Arc III,Chapter 55

A/N: Arc III is a go!

The order of POV will change for this final arc - it's now in reverse:

C chapters - limited 3rd-person POV/novel excerpt

B chapters - Heero POV

A chapters - Duo POV

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Chapter 55

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In a future

once

written...

The Yuy estate is dreadful in the spring. Flowers bloom across the grounds, birds and butterflies fluttering around the pollen-sick centers and across the winding paths. The air is thick with fragrance to the point of nausea, and every step feels like one closer to the grave. The manor itself is three stories tall, made from cold whitestone and dark tile, a behemoth built generations ago under the bloodied hand of another of Wing's carriers.

Heero doesn't acknowledge the odd maid who scurries away as soon as they see him coming down the path, doesn't care for the way his knights track his movements with eyes of wary dread. Few servants dare to speak to him unless spoken to first nowadays, and even with his mid-day return to the Yuy provincial estate, he received little fanfare - at his order.

His returns would never be celebrated, his people would never line the streets nor wait outside the manor for him - it reminded him too painfully of the time before.

Picking his way across the garden paths, Heero does not stop even once. The closer he draws to his destination, the colder he feels; it's almost like a pleasant numbness, since every day has felt like quiet torture. He has only just returned to the estate, but he knows he must go here first, because this is where he yearns to end his journey.

Just as Duo had ended his own.

Heero stops in front of the greenhouse.

It stands as it did that first day Duo had seen it; high, sloping roof done in the style of the Maxwell duchy, panes of glass draped in thick vines that obscured the interior. A set of three panel windows are on each side of the entrance, a match in style to the five that make up the sides, the design carved under Heero's own hands. There is no difference between the greenhouse in its first iteration, and the greenhouse that stands before him now - no, the only difference is what lies within it.

Pushing open the door, Heero stares in from the threshold. Unlike before, where a mix of flora lined every shelf and filled every pot, a scatter of various colors - there is only purple among the leafy greens. Heliotrope, lilac, and purple roses meant to serve as a reminder of the greenhouse's original master; hyacinth, morning glory, and mourningbride to serve as a reminder to Heero of what he has lost.

Heero steps through the entrance and closes the door behind him, allowing himself to be locked away in the same place as Duo's last moments. There are times when Heero can't help but look to the floor and wonder - was this where Duo had fallen? Where he'd choked on ash and smoke? Had he been able to crawl, had he felt the fire lick at his toes, felt the heat on his skin?

When Heero thinks about it too long, he feels that dreadful numbness spread up from the pit of his stomach to the very tips of his fingers and toes. His ears ring and his head feels stuffed with cotton, as if Wing is attempting to subvert every passing thought and memory in his head. Maybe it is- it knows what he would do, if given half the chance.

The tale of Peacemillion is tied intricately into Sanc, which in turn is rooted in the origin of Wing. Perhaps this is why Wing is so desperate to keep him alive, but every day he continues on like this makes him feel more and more like a walking corpse. At times, Heero can't help but wonder if it's even him in control anymore, because every part of him wants to simply let go and rot into the greenhouse floor.

There is one thing that keeps him going, that dreadful thing that even Wing had not been able to promise him: hope.

It had felt like an eternity since he'd last felt it. The moment he'd set foot back in his home, only to be approached by a pale-faced Howard and been forced to hear the news that had broken something in him so completely that even Wing had nearly not been enough- hope had felt like a distant wish, or an awful crime. He didn't think he would ever feel anything good again, didn't believe he deserved to feel anything close to happy.

The latter may still be true, but the former...

Heero drags his fingers lightly over the petals of a purple rose. It feels soft and silken against his fingertips, and he imagines strands of brown and autumn-red under his touch. Desire wells to the surface and breaks through that aching numbness, a yearning so deep and tried and true that he knows it will leave a chasm in its wake. That's what Heero wants, however; he wants to feel that wallowing ache, that deep-set pain he knew he deserved with every wretched, tainted drop of his blood.

Heero came back from the turn of his thoughts when a purple petal nearly touches the metal wrapped around his left hand's ring finger. He yanks his hand away, heart hammering; he holds his hand closer to himself and away from tainting the only keepsake he could keep of his soul's mate.

The ring is not a simple thing; it sits grotesque in a place that should have never held it. A single, large diamond is nested between golden claws on the face of the ring, the band carved into a facsimile of wings. Heero remembers one of the nobles mentioning that the design of the ring seemed to foretell the union, a perfect blend of the insignia of the royal family and the Yuy ducal household.

Heero had wanted to kill him the moment the words left his mouth. He'd wanted to stain Relena's white wedding gown with the blood of every sniveling noble that had dared to insinuate that his current spouse was an improvement on his first. He'd felt the ringing in his ears and Wing's power course through his veins, could practically see how easy it would have been to cut down every man, woman, and child present.

Quatre had tried to talk him out of it, as much as he could with his scarred throat limiting him where conversation had once flowed so easily before. Even then, he had not tried as hard as he would have even a year ago; it was almost as if the moment Heero's world had come crashing down, it had set in motion Quatre's own slow decline. Sandrock could be seen ever so close to the surface nowadays, and cerulean eyes would linger greedily over the still-beating hearts of others if they dared come too close.

Heero doesn't care about that; he finds he cares about little now. Quatre is declining, Trowa is worrying, Wufei is mourning - and yet all Heero can think about is that fledgling hope. All he wants is for that pain in his chest to never leave him because it means that Duo still existed in some way, a lack of presence that seemingly tore out Heero's heart with him.

In a way, that noble had been right: Peacemillion and Wing were tied irrevocably together. Just as Sanc was established under the Peacecraft imperial family, it could not have been done without those who were cursed to carry Wing in their blood. Wufei's people had referred to it as the limb of the First Deity, the Wing from which sprung all life; a being crafted from Peacemillion's own body and considered to be its child.

Wing and the Yuy family. Peacemillion and the Peacecraft family.

Harvester and the Maxwell family.

Duo's family revered the God of Death, but in the legends told by Wufei's people, in the stories Heero uncovered in the imperial library and in his own family's collection - Death was as greedy as its brethren. Though it inevitably took all, it wanted more; Death had cried for millennia upon millennia, miserable that only it had been denied what each of its brethren had taken for granted.

Where Wing had been allowed to create life, where Heavyarms could be easily offered and given, where Sandrock could meld its heartbeat into the life of another, where Nataku could pass from one scion to the next - Death could only take. Every heart it touched would decay, every breath it exhaled would cease; to be alive was to be its antithesis, and so Death had been denied the one thing it wanted so fervently.

Death had been denied its own children.

Peacemillion loved its children equally and felt for Death keenly. It had torn itself apart to create its five children, however, and had nothing left upon which to give Death. Thus, to create life anew, Peacemillion had turned to its first child: Wing.

Wing could not create a child for Death, because by simply being Death's, the child was already forsaken. Instead, Wing could create something to offer in place of Death's child, a substitute from which Death could take to ensure the safety of its children...

Solo Maxwell may have taken Duo's body, Relena Peacecraft may have taken Duo's position - but they were all meaningless in the end. That fledgling hope Heero hung on to meant that the mortal shell was irrelevant, that the titles ascribed by a pompous and useless nobility were worthless; Heero had no need for any of it.

He would allow the Maxwell family to hoard Duo's bones. He would allow Relena to believe in a fairytale. He would watch those who had once been his friends turn into something as distorted as he was now. He would take up the mantle of King and allow the kingdom his forefathers had built to fall to ruin.

All for that one little hope.

Heero cut his finger on the thorns of the purple rose, let the blood trail down until it soaked into the rim of his wedding ring. The cut healed a breath later but the stain remained, and it settled something vicious in his heart.

All for Duo.

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A/N: Welcome to Arc III!

Flower Meanings:

--Heliotrope: eternal love, devotion

-Purple rose: love at first sight

--Lilac: first love

--Purple hyacinth: sorrow

--Morning glory: love in vain; affection

--Mourningbride: I have lost all