[Author's Note: If you don't recognize the characters, wander over to my fic page and read Whisper a Dream and Stormfront after this. ^_^ ]

[ ...In the moments of our lives ] [ Both the joyous and the tragic ] [ If the truth is to be told ] [ We are all pursuing magic ] [ And the magic that we seek ] [ As we're sure you have discovered ] [ Can be found in certain places ] [ Far more easily than others ] [ In the sand beneath the Sphinx ] [ In the dreams of candlelight ] [ But the surest place of all ] [ Is in the forgiving world of night ] -Trans-Siberian Orchestra, "Christmas Eve and Other Stories"

Dec 14, AC 205
I continue to dream of the small, dim lights. Every night for the past four days I have seen flickering little glows, like the flame of a candle. The first time there were only two. Each following night another appeared. They seem distant, yet at the same time they bring a bit of warmth to me. I'm not certain what they mean, but I have a feeling it doesn't indicate anything hostile. I can sometimes sense such things, despite occasional vagueness. It's part of a gift. The empathy of a newtype, as one person once called me. I have the family business to run, so I can't think overmuch about the sudden and sequential appearance of lights in my sleep. If it is an omen of some kind...it will have to clarify itself. These days the world and the space colonies are comfortably quiet. The days of being a soldier and those of my Sandrock are behind me.

Dec 15
Another night, another light. I thought they were randomly placed, but now there seems to be some symmetry. They seem to be moving closer toward me, too, as each is added. A progression of steps, perhaps? Now I'm going to start thinking a little more about it...Flickering lights that begin in the distance, the number increasing each time...How many more will there be? Will they simply continue to appear? Like mobile suits you don't know the stats of but have to keep fighting onward......No, I won't meander off on that memory. Peace, and a different type of puzzle, lay before me now. What if it has something to do with the last war, though? It's nearing the anniversary of the Eve Wars...But what do the lights represent? There are five main gundams...Will they continue to multiply to include the three that dropped out of the fighting? Now I'm curious but I'll have to wait to find out, obviously.
They're warm, so gently glowing...I'm feeling through the dream now. It definitely isn't hostile, but still a mystery. Perhaps they represent my friends, who I had to carefully approach as an ally. For some reason, there was no point in time when I needed to regain their trust -- even after the Zero incident, and I doubted one of them would ever trust me again, and then he ended up fighting beside me without even remembering who I was. Trusting someone who had made a dire mistake or trusting a complete stranger, either way, it showed me that we gundam pilots had a destiny together. Our paths are always crossing, even these days. The circus was in town last month, and Duo was delivering machinery to my car mechanic the other day. I think I even spotted Wufei down town once, and out of his Preventer uniform, too. I don't envy them anymore, for all the times I was buried under contracts-to-review while the others were called to a scene. They must be bored.
And as for Heero...Well, when he wants to be found, I'll see him. Every once in a while I think about testing the old skills...and then I end up with twice as much business to tend to. Which is fine. My old life and Heero's whereabouts can remain hidden.

Dec 16
There is something electric in the air tonight. I can't recognize it. It had me running on nervous energy all day. A lot of reports reviewed. I feel...accomplished, even though it's the same kind of work I do every day. I also feel like it was a rush in order to get extra things done, so that I could be somewhere else. Coming home wasn't the answer, though. It still feels like I should be moving...I wouldn't call it disturbing, but I'm about ready to see if my spaceheart would be willing to dictate my choices again. It led me during the war, it could do so now.
I think I'll check on the company's holdings Earthside.

Space travel and time zones always make setting one's watch interesting. I haven't been to the Earth in a while. I think I have shuttle-lag. Or maybe it's something else. That odd feeling in my chest...It isn't necessarily pain, but it is unsettling. Especially right now, when I have no idea what it might mean. I'm glimpsing little flames again. I don't think they're trying to intrude, but they want my attention to focus on something. Yes, there is something else to this vision, but it remains too far away for me to understand.

Dec 17
I...hadn't expected to see this place again. I was only briefly at the company's head office before my spaceheart led me away, farther north, to a former battle site. The field is still there, long since grown back from the trampling two gundams gave it. The buildings that had been reconstructed had completely different uses now. And the forest...The meager beginnings of a forest...Still remain. I had parked my car back by the road just to the side of the field, and I was still unsure about taking the last limb of this impromptu journey on foot. The air had the expected biting chill of this region, and was colder still with the sun descending behind me. I left footprints in the thin layer of frost that covered the pine needle-strewn ground. A few snowflakes drifted here and there as I began the trek up a small hill. At the same time I was calm, my heart felt like pounding. I had said goodbye to her ten years ago...Yet here I was, at her grave.
And I was not alone.
The mild wind that scattered strands of my hair did not seem to disturb the seven white candles that rested along a low rise in the ground. The trees sheltered them. The small figure who was setting up an eighth candle did not mind the breeze either, although it plucked at his forever untamed dark-brown hair and his dark green coat. I pulled my own gray coat tighter as I stepped closer. Even hunched over I could tell that Dimitri Reaves hadn't grown much since our last meeting. I almost felt guilty for having a growth spurt when I hit age seventeen. I halted at the edge of the grave and began to kneel down. I paused when I glimpsed the weather-worn cross that Trowa had marked the grave with. It was a simple construct of two random sticks bound together, but someone -- and likely Dimitri -- had placed a six-pointed star of woven branches against it.
That was something I hadn't really thought about before.
Dimitri had noticed me already, and when he followed my gaze with knowing eyes yet wistful expression, there was no hint of being offended. He actually smiled a little. "So what brings you here? You look like a man who was unsure of his destination."
He hadn't grown taller, but his voice had deepened considerably. I kept to my tenor. "You have the answer there." My tone did not tell whether I meant his words or something else.
Dimitri gave a short chuckle and went back to arranging the candle in its brass holder. I watched him patiently, neither asking for an explanation nor offering my own. He might have known about the empathic connection between his sister and I, but it hadn't exactly come up in casual conversation before. I was content to leave it that way. Never again had my spaceheart reacted so strongly. Whether or not other newtypes like Alexa and myself existed remained to be seen.
He finished but did not light the candle right away. I traced the path of the other candles by sight. Just as in my dream, they lay in progressive steps on either side of the rise, the final one in the middle, in front of the star. As the sky darkened to deep blue Dimitri lit a match, reaching to light the middle candle.
I should have realized before...that she could see the sunset from here, the slowly changing colors flowing into the soft night.
Once the wick was aflame, he took the candle from its holder and used it to light the others. He paused after the sixth. I watched his face. The wistfulness was in his eyes now. I was about to try to feel out his thoughts when he turned his hand and silently offered the candle to me. I smiled gently and accepted it, then lit the remaing two, and then placed the lead candle back in its holder. I sat back, my empathic sense stirring. Dimitri began to sing quietly in a language I recognized as not Russian, but Yiddish. I didn't know the words, only the type of pronounciation used. I was, however, able to pick up on the emotion behind it. It was a song of life, of its beauty and its hardship.
He fell silent for several moments, eyes lowered to the flame before him. He then spoke quietly. "I'm not still living in the past, but I have a feeling you weren't thinking that anyway. I've rarely visited here...I wanted to show her that I still remember her. This time of year, this holiday, it felt right."
I nodded slowly, too caught up in what my mind was trying to register, or else I would have given a reply of not suspecting him of doing otherwise. He and I had already had our arguments over what had transpired in the days before and after Alexa had left us. He had been obsessed with vengeance, and blamed me for what happened.
It was a somewhat later time when I felt the same emotions, and I blamed the whole of outer space.
Dimitri's gaze shifted to the snow-dusted ground, then to the trees and the hillside beyond, and from there to the sky. Most of the clouds had drifted away to remove the threat of heavy snowfall. The moon was a thin crescent, the stars myriad; one could not tell their twinkle from the colony's from this vantage point. I was glad Alexa had gotten a chance to see the Earth. I'm sure she knew of the peace that had come. Well, not just 'sure'. I knew. What I didn't know was why the old feeling had led me here.
Just because, angel.
I, too, turned toward the hill, and gazed at the stars that were more far away than I was used to. Yes, I agreed, because we all occasionally need to stop and look.

(c) 2001 Autumn Loweck. This work may not be copied, distributed, or reprinted without the author's permission. Characters if Alexa and Dimitri are property of Autumn L. Characters of Quatre and Trowa belong to the creators of the GundamWing series, Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, Bandai, and whoever else in Japan involved in this most cool anime.