|
"Alternative Directions: Options "Written By: Karina Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the lovely
boys and their girls in the series. Wish I did. Please don't sue me.
I haven't even got a brass razoo to give you. Rating: Deffinately PG in Australia, at the moment,
but probably safer to say R for later chapters. Not sure about international
ratings Warnings: It will be 6x2, even though it does
not start out that way. After all, Zechs and Duo never met in Gundam
Wing and only spoke briefly over a com line in Endless Waltz. I've
tried to keep them in character as I saw them in the series. A bit
of language creeping in under stressful conditions. Pairings: eventual 6x2, past 2xH, 2+H,6x9, 1+R
Summary: Directions is set post Endless Waltz
and roughly 2 years have passed. Zechs and Noin are on Mars and Duo,
after spending some time with Hilde in a relationship leaves L2 to
join Preventers. Hilde was not happy about his decision. I guess enough
said. Here t'is, and I hope you like it. This is also AU for the standard
setting, as well as the series and Endless Waltz. Spoilers: Gundam Wing Series and Endless Waltz Many thanks to Dulin for volunteering to beta this. //... // thoughts
"Alternative Directions: Options"
Chapter 72 Mars Colony Base Dome One Time: 20:02 Noin Pain. I will rise above the pain. I will not allow it to control me. Pain. Clawing tendrils of agony crawling along nerves, seeping into blood, bone and tissue. I have known pain before. Pain. Pain that fills all that is and forever has been. Put it in perspective. Beyond pain there is a life to be lived. Pain. Pain pulsing with each throbbing beat of heart, driving blood through veins and arteries, feeding this useless hulk of flesh that is a body. I have children. I have a home to take back and make indisputably my own. Pain crawling in my vitals, not an ache, not just a throbbing. Screaming, searing agony that courses throughout all that I am. I have my children to find. I have my man to find. Pain in excess of anything and everything that I have ever known and that I previously, mistakenly, called pain. I know what pain is now. I had no idea before. Those rat faced bastards think they can dictate to me how my life will be lived. I have them to find and punish for this pain that is never ending and yet is never constant. Pain. Pain that rises and rises and never falls. No respite from it. The more I try to control it the more it fills me. The more it torments me with my failures. Get beyond it. I've known pain before and I know that it has limits. I can get past this pain and go beyond it. I can get through it and past it and go beyond it and then I can make it work for me. Pain, in body and soul. Pain surrounding me and within me and it is a living thing. It grows. It does not die as all pain eventually must die. How long have I existed in this agony? How much longer must I live and breathe this existence that has only one centre? Pain. I can use the anger and the pain and I can use their fear. They will learn to fear me. I have always thought that only ill-prepared training and inferior commanders resulted in death for soldiers, but I have had it with that now. They have changed something deep within me. I wonder if this is not what that six year old son of Pacifists endured so long ago. Mental anguish laced with unending pain to compare with the purely physical agony I know now. Is this akin to the despair he felt as he watched his world crumble in blood and fire? Is this what he endured that turned him from a child of pacifists to a warrior with revenge firing his soul? They deserve what they get. Those bastards that have come here and torn asunder the life that I have made will deserve everything that I will give to them. The ESUN itself deserves what I intend to do. Everything I will lose out of this and every iota of pain I endure, I will return ten fold to them. Soldiers die. No matter how I look at that simple truth it still pains me in the deepest recesses of my soul. Soldiers die, no matter the level of training they may receive. No matter the experience and honest caring of their instructors and Commanding Officers, the simple truth is that Soldiers die. It is something I have to face. Whether in honorable combat or from a terrorists bombs, or from something as simple and tragic as a traffic accident. Soldiers die. Everyone dies eventually. If I lose Zechs because of this I will take apart the entire ESUN and I will make them all pay for the loss of him. He is mine. I will allow no one to claim him. He is the reason I live. He is the reason I drag each breath into tortured lungs and endure the beating of my own heart. He belongs to me. I have waited for him to realize that simple truth for so long and now that I have him I will allow no one to drag him away from me. //What if it is his will to go? What do you do if he does not wish to remain with you?// Pain. Searing, consuming pain. Count the heartbeats by the pulsing of the pain. It is all encompassing and it brings with it the promise of failure. He is mine. I need no little voices whispering and sniggering in my mind that I have not won him to my suit. He is mine now. I claimed him and he has not turned me out of his life. I have endured too much in my life to allow anyone to contest my claim to him. They gave him up for dead, even his precious little sister. Only I knew that he was alive. We are bound together and he must finally realize that. He is my reward for staying alive and for fighting for the peace. He is my treasured reward for my belief in him. //You did not always believe in him. You did not trust him. You do not trust him even now. You are pathetic.// Pain, flaring within with the will to scream a denial that undoubtedly came out of a raw throat as a pathetic whimper. //He is not a possession.// You insidious, whispering bitch. You know nothing. He is my lover. He is my friend. He is my soul mate. He is my partner in all things. My perfect compliment. He is my husband. //He is not your husband. He has never asked you to marry him, nor is he ever likely to.// It was coming. It was coming. He was going to ask me and then those bastards turned up and ruined everything. I claim him. As he will claim me after this is finished. I, Lucrezia Belladona Richenda Noin. I lay my claim to him and I will teach any who think to dispute that claim the error of their ways. //Even Zechs?// Of course even Zechs. He has to learn it too. He has learned it and he needs to acknowledge it and accept it as the truth it is. We have been together long enough for him to understand how things stand between us. There is a bond between us and he knows it well and now there are the children to strengthen that bond. He understands that he is mine and together we are invincible. Not even the ESUN will conquer us. //He has never been one to take a cage quietly.// He will not be caged. He will not be confined by walls and bars. He was meant to be free. He was meant to be mine and I will see that he enjoys peace from those who seek to confine him. They placed him here, away from everyone that he knows, but I came too, and I am his guardian. I am his protection. I am the one who will see that he is able to enjoy the sun on his face and the wind caress his hair. I will take him out of this cage and I will find us a place where he can be free. I lay claim to him. I will guard him from everyone who seeks to trap him behind boundaries set by all but he himself. I will teach him to be free. Pain. Clawing, eradicating thought processes, swirling and ebbing. Descend into the awareness of pain and endure it. That was not all that could be done, however. Get beyond it. When all is said and done it is only pain. There is peace beyond pain if you turn this way. Ah, it hurts to breathe. It hurts so much. Such a clawing at my vitals. Gouging deeply into me. Pain. There is escape. See that darkness, hovering just beyond the pain? See that peace on offer? No. No. That way lies escape from the pain, yes, but to accept that escape is to accept that I will forever be beyond my children and my man. No. I will not go there. I refuse to surrender to it. I refuse to give the pain control. //You do realize that you may have no choice in this? Has it never occurred to you that you may have no chance against the pain? Against THIS pain. Did you not think that you have not the will power to defeat it and that it will win?// Never. I surrender to no one! Pain was … Pain was … is... controllable. //Pain is your body warning you that something is wrong. In this case, very wrong. Pain is your bodies alarm system. Sometimes the only escape from pain is to … // No! I will not surrender to it. I will pass beyond this pain but I will not give up my ties to this life. I have too much to lose to surrender to it. //What is it that you have to lose?// I have my children waiting for me beyond the pain. I need to get back to my children. They need me. //If you care so much for your children then why did you leave them to begin this fight? It was you who started this mayhem. It was you who began this killing, by being the first to kill.// They had no right to come here and dictate to me that I can not have them! I gave birth to them. They are my children. I gave them life. It is I who decide where they will live and who will raise them, not some old political farts in a moldering mansion on the all powerful planet bloody Earth. //It was you who always professed to love life and trained your students to stay alive …// Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Who are you any way? Who are you and what gives you the right to hound me? Do you work for them? Is that it? Oh, I see. Interrogation. Torture. I understand. Let us play psyche games with Noin to amuse ourselves. //Ah, Lucrezia, you are so blind.// Blind? I am blind? Those old bastards on Earth who think they can control my life are the blind ones! Not me. Not I. I know what I want out of life and I have achieved that. I have my children and they are the children I always envisioned that I would have. I have my man, the man I always saw at my side, the man I can not help but feel in every cell of my body. We are bound to each other and neither of us can deny that simple truth. I have a home that I will defend against all comers, even the ESUN who dares to think they can rule me. //Do you?// ? //Do you? Do you have a home?// Of course I have a home. Mars is my home. I have lived here now for almost three years. It has become home. It is where I live. It is where I first made love to Zechs. It is where I gave birth to our children. It is where I will marry their father. It is where I have done and will do all of these things, just as soon as I get rid of those bastards who would take it all away from me. //So, when you kill those who defy you now, what will you do?// I will go back to living my life as I have wished it to be. I will continue to raise my children and I will marry that stubborn blond stud I have loved so long and I will show him just how much he loves me. I will show him just how much he belongs to me. //And what will you do when they try again?// ? //What will you do when they come back? They will come back, you know. It is inevitable. Nothing will have changed if you kill the agents here. More will come to replace them. Many more. What will you do then?// I … will … I will teach them not to return. //You are one person, Lucrezia. You are one single, solitary person. Yes, you are an efficient soldier, a seasoned killer, in fact, but you are still only one person. Realistically what can you do to stop them from returning?// I … I … Pain. Searing, all consuming pain. Driving out thought and reason and any awareness other than that of pain. Thankfully driving away the voice that whispered insidious blasphemy to her. She was capable of sending the ESUN packing, now and in the future. She would have her life here on Mars. Her ideal. The life she had wanted for so long. Mars was not Earth, admittedly, but it was not so bad and it was paradise so long as He was with her. This life she had been living for three years and she would live it forever with him. //The life you have been pretending to live for three years.// Go away! //Why? Someone has to tell you the simple truth of what an idiot you are. All of your little day dreams amount to nothing if you can not hold onto that man. He's not yours, Noin. He never truly has been and you know it.// No! //Has he ever hinted to you that he would marry you? Has he ever whispered sweet nothings in your ear, kissed you tenderly and said 'Noin, marry me?' or 'Lucrezia, marry me?' Of course not. Of course he has not and you know why. He is still lost, you fool. He is improving, finding himself, but as yet, he is still lost. You know, you do not even love him.// Nooooooo! I do! I do love him! He is the world to me. He is everything that I hold dear. //You know, my dearest Lucrezia, that there is rather a large difference between love and obsession. You were warned about that before, were you not? Do you remember? Your mother, remember, Lucrezia? She drove your father away. He could not breathe because she was in his face all of the time, stealing his air. Remember? Do you remember before the bombs fell?// No. Oh, no. Go away. //I can't go away. Have you not guessed who I am? This is my place. I am you. The you that is not tied up in false dreams and running away from pain and the simple truth because she is afraid of pain.// What simple truth? What is so simple about this situation? Tell me that, won't you? You just come down off your high horse and you tell me what is so simple about this situation. //It is all so simple. All you have to do is leave the pain behind and go into the other place.// I may be obsessed but I am not suicidal! //Suicidal? Ah, I see. Idiot. I do not mean that you should allow yourself to die and escape the pain that way. No, no, that is far from my intent.// Then... What? I do not understand. //That much is obvious. The pain will not allow your body to move. You have to face that first, before I can help you.// Pain. Flaring, creeping, crawling along blood, bone and tissue. Absorbing her into it. Driving her towards insanity. She could feel the pain throbbing to her heart beat. Her faltering heart beat. No. No, she would not surrender to it. She would fight it. She would not allow pain to beat her. //You can't win that way. You keep dragging yourself back into the pain to check that you are alive. So long as you can feel the pain you know that you live. You have to pass that point if you hope to defeat this pain and take action.// I will win. I will not die. I will not allow those bastards to destroy the world I built for myself. //Selfish bitch.// ?! //You are a selfish bitch, Lucrezia Noin. You only ever thought of yourself, didn't you? Especially where Zechs was concerned. You wanted him. In every sense of the word. You wanted to own him, not love him. Own him. Possess him as you would a prized ornament. That is not loving someone. You did not want to love him. What you have wanted is to own him. A pleasure slave. A slave in all things. One who is there for your every beck and call and who has no life of his own beyond making you happy.// No. I … I never thought of him as a … as a slave. //A slave to your every whim. That is what you have wanted from him. For him to have no life other than to be with you. To warm your bed. To …// Shut the fuck up! You know nothing. Nothing! /I know everything that you know. I know everything that you know and I know things that you do not even realize that you know.// ? //Curious, hmm? You should be. I know how you can escape the pain. I know how you still might make a difference in this idiocy. Are you willing to listen? If you were willing to act, instead of just lie there and whimper like a whipped cur, I could help you to go beyond this imprisonment of pain and despair that you feel.// What … what do you know? //You can get beyond the pain, but you need to be willing to take chances.// What sort of chances? //The fatal kind, of course. You have to be willing to chance dying. I can not guarantee that you will survive it.// I'm dying now. //Yes, you are. I am pleased that you realize it. You can feel the pain getting worse can't you? You can feel it rising and you can feel it in the very beat of your heart and you can feel what lies beyond it. There is something beyond death, you know. It's there, just past the pain, if you choose to go that way.// I wish I knew where my babies were. If they are safe. //You should have trusted him and never left your children. Done is done, no going back now. How much are you willing to risk to know what you seek?// I would do everything for my babies. So young. So innocent. They should not be caught up in this mess. //So helpless. As helpless as he was the night you took Him to bed.// He … I … It was … not the … //Not the same thing? Of course it was. He was helpless. Be honest now above all times, Lucrezia. You have to be if you are to escape. Hell, his mind was not even in the room. He was lost in a vision. I can put a name to it now, but I could not then, but that did not matter. Not then. All that mattered then was that he was there, and he was helpless and that you could have your way with him.// Me? Always me, isn't it? Well, what about US! //That's better. Indeed, what about us? You've ignored me for years because it did not suit you to recognize me. Well, guess what? If we want a chance of surviving this, we have to do something more that lie here and snipe at our self. Me, Lucrezia. You. Me. We. I. I, Lucrezia. I and Noin. You are Noin. You are Lucrezia. I am Lucrezia. I am Noin. We are Noin, and until you acknowledge that, we are going no where.// Lucrezia Belladona Richenda Noin. //Yes. That is who we are.// Lucrezia Belladona Richenda Noin … Merquise. //Oh, get real. You are useless. We really don't have time for all of this fantasy, and that is fantasy. He's not just going to marry you because you tell him to. You have no idea of the real facts of life, do you? Still living the dream. Well, while your living the dream he could be dying because you can't face reality.// No! No. He's alive. He's too smart to get hurt. To die. //He could have ended this before it even began if you had just listened to him and acted like a mother, not a spoiled, over-indulged little girl playing at being the perfect mother, lover, soldier and bitch. With emphasis on the bitch, I might add. Yes, we are one and this part of 'One' has owned up to the fact that I really blew it. Sue me. At least I'm honest and not living in a fantasy. Now get your act together, I want to go out and find my children. And my man.// Ah ha! //Oh, for God's Sake. Get a life. I'm you, remember? I want him too. One, Lucrezia. Until we become Noin, we can do nothing. Face the pain. Ride it. Go beyond it and for every throb of pain you feel … we feel … think equal pleasure and in the next breath think freedom. You did it once before. That's why I know that you can do it now. Let go of the pain that is grounding you to this body and its faults. Let it go and learn to fly!// ************************* The taste of him was beyond anything she had ever tasted before. So long had been wasted dreaming about this moment. Dreaming about his warmth and the scent of him that was so rich in her nostrils. So uniquely him. The taste of him that tingled on her tongue as she savored his skin. She could taste him for eternity and never tire of him. Silver and white cascades of silk just lightly touched with a hue that suggested gold. White gold, his hair, threading through her fingers, smooth and soft. Endless strands of the finest silk, wound in her fingers. Satin and silk. He was all satin and silk to her senses with perhaps a touch of the richest velvet. No, no do not allow him to think. He must feel. He must allow her this one night of her dream and she would leave him alone thereafter if he so wished, but he must allow her this one night in his arms. She would show him what it was to love her. She would show him what pleasure truly was. She would show him how to lose himself in the ecstasy of shared bodies. She would show him how to bury himself within her and they would find paradise together. His hands were on her shoulders, fingers curling slightly. Pushing against her, but no, he must not do that. Oh no, he was going to learn tonight just what it was that he had been denying them for all these years. He would learn what it was to be on fire as she had been on fire, and she would kindle the flame of passion she knew he was capable of and he would know thereafter that he was hers. “You are mine, tonight. You are mine, Zechs. I've waited so long and tonight I wait no longer. I'll show you just what passion is.” No protest would be heard. He could not mean no, anyway, since he did not put her from him. He was languid with it already, the fire of her passion. He was already putty in her hands and oh, how delightfully warm he was under her touch. Her palms rubbed sensuously over pebbled nipples, teasing, caressing, fingers pinching, caressing, teasing, seeking something more from him than a groan and whispered denial she chose to ignore. He would enjoy this. She had waited too long and she would not be denied. Was he drunk? No, there was not even the faintest scent, let alone taste of alcohol on his breath, as she feasted on his lips. Her tongue burrowed fine lips apart, gently teasing, prodding, earning the right to enter the warm cavern of his mouth and feast on the taste of him. “No.” “Mmm, yes. Yes and yes and yes. Let yourself go. Tonight there is no need for anything but pleasure. You want this, my love. It's time. I've wanted you so long.” “No.” Always no. Well, not tonight. He would learn what he was missing and that what he would find tonight in her arms would complete him. It certainly would complete her. She had wanted him from the first day she had seen him at the Lake Victoria Academy. She had lusted after him and in her encounters with other men over the years she had always seen his face over her as she crested. His face, not a poor substitute and by God, this night it would truly be so. Even if she must look down on his face in the throes of passion, instead of looking up into his passion drugged eyes. So be it. So be it. ********************** So be it. What the hell? The body lay flat on the floor, a pool of perspiration forming as the shaking little tremors only added to the pain that wracked it. It wore the work uniform of the terra formers, was a female and had short black hair. Hair so black in certain light it held a blue and deep violet tint. I … Oh, my God. Where am I? It's a cupboard. A maintenance cupboard. How dare they shove me in here! Oh. Me? Oh, God. I don't understand. What's happened? ******************************** He filled her exquisitely, just as she had always imagined. Better than she had imagined. She could feel every delightful inch of him within her heat and the little tremors were becoming something else entirely. Breath heaved in her lungs, her hands were locked in white gold and her mouth was fastened to his. His mouth was full of her tongue and he no longer whispered no. He shuddered under her and she purred for him, driving him higher with every sensuous move over him. He had learned to accept her touch and her kiss, as she had known he would. His neck was marked with little bruises where she had sucked and nipped and tasted. He arched under her and she drove down on him and her world came apart around her. She hummed softly to herself as she floated in pleasant sensation. Her body felt so light she could imagine she was floating. Flying. She smiled down at white gold perfection, reaching to grip his narrow waist and realized that there were already hands where hers longed to be. She became aware of the quiet body stretched out over his, dark hair tousled against the broad shoulder, lips fastened to the curve between shoulder and neck. His hands rested on pert, taunt buttocks. A flash of rage speared through the ecstasy. Who dared! He was hers! Spiraling down with the rage and … ************************* It was me. I had forgotten. A dream. I … I thought it a dream. That is my body lying there, suffering. I don't … understand. Breathe … Ahm. Do I even need to breathe in this state? I can't actually feel myself breathing. Mmm, I don't know what to do now. Well, I suppose I should at least find out if in this state I can leave this room. There is the door. Can I open it? Oh. What's that? It's like a … a cord. A sort of life line, tying me to my body. Well what good is this? I can't move far with … Oh. It moves with me. Stretching. Well, that's not so bad, I suppose. Ewe. I feel queasy. Am I supposed to feel in this state? Am I dead? I never died before but I went almost immediately back into my body. This cord thing stretches as I move about. I wonder just how far it can stretch? Oh, Lord, that's weird. My God, my hand just went through the door. I never felt a thing. I can't feel the door, but my hand can go right through it. Ahm, weird. So, I guess I have to walk through it? Oh, I can't do that. I'm not a ghost. I'm not dead. Am I?
|
