Forgotten Seas

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Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine

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It had been a strange night. I'm not that sure it was all real, even now. The young woman, my sister, stood smiling before me in a tattered, old Alliance trench-coat and infantry cap from one of L3's fallen armies. The backpack on her shoulders was from an old German Rangers division and her boots... Oz issue. I stared a few minutes longer before finally fitting the key in the door and opening it up for her. When she passed me I caught the unmistakable scent of sulfur and steel then the white wings painted on the back of her coat. She sauntered in, looked about and grinned at the Christmas tree before dropping her pack with a loud thud to the floor and throwing herself similarly on the couch. However much she dressed like a soldier, she didn't move like one.

"Nice place." she commented upon examining the living room and what could be seen of the kitchen. I nodded.

"Yours?" she asked fixing those deep cobalt eyes on mine, the same color. I shook my head.

"Still don't talk much, hm?" she smiled as she reached down and opened her bag. I just watched her... had I always been so quiet?

"Heero?" a voice called from upstairs... Relena. Naomi's head snapped up, a startled look in her eyes and as I heard footsteps coming down the stairs I caught a telltale glint in her hands. In seconds I had my gun out of it's hiding place in my jacket and aimed at her head. All I could think as I heard Relena's startled gasp was how I'd let a total stranger in, without even checking her for weapons, how I'd just put not only my life in danger but Relena's and everyone else's in the house as well.

"Heero?" Relena breathed behind me, Naomi's eyes narrowed and she let go of the gun in her bag, lifting her hands over her head and leaning back away from it.

"I see at least some of Odin's training has stuck." Naomi sneered, almost laughing.

"What? Heero, who is she?" Relena asked watching the other woman sit back on the couch.

"Go back upstairs, Relena, send Trowa down." I ordered trying not shout at her. She stood there a moment before silently complying. I stood and waited for Trowa, my gun to Naomi's head I wasn't going to let this... assassin do her job. I was certain now she was sent to kill one of us, she knew about Lowe, only assassins knew him. I cursed myself for letting her in, I should have known better, she wasn't my sister, I had no sister, no mother, no father, no family at all- I was all there was left, regardless of what ... what I thought... felt- hoped... I should know better than to hope. I'm the only one who survived... but then... how did she know? No one knew, no one.

"Ok, Ai, come check my bag and put the gun down before you really do kill someone." Naomi broke my train of thought and I glared at her. She glared back.

"Don't look at me like that Aiden Rai Yuy!" she scolded me like a mother would a young child... like...like I've been told that before. I remember hearing that before, only the woman who said it was older, though not by much. She was softer too, not as battle worn. Her eyes were that same deep blue of forgotten seas... /Don't you look at me like that Aiden Rai Yuy, now you go apologize to your sister young man!/ ...No...

"Heero." Trowa's soft voice drifted in from the shadows. He was watching the girl on the couch with analytical eyes, watching the gun in my hand with silent apathy. I lifted the gun back up to her head, it had fallen a little.

"An assassin." I told Trowa, he nodded.

"Assassin! HA! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black." Naomi laughed and stood up. I brought the gun back to aim at her head and she just turned her glare up a notch. Trowa stepped in with a second gun on her and she sat back down.

"Do you recognize her?" I asked Trowa once she was under control. Trowa stepped in to study her a moment. With his training and infiltration experience Trowa knew just about every Oz operative out there by name and could recognize all the freelance agents they've used in the past fifteen years on sight. He should be able to tell me who she is.

"No." Trowa shook his head and stepped back folding his arms across his chest and watching her warily. I hadn't expected that.

"I'm not an assassin, not tonight anyway..." Naomi lowered her head and voice, "Guess I was expecting too much from a brother I haven't seen in thirteen years." she sighed her eyes softening with the resignation that I really didn't know her. I saw one of Trowa's eyebrows twitch upward for second then it was gone.

"If you don't want me around just let me go." she stood up and took a step to the door. Trowa stepped in to stop her but this time I let her go. I put my hand on Trowa's shoulder and he backed away. I couldn't read his face at all but I could read hers. Most other people wouldn't have seen the pain in her eyes that night but I did, because I'd seen it before, in my own. She walked slowly to the door then stopped. I watched her hand dip back into that bag again and my arm reflexively brought the gun back up. She puled her hand out slowly.

"Thought you might want this back." she almost whispered as she opened her hand to me. There on her palm was a simple silver locket on a black leather chord. "The chain broke, sorry." she breathed. I could hear tears in her voice though it sounded strong and clear, I could hear them, just like the tears in my own. She held the locket out to me and just waited. Slowly I took it. Slowly, not wanting to believe the flood of memories I knew were inside. I could see Relena watching from the steps as I opened the door. She watched as I took the locket and without seeing it I knew she almost cried when the door closed and Naomi walked back into the snowy night from which she came. I didn't care. Relena could cry all she wanted, I had bigger problems as I held that little silver charm in a trembling hand. My hands don't shake, ever, but I could feel my entire body quiver as the strange visions passed through my mind. Trowa stood silently in a shadowed corner, arms crossed, head bowed slightly down not even looking at me though he saw it all. I heard Relena walk slowly down the stairs, quietly so I wouldn't notice, as I turned the locket in my hands. I could hear noises upstairs, the others were awake, coming down. Relena had probably woken them all up when she called Trowa down here. They were coming, I had to get myself under control... I had to... I shoved the little necklace in my pocket and clutched at my hands to keep them still. I held my shoulders tightly but It didn't help.

"Heero?" Relena laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, still shaking. I looked up at her slowly. Her face was worried and as I lifted my head I caught the surprise in her eyes, it was then I felt the stinging tears in mine. I turned away quickly hiding behind trembling hands and wiping them away. I was crying... but I don't cry.

"Oi, Heero, what's wrong?" Duo called out from the bottom of the stairs. I dried my eyes, hid my shaking hands in my pockets and took a deep breath then turned back around. Duo had walked to the couch and stood by Relena who must have been in shock from the look on her face. Quatre stood at the foot of the stairs and Trowa was still in his corner. I could see Wufei watching from the top of the stairwell and Hilde stood at the door to her room. They were all watching me, all worried. I watched them a while hoping I'd gotten all the tears as I turned the locket in my fingers still hidden in my coat pocket. The silence drug on and when it seemed no one else was going to break it I did.

"Go back to sleep, it's nothing." I tried so hard not to beg that it came out more an order than a plea. Duo shook his head and started back up the stairs mumbling something about false alarms and denial. Quatre got that apologetic face on and stood there watching me with pity and guilt in his eyes. Relena just stared but I could see Trowa look up when I said it.

"Go back to sleep, please," I asked again, softer this time. Quatre's pity turned to confusion as Trowa escorted him upstairs. Relena still just stood there. I could feel my arm begin to shake and hoped no one noticed. Relena gave me a worried look then lowered her eyes and turned to the stairs.

"Aren't you coming?" she asked halfway up. Her voice told me she'd seen more than even the tears.

"No." I whispered and she continued on up to her room. I waited until I heard her door shut before I took my hands from my pockets and the locket with them. I hadn't moved from the door, I don't think I really could have, not with that necklace in my hands. The metal was warm now and it's silver surface reflected the glittering lights of the Christmas tree in the corner. I could see the warped reflection of my face in it's etched surface, and the old dent made long ago. I closed my eyes to the memories, but they still came...

Snow spread a white blanket over everything as the sun slipped unseen to the western horizon. A small boy wandered slowly through the ruins of a smoldering building the floor covered by a carpet of snow. He stumbled over fallen walls hidden in deep drifts and made his way to the courtyard at the center of the wreckage. He stopped at the wide doors hanging open off their hinges showing him the even whiteness of the snow covered yard behind them. His footsteps crunched in the untouched snow as he walked slowly to the center of the yard, to a soft rise in the snow, just a little mound in the expansive white. He knelt down before the rise, sinking three feet in the snow he dug away the icy shroud.

A young woman looked up at him from the snow as dusk cast a red glow over the pristine white, bathing everything in a pinkish hue... like blood on snow. Tears froze on his checks as he gently closed her eyes and laid his head in her arms to cry. The quiet dusk passed to a silent night as he laid there in the falling snow.

"Aiden?" a quiet voice whispered from the dark. The boy lifted his head and turned to the man. "We have to go now." he sighed softly as he put out a hand. The boy wiped his eyes and gave his mother one last look. The light of a dying fire on the courtyard's edge caught in some silver charm on her neck. The boy watched the fire in the locket's reflection, distorted around a large dent, made the night before... by the bullet that-

"Aiden." the man called the boy back. He looked up at his father's old friend, then gently slipped the chain off his mother's neck and followed the assassin in the snow.

...When I opened my eyes I was on my knees on the floor, crying. I could feel the hot tears stream down my face as my breath caught in chest. I wiped my eyes and waited for my breathing to slow down before I sat back and opened my fists to find the locket crushed into my right palm. My fingernails had left little crescent cuts on both my hands and I just stared at them and the locket a while before turning it over in my hand and prying lose the tiny clasp. I knew what was in it without seeing the faded picture inside... I remembered what was behind it. I knew what memories came next, they're the ones that haunt me, the ones I woke to...

Night clung to every corner, as dawn slowly rose, unnoticed behind thick clouds on the eastern horizon. Snow fell in heavy drifts on the white ground, covering the asphalt and concrete of a burning building amidst the din of gunfire and soldiers shouts, rebels' cries. Soft footsteps ran quickly down a shadowed hall, broken, covered in smoke. A young woman ran from the distant sound of battle, small child clutched tight, crying in her arms. The snow fell thick around them. Shouts rang out from behind, she stopped suddenly as the lights fell over her from the approaching soldiers. She screamed inside, gathering the crying child closer and ran fast as she could down a darkened hall, to the white nothingness outside. She ran across the once pristine yard, now covered in snow, red with blood.

The soldiers called, telling her to stop. She continued on, running for the trees. A shot pierced the air, the child cries, the mother screams then falls. The child hit the ground- hard, scrambled out from underneath his mother, pulls her arm, begs her to get up, cries for her to get up. The soldiers came closer, he looked cautiously to their dancing lights growing brighter as they neared. The mother stirred ever so slightly, the boy looked down, crouched near her pained face. She smiled lovingly, brushed the snow wet hair from his cobalt eyes, her own gazing deep into them, the color of forgotten seas.

"Run." she breathed.

"No! Mommy, I-"

"Run!" She shouted pushing him away as she struggled to her feet. The boy watched, tears streaming down his face as she took out the gun from its holster and charged the soldiers. The boy watched as they open fire, fell to his knees as she stumbled, buried his tears in the snow as she fell and cried out to the howling wind as she hit the ground and didn't get back up again...

...I steadied my shaking hands and opened the locket.
Four smiling faces greeted me, the only happy memories I have... for so long just a dream but now... so real. I can still hear their voices... Mother, Father... Naomi. Their laughter is a soft constant in my mind, the only thing that keeps me going at times, their laughter, their happy faces, their caring words... happy memories. I've never really thought them more than a dream till now. It seemed so impossible... unfair that that would be my life, so long ago and not now. That I could have had at one time a family that cared and loved me and that we were happy together. I guess I'd rather just think myself alone, unknown, my past a blank canvas for me to paint than to have had a real family with real parents... a sister. A family that could be taken away, that was. But I can still see their smiling faces, I can still hear their laughter... in my mind, in my dreams... for so long its been just a dream but it was real. It was real...

I scratched a dried spot of old blood from the corner of the photograph then dug my nail behind it and pulled the picture out. A small black square fell to the floor and I stared at it. Black plastic laced in gold and circuitry; just as I remembered it... the enigma that killed my parents.

Shin Kidousenki Gundam Wing © Sunrise, Bandai, and Sotsu Agency.