It'll Be All Right, Gundam Wing
Title: It'll Be All Right
Author: Ellie Biel
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Characters/pairing: Milliardo Peacecraft, Lucrezia Noin
Warnings: light angst
Rating: PG
Notes: Written in response to dysis' request for a drabble for either KKM or GW, any characters, based on the line "How the hell did we wind up like this" from Nickelback's Someday.
She was standing there as erect as she did in their days at the academy, only instead of a gun her fingers were gripping the handle of a garden hoe. The reflectors on the solar generators had turned the sky orange, indicating the beginning of a very long sunset, and when he looked back at her face he could see her eyes flashing angrily at him.
Milliardo Peacecraft hadn't asked her to accompany him to Mars but she'd insisted. He hadn't wanted her to take that last stand with him, but she would settle for being nowhere else but by his side. He'd tried to push her away but like a tick she'd burrowed under his skin so deeply he was incapable of entirely ridding himself of her presence.
He should have been glad to see her turn her back on him, but she got back down on her knees and resumed her planting. It wasn't right to see Noin on her knees or her shoulders shaking with rage, even if he'd tried long and hard to make her see what he was really like.
Getting what he wanted was a hollow victory.
He should have returned to the crude bungalow they called home and left her alone. He lived his life making one mistake after another, sometimes compounding the problems in misguided attempts to correct his earlier actions. He'd tried to warn her that he couldn't be what she wanted or return her affections when he wasn't sure who he was or what he believed in.
He'd known this would happen, and yet being right did nothing but make him feel empty inside.
Living on Mars hadn't been easy. Being as far from the sun as they were, they relied on the solar reflectors for warmth and filtration to purify the air and imbue it with oxygen, but it was still cold at times and often dust clouds would descend upon them. More than a few people had ended up in the medical centers for bronchial infections, asthma, and internal abrasions.
He realized Noin had stopped planting and had covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders were shaking even more and he walked over to her, dropping to his knees beside her.
"Noin."
She didn't say anything, and he couldn't blame her.
He touched her shoulder, bare and flaking from the windburn. "Noin."
When she turned and flung her arms around him to weep on his shoulder, he froze, and then he returned the embrace, rubbing her back and resting his chin on top of her head.
He'd volunteered to come to Mars because it was the closest thing to hell he could have imagined. He'd been wrong, because holding Noin as her body wracked with sobs was infinitely worse.
"Shhh," he murmured. "It'll be all right."
He thought he was lying to her, but when she pulled away and looked up at him, her face as red as her shoulder, her lashes tipped with tears, and a trickle of blood running out of her nose, she still managed to smile at him.
He wiped the blood with his thumb and smiled back at her.