Table of contents for 30 Kisses

1. Game Night
2. The TV Installation Guy
3. The Coffee Shop
4. Say Ahh
5. Breath
6. Red
7. Handy Italian Phrases
8. Moment
9. Scandal
10. Yellow Daisies
11. Golden
12. The Road to Hell
13. The Road Home
14. Table No. 2
15. The New Couple
16. Kiss

I don’t own the Gundam Wing boys and I’ll be sure to put them back when I’m done playing with them.

The Road Home
by Michalyn
Warnings: Angst, Deathfic?

Notes: For 30_kisses theme #20, The Road Home.

So many years have passed, Wufei thinks as he turns his head on the pillow. A soft breeze blows in from the window and stirs his hair, thin and almost as white as the pillowcase it is fanned against. Can it really have been so long since those turbulent days of war? It seems like only yesterday he was that fiery young man, so tortured and longing desperately for love. How quickly everything fades: joy, laughter, even pain.

They have all gone from him: Meiran, his parents and his dear dear friends. First Trowa, then Duo and Heero quickly afterwards. In the last two years, Wufei and Quatre had grown closer than he would have ever imagined. When they were young it seemed like a world of differences separated them, yet how suprised they both were to discover an immeasurable affinity between them. When so much else had vanished, Wufei treasured their time together more than anything. They visted each other often to reminisce, to laugh and to grieve—two flickering remanants of five meteors that had once blazed across the universe.

And just this last year Quatre too said good bye. The wind stirs again and Wufei turns his face toward it. There is wetness on his cheek but he no longer feels ashamed to express what he once viewed as weakness. He misses them. There is no way around it, no way to deny it and in his own way he has become wise enough to not want to. Life is a strange and mysterious thing. Who would have guessed that he who most wished for oblivion would be the only one left? He remembers them all so vividly, they might as well be sitting next to him: Quatre with his kind eyes, Trowa with his soft knowing words, Heero with his determined frown and Duo, intelligent and irreverent.

There is of course one more whom he has never forgotten. Even now, the memory of him shakes Wufei heart. Enemy, lover and friend. This world could not contain their love but Wufei knows he is waiting. It has been a long time but their time apart is swiftly coming to an end.

Wufei sighs. The breathing tubes are uncomfortable and he feels very tired. He has not slept well for five nights despite Sally’s daughter’s best efforts. She is a good doctor like her mother before her but Wufei wants to tell her that there are some things worth fighting for and others that must be surrendered to with gratitude and with grace. This is one of them.

Morning is breaking over the trees and Wufei raises his hand to shade his eyes from the sun. Such a simple movement, but his gnarled hand trembles nonetheless. The dawn is brighter than he remembers and its warmth envelops Wufei as if in an embrace. How peaceful, how wonderful it is. After a night spent tossing and turning he suddenly feels quite rested though his eyes never close.

The summer sun rises higher and higher and Wufei never takes his gaze from it. He stares into its burning center and smiles. There .. they are all waiting for him. He can see Heero’s smirk … Trowa’s nod … Duo’s grin as he beckons. Quatre is calling out to him and in front of the gentle blond is a figure Wufei would recognize anywhere. He knows that burning blue gaze, knows the pleased smile playing about lips he has waited a lifetime to kiss. Wufei raises his hand to his eyes and this time it doesn’t tremble. The movement is sure and quick and his fingers are supple again. He rises from the bed and the wind catches his hair and makes the black strands tickle his forehead and his cheeks. Wufei runs forward, sprinting closer and closer. He can hear Duo’s laughter now and Trowa is teasing him about how long it’s taken him to get here.

They are here with him and when Wufei takes that final step, he is caught up not in the warmth of the sun, but lifted into gentle arms and pressed against a warm chest

Treize grins and tightens his arms about him and Wufei smiles, his heart overflowing with joy as at last … at last, he gazes into the eyes of his beloved.

End