"Closer"
by The Czarina Merquise

Warning: Spoilers for the end of the series
Category: Yaoi
Pairing: 1+6
Archive: Yes; individuals, e-mail me first, please, but I'll probably say yes!
Positive feedback welcome to: darknick@flash.net
Disclaimer: They belong to Sunrise, etc., not me!  I'm making no money here, promise.
Summary: Two pilots after it's all over find common ground... or is that space?

When Heero Yuy walked into his hospital room, Zechs Merquise felt a rush of anger sweep through him stronger than anything Treize Khushrenada ever made him feel.  "Well, you've found me," he rasped at the young pilot in his low, husky voice, even lower now because his vocal cords were still healing.  When fire and steel pierced his body in the explosion of the Epyon, he'd screamed in pain for what had seemed like hours... and very well may have been.  He had no idea who had found him.  Was it only a week ago?

"I see you made it after all," Heero murmured, coming to stand at the side of the bed.  He looked over the former White Fang leader's body, at the casts and traction and bandages.  "This shouldn't slow someone like you down much."

"Hmph," Zechs snorted, then coughed painfully.  "And what does that mean?"

"Nothing," Heero lied, lifting his eyes at last to meet the aquamarine ones of the other pilot.  "And before you ask, no, I'm not here to gloat.  Actually I came to thank you."

"Right.  To thank me for what?  I know the contempt everyone feels for me."  Zechs tried to shift position, groaned, and then gave up the effort, panting.  "I was supposed to die, Yuy.  That was in the plan.  Now I can't."

"You're so wrong, Zechs," Heero murmured.  He leaned over the man, reaching for a long tendril of the platinum blond hair on the side of his face.  "Amazing how well your hair fared... anyway, you're wrong.  I've told - and so has Relena - the public the truth of what you were trying to do.  You're something of a symbol, actually, of how desperately the Earth and colonies want peace together... though everyone's still so shaken up.  I told them something else, too."

"What's that?"  Zechs frowned, wondering how Heero could even want to be anywhere near him after all that had happened.

"The truth - no matter how much you deny it."  Heero's eyes glittered, and he almost smiled.  "You never could have destroyed the Earth, Zechs."

"I was too weak... you're right."

"No, that's not it."  Heero gently turned his chin to make him look at him better.  "You loved Earth and space too much to ever have gone through with your terrible plan.  If we had been closer, I'd have understood that sooner.  I might have even helped you, joined you after all.  If Relena hadn't been there, we might have had the chance to talk more.  As it is... we at least have now."

Heero... was touching him?  The touch was gentle and kind, and Zechs had to remember that his sister probably would not have survived had Heero not protected her on the Libra.  "Closer... what do you mean, Yuy?  I had to frighten Earth badly enough.  It had to be truly serious... I might have had to destroy some of it anyway.  Something drastic had to be done!"  Then Zechs was gasping for breath, too weak to say more.

A look of anguish passed over Heero's face, then he was holding a cup of water to Zechs's lips, helping him take a sip.  "You've suffered so much," Heero murmured as the man lay back.

"Thank you.  I deserve to suffer, perhaps."

"No - not like this.  Did Relena visit you?  Do you know what's been going on?"

Zechs sighed heavily.  "No and no.  No one knows where I am, not even Noin.  I can't hurt her anymore.   I can't care anymore.  I have nothing left."

"Treize is dead... and Relena and Noin grieve for you."

"I know.  All the rest of you pilots made it, did you not?"  Zechs could not deal with grief felt for his loss, not yet.

"Yes.  And you knew we would."  Heero picked up one of the pale, slack hands and folded his hand around it.  "Zechs, when you fought them with the Virgos you knew they wouldn't be harmed.  They couldn't get at you, but you couldn't get them either.  They won't forget that.  I won't."

"Why are you here?"  Zechs peered at him, bewildered.  The touch again surprised him, but moved him deeply.

"Because you're the only one who knows," Heero murmured, his dark blue eyes searching the other's.  "Because I cannot be anywhere near Relena... she could never, ever understand what you and I do.  Even the other pilots... because Epyon seared our souls, Zechs."

"Epyon..."  Zechs closed his eyes painfully.  "I know now that Treize, curse him, built that thing specifically to tear my soul and heart apart.  He knew, hoped you would give it to me."   The emotional pain swelled, too, until hot tears began to leak through the white lashes.  "But why are you here?"

Heero looked over the bruised though still handsome face of the former OZ Specials ace pilot.  The only other, outside their group of five, who was also a Gundam pilot in fact.   "To start over, Zechs. With you, with myself.  With Earth and space... perhaps to start my own life, even."

"With... me?"  Zechs opened his glistening eyes.  "What are you talking about?"

"We are enemies no more, Zechs Merquise," Heero murmured, and raised the pale, long-fingered hand to his cheek.  "Let us turn fate around and become so much more.  We are brother pilots... and I would be closer than brothers with you."

A tear spilled down the pale cheek.  "But... oh, Heero, but..." Zechs felt bewildered, this strange warmth from the young man with whom he'd fought so much making him feel dizzy.  "How can this be? How can you want to be near me, much less..."

"Do you want to live? Now that you have your life back?"  Heero regarded him solemnly, still clasping his hand.

"I... I don't know," Zechs murmured honestly.  "I haven't felt much reason to go on.  If I wasn't such a prisoner to this bed, I would probably have found a gun somewhere and ended it.  I should have died."

Heero laid the limp hand back down, though he kept his own over it. "You don't remember how you got here... I'm sorry you had to be alone when you woke up to find yourself alive.  I know that was hard."

"You can help me do it," Zechs whispered, his eyes falling closed. "Please, Heero."

"No, Zechs, I can't," Heero replied quietly.  "It's my fault you are alive.  And I intend to keep you that way, both for yourself... and for me."

"Your... fault?"  The aquamarine eyes opened again, glistening with tears.  "Yes, you spared me."

"And you spared me," Heero added.  He sighed, looking over the face of the man who had come to loom so large in his life.  "Zechs, I was the one who found you floating in space after Epyon exploded.  How could I let such a sacrifice stand?  You had taken on a burden larger than any man ever had, that of educating humanity itself on the vital need for lasting peace.  Milliardo Peacecraft died a martyr for peace, perhaps, but Zechs Merquise lives on to help keep that peace."

"You..."  Zechs felt the tears welling in his eyes again, helpless to stop them.  "You bastard, I wanted to die.  Treize was waiting for me."

Heero's eyes narrowed.  "Did you love him?"

"It wasn't like that," Zechs snapped.  "We were soldiers.  He had to oppose me.  We were supposed to go together, the final militancy of Earth and space winking out together.  Not that we'd planned it. I... just knew.  He knew.  And here I lie and you're talking to me about life.  How am I supposed to know how to live now?"  The spilling tears were hot, his eyes burning with the shame of his survival.

Heero nodded, but his expression was as intent and serious as Zechs had ever seen it.  "One thing I've always admired in you, Zechs, is your ability to adapt.  You did master Epyon, you know, until it became your expression of your own personal despair.  I know what you'd lost and what your pain was.  Maybe it was your time after all and I've ruined that by snatching you away from death.  Regardless, you're going to learn how to live."

"Heero, go away," Zechs groaned, pulling his hand out from under Heero's.  "I have nothing to live for anymore."

"That's not true," Heero persisted, his voice dropping into a low gentleness that Zechs had never heard.  "You can live to help me find my own way in this time of peace.  My whole life was built, designed for fighting.  Now that there is no fight, I don't know how to live either.  But I have learned one thing."

Zechs sighed.  "What's that?"

"I've learned how to love," Heero murmured.  He glanced away for a moment, then, his resolve firmed, looked back and into Zechs's eyes. "I believe now that love is something to live for."

A ripple of pain passed through Zechs's face again as he tried to shift positions.  "Well, we both love peace.  Is that enough to live for?  If peace is achieved, what then?"  He grimaced yet again.  "A soldier must have a cause to fight for.  If there is no cause, no fight, what then?"

Heero felt unshed tears in his own eyes, seeing how much pain Zechs was in still.  "Let me get a nurse..."

"No." Zechs peered up at him, wondering.  "You said we could be more than brothers.  Surely you're not meaning to love me?"

The dark blue eyes glittered with suppressed emotion.  "Am I so unbearable?  Do I remind you too much of the past?  Is such a notion so foreign to you?"

Zechs blinked at him, then closed his eyes.  "I did not permit myself such thoughts.  I can never escape the past, so why should your presence be any more painful to me than my own?  As to your being 'bearable'..."  He trailed off, thinking.  Heero Yuy - he had to admit to himself that the young Gundam pilot had occupied his thoughts a great deal in the past, and that he admired Heero and found him to be a magnificent opponent... and ally, though the latter hadn't had a chance to develop as such.  They'd both wanted the same thing... but now... Heero Yuy was offering him love.  Love!  A foreign concept to the Lightning Count... or was it that love hurt far too much?

"I... I don't think I'm capable of love... not like that," he added finally.  "I can't bear to be in another situation where I might hurt someone."

A tear rolled down Heero's cheek.  He did not wipe it away.  "And that tells me that you can love, and deeply.  I know you loved your homeland and you came to love space and the colonies.  I know you love your sister.  Your heart is greater than you can see at present, Zechs, but I can see it.  In some ways, I have learned to love from you.  Only a great and powerful love of humanity could have tried to do so much in such desperate, drastic ways.  You far surpass me there, Zechs."

Zechs shook his head minutely.  "I don't know how you can think that.  I sinned by listening to what Epyon told me of the future. Nothing needed to be that drastic.  Extremes only bring their own evil.  I... was evil..."

"No, never," Heero countered, iron in his voice.  "It was never about good or evil, any of it.  But it's all over now, Zechs, and we can leave that behind us.  You won't hurt me, Zechs.  You haven't yet. You never will."

"No..." The older man's voice sounded weak.  "You can't love me..."

"But I already do," Heero admitted softly.  He reached up again and laid his palm carefully against Zechs's stubbled cheek.  "I know you're recovering and the emotional pain of the war is still fresh. I understand that.  Just... let me love you.  The rest will come."

More tears spilled as Zechs's opened his crystalline blue eyes again.  "Heero..." he gasped brokenly.

"Shhhh..."  Heero bent and kissed his lips carefully and with a tenderness he himself hardly recognized.  But he knew it was right because his heart was singing.

Still tears spilled, unable to stop now.  Zechs felt weak but coming back to life.  And he would no longer be alone.  He knew how Noin had felt about him, but he'd hurt her so much that the pain would always be between them.  With Heero he could start new, fresh, find love where he'd never imagined it could be before.  Maybe... he was meant to live after all...

The End

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