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" Everywhere I Look "Written By: Presser
Disclaimer : I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters. This work of fiction is written and shared freely without any attempt to profit financially from it. Rating : R Pairings : 1x2 Warnings : Wistful romance, AU, after Endless Waltz, and departing quite a bit from canon direction Summary: Duo Maxwell is a young, upcoming artist with a hole in his heart. He hates himself for never confessing his love to Heero Yuy, a war-weary mecha pilot running from his past all the way to the Phobos Project—the first manned mission to Mars. Duo longs for the man he loves, but doesn’t know where he is. Can they find love in each other’s arms? And what of Heero’s mysterious collapse when he arrives on Earth to search for the one he loves?
"Everywhere I Look " Chapter 6 Heero stared through the window at something precious few humans have ever seen with their physical eyes: the Earth and its moon at a distance great enough to see the two for what they truly are: a unified system of rocky bodies, one tugging on the other via the tenuous force of gravity to create a wobbling corkscrew through Terra’s orbit around Sol. He was a hundred days into his solo flight to Earth aboard Phobos Beta I, the first of six planned return ships to be constructed from materials found on the Martian satellite. Nearly half the distance to Earth was behind him, and the home planet and its satellite were finally viewable as more than points of light without the visual enhancements available to Heero aboard the ship. He could see one was larger and tinged with blue, the smaller a lustrous white orb mottled with barely visible gunmetal-gray markings, solemnly attending its loftier sister. The spiral path the pair traveled wasn’t visible to the eye, of course; the system navigated space-time around its star at a speed unimaginable to the planet’s surface dwellers, but at interplanetary distances, the two celestial bodies appeared immobile (a testament to the immensity of near space, as terrestrials termed it): an azure jewel and its silver consort caught in the black-velvet mesh of empty space. Hardly empty, Heero thought. There’s all manner of stuff in the so-called vacuum of space, not to mention the human clutter that surrounds the Earth like a— Phoebe, the crew’s nickname for the Phobos mission’s central artificial intelligence, interrupted Heero’s ruminations. “Luna Base requests status report,” Phoebe said in a flat androgynous tone. Heero always disabled the A. I.’s personality and human interaction routines wherever he could: personal quarters, helmet comms, any open work area when he didn’t have to accommodate the presence of others. Joy asked why once and he replied with an attempt at a self-deprecating joke: “I have enough trouble with human relationships without having to parse a machine pretending to be one.” Joy blinked wide eyes in silence until Heero smiled shyly and told her he was kidding. He toggled his mic on. “Pilot Yuy here. Phobos Beta I is on course. Arrival time will be plus or minus six minutes of flight plan’s ETA. All systems green, all readouts within normal range.” He tapped the onscreen button labeled EOT that added an end-of-transmission signal to his voice message, then tapped Send. He pushed down on the lip of the command desk and straightened his torso as he floated up and backward over his chair. He rotated and grabbed a handhold on the ceiling, then braced a foot against the bulkhead and pushed off, gently soaring toward the kitchen console. Once there he put fingertips under the edge of the counter and pulled himself down to snag his velcroed slippers against the carpet. He smirked as he set to preparing coffee, sure that the response from Luna would take longer than the ten-minute time lag for a ship halfway between Mars and Luna. He returned to the command desk with a fresh plastic bulb of hot java as Phoebe’s voice broke the silence. “Stand by for Senior Flight Contro—” The last word was clipped by interspace radio static that resolved into the thin, reedy voice of an older man. “Pilot Yuy, please elaborate, specifically on the ridiculously pinpoint precision of your ETA.” Heero smiled as he settled into his seat just as the EOT triad chimed. Despite the lack of a video feed, he knew exactly who was speaking. “Howard, you old dog, who slipped up and let a hippie like you take charge of Luna Space Traffic Control?” Heero pulled on his coffee between tightly pursed lips to prevent liquid from escaping into the air. The heat relaxed his throat muscles as he busied himself by reading the most recent news from the official Earth Sphere feed until his war buddy responded. “Who says I’m old?” Heero responded with soft laughter. “How are you?” Another ten minutes went by before Phoebe sounded the incoming message chime signaling the next transmission from Luna. “Same as always: battle-hardened, job-weary, and licking my lips in anticipation of the super-deluxe mai tai that’s waiting for me at the end of my shift.” “So,” Heero said, grinning broadly, “you really want an explanation? I’ll be glad to provide one, but at the cost of these transmissions, I’ll wait for confirmation before proceeding.” “Hell, no,” Howard said in his next response, then quickly lowered his voice. “Oops. Not supposed to use profanity over official channels.” He raised his voice and continued. “Of course not, Heero. I know how accurate and reliable you are. I was just taking my first opening in almost two years to get in a shot at you.” “Okay, then. How about you save at least one mai tai for me?” “You? Drink?” “Maybe,” Heero said with a crooked smile, “you don’t know me as well as you thought.” “I guess it has been a while. And when we did know each other we were up to our asses in OZ alligators, weren’t we?” “See you in about three months?” “Count on it. Listen, Heero, I won’t have another chance to chit chat this way, what with the Earth Sphere’s current belt tightening on what they consider extraneous expenses, so I’ll save all my insults and questions for when we see each other face to face. Just keep making regular reports, okay?” “Absolutely.” “Great. Luna Space Traffic Senior Flight Controller out.” “Over and out.” Heero cut his mic and leaned back. Though he had continued to work during the eighty-minute conversation, he still scanned every screen, dial, and gauge a second time before returning to his contemplation of the Earth and Moon. The Earth Sphere. The Earth Sphere United Nation. Well, it looks united from this distance, I guess.
His first days aboard the Beta I were full of activity as he constantly checked and rechecked everything aboard the ship, including Phoebe’s flight plan, all the way down to the projected timings of potential course-correction ignitions and cutoffs. He worked steadily, and though he never missed meals, never skimped on sleep or exercise periods, he felt fatigued. When the mission commander told Heero his request to man the first return trip to Earth had been approved, Joy immediately asked to be assigned as his Phobos base liaison officer. The trip was an important component of the mission’s master plan in no small part because it would be the first time a human flew solo for more than twenty-two days. Heero successfully argued that his unique training as a Gundam pilot made him the most likely to succeed, the most likely to ensure that the trial turned into standard operating procedure in the coming years. Joy made no small noise about the dangers of complete isolation for the six months of the trip. When she reminded Heero that she was the closest thing he had to “what humans call friends,” he gave in and requested her as his liaison officer, unable to argue with the logic that she was the best candidate for efficient communication with him. Throughout Heero’s first hundred days, Joy maintained her professionalism at every point, always had answers for Heero’s questions—sometimes even before he asked them—but felt just as on edge as he did. Only once did she betray this. At the end of the second week, Heero asked her to run integrity checks on the Beta I’s oxygen tanks during an afternoon briefing after making the same request just hours before. “Heero,” Joy said hesitantly, “I did that during this morning’s check-in.” She fretted during the three-plus minutes it took for Heero’s answer to reach her. When it arrived, his tone of voice was curt. “I need up-to-date info, not last week’s.” “Look at your screen,” she replied. “Look at the timestamp.” When silence stretched beyond the expected delay, Joy grew anxious. She decided not to wait for Heero’s response before sending another transmission. “Maybe you just forgot.” She took a silent breath. “Are you sure you want this test repeated?” “I see the report,” came Heero’s answer just seconds after Joy’s second message. “Request cancelled.” Heero’s voice was so flat, so lifeless, it triggered the uneasiness which had built up in Joy. She ran from her control desk to the head in tears. When she returned, there were two recordings from Heero two minutes apart, the first apologizing for his brusqueness, the second asking if she was all right. Joy’s heart thudded against her breastbone as she listened. She breathed deeply, cleared her throat, and toggled on her mic. “Sorry, Heero. I had—had to visit the head unexpectedly.” She paused. “I’m fine. I’m worried about you, though. I—” she flipped off the mic and took a long breath. She exhaled and toggled it on. “Just don’t drive yourself so damn hard.” She considered what to say, then plunged forward with a firm yet quiet tone. “And don’t tell me not to curse, either. I can live with a reprimand if I know you’re—you’re taking better care of yourself, by which I mean not acting like a machine.” After a final hesitation, she added, “This time lag sucks. I know it’s going to get worse, but it already keeps us from anything like real conversation.” Finally done, she tapped the onscreen EOT button to signal the end of her recording, then touched Send. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
Heero was grateful for the lengthening distance between them for the very reason that it frustrated Joy: meaningful conversation became impossible. Verbal transmissions had to be as concise and compact as could be, not only because of the cost of bandwidth over interplanetary distances but also because it was the most efficient way to communicate. Single questions and answers soon became impractical, replaced with queries laden with assumptions and followed by multiple-choice options that made best use of time and equipment. As the hectic activity of the launch and first days of flight settled down, Heero established routines. The time available for pure thought grew. He had the unwanted freedom to consider his reasons for returning to Earth and more: for better than half his life he had been either in training or on mission, and the difference between the two had been virtually non-existent. Dr. J., his tutor and superior during the war, had seen to that. Contemplation was but an item in his kit of available tools for accomplishing a job, and one that the heat of battle rarely allowed. Now he found himself with time on his hands and no clue about what to do with it. The one thing I was never trained for, and I sign up for a mission that’s ninety-two percent that thing. He worked his way through the limited library aboard the Beta I when he grew tired of newsfeeds from Mars and the Earth Sphere, consuming procedural and tech manuals first, then turning to the only other category: entertainment and leisure. The ship library’s collection of books and films seemed alien to him, but his alternatives were utter boredom or thinking about his life, and neither option was attractive. He watched film versions of the Broadway musicals Rent, A Chorus Line, and Hello, Dolly. The Boys from Brazil brought back his earliest memories of training with Dr. J in the form of nightmares that woke him in the middle of several sleep cycles, his heart pounding, his body covered in cold sweat. Robin Williams’ What Dreams May Come left him with strange feelings, which in itself was strange, since he had worked for so long to eliminate feelings from his life. Not from life, he reminded himself, from work. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to have a real conversation with Joy, because I don’t know how to handle— The thought stopped him cold. No. My problem is that I’ve never had time for anything but work, never had time for— For the second time in as many minutes Heero refused to finish his thought. He read David Copperfield, which was tedious at first, but then he got into the rhythm of the piece and enjoyed Dickens’s singular style of telling a story. Of the three collections of short fiction, only John Cheever’s The Swimmer stuck with him, sounding the strange chord in his heart he felt when watching What Dreams May Come, but played in darker timbres. The Harry Potter books drew him into a world that he felt was pointless and ridiculous, yet he found the characters real and avidly followed their development. Activity surrounding the approaching turnaround point of his trip kept Heero busy. The Beta I had to be rotated so that the rockets pointed at Earth, and the first deceleration firing required error-free precision. Equipment and systems that, though thoroughly tested before launch, had not been activated in more than a hundred days and needed rechecking and close scrutiny. In the midst of this, Phobos base had to hand off oversight of the mission to Luna base. In the last transmission to Phobos before the transfer of command, Heero argued with Joy about whether to trust the deceleration firing to Phoebe or do it manually. Joy’s patience wore thin, as did Heero’s. They finally agreed to let the A. I. lead and give Heero complete override control. After dealing with technical concerns, he made an opportunity to say a few things to Joy of a personal nature since he didn’t know whether they would ever speak to or see each other again. He thanked her for exemplary service and for her unfailing support.. “I mean every word of that, Joy, but that’s just for the official record. I—” Heero’s voice grew quiet. “I want to say something personal now.” He paused. Even though he had prepared his thoughts, speaking them aloud was difficult, doubly so because he knew they would be recorded for posterity even though he wanted them to be private. “Listen,” he said finally, “I’m sure that long pause tells you this is hard for me. No surprise there, right? But there’s a reason it’s hard, and that’s what I want to tell you. I know you’re aware of my daily routines; in fact I’d be surprised if I found out you haven’t been analyzing them six ways to Sunday looking for danger signals.” Joy blushed at that when the transmission reached her. “So I’m sure you know most of my off-duty time changed last week when I ran through the last title in the entertainment library. Since then I’ve had nothing to do but think. I don’t mean to make it sound like I’ve never spent time thinking; I have, of course. But it’s always been like everything else in my life: either training for a mission or executing one. What’s new to me is thinking about who I am and who I want to be; what I want to do with my life. I never would have requested entertainment titles for the ship’s library; to me, that would have seemed like a waste. And, as I’m sure you know, I didn’t look at them until I exhausted everything else I could spend my off-duty time on—even technical specs for the Beta I’s air filtration system, for heaven’s sake. But once I got into watching films and reading fiction I found something in me opening up. I don’t know what to call that part of me, but whatever it is, it’s… better, I guess is the word I want. I’m better for having done it; I’m different than I would have been without it, anyway. When I noticed the change—that I was actually learning something about myself by diving into the stories of other people’s lives, even though they aren’t real—I had an insight, and this is, finally, what I’m trying to get around to saying to you. “You put that entertainment library together, I’m sure of it. When that thought hit me, a lot of things fell together; a clear picture emerged from all the question marks that had been buzzing around my head like gnats for weeks. It’s clear to me that you selected the novels, the films, and even the short story collections with a purpose. You chose them because of the impact you wanted them to have on me, not just the impression you hoped they would make. Maybe you knew I’d figure this out; maybe you hoped I wouldn’t. Either way, I’m glad I did, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be saying this right now. And I still haven’t said it, even though I’ve already tried and failed twice. So here goes one final attempt.” Heero closed his eyes. He drew breath, slowly filling his lungs to capacity. He exhaled slowly and then opened his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was subdued. “I could never have asked for a better person by my side during my time on the Phobos mission. You were always there with just what I needed, even if I didn’t know what it was I needed. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be on my way to Earth; I wouldn’t be taking the biggest risk of my life to reach out t- to D—” His voice broke. “To the person who means the most to me,” he said in a husky whisper. “Maybe I wouldn’t ever have realized how much he means to me. I know for sure I wouldn’t have found the courage to seek him out.” Heero sighed softly, relieved to have finished what he thought was the hard part, even though he gave himself low marks for lack of eloquence and excessive wordiness. “Okay, so this is probably the record for longwinded thank yous, at least over interplanetary bandwidth. We both know the next exchange will be really busy, so I wanted to say all this before—before there wasn’t time any more.” Heero paused a final time, then said “Joy Parillo, I’m a better person for having known you. I am forever grateful for- your- friend- ship.” His voice broke again as he spoke the last three words. He hit the EOT button and tapped Send. He slumped over the command desk and closed wet eyes. A little more than ten minutes later, Joy bowed her head and hoped that her coworkers didn’t notice that she was sniffling softly as she wiped her eyes with a tissue.
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