility, I haven't told you anything that you can't manage, have I?"
For a moment, in the darkness, her blonde hair turned chestnut and her twin braids might have been coiled at the base of her neck. Nichol's stomach turned.
"Now that that's settled," suddenly she was very much only Sally and the ghostly overlapping image had disappeared, "As for my next confidential revelation: where can I get some ice cream?"
~*~
After sleep threatened their conversation, Hilde had insisted that they sit at the kitchen table so that she could start some coffee and cookies, which she secretly hoped would turned out better than usual in her lopsided heating oven.
Heero kept both of his hands firmly wrapped around his mug, and one side of his hair was flat on end from the couch. She wondered if Heero noticed his appearance or if he really thought about it at all. Duo had been fun to shop with as he enjoyed shopping for clothes as a way to escape from his military obligations. Heero, by contrast, didn't seem to avoid his training and instead appeared to evaluate everything through his fighting experience. But it wasn't a bitter relationship with his life as a soldier, like her brother often viewed his abilities. Heero approached it all quite naturally.
The diminishing pain of new feelings still buzzed through her system like a second heartbeat, but she had to wonder if he had only been drawn to her battle experiences. Or if he could truly accept the Hilde who diminished to work at a scrap yard.
Daisy, finally sensing their progression to the kitchen, yawned and pawed her way over to lay at Heero's feet under the table.
"She'll be wanting her share once she realizes we're eating something," Heero reached down and Daisy growled easily in response to his brief attention.
"Why did you name her Daisy?" Hilde glanced at her watch and decided to sit opposite him for a while.
Heero paused over his answer, and dropped his eyes, "Flowers," He admitted, "I liked flowers when I was small, but I'd forgotten that at some point. Until I realized I had to name her something."
"Daisy, huh?" Hilde's eyes crinkled in amusement, "Not Snapdragon or Venus Flytrap?"
Heero stared at her, then covered his mouth as he started to laugh.
~*~
Sally was finishing off his plain chocolate ice cream with a spoon, and seemed rather unashamed to ask him personal questions that he avoided. Which in an alternating pattern annoyed and flattered him. In fact, she kept him so on edge that he started to check his watch to see what ridiculous hour she might stop her surveillance and let him sleep.
"I wanted to be a doctor," Sally said, her sudden shift to personal information catching Nichol pushing up his sleeve to check the time again, "My mother died when I was very young. Our country wasn't well off during the Federation Era and no one was available to give her the care that she needed. I decided that if I could, I was going to make that difference."
"Military doctor?" Nichol gave her an evaluating glance, she hadn't seemed like a medic to him. She had taken the chair that went with the desk where she'd set up her temporary base of operations. He sat on the only other piece of furniture available, his sister's castoff beanbag. His shoulders leaned against the wall and his feet were propped up on the coffee table. Besides the bed put away in his bedroom, Nichol hadn't bothered with much furniture since staying at Hilde's was more convenient. At least before Heero Yuy started showing up, he reminded himself.
"General practice at first," Sally replied, finishing off the ice cream after that comment and setting it on the floor next to her seat. Nichol didn't move choosing to agree that the floor was a good place for the carton right then, "But with the changing climate, I found my experience really expanded beyond simply medicine."
"OZ?" Nichol asked, absently.
"Nothing so simple," Sally shook her head, "Guerilla in my own country, until I found a way to better serve my people."
"Not OZ, ex-Federation, let me guess," Nichol scowled, "You were a Gundam groupie?"
"Did you meet the pilots?" She asked, lips closed and waiting for his response.
He had an image of Trowa Barton sitting next to Colonel Une during a debriefing on Barge and how his panicked irritation at the boy's presence during a discussion of such delicate intelligence information had nearly kept him from hearing any of the details himself.
"Yeah," Nichol left it at that.
She didn't say anything until she was sure he wasn't going to speak again on the matter, "After the war, I helped in the hospitals to meet the needs of the wounded. It was worse than when I was a child, but we were able to make a small difference in keeping some of our soldiers out of the memorial cemetery."
He remembered sitting next to Une's life support bed while their shuttle landed on Earth, knowing that he was going to survive with his life and that he had no idea what his purpose was, until he had found Hilde again.
"Why are you watching for this banker?" Nichol asked, finally. Wanting to drown so completely in the present so that the past had no room to leak out any more than it had already.
"According to his electronic communications, he's anti-colony but has lost his privileges to return to Earth," Sally shared.
"Lost his privileges?" Nichol questioned, he found the humming of Sally's equipment to be rather soothing and felt his eyes falling closed.
"A rather significant restraining order," Sally's voice seemed to come from a far distance, "he made public threats against the several key political figures, including my commander."
He knew who her commander was, and while the words tried to prick his skin like a needle testing for a latent disease, the pain was so familiar it could hardly keep him from falling asleep anymore.
~*~
After hearing Heero adamantly insisting that he liked charcoal cookies, Hilde finally believed he forgave her for loosing track of time during their conversation. Daisy seemed genuinely unbothered by the smoky flavor.
When she did finally see the time, the cookies were practically a lost cause and Hilde began to wonder if Heero was going to leave. Even when he did stand up from the table he seemed to shuffle his feet along the linoleum worse than his golden lab.
She wondered if he felt well, if he was doing an imitation of a drunk, or had other intentions. Then she saw the reflexive twitching of his narrow fingers as his arms dangled at his waist. He was insecure, and a warm rush of emotion covered her skin like direct desert daylight.
"Heero," She said his name and remembered the way he had held her hand against his chest. He had given her the initiative. Stepping closer to him, she put her arms under his in a clumsy embrace until he responded in kind, "I'll miss you. Come back tomorrow, okay?"
"Hai," Heero spoke down into her hair, slipping into his native tongue. She felt him press a kiss on top of her head. When she let him go, she saw that his face wore a half-dreaming expression, "Come, Daisy." And the dog scrambled up from under the table to mind her master.
She fell with her back against the door after closing it behind him. Sleep seemed impossible. Hilde wondered if her brother could handle a phone call at such a late hour.
She rolled to one side in order to peek out the front window and saw Heero half skipping down the sidewalk with Daisy bounding around his legs in the uncertain frenzy of an excited pet. It seemed as if she'd were going to tangle him until he stopped, but Heero managed to keep his balance for all of Daisy's interference. She watched until they disappeared in the shadows outside of the streetlight.
Feeling like a coiled wire, she went to splash water on her face and stared at herself in the mirror with clear droplets in various places on her cheeks and chin. Suddenly weary, she knew she was ready for a long sleep. When she would wake up, everything in her life would be transformed. She was in love.
~*~
Nichol fought back the groan to release his stiff muscles when he realized that not only had he fallen asleep in the living room, but that a strange woman, Sally, was still sitting at her monitor. She was a taller woman than Hilde, he noticed, as her legs seemed uncommonly long. Not that he'd particularly been looking at women's legs recently. She was balancing her chin on one arm and the other one was feeding herself a pickle.
The open jar sat in front of the silver suitcase that he'd fallen over.
"What time is it?" He asked even as he started to pull his sleeve up to find his watch.
"Five in the morning," Sally said, and he realized that she had a lower voice for a woman. Or perhaps she was speaking with a throat tired from lack of sleep. Not that he would call what he'd just woken up from a good sleep. "The staff is just starting to make their appearances."
Nichol leaned forward in the beanbag, which seemed permanently indented to his sleeping posture. He held his forehead for a moment, giving himself a chance to reorient to the unexpected circumstances.
"Pickle?" Sally offered, waving a hand at the jar but keeping her eyes on the transmitted image.
"Ice cream?" Nichol asked indulging in a little sarcasm.
"No, finished that off hours ago. Sorry," She did turn and flash him her muted, but almost perverse small smile.
"Cruel," Nichol muttered standing up, from where he stood he could see the bank from across the way, but not the entrance from the street. The colony light was starting to return with increasing power, "I have to ask, how long is your monitoring going to last, Sally? I can't really let you stay here at length without asking you to get your own pickles."
"Just today," Sally said with confidence, "The bomb is scheduled to detonate today. So either I'll have settled that matter or," She smiled at him with her wry grin, "Or there won't even be an apartment for us to share."
Chapter Four
By Jillian
(Disclaimer: I love Nichol. I love Hilde. I love Gundam Wing. Because I love them, I must be honest and say that I have no true claim to them. Lyrics from Coldplay's "Daylight.")
~*~
To my surprise and my delight
I saw sunrise, I saw sunlight
I am nothing in the dark
And the clouds burst to show daylight
Ooh and the sun will shine
Yeah on this heart of mine
Ooh and I realize
Who cannot live without
Ooh and come apart
without daylight.
Slowly breaking through daylight
~coldplay
~*~
His memories of the war and his time with OZ surfaced without preamble. Occasionally, he'd be reading a newspaper article and he'd remember an off duty moment on Barge playing cards with his crewmates. A particular smell from the garage might remind him of a shift spent polishing up his Mobile Dolls. They came back to him like snapshots. Frozen moments that ignited every sense in some way, yet did not contain movement.
Moments of shame were chiseled and unforgiving. Moments of peace and success seemed overwhelmed by displays of inadequacy.
Douglas Nichol shivered as he made his way home from his sister, Hilde's, house. He'd lived in space for years, this colony itself had been his home for a couple of years consecutively. However, for all that time, he still felt restless. The sidewalk under his feet and the grass just to either side seemed real enough. If he stopped to run his fingers through the vegetation or strayed from his relentless pace to walk into someone's yard, he knew it wouldn't feel any different from Earth. Still, he couldn't help but complain about the subtle gravitational shifts he could feel as the colony made its rotation and the unnerving unplacable "sunlight" that shown from every which way.
Hilde would indulge him until she determined that he was being insufferable and would gently make him remind her why he persisted in avoiding Earth.
"Golly, Nicky," Hilde would put her hands on either hip, her nose smudged with grease or flour depending on if their conversation started in the shop or in her kitchen, "Why is it that every reason why you're avoiding your home planet is of the female gender? I swear, you wouldn't go back unless you could find some agreeable woman up to your standards. Impossible as those standards are." She'd add the last with some sisterly flair, waving her wrench or wooden spoon.
In most every way, Hilde was right. He was avoiding the home where he grew up because of his mother. He avoided the military position that had been offered him because he felt like a disgrace around his former commanding officer.
He stayed on the colonies because of Hilde. With his sister, he felt like he had acceptance.
And with a recent addition, Nichol realized he wasn't the only one who craved Hilde's attentions.
Heero Yuy had transferred to their colony. The transfer had started as a vacation and then Heero had requested an assignment to become the Preventor liaison with the local peace keeping authorities. Of course the colony had been more than eager to welcome an ex-Gundam Pilot and war hero into their organization.
Hilde had been quite open to letting Heero stop by and visit. The infiltration of Heero Yuy into their daily lives had all started out with a slobbering yellow lab named Daisy. Apparently, Heero had a soft spot for puppies and Daisy apparently liked to take nightly walks past Hilde's neighborhood needing frequent breaks at Hilde's house.
Nichol snorted even as he kicked a rock sitting on the sidewalk. He'd never pegged Heero Yuy for having a soft spot for any person, let alone a pet.
Of course, having Heero appear had triggered more of the memories that Nichol would rather leave behind him. He remembered a younger countenance of the Asian man with the slop that OZ considered prisoner's rations splattered across his face after a moment in which Heero Yuy's smart ass comment had been a fast trigger to Nichol's insecure rage. He found himself wiping clammy hands against his thighs while Heero lounged on the living room carpet with his dog and secretly stole glances at Nichol's sister to make sure he had her attention and her amusement.
Of course, Heero was always very cordial with Hilde's older brother. Everyone knew within seconds of meeting Hilde that she would not accept anyone tormenting her brother except herself. He vacillated between relief that she'd never abandon him and aggravation that he seemed pathetically dependent on her. But the one torment that Hilde couldn't fix was his own unresolved defeats from his past.
Solitude wasn't helping him either. He stared ahead, hands deep in his coat pockets, hating the fact that the colonies mimicked sunsets as the uniform lighting started to change from yellow into orange.
The suburbs were changing to shops as he entered the business district. After his first lease was up, Nichol had moved above one of the local restaurants. They closed at a decent hour so that noise wasn't an issue, sometimes he got free food giving him some independence from eating at Hilde's, and he didn't notice the lingering smell of cooked meat that Hilde claimed she could smell on his clothes. Besides, the rent was so decent that he was actually saving as much money as he spent out. With his military funds suspended, Nichol had struggled to find a frugal side in his personality.
Ironically enough at that moment, Nichol saw the sign above the door which read "The Sunrise." Most of the restaurant's customers were retired colonists. On his days off, Nichol and one of the colony's oldest citizens, Alistair Lewis, would play checkers while drinking lukewarm coffee. His entrance was up a flight of the fire escape in the alley just to the side of The Sunrise.
Nichol turned the corner without a thought and found his feet tripping over some knee high metal box and barely had time to catch himself before his skull hit the concrete.
~*~
Hilde watched her brother leave with a cheery smile on her face, but reservation tugging at her stomach. She watched as he grew surly and dark while Heero's presence lingered uncontested in her house. While she most wanted Nichol's approval, she was determined not to let him dictate whom she kept for company.
She turned to sit on the couch that Nichol had vacated, and she felt the familiar weight of Heero coming up to sit next to her. Heero could become just as surly and dark as her brother, so having both of them to take care of taxed her patience. But she couldn't deny that they'd both been trying noticeably hard to get along in the past few months.
Heero's lab, Daisy, lolled on the floor full and sated from the attention she received.
Heero himself seemed rather full energy still; although, he kept himself in check sitting with his hands on either side of his knees and glancing at her from underneath the dark fringe he seldom had cut.
"I think I make your brother uncomfortable," He said at last, watching her for a reaction. Hilde was trying to get used to having him track her. Heero always seemed to know where she was so he could simply look up and find her at all times.
"Nicky's always uncomfortable around anything that makes him have to deal with the past," She tried smiling and watched as Heero's eyes softened and his mouth relaxed. After Christmas, she'd been baffled with a strange new attraction for the war hero with the most suicide attempts listed on his record. Of course, he wasn't easy to be attracted to when his features drew her with frightening intensity. She'd found Trowa Barton pretty and Duo Maxwell had enough personality to make her heart flutter. But Heero Yuy made her forget to breathe.
Hilde knew that his transfer was no coincidence. His persistence gave her some reassurance that such strong emotions were not in vain, but she was terrified nonetheless.
And watching how she could influence his own comfort frightened her as well.
She felt him lift her near hand with his own and gently touch his lips to her knuckles, "I feel peaceful around you, Hilde." He wouldn't meet her eyes with a sudden bashfulness which he tried to cover up with quick words, "I'm sure that you help heal your brother's heart as well."
"It's," Hilde started, then realized that his leaning toward her was very purposeful, "not quite the same. No."
She saw the gently possessive light in his dark eyes as he was too close for her to see the actual smile, "No, not quite the same."
And then he kissed her.
~*~
"Damn it. What the hell?" Nichol tried to roll on his left side, one foot still hooked over the obstacle that had sent him sprawling once he'd turned into the alley on his way home. His hands hurt, his heart still hammered from the close call of breaking his skull open and he knew that half of his body was going to bear painful bruises to remind him of the clumsy fall for days if not weeks to come, "Who the . . . who are you?"
Nichol scowled finishing his roll to sit in the alley street with his legs crossed up onto the curb of the sidewalk. He tried to compose himself, already embarrassed enough as it was that he'd fallen and then let his vocabulary slip into something less than wholesomely admirable. In most cases he would care, but right then he found himself confronted with a rather pretty woman with a look of shock on her delicate features. Her mouth was working but no sounds were coming out.
"Okay," Nichol rubbed the back of his neck, and the breeze coming around the corner was starting to cool the perspiration of panic that had instantly developed there. "I know it wasn't intentional, and I accept your apology. My name is Douglas, and you are . . ." He lifted his eyebrows and waited to see if her slim lips were merely polished decoration or would form words.
"I'm sorry," She said clearly, as if having recaptured her voice. Her own eyebrows lifted into an amazed expression, "But I suppose you've already assumed that. As for my name." She paused for a moment and glanced at the silver object Nichol had tripped over. He realized it was a suitcase, "You can call me Sally."
"Sally," He nodded curtly, nursing his bruised pride and trying to regain it with verbal composure even as he sat and hoping the ache from his fall would diminish, "Alright, Sally, I am rather curious why you've set up business right outside of my home."
"Your home?" Then she glanced at the fire escape and up the stairs, "You're the renter." She surmised.
"Quick thinking and yes," Nichol quipped, but still felt ill at ease. She hadn't answered his question. He doubted she was terrorist material, and his gut instinct had proven itself reliable even during his time on Barge. Barge. His eyes narrowed, "You're military, aren't you?" He didn't recognize her, but he did have an idea what was in the suitcase now.
"I believe it takes one to know one," She was still on guard, that he didn't doubt, but she hadn't identified him as hostile either, "But yes, military. But lets not put on labels, you can consider me a free thinking defender of peace."
Nichol couldn't decide whether to cringe at the insane concept or admire her upfront honesty. Most soldiers identified with a group or at best a cause. Seldom did they admit to flexible loyalties hinged upon a greater truth. At one time, he would have said his career was balanced on a greater truth. But since then, he'd suffered disillusionment at the purity of 'duty' divorced from . . . love.
He watched her warily.
"I'm retired," he said at last, realizing she expected her courteous revelation of intentions to be reciprocated. He chose her route of vagueness.
"That's good," her blue eyes twinkled, and he again felt an odd balance of annoyance at being teased and interpreting the emotion as affectionately warm, "It's the whole reason why I find purpose in continuing to built the foundation of peace. So soldiers could return to their former way of life."
He choked on her idealism, and nearly sputtered, "That's all well and good for you to say. But you don't know me."
"I've offended you. I didn't mean to," Sally watched him with some interest. Even so, she quickly packed up her equipment, but not before Nichol had seen through her current purpose.
"Who are we tracking, Sally?" He crossed his arms, and even as he stayed seated, the pain of his fall having faded, he managed to feel some of his old authority when addressing another military person.
She looked at him as an officer evaluates a potentially useful cadet, "A banker." She said at last, "One who does not defend peace."
"Anything I can do to help?" Nichol said, "I do live here after all. Right across from," he glanced at the buildings on the opposite side of the main street, "A bank. This is where I live, and what soldier truly retires from his responsibility?" Responsibility. Nichol tasted the word and remembered he had been missing it.
"I see the advantage of your offer and accept," Sally stood up and offered Nichol her hand, "Douglas, was it? You can let me into your apartment."
He took her hand, but made sure to lift most of his weight himself. Her fingers were slightly cool in his own. Without speaking, he indicated that she should go up the stairs ahead of him. She nodded, closing her angled blue eyes in the process so that he realized how distracting they had been when fixed on him.
On one hand, he couldn't wait to make a tale out of his evening adventure of taking a woman to his apartment with Hilde. On the other hand, he was letting this woman go into a bachelor's apartment he hadn't even let his sister see.
He scrambled up the stairs behind her, pulling the key out of his pocket, "Um, maybe I should go in first. Wait here."
He gave her a desperate and insincere smile as he slipped into his apartment, paused, then shut the door in her face leaving her outside on the staircase.
~*~
After watching Heero's affections for Daisy, Hilde shouldn't have been so surprised to find that the universe's most perfect soldier was a snuggler. She vaguely remembered the harsh precisions of their first dance together the past December, but it seemed that since then he'd accepted a new mission. Simply to try to be happy.
He had her wrapped by his arms full length on the couch and after a while had taken an interest in smelling her hair. He looked into the oddest things to find happiness.
"I have a memory of you," he spoke into her hair, and she murmured acknowledgement against his shoulder blade, "The information you brought from Libra. I remember taking the disc from your hand while we were trying to stop your internal bleeding and hook you up for a medical transport back to earth."
"Oh, I'm sure I looked very cute," Hilde scoffed, torn between feeling proud and incredibly silly that he'd seen her and remembered her.
"Not really," He breathed a warm laugh into her hair, "I hadn't seen anything like you before. I filed you away as an ally with above average mobile suit and infiltration skills, with a tendency toward suicidal missions."
"Did you," Hilde chuckled, feeling the edge of his shirt collar with her fingertips as if she could read his thoughts like Braille, "Well, you weren't far off."
"You still have those skills," he began again, more tentatively, as if trying to speak a language he had only heard but never spoken. Heero captured the hand that was near his collar and pressed it against his chest, "You still have infiltration skills."
"And is this a suicide mission?" Hilde whispered, tearing up at his gesture.
"In some ways," Heero replied.
~*~
Nichol opened the door to find Sally patiently leaning against the railing with her legs crossed and the silver suitcase of surveillance equipment in front of her, "Okay. It's safe to come in now." He tried to joke, but found his traitorous hand rubbing at the back of his neck in a repeat of his sheepish habit.
"Hide everything I shouldn't see?" She teased. Her smiles were small and barely creased her smooth cheeks, but they still communicated the same mocking wattage as he's seen from one of Hilde's widespread grins.
He chose to ignore her comment, "The window here," he shuffled across the poorly lit room to the front window, "has a nice angle on your bank. Employees all enter through the front door as they most park in the lot just to the left." He paused, watching as Sally started to balance a camera on his windowsill and checked the video feed in a mobile monitor. Even with the light quickly fading, the camera automatically switched to night vision and kept a clear image.
Nichol restlessly shifted his weight, "Preventer, I'd imagine?"
"Yes," She nodded, starting to fix the camera in place with sturdy tape.
"I hope that doesn't peel up the paint," Nichol grimaced, then shrugged when she shot him an inquisitive look, "Anything I can do to help, I'm a good guy here."
"I can tell," she responded to his comment without turning again. He frowned, but she didn't have the benefit of seeing, "Douglas. Douglas Nichol?"
He grimaced, "Yeah, that's me." Knowing his name usually brought predetermined opinions on his character even if she didn't see him as an immediate enemy. She pointed at the pile of unopened mail on the desk next to where she'd set the briefcase.
"I work with a unit that tracks potentially hostile or mentally unstable ex- military," Sally lifted her hands away from the camera gently and went back to adjust the electronic equipment.
He glanced at her sharply, but her fingers continued to type on the fold out keyboard unhurried and uninterrupted. His abrupt personality bubbled to the surface like acid, "Not here to keep an eye on Douglas Nichol are you, Sally? That's been done before."
Sally did turn hearing his tone, she regarded him with a passive expression, "While I do have some curiosity as to why you're the only established military individual to turn down an officers position with the Preventers, I can assure you that I am only here to monitor this banker."
"You're awful free about giving me what is probably classified information," Nichol said, his suspicions not put at rest.
She stood straight and in the shallow lighting of his living room, Nichol could not determine her expression, "For all your talk about responsibility, I haven't told you anything that you can't manage, have I?"
For a moment, in the darkness, her blonde hair turned chestnut and her twin braids might have been coiled at the base of her neck. Nichol's stomach turned.
"Now that that's settled," suddenly she was very much only Sally and the ghostly overlapping image had disappeared, "As for my next confidential revelation: where can I get some ice cream?"
~*~
After sleep threatened their conversation, Hilde had insisted that they sit at the kitchen table so that she could start some coffee and cookies, which she secretly hoped would turned out better than usual in her lopsided heating oven.
Heero kept both of his hands firmly wrapped around his mug, and one side of his hair was flat on end from the couch. She wondered if Heero noticed his appearance or if he really thought about it at all. Duo had been fun to shop with as he enjoyed shopping for clothes as a way to escape from his military obligations. Heero, by contrast, didn't seem to avoid his training and instead appeared to evaluate everything through his fighting experience. But it wasn't a bitter relationship with his life as a soldier, like her brother often viewed his abilities. Heero approached it all quite naturally.
The diminishing pain of new feelings still buzzed through her system like a second heartbeat, but she had to wonder if he had only been drawn to her battle experiences. Or if he could truly accept the Hilde who diminished to work at a scrap yard.
Daisy, finally sensing their progression to the kitchen, yawned and pawed her way over to lay at Heero's feet under the table.
"She'll be wanting her share once she realizes we're eating something," Heero reached down and Daisy growled easily in response to his brief attention.
"Why did you name her Daisy?" Hilde glanced at her watch and decided to sit opposite him for a while.
Heero paused over his answer, and dropped his eyes, "Flowers," He admitted, "I liked flowers when I was small, but I'd forgotten that at some point. Until I realized I had to name her something."
"Daisy, huh?" Hilde's eyes crinkled in amusement, "Not Snapdragon or Venus Flytrap?"
Heero stared at her, then covered his mouth as he started to laugh.
~*~
Sally was finishing off his plain chocolate ice cream with a spoon, and seemed rather unashamed to ask him personal questions that he avoided. Which in an alternating pattern annoyed and flattered him. In fact, she kept him so on edge that he started to check his watch to see what ridiculous hour she might stop her surveillance and let him sleep.
"I wanted to be a doctor," Sally said, her sudden shift to personal information catching Nichol pushing up his sleeve to check the time again, "My mother died when I was very young. Our country wasn't well off during the Federation Era and no one was available to give her the care that she needed. I decided that if I could, I was going to make that difference."
"Military doctor?" Nichol gave her an evaluating glance, she hadn't seemed like a medic to him. She had taken the chair that went with the desk where she'd set up her temporary base of operations. He sat on the only other piece of furniture available, his sister's castoff beanbag. His shoulders leaned against the wall and his feet were propped up on the coffee table. Besides the bed put away in his bedroom, Nichol hadn't bothered with much furniture since staying at Hilde's was more convenient. At least before Heero Yuy started showing up, he reminded himself.
"General practice at first," Sally replied, finishing off the ice cream after that comment and setting it on the floor next to her seat. Nichol didn't move choosing to agree that the floor was a good place for the carton right then, "But with the changing climate, I found my experience really expanded beyond simply medicine."
"OZ?" Nichol asked, absently.
"Nothing so simple," Sally shook her head, "Guerilla in my own country, until I found a way to better serve my people."
"Not OZ, ex-Federation, let me guess," Nichol scowled, "You were a Gundam groupie?"
"Did you meet the pilots?" She asked, lips closed and waiting for his response.
He had an image of Trowa Barton sitting next to Colonel Une during a debriefing on Barge and how his panicked irritation at the boy's presence during a discussion of such delicate intelligence information had nearly kept him from hearing any of the details himself.
"Yeah," Nichol left it at that.
She didn't say anything until she was sure he wasn't going to speak again on the matter, "After the war, I helped in the hospitals to meet the needs of the wounded. It was worse than when I was a child, but we were able to make a small difference in keeping some of our soldiers out of the memorial cemetery."
He remembered sitting next to Une's life support bed while their shuttle landed on Earth, knowing that he was going to survive with his life and that he had no idea what his purpose was, until he had found Hilde again.
"Why are you watching for this banker?" Nichol asked, finally. Wanting to drown so completely in the present so that the past had no room to leak out any more than it had already.
"According to his electronic communications, he's anti-colony but has lost his privileges to return to Earth," Sally shared.
"Lost his privileges?" Nichol questioned, he found the humming of Sally's equipment to be rather soothing and felt his eyes falling closed.
"A rather significant restraining order," Sally's voice seemed to come from a far distance, "he made public threats against the several key political figures, including my commander."
He knew who her commander was, and while the words tried to prick his skin like a needle testing for a latent disease, the pain was so familiar it could hardly keep him from falling asleep anymore.
~*~
After hearing Heero adamantly insisting that he liked charcoal cookies, Hilde finally believed he forgave her for loosing track of time during their conversation. Daisy seemed genuinely unbothered by the smoky flavor.
When she did finally see the time, the cookies were practically a lost cause and Hilde began to wonder if Heero was going to leave. Even when he did stand up from the table he seemed to shuffle his feet along the linoleum worse than his golden lab.
She wondered if he felt well, if he was doing an imitation of a drunk, or had other intentions. Then she saw the reflexive twitching of his narrow fingers as his arms dangled at his waist. He was insecure, and a warm rush of emotion covered her skin like direct desert daylight.
"Heero," She said his name and remembered the way he had held her hand against his chest. He had given her the initiative. Stepping closer to him, she put her arms under his in a clumsy embrace until he responded in kind, "I'll miss you. Come back tomorrow, okay?"
"Hai," Heero spoke down into her hair, slipping into his native tongue. She felt him press a kiss on top of her head. When she let him go, she saw that his face wore a half-dreaming expression, "Come, Daisy." And the dog scrambled up from under the table to mind her master.
She fell with her back against the door after closing it behind him. Sleep seemed impossible. Hilde wondered if her brother could handle a phone call at such a late hour.
She rolled to one side in order to peek out the front window and saw Heero half skipping down the sidewalk with Daisy bounding around his legs in the uncertain frenzy of an excited pet. It seemed as if she'd were going to tangle him until he stopped, but Heero managed to keep his balance for all of Daisy's interference. She watched until they disappeared in the shadows outside of the streetlight.
Feeling like a coiled wire, she went to splash water on her face and stared at herself in the mirror with clear droplets in various places on her cheeks and chin. Suddenly weary, she knew she was ready for a long sleep. When she would wake up, everything in her life would be transformed. She was in love.
~*~
Nichol fought back the groan to release his stiff muscles when he realized that not only had he fallen asleep in the living room, but that a strange woman, Sally, was still sitting at her monitor. She was a taller woman than Hilde, he noticed, as her legs seemed uncommonly long. Not that he'd particularly been looking at women's legs recently. She was balancing her chin on one arm and the other one was feeding herself a pickle.
The open jar sat in front of the silver suitcase that he'd fallen over.
"What time is it?" He asked even as he started to pull his sleeve up to find his watch.
"Five in the morning," Sally said, and he realized that she had a lower voice for a woman. Or perhaps she was speaking with a throat tired from lack of sleep. Not that he would call what he'd just woken up from a good sleep. "The staff is just starting to make their appearances."
Nichol leaned forward in the beanbag, which seemed permanently indented to his sleeping posture. He held his forehead for a moment, giving himself a chance to reorient to the unexpected circumstances.
"Pickle?" Sally offered, waving a hand at the jar but keeping her eyes on the transmitted image.
"Ice cream?" Nichol asked indulging in a little sarcasm.
"No, finished that off hours ago. Sorry," She did turn and flash him her muted, but almost perverse small smile.
"Cruel," Nichol muttered standing up, from where he stood he could see the bank from across the way, but not the entrance from the street. The colony light was starting to return with increasing power, "I have to ask, how long is your monitoring going to last, Sally? I can't really let you stay here at length without asking you to get your own pickles."
"Just today," Sally said with confidence, "The bomb is scheduled to detonate today. So either I'll have settled that matter or," She smiled at him with her wry grin, "Or there won't even be an apartment for us to share."
