Memories
Title - Memories
Author - unwritten_ideas
Rating - PG-13
Word Count - 2,296
Pairing - Zero/Rei x Maria
Characters - Zero, Maria
Disclaimer - don’t own squat and if I did, I’d be posting this with pictures
Summary - Zero doesn't have many memories, but the few he does have are precious to him.
Notes - for the gacktjob_fics challenge. Set in the RRII universe
His memory was patchy.
It was as if someone had sneaked in like a thief in the night and stolen entire chunks of it. A day here, a month there… But, Zero reflected, that wasn’t entirely right. It hadn’t just been chunks of his memory that had been stolen, but his whole damn life. Simply wiped clean and thrown in the trash as if it was worthless. As if he was worthless. To those in charge though, he’d always been worthless. Just another cog in a well oiled machine. A slightly larger, more important cog now, granted, but still worthless.
Replaceable.
Disposable.
Zero quickly glanced behind himself but saw only empty, damaged streets. They would be here soon, though. His long range scanner had picked up their signal two days ago and they were getting closer.
He was tired of running.
The rubble scatted around his feet as he continued walking down the road had come from what had once been the bakery. He could remember the smell of the bread, the taste of the pastries, the smiled of the baker’s daughter who always insisted on serving him whilst glaring at the two companions he couldn’t quite remember who were always with him. The daughter was always sizing them up. Wondering…
The building next to the bakers was equally destroyed but Zero couldn’t recall what it had once been. It wasn’t chunks of his memory disappearing, but chunks of it coming back. Each day he remembered something new. An old face, a past conversation; it was all coming back to him. But, hidden amongst the familiar were memories that he didn’t know. That he couldn’t know.
Was it another one of their tricks? Had they planted these false memories to drive him insane?
He could hear a piano melody, Chopin’s Revolutionary Étude, if he recalled correctly, playing in his mind. He was no piano player. His fingers had never touched a piano key until that fateful night a month ago as learning the violin had left no time for piano lessons, yet, he could feel the ivory beneath his fingers as if it had always been there. He could see the piano score in his mind and could read the notes and recall it as clearly as the newspaper he’d found to read that morning.
He had played piano for his comrades, his brothers, a month ago. Before they had come. Zero had closed his eyes, become lost in his false memories and let his fingers move across the keys as they had wanted. It had been a beautiful sound. An oasis of calm and civilisation in the music room of the castle that he and his brothers had painted red with the blood of the enemies that had sought refuge there. It was easy to forget about the bodies that lined the floors when something as pure as music still existed, but when Zero had finished playing, reality came rushing back.
It was an awakening.
It was the last time he’d seen all of his brothers alive.
They had arrived the next morning, speaking of malfunctions and decommissioning. Zero and his brothers had fought back to defend themselves and their newly realised lives and freedom, but some brothers had fallen. The exposed metal beneath their skin had reflected the sun and blinded Zero as he led what remained of his bruised and battered battalion into the unknown. Since that day, the GHOST battalion had been hunted like dogs. Some brothers had been killed, some had gone their own way and some had simply given up.
Zero knew he was the last of the GHOST battalion. Zero also now knew why some of his brothers had given up.
He knew that he had walked down this street hundreds of times in the past, but still, he couldn’t recall the tight curve in the road. A boy, aged no more than ten years old came running around the corner, smiling broadly as his little legs deftly navigated the rubble. He saw Zero and stopped smiling. Zero recognised the boy. He could even remember playing football with him and some other neighbourhood boys, back when life was happier and peace reigned. But now, the boy didn’t see someone to kick a ball with, all he saw was the uniform that the common man had begun to hate. The boy turned on his heels and ran away.
The boy had seen the monster they had made him.
Finally, Zero found the house he was looking for. The chimney had been destroyed and was reduced to a neatly stacked pile of bricks at the corner of the house, but structurally, it looked sound. He was glad. When he’d written that letter two days after the siege in the castle, he hadn’t known whether the house he’d sent it to would still be standing. He knew now, but was the intended recipient still there? Would he be welcomed with open arms and a warm smile, or damned as the monster he’d become?
He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
As Zero had walked the streets that day, searching for something familiar that would lead him to this house, he’d tried to remember the face of the person he wanted to see. It came to him in glimpses, long brown hair blowing in the wind as they ate a picnic together, blue eyes sparkling while opening a birthday gift he’d bought, a bright smile, reserved only for him, as he told another of his over-exaggerated tales. But now that she was stood before him, looking as beautiful as they day he first met her, he could see her face in all of his memories. They weren’t glimpses of a half-remembered life anymore. They were real and tangible and Zero swore that he could feel his stolen heart beating again.
The woman looked at the uniform, at the endless black reserved only for the best and frowned. Those uniforms had promised a glorious dawn and restoration of the life that the German people deserved, but all they’d delivered was death and destruction. She was tired of war, tired of soldiers and tired of having all she cared about taken from her.
She looked at the soldier’s face.
“R… Rei? Is it you?”
Rei?
Yes… he had been called that once, hadn’t he? Before he was named Zero, before they made him into this monster.
It was Rei that had walked these streets, bought bread at the bakery, played football with the children, eaten picnics, given presents and told jokes. Zero was a monster, but Rei had never been.
He could be Rei again, couldn’t he?
“It’s me… Maria.”
Maria blinked back the tears that were forming in her eyes and smiled. So much death and destruction surrounded her but none of it seemed to matter. Her Rei had come back to her. She flung herself at him, her arms wrapping around his strong back as she buried her head into his chest, her silent tears washing clean the tainted black of his uniform and being absorbed by the wool. Zero was confused but Rei wasn’t and the man, locked away in his prison of wires and metal came to the front. He pulled Maria against him and rested his head atop hers, the light scent of her shampoo filling his senses.
“I thought you were dead,” Maria said softly. “Ryuuichi said you were. But then I received your letter… I couldn’t believe… I thought it was old or a trick. But it’s you. You’re here. You’re safe.”
Zero closed his eyes. He was safe today, but he knew that he wouldn’t be tomorrow.
“I’m here,” he repeated. “Where else would I be?”
Maria sighed in contentment. “I’ve missed you more than I thought was possible. Without Ryuuichi, I would have gone mad.”
Ryuuichi…
Ryuuichi…
Zero’s memory banks processed the name. It was familiar. Professor Asakura? Yes, his first name was Ryuuichi. Did it mean more than that to him though?
Zero filed the name away and concentrated on the woman in his arms. “I’ve missed you.”
A half truth at best.
For most of the war, Zero hadn’t missed anything because he’d had no memories to miss. Slowly, however, they’d started to creep back alongside this strange feeling that he’d done this all before. Sometimes, he could even hear a voice in the back of his mind that didn’t belong to him. It was calling, calling out a name…
…Elena…
“Hmm?” Maria asked. “What did you say?”
Zero screwed his eyes shut tightly. What was happening to him? Why was this voice haunting him? Who was Elena? Why did it feel like there was someone else in his mind, fighting with Rei to take control?
“Rei, are you okay?”
Zero held Maria tighter. He was Zero, commander of the GHOST battalion. He had once been Rei, a student and friend to Maria and Ryuuichi.
That name again.
“I’m fine,” Zero answered slowly. “I’m… okay.”
“You worried me,” Maria answered. “You looked like you were in pain.”
“Don’t worry about me. The war is over for me.”
Maria pulled away from him slightly but didn’t remove her arms from around his waist. She didn’t want to let go, just in case he disappeared again. “How can the war be over for you? They don’t discharge people… Have you run away?”
“Not anymore,” Zero answered. “Like I said, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“I always worry about people I care for.”
Zero smiled. He’d forgotten he could do that. “I know. You always looked after me and Ryuuichi.”
“I’m worried about Ryuuichi. He hasn’t been the same since he told me that you’d died. He’s been quiet, withdrawn… like something was weighing heavily on his mind.”
Ryuuichi…
Suddenly, Zero was bombarded with images of Ryuuichi standing outside the laboratory that he worked at, inviting Rei inside with a smile to show him the results of his new experiment. But there was no experiment. Just half a dozen soldiers with guns and an operating table, prepared and waiting for him.
It was him. Ryuuichi. Professor Asakura.
He’d taken Rei and made him into a monster.
A few weeks ago, Zero’s cells would have been burning with a desire for revenge. Now, Rei was disappointed at the betrayal of his friend. Ryuuichi, the man Rei had taken under his wing and helped, had as good as killed him.
“Do you still see Ryuuichi?” he asked Maria in a falsely calm tone.
“Sometimes,” Maria answered. “He doesn’t visit me as much anymore.”
“Don’t trust him,” Zero replied. “Don’t be alone with him.”
Maria frowned. “Why? He’s our friend, Rei. He’s going through a hard time and I want to help him.”
“Oh, my sweet Maria,” he replied, gently kissing her forehead, “you always see the best in people. Never change. How can you still be so pure and so untouched by all of the evil that is happening around you?”
Maria smiled and stared into his false blue eyes. “Not everything around me is evil.”
“I’m a monster, Maria. The things I’ve done… what I’ve become…”
“Doesn’t matter to me,” she interrupted. “You’re my Rei and you always will be.”
He kissed her then. Zero and that unknown voice that had driven him close to madness had both disappeared under the weight of Rei’s feelings for Maria. It didn’t matter that Ryuuichi had removed his still beating heart and replaced it with a machine, Rei didn’t need that to realise how much he loved the woman in his arms.
Rei had always fought against his love for Maria. He knew that Ryuuichi loved her too, and he hadn’t wanted to end his friendship with Ryuuichi or risk his friendship with Maria. There had been too much at stake.
But now, now that he knew that they were only a couple of miles away from him and closing in every second with their machine guns and order to shoot on sight, he knew he had nothing to lose. Zero, Rei and that third voice; they would all be gone tomorrow.
When they parted for breath, Maria was smiling. “I’ve been waiting for that for a few years, Rei.”
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”
Maria’s fingers traced idle patterns across his cheekbones and he welcomed the touch, but he knew that he shouldn’t encourage it. He had to leave. He had a small army on his heels and he could not lead them to Maria.
He gently pulled her fingers away from his face. “I have to leave, Maria.”
Her eyes widened. “Already? I thought you had come back to me.”
“Not yet,” he answered. “One day, I will be with you and it will be forever.”
“Do you promise, Rei?”
Zero nodded. “I promise.”
Maria stepped back. She had seen enough wives and girlfriends bravely send their men to war over the last few years to know the routine. She wouldn’t cause a scene. She wouldn’t cry. She would be strong, and she would allow Rei to leave with a smile.
“Be safe. And please, come back to me.”
Zero took her hand and left a final kiss upon her delicate skin. “I think it’s you that will come to me, Maria. I’ll be waiting for you.”
With that he was gone, walking back down the street he had walked down only a few minutes before.
He knew he’d never see this street again. They were so close he could almost smell them and they left nobody alive. Zero, Rei… Proto… they would all meet their end tomorrow.
But, at least he’d still have the memory of Maria’s lips against his and the knowledge that one day, he would see her again.
~owari
Notes
1) Lack of sleep = lack of editing.
2) I hope it isn't too deep into the storyline...
Author - unwritten_ideas
Rating - PG-13
Word Count - 2,296
Pairing - Zero/Rei x Maria
Characters - Zero, Maria
Disclaimer - don’t own squat and if I did, I’d be posting this with pictures
Summary - Zero doesn't have many memories, but the few he does have are precious to him.
Notes - for the gacktjob_fics challenge. Set in the RRII universe
His memory was patchy.
It was as if someone had sneaked in like a thief in the night and stolen entire chunks of it. A day here, a month there… But, Zero reflected, that wasn’t entirely right. It hadn’t just been chunks of his memory that had been stolen, but his whole damn life. Simply wiped clean and thrown in the trash as if it was worthless. As if he was worthless. To those in charge though, he’d always been worthless. Just another cog in a well oiled machine. A slightly larger, more important cog now, granted, but still worthless.
Replaceable.
Disposable.
Zero quickly glanced behind himself but saw only empty, damaged streets. They would be here soon, though. His long range scanner had picked up their signal two days ago and they were getting closer.
He was tired of running.
The rubble scatted around his feet as he continued walking down the road had come from what had once been the bakery. He could remember the smell of the bread, the taste of the pastries, the smiled of the baker’s daughter who always insisted on serving him whilst glaring at the two companions he couldn’t quite remember who were always with him. The daughter was always sizing them up. Wondering…
The building next to the bakers was equally destroyed but Zero couldn’t recall what it had once been. It wasn’t chunks of his memory disappearing, but chunks of it coming back. Each day he remembered something new. An old face, a past conversation; it was all coming back to him. But, hidden amongst the familiar were memories that he didn’t know. That he couldn’t know.
Was it another one of their tricks? Had they planted these false memories to drive him insane?
He could hear a piano melody, Chopin’s Revolutionary Étude, if he recalled correctly, playing in his mind. He was no piano player. His fingers had never touched a piano key until that fateful night a month ago as learning the violin had left no time for piano lessons, yet, he could feel the ivory beneath his fingers as if it had always been there. He could see the piano score in his mind and could read the notes and recall it as clearly as the newspaper he’d found to read that morning.
He had played piano for his comrades, his brothers, a month ago. Before they had come. Zero had closed his eyes, become lost in his false memories and let his fingers move across the keys as they had wanted. It had been a beautiful sound. An oasis of calm and civilisation in the music room of the castle that he and his brothers had painted red with the blood of the enemies that had sought refuge there. It was easy to forget about the bodies that lined the floors when something as pure as music still existed, but when Zero had finished playing, reality came rushing back.
It was an awakening.
It was the last time he’d seen all of his brothers alive.
They had arrived the next morning, speaking of malfunctions and decommissioning. Zero and his brothers had fought back to defend themselves and their newly realised lives and freedom, but some brothers had fallen. The exposed metal beneath their skin had reflected the sun and blinded Zero as he led what remained of his bruised and battered battalion into the unknown. Since that day, the GHOST battalion had been hunted like dogs. Some brothers had been killed, some had gone their own way and some had simply given up.
Zero knew he was the last of the GHOST battalion. Zero also now knew why some of his brothers had given up.
He knew that he had walked down this street hundreds of times in the past, but still, he couldn’t recall the tight curve in the road. A boy, aged no more than ten years old came running around the corner, smiling broadly as his little legs deftly navigated the rubble. He saw Zero and stopped smiling. Zero recognised the boy. He could even remember playing football with him and some other neighbourhood boys, back when life was happier and peace reigned. But now, the boy didn’t see someone to kick a ball with, all he saw was the uniform that the common man had begun to hate. The boy turned on his heels and ran away.
The boy had seen the monster they had made him.
Finally, Zero found the house he was looking for. The chimney had been destroyed and was reduced to a neatly stacked pile of bricks at the corner of the house, but structurally, it looked sound. He was glad. When he’d written that letter two days after the siege in the castle, he hadn’t known whether the house he’d sent it to would still be standing. He knew now, but was the intended recipient still there? Would he be welcomed with open arms and a warm smile, or damned as the monster he’d become?
He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
As Zero had walked the streets that day, searching for something familiar that would lead him to this house, he’d tried to remember the face of the person he wanted to see. It came to him in glimpses, long brown hair blowing in the wind as they ate a picnic together, blue eyes sparkling while opening a birthday gift he’d bought, a bright smile, reserved only for him, as he told another of his over-exaggerated tales. But now that she was stood before him, looking as beautiful as they day he first met her, he could see her face in all of his memories. They weren’t glimpses of a half-remembered life anymore. They were real and tangible and Zero swore that he could feel his stolen heart beating again.
The woman looked at the uniform, at the endless black reserved only for the best and frowned. Those uniforms had promised a glorious dawn and restoration of the life that the German people deserved, but all they’d delivered was death and destruction. She was tired of war, tired of soldiers and tired of having all she cared about taken from her.
She looked at the soldier’s face.
“R… Rei? Is it you?”
Rei?
Yes… he had been called that once, hadn’t he? Before he was named Zero, before they made him into this monster.
It was Rei that had walked these streets, bought bread at the bakery, played football with the children, eaten picnics, given presents and told jokes. Zero was a monster, but Rei had never been.
He could be Rei again, couldn’t he?
“It’s me… Maria.”
Maria blinked back the tears that were forming in her eyes and smiled. So much death and destruction surrounded her but none of it seemed to matter. Her Rei had come back to her. She flung herself at him, her arms wrapping around his strong back as she buried her head into his chest, her silent tears washing clean the tainted black of his uniform and being absorbed by the wool. Zero was confused but Rei wasn’t and the man, locked away in his prison of wires and metal came to the front. He pulled Maria against him and rested his head atop hers, the light scent of her shampoo filling his senses.
“I thought you were dead,” Maria said softly. “Ryuuichi said you were. But then I received your letter… I couldn’t believe… I thought it was old or a trick. But it’s you. You’re here. You’re safe.”
Zero closed his eyes. He was safe today, but he knew that he wouldn’t be tomorrow.
“I’m here,” he repeated. “Where else would I be?”
Maria sighed in contentment. “I’ve missed you more than I thought was possible. Without Ryuuichi, I would have gone mad.”
Ryuuichi…
Ryuuichi…
Zero’s memory banks processed the name. It was familiar. Professor Asakura? Yes, his first name was Ryuuichi. Did it mean more than that to him though?
Zero filed the name away and concentrated on the woman in his arms. “I’ve missed you.”
A half truth at best.
For most of the war, Zero hadn’t missed anything because he’d had no memories to miss. Slowly, however, they’d started to creep back alongside this strange feeling that he’d done this all before. Sometimes, he could even hear a voice in the back of his mind that didn’t belong to him. It was calling, calling out a name…
…Elena…
“Hmm?” Maria asked. “What did you say?”
Zero screwed his eyes shut tightly. What was happening to him? Why was this voice haunting him? Who was Elena? Why did it feel like there was someone else in his mind, fighting with Rei to take control?
“Rei, are you okay?”
Zero held Maria tighter. He was Zero, commander of the GHOST battalion. He had once been Rei, a student and friend to Maria and Ryuuichi.
That name again.
“I’m fine,” Zero answered slowly. “I’m… okay.”
“You worried me,” Maria answered. “You looked like you were in pain.”
“Don’t worry about me. The war is over for me.”
Maria pulled away from him slightly but didn’t remove her arms from around his waist. She didn’t want to let go, just in case he disappeared again. “How can the war be over for you? They don’t discharge people… Have you run away?”
“Not anymore,” Zero answered. “Like I said, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“I always worry about people I care for.”
Zero smiled. He’d forgotten he could do that. “I know. You always looked after me and Ryuuichi.”
“I’m worried about Ryuuichi. He hasn’t been the same since he told me that you’d died. He’s been quiet, withdrawn… like something was weighing heavily on his mind.”
Ryuuichi…
Suddenly, Zero was bombarded with images of Ryuuichi standing outside the laboratory that he worked at, inviting Rei inside with a smile to show him the results of his new experiment. But there was no experiment. Just half a dozen soldiers with guns and an operating table, prepared and waiting for him.
It was him. Ryuuichi. Professor Asakura.
He’d taken Rei and made him into a monster.
A few weeks ago, Zero’s cells would have been burning with a desire for revenge. Now, Rei was disappointed at the betrayal of his friend. Ryuuichi, the man Rei had taken under his wing and helped, had as good as killed him.
“Do you still see Ryuuichi?” he asked Maria in a falsely calm tone.
“Sometimes,” Maria answered. “He doesn’t visit me as much anymore.”
“Don’t trust him,” Zero replied. “Don’t be alone with him.”
Maria frowned. “Why? He’s our friend, Rei. He’s going through a hard time and I want to help him.”
“Oh, my sweet Maria,” he replied, gently kissing her forehead, “you always see the best in people. Never change. How can you still be so pure and so untouched by all of the evil that is happening around you?”
Maria smiled and stared into his false blue eyes. “Not everything around me is evil.”
“I’m a monster, Maria. The things I’ve done… what I’ve become…”
“Doesn’t matter to me,” she interrupted. “You’re my Rei and you always will be.”
He kissed her then. Zero and that unknown voice that had driven him close to madness had both disappeared under the weight of Rei’s feelings for Maria. It didn’t matter that Ryuuichi had removed his still beating heart and replaced it with a machine, Rei didn’t need that to realise how much he loved the woman in his arms.
Rei had always fought against his love for Maria. He knew that Ryuuichi loved her too, and he hadn’t wanted to end his friendship with Ryuuichi or risk his friendship with Maria. There had been too much at stake.
But now, now that he knew that they were only a couple of miles away from him and closing in every second with their machine guns and order to shoot on sight, he knew he had nothing to lose. Zero, Rei and that third voice; they would all be gone tomorrow.
When they parted for breath, Maria was smiling. “I’ve been waiting for that for a few years, Rei.”
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”
Maria’s fingers traced idle patterns across his cheekbones and he welcomed the touch, but he knew that he shouldn’t encourage it. He had to leave. He had a small army on his heels and he could not lead them to Maria.
He gently pulled her fingers away from his face. “I have to leave, Maria.”
Her eyes widened. “Already? I thought you had come back to me.”
“Not yet,” he answered. “One day, I will be with you and it will be forever.”
“Do you promise, Rei?”
Zero nodded. “I promise.”
Maria stepped back. She had seen enough wives and girlfriends bravely send their men to war over the last few years to know the routine. She wouldn’t cause a scene. She wouldn’t cry. She would be strong, and she would allow Rei to leave with a smile.
“Be safe. And please, come back to me.”
Zero took her hand and left a final kiss upon her delicate skin. “I think it’s you that will come to me, Maria. I’ll be waiting for you.”
With that he was gone, walking back down the street he had walked down only a few minutes before.
He knew he’d never see this street again. They were so close he could almost smell them and they left nobody alive. Zero, Rei… Proto… they would all meet their end tomorrow.
But, at least he’d still have the memory of Maria’s lips against his and the knowledge that one day, he would see her again.
~owari
Notes
1) Lack of sleep = lack of editing.
2) I hope it isn't too deep into the storyline...