Scene Four: Pain of a Soldier

Epictetus: It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

Edna St. Vincent Millay: I love humanity but I hate people.

Homegrown "Kiss Me, Diss Me"

'You're just one of those trouble girls

Using me for everything but love'

Pain. Not a dull and throbbing pain, blinding and searing through his very marrow. Pain was all that he was aware of in his locked in and obscure world. Everything he felt was shrouded in a tight clenching pain. His body was a vessel for pain, containing only that and nothing more. Then there was darkness.

Then he was floating, suspended in the dark void where there was no direction or feeling. There was no distinction between anything and his senses did not obey any commands he tried to give them. He would have cried out in frustration had he been able to, for not having control was worse than anything he could have thought.

Here there was no sense of time. He could not remember if they had defeated Dekim Barton or if they had lost. So he kept himself in a suspended state in between sleep and wakefulness to try and puzzle out the memories that kept resurfacing. He laid in his own self-created and imposed oblivion. The only control he had was to keep himself here, his memories and dreams could not be controlled.

A little girl stood before him with her puppy, asking if he was lost. Then she was dead, accusing him of killing her and telling him that he had to pay his penance for her death. And Duo lay dead because he had miscalculated the power of the explosion. A nameless soldiers brains lay splattered on his face and his upper body was covered in blood but he did not stop his killing. Then he went crazy, killing everyone who he could get to, methodically and efficiently without cause or reason. All the deaths were his fault and he had to pay the price, he had to seek redemption for his actions and pay back to the dead that he owed.

The thin line between what had actually happened and what was dream became blurred and then completely unnoticeable, slowly driving him mad and tearing him apart inside. The accusing eyes and voices haunted him while he laid in his suspended void, medically termed as a coma, dreading when he would return to the land of the living, afraid that things would be worse than they were here.

Yet he knew that eventually he would have to wake up, if only to keep his body from atrophying. While he wanted nothing more than to be forgotten for what he had done, he no longer knew what to do with himself. He was obsolete, all he knew was war. He was a good soldier who carried out his missions, protected, killed and lived on to fight another day. He had nothing else. Training said to terminate when there were no more missions but he had made a promise to Duo and he would not go back on his word. Duo had said that the only way he could be terminated was by Shinigami and he owed Duo a life debt with interest. So he could not die until death came for him naturally or until Duo came for him, but Shinigami was taking his own sweet time and he could tell that his body was mending itself, not wasting away. He wished he was not healing, wished death would come and give him release.

Relena was another cause for concern. She was in love with him, or thought she was, and he could not love her back. She thought she understood who and what he was and why he was that way but she knew nothing. He was no knight who had come to sweep her away and she could not ease his troubled soul.

And like everyone else Relena loved a symbol, an image. He was not strong because he fought. He fought and killed because it was what he knew, what he had been trained for. He had no real set of ideals for the future after the war, expecting to die during one of the many suicide missions. But even though he had taken on OZ and self-destructed it had never worked out that way. Heero even liked war because he knew how to act and who he was, the conflict defined him, the mission defined him more than pretending to be a teenager had.

Relena's image, the world's image of him was not him. None of them had wanted to believe that he fought only because he was good at it so they had given him the image of being a hero and a savior, so there would be some big meaning behind his actions. The only people who came close to knowing him were his fellow Pilots. Relena could never understand him.

He was angry at her for even thinking she could understand him. There was no need for him to remain near her or anyone else, the fighting was over and he was not needed. He was not a knight to come and rescue her or fulfill some fantasy. He could not trust her.

"Heero," Relena's voice assaulted his ears. "I don't know if you can hear me, or if you'll remember this, but I want you to know that I love you and hope you wake up soon."

He felt the bed shift slightly as Relena leaned down and planted a chaste kiss on his lips. He struggled not to recoil in disgust. He did not know how much time had passed but eventually Relena let go of his hand as someone else entered the room.

"Good evening Vice-Foreign Minister Peacecraft," A man's voice drifted through to him. "Why don't you go and get yourself something to eat. I'm afraid I'll be with the patient for quite some time changing his bandages and cleaning him up a little bit."

"You'll call me back if there is any change?" Relena's voice was calm.

"Of course," The doctor, as Heero had worked out by now, said.

As soon as he heard the door shut behind Relena his eyes snapped open and he sat straight up in the bed, wide awake and aware of his surroundings.

"I don't want her in here ever again," Heero said, his throat parched, making his words forced and raspy.

"Unbelievable," The doctor blinked in surprise. "You're fully awake with no signs from the machines."

"That's easy enough to control," Heero Yuy glared at the man. "I don't want her in here again. I want my clothes and my weapon back, now."

"You're clothing is right over here," The doctor said pulling open a drawer and lifting out a duffel bag. "And your friend said he packed your prized possession in the bottom."

Heero grabbed the bag from him and riffled through it before pulling out the gun and loading a clip in it.

"This is a hospital," The doctor tried to be reasonable. "We have a no gun policy."

"I am aware of that fact," Heero loaded a round into the chamber. "I'll be leaving shortly. My gun stays with me."

The doctor said nothing as he began pulling various lines and patches from his body. Heero quickly dressed in a pair of jeans and a shirt. The doctor made no move to stop him or to help him. His muscles were a bit stiff but not painfully so and most of his wounds were superficial.

"Let me at least give you some fresh bandages and medical supplies to take with you," The doctor said. "I'll be right back."

Heero sat on the edge of his bed waiting the doctor's return. He came back quickly, as he had said, with all the necessary supplies. Heero stuffed them all into the duffel bag. The doctor watched him but again made no move to stop him or interfere. Heero hefted the bag once in his hand, testing the weight proportions and finding them satisfactory.

"Are there any guards outside my room or on this floor?" Heero asked gruffly.

"One outside your room," The doctor answered. "And three more by the elevators."

Heero grunted and moved for the door. Swiftly he opened it and pulled the guard into the room. He applied his hand firmly to a pressure point and felt the man go unconscious, carefully lowering his body to the floor. He picked his bag up and walked out the door, leaving the good doctor behind him unharmed. Briskly he went through the hallways looking for a way to the bottom floor where he would not have to go past the guards but there were none. He turned down another hallway and saw an empty laundry cart by the laundry shoot.

He slid up the hatch, gingerly so as not to make much noise, and looked down. He could see the giant cart still full of sheets below him. Heero glanced up and down the hallway to make sure that his actions were unobserved and climbed into the hatch, bracing his legs against the sides. He slid the hatch cover back down and suddenly tucked his legs in so that he free fell into the cart below him.

'Dirty laundry,' He scowled as he pulled himself out of the sheets along with his bag. 'Just like me. It all needs to be taken out and cleansed properly and when it can't be cleaned any longer it gets thrown away.'

He looked around the giant wash room for an escape, finally catching sight of a maintenance shaft where the grating was already loose. He pried at the grating with his bare hands until it gave with little noise. Using his upper body strength Heero pulled himself up into the shaft with his bag over one shoulder, replacing the grating as best he could. He crawled his way along until the shaft dropped down into an underground tunnel. When he emerged from it he was nearly a mile away from the hospital.

He continued walking farther away from the hospital, not feeling secure enough with the little distance he had put between himself and it. He spied a library and walked inside without attracting much notice. Quickly he secured for himself an internet connection which he used to withdraw money from one of his accounts and have it waiting for him at a Swiss bank. Secrecy and anonymity were practically a guarantee there.

Twenty minutes later he was walking through the door of Schweize Internationale Bank, careful to keep his head down and away from surveillance cameras. Heero could not afford to have his face plastered across the news if he was planning on slipping away from everything. He walked up to the desk labeled as the managers.

"Hello sir, can I assist you?" The man asked politely.

"Yes," Heero eyed him coolly. "I believe that you have received a transaction from my account for the withdrawal of precisely four thousand two hundred and forty-one credits?"

"Do you have the account number and password?" The manager asked sharply.

"Account number is 0999722000-7668," Heero repeated the account number with ease. "And this should be the password." He passed the balding man a piece of paper with the word 'Shinigami' written on it.

The man took it and nodded to himself before turning around and opening a locked drawer. He withdrew an envelope and passed it over to Heero without comment or complaint.

"Inside is the amount you requested," The manager said quietly. "All in unmarked bills with small denominations. Danke von Schweize Internationale."

"Bitte," Heero nodded, turning and leaving.

He reached the outskirts of the city of Cannes and hailed a taxi. By this time he had acquired a hat from a street vendor and a pair of green tinted sunglasses to hide his eyes. The taxi driver was more than happy to drive him our to the borders of Sanc and into Italy, to the small city of Cuneo which held around fifty thousand souls. From there he hired another taxi and made his way to Turin and to Kincaid Travels. He had heard Duo talk about the company before, about how for a few of five hundred credits they could make you disappear.

He strode confidently into the business and asked to see the manager. He was in luck that day for none other than the owner, Robert Kincaid, was in visiting his Italian offices. He looked very much like his older brother Aidan Kincaid from L2, but there were few who knew Robert had a brother, certainly not Heero Yuy.

"Hello," Robert spoke in cultured tones, sounding refined and worldly. "You asked to speak with the manager but I'm afraid you'll have to put up with the owner. What can I do for you?"

"I need to disappear," Heero said quietly.

"Got a vacation destination in mind?" Robert asked politely since many traveling customers often said they wanted to disappear.

"I need to disappear," Heero repeated firmly. "Did you not hear me the first time?"

"I did," Robert smiled then. "Just had to be certain. Come this way please. Marge," He called to the secretary. "Hold down the fort for me and if Lisa called tell her I'm meeting with a frequent flyer."

"Sure thing sir," The mousy woman called Marge replied.

Robert gestured for Heero to follow after him, leading him up a flight of stairs and to the second floor. He ushered Heero into a room that was richly furnished.

"Now then," Robert said shutting the door behind them. "Since you don't have a destination in mind I'm going to suggest one for you, ok? I think that if you want to lie low for a while Argentina is the place to go. No one asks questions there and expects the truth."

"How much is this going to cost me?" Heero asked calmly.

Robert studied him closely for a few moments before breaking into another smile, "For you? Three hundred credits."

"I thought it was five," Heero commented.

"Usually it is," The red head said.

"Then why three hundred?" He asked not understanding why anyone would be willing to give him a break.

"You look like someone who really needs to get away," Robert said carefully. "I know the signs and for someone who needs it that badly, I don't feel right taking full price. Your three hundred credits will pay for the flight but none of it goes into my pocket."

"How soon can I leave?" He questioned.

"I've got a flight that leaves this afternoon at two," Robert answered. "It will land in New Guinea for refueling and then again in Brazil before leaving you in Rosario, Argentina."

"I'll take it," Heero said.

"I'd suggest staying up here in the room until noon when we'll take you to the plane," Robert said taking the three hundred credits from Heero. "I have another office in Rosario and after a few months there I'd suggest moving on to New York city. It's big and has a lot of people, no one would be able to find you there. Good luck from whatever you're running from."

'I'm not running,' Heero thought to himself as Robert left the room and he lay down for a nap. 'I'm just taking time out for control. I just need to cleanse myself.'

What if you're beyond any cleansing 01? A sardonic voice asked. What then? Where will you hide then 01?

'I'm not hiding!' He growled mentally.

Sure you aren't, the voice continued smugly. But eventually you'll see I'm right. There's nothing for you but the soldier, you're nothing without the mission.

'I'm more!' He screamed, but if it was aloud or internally he did not know and finally he fell into sleep.