Stronger

The Earth was below him now, and the sea, and the thin blue shield of atmosphere that was all that kept life alive. Without that clean blue air, a man’s blood would flash to boiling in an instant, a gaseous, life-preserving fluid that flowed around the shuttle he piloted in. Behind him were the colonies: thin metal shells encasing that same atmosphere, floating in space thousands of miles from each other even in the colony clusters. Wars had been fought been those from the Earth and those hardy people who chose to inhabit the colonies, and of the last two Heero Yuy had been a part. //Strange,// he thought as the shuttle sped mile by mile through vacuum towards that beautiful blue layer of air. //The colonies have been in through two wars now that as a whole they wanted no part of, yet both times we who swore to defend the colonies have been defending the Earth. Very odd.//

And he had been forced into his least favorite occupation, although Duo might argue that point: killing. No, he did not enjoy it one iota, although if the mission called for it or it was found necessary to keep a cover he would. Except for one person.

Ooh, yeah!
Hush, just stop!

Heero shook his head irritably. Relena had managed to escape his aim repeatedly, mostly through dumb luck. As to why he had not shot her dead in the Sank Kingdom, she had been needed then. He almost regretted that decision when Romefeller made her their Chief Representative, but they did seem to be trying to follow her ideals. So he let her live one more time, and she was a critical figure in the conflict that had only ended the week before.

Mariemeia Khushranada was in stable condition at the hospital: Relena and Lady Une both said she was quite the little sweetheart at heart, but with the occasional temper that was as poisonous as the shade of her fiery red hair. He had gone to see her only the day before, to apologize.

*

Mariemeia smiled up at him from the bed. The whole room smelled slightly of the classic Khushranada roses her father Treize was reported to have loved, and Relena sat by her side, watching them both like a hawk. He laid the generous bouquet of daffodils into her lap, not quite meeting her eyes.

“I remember you, you were at the mansion. You’re that Gundam pilot…”

“He has a name, Mariemeia,” Relena chided gently.

“Well, I haven’t learned it yet, so how can I call him anything else?” the redhead shot back with a child’s unerring logic.

“That’s all right,” Heero found himself saying. “You can call me what you want to. I go by Heero, but it’s not my real name.”

“That’s something I’ve always been curious about, Heero,” said Lady Une from the doorway. He had known she was there: it was a bad idea to try sneaking up on one who had been trained to kill first and ask questions later for years if it was even possible to sneak up on him. “What is your real name?”

“I would rather not say, Lady Une.” Not with that past of his. “Mariemeia?”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry…”

Curious cornflower eyes gazed up at him, her father’s eyes. “What for, Heero?”

“For trying to kill you.”

Relena laughed. “Take the apology, Mariemeia. It’s more than he’s ever offered me, and God only knows how many times he’s tried to kill me. Not to mention it only comes when hell freezes over.”

Mariemeia did not laugh, however. She gazed up into Heero’s darker blue eyes steadily. “There’s no apology needed,” she said with great dignity. “The gun was empty, lucky for me. But it was symbolic, not real, so no apology is needed. I’ll accept it if you feel that you must say something, but there are no hard feelings here. Frankly, I should be the one apologizing.”

Heero was puzzled and making no attempt to hide it. “For what?”

“I’m sorry I put you and the others and the whole world through another war when all anyone wanted was peace and they had it. Can you pass that on to the other four?”

“I can’t speak for anyone other than myself… but I say that I forgive you, Mariemeia. And I will tell the others.”

*

Moments later had seen him outside with Relena, who had once more tried to get him to marry her. He now smiled grimly at the memory, at the recollection of her face as he finally and firmly told her off in the hospital lobby.

There’s nothing you can do or say,
night, night
I’ve had enough
I’m not your property as from today
night, night

Quite honestly, he had never enjoyed anything quite so much as that classic look of total shock and humiliation. Relena Dorlan might be Vice-Foreign Minister, true, but that did not mean she could not be snatched down a peg or six like anyone else. And in front of all those people, too… she might not try to chase him for a month or two now.

Why had that goose chased him all over hell’s half-acre, anyways? She was so appalled by the fact that he was a soldier… //Maybe she was trying to protect me. If so, the time to protect me would have been just last week. I thought that seeing Mariemeia would just be the cutting torch to the steel girder, but it would seem that is not the case this time.//

You might think that I won’t make it on my own
But now I’m stronger than yesterday
Now it’s nothing but my way
My loneliness ain’t killing me no more
I, I’m stronger
Than I ever thought that I could be
night, night

Doctor J had done his damnedest to try training the emotion out of a human. The experiments with Heero seemed to prove that that had been done, but it had taken more than half of his life to do it. And the experiments in real life showed that that emotionless state just could not be maintained by a human, a social creature by nature. Not if sanity was also to be kept. Even Trowa, whom Heero considered rather cold by his own standards, had warmed up and thawed out quite a bit since the beginning of the Eve Wars. The Japanese boy had accepted it, knowing what was happening to him as he trained: Doctor J wanted a soldier and young Heero was fascinated by the machine the old man was building, but he wasn’t happy about that treatment, either. That old sadist had gone so far as to try breaking Heero in every way possible: he hadn’t succeeded. Heero had emerged stronger than ever before, and had been on his own since the first Operation Meteor. Thinking ahead now, Heero knew without a doubt that he could do it again. Four friends sure cut down on the loneliness that had been cutting him down and forced him to take refuge in the Sank Kingdom with Relena, horror of horrors.

I used to go with the flow
Didn’t really go by me
You might think that I can’t take it no more
‘cause now I’m stronger than yesterday
Now it’s nothing but my way
My loneliness ain’t killing me no more
I, I’m stronger
come on now
oh yeah
Here I go, on my own
I don’t need nobody ‘cause I’m on my own
Here I go now, on my own now
I don’t need nobody, not anybody
Here I go, here I go, here I go, here I go, here I go…

Heero shifted his thoughts away from Relena. With his oath never to kill again reaffirmed the day before to Mariemeia and Lady Une, a great weight he’d never felt had lifted from his shoulders. The shuttle shivered and shuddered as the first particles of atmosphere showed their resistance to the passage of the massive craft. The Japanese pilot looked down at his course readings: he was on course, and a small chuckle forced its way out. The course he had taken as he entered the atmosphere for the first time, chased by Zechs Merquise, and again chased by Wufei seemed to mark turning points in his life. Both times, as now, they were identical. He would be ready for the future this time. He was strong enough to handle it. Stronger than before, stronger than yesterday.

all right
Here I go, here I go, here I go, here I go, here I go…
Stronger than yesterday
It’s nothing but my way
My loneliness ain’t killing me no more
I, I’m stronger than yesterday
Now it’s nothing but my way
My loneliness ain’t killing me no more
I’m stronger than yesterday
Now it’s nothing but my way
My loneliness ain’t killing me no more
I, I’m stronger

Owari