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"Baby Series 3"Written By: Karina Rating: PG Spoilers: None Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the Characters from the series but the baby is mine. Pairing: Wu Fei + Milliardo Notes: Challenge 176. Baby Series 3 #303. Takes place after It Makes Me Afraid. Many thanks to ShenLong for her work betaing
this fic.
Me, Myself and I "Wu Fei, there is no need to apologise to me. I've walked the road you now tread and I know each step along its path. I've had those same self destructive thoughts; experienced the same fears. It is not a pleasant place to be, but you would do well to believe that it is not a place that must rule you, it can be ruled by you. It is good for you to see that long road ahead, to recognise the troubles it will bring, to feel it and understand it. It will not all be darkness and subservience unless you will it to be. Seeing it, acknowledging it; giving the shadows and fear `the finger' actually helps." "I fail to see how." Milliardo chuckled softly and it was a dark sound, deep and rasping yet for all the shadows it contained it was somehow melodious and offered hope-in a shadowed kind of way. Wu Fei realised that it reflected the doubts the man must have had in his own ability to step up to rule… the fears that must still shadow his every step. "It will be a constant companion, always dogging your heels, forcing you to keep your steps light and balance on the balls of your feet so that you might spring away if it trespasses that little bit too close. Dwelling on your doubts and fears to the exclusion of all else is not healthy. You have to acknowledge its existence, understand that it is natural that they are there and what the consequences might be as a result of taking the plunge into it. That is the dark side, the fear, the lack of self confidence and it will destroy you if you allow it. But only if you give it license to. If you understand the dangers and the consequences and determine to surpass the fear, then you can walk forward with at least some degree of confidence in your stride." Wu Fei shuddered, cursing himself for allowing his own fears to get the better of him. It was too late to back out now and really, he had already gone through all of the doubts and the fears of failing. He was not alone, he knew that, but when push came to shove he would be standing before his clan and he knew there was no other who could stand where he would with any legal right. He knew it. He acknowledged it and he wanted to go forward, but his feet seemed glued to the shadow of doubt when he knew he should stride forward with confidence. "I had confidence in myself. I have confidence in my abilities, but the closer it gets the more I see that my confidence was in myself, in finding a place for myself, in surviving myself. I had confidence when I had no responsibility to others. What I said, what I did, what I thought of each day concerned only me. Me, myself and I, that is how it was. Now it… Now it is not me but `we'. Really, Milliardo, what do I have but myself to give them? I have no place for them that was not given to me by others, by you specifically, in your generosity. As a leader I am sorely lacking." "We all must start somewhere and having confidence in your own ability to survive is not so bad a place to begin." Milliardo tilted his head back as he watched the dancing flames in the great hearth, taking the time to consider before he continued. He knew whatever he said Wu Fei would read into his words only what his confused and fearful thoughts would allow. It was a frightening step to take and he knew how doubt filled heart and mind as the time drew closer. There were so few people in the entire Earth Sphere who could understand what Wu Fei faced, but he was one of them. He only hoped he could offer some small comfort. He was not wise and he was not great with words, it had been Treize who had those gifts, not him, but he could only do his best to reassure his friend and try to instil in him some comfort and sense of confidence. "I know what it is to be alone. I knew what it was to be solitary, to be separated from the world around me and then to find the world encroach upon my solitude. It felt wrong. Uncomfortable. There are different kinds of solitude and the most hurtful is the most public. You stand in a crowd but you are separated from everyone around you and there is nothing you can do about it except survive it and move on. It hurt the day I stood up and took the oath and it still hurts, some days more than others. But I will admit, as each day passes, that in some small way it improves." He sighed softly, glancing at his companion. They were in his private lounge enjoying the quiet before the storm. They were alone in as much as he was ever permitted to be, his bodyguards out of sight but not out of reach or even hearing distance given Pagan insisted they both wear com devices, and there were the ever present security cameras. This lounge would be used later in the day and Pagan had insisted it be under observation when representatives of the Clan and Parliament met for the first time. It would be a long and difficult day. "I know what it is to look out at the world with the `me, myself and I' eyes. To know that a gulf separates you from `them'. There are a lot of `them' and only one `you'. But much as we sometimes like to deny it we should always remember that humankind is a herd or pack animal. Our psyche does not run to the solitary. Eventually, somehow, life inevitably becomes about the `we', not the `me'. We as a species need each other, the interaction between individuals and groups. There are times when we need the solitude and most times, understanding that need, the `we' move aside and allow the individual to be the `me'… but they do not forget us. Some of them inevitably seek us out and inexorably we are pulled back into society. Usually it is our family, sometimes it is our friends and occasionally it might be our enemies. It happens because the needs of one, or the needs of the many, reach out to us and by instinct we respond. It is a rare human who truly seeks everlasting solitude." Wu Fei gripped his teacup in shaking hands, eyes on the face of the man who stared into the fire. Not for the first time he felt that they were broken men, broken by their pasts and the agonies they had endured, but he also felt that broken men could heal and become strong. Life was a succession of trials to be conquered. Life taught confidence in oneself, demonstrated the ability to move forward, to effect change, even if it was only small change to a single life, one's own. To some it fell to affect the lives and living conditions of others, be it one or a thousand individuals. To some fell the fate of affecting an entire civilisation and from that no one could come unchanged. He could not say what it was that moved him. Something hung over him, monumental, inescapable. He was conscious of rising from his seat, of setting aside the teacup, of moving around the small table that separated them and of leaning over the taller man; of taking his face between his hands and looking deep into the crystal blue eyes that saw so deeply into a clouded future and a turbulent past. For a timeless moment he stared into the well of time, wondering exactly what it was those eyes had witnessed, what it was they had flinched from, looked away from, stared towards and wept tears for. Knowing it was beyond him and he felt his own mortality and the sweeping hands of time moved forward. The kiss was light, the barest brush of lips over lips but something deep within him felt as though the cosmic plane shifted with them at its centre. He knew that something, everything, changed around them. ~ * ~ |
