SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING

SAINAN NO KEKKA
Flowers in the Snow: Heero

Oniichan…are you lost? Ne, are you lost?

I've been lost ever since I was born.

He wrapped himself in the tattered blanket, shuffling to the stool and taking the cup of hot tea that the tired-looking man behind the counter handed to him. Counted out the change. One coin, two. There was a hole in the pouch. Damn.

"I'm sorry," he said at last, meeting the expectant eyes. "I don't have anymore money." Pushed the cup back across the countertop, slid off the stool in preparation to walk out the door, to walk some more. He had been walking forever, it seemed. And it was so very cold.

"I'll pay for that."

He stopped. One gloved, long-fingered hand slipped several bills into the hand of the confused cashier, and then pushed the cup into his hands. "Here. Take it. It's cold and you look like you need it."

He didn't speak as they made their way across the room to a darkened table, and he set his cup on the table carefully before wrapping the blanket more securely around himself, slipping the heavy pack off his shoulders and dropping it on the ground. Outside, the traffic light changed and a car honked. The beeping sound of a truck backing up. He picked up the tea. Snow collected on the ledge. It was getting dark.

"What are you doing here?"

"Aren't you going to thank me for the tea, at least?" The man who was a stranger and yet not slid into the chair opposite him. His face was masked, his head swathed in a thick scarf with only the brilliant eyes betraying his identity, and the long black overcoat concealed the rest of his body.

"No. What are you doing here?" He took another sip of his tea. The unspoken words rang in the air. I thought you were dead.

"You thought I was dead. I know. But it takes more than you to kill me. You should know that."

So. The tea warmed his stomach a little bit, but he was still cold. He swallowed the bitter liquid, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You think your sister will give you pardon?"

"I don't intend to give her a choice," the stranger said almost nonchalantly, folding his hands in front of him, businesslike.

"I see. You think it will make her happy?"

"Again, I don't intend to give her a choice." A pause as the eyes scanned him. "Why so concerned over her, all of a sudden? You still have to kill her, remember?"

He laughed, downed the rest of the tea in one gulp, didn't even flinch as it burned his throat on the way down. "I'm leaving."

"What's the hurry? I'll come with you."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

The door swung shut behind them and he felt the cool snowflakes dancing on his cheeks and congealing on his eyelashes before melting sweetly. Kisses of winter, Duo had called them teasingly once, sticking out his tongue to catch them in his open mouth.

Where'd you hear that?

Sister Helen…that's what she called them.

"You never answered my question," he said, almost bitingly, as they made their way down the main avenue. Businesses were closing, doors locking, lights turning off in the small shopping district. There were beggars along the street, holding up tin cups, pleading. He ignored them. Farther off, downtown, the lights of the tall office buildings were only beginning to turn on, lighting up the night sky, highlighting the falling snow, with the bombed-out shells of others fading into the darkness of the skyline.

"I don't think I need to."

"If you've come back to take the kingdom out of her hands, I won't let you."

The other laughed, his voice ringing out clearly in the frosty air. "So arrogant now. And what makes you her guardian?"

"Well," he said softly, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "You were dead."

"Heero Yuy," the voice mused. "Why are you here?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened it again, then closed it. "None of your business."

"I heard Lady Une's formed a new military. The Preventers. Just last week…you should know, if you kept up with the news. Maybe you should go join. You'd be good there."

"I'm no longer a soldier," he said harshly. His voice grated in his throat, grinding his bones. "The war is over."

I've been lost ever since…

"Do you really think so?"

"I'm no longer a soldier," he repeated. "Leave me alone. What do you want with me? If you're trying to get through me to Relena, it won't work. She doesn't know I'm here."

"She doesn't know I'm here either, and I'm hoping to keep it that way. At least for the time being. Who knows? A few months…and she might forget all about me. Women are like that, you know."

He forced the other's words out of his mind, closing his ears. "Don't speak to me, you bastard."

"If you haven't forgotten," the quiet murmur. "It was a two-way battle."

The park was deserted, the swing still moving from a past strong gust of wind, or perhaps from the recent swinging of a child. There were footprints in the snow on the newly constructed playground set, tracks on the slide and handprints on the rungs of the jungle gym.

One gloved finger slid along the side of the metal railing. "The economy is nonexistent, the country is in ruins…and she builds new playgrounds." Blue eyes glanced at him. "Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, seeing in a flash the memory of a little girl and her puppy, a small hand grasping a yellow flower with sweaty fingers, offering it to him with a smile.

I'm not lost. I'm just walking my doggy.

"Perhaps," he said, turning away. "But only as odd that the former prince and heir of the kingdom itself should be walking around in disguise."

A laugh. "True."

"Why are you here, Zechs Merquise?"

"What would it benefit you if I told you? Are you trying to find a way, an excuse to kill me? Trying to finish the job?"

"I don't want to kill you," he said through gritted teeth. "I could have done that a long time ago, if I needed to."

It is unnecessary for our weapons to have human emotions. Retrain him.

"Are you here to see Relena? If you were, I won't let you."

"And you think that will stop me?"

"So that is why you're here."

"I never said that," he snapped tightly, hand grasping onto something under the blanket, shifting the weight of the pack further down his shoulders. "You're a bastard. You deserve to die."

"Kill me then." The taunting words, the mocking eyes. Empty eyes. As empty as his own. "Neither of us has anything to lose, correct?"

"What would Relena say, if she found you dead in the snow?"

A nerve twitched at the corner of one eye. "She won't. I intend to return to her in one piece. If at all."

He narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"That doesn't matter. I won't let you see her, if that's what you're asking."

"She loves me."

"She's a child." A dismissive gesture. "She doesn't love you. She doesn't know what love is. And who would love someone like you? Or-"

He was moving even before the words had fully registered in his brain, knowing only that the words had pulled something deep inside him that should never had stirred in the first place, because he was the perfect soldier and his emotions were dead to him. But he was rushing forward with the knife held high, and the next thing he knew were the startled eyes of his target and a hand clamped onto his arm, a grunting as he was thrown to the ground and as his own knife met something soft and yielding, a blinding flash of pain.

"You're no good…at following orders…you know that?" The other man was panting, and through the haze of fading anger and the liquid running down his face he could see the parted cloth of the scarf, the perfect features and the cascading fall of golden hair, and the sorrowful blue eyes.

"Neither are you," he said steadily, trying to ignore the pain pounding between his eyes, the burning sensation where Zechs' knife had slashed down and across his face from forehead to neck. He placed fingers in the open wound, hissing, as the warm blood dripped down his fingers into the snow, drop by drop. "Did I-?"

The other man wordlessly tilted his neck to the side, where a faint cut was just barely oozing blood. "Fair's fair."

"That was for Relena," he said, wiping the blood from his fingers. It was still dripping from his face onto his blanket. He would have to get another blanket, once the bleeding stopped. He touched his face again. "This is…"

"I killed you," Zechs said, turning away. He looked almost angry. "You're dead." Turning back, a flicker of…envy? in the blue eyes. "You're free."

Funny. He didn't feel free. Slipping the knife back under his blanket, he held out one bloody hand.

"Take care of her…for me."

Zechs took the hand with strange caution, as if it had been his hand that had been wounded, and not his face. Or perhaps it had been his whole body, a walking, open, bloody wound, festering and closing but never quite healing. "I was going to say...before you…I was going to say, who would love someone like you…or me?"

He picked up the pack from where it had fallen. The blood was starting to congeal now. He didn't need a mirror to know that it would scar, perhaps badly. But that was fine, because he was dead now.

Are you lost? Here, this is for you.

"Yuy."

He put one foot in front of the other, stopped. "The palace…is behind you. As you know."

"Yuy. People do come back from the dead, you know. Sometimes."

"If they're strong enough," he said softly. The clouds were clearing and the setting sun broke over the horizon, illuminating the crumbling buildings and the dead trees and then the clean hillside and the swing that was still moving in the wind, as if a child, perhaps a little girl, had left it while his back was turned, clear laughter ringing through the dusk as she chased after her puppy through the yellow flowers. "If they're strong enough."

"Sometimes it's not a choice, Yuy."

"Goodbye, Zechs," he said. "Thank you for the tea…perhaps I'll repay you someday."

"Yuy!" The reply called out to him. "Don't forget…"

Ne, are you lost?

This is for oniichan. Hey…wait! Wait…

I've been lost…ever since I was born.