Author: Jei

Warnings: Prequel series to haven

Pairings: None

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply.

Moments in a Dorm Room Part 1
In the Beginning

God has a twisted sense of humor, you know that?

I mean, we spent all this time working towards the end of the war, right? Suffered this, that, and the other thing, all for this mighty cause, and when we finally get to the big boom at the end of it, what happens but he springs life upon us. That's just cruel.

Now, I can't speak for the other guys, but me? I never really thought too much about what would come after. It really didn't matter, so long as what came after was better than what came before, and not for me, but for people in general. Sounds kinda uppity, I know, but if I'd been fighting for me, I would have cared if I lived or died. It still kinda sucked to get shafted in the end, though.

Coming off the high of that last battle, and hell, of the entire war, I guess I can excuse myself for not seeing it coming. First there was just realizing, 'Whoa, I just lived through that'. Then there was the automatic damage assessment of my buddy 'Scythe. After that, I looked over to the side to see my other buddy Quatre bleeding all over the place on his way out of Sandrock, and after the initial 'What the hell happened to him?' and the glancing around to verify that 'Wow, we -all- just lived through that,' came the 'Holy shit, we better get him to the infirmary,' followed shortly by 'Does anyone else look like they need to get to the infirmary?' and 'Do we even still have an infirmary?'

Like I said, I had other things on my mind.

Fast forward a whole lot of hours. We were all gathered on the Peacemillion, and seeing as how the ship was embedded in the Libra, it was a pretty sure bet that we weren't going anywhere for a while. That was pretty okay to me. It wasn't as if I had anywhere else to be. We couldn't get dirtside, but I suppose we could have taken off in our suits for the colonies. I didn't really want to be there either, though. Yeah, it was great that they finally got off their indecisive asses and declared their position once and for all, but I was still sore at them for the whole denouncement thing. Besides, the colonies were filled with civilians, and civilians were a complete unknown. I could deal with the guys onboard. I'd already spent weeks with them; I thought I knew what I could expect from them. At least we were all on the same side in the end.

All things considered, the aftermath of the war was really anti-climatic. I think most of us just crashed in our bunks for a while. There wasn't any wild celebration onboard, no grand speeches. Nope, we were on a spaceship dead in the water, and we'd all been running on fumes for the last week or so. That was it.

Before I became totally numb to the world, I stopped by what was left of the medical bay to find Quatre. The place was pretty trashed, though not as much as the rest of the ship. I was surprised the Peacemillion was still capable of life support, let alone anything else. I guess ol' Howard knew what he was doing. I found some old disposable glasses in D-lounge -- although from what I could tell of the damage to the ship, it was probably B-lounge now -- and brought them with me.

Hilde was in the next partition over. I stopped by to visit her, too, but I was glad to see she was passed out the way I intended to be very shortly. I didn't know what I wanted to say to her. A big part of me wanted to be very angry with her, but mostly I was just angry with myself. I was the one that had sweet-talked her into defecting to our side in the first place, so I might as well have been the one that had her out there risking her life and getting hurt. I felt like she was my responsibility, and as I turned away from her, I felt very low for wishing she wasn't.

So I checked up on Quatre. Trowa was with him, and together we toasted the peace with our empty, cheap plastic glasses. I found that oddly appropriate. I left them to get some rest, and on my way back to my quarters, I passed by one of countless barren hallways, but something made me turn and look down that one in particular. At the end of it, I caught sight of Heero, sitting in a window frame with a brooding expression on his face as he stared at the earth. Something told me that was about normal for him. Those dark, silent types are always brooding. He didn't look like he wanted to be disturbed, so I left him to get some sleep.

A day or two later, arrangements had been made to ferry some of us off the ship, courtesy of the princess on board. Guess they wouldn't mind leaving the soldiers up here to rot, but of course not royalty. She'd been busy while the rest of us were temporarily out of commission, apparently knee-deep in talks with Noin, Sally, and Colonel Une to figure out what the hell was going to happen next. Yup, leave it to the womenfolk to clean up after the messes that men make. An odd bunch though they were, they seemed to be making good progress with it.

So it seemed we were going to make it dirtside after all. Sounded fine to me, until we disembarked and were 'escorted' to Brussels, center of the interim government. They couldn't have us wandering around unchecked, after all. One day, we're heroes that brought peace to the world, the next, we're the biggest threat to that peace. Figures.

There was an old military base outside of the city. They kept us there, insisting that we were free to leave at any time when it was obvious they would do everything in their power to stop us from leaving. That amused me for about five and a half hours. Then it just got old. To their credit, they didn't just lock us in a cell somewhere. They had doctors in to look at us, for our own safety, of course. The medical doctors, sure, but the shrinks were probably more for their own safety. I had a bit of fun playing with my shrink, but again, that didn't last too long.

Some of the ladies talked to us, too. I know Relena managed to corner Heero for a while for a private chat. Woulda been cute, if I'd cared. The rest of them told us about some new international paramilitary organization they were going to put together to hopefully prevent these sorts of conflicts from rising again. Sounded like a good, if futile, idea to me, so I played along and gave them some input when they asked for it. Even if it ended up being ineffective, it was probably a wise idea to give old soldiers a place to die. Wouldn't want them lurking around anymore than us, I'm sure.

I was still waiting for the punchline, though. They couldn't keep us there forever. I was grateful that they had decided to keep us under wraps and all, but it would have been nice to be able to wander off somewhere and disappear, even if I had no idea where I'd wander off to.

It took about a week, but our fate was finally announced. Yes, they couldn't let us wander off, and no, they couldn't keep us locked up, so they decided to stuff us all in a school near the capital where they could keep a close eye on us and see if or how we adjusted, and of course there would be regular check-ups. We were, unfortunately, of school age, which I found hilarious. After having a significant, well-deserved price on my head, it was almost obscene to be nailed with truancy.

School. Yippee. I was all for learning new things, but I'd never had a good experience with the school system. I think Quatre accepted the decision, but it was obvious he would have preferred to go back to L4. Trowa looked like he didn't really care. Wufei growled for a while, on general principle, I think. Heero just shrugged philosophically. I was probably the least pleased with the arrangements.

The last time I'd been in a school, it had been something of a social experiment designed to make me fail, to make me prove to the world that I didn't belong. This time, it was another social experiment, whose ultimate purpose I wasn't quite sure of, but it could easily have been the same. Needless to say, I was not excited. I almost felt sorry for the poor school that had been offered up as the sacrifice for us wolves in sheep's clothing.

Ah, but the real kicker was when they let us know what sort of fine institution we'd be holed up in. It was a private school, and considering it was just outside a major political center, it was understandably upscale. I resented my classmates without ever having to lay eyes on them, a bunch of brats that were counting on mommy and daddy to bail them out when they got into trouble. And boy, I didn't even want to get started on what sort of political propaganda the teachers would be spewing. We'd really have to stay on our toes there if we didn't want to have half the school out for our blood, but hey, what else was new?

We were to live on campus. That was probably a rule for every student, but I'm sure they liked it so they could keep us all in one place. At least the last time I'd been through the wringer, I was able to leave that miserable place behind me and go home to the church and just get away from it all, but not this time. I wondered if they'd be stupid enough to try and restrict us to school grounds.

It could have been alright, being stuck on campus, if I'd had the privacy of my own room to retreat to, but no, of course not. We had to have roommates. And since they couldn't place us with unsuspecting civilians, we had to room with each other. For some reason, they decided Wufei could have his own room, the lucky bastard. Maybe they thought he wouldn't get along very well with the rest of us.

So naturally, I got Heero 'I am a rock' Yuy for my roommate. Woohoo. I got stuck with the crazy one. Go me. At least he was quietly crazy, the type of crazy that didn't seem intent on bringing everyone else along for the ride. You know what he did when we were informed? He looked me up and down, nothing more than objective appraisal in his expression. When he finally met my eyes again, all he said was, "Keep your hair out of the drain and we'll get along just fine."

'Fine'. Uh-huh. Yeah, I could tell, this was gonna be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

OWARI

 

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