My Hero

by Liewe

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The lyrics are for the song Holding Out For a Hero by Frou Frou (originally sung by Bonnie Tyler) I own nothing.

//…// denotes lyrics

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//Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night toss and turn and dream of what I need//

She gritted her teeth as another shell whined by overheard the earth shaking as it impacted yards away. Too close for comfort. She watched the other's scurry about as they tried to retaliate, their weapons fire pitiful in comparison to the more advanced OZ issue.

She snarled as someone bumped into her, disturbing her damaged shoulder, muttering an apology to empty air as the recruit lurched away from her as fast as he dared.

They had been holed up in this bunker for days, waiting for reinforcements that she knew would never arrive. There were precious few Alliance outposts left, OZ had taken out the main ones weeks ago.

She glanced up as a blanket was thrust into her fast and she smiled her thanks at the medic and he smiled in return as he held out a small cup of water. She glanced at it, knowing it was drugged, before taking it. She was useless injured, and she was useless dead on her feet.

"Try to sleep," he murmured before moving onto the next soldier fighting the pain of half-healed wounds.

"Yeah right," she muttered as she yawned, blinking against the lure of sleep.

She vaguely heard the screams as the fight turned in their favor and the Gundam's arrived. The discomfit of being lifted from her seat in the cupped palm of a Gundam not enough to pull her from the drugged slumber the 'water' had plunged her into.

She smiled at the tales told by her comrades of the Gundams that had appeared on the horizon with the setting sun. Smirking at their folly.

//I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life//

She grunted as she hit the floor. Curling away from the flying feet of her attackers. Her arms flung up to protect her head. She bit through her lip as the pain doubled and then quadrupled. Praying for death.

Shock taking over her as the assault ended.

A gentle voice telling her to hold on piercing her consciousness and fixing the image of a worried face half hidden behind impossible bangs and drowning emerald eyes before she succumbed to the dark.

She woke in the hospital, the nurses filled with tales of a dashing young man with Emerald eyes that had brought her in the night before. And she shook her head. For a moment wishing for the young man to appear and become her knight in shining armor.

"I wish..." she began wincing as the movement split open her lip again and she tasted blood. The coppery tang something she had come to know well since the disbanding of Alliance forces.

There were no hero's anymore.

//Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasy
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There's someone reaching back for me
Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat
It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet//

She dreamed of him. A young man with emerald eyes. A man like Nanashi, who would come and save her. But even her dream self realized the futility of it. She was an outcast. No longer fit to serve either side.

She woke with the lightning and thunder and she watched it from her hospital bed as it raced across the sky. The fingers of her good arm reaching towards the dream as it fled from her. The vision of his emerald eyes staying with her through out the night.

//I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life//

They pulled her back from death. The shock starting her heart again and she groaned. Vague voices entering her mind. Shouted orders.

"Dammit, don't die," he muttered, as he checked her pulse sighing with relief as he felt it fluttering against his fingers. His comrades looking on in worry.

"Tro-man, what's so important about this woman?"

"She doesn't deserve to die," Trowa whispered in response as he carefully bandaged her wounds periodically checking on her pulse rate and breathing. He growled as he found half-healed wounds. Wounds he'd seen before.

"Her shoulder is ruined," Duo piped up breaking Trowa's concentration. "The ligaments are torn. The actual bones barely holding together. She'll need a new one if not now then in a couple of years." Trowa nodded, making a note to make sure she got that replacement. He owed that much to her. He owed that much and more.

He deposited her at the nearest hospital before returning to his duty and his Gundam.

//Up where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I would swear that there's someone somewhere
Watching me//

She hobbled through the market, leaning on her cane. Wincing as each movement jarred old aches and pains.

"I'm too young to feel this way," she muttered as she narrowly dodged a teenage boy on a scooter. A curse forming on her lips.

She glanced at the new erected billboard and snorted. Knights in shining armor? Heroes to save the damsel? Her cynical heart scoffed at the idea, while a small part of her hoped that maybe it was true. That maybe someday her hero would come for her.

//Through the wind and the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach
Like the fire in my blood//

She let out a grunt of pain as she collided with something solid, the move jarring her wounds badly.

"I'm sorry," someone said softly as he steadied her with strong hands.

She glanced up at him and her heart stopped. His face was so familiar.

"Glad to see you're still alive, Midii" he said with a small smile and her heart soared. The small innocent corner of her mind rejoicing.

"I've definitely gone mad," she finally said looking up at him. "Too much talk of hero's," she muttered.

He laughed, his arms tightening around her, yet mindful of the wounds. She glanced at him, taking note of how he held her, like something precious. Like he knew the full extent of the injuries she had sustained over the years.

"I wouldn't call myself a hero, I always arrived just in time to pick up the pieces," he finally said as he watched her waiting patiently.

"What do you mean?"

"It's hard to explain, but if you'll walk this way we can discuss it over a cup of coffee."

She eyed him suspiciously and he laughed. Joy filling his heart that she wasn't as broken as he feared.

"Please, I've been searching for you." He implored.

//I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life//

She paused, before acquiescing and he took her to a small Bistro that she had often walked by but had never entered.

"Order your hearts desire," he said softly as he pulled out her chair for her and she smiled at him.

Over coffee and desert he spilled his tale and she questioned him mercilessly until finally there was nothing more to say and she was left watching him silently, trying to make up her mind about her next move.

"If I believe what you've said then you're a Gundam pilot, you're also my Nanashi, and you've been looking out for me since the start of the war," she finally murmured and he nodded his head in response. "Why?"

"At first guilt, I should have believed you back in that clearing. But not anymore, I fell in love with you." He held up his hand at her snort of disbelief. "You are damn tenacious and nothing kept you down. Hell as a Gundam pilot I got to run into you more often than I'm sure you realized, and I got to watch you. I know this sounds old and antiquated but I'd like to be there for you, I'd like you to lean on me, to get to know me. To even love me. I'd like to be your Hero."

"I don't know what to say..."

"Say yes for now, and if you decide you can't abide me toss me out on my arse, but give me a chance." He was proud of the speech he had delivered, silently thanking his sister for all her hard work in getting him to come out of his shell. The old Trowa would never have dared something so open.

"All right, you can stay for now." And she smiled looking at her own personal Hero and daring to hope for the first time in years.

-the end