My
high school English teacher once told me that when a story begins
with
someone getting shot (or otherwise killed) that you could either
write about the events leading up to the
shooting or you could write about the effects of the death on the people involved.
I'm a contrary person and I always felt that there should be a way to have it
both ways. So... here's to being contrary.
For
Old Time’s Sake
Rated
PG-13
Author:
Nightheart
His
world ended with a bang. He watched, and for the first time he knew
what
it was like to be utterly helpless. Time slowed to a crawl as
events
seemed to happen in a state of unreality. Everything seemed to
smear,
the colors were too bright, the lights were too pale, the people
around
him moved without sound. It was like he was underwater, watching
everything happen from a cloudy distance; the
air was thick and cold and it made his movements slow.
The
bullet ripped through her chest. She looked surprised, as she
balanced there, suspended in that single
moment that seemed to exist outside of time before the world commenced its
pace. They'd all been expecting something of this nature, and yet she looked
surprised. Everything froze for a second as her blue, blue eyes found his. He
reached forward but they were too far apart.
There
was a stream of red, suddenly bright against the glaring stage
lights
and flashes of reporters camera's. Fire engine red. Cherry red.
Mistletoe
red. Painters came up with the most oddly cheerful names for
something
that was the exact shade of freshly spilt blood.
There
wasn't much more than a splatter on the podium, that so-cheerful
color
staining what was supposed to be an event to mark a celebration
of
peace with its inherent violence. Despite the white and red and green
festooning the decorations, that too-bright red looked garish against the snow.
And
she fell.
<She's
not even supposed to be here,> Trowa thought in horror and
dismay.
It
was the end of after-colony 198, two years after the coup of the
Barton
Foundation. There was a very special summit and Address to be held in the
The
icing on the cake was that their very own beloved former Princess,
Relena,
was to at last return to her true home for the very special
occasion.
It had been the talk of the entire nation for months. One could take the
kingdom from the princess, but taking the princess from the very proud and very
proprietary hearts of her people was another matter altogether; Relena was
their princess and would be until the day she died and no amount of renouncing
her titles and taking another last name was going to make them change their
minds. Relena was a Peacecraft. End of story.
There
were still people out there who felt that the ideal of Total
Pacifism
and the peace engulfing the Earth Sphere was an aberration in the natural order
of things; an aberration that had to be gotten rid of by any means necessary.
And if it took slaying the chief representative
of those peaceful ideals to get the world
back on the natural track that it had followed since time immemorial well...
The
stage had been set, there in the
erected
over the largest of the channels leading into the Sanc kingdom
from
its vast harbor. The place where the ocean met the land was symbolic of the
inherent unity between Earth and Space; the sea of stars that cradled the
precious earth.
The
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs had been scheduled for months to
appear and make a speech at this very
special event in her homeland, but due to certain threats made to the security
force charged with her
protection
a few certain last minute changes had had to be made.
Trowa
watched as her body swooned backward and seemed to hang
weightless
in the air. He didn't hear the soft, barely audible "no" whisper from
his lips as she seemed to float downwards like some angel falling toward
apotheosis. He had been a soldier for all of his life,
from as far back as he could remember death had been as much a part of his
daily routine as eating breakfast or tying his shoelaces. He had seen enemies
die in battle. He had seen comrades die in battle. He had even killed some of
his "comrades" because they had switched sides on him. He had never
felt anything. Trowa had destroyed his heart little by little, sacrificed his
soul to the god of war and had never regretted it. Regret. Loss. Pain. Sorrow. All were foreign concepts to him, mere words
that held no real meaning.
"No..."
he murmured. For a moment, he expected the universe to hear his
simple
statement of "hey, this isn't the way its supposed to be" and
rearrange
itself into the proper order once more.
<She's
not supposed to even be here.>
The
"she" in question was not Vice Minister Relena Darlian, who was, in
fact,
supposed to be there. No, the "she" in question was the
body-double they had hired for that evening in
response to threats sent to the Preventers. They had known for months that
there would be an attempt of the Vice Minister's life; they had also known that
it would likely be on this day, the anniversary of the end of the last wars. It
was a date too tempting for any of that mindset to resist.
The
real Relena had been determined to go through with it anyway; she
wasn't
afraid of terrorist threats and she was adamant about the proper
fulfillment
of her duties. She would have gotten up on that stage,
knowing full well that someone intended to
kill her, because she was Relena Darlian and Relena Darlian did not live her
life in fear. She would face those threats because she knew deep down that the
message she brought and the hope she gave was more important than her own life.
Her
protector, Heero Yuy, was of a decidedly different mindset and
while he would applaud her courage he
wouldn't let her knowingly walk onto the executioner’s block to make a martyr
of herself. Not when he could stop it. So as Relena had made plans months in
advance to attend the fete, Heero (along with Lady Une of the Preventers) had
made plans months in advance to stop her.
The
only snag had been finding an appropriate person to play the part.
They'd
needed someone well trained, yet also discrete. Someone young
enough
to play the part, but also have the survival instincts of a
seasoned
veteran. Someone who would put on an act convincing enough to fool the world
into thinking that she was truly Relena Darlian, but also someone who would
*know* what to do and not panic when there were guns or bombs going off around
her. A soldier who looked like an innocent girl... in short, they'd needed a
chameleon.
It
was this deceptively simple thing that had left them stymied, for
months.
It should not have been hard to find someone who could play
Relena
Darlian for an evening; Relena was of middling height for a woman, average
weight, middling complexion, and all of the rest of the details could be fogged
over by artifice. Even her very distinctive voice could be mimicked for a time
and any aberrations covered by the phrase "I have a cold." But try as
they might, they hadn't been able to find a woman to play the part; this one
was too tall, that one too old, another too plump, that one built wrong. All of
their candidates just seemed...wrong.
They
had been about to scrap the idea and call the whole show off when
Sally
had very reluctantly delivered the perfect candidate all but into
their
laps. An old war comrade of her and Noin's; a patriot of the Sanc
Kingdom
and an ex-spy trained by the
Po,
had grown disgusted with the
left
it to pursue her own ends well before 195. Noin had discovered her
running
an underground Resistance movement in the
after
Zechs Merquise had originally fought to free the land from the
grip of the
ambush
like the
Trowa
had recognized the name that Sally had presented to the group;
Midii
Une. The old photo she'd shown of the girl, Sally and Noin posing
beside
a white Taurus suit of the
that
she was indeed the girl he had met as a young boy. She was the one
who
had gotten his old rebel company to take her in and then led the
rain of bombs that had taken the lives of
the rebels who'd treated him as a comrade and even as some kind of odd pet of
the company. And she had been responsible for the death of the Captain, the
only person Trowa had ever really thought of as a father. Trowa should have
hated her, and yet... when he'd asked her how much she'd gotten in blood-money
she'd looked at him with eyes that bled tears down a face stricken with a kind
of guilt he could perhaps never fully understand and she'd told him that she'd
needed the money for food to feed her starving family. Trowa had known he
couldn't hate her then; even if he had been capable of hatred at that point no
one could hate someone that sad and pitiable.
Part
of him was pleased beyond reason to hear of her turn around in
195.
They'd fought on the same side! Another part was surprised to hear
that
a young soldier hailed from a nation so very famous for its
pacifism.
So in this day and age after the war she was nothing more than a young woman;
running a quiet life from out of her home. She'd joined the Peacecraft
Institute (founded by Relena during her time in the
Suffice
it to say that when Sally Po had shown up on her doorstep
wearing
her Preventers uniform and asked her to jump back into the fray
Midii's
reaction had been polite, but not favorable. A second and third
visit
had been received with equal politeness but also equal negativity. A fourth
visit had been concluded with a polite but firm request not to bring the
subject up again... this voiced by her father.
By
then they had been growing short on time and so Trowa had
decided
to aid the cause. Perhaps it wasn't fair of him to use their
prior relation to one another as leverage,
he'd thought along the way, but desperate times required desperate measures and
it wasn't exactly as if they were going to let her be harmed. It would just be
one short
mission
and they could part ways amicably this time. He hadn't seen the harm then; he'd
reviewed her impressive record, listened to Sally Po
reminisce about some of the clever and
amazing stunts she'd pulled, and they'd all gone over every inch of the area
where they were going to throw the address to minimize the threat of bombs,
snipers, and drive by shooters. Having a body-double for Relena, to Trowa's
mind, had really been nothing more than a way to appease their friend Heero's
protective streak.
<She
wasn't even supposed to be here,> the thought echoed over and over
in
his mind as he watched in paralyzed helpless astonishment as her
body
hit the icy-cold December waters.
The
sound of the splash rang out into the cold like the report of the
gun that had been responsible for the
splatter of blood decking the pure white banners strung up on the stage. The
red and white seemed like a garish parody of the traditionally cheerful colors
of Christmas. Red and white; courage and purity, blood and
snow.
Trowa
rushed over to the banister and looked down into the dark waters;
the
cheerful lights from behind him winking in reflection off it like a
dancing
night sky. Her body floated atop for a half a moment and his
chest
constricted in sudden hope; maybe she wasn't dead! His eyes scanned desperately
for half a heartbeat, praying for any sign of movement. His heart plummeted as
she sank silently beneath the waves without a protest.
*
* *
"So..."
Trowa said into the silence of the tiny dining room of the
modest
house. He had decided to come and visit to see if he couldn't
convince
her to help them out. Sally, despite her good record with the former spy,
hadn't had any luck in convincing her to take this one last
mission.
If Midii still proved stubborn about non-involvement Trowa fully intended to
guilt trip her into doing what he wanted but he hoped it wouldn't come to that.
The
look on her face when she had opened the door and recognized him
had
been both a little amusing and a little dismaying. She'd gone white, all color simply drained from her face as she
stiffened in shock. Trowa had had to verbally prompt her into gathering her
wits for all she could do was stare at him. Her hands
were shaking, he noted, as she poured him some tea.
"You
have a name now," Midii said. "Trowa Barton. Wow... hey, you know
I
recognize you, actually, come to think of it." She mused for a
moment.
"Yes,
now I have it. Princess Relena asked us to find you, back when
she
ruled the kingdom in 195. I think it was a favor for a friend of
hers;
I'm not sure about the details I'm just a grunt, but I remember
looking at the photo Noin gave us when she
set us on the trail and thinking that you looked so familiar."
"Small
world," he noted dryly.
"It
appears so," Midii replied.
She'd
been cute as a young girl in a rather obnoxious kind of way. She
was
a very pretty young woman but there was enough of the girl in the
young
woman that Trowa knew her instantly. Her long, wavy blonde hair
still
the color of burnished gold. Her form, once half-starved, was still slim but
with a dancers grace to it... well, her form was one thing that had changed
noticeably from when had seen her last. She had curves in places no child would
have them. After an appraising moments
contemplation
he decided that he definitely liked that particular change. Her face was still
round and soft, her chin still entirely stubborn; she was so much the same and
yet so very different.
He
wouldn't have admitted it, even to himself, but he had been looking
forward
to meeting with her. He was...curious about her.
"You're...
from the
pause.
He wasn't good at polite conversation but he didn't want to
start
making demands right off the bat. Okay, so it had originally been his intention
to walk in and make demands but... well after seeing her he'd changed his mind.
It would be uncouth and rude, and he wanted to make at least a little better of
an impression than that.
"I
am," Midii said agreeably. "Surprising huh?"
"Yes,"
he said, his simple reply an invitation for her to expound on
the
situation. Midii looked over at him as if she expected him to say
something and after a pause he added,
"A
pacifist nation doesn't generally breed soldiers."
"There's
an old Russian proverb that my father is fond of saying. Well,
my
mother was the Sanc native and when my father married her they
decided
to settle here, but anyway; the Russians are famous pessimists. He always told
me "Midiichka..." that's his nickname for me."
She
seemed to be babbling just a trifle from nervousness, but Trowa was
content
to let her speak until she had grown comfortable in his
presence.
There were many who would find his silence unnerving, but he just knew deep
down that Midii wasn't one of those; she had never seemed to mind it before,
she just needed a little time to get comfortable around him again.
Midii
pitched her voice to imitate a low, thick Russian accent.
"Midiichka...
the nail what stands up, gets hammered," She smiled and
her
voice went back to her lighter soft tones. "He was right, bless him. The
Peacecraft Monarchy and this kingdom stood up... and got hammered. The Alliance
wasn't going to tolerate anyone getting in the way of their 'Manifest Destiny'
to rule all of the Earth Sphere the way they felt it should be ruled. And that
went double for anyone who went against their policy for being the biggest fish
in the sea, militarily speaking. A kingdom that preached disarmament and
pacifism was a cockroach waiting to be stepped on."
She
paused to sip her tea, that had been cooling on the table between
them.
"And
the boot came down hard. I still remember that day... the day the
kingdom
fell. I was a small child but it was the end of my happy
existence.
My home was destroyed in the first wave of the attacks; it killed my mother and
I once had an infant sister but..."
"Why
work for them?" Trowa asked in confusion. With a story like that
she
must have hated the people who had taken her family from her. How
could she have stood to help them do such
massive extermination to other people, people who had been fighting for
freedom?
"We
were homeless," she said, her voice carrying to toneless quality of
someone
trying desperately not to become lost in the past. "There was
no
food after the blitz... I still remember the food riots. People
turned
on each other like scavengers for what little they could scrape
together.
It was madness. The
"Your
family..."
"Was
a lot larger before the
couldn't
bear to loose anyone else I loved, not when I had lost so much
already.
I was desperate. I would have done anything... even work for
the
enemy."
<Her
story just gets worse and worse,> Trowa reflected. It was clear
that she was becoming distressed but it was
also equally clear that she
wanted
to tell him everything, to make him understand.
"I
wish it hadn't been that way," she said, looking him earnestly in
the
eye. "I wish I could have been your friend then, I wish I could have
helped you and yours but I'll but completely honest with you; if I had it to do
all over again I still would have done it. Well, with all of the experience I
have now I might have figured out a way to save more lives..."
She
seemed to be hinting at something... Trowa paused to think back.
Then
it clicked with startling clarity.
"
The
others that Nanashi had killed. The ones who had betrayed the
company
by joining the
ambush
that they had narrowly escaped from.
"It
was the only way they'd get to live," Midii said flatly. "Good
fighters,
but ultimately mercenaries. In their case, the ease with which they changed
loyalties was supposed to have saved their lives. I thought then that it would
be better that they live as cowards than die as heroes."
"You
went to great lengths to save my life, why didn't you try to
recruit
me?" he asked curiously. It would have made sense after all.
"You
were... I could already see that even if you weren't a True
Believer
in the cause you fought for, your Captain was; and you were loyal enough to
your captain that any attempt to get you to change sides would only give away
my secret. It was a hard thing."
A
ten year old girl, trying to use her dismal circumstances to save
what
few lives she could. Trowa had to suddenly think that despite her
actions
and because of them, Midii had been terribly brave.
"You
were brave," he was surprised to hear himself say.
Midii
shook her head, refusing to acknowledge that her actions might
have
had some strength in them.
"I
was desperate," she refuted.
"That
cross you gave me was supposed to protect *you*," Trowa stated.
Midii
nodded once, confirming it. She'd only told him then that it was a transmitter,
allowing him to think that she'd planted it on him in
order
for the
significance had been something far
greater; she had in essence traded her own life for his.
"There's
something I've always wanted to ask you," Midii said quietly.
Her
head was down and she peeked at him shyly from behind the golden
curtain
of her bangs.
"Ask,"
Trowa said.
"Why
did you come back for me? If would have been easier for you if you
had
left me there. But you came back and brought me out of the battle
field...
why?"
Trowa
paused to consider the question. She was right; technically he
had
known that she was the enemy and so he had certainly owed her
nothing.
Why had he faced the rain of bombs and explosions all around them simply to
fetch her up and bring her away to safety? He couldn't seem to come up with a
logical answer.
"You
were my friend," the words slipped unguarded from his mouth. They
had
an impact on Midii that Trowa wasn't prepared for. Apparently
they'd
just brought back all of that guilt she usually kept hidden away
regarding
the two of them and their past together. Oh she'd said she
wouldn't
change her decision, but that didn't mean she didn't regret it.
<Oh
great, she's going to cry, the tears are building up...> Trowa
thought
in a little dismay and no small amount of discomfort. He hated to see a woman
cry. It made him prepared to do literally anything to make it stop.
"Besides,"
he hurried on, thinking fast to forestall her sadness. "It
wasn't
exactly as if either one of us had a lot of choices open to us."
"That's
not true," Midii replied, her voice sounding indignant instead
of
morose. A second later he found out why.
"You
had plenty of choices," Midii pointed out to him. He caught the
slight
undercurrent of jealousy that still lingered a little in her
voice.
It had been out in full force on that day, the day they'd parted
ways.
How in the name of little apples was she resentful of him?
"No,
I didn't," Trowa replied, still half disbelieving that they were
going
to have *this* argument again. "I've been a soldier fighting on
the
battlefield from as far back as I could remember."
"But
you didn't have anything making you be that soldier. You were
jealous
that I had family to protect, well its a two edged sword Trowa. I had a family
to take care of but that same responsibility to them also meant I had to do
things I hated. You had no responsibilities, you had nothing to tie you down;
you could have been anything you wanted to be, you could have gone anywhere you
wanted to go. I never understood why you chose to be a soldier."
"Chose?"
Trowa questioned.
"Yes,
chose," Midii replied. "You could have walked away from it at any
time,
so to my mind every morning you woke up and decided that you'd
spend
another day fighting in that mobile suit was another choice you
made."
He
paused and tried to look at it from her point of view. He was
surprised
to discover that she had something there.
"When
you're raised doing something," he replied slowly and
thoughtfully.
"Then that world becomes the only world you know. It had never occurred to
me to do anything differently."
"And
now?" Midii asked.
"Now
I have a place that I can call home," he replied, peace saturating
his
voice. Midii smiled slowly at him and Trowa found he liked the
sight
of her slow gentle smile.
"So
what can this ex-spy do for you?" Midii said, at last getting down
to
business. "Sally's already been here enough times to make it plain
that
the Preventers wants me for something... why me?"
"They
didn't tell you?" Trowa asked.
"Loose
lips sink ships," Midii replied. "I know they want me for
something
dangerous. I have everything back to normal finally. My family has a home,
there's a pantry stocked full of food in here... heck, I don't even have to
work anymore. I don't want to go back to that life. You have to understand
that. I don't want to go back."
"Midii,
I understand how you feel but the truth is we can't find anyone
suitable.
You're our best hope of making this a go."
"Isn't
there another way? I don't want my family to suffer. It was bad
enough
when there was a war and we could all be killed at any moment,
worse still that I was in the thick of it; can
you imagine how my father would feel if he were to loose me after I'd already
survived the