Um . . . another deathfic. Yeah. Fourth time I've killed off Heero. It might just be me, though, but I don't think this fic is sad. . . .
Author: Anria Lalumin
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and the song Whatever's Written In Your Heart do not belong to me. Gerry Rafferty owns the song and Sotsu Agency, Sunrise and TV Asahi own Gundam Wing.
This fic is dedicated to Michael, who always loved this song.
Warnings: death, yaoi, sadness.
Pairings: 1x2.

[song] = the first four lines of the title song.

This isn't a songfic, though.

Whatever's Written In Your Heart

[ Waking up here on a rainy day ]
[ I swore last time that I would stay away ]
[ I came down here to talk to you ]
[ I said this time I might get true. . . . ]

The sun was shining, warm and bright. It soaked through the black jacket on his back and into his skin, raising his temperature. He wasn't uncomfortable, though; a cooling breeze was blowing as well, stripping most of the heat from the surroundings and leaving it with only a gentle warmth.

It was beautiful here, he reflected. The graves were spaced out evenly and quite far apart, allowing for the recently mown green grass to combine with the few trees along the path's edge and give the graveyard a park-like feel. If it weren't for the headstones dotted around in the grass, you could have imagined young lovers wandering around, small children laughing, rushing and playing, many things like that. It had a romantic air, an air that became a parody when you considered that this idyllic setting was, in fact, a place where corpses lay in their final resting place.

One side of his mouth quirked up in a small, wry smile. He supposed it was only fitting that it seem like a setting for lovers: after all, he was going to see his.

His stride slowed after a while, and he began checking the headstones around him occasionally, making sure he was headed in the right direction. Then he came upon a relatively new one, white marble glinting in the sun.

"Hey Heero," Duo whispered.

He sank down onto his haunches in front of the grave. "I came, just like I said I would," he continued, reaching out a hand to trace the carving in the smooth stone, hesitating for a long while over the last date. ". . . It's been a year."

Duo swung around and moved to sit leaning against the edge of the headstone. He crossed his long legs in front of him at the ankle and folded his arms over his chest, closing his eyes.

For a long while he said nothing, the silence only broken by the twittering of a pair of birds nearby, making their nest. The breeze ruffled his bangs and tugged at his braid, and still he didn't move. To all intents and purposes, it was as though he dozed against the grave.

Suddenly Duo sighed and opened his eyes, tilting his head to look at the clear, blue sky. "I miss you," he said softly. His whole demeanor was completely different to its usual mask, softly quiet and still. "Never thought you'd die in peacetime, did you? Huh, guess it was as much a surprise for you as for me."

A pause. "Do you miss me?" Another pause, a longer one this time.

"Well, that's a stupid question, isn't it. I mean, you can't answer it and I don't even know if you can hear me or not. I don't know if there's an afterlife. . . . I'd like to think there is.

"I guess I should tell you what I've been up to, ne?

"It's been a year, Heero. A whole year, to the day. Things . . . aren't really all that much different. If they are at all."

Duo shifted and uncrossed his legs, then recrossed them. "I'm not really sure . . . what to say. I was gonna say that I'm not really sure why I'm here, but I am. I'd have come if only because I promised myself I would."

He sighed and leaned his head back with a thud onto the top of the headstone, once again closing his eyes.

"You always called me a survivor. Someone who could adapt well and easily. You were more right than you know. It's only been a year, but I've still . . . I've still almost managed to get over it. Get over you.

"Almost.

"You remember when I kept making you listen to old Earth songs? Ones that most people wouldn't remember at all? . . . There was one in particular that stuck in my mind after you . . . died. It was 'I'll Be Missing You'. You remember that one? It was written when this guy's friend died -- I don't remember how, but that's not important. . . . If you just read the lyrics, it sounds so heartbroken, but . . . to me, when I listened to it, the music, the tune, changed it. It was like there was acceptance in there as well, that the whole song was written as a final goodbye to the person who had moved on.

"That's probably not how it was meant to seem.

"But . . . the reason I brought it up is because. . . . Well, I feel like that. I feel like I can accept your death and go on with my life, once I've had my final goodbye. And I feel so goddamn shallow because I can," Duo burst out, sitting upright. "I shouldn't be able to quit mourning so soon. I mean, yeah, it's been a year, but you were the best damn thing that ever happened to me! I know I loved you. I still do, really. And that makes it seem like . . . I dunno, like I should mourn for longer. Like I should still be hurting because you're gone."

He leaned back again. "I . . . they say that one of the first things anyone does when someone they loves dies is blame themself. I think I skipped that stage. I mean, maybe I got it out of the way a while ago, you know? Like back in the war or something. I was never sure that even when you pushed the self-destruct you were planning on dying. Like somewhere deep inside you knew you'd survive. At least, that's what it seemed like. You'd never have endangered the mission.

"I'm not really making sense, am I? What I mean to say is that I accepted a long time ago that you always knew exactly what you were doing when you did it.

"I like to think that at the last point of your life, I was wrong. That the lack of war had loosened that sense of knowing what you were doing when you did it. Realistically, though, I think you knew exactly what you were doing. That you took a calculated risk, knowing the odds were against you. . . . That you knew you were going to die. That you'd leave me behind.

"Dammit, I'm not going to cry!

". . . Did you think about me? When you took that hit, did you think about me? Did you say sorry? Did you wish that you could live? Did you wish you could see me, one last time? Or were you totally focused on the mission again. . . ?

"I wish I knew."

Duo scrubbed his palms across his cheeks. Goddammit, he hated crying! Boys don't cry. They just don't cry.

He laughed harshly. "Maybe I'm not a boy, then. Maybe I'm a man."

It was a long time before he got hold of himself enough to consider speaking again. The sun had moved on, and clouds were gathering over the clear blue sky, forecasting the impending rain. The shower was only a few hours away, it looked like.

As the sun was gradually obscured by the clouds, the idyllic setting darkened, taking on a more sinister, depressing look. It seemed fitting, Duo snorted, for what he had been speaking of.

"I. . . ." Duo stopped, reconsidering what he had been about to say.

"You remember when you asked me if I thought we were a proper couple? You remember when I jokingly told you that we couldn't be, we didn't have a song to call our own?" Duo smiled faintly at the memory. "I would never, in a thousand lifetimes, have expected you to decide finding 'our song' was your new mission.

"It was so funny, to watch you go through all those old CDs of mine, them so ancient and you so reverent with them because they were mine, and see you play them all through, over and over. And then I told you not to worry about it, that if you ever found 'our song' you'd know straight away.

"And then you didn't give up! I mean, you weren't as obvious in it as before, but you just didn't stop! I was laughing at you behind your back, you know. Laughing and laughing. . . .

"And then . . . and then you came up to me one day and said you'd found our song. So I sat down and listened to it, and the first time I heard the opening piano and moog [1] notes of the song, I knew you were right. This was our song.

"And then I listened to the lyrics, and . . . oh, Heero, you were right about it — it was so beautiful . . . and so damn fitting. . . ."

Duo stopped suddenly, leaning back. He shut his eyes, and, after a long moment of silence, sang their song.

"You've got your secrets, yeah/ And I've got mine/ We've played this game now/ For a long long time/ You don't lean on anyone/ You never had no place to run/ You never wanted me/ To get too close/ We love and hate the ones/ We need the most/ I try to find a way to you/ One thing I could say to you. . . .

"Whatever's written in your heart/ That's all that matters/ You'll find a way to say it all/ Someday. . . ."

Duo's smooth, deep voice trailed off. He was silent for a time.

"I love that song."

He sighed and opened his eyes. "But that someday never came, did it?"

The clouds were gathering more tightly now. Duo glanced at his watch and decided it was almost time to leave. He'd been there nearly five hours.

He stood, brushing himself off, and planted himself in front of the grave, staring down at it as though he if he looked hard enough he could find Heero, alive and well and loving, in the still white marble. It was as though he was commanding the stone to change from the power of his gaze alone.

Finally, almost as though disappointed, he spoke.

"I came here to say goodbye, Heero. I will never stop loving you. I will never regret loving you. But I have had a year to come to terms with the fact that you aren't here any more, and that you won't ever be coming back."

He shut his eyes briefly, then opened them and looked up to the clouds in the sky.

"You never said the words, but when you played me that song, that was your way of telling me how much you cared. I know that now, and I knew that then. And if you remember, I smiled at you, and told you that you were right, that this was right. . . . And you said nothing.

"But I loved you for it -- oh, how I loved you for it! For knowing how, even when you couldn't say the words, you could let me know you loved me. For giving me that much when you didn't know how to give more.

". . . I've accepted it all now. Maybe that's the key to true survival of all the shit this world contains: being able to accept whatever life throws at you. But that's beside the point.

"The point is, I came here to say goodbye, Heero.

". . . So goodbye . . . my love."

Duo paused for a long moment, and gave the grave a somewhat wobbly smile. Coming here had awoken old wounds. He took one last, long look at it, trying to engrave the memory of the headstone into his mind. And then he turned and strode back down the way he had come.

Behind him, the clouds broke and light rain began to fall in an empty patter on the lonely grave. He never came back again.

_Owari_

[1] Yes, a moog is a real instrument. I've never seen one, but it makes a sound like a flute or piccolo, only much smoother, and is listed in the album I have as being one of the two instruments played in "Whatever's Written In Your Heart".

The song is the most restful one I have ever heard in my life. It's also incredibly beautiful, and if you want to listen to it I recommend you go out and buy the album "Right Down The Line: the Best of Gerry Rafferty" in order to do so. Then once you've listened to that, go listen to "Baker Street". That's it from me. Ja.

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