Coping Mechanism

After the war, I was overwhelmed and yet still felt so…hollow.  Some may say it was shock, others may say it was some sort of coping mechanism.  Maybe it was in a sense.  I had only ever been trained for war, for that war; I hadn’t been expected to survive to see peace.  But I did – we all did – and then, when we could finally set the weapons aside…I realized I didn’t know anything.  I didn’t know what to do with myself now that my mission was finally complete, finally over. 

Trowa and Quatre both arguably had “day jobs” that required their attention and Wufei, as I know now, had had his own agenda, his own personal demons to banish.  So I followed Duo back to the scrap heap with Hilde.  The three of us worked well together and I can say honestly now that I enjoyed the time with them both.  It kept me sane and busy during that critical time after the war.  But after the Mariemaia Incident, Duo and I bid Hilde goodbye, confident she could take care of herself quite well, and joined the Preventers.  The others did as well to various extents.  Trowa and Quatre helped when and where they could, but the organization alternated serious missions between Wufei, Duo and I.  

Even with training and conditioning and each other’s moral support…the anxiety of the missions got to us all.  We all ended up in a room with a shrink at some point and when missions went bad, we ended up in a hospital room with the shrink and very effective sedatives.  At some point, Wufei took an officer position where he could train new recruits and organize, but not carry out, missions.  Duo and I were offered similar positions, but instead turned in our letters of resignation and walked out the front door.

Part of me had wanted to run away then, to disappear after leaving the organization, but a stubborn streak refused to allow it.  I had grown used to working beside the young man I’d come to trust in wartime, and moving in together seemed like a good idea at the time.  We’d tossed around various locales – Europe, Asia, another colony – but we somehow happened upon America.  Part of me knew it was because neither of us had spent significant amount of time in the country during the war.  I think part of Duo knew too, but neither of us said anything to the other – America just seemed “right.”

After Duo and I returned to Earth and took up residence in some small town away from city lights and crowds, we learned to cope with each other’s…problems.  I suppose most vets had similar issues as we did: waking up in the middle of the night, your screams choked in your throat and you could swear you could smell smoke from gas fires.  A car back-firing suddenly transforms the entire street-scene and you find yourself checking the skies and searching for cover.  How I can’t stand the sound of an alarm clock’s insistent beep-beep-beep, and how I’ll wake up only to find it smashed to bits on the floor, a dent in the wall across the room. 

At one point, Duo found me in the kitchen disposing of the fifth clock in about two weeks and smirked, leaning against the archway.  “Don’t like being rudely awakened?”

“I don’t think it’s that so much.  After all, I’ve had you jump on me while I was napping on the couch, and I don’t remember ever throwing you across the room,” I answered, placing the alarm clock’s plastic carcass on the countertop so he could get a better look at the damage.

He whistled softly and crossed the small distance to stand beside me.  Lifting the clock, he smiled.  “Damn Heero,” he said, balling his hand into a fist and placing it on the clock where the snooze button had once been, “You know it’s bad when I can find the exact position of the death blow…”  After a moment, he dropped the clock into the trash bin and turned to me to ask, “Do you think it’s the sound?”

At the time I’d shrugged it off.  I didn’t want to think that an alarm clock could send my unconscious mind into such a panic that it would force my body to do consistent, serious damage to something without me realizing it.

Regardless, I gave up for a few days on alarms in any sense, but one morning after returning from a run, I found a note from Duo saying he’d stepped out to find something for breakfast.  I think he’d complained about our complete disregard for the refrigerator’s supply, but I can’t be sure.  I’d walked into my bedroom to grab some clothes to change into after my shower but stopped in the doorway.  On my desk sat a new alarm clock. 

It had been covered in bright orange post-it notes, all with scrawled messages and instructions in Duo’s thin handwriting. 

The man had gone out and bought one of those expensive “spa” clocks, the ones that play birdsongs and waterfalls and rainstorms. 

In hindsight, I think I’d loved him then.