Chapter 2 :: The Rain Will Drive Your Past Away It's impossible for people to break away from that which binds them, especially if that something is a habit or a learned instinct. I learned that the hard way. I was told through years of training that I was to follow my emotions and follow through with my missions no matter what - two contradictory sentences. Emotions served only to complicate the completion of a mission, so why was I told to rely on them? Perhaps he wanted me to surpass him in a way no one else could. Perhaps he wanted me dead. He's gone now so it doesn't matter. What does matter is that peace has finally settled on this planet we call Earth and on the satellites that orbit it affectionately called Colonies. There are no more wars, no more bloodshed, no more weapons, and no more soldiers. I was a soldier, a long time ago, but now I'm just your average guy. Yeah, I'm the average Joe that sleeps with seven guns within arm's reach throughout his entire apartment. I hate to be cliché, but old habits die hard. Yes, there's a purpose to me being here, though I hardly understand what it is myself. I thought I had outlived my usefulness in the year AC196, the year total pacifism became the word of the street. After AC196, all weapons and ammunitions disappeared off the market. People collect them now as trophies to hang on their walls. Something they can point at and say, "I have a genuine model used during the wars. Isn't it beautiful?" With the exception of four other people I may be the last one in this small galaxy that doesn't mount their guns under glass. I prefer mine to be right where I can get to them. He's been visiting me everyday lately. Sometimes we head out to the bars, sometimes we just stay here and talk. Or rather he talks, I sit and listen. I don't mind listening to him either, his voice has that melodic quality about it that soothes this old soldier's mind. Funny hearing me call myself old - I'm only twenty-five. In some ways I am old, tired and old. It hurts to live on even if he's here with me. It hurts to know I don't have a purpose. The Preventers are shutting down their offices, Relena is busy being Queen of the World, and here I am, a former war hero, with an office job. It's so different from the times I worked out on the battlefield, intercepting missions through coded files, hacking into confidential files. There's no place for old soldiers like me who were trained strictly for battle. So what am I left doing now that there are no great battles to be fought? I sit in the basement of a dingy building and decrypt files that the higher ups send me. It's degrading, but it's work. I have to pay the rent and I have to eat. I still stay in shape despite the introduction of a sedentary lifestyle. I go to the gym everyday and run the five miles from here to work as opposed to taking the shuttle. I know the other workers talk about me behind my back and call me names such as has-been, loser, and misfit. There are a couple of other ones, but I don't care to repeat them. They don't dare say it to my face. They know I'm a former Gundam pilot and they know I can still smash their heads like grapes, but they also know the law holds me back and that I'm trying to uphold the pacifistic nature of the world. Sometimes I hate myself. Duo usually shows up around six o'clock in the evening, which gives me enough time to take those damn meds prescribed to me and wake up. I hate them - the small capsules I have to take everyday. I'd lose my job otherwise. The resident doctor told me I needed them if I ever hoped to accomplish a normal life. Did I mention that I didn't tell him about the guns in my room? Oh...well now you know. So he stuck me on these pills and I suppose I take them out of some screwed sense of duty. I hate them though. They take away my consciousness and I see everything through dulled eyes and ears. Everything feels fuzzy whenever I swallow these things. Sometimes I can't even hear Duo talk or I can barely see him sitting just five feet away from me. It's torture you know...to be able to be so close to something you desire and never get it. He'd turn me away if I ever told him...besides, emotions just get in the way. These pills are designed to suppress my emotions. A few months back I decided to stop taking them and flushed them all down the toilet, hoping to whatever god existed that the doctor wouldn't find out and have me fired. I barely remember what happened during those four weeks. The dullness was worse than ever and I ended up taking time off work. I think a neighbor found me passed out on the floor, but like I said, I can't remember. Duo didn't show up for a few days, which is lucky I guess since I spent those days in the hospital. They force fed me through tubes and sent me home with another bottle of pills. I've taken them ever since...they warned me that I'd lose my job if I tried to starve myself again. They didn't understand...I just don't have what it takes anymore. I don't have what it takes to live anymore. I never thought I'd give up, but this...it's too much. I can't bear it anymore. Sometimes I feel like holing myself up in my room and just crying until there aren't any tears left. I never cried when I was younger, even when Odin died. I didn't cry when that little girl died either...The doctor doesn't know about them either. I don't want him to know. Duo came again today. He was more melancholy than usual. I wonder why. Hn, just Duo being Duo I suppose. He hides a lot from me with his enigmatic words even though he doesn't know it. I remain as stoic as ever on the outside, but inside...there's something clawing at me, trying to get out. I don't like it though...and the pills dull it sometimes. I may hate them, but they help every so often. "If you ever need it, you know I'm here, right?" I didn't answer him when he asked. Instead I went back to work, leaving him alone to sit on the bed and think. He was unusually quiet and when he left, I actually regretted not talking to him. Then again, what would I say? "Yeah, I know you're there for me, but sometimes I don't realize it because I'm too doped up on anti-depressants to notice." or "Hey, Duo, guess what? I'm taking anti-depressants because I've tried to commit suicide five times in the last six months. Oh and by the way, I've been in love with you for the past nine years." Ch' not in this lifetime. The rain is falling again. I can hear it pounding against the windows and rushing along the gutters. Someone once said that rain washes away sins much like blood off the hands. I tried to believe them then, but I was too caught up in everything to really pay attention. Maybe I should try it... The wind is blowing really hard out here and the rain feels like needles on my skin. Still, I walk without a jacket or umbrella, letting the water soak me through and through. I want it to cleanse me of anything and everything I've done wrong. I want to start over, kill this outer shell known as Heero Yui and start over. I'd like to have a real name for once, not just a code name or "Boy." Odin was so eloquent sometimes...I wonder what I'd name myself though. I am Japanese...maybe a Japanese name. Or what about an American na-- I start and lower my head. Something...American... Why is it that even now I think of him? I know he's reaching out to me, but I can't accept him...I don't think he truly understands what will happen if I reach back. He can't know how I feel about him. Besides, he has Hilde, doesn't he? He sure talks about her a lot. That hurts too, knowing that he doesn't talk about me the same way he talks about her. So much pain...I just wish this rain would take it all away. I walk, my arms outstretched, through the abandoned part of my area. There isn't one part of me that isn't water logged or hurting. Water is falling from my eyes too, but it's warm, unlike the icy rain. Hn...it's fruitless to brush it away, the rain will hide it. In the same manner that it will hide my sins and my unforgivable trespasses. A sudden chill runs through me and I stop in the middle of what used to be a courtyard. A broken statue stares out at me with faded granite eyes, its wings are eroded from weather and man. Around it a weed garden is growing, choking small blue flowers. Muddy patches of earth where cobblestones once laid rounds out this once picturesque scene. The rain keeps pounding down on me and unconsciously I move under the covered garden path. Shivers wrack my body and I hug myself, trying to keep in the warmth I didn't know I had. I hope no one finds me here. I hope I die like this, alone and cold, the same in life as in death. It wouldn't hurt so much then. I suppose I shouldn't care about my job anymore at this stage. Those doctors can take their damn pills and their therapy sessions and stick them up their asses. I don't want to live anymore. This isn't living anyhow. Moving from day to day with nothing to look forward to but the occasional glance from a forbidden love. Never knowing if the next paper to come down to my so-called office will be a pink slip. I was more alive when I was self-destructing during the war. I was more alive when I jumped out of the Alliance Military Hospital with Duo. I was more alive when I was fighting, never knowing if I was going to die. Now I know I'm going to die. Where's the fun in that? I'll die alone or with Relena hanging off me at every turn. She insists on calling me everyday even though I told her I wasn't interested. She cried. I hate to make people cry, that's why I try to kill them as painlessly as possible. I told her I had someone else in mind and until that someone else either turned me down or died, I wouldn't be able to accept anyone else. She still insists on calling. Maybe she knows. Hn, I doubt it. "Heero?" My head snaps up and I curse myself for how I must appear. I'm sitting with my legs tucked up against my chest, my arms wrapped around my knees. I must appear weak, stupid and weak. Through my somewhat fuzzy vision I see someone approaching. Jumping up and I reach around to grab my gun and find nothing there. I'm confused...I always take my gun - no, that was during the war. There's a law against weapons now. Backing up, I look to either side for an escape. The pills I took are starting to wear off. My hand absently shoots to my jean pocket only to find it empty. I left them at home. Chikuso. I turn back around and the fuzzy object is moving towards me again. It's reaching out to me. It's coming for me. Finally, after all this time, it's coming for me. Doctor J sent it...it's here to kill me. I'm going to die. My mind goes numb and I take off, barely feeling the pain when I stumble and a sharp rock jabs into my hand. I still haven't told him. I can't let that thing catch me. I can't die yet. I survived a war. I can't die. Not until I tell him... I can't die! "Get back here!" Run. Run. Run. "Heero!" Turn a corner and keep running, I can hear it chasing me. Its feet are pounding against the sidewalk as it struggles to keep up. I have to outrun it. I have to escape. My legs feel sluggish though and suddenly I find myself on the ground. My leg hurts...I scramble back to my feet and keep going. My right leg won't work right though and I limp even as I run. I can't let it catch me. Even though it hurts, I have to live. It's stupid, but it'd take me thinking I was going to die to actually make me want to live. "Stop!" Traffic. I hear cars whizzing by and then a horn blaring. I keep going, feeling some sort of wind tear at me. I can't stop, I have to escape. I can't tell what's going on anymore. The rain in my eyes and the fear caused by this sudden crash from the pills are driving me insane. The only thing guiding me is instinct and I obey, trying desperately to escape whatever the threat might be. Before I would have faced it. Now I don't have the courage. "Heero! WAIT!!" Something screeches in my ear and I stop, my eyes faintly recognizing a dark blue blur. Something slams into me and I bounce up, slamming into something else that shatters sending shards into my skin. I don't feel it though. This temporary lull induced by the amount of medicine I take is enough to dull any physical pain. I feel my head hit the hard pavement of the street and someone screaming. More cars screech to a halt and I hear someone yelling for an ambulance. I don't understand. That thing didn't catch me...so why does it feel like I'm falling away? "Please...don't die..."