A/N: Just an idea that came to me. I know I haven't been updating my unfinished work, but I've been super busy! I'm interning at a literary agency and also writing my own novel(s). I hope you guys understand!
Set after Endless Waltz.
Disarmament
It was a mild summer so far that year; not yet sweltering, but one that threw off just enough sunlight to tan the skin. The first summer after the war. It seemed as if the Earth herself relished in the silence of it all; the serenity. For as long as it would last anyway.
At her sprawling estate nestled in the countryside, Relena had been taking a bit of a breather between conferences. Two weeks vacation, and she'd needed it. It was frightening how fast she could slip into the country life, despite how busy she was with the Mars terraforming project. But she could forget that all for the time being. It was just her and the maintenance crew, who came twice a week. Oh, and that security guard fellow at the front gate. Okay, so it wasn't as solitary as she'd like, but the birds twittered outside her bedroom window and the breeze rustled her hair when she lounged out on the deck. She soaked it up; so far, it has been most enjoyable.
Relena pulled open the door of the main house's refrigerator and peered inside. Sitting on the top shelf were two unopened bottles of water, a two-thirds full carafe of red wine, and a cola- not hers. She glanced mistrustfully at the wine. Sangiovese. Expensive.
Two nights ago, a Sunday evening, found Relena's first weekend off sitting silently at her kitchen table. The clock above the stovetop clicked and clacked into the dimly lit room. Relena bounced her knee, immersed in a novel propped against the table's centerpiece. Her first new read in months. Oh she'd forgotten how lovely a pastime reading was; she'd missed it so.
Absently she played with the straps of a white silk camisole; perfect adornment for heady summer nights with cotton trousers. Only it was turning out to be a rather cool season; she never seemed to pack correctly.
Outside, through the window, she heard the faint buzz of insects. And then she didn't. It was as if all the animals outside had gone suddenly mute, or she suddenly deaf.
The clock tocked loudly.
The front light flicked on.
"Motion sensors," Relena had whispered, laying her book down and rising to her feet. She briefly checked the panic button hanging against her chest as she walked from the kitchen and dining area into the foyer. Opposite the front entry, the staircase ran along the wall to the second story; the living room was to the left. Vaulting onto her tiptoes, Relena laid a hand against the cool wooden door before peering through the peephole. Immediately she flinched back in surprise.
Why was he here?
She thought he'd gone exploring. That's what he'd been planning so many months ago. She remembered him saying so as he lay in that hospital bed. It had been a mess after Mariemaia's 'death', but Relena was adamant about following him to the clinic. She'd slept in a chair by his side for a week, until he'd left, just like that, in the middle of the night.
He'd said he was headed for East Asia.
"Are you going to open the door? Relena?" His voice came through muffled, but she could still hear the tiniest hint of annoyance in his otherwise usual deadpan.
Relena wrenched open the door and there he was, Heero Yuy, standing on her doorstep. He looked as he always seemed to: simply dressed and glowering.
Like a deer, once she was caught in his gaze, there was little she could do to look away.
He blinked. "I need to stay here."
Relena dropped her arm from blocking the door. Her answer had been immediate, "Okay."
"In your garage."
She frowned. It was then she noticed he was carrying a duffle bag over one shoulder. It looked monstrously heavy. "What is that, Heero?" She remembered asking, pointing a manicured nail towards the parcel.
He didn't even take his eyes off her. He didn't even draw breath.
"Zero's brain."
-o.o.o.o-
Relena grabbed one of the bottles of water and closed the refrigerator door.
Heero had been bunking in her empty garage for two nights. She'd seen little of him, but somehow always caught the soldier in her kitchen, stuffing his face. It was the shock of seeing him sitting there that first morning, munching on a mountainous bowl of her granola cereal, that made Relena realize she'd never seen him look so… normal.
He was also reading her paper, and he'd stocked the fridge with soda, much to her displeasure.
Well, Relena thought as she headed out into the backyard, she had no idea how long he would be staying, but it was time she got caught up with the lost months of Heero Yuy.
The door to the manor's multi-vehicle, albeit empty, garage was adjar, propped open by a rock. As she approached, Relena paused. She'd forgotten that hinge was due for repair.
Peering inside, she could see Heero sitting in the center of the concrete floor, his back to her. Tools of all shapes and sizes, no doubt raided from other building on the property, were splayed out in a half circle around him. They looked categorized too. She never pinned him for neurotic, but it certainly made sense.
She craned her neck.
Beyond him, lying on the floor, there was a chunk of something. A black boxy object illuminated by the bank of ceiling lights.
Zero's brain.
"Relena?"
She jumped slightly, coming inside. "I've brought you something to drink, Heero."
He turned his shoulders, just a bit. She could see his profile.
"Hn."
Relena came a little closer and saw him pause, going slightly ridged. She crouched down beside him.
Whatever had been encasing the square bit of machinery had been torn off. Ridged black plastic had been cut away, strips of it littering the floor. Other pieces had been removed; some wiring and what looked like insulation. What was left was no larger than a shoebox, even with its connector sockets and other nameless accoutrements.
"You spend two days here and you've only unwrapped the thing?"
He snorted, "I've been resting."
Yeah, she thought, eating all my cereal.
"I thought you were in Japan." She sat, drawing her legs under her.
Heero pulled the metal box towards him, "I was, but then…" He trailed off, turning the object over. She watched his face, for an emotion to flicker across his features. He stared at the thing in his hands. There was something- right there- she could see it, but had no idea what it meant.
"That's Zero you said."
Her soft voice broke his daydream. He continued working on the box, pipping buttons and reading data off a handheld device plugged into the back panel. "My mobile suit was completely destroyed during the attack on Mariemaia's compound," he reiterated as he worked, "but the hard drive was salvageable."
Hard drive.
It was Zero's brain. All the memory, all the strange interworking files and codes of his Gundam, wrapped up neatly inside a little box.
Heero booted up the system. A fan within whirled noisily. Honestly, Relena thought it sounded a bit sick. The motor clicked and groaned, and after a good minute it began to grind and whirl with a high-pitch grating. He shut it off again and let out a very telling sigh of frustration.
She glanced up at him.
"Are you trying to save it?"
"Save it?" he repeated without looking at her.
"The data, the information-"
"I'm trying to destroy it."
Relena leaned away, taken aback. "But…but Zero was a good machine."
"Zero was a monster."
"Heero, that's not true."
He opened the back panel of the drive. "The Gundams were never meant for this era of peace. I no longer need this system, or any system. I don't want it falling into the wrong hands." He glanced her way, "That's why I came here." Relena's eyes narrowed. In a rare moment of candidness he continued, "There were bits I wanted; notes on Operation Meteor, personal files." She wanted to ask, but Relena held her tongue. "I've been trying to access parts I was never meant to see. I'm not sure if it was damaged during battle or if it's simply too well protected."
"And then you'll destroy it."
"Yes."
She rested her chin against her clasped hands, elbows propped up on her knees. She watched him pick up a pair of pliers, turning them in his hand, angling in different directions to plan the best method of attack. Finally he wedged them between the top and bottom casing. The metal puckered.
"Have you heard anything from the others?"
"No," he quipped shortly, jamming the tool farther into the box. He twisted and pried, fed up with other, gentler methods of extraction.
As Relena watched him work she relayed information to him about the pilots. Wufei was still working with Sally, Duo and Hilde owned a scrap yard, Trowa and Quatre. At the mention of the other boys' seemingly smooth transition back into society, she saw a smirk quirk his upper lip. Ah, so he was interested.
"Why did you leave Japan? I'm sure you could have found a safe house there." She'd finally gotten around to asking it, just as he popped the lid of the container. The metal sprung back, clattering to the floor. She was fishing, and not very covertly either. It was terribly transparent; he must have known. Because I wanted to see you. Well, that's what she hoped he'd say, but then again she'd never seen pigs fly before.
Amidst the noise he answered her, "I needed space. Too many people." He laid the open box down upon the floor. Relena leaned over his arm to take a good look.
"Oh my."
It was a mess of circuit boards and wires; thick conduit cording connected various sections to a giant motherboard. She saw the fan exhaust was bent inward and cringed. She imagined him falling from the sky, trapped in a twisted chassis of metal. The thought chilled her. To her surprise, however, the hard drive looked to be on, even though Heero had disconnected the power.
"What's it doing?"
He set the pliers down in the tool circle, grabbing instead a sharply pointed screwdriver. "Protecting itself." He pointed to a bank of little indicator lights, all flittering green at random intervals, "The internal power supply keeps the firewalls partitioned."
She cocked her head, "What's so important that they'd lock away a piece of your Gundam?"
After a long moment, a war raging behind his eyes, he finally said, "It doesn't matter."
"But Heero, you said you wanted to-"
"I've changed my mind." He positioned the screwdriver against a small ring-box sixed aluminum dome. "This is the power source. Once I destroy it there will no longer be anything for the computer system to run on."
She didn't have much training where computers were concerned, but even Relena knew a bit of the basics. "Even if you destroy the power source, the information can still be accessed."
"I'll destroy the platters afterwards. Sanding them down makes the data unreadable."
"But the files you wanted-"
He stilled, pliers poised over the internal battery. "I said it doesn't matter," he whispered in a low voice, "I would rather make sure the system couldn't be used ever again." Heero turned to glare at her, daring her to contradict him, to argue. Relena held his gaze and nodded. She understood completely. Turning back, he continued to hesitate. And why wouldn't he? That Gundam had been an extension of his soul for a time, of his power. It would be like killing a part of his past.
She placed a gentle hand upon his shoulder.
With a swift, downward motion he stabbed at the power conduit. An internal alarm began to wail, but it died quickly as the power drained. The lights blinked dimly, and then were snuffed as the gentle hum of the drive's innards finally quieted. A quick flick of the wrist and he popped away a stack of small silver disks and placed them aside.
"There," he sounded like he'd been holding his breath, "it's done."
Relena picked up the disks. They were still warm. She saw her face reflected back at her in the silvery surface. Tilting the object, she could see Heero's reflection too. He was watching her.
"We'll deal with this tomorrow."
He blinked. "Hn?"
She clutched the disks to her chest and stood, dusting off her skirt. "I'm not letting you sleep out here in my garage again. I'm a better hostess than that, you can take the couch." Heero got to his feet and stared at her with his unwaveringly calculating eyes. "You've already eaten half my food, I might as well make you lunch too. And then-" she paused, raising a shoulder in a half-shurg. "I guess you can be on your way after that."
He followed her out of the garage, turning out the lights. "You have a diplomatic meeting in a little less than two weeks."
"Oh, so you subscribe to the unofficial mailing list of my life?"
He scowled. Ah-ha, Relena thought dryly, but her heart was pounding. "By all means, impose on my vacation as long as you want. I won't be too offended if you run off again in the dead of night." Oh she was letting herself get angry; she was letting that familiar swell of hurt bubble up and seep into her words.
"Relena…"
She turned, one hand already swinging the porch door open, cool air from inside the house prickling her skin. He was standing a few feet away, glancing off into the middle distance.
For a long minute neither of them said a word. A part of her respected his silence, would always respect his privacy, but she desperately wanted to know, needed to know, what was going on in that soldier's head. And then the spell was broken. Without even so much as a sidelong glance he pushed past her and into the house. Relena gripped the doorframe with white knuckles, and after a moment to collect herself, she followed, letting the screen door spring back into its lock.
So, I was thinking of making this a 2 chapter fic. Maybe so, maybe not. Depends on if you guys want more.
Hope you enjoyed!
Please review!
