FicWad

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It was when a voice rang out, high and clear, across the chaos and the people screaming that Quatre raised his head. He stared, not knowing where the voice came. The voice was singing, sucha sorrowful melody.

Quatre had never professed a liking for singing, despite his father's wishes him to enjoy it. Singing annoyed him, even when it hit the right notes, even when the singers's voices soared, Quatre felt this urge to cover his ears and flee. Perhaps, it struck too close to home.

Father had once told him, that his mother had the talent for singing and that if she had wanted, she could have sang in any opera house, any music hall in the world had it not been considered unseemly. Mother was dead.

He had no memories of the woman he had been named for. Only pictures of a smiling, happy woman. Quatre had been told, that she had smiled up to the last minutes of her life.

His Father had loved his mother so, that he rarely spoke of his fair haired wife. His eyes warmed when he spoke of however, and a odd smile formed on his face. Once or twice a year he would hear some small tale of his mother from her husband.

It never fulfilled the questions. The questions his was bursting to ask.

The questions he wanted to be explained, why the people stared... why the servants from the village below the manor crept quietly around him... why when he looked in the mirror he was always staring for something... Something missing, something he had forgotten had birth.

That wasn't the reason why he was here, and why he was going to do what he had to do... but it was the beginning, of the beginning.

She was here, the plans could now begin.

***************

The heavy breathing of the soldier beside him, made him turn slowly to the man. Duo Maxwell, a solider under his command was smiling, as blood ran down his lips and his chin.
"Maxwell?" Quatre asked, his forehead furrowing as he leaned forward.

"I - I remember, when Sister Helen sang this. Her voice wasn't as... light. This one sounds like it might float away." Maxwell licked his lips, the blood from where he bit his lower lips sucked up into his mouth.

"This is not the time - " Quatre started.

"The war was only beginning then." Maxwell laughed bitterly, "I was just a boy, never believing I would be stuck in the trenches... A right fool I was."

"Private Maxwell! Restrain and calm yourself. This war and you must remain - "

"At peace. Peace only come with death and that is why this god damned war never ends. Not until, not until everyone is dead." Maxwell head arched back, his pale, too thin throat exposed towards the sky. "You, Captain Winner, don't know shit. You're a namby pamby son of a bitch."

Quatre clenches his jaw and shakes himself. "Silence, Private, or I'll have you flogged."

The other soldiers have fallen silent, a few are still looking, a couple are trying to get as far as possibly away from the mad eyed Maxwell and the deadly controlled Captain.

"We've all heard the rumours, about your mother. She died in childbirth? Yeah..." Duo smiled, "That's what your oh so noble father said... son of a bitch," he murmured, "Oh, yeah, your mother, died in the gutter, the whore she was... Your father fucked her and then took the infant from her still warm fingers. Your father killed the woman who was your true mother, to make this story... seem real."

There was a blast, but both men didn't flinch.

"Maxwell," Quatre breathed, his voice quiet. The Private would be the only one able to hear the soft toned voice. "That doesn't take away the fact that I am still your superior and you have stepped out of line."

He straightened and gave the soldier a harsh salute. "This is war, and you follow my commands, Private Maxwell. Meet me in my quarters after dinner."

Quatre Winner turned, marching through the gaping soldiers.

Duo Maxwell laughed again. "Oh, he didn't deny it but..."

There another blast, the soldiers watching flinch at the seemingly unshockable Maxwell. "I'll come. If that's what you want, Captain Winner."

***************

Duo Maxwell wasn't the idiot most people thought him to be. He was a fool and a moron, Duo could accept, but not an idiot.
At school, he had been nurtured to shine. Sister Helen, Father Maxwell... they had loved him, like they had loved all of those little boys and girls, without fathers and mothers.

He had been twelve when the war had started. Small for his age, but itching for a growth spurt. Duo had been shocked to discover the weeping Sister Helen in Father Maxwell's arms.

Her brother was a soldier, and had already been sent away. Others said she ought to be proud and that he would be home before she even began to miss him.

Then the letter had come, and Sister Helen had stayed in her room for three days, praying. Her brother's death had changed her and even though, she still smiled and loved them, the school felt different.

The age bar had dropped when Duo was just fifteen, to sixteen. Thirteen boys were taken away before dawn, to become soldiers and to be sent off to the front.

That night, Sister Helen and Father Maxwell proposed a plan to hide all the boys who would soon be old enough to be sent to the front. To tell the officials that the boys had run away. Duo had been unsure, was this cowardly? He had asked, his voice cracking.

Sister Helen looked ready to cry and Duo hated seeing women cry. The cellar had become his new home, cold and dank, shared with eleven other boys.

For six months he did not see sunlight. For six months he lived on scanty rations. For six months he lived in cramped quarters with a bunch of teenage boys.

That didn't quiet the madness that threatened to break. Duo began to think this could not be worth it. He wasn't the only one.

When there was no moon, two boys escaped. Duo never saw them again.

Three nights later, when the moon was only beginning to be willing to show itself, the tanks and trucks came. They rumbled down the unpaved country roads, past frightened farmsteads and grey-white thin sheep.

The boys had been caught. Told their tale, the tattlers.

The school, the cellar and Sister Helen and Father Maxwell all burnt to the ground.

Duo went off to war.