Disclaimer: Gundam Wing doesn’t not belong to me!!!!!

AN: Tissue alert! I hope you don’t get confused by the italics. They’re pieces of past conversations. Kind of like flashbacks they’re having. I don’t know why I’m so into Spanish music right now. I didn’t listen to it at all a couple of years back. The song that inspired me is called Para Tu Amor (For Your Love) and it’s so nice! I tried to get all the spelling and grammar mistakes by running spell and grammar check and by doing it myself but if I didn’t catch something blame it on the fact that I didn’t get any sleep last night and it’s now two in the damn morning.

At Your Feet

Para tu amor lo tengo todo
Desde mí sangre hasta la esencía de mí ser
Y para tu amor que es mí tesoro
Tengo mí vida toda entera a tus pies

Para Tu Amor - Juanes

Duo took off into a run as soon as he spotted the girl with the short, black hair. He’d only gotten a brief glance at her face but there was not mistaking those blue eyes. It was definitely Hilde. He hadn’t seen her in a while but he was sure it was her. She looked exactly the way he’d left her. She had even kept her hair the same way. “Hilde!” he called out almost in a panic, he didn’t want to lose sight of her and there were a lot of people around. “Hilde!” he called again, louder this time. She was walking with a group of women and he could see her laughing and talking to them, but at the sound of her name she stopped and turned around trying to look for the person who’d called her name. She didn’t’ see him running towards her but when he stopped in front of her he could see her smile fade and the laughter in her eyes disappear. She didn’t frown or make a face but the lack of emotion on her face was enough to make him regret his rash decision of running across the mall to chase her. He was panting slightly and it took him a few seconds to regain his breath, but when he did even her blank face wasn’t enough to stop the wide grin that spread across his mouth. “I knew it was you! How are you?” he asked breathlessly, he wasn’t sure if it was the sprint or the fact that she was standing in front of her after years of separation.

“Fine,” she said listlessly, avoiding his searching stare. “How are you?” she said politely and gave him a vapid smile.

“I’m doing good. I mean, I can’t complain. So, what are you doing here?” he asked with more enthusiasm than he’d intended. He regretted it immediately when he noticed the less than pleased look in her pretty eyes.

“Shopping,” she said almost sarcastically. She bit her lip at her answer, it had sounded harsher than she had hoped but she didn’t owe him any favors.

Duo laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head in obvious discomfort. He laughed a bit in embarrassment. “I knew that—“

“Listen, Duo, I have go,” she said cutting him off and before he could say anything else she had turned around and was quickly walking away to join her group of friends. “Who was that?” he heard one of them ask. He saw Hilde shrug and as she said flatly, “Some guy I knew.” One of her friends laughed. “That’s a pretty cute.” Hilde shrugged again and laughed. “I guess so,” she said and continued walking.

Duo stood rooted to his spot. He hadn’t moved an inch since she’d walked away and heard her conversation with her friends. He sighed and, putting his hands in his jean pockets, turned around and walked away. She had left him feeling cold and more than slightly hurt. Of course it was understandable that she’d greeted him with so little enthusiasm but he had thought that after all this time she’d forgiven him. At least a little.

I had hoped I meant more to you than this, Duo.

He stopped and closed his eyes as he remembered the quiver in her voice when she’d said that. So much emotion in her expression, such fire in her eyes. All of the things she’d lacked in the brief meeting that had transpired between them no more than five minutes ago. Duo shook his head and started to walk back to his hotel room. It was a long walk, he’d actually taken a cab to the mall but the artificially cold air soothed the pain his encounter with Hilde had caused. What the hell had he expected though?

Please, Duo, for me. Please.

Scenes of their last few moments together flashed behind his eyes as their last conversation replayed itself over and over in his ears. When he finally opened the door of his hotel room, he all but threw himself onto one of the small couches. He put his elbows on his knees and his hands over his eyes, trying to block out the memories. Memories that he had buried long ago but sometimes managed to dig themselves up only to torture him. He felt the familiar lurch in his chest as memories of Hilde, red-faced with tearful, swollen eyes, assaulted his mind.

I… I can’t.

Can’t or won’t, Duo?

He could hear the agony in her voice, the desperation which laced every word she said. He could hear it. He could see it. Even if he closed his eyes he could see the scene replaying right in front of him.

Hilde ran her hands through her short hair for lack of anything else to do. She wiped her tears away with an angry hand and turned around to look at him again. “Why are you doing this?” she asked sadly, quietly. “Why are you hurting me like this?”

He couldn’t look at her, so he turned away from her and crossed his arms over his chest angrily. “I’m not doing anything,” he said childishly.

He stood up quickly, not wanting to see anymore, and walked to the mini bar the was placed conveniently across the room. He knew he shouldn’t, but there was no other way to stop his mind from driving him crazy. He shouldn’t have gone after her at the mall. He should have just let her go, walked away.

*~*~*~*

Hilde buried her face against her pillow as a fresh wave of tears overtook her. It had all been over and done with for a long time but seeing him had triggered an emotional time machine that was making her relive all the painful memories she had worked so hard to lock away in her heart. “Why, Duo, why couldn’t you have stayed away from me tonight?” she whispered.

I’m sorry, Hilde.

Oh God, don’t say that! Don’t say things you don’t mean.

She had done so well at the mall when she’d seen him. She hadn’t betrayed any emotion she felt, she had been so proud of herself for not giving in to the tears and hurt that had so easily escaped when she got home. She was so angry at him as well as herself. After all this time she should not have had this reaction. She had sworn to herself she was over him. She should take this as a sign. A sign that they were not meant to be together because a person shouldn’t have this kind of control over another person after hurting them, after such a long time. She hadn’t been the same since he’d left; she had always felt like there was a part of her missing.

I wanted to leave without seeing you suffer, Hilde. Don’t cry for me.

How can you ask me that? I love you!

Seven years was a long time to suffer. A long time to spend pining for man who didn’t want her. She had, for a long time, harbored the hope that he would come to his senses and come back to her. But he hadn’t. And she had not seen him for seven long, agonizing years until tonight. And the pain just all came crashing down on her like a title wave and she was drowning in it. How could she still feel so strongly after such a long time? Why? All she wanted was just to close her eyes and sleep. For the pain to go away. She wanted her suffering to be chased away by happy dreams. But not even sleep brought her solace. The ghosts of the past haunted her dreams and when she woke up they did not go away. They were always there, watching and meddling in everything she did.

Her memories were slowly eating away at her soul. She couldn’t take the loneliness anymore, it was killing her.

*~*~*~*

It had been three days since he had seen her and he was dying to see her again. He was a masochist. But he loved her. And he was currently knocking on her door hoping she would talk to him.

The color drained from her face when she opened the door, and it took all of her efforts not to faint at the sight of him. Tears immediately sprung to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“I love you,” he said plainly. “I know how much you’ve suffered all this time, Hilde, believe me because I’ve suffered too. My heart is yours to do with what you please. I don’t care what. You can reject me, you can hurt me and I know nothing could ever compare to how much I’ve hurt you. But I love you, with all of my heart and my soul and my blood and everything I am, I will be and anything I could ever be. I only have my life to give you, Hilde, and I lay it down at your feet, without any doubts or reservations. I’m worthless, I know, but I will die without you, Hilde. Please forgive me.”

All the pain came rushing down on her like a cold shower. She wanted to shout at him, to hit him, to hurt him but in the end the only question she had left was why. Why would she do that? How could she reject him and not forgive him when she was so miserable without him? She struggled for words for a few moments, but in the end all she said was, “It won’t be easy to forget.”

“Dammed if I know it won’t be easy, but I’d rather die trying than keep living like this. I’m nothing without you.”

She looked at him for a few more seconds before throwing her arms around him. The feel of his arms around her again was the most beautiful, the sweetest thing she’d ever felt.

The End.

AN: Wow. That was totally painful to write. And you’re not really meant to know why he left. The only things you get are glimpses and bits and pieces of information. I go back to school on the 18^th of January, so this will probably be it for a while. And I really want to apologize to anybody that is/was reading any other stories of mine that I haven’t updated in forever. Really, I’m sorry but I just haven’t had any ideas. Anyway, please R&R.