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Char couldn’t remember the first time he climbed inside a mobile suit. He should, probably, considering the extent to which mobile suits had gone on to shape his life. He thought there should be some kind of story there, maybe something stirring that some version of himself would tell it to the troops when they needed inspiration before battle. But there wasn’t. There wasn’t any kind of story. On a day he couldn’t remember anymore, he had gotten into a suit and that had been that.
Char did remember the first time he climbed inside of Amuro Ray. Properly climbed inside, not just a heartbeat in his ears or too loud breathing that wasn’t his own. It had coincided with receiving a scar that itched sometimes when he woke up in the middle of the night with fingernails clawing at his forehead. He had crawled inside of Amuro the same way Amuro had crawled inside of him, the same way a wolf crawls inside the ribcage of its prey to reach the most tender meat: bloodily, painfully, irreparably.
Char hadn’t realized how wide he had been split open for a long time. The pounding in his head was adrenaline, anger, even fear, anything but the matching heartbeat of a man (boy) who had drowned Char in blood (sunlight) and then gone missing somewhere in the dark (on Earth).
Char did not know how many mobile suits he had piloted, or even how many models. They blurred together like teeth, one after another, from space to Earth to sea to space again and finally to the cold and endless black of the asteroid belt, that divider beyond which was just the swirling bodies of gassy planets with no solid ground to land on. Only hot air, choking and heavy.
Char did remember the last mobile suit he ever piloted. He remembered his hands shaking a little as he donned his normal suit—I’m wearing it, can you see that I’m wearing it?—hurried and sweating. Finally. Finally, finally, finally. So close now. So close to being complete.
Except he wasn’t. Somehow. Char climbed out of the Sazabi and he was choking on saltwater and pushing blood and tears out of his eyes with still shaking hands. With broken fingers.
Where was Amuro?
Damn him. Damn him.
But Char was floating so he must not have been cracked open enough yet to sink. Not taken on quite enough water or lost quite enough blood. An equilibrium—one part in and one part out—oozing stickiness replaced with clean warmth.
Amuro had been born on the Earth. Char had not been. Maybe if he could let enough of himself billow out into this unknown sea then the planet would give enough of itself back to weigh him down and pull him all the way to its molten core where souls were made.
Where was Amuro?
Mobile Suits don’t float long.
Humans do, even leaking ones. Long enough to see the sunrise, at least.