Title: Just the Rain

Author: Stacey-Marie

Pairings: 1+2 slight, dun blink…

Warnings: angst, Duo POV

Disclaimers: Gundam Wing, its chara, mechs and all other miscellaneous stuff doesn’t belong to me, they are the property of Bandai, Sunrise and the Sotsu Agency. So don’t sue because you have a better chance of finding a live cabbit in my room than something of value.

Note: Takes place while Duo is in the Oz prison for the first time…

I’m in a room, a lonely little room with no windows: no light. It isn’t cold or quite dreary I think. I don’t know. It seems I’ve been here forever and all the details have just faded away from me. But there’s a sound: it’s far off and I can barely hear it, but here as I sit alone I think I hear rain. The more I listen to it the more I think that I may be right; rain the thought it soothing in and of itself. Not real rain though because this is a colony with only spurts of recycled yet precious water. Still it is the same sound: a soft yet hard thrumming. Ceaseless and comforting it pounds against the prison roof. I seems like hours have passed in the time that I’ve sat her concentrating only on the rain, but sometimes if I listen too hard I think that it may just be the sound of a fan. But I need the sound of that rain to keep me going, the fan will have to wait for its recognition from someone else.

Have you ever danced in the rain? Real rain I mean, from the endless fount of clouds on the Earth. It’s beautiful; the sheets of water pouring down as you spin. I think that cold rain may be the best for dancing in, warm rain is always too short. Even the sky is beautiful when it rains on Earth. I don’t even mean during a thunderstorm when all the world is lights and darkness. The pearly gray hue of the sky as it drenches the ground is a sight of endless wonder for me. The feel of the little beads of icy water on your face stops time. Nothing is as it was the moment before the rain fell. No war, no past, no imminent death in the future. Rain is a kind of savior that Sister Helen’s God could never be.

As I sit the door opens and in steps Heero: pointing a gun at me. It seems fitting that something so beautiful as rain would herald his arrival. I don’t mind dying, in fact I ask him for it. Yet I am strangely sad that I never got to see the rain again. Maybe my sadness showed in my face, but for some reason his finger was stayed from the trigger. He grabs the gun from the dead guard at his feet and tosses it to me. Then, slowly, he helps me to escape through the cold winding corridors of the base. As we get closer to the outside I strain my ears and can barely make out the sound of that rain. It may be imagined, it may be real, but either way it keeps me moving more than Heero does. Thoughts of escape in order to fight the war do not exist. I escape only to see that rain. But then sparks begin to chase our feet and we must run faster. The rain is chased from my mind as I run, striving to survive. Out, we burst into the artificial sunlight and dash into an all off to the left. We run through a maze of twisted lanes before he deems it safe enough for me and my broken body to rest.

With my arm over his shoulder and panting on one knee, I dare to look up. The sky is full of bright lights, no gray, no moisture on the ground. A tear escapes from my eyes at the sight. The rain was imagined and I can have no savior. Heero sees and turns to me his face filled with a rare look of concern.

"What’s wrong, are you hurt anywhere?"

"No," I said, "It’s just the rain."

"But there is no rain."

"I know."