Between the Shadows Prologue A Gundam Wing Fanfiction by Amet Note: This is, as you might have guessed, the prerequisite look at life five years previous to the actual starting point of the plot. I'm not sure what makes it a prerequisite, but rest assured that it is. *g* -------------------------------------------------------- December, 1891 Midii Une forced her eyes to open, blinking furiously as her sight acclimated to the weak glow of candlelight by her bedside. It wasn’t really worth the effort, the energy spent on the move from sleep to wakefulness, falling forward into discomfort of the highest caliber to see… what really? Her dingy room at the mission? The half shredded draperies of an indiscriminate color, the cracked plaster of the walls, the water logged and stained sickly yellow ceiling? No, it wasn’t worth the effort to wake, to live, to bother with day to day things from whence she had once taken so much joy. All that energy, all that time wasted on freedom she would never taste. She had finally escaped after that last flogging from Mama and Papa. Finally taken the risk and run off to follow her own path in the world, never suspecting that her journey away from home would lead her here, a world away and thirty pounds lighter, wasting away in a mess of threadbare sheets and her own sweat. A violent spasm of coughing tore through her, wracking her frail body as she struggled to raise powder pale arms to cover her mouth, hacking sticky colored mucus onto wraith like hands and catching it in errant strands of stringy hair. She shuddered and stared at the blood there, the sickly pinkish tint to the stickiness on her hands, barely noticing as the door was flung inward, kicking in dust as it hit the wall. “Midii!” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a blur of motion, flying hair and black fabric, heard the distinctive clink of a basin hitting the bedside table. Moments later something cool and soft swept across her forehead, and she found herself automatically leaning into that touch even as she continued to hold her hands away from herself and the new arrival. “Duo be careful!” She tried to shift away. “You’ll get sick!” A small hand clamped on her arm, and she couldn’t muster the strength to pull away as he gently stretched her hands before her and grinned, carefully wiping the stickiness away. “I never get sick Midii, you know that. Why else would Sister let me come down here?” He finished wiping off her fingers, bringing the washcloth back to the basin and wringing it out before lightly moving it over her face and the sticky lengths of straw blonde hair hanging limply in front of her eyes. He was beautiful, she’d thought so from the first time she’d met Duo, barely fourteen himself and wild looking. Obscenely long chestnut waves cascaded about his shoulders, framing a faintly heart shaped face that seemed to shine with mirth. He was one of Father Maxwell’s protégés along with his brother Solo, a wiry, tow headed imp with a fiercely protective streak when it came to his surrogate family. They were the heart of the Maxwell Mission, two angels amongst the misery and squalor with a smile and a kind word for everyone they came across. But there was something about Duo that set him apart, even from his brother. Solo helped because of how it made him feel. He liked knowing that he was helping those who were never given another chance, and it didn’t make him any less of a savior, but Duo…Duo helped others because he couldn’t stand to see a stranger in pain. He chased gangs of children away from neighborhood dogs, delivered extra provisions to hungry mill workers, and mopped the brows of white plague victims like herself. He felt it all, their pain, their sorrow, it was all reflected in those wide violet eyes. Behind the smiles, behind the laughter, there was such pain it made Midii’s heart ache to see it. Even now, his smile seemed wilted somehow, a fraction less brilliant than it had been the day before. Nothing anyone who didn’t spend every waking moment thinking of him would notice. He knew what was coming, that she wouldn’t last much longer, and yet he stayed by her side through the worst of it - the coughing fits, the shivering cold, the near seizures as her body railed futilely against the invasive force within. She fought, bearing down against the pain and the fear, not for herself, no, she’d given up on life long ago. No, she fought for him now, to keep herself from staking her claim in the shadows of those amaryllis eyes. “God,” she sighed, “I must look an absolute fright.” She knew it was true. She was but a husk of the woman she had been; a pale, shriveled mockery of a human being. He only shook his shaggy head and tenderly wiped hair from her face as he moved to sit on the edge of her bed. “You’re as lovely today as you were when I met you.” He reached for the cloth again and smiled, more genuinely than before, moving to lay her back against her pillow and brushing moisture across her neck. She shut her eyes and smiled in answer, lifting her head slightly to give him better access. “Then I must have been less appealing than I thought.” The cloth left her skin for a moment, and she faintly heard the water trickling into the basin as he wrung it out. Then it was back, moving across her forehead, her eyes, her lips. Her eyes snapped open when she felt his lips connect with her forehead, just in time to see him pull away to wring the cloth out once more. She watched him squeeze it out efficiently and turn back, bringing it to caress her cheek for a moment with a look of such complete innocence and sadness in his eyes it took all her strength not to burst into tears. “You’re beautiful.” His eyes held hers, yearning, searching for something, and she sighed. “Why do you come here Duo?” “Because you need me,” he replied, as if that were perfectly obvious. She did cry then, silent tears streaming across sweat damped cheeks at the raw innocence in those words, the purity that shouldn’t have existed in her hovel of a world, that she didn’t deserve. That this violet eyed angel had taken it upon himself to take care of her simply because he could, that anyone could care that much without wanting something in return, it was almost too much to bear. The bitter irony that she had finally found something to cling to as she was being ripped from the world made her heart ache. Not for herself, but for him. Her pain was almost over. “Duo,” she began, reaching for his hand to calm the bewildered, lost expression on his face. It was almost time. She could feel it, and there was one last thing she had to do. One thing that she could give him, that he might carry on. She reached under the collar of her nightshift, pale fabric made stiff and yellow from so many nights spent sweating through her illness, pulling out a thin silver chain and the ornate cross that hung on it. It was her final possession, a gift from her darling sister, the only one in her family to even attempt to understand her. It was the only thing that hadn’t been picked clean by the vultures. “Duo,” she repeated, drawing his gaze from the floor as she undid the clasp of the chain and pressed the cross into his hand. “You have a beautiful soul. One that should not exist in a place such as this, one that shines as a beacon to us all. Don’t let them take it from you.” “Midii,” he stuttered, staring at the cross as if it burned, “I… I can’t…” “You can,” she assured, taking it from him and expending precious energy, sitting up to fasten it around his neck. “I won’t be needing it where I’m going. It is my gift to you,” she explained, running a finger across his cheek, “For all that you have given me. Allow me this. Wear it always, and remember me.” “I… I will,” he choked out, sucking in a breath to staunch the flow of tears. “You should rest now, Midii.” She smiled genuinely for the first time in months, allowing gravity to pull her down into her pillow’s limp embrace, taking her angel’s hand and looking into those violet eyes for the last time. “As long as you carry that,” she pointed limply at the cross now dangling neatly just past his collar bone, “I will always be with you.” He nodded, swallowing hard, and as his first tears fell she closed her eyes, feeling him squeeze her hand in reassurance. And then there was nothing. return to splash page