(Untitled)

[result_of_war]

Who: Heero Yuy and Olive Penderghast
What: And then Heero accidentally graduated. :V
When: Some time today.
Where: Olive's room.
Warnings: Nope.

Heero had been lying low for the last several days, thinking things over and trying to decide what his next move should be. There were moments where he didn't want to leave, necessarily. Being on the Barge had

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[worstsongever]

Olive had been in a funk. Martha was gone, Snape was gone, Remus was gone, she couldn't find Summer anywhere and assumed she was gone too - not to mention Jon, and Ghost, and more or less all of the people she'd come to really like here. Heero was back, and that had almost made everything else better. But the funk was still present and...funky, and she had spent the last hour laying on her bed and carving things into an orange with her thumb nail.

When she heard the knock, she lifted her head enough to yell, "Come in," then let her chin droop over the foot of her bed again, working on a flower petal. "It's open!"

[result_of_war]

He raised an eyebrow slightly before opening the door and heading in, closing it behind him. He wasn't necessarily surprised to see Olive looking pretty bummed out, but at the same time, it bothered him. He might not have a problem with being here for the rest of forever - or, prior to going home, he hadn't had one - but Olive shouldn't be here. And it really bothered him that she might at this point be staying around just because he couldn't quite figure out what he needed to do to get out of here.

"Are you okay?"

[worstsongever]

"Hey," she said, and perked up enough to prop herself up on her elbows. "Yeah, I'm awesome. Look, I'm being artistic and everything." She tossed the orange toward him, a little off target, but close enough for him to catch. Especially since he was a much better athlete than her.

Olive inched over to make room for him, and patted the bed beside her. "What's up?"

[result_of_war]

He caught the orange almost without looking at it and studied the designs she'd been carving into the skin with an expression that might have registered as interest to someone familiar with him before coming over to sit next to her. It was strange, to be coming in here and thinking maybe this was actually it.

"I've been talking to some people."

[worstsongever]

"Oh yeah?" She rolled over and sat up, reaching for her beside table where there was a bottle of nail polish. She glanced at Heero as she unscrewed it, pulling up one leg, chin resting on her knee.

"What about?"

[result_of_war]

"What my options are."

He was quiet, trying to figure out how to explain what he was thinking about. "I didn't care that I was here before. I didn't care about being an inmate or that I was dead."

[worstsongever]

Maybe this was it, Olive realized, and she stopped painting her toe to look at him again, telling her rising hope that it should shut the hell up until Heero graduated. "Which I found endearing and concerning," she teased, but she sobered. "And now?"

[result_of_war]

It was weird, realizing he cared and couldn't stand sitting around here, waiting and wondering about what was happening at home. It hadn't been personal before. He hadn't cared about what he was being ordered to do, not really, and now... he did. Kay had said maybe the families of the people he'd accidentally murdered had spared his life because they'd seen something worthwhile in him, and while he didn't really know if he believed that, he did know he could help if he was home, and he couldn't do anything while he was stuck here.

"I want to go home."

[worstsongever]

"Why?" Her palms itched, and she rubbed them against her knees, abandoning the nail painting completely. This could be it, she thought again; he could be graduating. When he left, she wouldn't have to worry about him being dead, disappearing off the face of...everything.

Of course, she'd have to worry about his giant robot battles, but he was good at that.

[result_of_war]

He didn't move, still sort of trying to work all this out and getting his head around exactly what it was going to mean. And despite all the time he'd spent here, he still had a hard time really talking about himself or how he felt about things, just because he wasn't used to it and it didn't really occur to him to try. "Because I'm needed there. And I want to make things right."

And that was it. Who would have thought it would have been that easy?

[worstsongever]

A clatter caught Olive's attention, and she turned to her desk, where a little plate with smiley face cookies had appeared. For a second, she just stared - when she realized Heero's file wasn't next to it, she grinned.

And pretty much tackled her former inmate with a hug. Hopefully she capped that nail polish bottle at some point. "I think you just graduated, buddy."

[result_of_war]

Heero had gotten more used to hugs after his time on the Barge, but actual tackle hugs were still unexpected and generally met with surprise. So, he almost fell over, but somehow managed to catch himself and just... Wow. He had no idea how to process that. He wasn't an inmate anymore. He could go home and he actually wanted to go home.

So after a couple seconds of just sitting there, really not sure how to react to that, he put his arms around Olive and hugged her back. "Thank you."

[worstsongever]

She waited it out, knowing eventually he'd hug her back. He hadn't changed that much, and it was kind of nice to know that. He hadn't needed to change, he'd just needed to realize a few things. And maybe a lot of people had helped him do that, but she'd been one of them.

"You're very welcome, but be careful. This might get sappy. I'm going to miss you, Heero."