In The End

 "Kidou Senki Gundam Wing" is copyright Bandai, Sunrise, Viz Communications, Mixx Entertainment and other associated parties.

It hurts.

It hurts, but I can see no other way. Not, and preserve... preserve I don't know what. Not honour, how can there be honour in what I'm doing? Not respect, they're going to hate me. But... there's a sense of me, of something that lies at the very bottom of my self - something that when I am down at the very end of myself, when I have nothing left, I must face. A mirror of myself, it feels like. I look at it and 'I' look back at me, and I see myself in my own unflinching gaze.

I could face it at the end of Marimeia's One Day War. I could face it at the end of the One Year War. But if I keep on this path, I won't be able to anymore.

They wouldn't hate me, but I would hate myself.

Is this that much-vaunted 'integrity'? This wall that marks the boundary of the self?

I don't know. I don't want to know.

T-shirts, jeans, is this one mine? No, it's not, and so I put it back. My uniforms are all neatly packed. My discs... aren't where I left them; should I take them? If the listening to them will ease the wound I'm about to inflict... no; likely they will only be salt, not balm. I pick the selections of classical jazz and blues up off the floor where they're scattered in front of the player, and stow them in my duffel.

In a way, it's frightening how all my life still fits in one not-that-big bag. In another, it's reassuring. I'm not sure which to be - relieved that I clearly didn't put down that many roots here, or disturbed that, even in a supposedly-secure environment, I still felt too disassociated to make it my own.

Or perhaps a part of me recognised from the beginning that I was an interloper in this life, and that this break would have to be made eventually.

Which are my books? The ones that aren't translated are easy enough to pick out, but did I buy that copy of Asimov's 'Lucky Starr Omnibus' we all enjoyed?

I'm just zipping up the bag when the clattering of the palm-lock in the corridor and then the quiet voosh of the door announces that I can't sneak out quietly. Well... not that I had intended to in the first place, but... the duffel makes it all too clear what's happening.

"Hey Wufei! What's...." Duo sees me, sees the full bag across my shoulders, and stops in mid-sentence.

Hiiro is directly behind him, which saves me the need to go through this again. Once will be bad enough. "I'm leaving," I say, getting straight to the point. "Lady Une assigned me a mission on one of the outer satellites in the L4 cluster this morning. Between the mission and travel time, I will be gone over four months."

Duo doesn't understand. Probably because he doesn't want to. "So? You can still leave some of your stuff here. Four months isn't that long."

"You're not coming back." Hiiro says flatly. He's trying for emotionless - dear Buddha, I can see the effort - but only a blind man could miss the roiling betrayal in those beautiful blue eyes.

"No," I admit. "I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?!" Duo demands. "Damnit, if Une thinks she can keep you away -"

"Duo." I manage to interrupt him. "This has nothing to do with Lady Une. I am leaving the two of you."

He goes white and sits down. His eyes are wide and - oh, how could I do this to them? - the pain that has filled Hiiro's eyes begins to seep into his.

"Tell us why," Hiiro says steadily. I nod; I owe then that much.

"I'm selfish. I can't - I can't share anymore. And I'm jealous. I don't want to be the third wheel anymore, either."

"You're not!" Duo bursts out.

"Yes, I am," I said ruthlessly. "You love Hiiro and Hiiro loves you. I knew that when we started this thing. You were kind and you tried to share your bond with me. And I was lonely enough to accept it. But I can't anymore."

Hiiro opens his mouth to say something but I talk over whatever he was about to say. "I know that you do care about me. And I'm more grateful for that than I can say. But you don't love me, not the way you love each other. As I said, I am selfish. I want what you have - I want someone to look at me the way you two do at each other. I -" and here I took a deep breath. "The way I feel - I'm going to end up ripping the three of us apart."

"And you're not now?!" Hiiro snaps.

He does have a point. "I'm ripping the three of us apart, but I haven't ripped the two of you apart!" I say harshly. "And I will, if I stay. So I'm going, before - before I destroy you too."

And, with that, I wheel about and walk out of the apartment. As the door vooshes shut behind me, I quickly hit the 'randomize' key on the keypad behind me. It can be reset from inside - but it will take even Hiiro at least three minutes to do it. The last thing I need right now is a tearful Duo or a resolute Hiiro attempting to convince me I'm wrong - not when all I want is to be convinced.

Lady Une is waiting at the shuttleport, supervising the loading of several pieces of equipment. She flicks her eyes up over my face and looks a little startled. "Maxwell and Yui didn't take it well?" she asks.

Of course she knows - our unorthodox relationship has been at the forefront of the Preventers' gossip mill since it had started six months earlier. "I'm now officially single."

Now she looks guilty. "You didn't tell them that it was my orders?"

"It wasn't this," I tell her. "It was going to happen sooner or later. This just made it sooner."

I walk onto the shuttle, sit down and belt myself in. I stare out at the tarmac, not seeing a single thing on it, until I blink and suddenly realize that we'd taken off.

"Sir?" the steward repeats.

"Yes?" I ask.

"You can take off your belt now. We'll be making contact with the orbital station in approximately six hours. Would you like a drink or some refreshments at all?"

"Perhaps later," I tell him, and watch as he drifts to the front of the shuttle, out of the passenger area.

Now, now when I'm alone, when I can finally sit still, now is when the tears come. What have I done? I have eviscerated myself, cut away the love that stopped my downward spiral and hauled me out of the darkness of depression. I have desperately wounded two people who cared enough about me to try to save me. And if our other two heart-brothers will still talk to me after they hear what I have done, it will not be from any regard for me.

And yet... and yet... they are not broken, and nor am I. They still have each other.

And I am facing the mirror of my soul, the me who stands at the end of my self, and I can look into his eyes.

Author's Notes:

1. I just feel that classic jazz and blues (the real classics: people like BB King and Billie Holiday) suit WuFei's personality.

2. In the 1950s, Isaac Asimov wrote, under an assumed name, a series of six novels of interplanetary derring-do about an intrepid young man improbably called 'Lucky Starr'. They're very good and, while suffering from the 1950s misapprehensions about the conditions in the rest of the solar system, are a lot of fun. If you come across any of the books about this futuristic Zorro, pick them up; you won't regret it.