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"Drabbles"Written By: Clara Barton Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following
is an intellectual exercise with no intention of profit. That said,
these characterizations, words, and situations are mine. Please ask
before reprinting. Rating: R A/N: For Angel Starlight, who requested (text)
I just wanted to say, I love you and forgive you, with Relena and
Dorothy. Warnings: angst, language, angst Pairings: RxD, 2x3
"You know that feeling when you have sand everywhere and you can't decide if it's the sand between your toes, or the sand under your fingernails, or the same in your ear, or the sand up your butt that's bothering you the most?" I snorted a laugh, and looked up from my laptop to see Duo Maxwell, my photographer, pull off his Boonie hat and drop it onto the table, a shower of sand falling off of it and off of him. I reflexively pulled my laptop back, even though, with it's military grade case and protected keypad, there wasn't any real danger. "What happened to you? Did you fall into a dune?" "No, I was fucking attacked by one." I arched my eyebrows at that, sure there was a good story there. With Duo, there was always a good story - and rarely one you were expecting. I still remembered the day we had met. Over the last seven years, I had worked with a string of freelance photographers that the Times hired to go out into the field with me whenever I went to the Middle East to work. Each one of them had lasted exactly one assignment and then requested, very respectfully, to never work with someone as batshit crazy and careless with her own life as I was. Just back from a month in Afghanistan, and only two days after I had edited and turned in the final copy of my piece, I was already ready to get back out in the field, and when I walked into my editor's office and saw the lean, long-haired, jean clad and firm butt in front of the desk, I had thought that, at last, my prayers had been answered and I would be assigned a hot female photographer. But then my editor had gestured, and the long-haired photographer had turned to grin at me and I had realized, even before I saw the lack of cleavage, that Duo was not a hot female. Duo was, I learned on our first assignment together, a pain in the ass, a loudmouth, a damn fine photographer, and as much of a thrill seeker as I was. We were the perfect match - hiding behind rubble while the troops we were embedded with took fire and then, as soon as we could, sneaking out to document the horror of war. Duo lasted one assignment. And then another, and then another, until now, two years later, he barely even bothered to pretend being freelance. Before Duo could fill me in on his latest misadventure, however, Quatre Winner, the AP reporter tagging along with us to go through the Yemeni border check, came over to the table. "We're moving out in fifteen," he said. I looked up at him with sympathy. It was his first assignment in the Middle East, and his fair skin was as red as a boiled lobster. "Sounds good." I finished typing up my notes, saved them, and packed away my computer. "You heard from Doro yet?" Duo asked, when Quatre had left us alone again. I gave him a sharp look. "No. Of course not." Duo rolled his eyes. "If you're seriously waiting for her to apologize, you'd be better off waiting for the sun to go nova." I opened my mouth to argue, but then I closed it. He was, after all, right. He had known Dorothy just as long as I had, and while he did not know my fiancee intimately, he knew her temperament. We had met eighteen months ago, when Dorothy had been a surgeon with Doctors Without Borders and Duo and I had done a story on one of their field hospitals. I couldn't say it was love at first sight - as gorgeous as Dorothy was, even with a smatter of blood across the bridge of her nose and her unwashed hair pulled into a sloppy bun and barely contained by a scrub cap, she had grated on my nerves with her arrogance and sense of superiority. We had been at the hospital a week, and I had had dozens of chances to reaffirm my opinion of Dorothy as a sociopathic narcissist, when an IED sent six civilians our way and I stood by and watched Dorothy save the life of a seven year old girl, watched her comfort the child's mother when the girl's brother died, watched Dorothy walk out of the tent, pull off her cap and hang her head in defeat, and I realized that I had been wrong. That didn't mean, of course, that she wasn't still a sociopathic narcissist. It just meant that I wanted her to be my sociopathic narcissist. When she had finally accepted a position at Columbia University Medical Center as a cardiothoracic attending six months ago, we had moved in together, had spent half of the time fighting and half of the time living in each other's pockets. It was hell, and it was bliss. And I wasn't going to be the one to give in, not this time. So I glared at Duo and asked, my voice as calm as possible. "Heard from Trowa?" As intended, it shut him up. He snapped his mouth closed with an audible click, grabbed his hat, and started to walk away. I sighed. That had been low. I had been spending too much time with Dorothy. "Duo-" "Listen, I get it," he turned back, his eyes furious. "You're in love with someone who is a pain in the ass - who makes difficult seem like a compliment, and you're scared because it's so easy for her to make you miserable or make you feel like you're on the fucking moon. I get it." And he did. I knew he did. "But you and me - you and Doro and Tro and I, it's not the same. You and Doro fight because you love each other and she's terrified you're going to get killed in the field, or worse, injured, and she won't be there to save your life. Me and Tro- Hell, Relena. I was there, at the airport - I watched Doro refuse to give you your bag until you kissed her, until you held her. She's a crazy fucking bitch, Relena, but she loves you and you love her. Trowa? He didn't even get off the couch when I left the apartment. He didn't even look at me when I kissed him goodbye. So, no. No, I haven't heard from him, and if I thought calling him - or texting him or- or- if I thought there was a way to get through to him, I'd fucking do it." He shoved his hat back on his head, ignoring the sand that fell out, and stalked away. I sighed and felt like an asshole, like an idiot - like a selfish, spoiled brat, and I hated feeling like that. Duo was right, as he unfortunately usually was. I looked over at the convey. Once we left this outpost, once we headed into Yemen, my cell service was guaranteed to be awful at best. This was my last chance to reach out to Dorothy for the next week, at least. I pulled out my phone and looked, just in case she had texted me. She hadn't. No emails either. I opened up our text history, stared at her last message. If we can't agree on this, I don't see how we can agree on getting married. It had been stupid, had been another fight about moving out of my apartment and into something bigger, something newer, with perfect plumbing and perfect fixtures and none of the history of the renovated Brownstone we currently shared. She had called me spoiled, I had called her selfish, then she had called me an idiot. I had been waiting for her to apologize for two days now, ever since we left Riyadh. But even after forty-eight hours, this was the last text I had from her. I sighed. She wasn't going to apologize. But Duo was right, she did love me. And I loved her. She was my crazy bitch, I thought with a fond smile. I just wanted to say, I love you and forgive you. It was as generous as I could stand to be. It was passive-aggressive - which she so often accused me of being, but it wasn't any less true. "Let's go!" the leader of the troops called out. I stowed the rest of my gear and walked over to the Humvee and hopped in beside Duo. He shifted away, still angry, and I didn't blame him. The troops piled in and the engine started up. We'd been on the road for an hour, Duo still fuming beside me, when I reached out and laced our fingers together. "He loves you," I assured him. Duo snorted, but he didn't pull away. "Does he, though? Ever since-" He paused, drew in a ragged breath. "Ever since he came back, he's been different. It's not just that he lost his leg - or, hell, maybe it's all about his fucking leg. But he- he's not Trowa anymore. It's like... before, he was a soldier and that was who he was, and now... Now, without that... he's just... a ghost." I could only imagine what either of them was going through. Duo had met Trowa on that same assignment when I had met Dorothy - Trowa had been one of the American troops deployed to deal with the aftermath of the IED - and it had been love at first sight for them. I used to be jealous, of how easy it was for the two of them to just look at each other, to just smirk and need nothing else in the world. It felt stupid and petty, now, knowing how difficult things had become ever since Trowa had had to have his leg amputated and been discharged from the army. "Duo, I-" Whatever paltry comfort I could have offered died in my throat when an explosion tore through the ground in front of us, blinding and deafening me, and stealing away gravity as the Humvee was launched through the air, as I felt the world around me spinning madly out of control. As I- Felt nothing.
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