Author's note: The song is Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. If you haven't heard it yet, then go buy, loan or download it - it's wonderful!

May, AC 197

I pull the blind up, letting the morning light into my bedroom. For a moment, I just look outside, still feeling that slight surprise that this is my view now. Not a view borrowed or stolen from an owner who’d been driven away by war or poverty, not a view chosen for surveillance or security purposes. A view I bought, bought with mainly honest money Odin left me and not with funds I’d stolen from OZ during the war.

Tendrils of mist are curling around each other in a lazy morning ritual, obscuring the flowered meadow even to my enhanced eyes. Beyond it I can barely make out the rise of the land, only the higher, nearly bare rock emerging from the mist in sun-dappled glory.

      These mist-covered mountains
      are a home now for me
      but my home is the lowlands
      and always will be

It used to bring me peace, this view.

In the mornings -- just like today -- the sun bathes the mountains in light and color, and I find myself lingering at the window while I plan my day. It’s soothing to see that at least this one thing the war hasn’t been able to touch.

I don’t ask for forgiveness, and this time I won’t ask the families of the dead to take revenge on me. I don’t believe either would make me rest easier, and no one wants to be reminded of the war. I don’t believe in atonement either, but I brought one thing with me when I moved into the cottage.

Flowers.

Seeds and plants of the yellow flower that I buried with Mary back on L1.

I planted them here for remembrance, so I never forget my mistakes. Maybe I hoped it would be enough to still the worst of my guilt. Predictably, it has not. Even so, the sight of them brings back not only the memory of my failure but also the bright day when I laughed for the last time, when a small girl and her dog looked at me and weren’t afraid.

I sigh, as I look up at the jagged mountaintop closest to me. Even after months of solitude, months of trying to forget, it is easier to imagine what it looks like at sunset, the rock nothing but dark silhouettes against the bleeding sky, the sun hidden behind them.

Standing here, I can feel the harmony of nature. The balance of life and death, of light and darkness. I can feel that I don’t belong here.

      Some day you’ll return to
      your valleys and your farms
      and you’ll no longer burn to
      be brothers in arms

I wonder if the other pilots have had the difficulties I do. I wonder if any of them wake up screaming from nightmares of past sins. I wonder if any of them have spent nights shivering, too scared to fall asleep, too weak to face the past that reaches out to drown me. I wonder if any of them have been forced to question their hold of sanity the way I still do.

Probably not.

They all had families or friends -- attachments -- to go to after the Eve War. They had people who cared, people they cared about in return. I don’t know how to receive or even recognize the former, and I doubt I’m capable of the latter anymore.

I wanted to adapt to normal human society after the first war, but I failed. Miserably. The other pilots -- especially Duo and Quatre -- tried to help me, but they didn’t understand my problem anymore than I did. Trowa understood the most, I think. We are too alike for him not to. Of all the people I met since I came to Earth, Trowa was the one I was most comfortable with. There were no storms of emotional or irrational behavior, just clinical efficiency.

I almost miss the war, sometimes. Not the killing or the destruction or the confusion, but it was the only time I’ve ever felt semi-confident what to say or how to act around people. I don’t claim to have mastered even that kind of interaction, but I looked forward to seeing the others, or hearing them over the comm links during missions.

      Through these fields of destruction
      baptisms of fire
      I’ve witnessed your suffering
      as the battle raged high

We went through Hell together, as Duo would no doubt put it, and I came out with a respect for the four that I’m not ashamed to acknowledge. They suffered more than I did in the ways that really count, and they pulled through. That’s why I know they’re alright. They wouldn’t back down then; they wouldn’t do it now.

They were all so relieved when the Eve War ended and they didn’t need to fight anymore. To do what Wufei does and fight willingly, by one’s own choice, is a different thing. I couldn’t do that. I know I couldn’t bring myself to take another life. Not again.

      And though it did hurt me so bad
      in the fear and alarm
      you did not desert me
      my brothers in arms

I felt so hollow after the first war. What was there for me now that there were no more missions? Duo suggested I made living my mission, but I didn’t have the algorithms to handle all the variables of civilian life. It all turned into a complete mess, resolved only through the termination of such concerns when Relena was kidnapped.

That’s what the others never realized, I think; that I was completely incapable of adapting to this new world of peace. I was like a mute thrown into darkness where no one could see my hands speak. And when they did notice, they didn’t understand.

But still, it meant a lot to me that they kept trying.

      There’s so many different worlds
      so many different suns
      and we have just one world
      but we live in different worlds

Despite our similarities; our common goal, our mutual respect; the differences far outnumbered and outweighed them. There is a vague feeling of what I believe to be sadness whenever I think about them, but I knew it had to be done.

When I woke up after the Eve War it was all so clear to me. My last mission; its goals and its solution. Heero Yuy had to die.

All for the peace, right?

      Now the sun’s gone to Hell
      and the moon’s riding high
      let me bid you farewell
      every man has to die

Relena wanted me to be her hero, the world’s hero. She didn’t say it, but it was in her eyes all through the wars. She was asking me to be strong for her; remain what I was so she could have a constant to rely on. Zechs needed a noble adversary to fulfill his own ideals of honor and chivalry. The other Gundam pilots needed me to be calm and unshakeable; some to balance their own temperament, some to confirm their beliefs that wars should not be fought with passion.

I doubt I managed to be either of these things, but that’s not the point.

What matters is that they all looked up to me in one way or another. Looked up to Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier. How can there ever be peace if a soldier is considered the hero of the Earth Sphere?

And that is what I am; a soldier.

Nameless.

Heartless.

Soulless.

I came here hoping that I could just fade away from the world, disappear into the wilderness of this remote place. I can’t, that much I’ve learned. I can’t quiet that little spark of my long buried humanity that’s begging to be let into the open. I can’t become nothing again.

I don’t want the emptiness anymore. I want a name, a real name, a name given just to me. Not a name to symbolize anything, just an ordinary name to prove that I exist as something more than a weapon.

I turn away from the window to look at the vid phone sitting alone and unused on the desk. I haven’t moved it an inch since I moved in, haven’t touched it for any other purpose than to dust it off.

Maybe it’s time to stop hiding. Maybe it’s time to stop fighting the four pairs of hands I know will never stop reaching out to me. Maybe it’s time to let the others know I’m still breathing even though Heero Yuy is dead. Maybe with their help I can bring this me that neither of us knows to life.

With a deep breath I cross the floor and switch the vid phone on.

It’s time to be found.

In all senses of the word.

      But it’s written in the starlight
      in every line in your palm
      we’re fools to make war on
      our brothers in arms