Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Deadly Beautiful ❯ Rescue ( Chapter 13 )

Disclaimer: I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts, doodly doo... But that's all I have. I don't own Gundam Wing, and I'm not making any money off of this endeavor.

Deadly Beautiful - Chapter 13

By danse

Noin leaned against the cool cinderblock wall of the shed and stared at the black smudge on the near horizon. The fire following the explosion had consumed everything remotely burnable before finally putting itself out just before sunrise. There were still a lot of hot spots, and smoke drifted into the light blue sky, taking bits of ash with it that eventually rained down onto the dry South African grass.

After shaking herself out of a daze that she didn't remember slipping into, Noin had picked herself up off of the ground and walked away from the flames. There was nothing else to do. All of the vehicles at the base had probably been obliterated with the buildings A kilometre away, though, there was a squat, sturdy shed, containing a cot, a table, emergency rations, and a radio, just in case anything happened. Everyone who worked at the base should have known it existed, and would hopefully go to find it if they survived.

Noin had spent the entire night sitting on the cot with her arms wrapped around her knees and her gun on the blanket beside her, staring out of the tiny Plexiglas window that faced the base. She hadn't seen a single person come out of it all night.

After using the radio to reach the emergency contact in France and report the situation, she had sat on the cot and watched the fire burn out. An hour after making contact, she got a single message: Be ready to go at 0700 hours local. She hadn't been entirely sure what to think about that. All of her soldiers--the people whose care she had been charged with--were dead and most likely cremated, and it was her fault more than anyone's, and now she was going to be removed from the area. God only knew what would happen to her then.

According to a military-issue digital watch on her left wrist, it was currently 0715, and she was waiting outside for her ride home, as the last tendrils of smoke twisted and slithered into the sky.

She felt the thrum of the helicopter in the area of her chest almost before she heard it. She walked out onto the open grass and started waving her arms to get the pilot's attention. A few moments later, her bangs were whipped away from her face and the grass was flattened by the whirlwind of the chopper blades. The black helicopter landed lightly on the ground, and the door slid open to reveal the pilot. His face was obscured by the face shield on his helmet, but long, platinum blonde hair flowed out of the back of it, held in a ponytail to keep it out of his vision.

Noin's breath caught in her throat. She only knew one pilot who had hair like that. They didn't... she thought, with a little dread and a lot more embarrassment. Not him, anyone but him...

The Lightning Baron leaned towards the open door, and yelled to be heard over the noise of the blades whirring above him. "Are you getting in, or what?"

Pushing gross feelings of inadequacy down where they'd stay out of the way, Noin jogged over to the open door and climbed gracefully into the seat. She shut the door, put on the helmet she was offered, and melted into the padded seat with a tired sigh. There was a bruise on her shoulder from her dive off of the roof of the base, and it was a lovely shade of lavender under the strap of her tank top.

The helicopter lifted off of the ground and soared into the air, making a wide swoop to head north as it climbed. After a while, the noise of the blades chopping was less noticeable, and Noin could hear herself think. She sneaked a sideways glance at her rescuer, who was too busy looking at the land below them to notice.

He really hasn't changed much, she thought bemusedly. Still quiet, still intent on the job...still a little ignorant. The same Zechs Merquise that I always knew. How long had it been since she'd seen him last? Not since the day that they'd graduated from the Romefeller Military Academy, in Corsica. That was...let's see, now...one year, three months, and twenty-two days ago. Noin had always been fairly quick with numbers.

Eventually, Zechs decided that it was time to make conversation. He looked over at Noin. "It's been a long time, hasn't it, Lucy?"

Noin raised an eyebrow, ever so slightly. He was the only person she'd ever known who called her anything so informal as Lucy; he'd tagged her with the nickname when they were fourteen. She spent a few seconds trying to decide if she'd missed it, and couldn't make up her mind. "Yes, it has," she answered, her voice just a tiny bit husky. It was the dust, she told herself.

He continued, not really looking at her, but talking to her all the same. "I don't think we've seen each other once since we graduated. I thought you were going to become a teacher."

"I changed my mind," she answered. Half of the reason that she'd changed her mind was because she wanted to have the opportunity to see Zechs again, and she knew that if she lived a civilian life, that would never happen.

"It's just kind of funny," he mused. "I remember one night, after combat training, we were walking back to the bunk house, and we were talking about what we were going to do when we grew up. You said that you hated war, and fighting, and that when you graduated, you were never going to have any part of it. And I've thought, now and then, ever since, that I never asked you exactly why you were in military school if you hated war so much." He paused, and looked at her briefly. "I guess I'm asking now."

Noin examined her hands, playing absently with the skin on her knuckles. It was true, that Zechs was a little ignorant, and very unobservant. He had a tendency to just accept things without thinking about why they were, if he noticed them at all. Finally, she answered the question that he'd never thought of asking when they were sixteen. "I went to military school because my father was a big, strapping, Greek nationalist who served in the army and thought that it was grand, and that all of his five children should serve, too. Even his daughter. My older brothers went to a military college outside of Athens and have since gone on to get lots of medals and pick fights in Cyprus. He's very proud of all of them.

"When I was ten, I went to military school because it was a fine education, and it would teach me good values, and I could be a slightly smaller, but just as strapping, Greek nationalist and pick fights with the Turks. Except that I preferred the lessons to the drills, and I got grades near the top of my class, and I wanted to be a math teacher. Papa wasn't overly pleased, but Mama wouldn't let him do anything about it. She was proud of my brothers, too, but she was secretly glad that I didn't really want to get lots of war medals and die young, like one of my brothers did. And that was that."

Zechs absorbed all this. "But you didn't become a teacher after all."

Noin shrugged. "The military pays well. Teaching doesn't." That was the other half of the reason that she'd accepted the position in South Africa. Not that it hadn't taken some self-persuasion. Training recruits could be just as fulfilling as teaching math, she thought. It was supposed to be a safe job.

The conversation died a quick death, and for ten minutes, Noin's thoughts kept her company. The landscape had become greener when she wasn't looking. They were approaching the Congo.

"That's a hell of a bruise on your shoulder," Zechs tried finally. "How'd you get it?"

"I jumped off of the roof of a building, and then it blew up." Noin shifted in her seat to gaze out of the window, but only saw her image, and the irony and sadness reflected in her eyes.