Heart Confessional
As Danie sat by herself on the moonlit patio later on that night, she had many thoughts. Her violet eyes gazed up at the sky pensively. It had been so long since she had had so much on her mind. Her head felt heavy, and so did her eyelids. She closed her eyes halfway, the moonlight dimming and becoming scattered.
“Life always has too many surprises,” she murmured to herself. “It can be so cheap but then so important when you need it least….”
“Don’t I know it.”
Danie turned slightly in the chair. She had been so wrapped up in her own musings that she didn’t see Heero coming out to join her. “Hi,” she greeted him jovially. “Didn’t see you there.” She patted the chaise lounge beside her. “Come sit. It’s a beautiful night tonight.”
Heero sat down in the chaise lounge beside her. There was silence for a moment. Danie looked to him, getting the feeling that he wanted to ask her something. Just when she was about to question him about what was wrong, he opened his mouth to speak.
“I want to ask you something…” His voice trailed off. “How would you feel if I were normal?”
Normal. The word was strange attached to Heero Yuy or even coming out of his mouth. She couldn’t imagine Heero as just normal. Normalcy and Heero Yuy just didn’t go together.
“You?” she asked incredulously. “You mean, not Death?”
Heero nodded. “Yeah.”
“I, uh….” Danie paused, feeling like she was at a loss for words. ”I wouldn’t mind actually.” Teasingly and quite brazenly, she reached across and tweaked his nose. “You might even lighten up a bit, not be so serious.”
Heero remained serious, much to Danie’s dismay but not to her surprise. “But…I’ll have to train the next one,” Heero explained. “I’ve been given the chance of choosing the next Death…”
Danie smiled. “That’s great! Do you know who it will be?”
Heero shook his head. “No,” he replied. “It’s got to be somebody a year older than Peace though…”
Danie nodded, understanding. “Yeah…” She paused again with a sudden thought. “So what does this mean for us?”
“It means, if we ever had a kid it would inherit YOUR powers because I won’t have any.”
Danie tried to hurriedly get what Heero was saying. We…kid….powers?! Danie gulped. “Kid? You mean…. You want…. I mean…. You’d actually…. We’d…. You and me…” She brought her hand to her mouth and paled. She didn’t think Heero would say something like that.
Heero broke in before her mind could let the misunderstanding ensue any further. “I’m just saying it…it’s not like it would happen,” he told her. “I hate kids…but if I did have one I wouldn’t want it to be Death. If I were Death then my first child would automatically be a boy, and he would be Death. I couldn’t strip my own son’s humanity away from him, like mine was stripped away just so I could control the urge to kill.”
Danie was relieved. Besides he had told her he didn’t want any children. Don’t get any ideas, he had said earlier. It would have been strange if he’d suddenly changed his mind. This was Heero Yuy here. He wasn’t a flighty Duo Maxwell type. If he said something, nine-and-a-half times out of ten, he usually meant it.
“Oh…” she muttered. Seriously, she remarked, “But that is awfully sweet of you. Taking the consideration of your future child—whoever it might be or its mother…”
Heero shrugged. “I just wouldn’t be able to train Death properly if I were his father. And if Death isn’t trained properly then another war might break out…”
“War?” Danie blanched. “I hate wars. Senseless killing and such.” She looked down at her hands, remembering something else very horrible about her life. “It is then that your life is important….”
“I hate being Death,” Heero admitted bluntly. “First time I found out was when I found out I had a sister. And now that I know she’s well protected and happy I have no use for powers. That’s the only reason why I liked being death in the first place, to protect the only family I had. Now I have no use for Death’s abilities…”
Danie sat silently for a moment, reassessing what he had told her. He isn’t Death anymore. He will have to find the new Death. He will have to train the new Death. It was then that a thought, a thought that inexplicably broke her heart in two, came to her. She recalled what the Elementals were saying about Kristana, the new Angel of Peace. Training. Gone. Ten years.
“Do you have to go away like Kristana to train Neo-Death?” she asked, her voice a shadow of a whisper.
“Yes.” Danie swallowed down a lump in her throat and was not able to look him in the eye. “That’s the downside to the situation. I have a few months to think it over…”
Danie sat up straight, trying to appear strong and stolid but instead looked fidgety. She felt like a little kid who was about to do something that she didn’t want to do. “Well, if you must, then you must,” she told him. “The world will not have war and carnage at any cost.” Meaningfully, she added, “Even a little human heart.”
Heero’s head went down, and his eyes were avoiding hers. “I…won’t be able to see you for ten years…”
“Yeah. I can’t wait that long.” She smiled wanly, trying to joke. “I can’t even wait ten minutes for something sometimes!” Seeing that it had no effect on either of them, she sighed heavily and didn’t laugh. “It was all over before it began. Everything.”
Heero then looked up, his Prussian blue irises burning holes into her violet ones. “After ten years though…will you still…like me?”
Danie was surprised for a moment. He almost sounded insecure, but at the same time the never-changing austere Heero Yuy that kept his feelings behind a heart of steel. She looked down, not sure if she should make such a promise. ”I’m not sure,” she answered truthfully. “I’m not sure I could wait. I’m so impatient, I…” She trailed off but then began babbling. “I’ll be in my thirties… I’ll be different… And…” Suddenly, her eyes couldn’t take it. She burst into tears in earnest. “What if something happened to me, Heero? What if I died or you died or…or….”
Heero grabbed her shoulders and gently brought her face up so he could look into her watery eyes. “I won’t die, and you better not die or when I come back I’ll find a way to resurrect you then I’ll kill you again…” It was his turn to sigh, and he released her shoulders. “But I understand, ten years is a very long time…”
“Can I confess something?” Heero looked to her inquisitively. “I’m afraid I’m starting to become like Jen…” Danie laughed dryly, remembering Jennifer’s early feelings for Trowa Barton. “I think I may be in love with you. Usually, I wouldn’t have a second thought with any other guy. I’d tell him it’s over and it’d be done with. But you… You’re different. You’d probably give me something different than all those other guys could.”
“Same here…” Heero mumbled.
“I think there’s something else…” she went on. “Something a lot more….”
Heero exhaled suddenly. “I’ve been alone for as long as I can remember, Danie…even when I had Crys to protect I still felt alone.” Danie, feeling a bit sympathetic, gently took his hand and covered it with her own. “Nobody would understand what I would go through, knowing that I was a cursed angel and wasn’t supposed to even be loved. Then I met you. I figured if I stayed away from you, you wouldn’t find out that who I was so I started hating you…so I could protect you…”
Danie heart swelled. She felt like some heroine in a cheesy love film. She used to make fun of all those dumb movies when she was single, but now… But now she understood what all those lovey-dovey looks were for, even if they were enhanced with makeup and lights. They stood for real love and this was what she was feeling right now.
“You did all that? You tried to protect me…” she whispered. Feeling bold, she leaned forward and let her lips fall on his. A zap of electricity went down her spine, and he pulled her closer. She was in a precarious position in her chair, but she didn’t care. He had her firmly and securely in his arms. They grew closer, and the kiss deepened. Danie pulled away, breathless and a little dazed. No one had ever kissed her like that. Not even…not even Daniel.
“I feel weird now,” she confessed tenderly, clasping her hands in front of her. “Like we’ve crossed a line that we can’t go back on.”
“Me too,” Heero echoed. “But I should warn you; I’m new at this ‘love’ stuff. And I tend to be a little over-protective…”
Danie reached out and caressed his cheek. “That’s fine,” she promised him with a Danie smile. “So am I. I like holding on.” Her smile diminished, and she took his hand again. “I don’t want to give this up yet. It seems as if one of us is dying and we have only a few months to spend together.”
“I’ll come back, Danie…you can be sure of that,” Heero assured her. “If in ten years you don’t…have feelings for me…I’ll find away to get them back…”
Danie grinned cheekily. “Gee, I’d hate to see what would happen if I would be married!” she exclaimed. “You’d kill my husband and take me off to the Bahamas.” A Danie’s-been-a-bad-girl grin. “Not that I’d care…”
“Good. Because that’s what would probably happen…”
Danie laughed. She could see the lovely scene now, straight out of an action movie. She and her husband would be sitting idly, mad at each other. Heero would come rushing in, gun in hand. Her husband would take one look and laugh at Heero. Heero would shoot him, then scoop her up and throw her into his new private jet where they would go to some tropical paradise devoid of people.
Gee, what a scene.
Her laughter faded, and they were left in silence. The seriousness of this finally dawned on her. She was in love with him. Madly. And he was leaving. He didn’t want to leave, but he had to. He had no choice.
“Heero, I love you,” she whispered. “I’ll never let you go.”
Heero peered into her eyes intensely. “And I love you…and don’t you dare forget it.” He then kissed her passionately. She felt ten times dizzier than she had before. No longer were these superficial sensations of infatuation and immaturity. She was deeply in love and nothing was going to change that. Not even a dimension separating them for ten years.
