The Mission

by ultragirl

This is a Gundam Wing fic (not my usual, but I couldn't resist the Muse). It's based on the part of Endless Waltz that tells the story of Heero's first (? I think ?) mission. If you haven't seen the movie, it's okay. You don't really have to have seen it.

This is all written in the first person. (ie, there are no //thoughts.//) I don't think I used these anywhere, but if I did, *these* denote emphasis.

*****

No one understands.

No one will ever understand.

No one will ever feel the pain I am forced to live with every day of my life. No one else will ever have to step up and be the leader the way I do every day of my life. No one else will ever have to live with the guilt of being the leader every day of his- or her -life. No one.

So how did I get stuck with this? How?

I've been trained to be the perfect soldier for as long as I can remember.

I remember that first mission oh so long ago.

***

I leap over the tall fence, then land in the soft green grass below and collapse into a fit of laughter. I lay there, staring up at the colony around me. Then the little girl comes and peers down curiously into my face. I look back at her; she's so young and innocent still.

"Are you lost?" she asks of me sweetly as her little dog nuzzles my thigh.

"I've been lost since the day I was born," I reply quietly. It's true. I've been lost for as long as I can remember. I'll always be lost.

"That's so sad," says the little girl. I glance at her face; she seems genuinely concerned. I smile faintly at her, trying to reassure her. I know that I frightened her with that remark, but I can't take it back now. "Well I'm not lost at all," she says cheerfully, abruptly changing gears. "I was just taking Mary here out for a walk..."

She continues to chatter happily to me about how she's just out for a walk with her little puppy. I gaze out past her, reflecting on what I am to do tonight.

***

That night, I head for the base. I set everything up just the way I've been trained to do all my life. I exit the base just as stealthily as I entered. I hold out the firing device before me; I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and then depress the button.

A series of brilliant explosions seizes my conciousness, and I look on as the entire military base is destroyed. Not only must I see to it that the mission is carried out, I watch with a certain degree of curiousity...as well as fear. This is my first mission.

"Mission: accomplished," I mutter to myself as I turn away from the scene of horrific destruction.

And then, as I start walking away, all hell breaks loose. One of the enormous mobile suits falls over...colliding into another one nearby. Together, the hulking machines fall to the earth as one. Together, they crash into one of the residential apartment buildings on the edge of the base. My eyes widen as I realize what is coming next.

"NO!" I scream as a second blast pierces the still night.

***

I look around me; all that meets my eyes is death.

Death, everywhere, death, staring me in the face. Laughing at me. Laughing at my mistakes. All around me, there is nothing but cold, dark, death.

I move foward like an automotan, not seeing, not thinking, not feeling anything. I bend down and ever so gently pick up the scorched little ball of fuzz from between the support beams of one of the complexes that once stood on this very spot.

Mary.

***

They took me back the next day and sent me to be re-trained. I'll never forget the tortures they put me through, trying to strip me of my humanity. Finally, one day, I realized that the easiest path to take was to learn to pretend. To pretend that death didn't affect me anymore. They believed in my charade; the re-training stopped, and I was sent out on a new mission. I succeeded that time.

This time without the expense of so much innocent blood.

That is my promise to myself.

That is what makes every mission so difficult.

I cannot allow anyone else to see that death really does affect me. I cannot allow them to see the pain I harbor inside me, for fear of being accused of being weak. For fear of making those I am working with weak. For fear of failing them. I cannot allow them to see the guilt that consumes a little bit of my soul every day of my life. A guilt caused by the death and havoc I wreak every time I complete a mission. I cannot allow them to see the ghosts that will haunt me till the day I die. How many more times? I ask myself that question every single time I am sent on a mission.

How many more times will I lose that girl and her dog?

Not Really The End...