Hereafter

Chapter 12

March Madness Prompt #16

…All Things Are Difficult Before They're Easy

"My name?" the boy said. He swallowed and turned his eyes away from Wufei, staring at his hands on the wheel of the car. "My name is Adam. Adam Peters."

"Why did you do it, Adam Peters?" Wufei asked.

Wufei looked deceptively relaxed, leaning into the truck with his forearm on the edge of rolled down window. But Heero knew better. Wufei was anything but relaxed. If Peters moved, attempted to grab a weapon or to make a run for it, Wufei was positioned so that he could easily grab the kid by the neck and slam his head into the wheel. The tone of Wufei's voice was also deceptively soft, almost hypnotically gentle.

Adam's hands tightened on the white wheel of the truck until the knuckles turned white. "I… I didn't mean to… not… not exactly."

Heero concentrated on the throbbing pain in his leg to keep from reaching across Wufei and smacking the kid across the mouth. He didn't mean to? He wanted to scream, but there was no point to it. It occurred to him that he was probably the worst person to be here, to confront this kid hot from the scene. He was emotionally involved. They were all emotionally involved, but no one quite as much as Heero. He should be with the workmen, digging in the dirt for Relena's body… for any evidence of her at all.

He pushed the thought away. He just could not.

"I work at the fertilizer plant," Adam said, licking his lips. "It's a shit job." He laughed, but the sound was the high-pitched strangled bleat of an animal in distress. He wasn't amused by the statement. He didn't expect them to be amused by it either. Heero remembered what Duo had said about making jokes as a coping mechanism.

Adam worked at a fertilizer plant. It was a shit job.

There was something beneath that, layers of shadow framing the humor that Heero recognized intuitively without quite grasping the whole picture or knowing any of the details. This kid, this Adam Peters, was living in pain. He worked a shit job. Literally his job was shoveling shit that produced energy to fuel energy for lives of other people. A job like that was honest work, but it gestured toward choices that were limited, to circumstances that were unsavory.

Heero didn't care. "You murdered hundreds of people."

He didn't shout. It wasn't due to restraint. His fury was so deep and so strong that it came out of him dark and cold and burgeoning with violence.

"I didn't mean to," Adam Peters repeated, eyes flickering toward Heero and then back to Wufei's calm, impassive face. "I meant to make a statement. I knew some people might get hurt. I didn't think the whole building would come down."

"I presume that ammonium nitrate is abundantly available at your place of work," Wufei said.

The boy nodded.

"What do you know about making bombs?"

"Not much," the boy said, licking his lips. "I… I read up on it. I thought… I guessed…" He fell silent.

"You still haven't answered my question," Wufei pressed. "Why did you do this, Adam Peters? Even if I believe your story that you didn't mean to…" The faintest hint of snarl turned Wufei's lip. "That doesn't explain why you brought a bomb to a government building. What were you trying to accomplish?"

"Like I said," Adam whispered. "I wanted to make a statement."

"And what statement is that?"

"These Unitarians," he said, referencing a term for people that wanted the Colonies and the ESUN to be one nation. "What they want is just not realistic. There isn't enough to go around. We should all be looking out for our local communities, not people across the world, not people in space. What Relena Peacecraft has done-" His eyes flickered to Heero. He fell silent.

"You mean when she was Queen of World and eliminated all national borders?"

Adam didn't say anything more.

"Did you mean to kill Relena Peacecraft, Adam?" Wufei asked quietly. "Is that the statement you wanted to make?"

Adam refused to speak.

Heero felt a buzzing in his head. He had tried to kill Relena too, and for a very similar reason. But he hadn't. He could have. He had been close enough. He had had Relena in his sights, gun in hand. But then he had heard her speak. She wasn't just a figurehead. She really believed the things she was saying. And people were listening. They were even agreeing… even if it hadn't started that way.

"Why are humans so foolish?" he growled to no one in particular. "Someone has an idea, a big idea that will make things better for people, that has the chance to at least, and it's met with resistance, outrage, violence. It's always like that. We hate change more than we hate the horrible lives we are living. But change is possible. Life can be better. It's hard to make the change, but all things are difficult before they're easy."

"

"Do you think what I live with is easy?" Adam Peters blurted out.

"Yeah," Heero spat. "You better believe that I think it was easy. I think it was way easier for you to murder people trying to change things than try to understand what they are trying to change and why. I'm sure it was easier to hurt someone else than deal with the own shit in your life. I'm sure you think you know what you are about, but I doubt you really have any idea who you ever are. I'll tell you. You're a weak person. Weakness made you afraid and fear made you stupid."

Adam Peters said nothing.

"You won't be forgiven," Heero said. "Not be me. Not by anyone who lost someone today. But you have reminded me that killing you is the weak, stupid, easy thing to do. Instead, you'll face justice. That's harder."