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BROKEN TIES
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Gather
ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying.
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
Robert
Herrick (1591-1674)
Forever
Lost
The
year was After Colony 243, date: October 7th, the weather was cold,
but dry.
I
was dressed in black, as I was on my way to a rather unhappy occasion. Five days
ago, the paper announced that Quatre Rebarba Winner, president of the Winner
corporation and several other institutes I did not bother learning to recite,
had died of a heart attack on October 1st at the age of sixty-three.
I
was here, at his funeral, to pay my last respects to the man I had once known as
just a boy.
There
were a lot of people at the funeral, so many that even his family was shielded
from my sight as well as that of the many reporters and photographers. I
deliberately kept my distance. I hadn’t even wanted to be here in the first
place.
During
my ride on the highways, still damp from yesterday’s heavy rainfall I had
tried to recall some memories of those times as a gundam pilot in the war, of
those times afterwards, but only little had shown. Heero, the perfect warrior,
who had committed suicide more than once, failing each time. Duo, the
ever-cheerful weirdest of the group –though non of us could really be called
normal– with his braid that reached over his butt. Wufei, who was always
ranting about women and injustice, but who, nevertheless always had the most
female friends of us all. The one who had got his revenge on Treize Kushrenada,
our enemy from the very start. And of course Quatre, the first friend I ever had
and the first one to leave the group after six years, the one who could plot and
lie like no other, this mainly strengthened by he fact that he always seemed
innocent, too innocent to tell a lie.
But
much more than these vague sketches hadn’t come up. No particular events, no
pictures in my head of all of us together, not even a memory of the many fights
we had fought, or even the memory of their voice.
I
had no photographs of my past, I didn’t like them, I didn’t like the idea of
lies being trapped in a frame, the idea of seeing people happy when I knew that
only days after that picture was taken, their happiness was wiped away before
their very own eyes. Dwelling on the past was futile, I hadn’t even wanted to
come here today and hadn’t gone here if my sister, Catherine hadn’t made me.
I
felt sorry for my wife, now, standing here. Leisha was home alone now and I knew
she hated being alone. She was sixty, three years younger than I was and I knew
she always regretted the fact that she couldn’t have children with me. We had
tried, but I turned out to be sterile and by the time we filed for adoption, we
had reached our forties and were deemed too old. I had always blamed myself for
this, even though she said it was alright, that our love could exist without
children as well, but every time I was forced to leave her alone for more than a
couple of hours, I felt guilty at what I saw as was my fault.
However,
like Cathy, she had encouraged me to go here, and I could only guess why I
always let myself be persuaded so easily by those two women I cared for most. So
now here I was, leaning against a tree, watching the crowd in front of me, every
now and then catching a glimpse of pale blonde, almost white hair, that, I
realised, belonged to the Winner family.
I
listened to the words of a man who spoke of the loss of a good man to his
family, to his people, to everyone else, but I barely registered the words. I
wasn’t crying, I was emotionless once again, that mask I thought I had buried
long ago, slipping back in place again as I was in the presence of the time I
wore it, even if that presence was now dead.
Suddenly
I heard a raspy voice on my left. “Barton? Trowa Barton?”
I
looked at the source of the voice and saw a slightly tinted man, with his
approximately 163 cm I was 13 centimetres taller than him. His blue coat was too
small to cover all of his dark sweater and his pants hung droopily around his
legs, half covering the white shoes he wore beneath that.
His
hair was greying, like mine, only his was darker, showing that it had once been
either dark-brown or black. His eyebrows were thick and heavy, drawing attention
away from the small, dark eyes that adorned his face. He had a small, grey
beard, combed flat, though a few hairs refused their masters wishes and stuck
out anyway. His face showed only a few wrinkles and he looked no older than
fifty, though I knew that he was at least sixty-two.
“Wufei
Chang?” The smaller man nodded. Besides aging, Wufei hadn’t changed that
much. He still looked as if he weighed not more than a feather, even though he
was wearing a sweater and a coat. He was still small and his eyes still held
that sparkle of pleasure. And he still flexed his right hand when he was
nervous, I noticed amused. It seemed inappropriate to smile I a place like this,
so I kept my face straight.
“How
are you?” I asked, by lack of inspiration.
“Good,
good.” He answered softly. “Married, father of three, you?”
“Couldn’t
get children.” I replied, my voice monotonously. Wufei had never been my best
friend, but he was one of us nevertheless. However, after so many years, I was
not prepared to immediately share all my emotions with him.
“Oh.”
He replies and bows his head a little in respect. Then he turns to the grave,
watching the crowd.
“forty-two
years since we were all together last.” He sighed, as the we saw one of the
family members of the Winner house rise onto a stone so that his head stuck out
over the crowd. I recognised the man from TV as Quatre’s eldest son, who was
taller than his father had been, though Quatre, with his 170 centimetres
wasn’t small himself. I only saw his back, but even like that he looked like
Quatre. Olivier was thirty-seven or thirty-eight, I knew and wasn’t supposed
to fully take over the business until his fortieth birthday. However, the recent
events would certainly change that.
“And
now we never will be again.” I added, as the blonde man began to speak, his
voice wavering slightly as he spoke not of Mr. Winner the businessman, but as
Quatre, the father who prepared his son for a life as a leader.
“So,
when did you get married?”
There
was a short pause as he watched the blonde. “Two-ten About a month before my
thirtieth birthday. You?”
“I
was Twenty-eight.” I answered. “Met her trough my sister three-and-a-half
years earlier.”
“How
is Catherine doing?”
“She’s
fine, healthy and all. Grandmother of seven already, numbers eight is due in two
months, number nine half a month later.”
“She
must love that.”
“Yeah,
she’s great with children.” Then I looked at Wufei. “And how are you. What
did you do after the preventors stopped?”
Wufei
looked dreamingly. “Bought a piece of land back in old China. I married Kayo
there and we built a dojo where I started teaching in my ancestor’s name. My
youngest one, my son, will take over after me, though my daughters were taught
there as well.”
I
knew it had always been Wufei’s dream to have a place where he could teach in
his ancestor’s name and I was glad for him that he had managed it. Slowly,
memories were slipping back to me of some of the more serious times together.
Like when we were eighteen and we all sat around the table and sulkily, because
outside it rained and we told each other what we wanted in the future, all
speaking in a tone as if we were talking to nobody at all.
I
remembered how Quatre wished for a wife he loved for real and not just for
public. To him, that kind of relationship wasn’t worth anything. He was the
kind of guy that would give everything up if only he found the right person. And
he had. His wife, Camilia, was a beautiful brunette when she was young, and even
now she looked ten years younger than her true age told. She was a good mother
from what I’d seen on the news and I knew hat Quatre wouldn’t have taken her
if he weren’t certain about the relationship.
Quatre
had been a fine person.
Unaware
that I had spoken these words aloud, I turned my head when Wufei sighed and
confirmed. “He could be devious as Duo, though. I never did
find out whether it was Duo or Quatre who hid my katana under the house,
causing it to get all wet and dirty after lying there for a month.” I chuckled
at the memory of that little prank, but Wufei didn’t seem to like it so much.
“Could throw the thing away. And it had been a present too!”
“That
was Duo.” Said a voice from behind us. “Though Quatre found out and didn’t
tell.”
Both
Wufei and I turned around to face a man somewhere between my height and
Wufei’s The hair around ears was white and he wore a brown hat to cover up the
baldness on top of the head. Thick glasses stood in front of the cobalt-blue
eyes that once stood proudly as if they could skin you alive, small eye-brows
raised a little above the glasses. The face looked wrinkly and old, cheeks were
slightly rounded and his lips were thin and drawn into a tight line.
He
wore a brown coat that matched his hat and black pants that looked as if they
were at least thirty years old and had recently hung in the mud. The nose of his
black shoes stuck out under the pants, making his feet look even bigger than
they already were. I shook my head slightly. Heero never was good when it came
to clothes.
“Yuy?”
Wufei was the first to voice his name. “You look...” old was the right word,
gained weight too, but Wufei kept himself from saying that. Finally he settled
with “different.”
“J’s
experiments.” He explained quickly. Months later he explained to us that in
order to make him in that condition at the age of fifteen, sacrifices had to be
made, in this case, J sacrificed his life span, not expecting him to outlive the
war anyway.
“Chang,
Barton.” He nodded at the both of us, showing he recognised us. “How are you
these days?” We soon found out that Heero had one daughter, Nancy, a brunette
who didn’t want a family herself.
The
tree of us watched together how people placed flowers on the coffin and how the
wooden box got lowered into the ground. Non of us spoke as we witnessed all of
this, non of us had brought anything to give Quatre into his grave. The people
started slowly moving away, when suddenly a boy around the age of fifteen
appeared. No doubt he was Quatre’s grandson, he looked exactly like what
Quatre had looked like when he was that age, only darker clothes, but the same
innocent face, the same pale hair, the same bright blue eyes, even the same
voice when he spoke.
“I’m
looking for Trowa Barton, Wufei Chang and Heero Yuy.” He said, looking up
questioningly.
I
nodded as Wufei spoke. “That’s us.”
“I
have something- m-my grandfather wanted you to have it. I-it’s not in his
will, but he asked me to find you and g-give it.” His voice wavered as he
tried to fight his tears in front of us. Brave a Quatre, this young man was.
Only then did I see that he was carrying a paper bag, which he now held out for
us to take.
Wufei
smiled sadly at the boy as he took the bag from him and the child turned away
and ran back to his parents where he was scolded for running off like that. It
was sad, being scolded for acting your age.
“What
about Duo?” Heero voiced my thoughts as I, too, had realised Duo was the only
one missing. “He only mentioned us three.”
Suddenly,
Wufei turned his eyes down as if he was going to confess something bad. “Duo
died in an accident thirty-one years ago, when he was thirty-two.” Neither
Heero nor I knew what to say as we both looked up in shock. “He had a motor
accident, Hilde contacted me after I’d been trying to locate Duo near my
lustrum wedding feast. They’d been married.”
That
came as a great shock, Duo dead all this time and Heero nor I knew about this.
Wufei had known, though, that was why ex-pilot 02 wasn’t here. Quatre had
known too, how? And how could he have known we would be here? Had he felt it?
Had he known we’d be drawn to this place once we learned of his death? But
that had come so sudden! I stared at the bag Wufei was holding How had he known
he would die? His heart-attack came so sudden and he was still years below the
average age, he was still young, how had he known? And what was in there?
Defeated,
we walked past the grave as all the others had left and we paid our respects
there, painfully. Then we took Heero’s car to a coffee-shop, where we opened
the bag that had been left to us. It was a thick photo album, inside was a
letter, handwritten by Quatre himself, written to us:
‘Dear
Heero, Trowa and Wufei.
When
you read this, I will be gone. However, I cannot go before I have offered you my
apologies for screwing everything up so many years ago. I should never have left
you like that, you did not deserve it. So often did I think back of those times
we were together. The Maganacs were adults guiding me, but you were my first
real friends and some of the best I had. I have few regrets in my life, but
losing you is one of the greatest.
I
know I’m going to die, I feel it, though I cannot explain it. I am not sad, I
lived a happy life. There used to be so much out there that I wanted to do when
we were fifteen, but I understand now that life is full of not’s and nevers.
However, I would not have been the same, had our friendship been one of those
nevers as well.
It
is too late to make up with Duo now, but I pray it is not too late for you. When
you meet at my funeral, which I somehow know you will all attend, I will have my
grandson give you this book, which I want you to have. It contains all the best
pictures of the five of us together, remembering those few times I felt truly
free and alive. Please keep it and look at it and remember the good times as I
do, for all that has happened can not be taken from us anymore.
I
thank you for being my friend back then and hope that you can one day forgive me
for my mistakes.
Quatre R. Winner, Pilot 04 of Sandrock
AC243,
September 19th.’
That
day the three of us looked at the pictures together and laughed as we remembered
all those good times we had. The words Quatre had spoken in his letter reminded
me that pictures do not only hold lies and fake happiness, but also those times
we were truly happy, even if that happiness lasted no longer than a day. That
much could never be taken from us anymore.
It
held so many pictures, the book just didn’t seem to have an end. There were
pictures of all of us together, pictures of just a few of us, pictures of funny
moments, pictures we didn’t even know were made, like that one where Wufei was
looking for his sword. Duo, all dressed up in a Santa suit, his beard not
correctly tied so one side let loose after awhile. Heero, covered in food,
trying to glare the camera to death, myself in some new outfit Duo just had to
photograph me in, but my head was not in the picture because I was too tall and
Duo justified it by saying how my face didn’t wear any clothes anyway. Quatre,
from the side, a smile on his face as he was watching something his father would
never have approved of, had he known what his son had been doing.
Yes,
we sat and remembered and it was well past ten o’clock that night when we
finally parted, leaving our addresses, phone numbers and e-mails behind so we
wouldn’t loose sight of each other again.
This
was all twenty-two years ago. I am now the only remaining gundam pilot left.
Wufei, Heero and I kept in contact this time without the help of the two
positive boys who both died too young. Every year on the date of Quatre’s
burial, we sat down together with the photo album and looked at it, recalling
all those memories again. Oh, how thankful we were now and how much we regretted
that we had just allowed Quatre to leave like that. But we were old enough to
have learned that it was just what happened in time, win some friends, loose
some.
Heero
died five years after Quatre, simply of old age, but I didn’t think he minded
much. He couldn’t handle the fact that when he was only sixty-five, he already
had to use a wheelchair and his hearing seemed to get worse and worse by the day
as well, until, in the end, he had gone deaf.
Heero
never imagined he’d outlive the war in the first place, but when he did, he
tried his best t adjust. His life, from what I’ve heard mostly, had been a
good one, though difficult as he couldn’t accept aging and no longer being in
top-condition. However, not once did he speak ill about doctor J and his
experiments, even though he had every right to do so, as they had made him into
what he was and could not accept. Heero was a proud man, as his daughter had
written on his tombstone when he died.
Wufei
lived longer, he died last year when he was eighty-three. These days that is
still a year below the average age of 84 which men seem to reach, but Wufei
never seemed to care. He got sick with a recently discovered virus a year prior
to his death and in the last weeks of his life, no-one above the age of sixty or
below the age of ten was allowed near him anymore, for if they touched the body
juices that had been coming out from every opening the human body has, they
would be at risk as well. His wife, his friends, his great-grandson and I, we
were no longer allowed to be with him and his daughters, son and grandchildren
all had to dress up in special clothes before they were allowed to enter.
Wufei
never got to touch his great-granddaughter. Who was born two weeks before his
death and that little fact pained him so much, that I decided to enter the glass
globe he was placed in anyway, no longer caring about getting sick myself. I was
eighty-four now, but when I was fifteen, I could never have imagined myself
reaching this age. So when the doctors were out of sight, I took some protective
clothing and entered the globe with a picture of the new-born girl stuffed in my
pocket. For a moment I felt fifteen again, as if I was breaking in to an enemies
base to save a fellow-pilot from the evil doctors and in a way, that was exactly
what I had done many times. Back then I had teamed up with the enemy several
times, to destroy them from the inside. This tactic, I figured, wouldn’t work
so well anymore, now that I was showing my age, so I chose another path instead
Wufei
didn’t allow me to touch him and I could understand that, but for half an hour
we talked about this girl who looked so much like her mother, Wufei’s
granddaughter had looked when she had just been born.
I’d
been inside for twenty minutes before the doctors realised what was going on,
but I ignored them as the spoke trough the intercom if I would kindly remove
myself from the patient’s side, for my own safety. Ten minutes later, three
doctors entered the globe and I had no choice but to leave, though it felt as if
I got arrested. Yet, before they had dragged me all the way out, I smiled at
Wufei and mouthed him a ‘mission accomplished’.
I
refused to be screened for the decease Wufei had and till this day, I have not
yet found a single trace of the illness. If I got it, I will discover it later,
rather than having years stolen from me by endless trips to hospitals I despise
anyway. My wife understands this and she supports me, even when I tell her that
I’d rather die five weeks earlier than spend my last minutes in a globe like
Wufei, not being allowed to kiss and touch and hug my wife goodbye.
She
understands me completely and tells me often enough that she will be with me all
the way, no matter what, as she knows I will be with her as well. When she says
that, I can do nothing more than kiss her and thank her and hold her, hoping
that we will spend our last years in all the luck we have spent life in so far.
Quatre’s
photo album stands on the nightstand on my side, the original note,
unfortunately, I lost, but I had it typed over in my computer. And often, when
my wife is asleep, I take the album and glance in it, remembering the four
friends with whom I helped save the world. People can take my money, take my
childhood, take anything from my present life, but they can not take my past and
they can not take the memories I have stored deep down inside of me.
It’s
funny how, when you’re young, you have so many friends and you think you’ll
always stay together, when later on only so few are left. Even those who left
some pretty deep footprints in your life can be gone only a few years later.
I
finger the carved front of the green album, just before I put out the bed light
and pull the covers over my head.
Ah,
those good old days.
And
I crawl closed to my Leisha, seeking her warmth with my body as I hold her
tightly in my arms.
Trowa
Barton. Pilot 03 of Heavyarms.
AC265
September 9th.
~The End~