Mobile Suit Gundam Fan Fiction ❯ "You Too Feddie": A Return To Lebot ❯ One-Shot

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

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"You Too, Feddie": A Return to Lebot

A Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in The Pocket/Char's Counterattack
crossover

Written by: Christian "Flashman" Rogers and Alicia "Lynxara"
Ashby

Mobile Suit Gundam is copyright Sunrise, inc., and was created by
Yoshiyuki Tomino.

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The year was Universal Century 0093. The war between the Earth
Federation, supported by the independent Lond Bel, and the forces
of Neo-Zeon, under the command of the infamous Char Aznable, had
raged on for months. Events were slowly building to a climax, as
Char's attempts to encourage people to leave the Earth and go to
space became more and more successful. Soon, the Commander would
begin using Neo-Zeon's biggest trump card, the Axis asteroid, to
forcibly scare the people off.

Not that Alfred Izuruha (or simply Al, as he preferred to be
called), thought that Char would actually USE it. He was quite
convinced it was little more than the ultimate strongarm tactic,
a last-ditch way to force hidebound Earthnoids to take the first
step into the future. He told himself that repeatedly as he
drummed his fingers against the harness of his seat on the
passenger shuttle. Granted, considering how the rich and wealthy
Earthnoids made sure no mere Spacenoid tread upon their precious
dirtball, not too many people would really miss it if by some
chance the Commander actually decided to drop Axis.

As the shuttle docked, Al, along with the other passengers, stood
and stretched his legs. He had been fortunate enough to get a
weekend of "shore leave" to rest up before what was going to be
perhaps the final offensive of the war. All he'd wanted was to
come home again, to remind himself why what he was doing was
right. Maybe, if he was lucky, she would be doing the same thing.
He grabbed his duffle bag with care, his Zeon uniform was in it
after all, and exited the shuttle.

The Colony of Lebot, as it always seemed to do in every war, had
remained neutral in the latest conflict. "A modern-day
Switzerland" some called it, after an ancient country that had
supposedly never allowed itself to be involved in war for any
reason. Had it not been for Lebot, Al would have laughed that
off as nothing more than an absurd myth.

It took an hour to get from the spaceport to the hotel and
confirm his room. He didn't feel like visiting his parents at
the moment... assuming they hadn't separated again, anyway. In
fact, he didn't feel like visiting them at all. They had never
understood him, nor had he understood them. It seemed best to
leave that tie severed for now.

He knew that there was only one place he really needed to go.

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The ruins of the boarded-up, abandoned warehouse were an
eyesore when compared to the large patch of green grass that
opened to the sky, surrounded by dense forest on all sides.

Al closed his eyes for a moment and imagined that he could
still smell the clouds released by the smoke bomb, and the stink
of burning ozone that wafted down from the edges of a Heat Hawk
as it clashed with a Beam Saber. He could feel the crackling
electricity in the air that sparked off the damaged Mobile Suits
as they faced each other. He fought back tears as he remembered
that final, fateful charge....

"Even the scorched grass has regrown green."

Al opened his eyes and he was back in the present. His gaze
rested on the woman who was looking in the same direction he had
been. She looked slightly older now, but still retained the
vigor of her youth. Her red hair only lightly tinged with grey,
and her green eyes still stunning as ever. She was clad in a pink
sweater and blue jeans, and turned her head to gaze evenly to
look at him. He imagined how he must have looked: a young man
with short black hair that no longer fell in childish tangles,
his brown eyes blazing with hidden intensity as he adjusted the
brown vest over his white shirt and black pants.

"Christine Mackenzie," Al said softly, "Good to see you again...
want to join Neo-Zeon now?"

They both smiled sadly as Christine replied, "Call me Chris. And
no, thank you. Care to defect to the Federation?"

"I'll pass," Al said.

The two went back to looking off in the distance, a soft wind
tickling their ears and stroking their hair as they contemplated
things past and present. "I'm almost an Ace..." Al said, turning
only his eyes to look at Christine out of the corner of his eye,
"One more kill is all I'll need."

"Bernie would be proud," Christine replied, thinking back to the
day when she'd discovered the truth. It had been completely by
accident. When the One Year War had ended, she had been assigned
to assist in the location and retrieval of MIAs for both the
Federation and Zeon. One name, on the Zeon portion of the
list, had caught her eye. 'Bernie Wiseman: MIA during undercover
mission at Lebot Colony.'

At that moment, the memory of her final battle at Lebot in the
"Alex", the way Al had seemed so sad when he'd told her Bernie
couldn't make it to say goodbye... it had all come together.
Bernie had kept a secret, just like she did. Her heart had
shuddered as she labeled the case "KIA". She wasn't sure her
heart would ever recover fully from that terrible blow.

The two of them returned to silence, watching a few leaves trail
in the wind past their field of vision. "... Is it because of
me?" Christine finally asked. "Is it because of what I did then
that you joined this... insanity?"

"It's not insanity," Al snapped. "This is... right. We can't let
the Earthnoids control people they don't care about anymore.
We're trash to them and if we don't take control of our own
destiny, we'll stay that way. It's not because of you. You
didn't know. You COULDN'T have known... Bernie and I didn't let
you know. We didn't know your secret, and you had no reason to
tell us."

"... If we had known all of our secrets," Christine asked, "do
you think things would have ended differently?"

"I don't know...." Al replied. "Duty probably would've gotten in
the way... like it does now."

"How much Ancient History do you remember, Al?" Christine asked,
turning to face him.

Al smirked a little, turning to face Christine as well. He
replied, "I already know this one, if it's the same old thing you
tell me every time we do this."

Christine smiled back as she began walking towards Al. "Yes.
It's an old story about a Gentlemen's War. Two sides, a Union
and a Confederacy, are at war. The battles would take place
because political leaders commanded them to. But before each
battle, soldiers from both sides would mingle, trading with each
other and speaking peacefully. Many of them would be brothers
from the same family, forced by duty and honor to join opposite
sides. As they were called back to their sides to begin the
fight, they would part. And the Confederate men would say, 'Take
care. Don't get killed out there, Yankee.' And the Union men
would reply...."

"... 'You too, Feddie," Al whispered when Christine was barely
inches away from him. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders
and closed the last of the distance between them, the breeze
adding a chill to the kiss they shared.

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The hotel room was dark, the blinds pulled tight to hide the
light entirely. It let them pretend the lines between them were
blotted out entirely in their small darkness, a world that
consistent of warmth and shuddering breathes. They could only
vaguely make out each other's features as they continued on.

He could see the long red hair that flowing beneath her, long
enough to frame her down to the waist. He smelled the sweet,
gentle odor of the shampoo she used. Her body was surprisingly
soft against his; he always expected it to be much leaner and
more unyielding due to her military training. But most of all, he
could feel the crushing bliss that came when she embraced him
fully.

She could see his eyes shining in the dark, moving over her, full
of the sense of sadness and wonder he always seemed to feel at
this moment in their reunion. She could smell the sweat and
tears he shed as they pulled as close together as possible, only
to draw apart again. She could feel his muscles, so much
stronger than she expected, flexing and unflexing with every
move, along with the agonizing joy of where he pressed to join
the two of them together.

They spoke no words; their bodies said enough, and drove them on
to the heights of a familiar peak before the silence was broken.
"Bernie..." Christine breathed, whispering the word in his ear
as she held him close in those final moments.

"Bernie..." Al grunted in agreement, shuddering as an intense
heat spread from him into her.

+ + +

The next two days sped by for the two of them in a blur of
old memories, shared meals, and those moments alone
in the dark. Soon, the weekend ended and it was time to leave.

Al adjusted his duffle bag, floating in the half-gravity near the
terminal gate as he waited for his shuttle to dock. He knew that
Big Zeke, his own Geara Doga, would be a welcome sight when he
returned home. His real home, where he was a soldier and not
a ghost given flesh. "You'd love her better, Bernie," he
muttered to himself as he looked up and saw her waving at him
from a good distance away, now dressed in her Federation uniform.
As they always did, Christine's words left him with a slight
feeling of regret and longing.

"Take care, Zeke," she said. "Don't get killed out there."

Al waved back as he replied. "You too, Feddie." Then he boarded
the shuttle, and the war began again.