[GW] The Loneliest Number The Loneliest Number by cozzybob
Pair: Zechs and Noin... not necessarily 6+9.
Warning: angst? sap? fluff? mostly gen with a light one-way het reference. post-EW, slight songfic.
Summary: On his 21st birthday, Zechs bluntly asks Noin why she came with him to Mars. The answer surprises him.
Note: For Princess, who inspired this out of the blue in a convo about how Zechs is actually a lot younger than we give him credit for.
He was twenty-one years old. Yesterday had been his birthday. The only reason he'd known is because Noin had reminded him, and to celebrate, she'd made him a cake out of foodstuffs. The vile little brown blocks had all been pounded together into one giant square, and Noin had dug into it with a knife to indent the words, "Happy B-Day Zechs" in rough cursive. It was, on all accounts, the worst tasting cake Zechs had ever had, but the sentiment made him laugh. Noin had smiled back and said that he should laugh more often, and it was only then that it occurred to him that for all the years that Noin had known him, she had never heard him laugh before. He wondered how long it had actually been since he'd done such a thing, and he couldn't even remember.
He spent the rest of the night holding light conversation with her about the past and the people they knew, wondering about those who'd not died in the war and what they were doing now, who they were sharing their lives with. When it came to that topic, Zechs had stiffened, but Noin brushed it off as if it were nothing. They fell into silence. Zechs wondered.
"Why did you come with me? To here?"
She was surprised at first, but then she just watched him for a while, studying his face, considering the question very carefully with her eyes. It surprised Zechs, because it was as if she hadn't been sure in the first place. It made him worry. Did she do it out of love? Zechs did not love her. Did she do it out of kindness? Zechs did not want her pity.
And she finally said, "You were too young to go through that alone."
He was stunned.
Young, he thought, I am not young. I am a man, I am an adult, I have done things men twice my age would never dream, I can think and act for myself. I have never been young. Oh, he wanted to say it. He wanted to say it more than anything, but then he remembered that today, he was twenty-one. For all of his accomplishments, for all of his failures and repeated mistakes, for all of the things that he endured and suffered and survived, he thought, I am only twenty-one...
"But I feel so old," he said, his voice caught in a rare moment of utter honesty. He had to look away from her because he couldn't stand the way her eyes pried through all of his walls and invaded him, exposing his secrets where even he could not run from them any longer.
He was only twenty-one.
She shrugged, a light smile touching her lips. "I'm pretty young too, Zechs. But I..." That was when she laughed suddenly, her eyes sparkling with humor. "I was listening to the radio, of all things. It was this oldies station called the Library. It played hits from pre-colony on up to ten years ago, and there was this song, it said... well, it said that one is the loneliest number. Two can be as bad as one, but one is the loneliest number there ever was." The smirked faded slightly, replaced with an echo of old epiphanies. "I realized I didn't even care if you'd never love me the way I did for you. I still had a crush for you, but at that point, I didn't care about silly fantasies. I just... well, I just don't want you to be alone anymore, Zechs. You may think you deserve hell for the things that you did, but I say that you were young and stupid and forced into a situation you should have never been put into. Of course, you're a stubborn bastard, Zechs, and you won't stop this self-destruction bullshit of yours no matter what I do to bash some sense into your head. And if you really are going to make yourself suffer, I figure might as well suffer right beside you and join in on the fun. I've got my own mistakes to repent. God knows I've made a lot of them in my life."
He refused to look at her again. He studied the cold metal floor of the station, and wondered how expensive a rug from Earth would really cost. It was so cold around here. He just barely stopped himself from shivering.
She sighed. "I don't expect you to kiss me, you sad fool. I just expect you to laugh a little more like you did this morning. Sometimes you gotta be happy that the sun is still shining and the sky is still blue. Or red, since Mars just loves this damned color."
He hated the color red. He hated anything that looked like red, and if he ever left this place, he was never wearing that color ever again. Even if Treize had once remarked that he looked noble in it... yes, noble, and then he remembered that he'd laughed then too. At Treize because of that damned red coat. Noble, he said. Was Zechs ever noble? He was far too lost to be noble...
He hated the color red. Hated it. But then again, Treize was dead, and maybe that was why he hated the color red in the first place. Other than the fact that it reminded him of blood, perhaps...
He shook his head, bewildered at his own circling thoughts. Looking up at her intense expression, he ran a hand through his hair, grimacing. "You sound like a magazine, Noin."
She laughed freely, and he was thankful when she changed the subject.