The Music Stopped
By Delleina

"Jousen, come on" implored a young wiry looking boy dressed in black with a
thick braid down his back, "You know Hee-chan loves you, why do you have to
beat yourself up just cause he didn’t go to your conference. It’s not like
he said he would."
"It’s not that Duo, it’s the fact that he didn’t tell me either way, he
didn’t say anything."
"He’s so far gone, Relena, he doesn’t even talk to me anymore. He probably
couldn’t have come if he wanted to."
"It’s not just that he doesn’t pay attention to me. Whenever I talk to him,
he just has a blank stare on his face. All he does is sit and stare out the
window. He’s so quite that if he didn’t live with us, I would think he was
dead."

He might as well be dead.

It all swirled in Heero’s mind.
I’ve been so lost… I still am.
It’s like having your head under dark murky water.
You can’t see. You can’t breath. You can’t hear.
The darkness smothered him.
And Relena.
He didn’t know. She smothered him too.
He followed her blindly and protected her, but he didn’t know if he felt any
great love for her.
His body ached.
It had been so long since he had just been outside. To be in the sun; to
stare up at the clouds…
But he wouldn’t allow himself to; he would rip his flesh off if he ever felt
fresh air. He was a failure- he didn’t deserve it.
So he locked himself in this prison. It was wild as some kind of beast
chained and waited down behind a thick, heavy curtain.
Then the thunder and lightening.
The storm shook his prison.
The prison he made himself. The prison he locked himself in. He was the only
prisoner but he was the guard holding the keys.


"So Heero, how’s it going?" called Duo cheerfully as he sat down near the
window next to Heero and looked out. Heero turned away; his expression
unwavering. "Buddy, everyone misses you. Come down for dinner tonight.
Relena made her special: Lemon fish." He grimaced good-naturedly.
"Hn," was all he got as a reply.
"Aiya, Heero! Relena could be dying and you wouldn’t care. She misses you
and you don’t even notice her. You know about her last conference. She
thought that you were coming. When you never showed she had to get up and
giver her speech anyway, and she broke down in the middle of it. In front of
the colony leaders. Not to mention the fact that it was televised through
out all the colonies. You know how nervous she was. It meant a lot to her
and she thought you were coming to support her. I told her not to fool
herself, but…" he trailed off.
All he got was a blank stare.
Duo sighed as he left the room.

~
Relena had come skipping in that day, in a new blue dress and her hair down.
She had sat down next to him and held his hand and talked to him. Like he
was still here; like nothing had happened since the end of the Eve Wars;
like he hadn’t locked himself in this prison.
She had rambled on about her work and how well Mariemeia was doing. About
how much the United Sphere was relying on her image as Queen. She talked
about her work promoting transportation between the colony clusters. She
told him how nervous she was about an upcoming conference.
He didn’t say anything; he looked up at her for a second and smiled, but
then turned back to look out the window.
She sat next to him awhile longer with his hand in her lap then got up to
leave.
He just kept staring out the window.
He missed the single tear that escaped just as she turned around one last
time before leaving.
~

The long and winding road that leads to your door
Will never disappear, I’ve seen that road before,
It always leads me here to your door.

The wild and windy night that the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears crying for the day
Why leave me standing here,
Let me know the way.

Many times I’ve been alone and many times I’ve cried,
Anyway you’ll never know the many ways I’ve tried
But still they lead me back to the long winding road,
You left me standing here along time ago,
Don’t leave me waiting here,
Lead me to your door.

But still they lead me back to the long winding road,
You left me standing here along time ago,
Don’t leave me waiting here,
Lead me to your door.

At seven o’clock Heero looked up at the clock dazedly. He slowly got up and
walked out of his room, for the first time in a long time; down the hall and
a flight of steps. He heard voices from the dining room and stopped to
listen.

"…Just sometimes he might as well be dead," Relena said. "I talk to him but
he doesn’t hear me. I hold his hand but he doesn’t feel me. What is it, Duo?
What more can I do? I love him so much, but it’s so painful for me to even
look at him. I don’t know what’s wrong with him; it’s like he’s rotting away
from the inside. His eyes are so big and sad and tired now. I’m not even
sure if he’s eating anymore. Just one night- to see him come down and eat
with everyone; to fight with Zechs, to smile or to laugh." She stopped
talking.
He took a step closer to the room to see why.
Duo was holding her in his arms, trying to get her to stop talking. He
looked up and saw Heero standing in the doorway. Heero turned around and
walk away.

That night Duo walked down to Heero’s room. He wanted to kill him for what
he was doing to Relena, but he knew Heero had receded so far into his mind
that a punch in the face wouldn’t wake him up even for a second.
He turned the knob of the door. It was locked.
"Hee-chan, open up! It’s just the God of Death here for a little midnight
chat. Come on, buddy, I brought you a piece of pie from dinner."
Silence
He waited a few seconds, and then knocked again. After waiting again, he
started yelling. "Heero, Open up! Heero!"
Relena came down the hall in her nightgown. "What’s going on, Duo?"
"He locked himself in." He started banging on the door again. "That’s it."
Duo kicked the door in and looked around. The room was empty. The window was
open the curtains flapping gently in the wind.
Outside was a garden. Relena’s Rose Garden.
"That’s why he liked this room. He liked the flowers outside his window."
Duo informed Relena. " When we first came here after then end of the wars,
he told me he hated it here. He said it was like a single cell prison, but
he said he liked it because of your roses. He said he watched you sometimes.
He loved those flowers."
Duo stood in the doorway of what had been Heero’s prison for the last two
years. The prisoner had escaped and Duo didn’t know if he should be sad or
happy.

Relena walked in. Blood red roses covered the desk in the corner, the petals
falling off, some spilling on the floor as the wind lightly swept through
the room. Beside the bed was a book, Peter Pan lying open on the floor. She
picked it up and held it to her chest as she walked across the room to the
open window.
He’s gone.
Duo walked in behind her. He stopped at the desk. Moving some of the petals
over, he noticed some paper on the desk: newspaper clippings of Relena, an
ad for Duo and Hilde’s shop, and an article about the Preventers.
And a note.
He picked it up and opened it. He stood beside Relena as he read it aloud
just as the sun slipped behind the mountains in the distance.

What happens when the waltz ends?
Where do I go from here?
What does a soldier do when the war’s over?
Where does the perfect soldier go? Away, hidden until he is needed again.
In my prison. I might as well be dead; you said it yourself.
Not quite dead.
I’ve been locked in here forever.
I can’t get by the guard.
He guards this place well fir he is the perfect soldier, too.
He guards this prison of solitude.

I’m leaving, Relena. I don’t want to cause you any more pain. You work so
well. You’re intelligent and beautiful. Your people love you. You’re so
kind. You took Mariemeia in. Make your family. Build your friends around
you. Keep working. Forget me. I’m leaving. Forget me. Someday you’ll have
children and you’ll be a beautiful mother; and a wife to someone that
deserves that life. I could never be that to you or anyone else. I am but a
lost soul in that endless waltz. But the music stopped.


It started to snow on the rose buds. Relena didn’t even notice it. She
stared out at something in the distance and smiled.

Heero walked away into the sunset like and old time cowboy. It would be hard
for Relena at first, but she would go on. Someday he’d marry and have a
family and he would be nothing but a story that she would tell her children
on rainy nights.
A story, an old hero like Peter Pan. But he would leave and never come back.
He had already grown up a long time ago.
Now he would move on. He couldn’t inflict such pain on his friends anymore.
He had to ride away into the sunset and hid the tears that escaped even form
the perfect soldier’s eyes.