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NOTE: These two stories were written over several days and were completed September 10, 2001. They are not based on and in no way related to the terrible tragedies in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania.
Living is death; dying is life. We are not what we appear to be. On this side of the grave, we are exiles, on that citizens; on this side orphans, on that children.
~Henry Ward Beecher
Imagine = Lennon
Full of Grace = MacLachlan
\... = dream sequence
//...// = song lyrics
Imagine
Heero glanced at the clock and sighed. It was after midnight and he could hear his friends in the next room already beginning to celebrate. Exactly one year ago today, they had given up their lives as soldiers for the more ‘peaceful’ existence of civilians. Well, most of them, anyway. WuFei had joined the Preventers and he himself had become a cop back on his home colony.
//Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today ...//
He didn’t even notice the door had opened, until Duo walked up beside him. “Hey man, you gonna join the party or are you going to hide out here all night?”
“I’ll be there in a minute, Maxwell. I’m just thinking.”
“Ah? About this big secret job you won’t tell us about?”
Heero chuckled slightly and shook his head. “No. Just thinking about this past year and everything that’s happened. Come on, let’s go in before WuFei comes looking for us.” He turned toward the door and smiled when he saw the Chinese man standing in the doorway, flanked by Quatre and Trowa.
//Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace ...//
“Still worried that Relena’s peace won’t last?” Quatre asked. The blond smiled and leaned against the door frame.
“Something like that.” Heero lightly pushed the other former pilots back into the room and grinned. “But I say, for now we just forget about that and have some fun. Q, where’s that karaoke machine of yours?”
Duo groaned and quickly hid the microphone. “Please no, Heero. Anything but that ridiculous song again. We do not live in a ‘Yellow Submarine’.”
//Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can//
“Lowe? Detective Lowe, are you alright?”
Heero looked up from the picture on his desk and nodded at his partner. “Yeah.”
“Thinking about them again?” Heero nodded. Tobin sighed and closed the file he had been reading. “Why don’t you just take the day off? I’m sure the captain wouldn’t mind. You haven’t taken a sick day in twenty years.”
Heero sighed and looked at the letter he had found that morning. “I think I will. I have a few things I need to take care of.” He slipped the letter into his jacket pocket and stood from his desk. “I think ... I think I’ll talk to the captain about taking some vacation time.”
Tobin watched his partner in shock. “Vacation? Lowe? He MUST be sick.”
//No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man//
Heero looked around the small apartment for any thing he had forgotten. He picked up the picture frame from the coffee table and sighed at the smiling faces he hadn’t seen in two decades.
//Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world//
Walking into the small yard, the caretaker smiled slightly at the piles of flowers on the five tombstones. “Every year,” he replied quietly. He looked at the two men standing in front of the last grave. “Did you know Mr. Yuy?”
“You could say that,” one of them replied. He placed a single blue and green rose on the head stone and pulled a letter from his coat. “Could you do me a favor, sir? Could you make sure Lady Iria gets this? It’s something I promised an old friend.”
//You may think I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one//
“Heero, what did you give that man at the graveyard?”
Heero glanced at his long time friend. “Something I promised to deliver for Quatre,” he replied.
“So, where to now? Back to L1 or to that island you’ve been telling me about for years?”
Heero smiled slightly at his companion, even though he knew he couldn’t see him. “I don’t know about you, Trowa, but I think I’d rather stay right here. We can always go to the island.”
Trowa nodded slightly. “Good idea. I’d rather be with them, too.”
//I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one//
===========================
Full of Grace
Trowa groaned and tried to sit up. “Don’t move, Barton.”
“Hee--Heero? What happened?” Trowa turned toward the voice and tried to open his eyes. “Heero, I ... I can’t see. What happened?”
Heero grunted slightly and placed another blanket over his friend. “The plane crashed in the mountains. You can’t see because your eyes are burned.” He stopped talking when he heard another voice. “WuFei, I told you to sit still.”
“Tell him the rest, Yuy. He deserves to know what really happened.” WuFei coughed and drew his breath in sharply. “Tell him, Heero.”
//The winter here’s cold and bitter
It’s chilled us to the bone
Haven’t seen the sun for weeks
Too long, too far from home//
“Hush, WuFei. Stop talking. I’ll tell him everything, I promise. Just wait until the rescue teams get here.” Heero adjusted the blanket around WuFei and then put another log on the fire. “I have to go get more wood. Neither of you move.”
Trowa heard Heero leave and then turned to where he thought WuFei was. “What really happened?”
WuFei sighed slightly. “We hit the side of the mountain. The pilot was killed instantly .... so were Quatre and Duo.”
“They’re ... they’re dead?”
“Yeah. And it looks like I’ll be joining them soon.”
//I feel just like I’m sinking
As I claw for solid ground//
“No.” Trowa tried to move closer to his friend and painfully realized that at least one of his legs was badly broken. “WuFei, you can’t die. Heero’s right, we just need to wait until the rescue teams get here.”
“Trowa ... I won’t live that long,” the Chinese man replied. He grunted slightly as he shifted closer to the other man. Taking Trowa’s hand, he gripped it tightly and tried to comfort himself and his friend. “The rescue teams won’t get here in time. My ... injuries are too severe.”
Trowa gripped the other’s hand and tried desperately to look at him. “You can’t die, Fei. You can’t give up now.”
WuFei smiled slightly and closed his eyes. “I’m not giving up, Barton. I just ... can’t ...”
//I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh, darkness I feel like letting go//
Heero walked back into the cave and saw Trowa still holding WuFei’s limp hand. “Trowa?”
“They’re all gone, Heero. It’s just you and me, now.” He reached out with his free hand for the other pilot. “Take us back. Let me stay with them.”
Heero knelt beside his friend and took the offered hand. “What are you saying, Trowa?”
“I don’t want Cathy and the others to think I’m a burden. Just leave me here and get off this mountain.”
“No. How can you even think I would do that, Trowa?” He sighed and leaned against the wall of the cave, pulling out a small picture they had taken the day before at the party. “If you don’t want to go back there, come with me. I’m going back to space. After this, I’ll probably never set foot on Earth again.”
The circus performer thought for several moments. So long, in fact, his companion was beginning to think he had died as well. “Fine. But as soon as we get to space, leave me. I don’t want to be a burden to you, either.”
//If all of the strength, all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love//
\Quatre smiled at the figure in the bed. “Trowa? Trowa, wake up?”
Trowa opened his eyes halfway. Instead of seeing the angelic face he had expected, he instead saw the burned visage of the man he loved. “Qu--Quatre?”\
Heero placed another cold cloth on the young man’s forehead and sighed.
“Sir, you need to get some rest. Please lie down for a while. I’ll take good care of your brother,” the nurse replied. She placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled slightly. “Don’t worry, sir. Your brother is going to be fine.”
Heero stood shakily and leaned against a crutch. “Fine. Just let me know when he wakes up,” he replied. Another nurse helped him into the next room and smiled.
“You and your brother were lucky. Most people who get lost in these mountains never make it out alive. Although I am curious as to how he burned his eyes. Or how you both got out with broken legs.”
Heero remained silent as she led him into the room. He could still hear Trowa, calling out to Quatre.
//It’s better this way, I say
Having seen this place before
Where everything we say and do
Hurts us all the more//
“Trowa? Do you ever think about the crash?”
“All the time.” Trowa turned toward the voice and smiled slightly. “Why? Do you think about it?”
Heero shook his head slightly. “No. Just about what Quatre said before we got on the plane. He was planning on running away from everything. Did you know that? He was going to go to space and wait for you,” he replied. He downed the glass of whiskey and quickly poured another. “That’s what the letter was about.”
Trowa sighed. “Duo was going to do the same thing. Only he didn’t have 29 sisters and a fortune to run from.” He ran his finger along the edge of his glass and smiled. “He asked me to find out where you were living so he could just show up one day and surprise you.”
“I’d give anything to see him again. ‘To absent friends‘.”
“’To absent friends.’”
//It’s just that we stay, too long
In the same old sickly skin
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low//
“Heero? Remember what I asked you to do twenty years ago?”
“You mean, leave you to die?”
//Oh darkness I feel like letting go//
“Yeah. I think ... no, I know I’m dying now. Do you think it would be possible to find our way back to that mountain? The one where all of our friends are buried?”
Heero smiled and shook his head. “Yes, I think we could find it.” He placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. He started coughing and quickly walked to the bathroom.
“Hey buddy, what’s wrong with your friend?”
Trowa turned toward the new voice and smiled. “Same as me. He’s dying.”
//If all of the strength
And all of the courage
Come and Lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this//
Trowa placed the last of the snow on top of the fourth grave and smiled sadly. “Don’t worry my friends. We’ll be together soon.” He felt through the snow for Heero’s police issue gun, then placed it against his heart.
//It’s better this way//