Found

By EvilBunny

Disclaimer: Gundam wing isn't mine. But you already knew that.

The helicopter shook as Duo veered around yet another pair of battling mecha. The sounds were deafening, like riding in the midst of a violent storm, yet flying through a sun-lit sky. Blinking lights surrounded her, the walls seemed to be covered with controls, and the constant changing dazzled what little of Releena's vision wasn't filled with a rustling white. Her feathers blinded and cocooned her, the thin bones of her wings bent at strange ankles about her in an attempt to fit inside the small cockpit and not block the vision of the two pilots. Releena couldn't even hear hints of the conversation from the front, if any was even going on. She clung to the memory of Heero's heartbeat, his protective warmth, and watched for the occasional glimpse of his dark hair from between fighting feathers who seemed to take a vicious pleasure in hiding him from her.

The copter went back into hover and went into a sudden descent. Someone, Releena didn't see who, threw open the heavy side door, letting in a heavy torrent of wind that whipped a number of dancing feathers past her nose and set her entire body shaking. She felt as if her wings were trying to crawl out her back and fly away without her, as unwilling to be with her as she to be with them. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, from begging them to shut the door, and only realized she'd drawn bloody when the coppery taste seeped into her mouth. Even her hair had declared war against her, attacking her eyes and face, each strand a separate claw, as she futilely tried to clamp down on her wings, to keep them folded.

When her vision abruptly, Releena looked up to find Heero staring distractedly over her head back towards the other pilot, his arms pining her wings along her sides, his hands clasped on the small of her back. The tips of her wings still fluttered around their feet, but the masses stayed quiet, as if even her wings thrilled to his touch as much as she did.         In crisp tones, he ordered Duo to cut the engine, and standing so close to him, Releena felt each syllable rumble in his throat before emerging. Finally the tempest of wind died away, but as the roar of the propeller faded, the sounds of fighting became all the clearer. Releena could make out the roar of engines and the scream of bullets as they flew through the air before their attack on armored metal.

            Heero's supporting arms disappeared as abruptly as they'd appeared, and Releena spun around to see him smoothly jumping from the helicopter to the grass below, already flattened by countless other feet. On unsteady feet, still trying to maneuver her bulky wings in the small cabin, she made her way to the door, and looked out to find him staring out across the trees towards the battle. As she readied herself to jump down, praying she wouldn't snag on any equipment, he turned and lifted her down beside him. For the second time in as many minutes, she stood encircled by his strength, his arms warm around her. He hands beneath her elbows stayed warm against her, not so much holding her up as keeping her near him, and she watched the pulse in his throat, keeping the beat in time with hers, to see if they matched. She felt as if her blood pumped in tune with his, running through her veins and jostling for the chance to flow under the skin warmed by his touch.

            "Take care of her Duo." He threw over his shoulder, as he ran from the clearing, leaving so quickly that Releena reeled from the sudden sense of loss. He seemed to blend immediately into the dappled shadows of the nearby evergreens that surrounded the clearing. In seconds she couldn't even tell where he'd disappeared to. The wave of desolation that swept over her took Releena by surprise. He obviously had to leave, to fight, but the urge to run after him, to beg him not to leave her with strangers, to let her come with him, nearly choked her.

            "We'd better get you somewhere safer than this" a cheerful voice broke through her spiraling thoughts, and she turned to see the pilot smiling good-naturedly at her. With a last glance over her shoulder, she followed him to the jeep nearby.

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            The bed was too soft. Even just sitting on it made Releena uncomfortable, made her wonder what they had in store for her, even though she knew there was no longer a they. The jeep ride hadn't been long, but the dust and another battle with her wings had made it dirty and tiring. When they'd finally come across an old, deserted country home, she'd been relieved to find that this was the base of operation for the group Heero fought for. Duo had rushed her in a side door, and deposited her in a back room before hurrying back to the battle.

            "I'm sorry for the mess." He'd apologized, flipping her braid over his shoulder in an obviously habitual gesture. "We'll find you something better after the fighting, but right now everything's crazy." And with a final smile, he'd run off.

            The bed was huge, a four poster monstrosity complete with dusty bed curtains, and all in a faded crimson. The bed would have dominated the room, except that someone had crammed all the rest of the space with furniture, and rolls of fabric, leaving barely enough room for an inhabitant. Everything had a thick film of dust already on it, and Releena's hands were already grey with dirt. Each time she moved, her wings swept along a surface, or brushed against a corner, and small clouds of dust would rise up and begin to dance in the thick air. Late afternoon sunlight crept like amber liquid through the far windows, but the filthy glass threw the room into near twilight. Only on electrical light, an obvious addition of cheap remodeling cast any illumination of the room, and its glow created unexpected shadows.

            The former inhabitants of this house had probably been run off by, or sucked into, the experiments at the castle. Although she knew there had to be others here somewhere, she'd seen the courtyard filled with military jeeps, the place seemed eerily silent. Old stone walls, only partially visible behind the piles of furniture, said that sound would not carry easily in this place. The entire command center, which she'd glimpsed on her way in, could be below her, and she wouldn't know. 

            No fear she'd be forgotten though. The stares that the few people she'd encountered had made that clear. Do many eyes, questioning, staring. She hadn't been looked at on months, and already her skin felt tender from too much attention. Even the doctors at the castle no longer looked at her, hadn't every really looked at her, just checked her wings, tried to find something new to tinker with. Now she would be a novelty again, an interesting scientific anomaly, the new sensation.

            Releena plucked desolately at the feathers that lay beside her on the bed, rubbing the separated quills, and seeing them with the eyes of strangers. The white stood against the faded red of the coverlet, and she ran her fingers along the fine spine of each feather, tracing the length from base to tip. They were long, meant for flight; she'd even acquired the soft, downy feathers near her back Only her bones were wrong. Completely wrong for flight. Instead of hollow like the bird she had been mixed with, her bones were human, human and  heavy. So the weight tore at the muscles that were meant to support them, and the doctors, or madmen, trying to fix those bones, never let her heal. They couldn't just leave her alone. She hoped they had died in the fight.

            The bitterness of that thought caught her offguard, and Releena stood, trying to find something, anything else, to think about. The action threw even more dust into the air, swirling past her face like a curtain. Why did she always find herself in dusty rooms, forced to wait for an unknown fate? She'd hid in the attic when they came to take her from the orphanage. She knew trouble when she saw him, and military personnel adopting twelve orphans screamed pain, no matter how much money they were willing to pay the orphanage, or the promises they made. They'd finally dragged her out, kicking and biting, covered in dust, and dirt and cobwebs, to their military car. Then, miles later, they'd dragged her out of the car and straight to the operating table. They changed her first.

            She had to get out of this room. Heero might not return for hours, and already her past had begun to resurface. The walls seemed to laugh and shift, becoming cold cement that always held the thick, cutting scent of lemon cleaner, and underneath the stronger scent of blood and pain. Shuddering, Releena went in a half run to the door, and fumbled with the doorknob. With a gasp, she threw it open and waited for the panic to recede, grasping at the knowledge that this door wasn't looked, that here she wasn't a prisoner. But the hall to either side stretched onward, empty, without even a window, the carpet pattern repeating seemingly endlessly.

            Slowly Releena backed into the room, her eyes focused on the open door, until her wings jammed painfully into the bedposts, biting down the urge to flee, to run blindly through the house until she knew they couldn't catch her. She didn't need to run, she needed to stay put, to wait for him to come back, but her muscles spasmed with the need to escape, to claw her way out of the room. This was why they'd given her the garden, to keep her from battering herself against the walls like a moth caught between window panes. Beneath her feet the carpet seemed to burn, soft bristles warm and harsh compared to the cool intensity of dirt and grass. The ceiling hung too low above her head, and she knew that if she stretched her wings they'd brush against the painted ceiling. Releena dug her nails into the maple bedpost, wondering if she could score long lines in the wood, like the scars on her back, of if the wood was stronger than her.

            The dust continued to dance mockingly about her, and if reveling in her panic, and blindly she turned towards the sun weakly shinning through the dirty window. Craving fresh air, Releena found herself wishing for her garden, her prison, wanting the moonlight and fresh earth and almost forgetting the guards and experiments. With a lurch she avoided the piled and tattered chairs and pitched up against the glass, her fingers leaving long smudges in the grime. Fumbling at the latch, she finally forced the old hinges open, stumbling as the entire window swung outwards onto a small marble balcony, barely small enough for her to take a couple of stumbling steps before sinking down by the stone railing. The courtyard it looked out on was devoid of greenery, only a dry fountain adorned it, the statue long ago broken beyond recognition. The sun shone so much brighter here, and Releena felt a horrible sense of exposure, as if the sun was just another great, burning eye, but the suffocation of the room slowly dissipated.

            Her fingers curled against the sun warmed stone, still searching for shadow cooled dirt, but the only shadows here cowered like her against the railings, and the sun dazzled her eyes, the rays coming low over the buildings to her right. Releena longed for the night, for something to hide her, and for the comfort of her old trees. Everything was moving too quickly, so fast she could barely comprehend she'd escaped, and he's left her. Left and she didn't know where, and the comfort of his existence that she thought she'd locked into herself had somehow managed to escape. She wanted the darkness to blanket her, to hide what she was, what had been done to her from all the strangers. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shook her head to dislodge this desolation, but the movement barely shifted her dust clogged hair.

            The light also exposed how dirty she was. In the night, in her garden, she never noticed, didn't care, but now she could see her feathers more grey than white, and the thing patina of dirt that covered her limbs. Even her eyelashes felt heavy with the dust.

            Releena rested her forehead against the balustrade, threading her fingers through a tiny stem of climbing ivy. The outside walls were buried beneath his brothers, but here, in her reach, only this small cluster of leaves dared grow. At least crouched here she wouldn't be as visible to anyone traveling through the courtyard, or looking out from any of the spying windows.

            Finally she allowed herself to give in, and a thin trickle of tears slipped out from beneath her lashes. She cried from all the pain and fear and relief and change of the past few hours, and from the almost painful hope of the future.