How Will You Remember this War?

The next few days consisted mostly of sleeping. Quatre slept more than he had in the past month. The nurse would wake him up for meals, and she would come in during visiting hours, just to sit and talk. The second day, the day after his sister had visited, was the first time she came in. He awoke to the knock on the door. She entered tiredly.

"Some reporters outside have the strangest notion that you are a Gundam pilot," she said in an animated voice, giving him a hinting wink.

"What should I tell them?" Quatre caught on quickly. "Tell them I don't know what they're talking about." The nurse stepped out of the room, holding the door somewhat closed. Quatre could hear her commanding voice booming at the reporters, then the angered murmurings of the scattering journalists. The nurse came back into the room, leaning against the door.

"Is it alright if I sit in here? This is the end of my first shift, my second begins right after visiting hours. I'm allowed to leave now, but I normally stay around here. I've found that it saves a lot of energy."

"Sure, I'm happy to have the company," said Quatre, brightly. The nurse moved to the chair in the corner opposite the bed and practically collapsed into it. She let out a heavy sigh and closed her eyes.

"You look exhausted," said Quatre.

"You don't look so fresh either," she replied.

"I guess being a nurse is very demanding, isn't it?"

"It's mostly this war. We don't normally have nearly this many patients."

"That makes sense. I wonder if I put any of them here." She looked at him, not with any pity, not with any judgment, just looked at him.

"Not unless you've been fighting civilian rebels."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't mean to sound harsh or anything, but kid, what do you think goes on at the home front? Do you think the people just sit around and let you soldiers decide their future? The people here have just as much a will to fight injustice as you soldiers do. They just don't have as good resources."

"I never really thought such things were going on back home."

"Most soldiers don't, but I suppose it's for the better. I doubt the soldiers, or anyone for that matter, can do anything about the civilian rebels. It just grieves me to see such promising young people getting themselves hurt like this."

"Have there been many people my age in here?"

"Oh yeah. Almost all of our patients have been from the ages of twelve to twenty. Right now we've got a kid in just about every room." Quatre thought for a moment. "What colony is this?" "(Sorry people reading this, I don't know the colonies, all I know is that Quatre is from L4, so this colony is not L4, so just make one up that's not L4, okay? Okay. Back to the nurse talking.) We are small and normally very peaceful, but these young people, they're restless."

"I never would have thought that so many people from this colony would rebel."

"Well, to tell you the truth, not all are from this colony. The rebellion was a widespread collaboration between kids from all over. They smuggled themselves over and...well, you know the rest. These poor kids, they're all so scared."

"What's going to happen to them?"

"Nothing, it's just that they're all injured pretty badly, and all so far away from their homes and families."

"I know the feeling," Quatre mumbled. Again, she looked at him with an unreadable expression.

"What colony are you from?" she asked.

"L4, but now I guess this one."

"There's a girl here from L4. She looks to be about your age. Very lovely girl, very spirited, I can tell. Poor thing got hurt very badly." Quatre stared at the nurse anxiously. "D-do you think...Is there any way I could meet with her?"

"Poor thing, hasn't had any visitors, so I don't know if she'll see you or not. It took me weeks just to get her to let me sit in her room and talk to her. She just lies there, staring out into space, sometimes acknowledging me. I go in there for the last half of visiting hours and she listens to me, but doesn't respond with anything more than a nod or an 'uh-huh' or a shake of her head." Quatre was fired up. "Well, I'd still like to meet her. Maybe I could go to her then? Maybe if she knew that I was from L4 too, she'd see me. Maybe if-" The nurse laughed lightly. "Don't get to ahead of yourself, Quatre. I'd be happy to let you see her, but there's the whole part about you getting there."

"Huh?" Again she laughed. "You can't get down the hall unless you can walk."

"Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Would it be alright if I tried now?"

"Sure, just hold on." The nurse moved around to the bed and carefully brought the I.V. pole out from the wall and closer to the bed.

"Now," she instructed, "you hold onto my arm with your right hand and the side of the bed with your left. Take it slow, and mind the I.V. in your hand." Quatre did so eagerly. He slung his legs around to the side of the bed, and then lowered his feet to the ground. And for a second he was standing, but then his legs felt as though they had turned to water and gave out beneath him. Clinging to the nurse's arm and the side of the bed, he felt like such an idiot on the floor. The nurse helped him back into bed, then retired to her chair once more.

"I expected that. I don't know why I let you try. You'll be up on your feet in a day or two, but for now, just stay in bed. I'd get a wheelchair for you if I could, but we don't have any free. Like I said, we're practically full." Quatre sighed, rather disappointed.

The nurse still nagged him lightly. "You'll be fine in a day or two, if you keep up the sleep and really eat something. And I mean eat it, not just pick at it like a bird. Honestly, you make birds look like gluttons."

"Okay," he said, not thinking about that.

"Hey," said the nurse, glancing at her wristwatch. "I should get going to her now, but I'll tell her about you if you like."

"I'd appreciate that, a lot."

"Alright, you just sleep until I bring dinner."

"I feel like all I've done is sleep for the past few days."

"But let me tell you, you needed it. You said being a nurse must be demanding, but I can't even imagine what being a Gundam pilot and helping save the world must be like. I'm sure you're other Gundam friends have been sleeping non-stop too." And she left the room.

Quatre, a tad startled by such a hasty departure, shrugged and, of course, fell back asleep. And he had a nightmare. He dreamt about the Zero system.

The next day the nurse informed Quatre that the mysterious L4 girl had left the hospital early that morning. She had left a folded note for Quatre though.

"She told me to give it to you, right as she left," said the nurse, a bit confused by it. She surrendered the clumsily folded bit of paper over to Quatre, who fought the urge to tear it open right there. He almost did, until he noticed the word "PRIVATE" scribbled on it. The nurse took her seat and seemed to forget all about the note. Quatre simply held it in his lap until the visit was over, only opening it when she had left the room.

He didn't know what to expect. He wasn't sure what she would write in the note, and, even after opening it and examining it's contents, he was still unsure. It was chicken-scratch. There were some obviously distinguishable words and letters here and there, but the rest of it would take some serious concentration and meticulous examining to figure out what they were. But that didn't disturb him nearly as much as the fact that someone's handwriting, a girl's for that matter, could be so awful.

He asked the nurse about it the next day during visiting hours. He even took a chance and showed the nurse the note. She frowned at it, then handed it back, thinking a bit.

"Oh my gosh, I've got it," exclaimed the nurse, "You see, some of her injuries were from an explosion, in which her entire right arm was burned very badly. The entire arm was wrapped in bandages, including the hand. Because of that she would have had to write this with her left hand. Oh, poor dear must have been right-handed."

And the conversation blossomed from there.

Quatre was released from the hospital two days later. He had been up and walking since the day that girl had left, which he had found rather frustrating. Even though he was quite capable of exiting the building on his own, without aid, the nurse was obligated by hospital regulations to bring him out in a wheelchair. They did it around four in the morning, so the press wouldn't find out. They had been convinced that he was not a Gundam pilot, but they were still hounding any kid who had been part of the rebellion.

Quatre felt extremely awkward in the chair. Especially in the clothes that the nurse had gotten for him. They were hand-me-downs from her twenty-year-old son. Apparently, he had out-grown them when he was about thirteen. She had brought them to Quatre in a beat up old duffel the night before.

"Here, I thought you might need these," she had said, tossing the bag on the foot of the bed.

"You really didn't have to," said Quatre.

"Oh yes I did! They just cut you out of that space suit and the bloody clothes you were wearing under it when you got to the emergency room. They were all thrown away."

Quatre had chewed his lip, he didn't even remember anything after getting into the ambulance. Maybe someone would tell him what happened later.

"Anyway," the nurse teased, "I'm not about to let you leave in just that hospital gown, chicken legs."

Quatre blushed scarlet. He turned to the bag and peeked in. It was full of large black tee shirts and baggy cargo pants. Not his style at all, but he wasn't in any place to complain. Besides, he was due for a change. He continued to dig, until he found a new toothbrush, toothpaste, a plastic comb, and something was jammed at the bottom. He grabbed it and yanked it out of the bag. Five pair of red boxers. For the brief moment before Quatre jammed them back into the bottom of the bag, he stared at them like a deer in headlights. Then, with an embarrassed crimson lighting up his cheeks, he shoved them back in and zipped the bag up. He looked up at the nurse, with a look of sheer embarrassed terror on his face.

The nurse had simply laughed.

"The shirts and pants are hand-me-downs from my own son, but the...hehe, well, everything else is new. I figured you'd need them."

"Uhhh...you really shouldn't have?"

Shaking the embarrassing memory out of his head, Quatre carefully got up out of the chair when he saw his sister and a big, friendly looking man, her husband, standing in front of a car. He smiled at them happily, and almost ran into their arms.

But he turned and faced the nurse. She looked a bit teary eyed, but not bad.

"Thank you for everything," he said, sincerely.

"No problem. I enjoyed talking with you. You just take care, alright?"

"Yeah, you too," he said. He gave her one last smile, then moved quickly into his sister's arms. They embraced, and then he turned and faced, or rather looked up at, her husband. He extended his hand slowly, which the big man took and pulled Quatre in to a great bear hug. Quatre was dumbstruck, not knowing how to react. This enormous man whom he had never seen before in his entire life was squeezing the daylights out of him. But that seemed to be happening a lot. The man ended the embrace, then stood back and looked at his undersized brother-in-law, keeping his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"I am so glad...I don't even know what to say. We are so pleased that you're staying with us for a while." Though the man had just been squeezing the life out of Quatre a few moments before, the greeting wasn't so much emotional as it was a simple warm welcome.

Soon enough, Quatre had situated himself in the backseat of the car and his newly found brother-in-law and sister were driving home. He turned and watched the scenery of the colony whiz by the window. He hadn't realized how tired and achy he was that morning, but now that the excitement had died down, it was starting to catch up with him. He leaned his head against the window and stared out. Dana and Benjamin were talking about something in the front seat, but Quatre tuned them out, only hearing the pleasant murmur of their voices. The time seemed to trudge by. The ache that had originated in his side was moving slowly throughout his whole body, up to his head. The pain medication that he had been so soused up on almost the whole time at the hospital was beginning to wear off. He had taken some right before leaving the hospital, in anticipation of a semi-long drive home, but this was simply ridiculous! He had had no idea that the ride would take so long, or that traffic would be so bad. Thinking about the note and the newspaper picture of Sandrock, which were both carefully folded and tucked safely in his pocket, gave him some comfort, but not much. He slid down a little in the seat and rested his head against the back of it, closing his eyes. He didn't exactly mean to fall asleep, but he couldn't help it. The rest of the car ride passed him by unnoticed, and soon enough, Benjamin had turned around in his front seat and was gently shaking Quatre's knee.

"Hey, we're here," he said as Quatre slowly opened his eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I must have dosed off," Quatre mumbled, fumbling to undo the seatbelt and open the car door.

Quatre got out and looked at the quaint little house. In a quaint little neighborhood. It was very...quaint. He hoped that there was a quaint little spare bed in there with his name on it, because all he wanted to do was lay down. Dana beamed at him and practically skipped to the door. Quatre sighed and was about to follow, but a large hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Uhh, Quatre..." Benjamin began, in an unsure, yet fatherly tone. "I-we are trying to promote pacifism in this house. We are trying to teach Lee the ways of a true pacifist. I know that you were fighting to promote and secure pacifism in this world, and we are grateful. But, and I hope that I am not sounding to imposing, but I would really appreciate it if you didn't really talk about...it. For both Lee and Dana. It hurts her to think about it. You should have seen her when you first arrived in the emergency room. And Lee, I don't want him to...to get any...ideas. So please-"

"I understand," Quatre said, quickly.

Benjamin looked at him, and then smiled. "Thank you, Quatre," he said, patting an enormous hand on Quatre's shoulder. And the two went into the house.

The inside of the house was just like the outside-quaint. In the entryway, there stood a large grandfather clock, reading one o'clock in the afternoon.

"I should go help Dana in the kitchen with lunch," said Benjamin. "Your room is upstairs and to the left. It's the only room on that side of the hall, so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding it. Feel free to make yourself at home. Lunch should be ready soon."