by Rachel
Notes: This is part 2 of my "Blind Side of the Heart" arc (not to be confused with my "Angels" arc--the two are unrelated). All the fics stand alone, so I won't post all of them. There are 7 thus far, each told from the POV of a different character. They're mostly concerned with events during and immediately after the end of "Endless Waltz."
The shot rang out and I was up in the air. I flew like a knife over the sea of crimson-clad soldiers. I was a knife, and I was going to plunge into his heart and end this finally, and forever. I was there you see, I could have done it. All I had to do was pull the trigger.
But Wufei was there, between me and him, and I'd have killed him too. A year ago it would not have mattered. I would have killed him and then died or escaped, it would not have mattered. But something inside me had changed, or been changed, and it stopped me, froze me like a statue and all I could do was kneel at his feet and stare, my eyes become the knives I longed to hurl at him.
Dekim Barton.
I thought he would kill me right away, make an example of me in front of his men. Part of me hoped that he would. I knew that I would not have another chance at him and if he left killing me for later he would have a chance to be…creative.
I remembered Dekim Barton.
But instead of killing me he signaled for his men to disarm me. I considered struggling until I saw that Dekim's gun was not trained on me but on Wufei, so I did not resist.
Clearly, he remembered me, too.
His men brought me to spare room, spare in the sense that it clearly had no purpose and spare in the sense that there was no much in it. There was a computer console, but the computer was off, a metal table, and several chairs, onto one of which I was thrust. The men told me to wait, as though I had a choice, and left me with my hands cuffed behind me.
So, I was back on familiar turf.
There was something about the situation, though, that was not familiar. It was the dull ache in my chest and for a while I could not figure out what was causing it. I was uninjured save for the irritation caused by the cuffs, and the bruises Dekim's men had given me when they yanked me to my feet.
The ache spread up my chest and throat to my face, and suddenly I was blinking because my eyes stung. Something rolled down my cheek and splashed my knee. I stared at the small wet spot, uncomprehending. It took several moments to realize that it was a tear, several more for it to sink in that there were more waiting to fall, and that I was scared and did not want to die.
I swallowed and sniffed, determined not to cry. It had been a long time since I'd shed a tear, and I couldn't remember the last time I had cried for myself.
I thought, Oh God, I forgot to tell Cathy the pilot light on the stove isn't working again, and a second tear splashed onto my knee.
Damn.
I sniffed so hard that my nose began to bleed and the blood dribbled down into my mouth. I bit my lip, because the blood tickled, and I tried to wipe my eyes on my shoulder, but I couldn't reach. Desperately, I cast about for a way to escape, but there was nothing. There were no windows, and I did not doubt that the door was locked. Anyway, my hands were restrained. I could kick anyone who came through the door, I thought. But then I thought, what would be the point? They'd be armed, they'd kill me anyway. I was torn between my desire to die as quickly and painlessly as possible, and my sudden unfamiliar desire to prolong my life for as long as I could.
WHERE was Dekim? What was he waiting for?
I don't know how long I waited--not more than an hour, I guess, but not much less--before the door finally opened. It wasn't Dekim, though.
It was Wufei. He had a gun in his hand. I had not been expecting this, but I guess it made sense. This was probably Dekim's idea of humor, turning former comrades against each other. Or maybe he was testing Wufei's loyalty. I looked up at his face. His mouth was set in a hard line--unreadable.
If I were Duo I would probably have come up with something clever to say. I swallowed hard. All I could say was, "Go ahead."
He looked down at me. "Duo would have thought of something clever to say," he observed.
"Obviously Duo's more clever than I am." Talking hurt. So did breathing. Suddenly it seemed as though all the air in the room was seeping out of it rapidly. There didn't seem to be anything except my painfully throbbing pulse, and the gun in Wufei's hand. I closed my eyes, thinking, I should have shot him anyway. And Cathy will be sad. I'm sorry about that, too.
Somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice said sourly, Cathy's strong. But a voice considerably closer to my heart--the one I'd only recently discovered--replied, But she'll still be sad. Nothing I could do about that. I closed my eyes.
Wufei said, "Stupid."
I looked up again. His face hadn't changed and the gun still wavered in the air between my eyes.
"If you're giving up now you must be truly weak."
"What choice do I have?" I muttered.
"If you'll listen, I'll tell you!"
I was silent. All right, Wufei, I thought, tell me my options. You don't want to kill me, but you`re Dekim`s stooge, now. So tell me how I can get you off the hook.
"I don't want to kill you, Trowa…"
Ha!
"…but dammit, I will if I have to." He thrust the gun back into its holster at his belt, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me, glaring. "Listen to me!" He frowned. "Why are you bleeding? They weren't supposed to hurt you."
"Why not?" I was close to laughing, don't ask me why. Maybe it was from the blood, or the stuffiness of the room. Maybe it was the look on his face: half comical, half angry, like he'd been stuck playing a role with which he was unfamiliar. Maybe it was the fact that I just couldn't think of anything else to do.
He took my tie and wiped my nose and mouth with it. "Listen," he hissed. "You could join us."
At first I wasn't sure I'd heard him right. He'd fumbled with the words, as though he were ashamed of them, or of himself.
Which, Wufei?, I wondered. And, What can Dekim be thinking? Is this a test? It didn't matter. I didn`t feel a surge of hope. "No," I said.
"Do you have any idea what you're saying?" Wufei snapped, pulling away from me with such force that I almost fell off the chair. "They'll kill you." He swung close to me again. His face was pale. "They'll kill you. Dekim hates you. He knows you took Heavyarms and his son's name and stopped Operation Meteor. He knows, Trowa Barton."
Well, of course he knew. Why shouldn't he? That was not news. I hadn't kept any secrets; I'd used his son's name when I joined Cathy's circus, when I joined OZ, Christ, when I booked motel rooms. Recently I'd been thinking about taking a new name, maybe Cathy's since she offered it to me and I was beginning to think of her as a sister, but back then I hadn't cared. Let him find me, I'd thought. And let his son, a man who'd used me every way one human being can use another, take the blame for what I do on Earth. I'd been so certain I wasn't going to survive the war, anyway.
"If he hates me, then why does he want me?"
"Because you know where Heavyarms is, of course, and he doesn't! He could torture the information out of you, but he also wants someone who can pilot that suit. Frankly, none of his men are up to it, not after the modifications you and Howard made."
"You told him."
"Yes."
"Why?" I asked. "Why are you trying to help me?" That was what he was trying to do. If for one second Dekim thought someone else could pilot Heavyarms he would not hesitate to kill me once he knew where I'd taken the suit.
Wufei was silent for a long time. Then he said, in a low voice, "Because I respect you, and because Catherine Bloom`s kindness means something to me. And because despite everything, I still have some respect for Quatre Winner. And he would be sad if anything happened to you."
Quatre. I felt an involuntary twinge at the sound of his name.
He would be sad if anything happened to you.
Quatre--my first friend, whom I had neither seen nor spoken to since the New Year. Would he be sad if I died? I tried to remember what we had said the last time we'd seen each other. It had been a cold January day, I remembered. The grass around the tents was hard as needles with frost. He had come to the circus to watch my show, and afterward we had talked about what to do with the Gundams. And then after I'd promised to give him Heavyarms we had sat outside in the cold, on a picnic table, and he'd talked about his vision of the future, what the world would be like without mobile suits and other weapons. I'd been entranced by his vision. It seemed so possible when he talked about it. It seemed very far away, now.
Would Quatre be sad?
I would be sad, I thought, if I missed the chance to be a part of the future he envisioned. But if I joined Dekim, would I not be fighting against the very thing Quatre sought to establish?
"Why are you here, Wufei?" I asked, trying not to think about Cathy and Quatre, all the things I would miss. "Why do you fight?"
He looked at me stolidly. "Because there is nothing else for me to do. I don't know which path is the right one and until I do I choose to explore all of my options. As should you."
"Dekim wants to destroy the Earth. That's Operation Meteor. You know that, don't you?"
"Of course." He sneered; I'd insulted his integrity, of which he was so proud. "Which colony do you think he intended to drop on Earth? You can be damn sure I know what Operation Meteor is. But I also know that the Earth is to blame for the weak and cowed state of the colonies. The Earth sent mobile suits armed with biological weapons to destroy my colony two years ago. Treize Khushrenada ordered that attack. So now his daughter and her grandfather want to take over the Earth. I think there's a certain amount of irony there. Who's right? Can you tell me, Trowa? In a way, even though I killed him, I`m still fighting Treize."
I hung my head. I was trapped. On the one hand, if I agreed to Dekim's terms I would be betraying Quatre and everything for which we had fought. On the other hand--and this I still did not understand completely--I did not want to die. "If I say yes," I muttered, "it's because I'm a coward."
My head was still bowed, so I did not see his expression. But when he spoke his voice sounded--odd, to me. Not like Wufei's at all. He said softly, "If you say yes it's because you're better off than I am. You have a reason to live; I only have a reason to fight."
I looked up then, but he'd turned; his back was to me. I wanted to see his face. The answer must be there, I thought. Wufei, Cathy, Quatre, everyone I've cared about, what do I do?
"I can't." It was hard to say the words, but I made myself say them. I had to stop some time. "I can't be a part of this any more."
He swung around, pulled his gun from its holster. "Don't be an idiot!" he snapped. His voice had a wild whine to it. I looked up at him, not afraid yet. Why should I be? an idiotic voice in my head insisted. This was Wufei, my comrade.
There was nothing comradely in his eyes. "I'll kill you, Trowa," he said. "You don't get it, do you? I'll do it right here." He pointed the gun between my eyes.
"To spare me from torture?"
"Because you're an idiot."
"There are people on the Earth."
"There were people on my colony. People die no matter what, the weak AND the strong. That's what war IS."
"Go ahead, then."
He pushed the gun against my forehead and that was when it finally hit me. He REALLY meant to kill me. And I--I didn't want to die. I saw Cathy's face. I saw Quatre's. And I panicked.
"Don't!" I shouted, or whimpered, I don't even know. All I know is that I managed to say the word, because Wufei lowered the gun and sighed. I was shaking. God, I was such a coward.
"I'll be watching you," I heard Wufei say. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to my cuffs. "So don't try anything. If you give me or anyone else reason to suspect you, I'll kill you. I sound like Heero." As he unlocked my cuffs I realized that he was shaking, too.
I rubbed my chafed wrists. "I won't tell him where Heavyarms is. Even if I did by the time he got there it would be too late."
"Don't let him know that."
Wufei's voice sounded farther away. I looked up. He was already halfway across the room, walking toward the door.
"But what do I do?" I demanded. What was I? I should have asked. Captive? Hired gun? Was I only postponing the inevitable?
"Do what you do." He turned in the doorway and looked at me. Once again I found his expression unreadable. "But remember that you're being watched. And you know, I don't believe in the practice, but Dekim might decide to procure certain hostages, just to be safe."
My blood went cold. Cathy.
He continued: "I'll do what I do. It may be this is not the right path. If I should find that to be true I'll let you know."
And he was gone.
I was alone, and I was alive and safe, at least for the time being.
I did not understand Wufei. I never really have, I guess. I knew he was giving me a chance, though, and I was grateful. So in one respect I was not back where I started two years ago. I mean I had hope that I would see my home again and the people for whom I cared. For them I would try again to stop him, even though at that moment I had no idea how to do it, and the stakes were even higher than before. Still, I would try.
That's what it means to have a home and a family and friends, I thought. They become your weakness and your strength in one.