Pain
Rating: PG, maybe even a G, if G can be sad...
Warnings: Angst, PoV, spoiler for self-destruct episode and immediately after.
Crushing, tearing, twisting agony… I’ve never felt pain like that before. Allah preserve me, I never want to feel it again! Even now, days after, the memory of those moments makes my skin crawl. Worse to know that the pain I felt was only a reflection of the pain he went through. It’s nothing short of a miracle that he survived.
No… I can’t say that he survived, not yet. He’s alive, but the explosion might have destroyed his spirit. Or his sanity. I can’t tell yet.
Less than a week ago, Heero Yuy self-destructed. It was one of those rare times when we fought together. Most of us at least; there was no sign of Wufei during the battle. Sometimes I wonder if his presence might have made a difference. Most of the time I know that nothing could have prevented it. Not once Lady Une - how that woman could be called a Lady is beyond me - not once she targeted the colonies.
Silence on a battlefield is an eerie thing. We froze, every one of us, when that announcement came. I’d always known what we were fighting against, the oppression, the senseless violence, the casual dismissal of our lives by the powermongers of the world. But I couldn’t believe the colonies meant THAT little to OZ. To destroy millions of people for the sake of five teenagers and their toys of war…
No, they’re not all like that. The man in the white Gundam - Zechs? I think that was his name - he didn’t take advantage of the pause to finish Heero. He stopped when we did, and I think he might have been more horrified than any of us. It’s a small bit of reassurance that some of the OZ soldiers, at least, have a sense of honor. Very small.
And then the old man cut into the transmission. I knew he had to be directing one of the others. It was obvious from the moment the stranger first spoke what was going to happen. I hadn’t thought that sickening, sinking feeling could get any worse, and then he said he wouldn’t surrender the Gundam. A second after that, Heero opened the hatch to Wing … and self-destructed.
But it wasn’t his pain that flooded my senses and twisted my whole being. Physical pain can be disconnected, while emotional pain … Heero accepted his duty, disconnected himself. He didn’t leave anything to share. But Duo … I’ll hear his screams in my nightmares until the day I die. His agony nearly destroyed me, and I can’t help watching him now, worried, wondering if it did, indeed, destroy him. He acts all right, jokes around with the Maganocs and me. But that anguish remains, muffled but undiminished, and I can’t find a way to help him. I think the only reason he hasn’t run off to some suicide mission is because Heero wasn’t dead when Trowa picked him up. That much I know, though how long Wing’s pilot might have survived beyond that I can’t say. He was alive when he was carried off the battlefield. It’s the only shred of hope Duo has left.
Tonight I can feel that careful shield he keeps over his pain shredding. Part of me aches with him, and for him, and I wish I could do something to help. But Duo’s not the type to welcome comfort with open arms. I get the sense there’s more to his agony than Heero’s self-destruction, that’s just the latest tear into an infected wound. But unless he’s willing to bare that wound, there’s nothing I can do but pray. So instead of going to his room to talk, I go to one of the gardens. I need fresh air and growing things around me.
The moon’s setting now. I climb one of the garden walls and stare at the empty sand beyond. Somewhere out there, Trowa is hiding with Heero’s broken body. Is he still fighting, I wonder? Is he still struggling to survive? Or is Heavyarm’s pilot spending this night digging a deep, narrow hole? I shudder at the thought, push it from my mind.
“Take good care of him, Trowa,” I whisper to the darkness. “You’re holding two lives now. Take good care of him.”
A soft breeze teases around me, taking my words and whirling away with them, and brings only silence in reply.
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