Thanks to: All the reviewers and readers, and the War Room. ^_^
"You're such an idiot. I hate you. Hate you, you know? So why do I feel this way? I don't know whether to kiss you, or kick your ass."
--- Cheyenne Black
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
--Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
--- Wilfred Owen, Anthem For A Doomed Youth
"Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face."
--- Corinthians 13:12
Requiem for the Sinners Part 37
See Through a Glass Darkly
"You can't just call the president of the United States an arrogant bitch!" Wufei growled as he tried to explain it to Harper for the fourth (and final) time. If Harper didn't get it at this point, he never would. Better to put him out of his mercy now and save him further political faux pas.
Harper glared back at him, raising an eyebrow. "Chang, she is an arrogant bitch."
Wufei let out his breath in a frustrated huff, resisting the urge to put his fist through the Legion lieutenant's face. "All politicians are like that!"
"Duo's not," Harper replied, putting his feet up on the desk and pulling a crumpled cigarette from behind his ear, his movements languid. He laughed. "I think you're just defending her because you're an arrogant bastard."
Before Wufei could check himself, he surged forward. He didn't even realize what his intentions had been until his wrist was caught in Harper's hand, and he was jerked forward until it was held high over his head. Harper laughed again, and Wufei was so close he could feel it rumbling in the lieutenant's chest.
Harper looked down at him, grinning, his unlit cigarette held away in his other hand so it wouldn't be broken. "You didn't honestly think you could get a hit off on me, did you, Wufei? You're good, but you aren't that good."
Wufei's other fist flew forward, clipping Harper hard across the cheekbone. The lieutenant grunted in pain and dropped his cigarette as he lost his balance. They grappled fiercely over the chair, a mix of flailing fists and curses.
"Qu di yu!!" Wufei suddenly found that being on the wrong end of Harper's lost balance did not bode well for him.
Wufei cursed as the lieutenant fell forward, knocking them both out of the chair, then grunted as Harper's full weight landed on him, effectively pinning him to the cement, banging his head against the floor, and knocking the breath out of him in the same shot. Harper took the opportunity to hold Wufei's wrists above his head, preventing any further attacks.
The two warriors laid there, panting and temporarily exhausted. There was a few moments of silence before Wufei surged upward, trying to move the bigger blond pilot off of him, practically snarling as blood trickled from his nose.
"Wang ban ma. Get off me!"
Harper laughed, rubbing at his swelling cheek ruefully. His lip was split and bleeding. "Dammit, Chang, you made me break my cigarette. I think I'll just sit on you for a few hours."
"You-!!"
"Whoa buddy, did I come in at the wrong time." The two men froze as they heard a new voice from the doorway. An extremely familiar voice.
Mortified, Wufei slowly brought his eyes up to where Duo stood in the entrance of the office, a hand covering his eyes playfully. "I came to get you two lazy asses into some mobile suits to help go fetch Quatre's refugees, but if you're busy, I'll come back later. Not. Get up, or get a room."
Suddenly, as if they were struck by lightning, they realized their positions. Lying on the floor, hip-to-hip, faces less than a foot apart. Harper moved off of Wufei more quickly than the Chinese pilot would have thought humanly possible.
"We were just-" Harper glanced at Wufei guiltily; the Chinese pilot looked away, a tinge of red burning in his cheeks. "-Uh... sparring."
Duo snorted. "Yeah. In my office? Ri-ght. Let's go. I'm going with you this time. You, Jeremiah, and Hilde will escort the refugees to L1 and L3; we'll follow you as far as the fleet. Yamagata is preparing to accept them at L1-4839, and we've talked to some guy named Merrick at L3. He's setting up a camp there. Me, Wuffers, and Heero will go on to L4 to meet with Quatre and Trowa."
"Are you sure that's a good idea, Duo?" Wufei asked quietly. "Meeting Quatre?"
Duo laughed softly, but there was no humor in it. His gaze was distant. "No. But I really don't know what else to do. We can't win without all of the colonies behind us. So we either get help now, or it ends here." The statement was candid, as vulnerable as an open wound.
The pilots looked around at each other. The knowledge that they had come to a turning point, a point from which none of them could ever go back, was accepted. If they couldn't rally the colonies together, if the revolution fell apart, then they were all dead men. And they knew it.
Harper stood up, brushing himself off before he looked Duo in the face. There was no joking in his tone now. He was all business.
"We'll come with you, Duo." We'll fight, and we'll die if we have to.
Wufei nodded. "Where is Heero?"
"He's saying goodbye to Gabriel before we leave." Duo's expression clouded over with worry. "The kid isn't feeling so hot. I have him sitting up with Margie in the infirmary."
Wufei noticed that Harper was suddenly unable to meet Duo's gaze. A look passed over the older pilot's face, but Wufei couldn't read it. He scowled slightly, turning to Duo. "And if we can't ally ourselves with Quatre and Trowa? What then?"
Duo smiled; it was a grim and somehow noble expression. It was the expression of a man with nothing left to lose.
"I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
~*~
"Hey, Rashid, come take a look at this! We found another one!"
Rashid walked over to where a group of Maguanacs had gathered. Lying between them was a bedraggled form in a spacesuit, lying face-down, draped over the warped leg of one of the enemy mobile suits like a cloth doll. One of the soldier's legs was twisted at an impossible angle, and a web of delicate cracks had spread across the front of the Preventer's helmet.
The Preventer's uniform was in tatters from shrapnel. He was so still it was impossible to tell if he was alive or not.
"He's dead, Abdul," Rashid said dismissively. "Pick him up and put him with the others. We have to assess damage to the colony. Master Quatre is trying to get the systems restarted now. The oxygen is already back up."
Rashid was right, Abdul feared. The Preventer was so pale, so still. He was dead-he must be. A strange feeling sent a shiver sliding down his spine. But he saw nothing unusual in the dead man. He hated death, had seen so much of it, yet his eyes were drawn to the fallen Preventer in morbid fascination.
Curiosity brought him to his knees at the dead man's side. He read the bloodstained patch at the Preventer's shoulder, red flecked over the bright white dove insignia. LABAN. Gently, he flipped the Preventer over onto his back.
The Preventer screamed, the sound slightly muffled behind his cracked helmet, startling Abdul so badly he fell back onto his ass.
"Damn, Rashid, this isn't anything but a kid! He's still alive!" He looked more closely, peering into the tinted helmet. He could see the inside of it fogging faintly with each breath from the fallen soldier, who seemed to have lapsed back into semi-consciousness. He watched the boy for a few seconds, and he saw the boy's chest rise and fall intermittently. He took the boy's wrist; his pulse was faint, slow and erratic.
Finally, he stood up. "Did you hear me, Rashid? He's not dead."
Rashid turned back to him from where he was tending one of the wounded Maguanacs. The large man scowled. "So? He will be soon. You heard what the young master said. He just wants the general, and Barton didn't even think he should have left that one alive."
The Preventer suddenly gasped at Abdul's feet, and he coughed harshly. Abdul kneeled, and he heard the boy's soft moan. "Grant..." The boy twitched a little.
Carefully, Abdul removed the Preventer's helmet. A young boy's face was revealed, framed by a shock of dark golden blond hair. A jagged gash opened the boy's forehead from his eyebrow to his hairline. His eyes were open wide, blue and innocent and terrified. A kid that looked like he belonged on a beach, not in a battle.
"You're them." Blood trickled from the corner of the boy's mouth. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough. He could hear the breath whistling in and out of the boy's lungs in a series of shallow, whooping gasps.
"I'm not going to hurt you, kid," Abdul whispered.
"I thought, I thought you were..."
"It's okay."
"I thought you were..." The boy whimpered, eyes wide with growing hysteria.
"I'm Abdul Khafajy, Laban," Abdul said, trying to stave off the boy's panic. I'll be your kidnapper this evening, his mind added automatically, and he grimaced. He thought of his daughter. Somewhere, this kid had a father, too. Did his father know where he was, dying alone in the dark, dying on a dead colony? He didn't want to think about it.
"Camel country," the boy whispered, eyes fluttering. "Like the... general said."
He slipped into unconsciousness.
"He's still alive?" The voice over Abdul's head was soft and accentless. Barton's voice, as cold and unaffected as a lethal injection. He glanced up at the solemn pilot. "Yes. Do you want us to kill him?"
Trowa stood over the boy, looking down into his face. Some strange pain shone in his deep green eyes, but the pilot's face was completely blank. After a period of scrutiny that seemed like a lifetime, he finally turned that gaze back to Abdul, who was chilled by it. There was something both gentle and sad in those eyes. Death would have eyes like that, Abdul thought.
"... Ask Quatre. It's not my place to say."
And then Barton was gone.
Slowly, the lights of the colony began to flicker on, an uncertain promise.
~*~
When Septem came to, the first thing he noticed was that the lights were back on. It was blinding, painful, like the eye of God searing into his brain. He sat up, wrists bound in front of him, and immediately felt the world spinning away from him. He retched, eyes gummed almost shut by semi-dried blood.
One of them was watching him. It took him a moment to focus; the room wouldn't seem to hold still for him. Finally, when he could see straight, he recognized the soldier that was sitting across the room from him, turquoise eyes weary beneath light blond hair, so rare for the Arabians.
Winner.
He glanced around the room he was captive in. Some kind of office. He had been sat up against the wall beside a desk. Command center... He glanced at the desk. A heavy paperweight sat on it, a globe of blown glass with a colored flaw running through it.
The plan ran through his head in a matter of seconds. Winner's head? No, it would be awkward to throw with his wrists together, and he might miss. The young leader's body was lithe, almost fragile. If he aimed right, and threw hard enough, he could drive the Arabian's ribs into his lungs.
Quatre was too fast.
The attack was a surprise, but he had time to move in the time it took Septem to lunge to his feet, groping for the missile. The piece of flying glass caught him in the shoulder and cracked his collarbone, throwing him into the wall. But the young man wasn't unconscious, or even stunned. Damn it, Septem thought, sinking back to the floor with exhaustion. The move for the paperweight seemed to have taken all the strength he had left.
"Is that it?" Quatre asked softly. His breathing was harsh with pain. "Anything else you want to throw?"
"No," Septem replied, closing his eyes tightly. He thought he might vomit soon; the smell of blood and fire was all around him. "There's nothing left. I would have aimed for your head, but I was afraid to miss. I would kill you if I could."
"I know."
"I will kill you eventually, Winner. I promise you that."
The blond pilot closed his eyes wearily, one hand over his shoulder where the piece of glass had struck it. The paperweight was still spinning on the floor, catching the light and throwing it in a thousand directions. "Maybe."
"... You'll remember the pain I caused you. I'll never forget what you did to my men. No matter how long I live, I'll never forget. And you won't forget either. I won't let you."
Quatre sighed, and the sound was like a dove's cry. "No, I won't forget. I don't like what I did to your men, but I did what I had to do to protect my people. And if it comes to letting them be taken or killing you, I'll take your life every time. I'm sorry."
Septem sneered in contempt, but found tears making his voice hoarse. His eyes stung, and he bowed his head to hide them. All he could think of was his men. Laban. Armstrong. Verdes...
They had all trusted him; they had thought he knew what he was doing when he took Winner's bait. But he was wrong. He had been so wrong. Why hadn't he known? How could he have been so damned stupid?
"Why do you apologize? Why do you always fucking apologize?! You can't apologize for killing someone! Are you going to apologize to their families?! Are you going to say you're sorry to their friends? Fuck you, Winner. This is war. Nobody wants your apologies! If you're going to kill, be a killer and don't pretend to regret it!"
He looked up, and saw Quatre looking back at him. There was a suffering sort of innocence in those turquoise eyes. They were filled with silent tears.
Staring spellbound into the eyes of his enemy, Septem forgot what he was going to say.
~*~
Heero kneeled down on the floor beside Gabriel. The boy was pale as he stared at a Telnet screen, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The boy was watching cartoons traipse across the screen blindly, not really seeing them at all. A drawing pad sat in front of him, but the paper was blank. A half-drank glass of milk sat beside him.
"Gabriel?"
The boy didn't acknowledge him.
"Gabe?"
Finally, Gabriel's head moved in his direction. Deep brown eyes looked at him, but Heero didn't think they were seeing him at all. Finally, the boy's vision cleared, and his brow furrowed. "Heero?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"Don't go." The boy's words were whispered, but Heero heard them clearly. "We'll leave here. We'll take Daddy and leave. I don't want you to go. Just... don't go. Don't. We... I don't know. Something bad is going to happen. Don't you feel it?"
Yes, Heero thought, a chill running down his spine. But I can't do anything to stop it. Instead, he smiled a little. It was hard for him, but he managed. "Nothing bad is going to happen. We won't let it. But we have to go away now for a little while. We'll be back."
"No... you won't." The boy's voice wasn't uncertain... it was matter-of-fact. Terrified, and sad. He closed his eyes and starting rocking back and forth, slowly, as if he was putting himself to sleep. His thumb came up to his mouth, and he sucked it.
"We'll come back," Heero whispered. The boy didn't answer him. But the jars, bottles, and other objects on the shelves of the infirmary began to wobble and rattle. The cabinet doors flew open. Heero pulled his gun out of instinct, but there was nothing to shoot at.
Nothing at all.
He looked back at the boy.
Gabriel...
Impulsively, he pulled Gabriel closer to him, pressing a kiss into his feather-soft hair. The child shuddered in his arms, and was silent. The room quieted. A bottle of pills tipped over the edge of the cabinet, shattering on the floor.
"... I promise."
TBC...
Qu di yu (Mandarin) - Go to hell!
Wang ban ma (Mandarin) - Bastard
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