Warnings: This may not look like a yaoi fic yet, BUT IT IS. Anyone uncomfortable with homosexual relationships, LEAVE NOW. There should be some elements of 2x5 in later fics. Also, Wufei haters should leave.

Finally, Gundam Wing does not belong to me; none of its characters belong to me, nor will they ever. Anyway, thanks for reading my fic.

Counting Stars

Prologue: Wufei

Sometimes, when it was late, and there were no missions, Wufei would find himself contemplating the universe, and his own place in it. He would question his actions then, so he could forget all his doubt later, when it mattered.

He always forced himself to forget.

When Wufei was still a weak child, he had once spent an entire night counting the stars. He lay on the ground, completely alone, until the sun began to rise. Then he came to a conclusion that would stay with him forever, haunting him during the night. The pure truth of this revelation would force him to spend the rest of his life trying to prove it wrong.

That last star had been fading from the sky; he could never remember what number it had been. He watched it go, and realized he would always be alone.

If he took a space ship, and flew to that star, and landed on a planet orbiting around it, he would be just as far away from the stars as ever. He would look up into the sky of that distant world and see a completely different set of stars. But still the same. No matter how far he traveled, he'd always end up in the same place. And there'd just be some more lonely stars to count.

The first time he realized this he shut it into the back of his mind. It was the truth, most definitely, but it was pointless to dwell on it if it couldn't help him. But he couldn't let it go.

Instead, he held this truth close to his heart. There, he could take it out occasionally, and remind himself of it. That way, losses and disappointments didn't upset him as much as they should have. They just could join that truth in that dark pit below his heart. That way, he could take them out and dwell on them. And never let them go. Wufei never let anything go.

So, on those cold nights (before he finally slept and dreamt his gray dreams of nothing) he would sit and count the stars locked up inside his brain. Perhaps he hoped that if he counted high enough he would reach a new conclusion. Then he could throw away that old belief, and stop counting altogether. But the sun always rose, or he fell asleep, before he got a chance.