A/N: Oh, hi. Come to read, have you? I'm so grateful. You may or may not recognize the words from the summary. They are not my own. They are lyrics to a song, but I think they suit the story well enough. As I also mentioned in the summary, this is kind of AU. Not too much, but a little. Anyway, thanks so much for reading; I hope you enjoy it.

Salka/Living Room

It was much smaller than anything she was used to, but she knew she it would be petty of her to complain. For the first time, she would own the place she lived in. Or, rather, lease. No matter. It would be hers for at least the next twelve months and she was paying for it.

She busied herself with turning on the apartment's air conditioner. The thermostat was different from the one that had been in her room at home, but she figured it out easily enough. There was a thud at the door, which wasn't unexpected. She opened it to find two of the burly moving men that had followed her car in a small moving truck; they were carrying her mattress between them, and seemed unfazed by its weight.

"Where should this go, Miss?"

"Oh—just over here." She lead them to the master bedroom in the back of the unit.

Given the amount and heft of the truck's load, it didn't take the obviously skilled moving men long to arrange her few items of furniture. Within an hour, they were both gone, each with a twenty dollar tip.

Alone in her apartment at last, Relena felt just that: alone. She tried to ignore it while she took her brand- new kitchen appliances and dishes out of their boxes, all very different from the ones she'd used at home. She worked through it as she fitted the bedding onto her full-sized mattress. It was almost too much to bear when she opened up the large Tupperware container Pagan had packed a dinner in before she had left early that morning. She swallowed the food with force, working it past the lump in her throat. But when she turned the lights out on an unfamiliar room to lie down in her familiar bed, she had nothing to occupy her but her thoughts. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she hated herself for it.

One would think that excessive crying and a day of traveling would be enough to put one swiftly to sleep. One would think…. Frustrated and utterly alert, Relena threw back the covers and went to the kitchen to boil water for a cup of tea.

While she waited for the whistle of the kettle, she threw herself into the grey recliner in the living room. She'd had the moving men put it closest to the window, thinking it would be good for reading light. She'd read often in the chair at home. It was something she'd usurped from her father's study a while after he'd died fifteen. It stood out as too masculine in her bedroom, but her mother hadn't argued. Relena supposed she was impressed at the pains she took to convince the gardener to help her heave it up the stairs.

When she actually sat in the chair, she realized just how large the windows were. They started a few inches from the floor and rose to within a few inches of the ceiling. She thought them impressive and large, and wondered at how she hadn't looked out of them yet. Perhaps, she reasoned, she had been too distracted. She forgot all about it as she looked through them into the Summer night. She felt dwarfed by them.

She examined the squares of light coming from behind other people's curtains in other people's apartments. The property didn't take up much land, and compensated for it with the building's height. It was all connected and built in the shape of a U. Her apartment was in one of the long sides. The somewhat narrow space between her side of the U and the other was made out to be a small courtyard with a few trees, benches, and mailboxes.

All the lights were blocked by curtains or blinds so that she couldn't see inside any of her neighbors' homes. That's smart, she thought, realizing that she was staring out her own windows without any such guard. She felt suddenly exposed in her tank top and shorts. Just as she was about to move back into the windowless part of the apartment, a new light stole her attention. It was brighter than all the others, because—Relena realized upon inspection—it wasn't limited by blinds or curtains, either.

The window was a few levels lower than her own, so she couldn't see straight into the apartment. She did catch a slanted view of the same kind of bland carpet that covered her own floors; a small, brown, square table with chairs; the edge of a sofa, and a sliver of kitchen tile. She assumed the layout was different because it was smaller than her own. A shadow moved over the table. They must be in the kitchen. The feet appeared. Black- socked feet. They were followed be jeans, then the hem of a gray shirt— a gray polo shirt, because there was a collar at the top—and then a neck, a head, and the top of brown hair. It was a man—she could tell from his silhouette—and he was looking straight out his window.

She screamed and jumped out of her chair at the loud screeching that suddenly filled the apartment, making a thud on the floor she was sure her downstairs neighbors didn't appreciate. Apologizing in her head, she stepped lightly into the kitchen and set a cup of tea to steep.

As she waited for the tea to permeate the water, she leaned against a counter, apprehensive about returning to the window. First of all, it was definitely impolite of her to spy on someone like that. Even though it wasn't really spying because she didn't even know who she was looking at, and she hadn't done it on purpose. In any case, some stranger's apartment and the goings on inside it were not her business, and it was inappropriate behavior anyway.

She thought this—she knew this—but she had no resolve. Once her tea was done she went back to her chair, taking a deep breath before looking across the way. But a few levels down, it was dark again.

A/N: Oh, hi. You finished? I'm very glad. I know it's short, but it's meant to be an introduction. I thought I'd make it longer, but once I got to this point I realized that it's perfect, (or good enough, anyway,) at this length. There's another part in the works already. Or three, rather. Now I think I'll go and quietly pine for the next chapter of Occam's Razor… or write. Whatever. Oh, yeah, I'd be grateful for your thoughts. You know, reviews and stuff.