Peace on Earth

Lyrics by Bono, music by U2

Fiction by: Icicle Raindream

Disclaimer: Nothing of Gundam Wing or its characters belong to me. I make no profit from writing this story.

Notes: All I have to say is: leave it to Bono. After my five-month hiatus from writing, I truly believe that he was the only one capable of bringing me back into the fanfiction world. I don't know where this story came from, I was actually working on a different story when this song came on and the idea hit me. But, you know, go figure. There's just something about U2's music…I don't know, but thank goodness for them! I can't promise that I'll start spewing fics again, but this was a nice, refreshing taste of what had been. Oh, yes, for those of you who know the song, I purposely chopped some of the lyrics out. Hope you all enjoy…please drop me a line!

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It was freezing.

Not the snow beneath my feet. Not the flakes falling from the sky. Not the wetness dripping from my hair into my face. Not the bitter wind cutting through my clothes.

Her voice.

It was sick. This was supposed to be a memorial. A day to recognize those we lost, those we cared for, those who fought for us, those who gave their life for something that no one entirely understood until the end. It made me physically sick, because I was the one who was dragged back into it. It was my duty, the job I upheld, with no say as to when it could just up and cut back into my life.

Her voice stayed with me. It angered me. It angered me that after a year, I would have to hear that tone again. Disgust, helplessness, pleading…all mixed together, all thrown at me.

Me.

"Heero, what are you doing?!"

If I could have answered Quatre, I would have. But the simple truth was, as I stood from my crouching position behind the bushes in the snow and began walking towards the front door, that I didn't know.

I didn't know what I was doing.

It was her voice. It fueled me. She didn't want me to do it.

The same voice that told me not to give in to duty was the same voice that made me bend towards it.

I couldn't feel the wood against my knuckles as I rapped on the door…rapped on the door. Since when did I ever knock on the door of the enemy?

It didn't matter.

As soon as the door opened, I reacted. If I thought knocking on the door was stupid, whoever answered it was more of a moron than I could ever be. I let my fist fly without fully thinking about what I was doing.

The crunch of teeth underneath the force of my hand somehow made me angrier instead of satisfied. I punched again, the crack of cheekbone filling my ears. I kicked swiftly, aiming for legs. The thunk of the body next to me made my eyes burn.

I didn't hear them. I didn't hear anyone calling for me, I didn't hear anyone coming to back me up, I didn't hear anyone telling me to stop. All I heard was her voice.

I was sick of it all.

My next target. Punch after punch, until he was down. Pain in my arm. My hand was bleeding, my chest was heaving, my hair was hanging in my face.

I kept going.

Another target spotted. Forget the blood, go for the face. Crushed flesh beneath my knuckles, groaning in my ears. Wetness on my cheeks, fabric gathered in my hands. Sharp slap of boots on the wooden floor.

Another punch. And another. Another target destroyed. Voices. Multiple voices. More targets?

No. Not targets.

Let them fall. Let them all go. Go to hell. Fall away, leave this place, take your ideals with you. How sick can you get? A memorial.

A memorial. Over the radio, every hour. Two years after the war, when we are finally able to put it all behind and recognize those who gave their all for people they hardly knew. For ideals they hardly knew. For unspoken codes, for unspoken rules, for dignity and pride and justice.

Go to hell, all of you. Sick bastards. Let it go.

I didn't come back to reality until I got slapped back to it. I realized then that I had fallen into a trance, where I could only see myself and the targets and nothing else. There was nothing else to this. Just the targets. No waiting to see what would happen. Locate the problem and take it out. Problem solved.

"Heero, what the hell were you thinking?"

It was Duo's voice that shook me awake.

"Are you crazy? It was just a threat! We were supposed to be on surveillance, not go in and kill everybody!"

It was my duty. The Preventer duty. That's what we stood for, isn't it? I wasn't head Preventer for nothing! How can you prevent if you do nothing first?

"What's gotten into you?"

I looked at him. I looked at Duo.

Suddenly, I found myself wondering where he came from. Where did we all come from? Why us? Why had we been able to work together? Like Quatre, I put my faith in him…but why? Why did this happen to us?

"Heero!"

I looked away from him. I pushed past, feeling everyone's eyes on me. Quatre, standing still with his eyes wide, Duo with his eyes narrowed, hands on his hips, Wufei glancing around the room at the damage, then at me somberly, Trowa quietly standing with his hair in his face.

I could feel it as I walked out of the room and down the steps. I could feel the wetness on my cheeks.

Could they? Could they feel it? Quatre, and Trowa, and Duo, and Wufei? Couldn't they feel it, too?

I just walked. I walked out of the building, across the snow-covered lawn, out onto the road. Across the ice patches on the asphalt. I walked under the colored lights. I walked on the cement sidewalk. I walked with my hands in my pockets, with the wind biting at my face, with leaden legs. My boots scraped against the ground.

I was numb. After a year, I had gone numb. I thought it would never leave me, my soldier half. I thought I would always need it. I thought it was always there for me.

That's the truth. What I had never thought of was that I'd willingly throw it away. I'd voluntarily give up my soldier half. I'd never thought that in a simple year, I myself, would actually discard something that had been part of me since as long as I could remember.

And tonight, it had overrun me. The feeling of being a soldier. The idea of it had taken over my senses. Her voice fueled my anger, my anger fueled my soldier instinct, and my soldier instinct fueled the need to dispose of the potential enemy. A dead part of me had been woken up with such fury that it ran wild and took me along for the ride.

Now I had to face the consequences.

She wouldn't want me back. She wouldn't want to see the blood on my hands, the tears on my face, the pain on my body. She wouldn't want to see it. She's been struggling for years to achieve the peace that would take this all away. She wouldn't want me to bring it back to her, in person where she could see and touch it.

I thought we were the same. I thought that after the war, we could be the same. I thought that we could have the peace together and nothing could get in our way. I thought we shared the same idea after the war. The idea of peace that made me as sick as the idea of war.

On a day like today, when the names were announced every hour over the radio, names I have known, belonging to people I have seen, people I have fought with or against, people I have killed. The ex-soldiers who threatened us had to pick today, of all days.

I turned a corner. The street was deserted, the only light and noise coming from a store window full of video screens. I stopped in front of the window, my hands still in the pockets of my Preventer jacket.

One screen showed the list. The list of names of the soldiers and civilians the Earth and the Colonies lost in the war in the year AC 195, and then in the war with Mariemaia. The other screen showed snippets of the war. Zero. Zechs. Our battle against each other, the fight that was broadcast to the world in its final moments of falsified glory.

My stomach churned. I could feel the inside of my pocket sticking to my bloody knuckles. I turned and walked past the store window, seeing the colors of the lights strung above my head reflecting against the white of the snow on the ground. It was Christmas Eve, and I'd committed a number of sins not one hour ago.

I found a dark alley that seemed to fit my mood. It was sullen and numb and cold. I sat on the ground, on the hard asphalt, next to the dumpster. Leaning against it, I pulled my hand roughly from my pocket and watched the blood spill again, dripping onto the street beneath me. My cheeks had long gone dry, now the tear-streaks had frozen on my face, to burn my skin whenever the wind blew. I closed my eyes.

I could still hear it. I could still hear her voice.

"I can't believe this. There's been a number of threats since Mariemaia, and nothing has happened. We can't achieve full peace if we're still going about things with violence."

I hadn't told her it was only surveillance. I guess now, I should thank myself

"You haven't changed a bit, have you, Heero Yuy? You're still aiming for war. You're still aiming to accomplish something that hasn't ever accomplished anything for anyone."

I didn't remind her that I'd won the war. I didn't want to. All I wanted was for the nagging to go away. The job, the duty…it ate away at me, from the second I'd heard the news of terrorists on Earth. All I wanted was for it to go away. The sooner I left and took care of it, the sooner I could come back. Back to the place that I'd begun to call home. A home, something I'd never had before in my entire life. I wanted to go back.

But there was no chance now. I'd thrown it away. My anger had tossed it carelessly away. I was still angry. Angry that I had to go, angry that she was disappointed in me, angry that everything she was working for was still being punched full of holes. Angry that no matter how hard I tried, nothing ever turned out the way I wanted it to be.

I slumped against the dumpster, breathing a heavy sigh through my nose. I couldn't fix it now, not after I'd obliterated it. I needed something…something to take this all away.

I could hear the echo of the radio. I could hear the repetitive sound of the announcer's voice, rolling over each name with a hint of sympathy and monotone. Who were they talking to? Why were they telling me this? I'm not the one to tell.

My eyes felt heavy. My chest felt heavy. My whole body felt heavy. And if I had one, I suspect that my soul would have felt heavy as well. It was a dreary, melancholy blanket that draped over me, and there was nothing I could do at the moment but sleep.

The moment I awoke, I felt different. It was still dark—I calculated that I only slept for an hour or so. But that hour had been long enough for her to find me.

I blinked, still a bit groggy. My hand stung less now, resting in the small puddle of blood on the street next to me. I looked up at her, feeling like there was cotton in my throat. I couldn't have guessed what I looked like to her.

She just stood in front of me, wrapped in her down coat, holding an umbrella as a shield against the falling snow. Her honey-colored hair managed to shine in the darkness, her eyes a piercing shade of blue. I watched the small, sad smile spread across her face and I couldn't move.

Then, slowly, she bent down and placed her umbrella next to me. She took up my injured hand and reached into her pocket, withdrawing a small, white cloth. I watched dumbly as she wrapped my hand gently and then squeezed my unmarred fingers. She brought my hand to her face and I could feel the warmth from her skin. It made me shiver.

"Relena…"

She smiled at the sound of my voice and shook her head, eyes falling from mine. She let go of my hand then and crawled towards me. Before I knew it, her arms were around me, her head resting against my chest. She held onto me with all her might.

I still needed it. I needed something. Was this it?

I could smell her hair. I could feel her breathing. I had her arms around me. This was the embodiment of forgiveness.

What I needed.

"Heero…let's go home."

*

The covers were drawn up to my chin. The lights were off. Relena was resting next to me.

It was too quiet. Too quiet for me to sleep through a night like this.

I reached over and turned on my radio. The announcer was on, reading the list for the very last time tonight. It seemed as though the words came through the radio to be swallowed by the darkness in our bedroom. I could only listen.

I rolled over and stuffed my face into my pillow. My hand still stung.