Notes: Thanks to Arith for letting me bounce fic ideas off her!! ^_^ And to everybody else for feedback! You guys are the best!
"They wrote in the old days that it was sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet or fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason."
--- Ernest Hemingway
"Step by step, heart to heart, left right left,
We all fall down like toy soldiers.
Bit by bit torn apart, we never win,
But the battle wages on for toy soldiers."
--- Martika, "Toy Soldiers"
"War is the continuance of politics by other means."
--- Karl Von Clausewitz
Requiem for the Sinners Part 7
The Penance of Martyrs
Trowa was standing silently outside Quatre's hospital room, leaning against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker, eyes closed and head bowed in deep thought. To the passer-by, he would appear asleep. But Heero knew better. He knew the stance.
Trowa was on guard.
When he heard Heero walking towards him slowly, favoring his side, Trowa opened his eyes, head still lowered. But he didn't look at the Wing pilot.
"Don't go in yet." The words were soft. Even gentle. But to Heero, they were as loud as a growl. It wasn't a request; it was an order.
He stopped.
"Why?"
Trowa cut his eyes at the Wing pilot. "...Come walk with me. I need to talk to you first."
The two of them walked down the hallway, footsteps quiet and echoing on the hard, cold tiles. It was the graveyard shift at the hospital, and the corridors were dead silent. The nurse at the floor desk gave them a look over, but didn't say anything.
Trowa wouldn't look at him as they walked. The two of them walked side-by-side. Together, but still apart. When Trowa finally did speak again, it seemed very loud in the white, wide expanses of the passages. Farther down the hall, Heero could hear someone sobbing softly.
"Heero. Quatre says he saw you going into Duo's room... the afternoon before it happened. So did someone else. Everyone thinks that you were involved in it. They think you helped to plan the assassination. People are talking."
Heero didn't have to ask what Trowa meant. He knew. "And what do you think?" he asked, his mouth suddenly dry.
Trowa looked over at him, green eyes piercing, expression as neutral as a blank slate. It was the expression of a cat watching a mouse. It was a stalking look. "I don't know. Did you?"
Heero bowed his head and looked away. He didn't answer.
To Trowa, a hot denial, or even weary, hysterical laughter, would have ended it. But silence was bad. Silence was damning. Silence came from those who were guilty and were no longer able to speak without confession.
"I see," he said softly.
"...No, you don't." Heero shook his head. "I didn't do it. It's just... I didn't catch it. I couldn't see, Trowa. And I was blinded by Duo." When he looked up and saw the cold, speculative look on Trowa's face, he faltered. "Trowa... it was my mission to protect Relena. To protect all of them. I would never hurt them."
Only that, the mention of the mission, was enough to make Trowa relax visibly. "No, I suppose not. But before the shootings, I never would have believed Duo would hurt them, either."
They were silent for a few moments. They had always been that way, speaking without words. It was a gift that not even Quatre and Trowa could duplicate. Only between them, the two nameless soldiers, the mercenary and the child of the Apocalypse, neither with homes or families or names of their own. There were no words they could say.
Trowa stopped walking in a hallway with wide windows on either side and stood in front of them. Heero stood at his side.
Stars were scattered through the skies like diamonds, and Heero found himself picking out the colonies, as he always did when he was on Earth. His side and chest were hurting him again in dull, throbbing red waves.
"We love you, Heero. You know that, right?"
Heero glanced over at Trowa in surprise. He guessed, in a dull, hammered sort of way, that he did. But to hear it said was completely different. Trowa wasn't looking at him, but his voice was lethally gentle. Both of them were gentle, Heero thought, he and Quatre. It was what made them such good murderers.
"Hai," Heero replied softly.
"And we would die for you. The same way you would die for us."
"Yes..."
"We would die for the peace. For the colonies."
Heero nodded. "All of us."
Trowa finally looked over at him, and that gaze was not gentle, didn't match his voice in the slightest. The look in those green eyes was as lazy as a Roman lion stuffed with the flesh of martyrs. It was deadly as nightfall in Kenya.
"We'll die for the peace... but we won't let Duo kill us for it. Or you."
Heero just looked back at him silently.
"We love you, Heero. And I trust you. But if either of you hurt Quatre or Wufei...I will kill you."
He felt something pass between them, from jade to cobalt. Something cold and a little frightening, like a spear of ice thrust into his gut. From the way Trowa was looking at him, in his heart, Heero knew that it wasn't a bluff. Trowa would kill him, if he felt it was necessary. And he'd be able to sleep afterwards, too.
Heero looked back out at the velvet expanse of the stars, turning away from that wintry, inquisitive gaze.
"Roger that."
~*~
Quatre was lying in the hospital bed, pale and wrapped in white sheets. "How are you, Heero?" He smiled weakly, but there was no pleasure or humor in it. Quatre and Duo were the only people Heero knew that could smile with so much sorrow in their eyes.
Heero looked out the window. At the floor. Anywhere but Quatre. "Fine, considering everyone else is dead. Everyone but you and I and Milliardo and Noin. Everybody else is dead, though. My men are dead. All of them."
"Yes, Heero. I know," Quatre replied softly. He was silent a minute, and then spoke again. "Did you know, Heero?" he asked. His voice was barely audible, but you couldn't tell in the silence of the room.
Heero lowered his head. His voice was a furious and bitter confession. "I knew, Quatre. I fucking knew. It's all my fault. I could look into his eyes and see it and I did nothing..."
Quatre did not say anything. He simply watched Heero, listening to him rage and rail and tear himself down, turquoise eyes still and thoughtful. His mournful silence filled the frail white bed he was lying in, like a wounded dove. He closed his eyes, for a moment, just listening to the terrible cadences of Heero's voice; he had never heard Heero speak so forcefully.
He did not open his eyes again until Heero had grown silent.
Quatre opened his eyes to see Heero standing over him, trembling beside his bed, his eyes filled with fury. And agony. Such agony, Quatre's heart ached with it.
"Heero..." he whispered, his compassion something almost touchable. He reached out a hand to the Wing pilot. "Oh, Heero..."
Heero's expression, grim and hard with rage, shattered. Tears welled up in his eyes at the sound of Quatre's voice. He let out a low cry that was filled with pain, a sound that made him seem to be fifteen again. The bruise over his heart where the saint's medallion had saved his life was vivid against his pale skin, like a brand.
Heero fell to his knees beside the bed, pressing his face into the mattress. Quatre could see his shoulders shaking. He was glad Trowa had gone wandering through the halls to give them privacy, and that Wufei wasn't at the hospital anymore. He knew Heero wouldn't want either of them to see him cry.
"It's okay, Heero."
Heero's voice was a harsh, muffled whisper against the sheets. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Quatre..."
Quatre laid back against the pillows, resting one hand on top of Heero's quivering head, resting it on his soft dark hair, stroking gently. Trowa opened the door silently, looking in, but then softly shut the door again. He knew he had no reason to fear.
Even later, as Heero fell asleep, his voice was still a cracked, hoarse murmur as his tears dampened the sheets. He whispered his litany, over and over. Quatre had never seen the Perfect Soldier beg.
He hoped he never had to see it again.
"Forgive me, Quatre... please forgive me..."
Quatre forgave him, again and again.
~*~
Heero awoke to the sounds of a nurse yelling. He went from asleep to awake in seconds, tensing under Quatre's relaxed hand on his head. The blonde young man had fallen asleep, head turned away, breathing deeply. He didn't wake, even at the noise.
On alert, the hairs on the back of his neck raised from the sound, Heero slipped carefully out from under Quatre's hand. His face felt flushed and sticky from where he had cried, and he felt a pang of humiliation from that. But he brushed it away impatiently. He had more important things to worry about.
"You can't take him yet, Councillor! He's not well enough! You're going to have to come back in the morning, you can talk to the doctors then. Councillor... Councillor!!"
There was a lower, male voice, harsh, the nurse's stammered, muffled reply, and then footsteps running down the hall. Military boots, Heero could tell, from the way they hit the tiles. He pressed up against the wall, listening carefully.
Heero glanced over to the bed to see that Quatre was awake now, too. The Sandrock pilot's eyes were wide and gleaming in the darkness.
Heero caught his gaze, then lifted his hand and raised four fingers. Four of them. Outside. Coming this way. He listened again. He shook his head, and raised his index finger, then all five. No. Five. One more.
The footsteps ran towards them. Heero tensed in the pitch black of the room, hands clenched at his sides.
They passed the room.
They were heading to his.
Who in the hell...
Quatre started to sit up, but Heero looked to him sharply, holding a hand out at him. No. Stay there. I'll go. He moved carefully towards the door, accidentally brushing his injured side against the door and inhaling in a hiss.
"He's gone!"
Heero eased the door open a crack, slipping into the hall. He was barely out of the room when five men came out of his own.
"There he is!!"
...Are those guns? Guns in a hospital?
No doubt about it. Heero did the only thing he could do, dressed in nothing but bandages, a dented medallion, and a pair of hospital flannels.
He raised his hands.
Five men. Just like he'd thought.
Four of them were dressed like Preventers. Heero was relieved that Wufei wasn't one of them. He recognized one of them, but he didn't know the man's name. And he really didn't care. The man had a gun on him.
The man who was not a Preventer, the one in the three-piece suit, that was the only really dangerous man among the group. And he wasn't even armed.
Heero glared.
"Caleb Noventa."
"Well, you must not be as badly off as the nurse said you were," Noventa said, his voice soft. He smiled, but the smile didn't reach his sky blue eyes. They were as flat and cold as a pond iced-over.
"What do you want?" Heero replied, his answer just as aloof.
Ignoring him, Noventa looked at one of the Preventers with him. "Cuff him. Move and they'll shoot, Yuy."
Heero had to fight not to assault the man jerking his hands behind his back, but somehow he held himself back. These were Preventers. He couldn't hurt them. They were only doing their job. One of the ones caught his gaze, and looked away guiltily.
"You are being arrested for high treason against the Cinq Kingdom and conspiracy in thirty-seven counts of assassination against the World Nation," Noventa said coldly. "You have the right to confess or remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held accountable towards you in World Court."
"On what grounds?"
"Three people witnessed you go into the suite of Councillor Maxwell the afternoon before the assassination. One of the attendants heard you try to convince Miss Relena Peacecraft to give in to L2's demands. We know your history with Maxwell. Terrorism has always come easily to you, hasn't it, Gundam pilot?" The councillor's eyes narrowed. "And let's not forget the dance, shall we?"
"I was shot along with everyone else, if you don't remember correctly."
Noventa smiled. "Yes. Clever trick, Yuy. It was almost believable."
Heero swallowed hard. His voice was hoarse. "I demand a trial."
The young politician leaned in to Heero until they were almost nose to nose, speaking in so low a tone that only Heero could hear his whisper. Heero's eyes widened as he spoke.
"Somehow, Yuy, I think you've mistaken this for a democracy."
Noventa leaned back, and Heero didn't even have time to move his head as a fist came in, crashing into his nose. He looked up and snuffled back blood, looking up at the councillor balefully. Crimson dripped from his nose and ran down his chin, trickling onto the spotless white floor in dime-sized drops.
"That was for my sister, traitor," Noventa said, his voice soft, and Heero could see something wounded in his eyes that almost made him forgive the man.
But as soon as he had seen it, it was gone. Noventa looked at the Preventers coldly.
"Take him away."
TBC...
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