Your Salvation

[Jooles]

Your Salvation

by Jooles

Dedication: to Ash and Stefy on their birthdays. May you both have lovely days, get nice t00by presents, and both have a very cool day. Very very happy birthdays to both of you! -- Funnily enough, it's worked out that I'm posting this fic on BI on my birthday. Will wonders never cease?


Souls slip away to busk in
glowing radiance leading me down.
As we run from the sun,
And we harbour the lies.
And we leave things undone
As we cover our eyes
Does it tear you apart?
-The Tea Party



You remember your time at St. Gabriel's and the things that you learnt. You were something of a dedicated student, managing to juggle book work, social elitism, and 'time with the girls'. Looking back on your time spent in the lavish grounds of green and buildings of marble (quite obviously compensating for something), you realise that you really were quite a naive little girl. Maybe not lacking in physique, but certainly small in personage and spirit. Then that boy, the one you still think about now, came along and changed everything. Like a clap of lighting on a clear day, everything that ever seemed right all of a sudden was most certainly and dreadfully wrong. It was as though the assurance that the sun would most definitely rise the following day was bogus.

And so the boy with the dark hair, and dark blue eyes, became your world. It didn't matter that he was more or less an enigma to you. And certainly, the fact that for a good long while his only reason for spending time with you was so as to try and kill you, didn't matter. What mattered was that this boy mattered to you. He was your unexplored Africa, your incurable cancer, your hundred million dollar Swiss bank account, your Camelot hero, your one and only objective. Causes are causes though, and love is love. You can't quite remember when exactly he, the boy, went from being your cause to being your love. Perhaps it was always meant to be this way. Perhaps you had always loved a boy from the stars, seemingly otherworldly.

You remember when war broke out not only around the world, but in your home, your family. Everything was juxtaposed.... everything was a prevarication. Even the boy, he was a lie as well. Perhaps, his maturity was a lie. For as you have found, everybody is, once you scrape the surface of the issue at hand; very insecure. Even yourself, although it would pain you to admit so. Then the terrible occurrence... your father... dissipated... and then the truth... that the man you had admired, had trusted, had loved as only a daughter does her father, you found him not to be your true father. Did this make this love counterfeit? Could your love have been genuine despite not knowing the truth? It is a strange thing how times of great depravity can bring about strong characters; people who clash, people who survive. You, a mere school girl, used to hob-nobbing it with the other elitists rediscovered and redefined yourself, decided your goals, your life's mission. You had a manifesto, a purpose, a country, a family to represent. For the first time in your life you were Hope Personified.

Of course, you were still dreadfully rich, and certainly snobby. But then... something cracked, and sometimes you believe it was because of him that you changed. Admittedly there had always been a compassionate nature about you. However, he fully drew it out of you. He was like your Theseus, unwinding you on threads of silk and fire. He eradicated what power the figurative minotaur had over you, and like Theseus heartlessly left Ariadne to fend for herself. Was it worth it? You ask yourself often. Was it worth the change? Was your compassion worth the peoples? time, their adoration, their continued admiration? Does he see what he has made you become? Does he know what you want to be? Does he even realise that despite all the compassion, the selflessness that is paraded quite royally, and globally around, that deep deep down, right in the pit of your soul, thudding somewhere in the back of your ribcage, that really, you are after all human, and you are extremely selfish. You know exactly what you want. Perhaps you have known all along, and perhaps he is the reason why you are like you are now. Perhaps you thought once that by being selfless, by parading compassion in the form of Hope Personified, that you would get what you wanted. You were wrong.

You've only ever been denied the one thing that you've really yearned for, and he has relented endlessly. You are never quite in the know as to whether he feels anything, wants something from you. You have come to the conclusion that something most definitely formidable is there between the two of you. However he has abjured. And he continues to do so. Will he ever speak to you, touch you, hug you, hold hands with you, wrap his arms around you, whisper to you, sing to you, fly for you, make love to you, fuck you up against the wall, take you away from all this, shoot you, kill you, torture you, leave you, breathe for you, marry you, have your babies, give up the lie, and admit that he knows you're really the selfish one, and that he's the compassionate one. You?ve been sidestepping this role reversal long enough so that it doesn't matter anymore, because you need each other. You have to be selfish every once in awhile, even though you know you've been selfish all along.... and he, he has always been selfless.

And now, you sit years later in your stuffy office, poring over paper work that you don't really understand because you never did absorb all your bookish studies back in St. Gabriels's. Sure, you can make pretty speeches and debate with world leaders... but really, you're a natural, and you have brilliant advisors. Your paperwork is endless and basically you just sign a few things here, scan a few pages there... your secretary knows more than you do, but they?re all too afraid to admit it... if they even realise so. Besides, what would they do without you? You're what they need. At least that's what they tell themselves. Do you hold the world together, Relena? Can you hold yourself together? Are you really that joke they all know you are? Does he know what you are? In truth, you suspect that he does know. Maybe that's why he keeps coming back to you. He wants to experience that selfishness. He's been such a giver, not a taker for so long that he needs to see it in someone he's used to, someone who is so completely selfish that they've based their whole entire career on one person, one boy, and one love that has never been confirmed or consummated. He needs to see that people can be so selfish in wanting something so desperately that they'll pretend that they know everything about diplomacy and politics. They'll debate with foreign diplomats, and they'll literally suck-ass to whichever nation needs sucking ass. Maybe he likes watching you barely hold yourself together, smiling and glittering and sparkling and leading the way for the world, the colonies. Who would have thought that a simple yet powerful, rich, snobby girl like yourself would have ever been successful? Is this all a dream? No. Not really. You're still yourself, and he still admires your selfishness. He always will. It?s something he?ll never possess.

And now, you are here, still here, at your desk, sitting in front of an endless pile of driveling paperwork that you don't really understand and quite honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about But you're reading the shit-for-nothing paper anyway. You aren?t really absorbing it, because you're thinking about sapphire eyes and dark brown hair that never stays firmly flat. You think to yourself that if he ever was yours that you?d make him get a haircut. You remember the New Year?s ball and how swell he looked in his white tuxedo. Of course, he was merely the bodyguard, and you were merely the dancer. Yes, you were the dancer. Though of course you waltzed (as was fundamentally required of you), you also lapped danced, and those people, those billions of people in the world were and still are your bloody fucking sugar daddies.

You just want a break. You want to be stop being selfish, and do something that you need. Even though quite ironically and fucking hypocritically, that's incredibly selfish. You know that if you carry on the dance, the lie, the pretense that you're a damned good politician even though you're not, you realise that you won?t be able to. It's just absolute utter bullshit and you know it. Why lie about something like that? Is it because you're used to it? You often wonder that. You believe that you're swimming so deep in the shit pile that you may as well continue struggling to keep your head above the surface. When did selfishness become such misery? When did the two: selflessness and selfishness merge together?

And now, as you sit at your desk you think maybe that in originally being selfish that you have in fact become selfless. Are you a husk Relena Darlian/Peacecraft... in your dreams Yuy? Do you know who you really are? If you had the chance would you ever be able to work it out? Does he know? Would he know? Would he even damn well care? The text on the page is seamless... it looks foreign to you, though you know that it's in your language. Scrawling a signature you suddenly wonder if you used the right last name. You realise you haven?t. Wishful thinking once again. Tut tut Relena.

And then you're not in your office anymore, but somewhere in the air flying between continents. You've been everywhere and although you can't remember the places that you?ve been you have a vague notion of which places you liked and which places you disliked. With your job there's never extremities of like and dislike. You feel nonchalant about the travel. Because after all, the only thing that has ever mattered has been him, and look where that got you. You can no longer be selfish... you're a selfless fucking husk. Do you even have a personality Relena? Are you real?

It was all about saving him. When you first got in on this mission, this life-changing manifesto of yours. Somehow, you know you made a horrible mistake in thinking that he needed to be saved. He didn't. His lifestyle, his childhood had equipped him well enough so that he was, he had always been prepared to deal with the ramifications of the events that changed you so drastically. You've always been a little stupid, although as you've gotten older, and especially since your adopted father died, you've learnt how to hide it. And now, as you sit in the squishy leather chair in the airplane you realise you've made the most horrible mistake of your life. Because really there's nothing left over. You are the skin one sheds, you are the emptiness, the nothingness no one important remembers. Sure, the people, the billion minions of people will remember you... you're Queen Relena. But, what does it matter if the one, the only one, the unfeeling bastard who you've loved and hurt and realise now is the most selfish bastard of them all, if that one person doesn?t' give a flying fuck if you live, die, grieve., sob, cry, love. It's a shit for nothing world you live in, you may have all the extravagances in life, however the reality is anything but.

And then, you?re landing again, back on solid ground, in a definite place, that you know is real, because you've seen it so many times. Your mansion always feels empty, and this is home for you. The emptiness is so symbolic... you live in a husk, you are a barren, vacant, desolate, hollow good for nothing husk, and here you are... no better off. He's there, as head of security. He's grown more handsome over the years. There's a dangerous quality to it... Don't touch, don't love, don't even fucking think about it you selfish cow, Relena. He's a curse and you all love him... even those who shouldn't. Yourself especially. He'll only wound you. But really, you know that, you've known that for years. And yet you still go on. You?ve been smarting from the wound, the scab which he is, for years now. He brings out the absolute best in you, yet you feel all the worse for it. Because, when you get down to it, this isn't real. It was never meant to be this way.

And so, you sit in your husk of a home, and dream of running off with the most selfish boy you've ever known and the only one you've ever loved, though it's debatable as to whether or not you're capable of feeling that way now. And that boy, whom you love, you dream of running off with into the countryside... somewhere that doesn't smell like cowshit, but has beautiful green pastures that will bring peace to your mind, and warmth to your soul. You want to sit with this boy who has destroyed you, and you want to sip your tea with him beside the fire place and look out the window on a chilly night, and express what you feel, think, believe, know to be true to this one boy. You know he won't understand, for he is incapable of empathy, but still you want to tell him ...everything.

Then you realise that it has something to do with the eyes. The beautiful jewel-like eyes. It's all so superficial. Because, really, how special is he? He's awfully handsome and selfless and heroic-like, but still what has he ever done for you? He's caused you heartache, he's destroyed your life, you can never be what you wanted to be even though you don't know what that was, and now you have no anonymity. And he?s still your fucking head of security.

Somewhere along the line, when you've given so many speeches that even your old friend, Pagan has lost count; and you've started to develop frown lines and those pencil lines around your eyes from squinting at the ceaseless unidentifiable drabble you sit and pore over at your desk night after night. And somewhere along that line, at that point, something happens. It is awfully odd how these things turn out, for you've always thought that you would be the one to redeem him, after all he's done all those horrible things you think that he must be fucked up at least a little bit. You and his friends have always known he has issues. But he's not the one who breaks down on public television. No, it?s you, Relena Darlian/Peacecraft... in your dreams Yuy, who cracks in a silly insignificant press conference. Like an amnesiac you forget what the hell the point is of what you?re meant to be saying. Your speech becomes clipped, before fading off, and all that can be heard is the sound of your heavy, distressed, distraught breathing. It?s the sound of your nervous breakdown. Oh bloody no. The worst case scenario comes true. And it's you, darling. How
horribly embarrassing.

And then... as if something breaks, just maybe your heart... it all mutates. Why is it when you've given up on the one thing you've only ever wanted, that they all of a sudden get set on you? It's such uncommonly bad timing you think to yourself.

You're lying in your bed, not crying, because you can't cry anymore, and he's there all of a sudden. He's sitting at the edge of it, not saying anything, because really, what is there to say? You shut your eyes, desperately. You feel so ashamed. You were meant to save him. You were meant to save the world. But this man, no longer a boy, sitting at the edge of your bed is the one who has done both. He didn't need you to save him, he had all the necessary attributes to save himself. When he saved the world a long time ago, you merely pieced what he'd saved back together. Of course you did it in your bullshit tongue. His heroism was genuine. He had a mission. Your mission had always been him, and look where that got you: On anti-depressants and off work because of a nervous bloody breakdown. By now, you're past caring, or feeling humble, because the whole world knows, and so does he; though you suspect he's known all along. Shame on him. He could have prevented all this, this utter misery, by silencing you, by telling you to give up, that there was no chance.

And then, you tell him to fuck off. And you recall, that you don't think he's quite rightly heard you swear before. Is it any surprise then that his usually impassive face is all of a sudden quite thoroughly etched in surprise? None at all. And then you swear again, twice, at your utter stupidity, and the hopelessness of this situation. You never meant for it to play out like a tragedy.

And then, as if a switch is being turned on for the first time (because he's been running on battery for so long now), he reaches out and takes your hand. You stare at him quite openly shocked at his action. He is not meant to be the proactive one, you are. Now you feel more weak than ever. And now, he's laced his hands with yours, and yours and his hands are intertwined, though you feel thoroughly disjointed from the connection. You are still a shell, despite the heat, the warmth of his skin pressed against yours. And then the words are out of his mouth. "It's going to be all right." And you can only stare. For, what is this, is it compassion? It can?t possibly be. You've always thought he was selfishness disguised as altruistic consideration. Maybe he cares? You shrug. His thumb soothes itself over the top of your hand, though you barely feel the interaction. You've lost all sense of feeling over the years. You, Relena Darlian/Peacecraft ... in your dreams Yuy are only a husk.

And then he leans forward and presses his lips to your forehead, and you think your heart just maybe weeps a little. And you can't smile, and you can't breathe and you can't think and everything is blinding... for he's done what he should have done a long time ago. Is this hope? Is this love? Is this something that it shouldn't be? Is this just another lie? He pulls his face away and studies you a moment. He doesn?t smile. He's doesn?t do smiling. He does, however whisper what you need to hear, what you've been needing to hear for so long. It's not a lie. This really is hope, this really is something. It is only what it should be. This is love.

And as you sit outside in the sunshine on the porch of some anonymous country villa, and the smell of jasmine wafts through the air, you feel betrayed. Why did he have to wait? Why was time such a bitch to you? And then, you look over at your companion, your only ever selfless, never parsimonious companion. He doesn't smile much, although sometimes he does , but that's only in the most tender but reticent moments. This time he senses that you're having a contemplative session with yourself, and he reaches out, takes your hand in his and brings it to his lips. This is his continued esteemed promise: This is real, genuine, true. I am here. I give you today, tomorrow, for as along as you need/want/will let me give you. I have loved you so long. I love you now. I still love you. This is me, you, and what we have here, now, yesterday, today, tomorrow, ...always.

You shake, for it was not long ago that you thought he was a dream, that everything was a dream and that everything was empty, and yourself nothing but a husk. And now, here he sits with you, and you are at peace. And finally you realise with the erratic way in which you now allow yourself to think, that you never had a chance in hell of being his redeemer, and that you never were meant to be his salvation. Heero Yuy was always meant to be yours.



~Finis~


Author?s Notes:

1. The theme of Relena being a ?husk/hollow/vacant? etc is something of a literary reference to Janet Frame?s ?the hollow house will never be filled? from her novel "Owls Do Cry". Also the reference to Theseus and the minotaur is a reference to the quote "We walk like Theseus with our memories unwound on threads of silk or fire; and after slaying by what power the minotaur?s of our yesterday we return again and again to the birth of the thread..."

2. This was something of a monlogue in the form of stream of consciousness narrative with the focus of Relena reflecting on herself, ?you?.

3. References to the superficial are a personal reference to one only recognising the superficial if they themselves have at one stage been superficial. Alluding to IM conversation with Ash.

4. Tragic references are because I?ve read too much in the way of Greek tragic plays, and Shakespeare this year. Thank the gods for comedy.

5. Thanks to self proclaimed grammar-nerd, Miaka Mouse for a look over most of it, and spotting some of the grammar errors.

6. And finally, Happy Birthday Ash and Stefy! I wish you all the best for the upcoming year, and especially for the day.

7. Somewhat early as I?ve got exams all day tomorrow, and am under the impression that I wouldn?t get another chance to get at the computer to proof (yes I proof!) this fic before then. Thus, early posting.

8. General and usual disclaimers apply as always.

9. Feedback appreciated.

[RDP]

Happy Birthday Jooles! (Although this is coming nearly one year later... ) Nice, sentimental fic with an interesting point of view. Superb piece!

[AngelOfDeath]

I think I was mostly surprised by how angry it was even as the theme of hollowness reiterated itself.

Poor Relena. . . I didn't think you were all THAT stupid. :-?

[fubberr]

Wow..I dont know why, but this line hits me :

"He was your unexplored Africa, your incurable cancer, your hundred million dollar Swiss bank account, your Camelot hero, your one and only objective."

and theres another..i just lost it .. hehe..and i'm too lazy to look back for it!

in other words..

Great fic!!!

[WhiteWindRRose]

wow.
i rather liked the fact that she didn't understand her work. it made her image more real and human--suggesting that it was all just a fluke. but after all, Rel could just be blowing things out of proportion as it is a self-scutinizing piece.
wondeful fic.

[lilac310]

Awesome!

[Morrighan]

Ooh...!!! This is so good!! I loved it!! It totally captured the complexities of human introspection!!

Wonderful job!!

[TigerQueen]

Really, truly, honestly perfect. Perfect in that it makes her imperfect. In a way, I think that the creators of Gundam Wing meant for Relena to have this kind of mental journey -- they just didn't do half as good a job. Turning the salvation theme back on its head -- from Heero saves Relena (beginning of series) to Relena saves Heero (end of series) & finally back to Heero saves Relena...and yet, saving Relena saves Heero...I'm getting so muddled that what I'm saying doesn't really makes sense. Let's leave it that I love it! -- TQ

[Fatimai1]

wow a different way of thinking! im sure that WOULD think like that...