by Angela
October 19th,
A.C. 202
New York. It was an old city, the kind with sleek
skyscrapers built next to crumbling ruins, the kind of place that had been
around for longer than people could remember.
It had always existed and would forever exist. New Yorkers seemed to take their history for granted—some even
referred to their home as the Big Apple, its nickname from hundreds of years
ago—barely seeing the corroded and oxidized statue in the harbor or the twin
spires that stretched up to the farthest reaches of the atmosphere. One was a monument to freedom, and the other
came from a time when the world realized that freedom was meaningless without
peace. Both were from a history the
average person barely thought about.
But I’d never seen New
York before now. Its history seemed
alive—it buzzed in my head as I walked down the crowded streets. Around every corner I made amazing
discoveries—a brick alley from the nineteenth century, a hotel with a sign
posted: Jimmy Carter slept here.
The colonies had nothing like this place, nothing so old that it made a
person feel like he was breathing ancient air.
Quatre had invited
me. It was going to be a spectacular
party. Exclusively black-tie, he’d
warned me, his eyes pleading with me not to embarrass him.
I didn’t own a tie.
But Quatre knew
that. He knew I wasn’t coming for the
caviar and pâté, for the charming conversation and profitable
connections. Whether I liked it or not,
Quatre Winner knew me, and he knew exactly why I’d show up at a fancy occasion
like this. I wanted to begrudge him the
knowledge, but I couldn’t. He was too
damn considerate.
The wind tunneled
against me. I pulled up my collar, at
once grateful for the trembling kitten tucked into the front of my jacket. Her claws were as sharp as needles, but at
least she was warm. It wasn’t a cold
day, but the sunlight didn’t seem to reach between the skyscrapers, making the
brisk wind seem chilled
Consulting the
scrap of paper in my hand, I headed up the next street. With each successive block, I could tell I
was getting closer to my destination.
The scrawny saplings planted along the street gave way to full, robust
trees enclosed in round iron fences.
Gold and scarlet leaves drifted around me, littering the wide sidewalk
with a blanket of crisp color. The
buildings became more cosmopolitan—shops, museums, and hotels instead of
run-down apartment buildings and corner grocers—until finally I faced the
marble and glass façade of the hotel I was seeking.
The afternoon light
was fading, the golden sunshine dimming into blue twilight. I was at least an hour late.
The doorman was
dressed in immaculate blues, and his impeccable manners gave no indication of
my run-down appearance. I ran my hand
through wind-tousled hair, for the first time in my life feeling
self-conscious. The floor of the hotel
lobby shined like glass, and I reminded myself that I’d once thrived in this
atmosphere—all those years protecting Relena had been spent in hotels just like
this one.
But it’d been a
long time since she’d needed my protection, and civilization had a way of
slipping away from me when she wasn’t nearby.
I fumbled in my pocket for Quatre’s invitation. The embossed card was my ticket back into
this world. A slip of newsprint slid
out with it—a grainy black-and-white photo of a smiling couple and Quatre’s
professional handwriting in the corner.
She’s going to be there.
I thrust the
clipping back into my pocket.
Uniformed guards
manned the doors to the ballroom.
Instinctively, I noted the absence of real weapons—no one packed
anything more powerful than a nightstick these days. I thought of the pistol I used to keep tucked in my
waistband. In this society, that kind
of contraband would have me shipped off to the colonies.
I flashed the
invitation, somehow still surprised at the gleam of respect in the bouncer’s
eyes when he read the name. I never got
used to being regarded as a war hero—I tried to keep my name to myself after a
while, and no one recognized me as the skinny kid who helped save the earth, so
I was usually contentedly anonymous.
I strived for
invisibility in the huge reception hall.
The lights were dim and atmospheric, and couples in extravagant clothing
danced slowly across a parquet floor.
My stomach lurched in anxiety, and I had to remind myself why I’d come.
I picked out Quatre
right away. He was sipping champagne at
a linen-draped table, leaning close to an exquisite brunette, whom I was sure
I’d never met. It was never the same
woman twice for Quatre—not out of a lack of sincerity, but rather out of an
old-fashioned distaste for leading a girl on.
He was nowhere near settling down; he claimed a broken heart as a war
wound, though none of us in the Preventors were ever able to pin down exactly
who had broken it.
Quatre was as sharp
as ever. He noticed me within a few
seconds of my arrival, whispering something into his companion’s ear before
hurrying over to where I hid in the shadows.
“I wondered if you
were coming,” he said without preamble, shaking his head at my jeans and torn
jacket. “I thought you’d at least be
dressed.”
I shook my
head. This wasn’t about fitting in,
about making an appearance for a society that would just as soon forget about
me the way they forgot Duo Maxwell and Trowa Barton. I had a purpose. A
mission. “I’m not here to mingle.”
He acted like he
hadn’t heard me. “Wufei is here
somewhere,” he commented, scanning the throng of guests until his eyes lit on
the uniformed officer. “He’s apparently
dating one of the Peacecrafts.” After
the war a whole clan of the infamous family came out of the woodwork, eager to
claim relation to the young lady who had, for a time, been Queen of the
World. I looked across the room to
where Wufei Chang stood with his arm around a pretty blonde woman. He’d advanced quickly through the ranks as a
Preventor, commanding an entire battalion after just a few years. Quatre kept up with him the same way he kept
in touch with Duo and Trowa and me, but I hadn’t spoken with him in at least a
year—since I quit the Preventors.
My attention
flicked away from my old comrade after just a moment. I wasn’t there to see Wufei, after all.
Quatre noticed the
unsettled shifting of my gaze and his face grew serious. “Heero,” he said quietly, putting his hand
on my arm, “maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
I shook him off,
trying to shut him out as I studied the women at the reception.
“She’s happy,”
Quatre said simply.
I closed my eyes,
focusing on damage control. It was
amazing what those two tiny words could do.
In some part of my mind, I wasn’t surprised—Relena never did anything at
a sacrifice to her own sense of right and wrong—but the rest of me, the part of
me that acted on instinct and gut feelings, wouldn’t believe it.
“No.” My denial sounded stubborn, even to me.
My gift to her
chose that moment to wake up, digging her tiny claws into my shirt to climb her
way up the collar of my jacket. Poking
her little white head out, she blinked at Quatre and mewed.
My friend shook his
head. “You bought her a cat,” he said,
disbelieving. For a second I thought he
was going to scold me, but he smiled.
“She’ll love it.”
“I know.” Quatre’s smile was infectious, and suddenly
I was grinning, too.
After Quatre wished
me luck and went back to his lady friend, it took me exactly forty-five seconds
to locate Relena. I hadn’t seen her in
fifteen months.
She took my breath
away.
In twenty-three
purposeful steps, I crossed the room to where the bride was getting her
photograph taken beneath an arbor of roses.
I stood behind the photographer, watching as Relena’s eyes widened with
shock and recognition.
“Heero!” she cried
as the flash washed white light over the bridal party.
“Relena.” I couldn’t seem to say more. My mouth was dry. She was radiant.
She jumped up,
quickly making her excuses to the bride and kissing her on the cheek. The pink satin skirt of her dress swished as
she hurried the few steps into my arms.
Except that she
didn’t.
She stopped short,
putting out her gloved hands and holding mine affectionately. “Heero,” she said again, incredulously. Her voice wavered. “Do you want to go somewhere quieter?” she asked softly. “To catch up?”
As if a few minutes
could catch up to the months apart, I nodded.
She didn’t speak as
she led me away, didn’t hold my hand, and a few minutes later we were on the
roof, looking over the man-made galaxy of the city’s lights. “Are you cold?” Her dress was small and sleeveless, and the wind was gusty.
She shook her head.
I wanted to take
her in my arms. I wanted to kiss
her. I wanted to make her say that the
announcement had been a mistake.
“You’re still
wearing your Preventors’ coat,” she commented, reaching up to tug on a loose
thread that still hung from where I’d torn the military patches off. Her fingers traced the line between where
the patch had been and where the leather had faded around it. “You quit so suddenly; I thought you wanted
nothing at all to do with the military anymore.”
After all this
time, she still knew everything about me.
“It’s a warm coat,” I answered honestly. It was what the patches stood for that I had to get rid of, not
the leather and warm plushy lining.
The kitten wiggled,
trying to climb down my sleeve. “I
brought you something,” I told her, unzipping my jacket enough to catch the
cat. “She doesn’t have a name yet—I’m
not as creative as you are.”
Relena reached for
the kitten, her face relaxing into a soft “coo” as she stroked its fine white
fur. The kitten stretched her little
body until her head bumped Relena’s chin.
“She’s wonderful,” Relena murmured, her breath ruffling the kitten’s
fur. “But how did you know I’d be
here?”
By then she
should’ve known I’d always find her.
My hands shook as I
pulled the newspaper clipping from my pocket.
“Relena,” I began, barely remembering how to string a sentence. “Don’t marry him.”
Her breathing
almost stopped. The world went quiet
for a long time as she stared at the fuzzy picture of herself in the arms of a
handsome young man. I’d looked at it
often in the last few weeks—the paper was soft and white in the creases—but
somehow I hadn’t really believed it until I saw the stricken look on her face.
“You can’t do
this,” she whispered. “You disappear
for ages, then come back to me with a kiss and a child’s gift—a bear, a silly
necklace made of glass beads. A
kitten. It’s been fifteen months,
Heero.”
I’d left
before. Never for quite this long, but
the pattern was set. She knew I’d
always come back. For seven years it’d
been easy between us. After the first
kiss it was understood. We belonged to
each other.
“It was too long
this time. You left the
Preventors. Even Quatre didn’t know
where you went.” She shook her head,
her voice growing softer. “I didn’t
know what happened. I didn’t know if
you were coming back to me.”
I’d hurt her. My chest felt compressed, like I was being
squeezed in a vice. “Relena,” I
whispered, reaching out a hand cup her head.
She leaned into my palm, closing her eyes. I bent close, gently kissing her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks. I’d missed the smooth warmth of her skin,
the light smell of soap and shampoo. I
must’ve been crazy to leave at all. My
whole body trembled as I moved my mouth over hers.
Her lips were soft;
her breath tasted sweet and familiar.
It was the same kiss we’d taught each other all those years ago, the
same clinging lips that had greeted me every time I came home. Her kiss reminded me that she needed me, and
I still felt nervous and protective and downright possessive, just like the
first time. I reached for her waist, my
natural impulse being to pull her near.
She pulled back,
her mouth lingering in the kiss a moment longer before she twisted away. “No, Heero,” she said, her back to me. “I can’t do this.”
“You can’t marry
him.” I didn’t mean for it to sound
like an order, a directive given to a subordinate. My voice was harsh—I was feeling crushed. I tried again, apologetically, “Relena—”
“He’s a good
man. He’s kind and thoughtful and
mature.” The wail of a siren drifted up
to us, and Relena stared out over the bright city lights toward the deep
darkness of the ocean. “I love him,
Heero.”
It hurt. It hurt a hell of a lot more than being shot
or breaking a bone. I squeezed my eyes
shut, waiting for the initial burn to pass.
It didn’t.
“You love me,” I
reminded her. My voice sounded
angry. Desperate.
She didn’t deny
it. She didn’t answer at all. The kitten jumped from her arms, scampering
away to explore. Relena just stood
there, her fingers wrapped tightly around the railing, her back to me.
She was trembling.
Mentally cursing
myself for not doing it sooner, I shrugged off my jacket and wrapped it around
her bare shoulders. Her shaking grew
worse, so I wrapped my arms around her, too, leaning my cheek on the back of
her head. “I love you,” I
whispered. I’d never said it before;
I’d never needed to. She knew I’d loved
her since we were kids.
“You’re not being
fair,” she protested softly. “If you
loved me, you’d leave me alone. You
wouldn’t make me feel this way.”
I swung back,
furious. I was supposed to just step
back and let her marry some other guy?
What the hell kind of logic was that?
“That’s complete bull—”
She turned
suddenly, her eyes damp and livid.
“You’re good at leaving,” she interrupted. “You always show up after a couple months, pat me on the head
like a child, stay a few days or weeks, then vanish, just when things get a bit
complicated.” Her voice was
shaking. “It was so easy to predict
when you’d leave—as soon as our kissing got a bit more involved, I knew you
wouldn’t be there the next day.”
Her black-and-white
assessment left out a few crucial emotional details. “You knew I’d come back.”
Relena made an
exasperated noise and slammed her hands on the railing. “But it was always back to square one! You always treated me like a baby, buying me
toys and candy, and I had to throw myself at you to get you to notice me
again!”
I never thought
that she was a child. The presents were
a game—I’d been bringing her toys since the beginning. It was all I could ever do to keep from
grabbing her the moment I saw her—adolescent hormones kept me thinking about
all the bad things I wanted to do. I
held back out of respect. Surely she
knew that.
She was crying; my
heart was breaking.
She sniffed, wiping
her eyes with the tips of her gloved fingers.
“Don’t you think it says something, Heero, that in seven years, we never
even spent a night together?”
Her tears, her
words, everything confused me. I wanted
to cry, too. “You wanted to have sex
with me?”
“Yes!” She shook her head. “No.
I don’t know! That’s not the
point!” She peeled off her left glove,
showing me the dark green emerald that sat on her third finger. “This ring stands for commitment. When he gave me this, he was promising to
stay near me always.”
It was hideously
beautiful, reminding me in a little nagging voice that green stood for
jealousy. I’d never considered a gift
like that for Relena. It wasn’t that I
thought our relationship was above such binding tokens, but that it never
occurred to me that she might want to do things differently than how we’d
always done them.
It suddenly dawned
on me that I was asking her to give up something—something she wanted very
much—and I wasn’t offering anything in return.
I was
desperate. I had to beat this. “I can get you a ring—a better one that
that. I can promise you anything. If you leave with me, I swear we’ll never be
separated again.”
She smiled. At first I was hopeful, but it was a sad
smile. She slid my jacket from her
shoulders and handed it to me. “I made
a promise, too, Heero . . . to a man I respect and love.”
“You love me.” She hadn’t admitted it yet, but I knew she
still did. We had a history. If she loved me even half as much as I loved
her, then I had this guy beat. “Come
with me. Let’s get away from here.”
“I can’t just run
away. I owe it to him—”
“To let him know
you’re leaving?” My pulse was pounding
hard in my ears. I’d never been this
impulsive in my whole life. Nothing had
ever mattered this much. “Fine. Tell him.
Take all night if you have to.”
I reached for her hand, pressing her cool skin to my flushed face. “I’ll wait for you. I’ll be by the water tomorrow morning—where
the Ellis Island ferry lands. I’ll wait
for you there, Relena.”
She was quiet. She was considering it. A cold wind blew, smelling of rain and
dust. She pulled her hand away and
walked a few steps, twisting the ring on her left hand. “You’ll change your mind,” she murmured,
almost to herself. “It’s too big a step
for you and you’ll run. If I go, and
you’re not there—”
“I’ll be
there.” It was a reckless promise—the
kind without a back door, but I was certain.
I didn’t know who I was without her to ground me.
“If you’re not
there, I wouldn’t be able to go back.”
She stared at the sparkling jewel on her hand. “I’d be betraying him just the same by going.”
I willed her to
believe in me. I wouldn’t screw this
up. I pulled her against me. “Please, Relena.” Sliding my arms around her narrow frame, I kissed her again.
She didn’t
resist.
The door from
downstairs scraped against the gravel and a shadow fall over us. The wild notion came to mind that it would
be helpful if her fiancé discovered us like that, pressed together tightly with
her hands gripping my shoulders, but when I looked up, it was only Quatre. He looked worried.
Relena noticed him,
too, and pulled away, blushing.
Quatre cleared his
throat awkwardly. “He’s looking for
you, Relena,” he warned us softly.
Giving me one last pleading look, he turned and went back to the
reception.
“He doesn’t want us
to get into trouble,” Relena observed quietly.
“I think he’s too
late.” I said. We were already in trouble. We had been since those first days at school
when I was unwillingly moved by her tears.
She slid her glove
over her hand, her eyes never leaving mine.
“I can’t meet you, Heero,” she whispered.
“You can,” I
promised. It would take strength and
conviction, but I was sure this was the right thing for both of us.
She paused with her
hand on the doorknob. “Why did you
leave the Preventors, Heero?” she asked suddenly.
I picked up my
jacket from where I had let it drop. “I
had a gun in my hand before I lost my baby teeth,” I explained. “I was tired of killing people—even the bad
guys.” I shrugged, trying to think of a
short way to relate months of consideration.
“I wanted to be more like you.”
She smiled—a weak,
teary smile—then disappeared down the dimly-lit staircase. I glanced over to where the kitten still
played. I guessed she would be my responsibility
for another night, but it was okay—I could use the company.
I walked around all
night, thinking. Around midnight I
considered making a jeweler open his shop so I could buy Relena a ring, but by
twelve-thirty I abandoned that idea. At
three I panicked. I stood in a line at
the airport, ready to buy a ticket to anywhere just so I could get on the
earliest plane. Five o’clock found me
in Central Park, staring into the darkness as the kitten napped in my lap. By six-thirty it was drizzling.
The harbor was dark
in the gray of early dawn. I sat on a
dock, watching as the ferry crew did their early inspections. They were vivid in bright orange ponchos,
and I wished I thought to grab some kind of raincoat to ward off this chilling
damp. Relena’s kitten was shivering,
nestled deep inside my coat to preserve warmth.
The sun came up,
and for a few moments the clouds broke—just enough to make the choppy water
gleam. I wondered how long it took for
water to move through the world’s oceans.
I met Relena by the sea. Could
even a drop of the water surrounding me that morning be the same as what
surrounded us then? Lack of sleep was
making me philosophical, even romantic.
The morning grew
older. The ferries left with their
first sparse boatloads, and I grew colder and wetter than I remembered I could
be. An old woman mistook me for a
homeless person—she brought me hot coffee and a bagel. It was a welcome breakfast, and I carefully
finger-fed the kitten most of the cream cheese. I wondered where Relena was at that moment. She’d outgrown the politician’s world the
way a kid outgrows teenybopper music, and for the past few years she’d been
attending a university near where she grew up.
Quatre told me she’d graduated just four months ago, but she was
dragging her feet about getting a job.
She’d once complained to me that she hadn’t been allowed to sleep past
six in the morning since we met, so I envisioned her still curled up in her
bed, hair all tangled and adorable, catching up on all those years of sleep
deprivation. Thinking about it made me
tired, and I fell asleep imagining that I was snuggled beside her.
I woke up
shivering, feeling like I was being pricked by pins. The kitty had worked her way up my chest, and she was kneading it
softly with her claws. I blinked,
adjusting to the sunlight. It had
stopped raining, but it was cold. I
could see my breath as I checked my watch.
Hours had passed. It was almost
twelve-thirty.
I jumped to my
feet, scanning the area frantically. No
one. She wasn’t there.
She wasn’t coming.
I slid back down to
the dock, resting my head on my knees.
“Hey, Cat,” I whispered as the kitten thrust her head up near my
collar. She mewed and licked my ear. I’d been alone my whole life, yet somehow
the world never seemed as huge and vacant as it did just then. I considered leaving—finding a room with a
hot shower and a soft bed—but I couldn’t seem to get my body to move.
The ferries stopped
running early that day—one of the crew complained that no one bothered to come
to the harbor on days like that.
Afternoon faded into dusk, and the city glowed. The lights hurt my eyes—I added it to a
catalogue of hurts and slowly closed them.
One by one I mentally shut down all of the throbbing, painful places in
my body until the only thing I felt was the pang of an empty stomach.
Cat cried, tapping
my chin with her tiny paw. I idly
petted her head, moving my stiff limbs to stand. We needed to find some dinner.
I wondered how she would adapt to space travel—I had a taste for
something exotic and distant. The earth
suddenly seemed too small and too hard.
All the gravity was gone.