Waiting

Flightlessness Chapter 12

By EvilBunny

            Heero knew the moment she entered the house. The loud crash of the screen door announced her arrival in booming tones throughout the building, even to the small back room where Heero crouched over the old generator. The noise broke through the quiet night as harshly as a gun shot, but he didn't so much as twitch.

            He'd wondered what was taking her so damn long, but then maybe she was one of those who took her time about accomplishing things. Not everyone understood punctuality, not even some of the soldiers he'd worked with and especially not certain long haired pilots…but he'd thought better of her than that.

            Or perhaps she'd entangled herself more thoroughly during the ride than he'd taken time to notice. He hadn't exactly stayed to check, but the generator had needed starting and she'd managed to find her way in at last. At least that saved him the trouble of going to find her and drag her out of whatever problem she'd entrenched herself in this time.

            It'd probably taken her more than a few minutes just to maneuver her wings out the car door; they'd taken long enough to get her into it in the first place, even with his help. There were just masses of the feathers, they seemed to be everywhere, each one softer than the next, white against her cream and possessing a life of their own,  so that you could barely see the road, phantom touches like sirens which hid her face, but still let you hear her breathing as they ran up and down your arms..

            Focusing in on the machinery, Heero blocked everything else from his mind. The generator sat covered in dirt, but well maintained and in excellent working order, he'd seen to that. He already knew that the kitchen would be well stocked with non-perishables and he'd seen Noin stack a crate of other foodstuffs in the back of the van before they left. Probably just the standard bread and basics, although he wouldn't put it past her to be catering to civilian tastes.

            Satisfied that decay hadn't set in,  Heero started the old machine up. It started with a choking cough before settling down to a healthy whirr. He stood, dusting some of the dirt off his knees. Dust covered everything in sight, he'd have to see to that. But there were more important things first. He'd heard her enter the house, so where was she? She hadn't called out, hadn't found him, it was time to go find her.

            Forget that there were only five rooms she could possibly be in and no danger that he wouldn't have found, or at least heard. She was simply taking too long. He had to know where she was.

            The kitchen that the small garage-like room let onto was still dark, although the fridge now had the low hum of a working appliance instead of the silence of dead weight. The darkness proved no obstacle; nothing had changed since his last visit and he didn't need his eyesight to get out of a room without bumping into furniture. He couldn't begin to count the number of times he'd been blindfolded and left someplace where bumping into the 'furniture' would result in much worse than a barked shin or stubbed toe.

            There was even less light in the hallway, though that seemed barely possible, still he knew at a glance that someone else occupied it. And he knew just as surely that Releena was the occupier.

            He didn't have any doubt, he knew who made their hesitant way down the narrow hall, but he kept quiet. He let his other senses build a picture of her for him; bare feet on the worn wooden floor, you could tell in the softness in the steps, hands out along the wall from the light click of her nails, those that weren't bitten ragged, and always the constant noise of her wings, never really silent, never really still. He could even imagine he felt the breeze they seemed to carry with them, smell that fresh garden scent and the shampoo she'd used, the same smells from when he'd carried her unconscious.

            In the dark, without vision, he could look his fill, knowing she couldn't look back with eyes that asked him for something he didn't understand and couldn't answer.

            He knew when she reached the door, so the return of light didn't comes as complete surprise, but nothing prepared him for his imaginings to suddenly come back to life. Nothing compared to actually seeing her, the white wings filling the hall entirely, spilling out of the open doorway like two great, grasping hands trying to pull themselves out.

             He could even make out her face as she peered into the bedroom. He knew what she saw: empty bed, bare windows, there wasn't anything of interest in that room and the lost expression that swallowed her face drew him that step forward instead of back further into the shadows. Lost and lonely and searching and possessed of a power that called him. He shouldn't have left her so quickly, dammit he had better control than to let one little car ride unsettle him that badly.

            Still, when she reached blindly behind her and touched him, he realized it was just as well that the shock of finding him suddenly appear as if from nowhere sent her skittering away before she recognized him. That small contact of her fingers against his shirt nearly broke his control and he quickly put a bit more distance between the two of them.

            But even the distance didn't help when she confirmed that her lost expression was for him. The dark hallways, the hushed tones, it was all too intimate, too much like their own little world, one with frightening possibilities and where nothing from the outside mattered.

            He reflexively filled that world with light and words and escaped as soon as possible into the other bedroom.

            Heero closed the door behind him and stood unseeing in the Spartan room listening to his breathing which sounded harsh and slightly unsteady for the first time in years. The image of Releena hiding her dazzled eyes behind her arm under the full light had been no less enticing than the half glimpses in the near dark. The electric light just showed more clearly the pure white of her wings, her flawless skin, and how very fragile she seemed.

            But he was a soldier, she was under his protection, that should be all. And not just any soldier, the perfect soldier. Emotionless, unshakable, he couldn't remember a time when this wasn't true, when he hadn't know that it was his duty to fight, and had scorned the weakness of those around him. So why her? What was different? Why now when he didn't have a mission to escape to, a war that needed fighting? Why couldn't he ignore her like everyone else?

            He still didn't even understand how she was still sane. All the records and research he'd gone through before the mission, everything she'd told him herself, he had some idea what had been done to her. It made him seethe to think on it, and he wished he'd killed every doctor in the place personally, given them back ten-fold for every scar on her back, every haunted expression in her eyes. And then those bastards back at the base.

He should have known she wasn't safe, and then her vacant expression, it almost made him shudder, but he fed that back into the anger. Anger he understood. That she wasn't completely mindless was nothing short of a miracle, she needed his protection now and he would never deny her. But he couldn't protect her properly if just knowing she was down the hall could distract him almost beyond endurance. She didn't need that and neither did he.

            No, replied the part of him that was aware of his surroundings even while he slept and certainly while his mind wandered, not down the hall; just outside your door.

Every muscle in his body tensed, and he froze, then relaxed, falling easily into the shallow breathing for stealth work. How she'd gotten that close without him noticing just proved that this distraction was dangerous, but she really was standing just outside his room. He knew from the small sounds and that sense of presence and recognition which had kept him alive all those years.

He'd though she'd surely gone to sleep, or at least to bed. What could send her to his door that wasn't urgent enough to warrant immediate communication? That would involve this nerve-wracking wait? She wasn't moving, she could barely hear her breathing. Heero kept motionless, his back barely a foot from the door, not even risking to turn to face the opaque wooden panel. The silence seemed instinctual, he couldn't let her know he too hadn't found immediate slumber, or had already noticed her presence.

Time seemed almost entirely forgotten but finally he felt her move away, all without a knock or a word. The release of tension came so quickly that it wasn't until the slight jar of the screen door that he realized she'd left the cabin.

Where did she think she was going at this hour of night, in this type of situation? Now his curiosity, something he'd long believed killed, asked him what she had wanted at the door and questioned the wisdom of his silence, but that was quickly drowned by his first impulse to rush out and grab her, drag her struggling or quiet back. His second to just wait until she humbly returned seemed saner until he considered the wait in the empty cabin, alone, and his third sent him cautiously out the door and down the hall.

                She didn't have anywhere she could be running to, nothing around them for miles. If she was trying to escape then he'd badly misjudged something somewhere. Still, better to catch up with her quickly and quietly, so that if this was just her getting some air he wouldn't have let his mistake show. Never let the enemy see your weakness.

            The light from the hall still illuminated the area, and poured out through the living room and out the screen door, casting faint criss-crossed shadows out onto the gravel path and on his way out he flicked on the old porch light. The yellow bulb acted as a beacon in the forest. As long as she didn't stray far she wouldn't have much trouble finding her way back again.

            The forest was alive with sound, literally vibrating with life; the air still cold enough to have a bite. Heero paused on the porch for a moment, his shadow stark on the steps, a stone statue amid the organic growth, and absorbed the information that would lead him straight to her. He could just as easily have found a much fainter trail while half-blind and sleep deprived at a full out run, but he didn't want to run into her until he'd worked out what exactly Releena thought she was up to.

            Slight disturbances in the gravel led him clearly to one of the almost paths that seemed to cover every forest. The leaves here still swayed slightly out of sync with their fellows, shouting of recent passage. At least she hadn't struck out into the heart of the woods, struggling blindly forward through areas too small to accommodate her wings, where brambles ran rampant and would tear at skin and clothing alike.

            He followed the path calmly, confident now that she wasn't far and hadn't vanished. She couldn't be more than a couple of handfuls of seconds in front of him and he knew that he'd catch a glimpse of her at any moment.

            The forest seemed to swallow everything, forming a tunnel that he followed as easily as an open sidewalk. The trees here were huge, but the path still clear even at night, winding its way past overgrown underbrush.

            But of Releena still nothing. Every twist, every turn told him she'd been here, and recently. The leaves swayed, but he couldn't catch so much as a flash of white or the snap of a twig. The forest seemed to have stolen her and locked her away just out of sight. Surely he hadn't been that far behind. Was she running?

            That would explain the deeper footprints in the odd patches of dirt among the old and decaying leaves that he so easily avoided. Each one held steps far too deep for her slight form to have left normally but at least she hadn't used those wings to fly off on the wind.

            Heero increased his pace. This he understood: the pursuit. They ran, and he followed, a silent and deadly shadow. It didn't matter that she wasn't a threat or a target, couldn't possibly be either, but he wouldn't know until her found her, so he just had to find her.

            He ran silently, listening for the sounds her flight, but still only the commons sounds of the forest at night surrounded him. It was like chasing a ghost. He could neither see her nor hear her, but he knew she was there, running just out of sight, out of reach, leading him onwards and farther and he could do nothing but follow. She left all the physical traces, broken twigs, heavy prints, even a feather, but none of that satisfied, he needed her.

            It didn't matter that he'd only chased a minute, that she hadn't left the path once, that she seemed to make no effort to hide her flight or even that she had no reason to flee him. It never occurred to him to call out to her, to tell her he was following, to ask her to wait. This was a hunt, and she'd become prey.

            So when the path abruptly opened out into a small clearing revealing that same prey Heero didn't step out to greet her, but slipped sideways into the shadows.

            She stood panting at the center of the small clearing, the grass up past her knees, staring upwards at the sky. The moon, out now from behind the clouds that had covered it earlier, shown faintly down on her, just a sliver of light. It washed out all the colour from the scene, painting the grass the same colour as her legs and giving her the sense of something grown, not born.

 He could probably have walked right up to her without her noticing, but he still waited for her to turn round and confront him, pierce through his hiding place and…and he wasn't sure what would follow that. But she didn't. She just stood there, her head flung back so that her hair hid every scar, her wings stretched out about her, looking for all the world like an angel patiently waiting to be called back to heaven.

She didn't seem to be looking at anything, nor going anywhere, and Heero slowly let the adrenaline of the chase leave him. He'd hunted her just like any other target, and now he could settle down to another familiar task, waiting. Why she'd thought this late night commune with an empty field so important didn't seem nearly so vital now that he could keep an eye on her. In fact, it just made his job easier since he could keep an eye on her here much easier than back at the cabin, put into separate rooms.    

When she finally turned back he'd simply follow her, though still undecided whether he would reveal his vigilance or not.

Finally she seemed to return to herself and she bent to retrieve something from her feet. She held the bundle as if it was precious, burying her face for a few breaths in it before walking slowly straight towards him.

Heero caught himself speculating on the different weapons that he could hide in a bundle that size and shape and squashed the thought as she turned towards the largest tree in the circle.

For a moment he had thought she'd seen right to him, but obviously she was just as clueless as earlier. And when she turned he realized she held one of the bedroom quilts in her arms, not some weapon of destruction that she'd mysteriously found out in the woods. Could she possibly mean to sleep out here?

Heero couldn't really feel the cold, but he knew that not everyone possessed his disregard for weather. Surely she didn't intend to stay the night with nothing but the quilt. What did she think his reaction would have been on waking to find her gone from the cabin?

But she was already settling herself among the old roots, curling like a kitten, her wings hiding what the quilt didn't, wrapping her arms around the roots as if welcoming an old friend.

Heero waited a few more minutes, watching, but nothing further stirred. With a silent sigh he settled himself into a more comfortable, seated position against the tree where he could just see the tops of her wings stirring with the leaves. He would keep watch until she woke.

(Author's notes and the replies to all your review questions are in the author bio thing, so that I don't have to put pages of them here. Go check, they won't be there forever.)