Disclaimer: This story is not for profit. I don't own Gundam Wing, which is a registered trademark of Sotsu Agency Co., LTD. TM & Sunrise & under license by Bandai.

A/N- Written for gw_dark's Darkfic Exchange and the prompt: "A romantic, darkfluff story chronicling Heero and Dorothy's relationship."

The Defense Rests

by Terra

The morning of the verdict, there is a riot on the streets outside the courthouse. Dorothy shields the contempt on her face behind sunglasses and a wide-rimmed hat, her lips pursed in disgust at the reporters sprawled out on the steps like ants crawling over the carcass of a picnic. She knows how she must appear to the public waiting with bated breath behind bright flashes and glinting lens – a cold woman, icy and emotionless, a killer.

The mob descends upon her, flinging cameras and microphones in her face. "Lady Catalonia! Lady Catalonia," they demand, "how does it feel to be a free woman?"

Dorothy wants to laugh in their faces. Free? They think she is free? Her precious freedom is bought with blood money, and it disgusts her that they believe she enjoys her liberation. The world outside is a more complete prison than metal bars or snide threats or the delight of inmates in seeing a ladyensnared in the indifferent jaws of justice.

Her new cell is the knowledge that her family is dead; her grand palace, the only home she knows, deserted; the martyrdom she had looked forward to meaningless.

She is alone. And in the court of public opinion – the only kind, she has learned, that counts on the other side of steel bars – she is a war criminal. A merchant of death escaping the noose by the thinnest thread of her youth. Age mitigates her crimes, her attorneys argued. She was only a child manipulated by her elders, by trusted adults who betrayed her, the judge declared.

But the truth is that her verdict, her innocence, is purchased with a fortune swollen by war. Ensured by her last name, the real currency of a decaying world ruled by aristocracy and dying traditions.

"Miss Catalonia, please!" they cry.

She remembers their shock, their thinly-veiled derision, when she refused to pay bail, choosing a holding cell with real bars over one constructed from lies and smears. Triumph in the eyes of her enemies and grief in the eyes of her victims. The real prison, she has long realized, is outside. Locked away, she can pretend that there are still people who care if she lives or dies, who would be with her if only they could. She wants to believe she is imprisoned against her will, that her isolation is a punishment imposed on her, and not her reality.

But denial is intolerable, a weakness Dorothy has been taught to ruthlessly stamp out. It hardly signifies anyway. She is fooling no one, least of all herself.

"The airport," she tells her driver. "Step on it," she adds as the press mobs her limousine, clattering against the windows.

Dorothy returns to Palais du Dermail for one last night. Then she sets fire to her grandfather's study, ignoring the screeches of the servants, and salutes him over his blackening ebony and Carpathian elm desk. She watches the crinkling documents, carefully preserved over centuries, alit with embers. The next day, she sells the property amidst howling protests from third and fourth cousins. They try to take her to court but the estate is not entailed and her name is on the deed, so they can do nothing.

For the next two months, she hides alone in Castell de Catalonia. Every morning, she cooks breakfast and every afternoon, she weeds in the garden; because no one will work for a war criminal.

Then a veteran, whose entire squadron was murdered by her Dolls, killed by the mere whispers of her thoughts, plants a bomb in the North Tower. He doesn't know she watches the sun rise every morning in the garden, and she is saved by her insomnia when her rooms are crushed into rubble, a gaping scar torn in the belly of the castle. Every worldly possession she owns crumbles and when she doesn't press charges and no one hears from her, she is assumed dead.

Her third and fourth cousins, who screamed bloody murder when she sold Palais du Dermail, have no qualms selling the legacy of the last of the Catalonias. They vivisect and parse out all her vineyards, long the source of her wealth and the well from which her ancestors first made cava, the sparkling wine of Catalan. She thinks that this is just as well; she has lost her family, her honor, her reputation and all that remained was her home.

Now she is free.

Before she runs, Dorothy shears off her long blond locks and dyes it an unimpressive brown, her slate blue eyes and trembling red lips the only dashes of color on her pale face. There is something inevitable, a sense of finality in every snip of the scissors and wisp of falling hair. There is no going back, she thinks. By the afternoon of her death, she has left Catalan for the moon.

Luna City is loud, brash, irreverent. It's the new seedy underbelly of the criminal underworld, remote and without any appeal or reward for law enforcement. A haven for gamblers and drunks and people looking to escape their past. It's a scandalous place for any young lady of the aristocracy to be seen. So Dorothy takes long, leisurely walks in the dilapidated streets, and each step fills her with a perverse pleasure.

She is tired of lines and boundaries and propriety. Sick of guilt and scorn and gay smiles.

She finds a favorite bar – darkly lit, always smoky. She is there every night for a week trying to find answers in the bottom of a glass when the bartender suddenly sets down a pitcher of beer. Dorothy peers up from her wine and frowns. "I didn't order this."

"I know," he grunts, jerking his thumb towards a man at the end of the bar, "courtesy of the gent over there. Asked me to give you a message."

The room is hazy from the blur of smoke in her face and alcohol in her veins but she can see that he's no gentleman. The man perched on the stool at the end of the bar sits relaxed, almost indecently at ease, his elbows resting on the bar. But his posture is alert with a constant awareness of his surroundings that tells her he's no civilian. He is rumpled, his hair dark and unruly, his jeans scuffed and tucked into dusty work boots. She's sure she doesn't know anyone so common – but there's something dangerously familiar about him.

Dorothy turns back to the bartender. "What message?"

"If you're going to live in a bar," he replies with a flash of teeth, "you should drink beer."

"Thank you," she responds stiffly. Dorothy downs the rest of her wine, sliding down to the floor and swaying to her feet, her lips thinning in preparation to tell him off. "Listen, I don't know who you are—" she breaks off stunned when their eyes meet. She's only seen that shade of blue, that cutting Prussian steel, once in her life and when she looks closer, the sharp planes of his angular face are unmistakable.

Dorothy staggers back, gripping the bar for balance. "Heero Yuy?" she asks incredulously.

The corners of his mouth turn inwards into a wry smile. His eyes flit to her hair. "You need to change more than your hair color to throw off the dogs sniffing after you."

Dorothy falters. "What do you mean?"

"People have been asking around." Heero slowly turns until he's facing her. The flash of humor is abruptly gone; his face blank, shuttered. "Someone ordered a hit on you."

"You can't be serious," she scoffs, ignoring the pounding pulse of panic and alcohol in her wrists as she clutches her empty glass. "I've practically been declared dead."

"No body, no guarantee," he shrugs, "and you're not exactly short on enemies. Take it from someone who knows."

"Is that why you're here? You're on the run?"

Heero drains the last of his draft beer. When he looks back at her, there's an ironic smile on his face. "Maybe I'm here to collect the bounty."

"I can't imagine I'm worth all that much. Certainly not . . . Gundam pilot rates," she says impetuously. Then she cuts him from her line of sight completely, waving to the bartender. "Another!" she orders.

"That's how they'll find you," he mentions casually.

"What do you mean?"

"A beautiful woman of means at the same bar night after night, ordering Bordeaux and Pinot noir instead of beer like everyone else. Staying at the most luxurious hotel this side of the moon." Heero pours himself another draft. "You're an easy mark."

Heat flooding her cheeks, Dorothy flings herself away from him, her eyes wide. The sudden movement causes her to stumble into someone behind her. "Hey, watch it!" a man shouts, cursing at his wet sleeve. She mutters an apology and he throws her a dirty look before pushing her aside.

At her disgruntled expression, Heero laughs, his voice deep and husky, shoulders shaking in careless mirth. "If I wanted you dead, I could've killed you hundreds of times by now."

"Was that supposed to be reassuring?" She glares at him, her fists clenched. "And I'm not helpless. I have - I have protection."

"Do you?"

Suddenly she remembers that she left her clutch, with the tiny pistol nestled inside, at her old seat. Dorothy slowly backs away, her eyes fastened on Heero Yuy, hoping that if he moves, she'll be ready for him. She snatches her clutch, discomfited by his amused, languid expression. On an impulse, she also grabs the pitcher of the beer. Some of it sloshes over the sides when she slams it down in front of him. "Beer is the way to fit in, right?"

Without waiting for an answer, she pushes her flute of wine away and pours herself a draught. She tips it to her lips and downs the cup in one breath, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand crudely in satisfaction. It's a gesture that would've given her governess nightmares. The thought makes her laugh.

"What's so funny?" asks Heero.

"I am. You are." Dorothy laughs, drumming her fingers against the wood of the bar idly. "What are you really doing here? You can't have come all this way just to patronize me."

His eyes narrow in consideration. "The same as you, probably."

"What kind of answer is that?" she demands. "You," she stabs him in the shoulder with her finger, "are infuriatingly obtuse. There's a limit to being inscrutable, you know."

"Is there?" he responds, lips quirked in humor.

"Yes, there is." Dorothy nods, distantly aware that at some point in the last hour, she'd plowed across the line between tipsy and drunk. But her limbs are soaked in warmth and she feels so wonderfully free that she can't bring herself to care. "I got charged with war crimes," she declares. "The world thinks I tried to wipe out the Earth . . . and someone tried to kill me so now everyone thinks I'm dead. And I'm sitting here without the slightest clue what to do next and somehow I doubt," she looks down her nose at him, "your story is anything like mine."

"No," he admits. "That's not my story."

"So . . . are you going to make me ask again?"

"After Mariemaia," his tone is so indulgent that she suspects he's humoring her, "I followed Relena for a while. She caught me one night and told me, ordered me actually," he chuckles, "to move on with my life. To get a life. So I wandered around for a few months, trying to figure out what the hell she meant."

"And you came here?"

"Eventually. I thought about joining the Preventers . . . but I'm not like Wufei. I don't have a debt I need to repay. Or people who care one way or another what I do."

"But — Relena?"

"She cares," he acknowledges, "but she told me – she said that if you cared enough for someone, you had to let them go to find their own way."

"How selfless," mutters Dorothy. "How very Relena."

He glances at her curiously. "You think so?"

"When is she not trying to save every drowning puppy and limping old man?"

"And nearly-convicted war criminal?" he asks shrewdly.

"Yes," she answers sourly. "If she hadn't interfered, they would've convicted me. But she had to waltz in with her sugary words and glamour and dazzle the pants off the jury."

Heero comments dryly: "How unfortunate for you."

"I . . . deserved to be punished. Maybe I wasn't guilty of some of the things they accused me of – but all the same, I should never have gotten off with a mere slap on the wrist."

"Interesting," he taps a finger against the rim of his glass, "Dorothy Catalonia suffers from rich man's guilt."

"I was prepared – ready to die on Libra," she swallows convulsively, "and if only Quatre hadn't been there . . . then I might have died for something I believed in. Instead of wasting away on some backwater casino town drowning my sorrows in," she stares distastefully at the pitcher, "beer, of all things."

"You're a snob," observes Heero nonchalantly. "And maybe that's your problem."

"Really?" she returns in clipped tones.

"You're still clinging to your wealth and old habits. Living in an expensive suite, calling down every morning for room service, guzzling wine every night. It's the decrepit lifestyle of a bored socialite."

"How dare – you know nothing about me!"

"If you wanted a new start, to break away from what you were, you're doing it wrong."

"And just how shouldI be doing it?" she snaps. "Since you're clearly the expert on running away from your problems."

Heero continues unperturbed: "Get a job. Use your money to help someone. Go back to school," he shrugs, "the point is that you can do anything. You're the only one holding you back."

"To do any of that, I'd need fake papers and résumés and references . . . ," she trails off, grimacing.

"Excuses."

She grits her teeth. "And what have you been doing? You've had several months head start on losing yourself."

Heero leans back against the bar, absently fingering the frayed edges of his jacket. "I work emergency construction."

"Oh . . . so that's why you're so dirty."

"Dirty," he repeats. Then he gives a bark of laughter, dry and appreciative. "Yes. It's hard but the hours are good."

"And it – the exhaustion probably helps you sleep, doesn't it?"

"Most nights, I'm so tired that I forget to dream."

"That's what saved me, you know." Dorothy glances distractedly at the other patrons, hunched over beers, their cigarettes the only bright points of light in the sweltering dimness of the bar. She doesn't know why she's telling this to Heero Yuy of all people but this is the first time in weeks she's spoken, really spoken, to anyone and she can't bring herself to feel regret. "It was my insomnia. If I had been able to sleep more than a couple hours a night, I would've been crushed to death. It seems rather unfair now. To be saved by my guilty conscience."

"What's that saying? Only the good die young," he intones sardonically.

She thinks about idealistic young soldiers blotted out by machines, young brides lost in the agony of childbirth, young fathers sacrificed on the altar of ambition and greed. "Yes."

"So, what will you do now?"

"Get a job, I suppose. With what marketable skills I have," she smiles self-deprecatingly, "I can plan and throw banquets and soirees. I can pilot a mobile suit. I can fence. If you think of anything requiring those skills, do let me know."

"You never had a childhood dream?"

"I did once. Before grandfather crushed it," remarks Dorothy derisively. "I wanted to be a dancer. A ballerina. Thinking about it now, how blasé."

"Is it?"

"Well, all little girls want to be ballerinas and princesses when they're young. It's nothing special." Dorothy rests her pounding head against the crook of her arm, crushing her eyes closed. The surface of the bar is cool, a welcome respite from the cloying smoke. "Did you have a childhood dream?"

"I don't remember. I've always been an orphan. Between missions, I think I pretended to have a family. Odin, my . . . guardian, often had me masquerading as his son. It made me want to find my real parents."

"That's sad," she murmurs, peering up at him from under matted eyelashes. "They took you, all of you, so young."

Heero shrugs, an elegant tilt of his shoulders, simultaneously dismissive and momentous. "I probably would've starved to death in some alleyway if Odin, and then Doctor J, hadn't found me."

"That's why I hate them. The Alliance and Romefeller. We never had a chance. They made child soldiers out of all of us. They orphaned an entire generation of children. It's despicable."

Heero doesn't answer, staring at a point above her head, his expression distant. The silence stretches until the atmosphere is heavy and solemn. Then his blue eyes dart to her face and he says abruptly: "Dorothy, let's leave."

She straightens, unwillingly entranced by his keen gaze. "And go where?"

"Away." He stands, holding out his hand, fingers splayed casually in the air. "Anywhere."

"All right," she replies slowly, slipping her hand into his. His palm is blazing warm and the heat travels up her arm until she's enveloped in it, throbbing with an indescribable need. For a crazy moment, and she's sure it's the alcohol, she imagines wrapping herself around him, cocooned in his warmth. The friction of rough calluses against her fingers and the enigmatic smile on his lips jerk her back to reality and she stumbles to her feet. She throws some credits absently behind her, and he pulls her out into the night air.

Dorothy laughs helplessly. "Where are we going?"

"It's close."

Heero tugs her down the street, and they walk without speaking until they turn a corner and suddenly the metal skeleton of an unfinished building looms over them. The cloth draped halfheartedly over the gaping holes in the steel flesh is haphazard, like an afterthought. "Wait, is this where you work?" she asks breathlessly.

"Sometimes."

They maneuver around disheveled crates and inert construction cranes, halting at a service elevator. Lifting the metal net, Heero steps into the cage and motions her in. "Hang on," he warns before pushing the crank, jolting the elevator into motion, flinging them into the air. The breeze whips through her hair and she grips the railing tightly as they fly upwards. When the elevator clangs to a stop, he announces: "This is it."

The top level, destined to become the roof she guesses, is barren except for enormous steel girders, wide enough for a car, jutting out into the sky. "I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you haven't brought me up here to throw me over," she says dryly.

Chuckling, Heero steps out onto the wide rafters. "Nothing so nefarious."

Dorothy takes his proffered hand and walks out cautiously behind him, peering down hesitantly into the dark scaffolding of the building. She can't suppress a shiver at the mental image of her body hurtling down the elevator shaft. "So . . . what's so special about this place?"

"Look." He points in the distance and her breath catches in her throat. The panes of Luna City's dome are suddenly translucent, and she sees the shimmering blue and white orb of the Earth in the sky. It rises majestically over the surrounding mountains, a glistening marble above the skyscrapers. "We're not on the dark side of the moon anymore," says Heero softly. "In a few minutes, the dome will darken again to block out the sun."

"It's beautiful," she breathes.

"I thought you might like it."

"I love it," she whispers, mesmerized. "You can't get this view from the Colonies."

"No."

"Thank you. I – this is, I mean . . . thank you for showing me something so beautiful." Dorothy tightens her grip on his hand and she doesn't know why her chest feels so heavy. His face is a shadow against the silhouette of the Earth and the rippling sun but his eyes are glowing in the dark. The heat of his gaze feels visceral, inexplicably inviting. "Heero," she raises a quivering hand to brush away the unruly brown fringe smeared across his forehead by the wind, "what are you really doing here?"

"I'm searching," he tells her quietly as her hand slowly drifts down his face until she's stroking his cheek.

"For what?"

"For a home."

Dorothy leans in until she can see the faint outline of a scar above his upper lip and the spider web of fine lines in the corners of his eyes. "Heero, I think . . ." she begins over the roar of her heartbeat and the churning of liquid courage stripping away her inhibitions, "I think I finally know why I go to that bar every night. Why I came to this sooty city."

"Why?" he murmurs.

Dorothy smiles wistfully. "I think I came to be found."

Then she captures his mouth in a hard kiss that makes her body thrum with awareness and her heart leap with the promise of new beginnings.

-

A/N- This was written as a gift for orphan_kitten and I'm so glad she requested it. It's definitely an alternative pairing but one I had a lot of fun exploring. Thanks for reading!