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SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING

SAINAN NO KEKKA
Kimi ni Todoke: Relena
Carry to You, from Macross 7

[nigatsu no kaze wa mou haruka kanata
that cold February wind has disappeared, blown away]

Starships were built to be purely functional only, and thus the fact that all of them were composed of echoing metal corridors and harsh lighting that glared fiercely along the silver walls and against the tiny porthole openings was not something to be questioned. The mechanical lighting seared from the edges of the walkway, from hidden openings at the tops of the walls, drowning out the feeble light of the stars.

The war was over, but it didn't change the fact that they were still here. That the world still existed, though two days ago that fact would have seemed a questionable one. That she existed, that the empty feeling inside of her that twisted and churned through her gut existed.

Her brother was dead.

[kimi no kokoro sarau you ni
just like your heart was carried away from me]

She was alive and her brother was dead, and that in itself seemed the terrible irony. He had been the one with the lifetime of bitter memories and the one with the grand vision. She had been dragged into this against her will, against all rational thought. It was…tragic.

No, not even that. It was simply stupid.

To quote Duo Maxwell, it sucked.

The fact that she was quoting Duo Maxwell was an indication of her state of mind, she knew, but she was tired of facing the world with a vision that would never become reality. She was tired of being the upright one, the example, the one to whom everyone looked to in times of crisis, the one with the dream. Better to veil herself behind the façade of someone she was not, because then nothing would hurt her.

She wondered if Zechs had felt that way.

[omoidashite yo futari yume o mita toki o
try to remember a time when the dreams I had were your dreams too]

There was a printout in her hand, and she idly wondered how it had gotten there before the ghostly face of Sally Po interposed itself onto the white sheet, saying, Relena, if you could do some inventory for me, I would be ever so grateful. There were neatly printed lists in rectangular rows: mechanical equipment, flightsuits, spare wrenches.

That's right. She was on her way to the hangar.

She avoided the hangar as much as possible, though for some reason it felt like she spent the most time in there out of any part of the vessel. Hangars were bare bones covered with the illusion of flesh, cold, unfeeling places, with the grinding of machinery and the gritty feeling of war in the air. But there was really no choice, because there had been a war and people had died.

Somehow it didn't seem right, that people should die.

[sono koe o omoidasu no hoshizora ni hibiki dasu
I think about your voice and I can hear it echo through the stars above]

Noin had modified the access system so that it was now finger imprint friendly, and she placed her hand over the warm ID pad, heard the whir of gears and the green blinking light as the side entrance door slid open and she walked warily through, her footsteps echoing into the huge vacant cube of metal that they called the hangar, though she tried her best to stay quiet.

It was so empty. Just a week before there had been rows upon rows of mobile suits squatting in threatening poses along the walls, mechanics clanging their tools and rummaging through tool boxes, welders hissing and the shout of voices as machines lowered spare parts into the supply line.

The mobile suits were gone now, destroyed or shipped back to earth. Wufei's Gundam was gone as well. He had left. He had simply left, without a shadow, without a sign. They had found the space empty the next morning after breakfast, when Noin had gone in to check on a shipment of repair supplies.

She wondered if he had hated them that much, that he didn't even want to say goodbye.

The supply room was a walled-off section of the hangar, accessible through a door in the flimsy partition that they called a temporary wall. Sally was always saying that one of these days they would actually get to work and build a real wall between hangar and supply. It would be safer, she said, and more efficient.

The war was over now, and the temporary partition was still there. Some things never changed.

She was halfway across the hangar to the supply room when she turned and saw him.

He was standing on the shoulder of his Gundam, welder in hand, simply looking down at her. He didn't say a word.

Some people never changed, either.

[kimi ga ano hi kureta kotoba no kagi tozashita doa
the door you locked that day with your words
ga ima kieteyuku no ne kizuite
as the daylight faded is now fading too]

"Hello, Heero," she said, surprised at how very calm her voice was. There had been a time when she could not have uttered or even thought of that name without feeling the nervous, excited feeling rising up in her throat, but now it was simply a word, a name. A name to go with those intense blue eyes and the misleading young face under the thick brown bangs, the name of a mystery and a killer and a boy.

"I thought you would come," he said.

"Sally wanted me to-"

"I know," he said, and laid down the welder, gathered himself, vaulted down from Wing Zero to land lightly on the ground in front of her in a crouch. For a moment her muscles tensed, then relaxed. It was a predator's crouch, but there was no predator today. There was simply Heero.

"What are you doing, Heero?"

The blue eyes hardened further, if that was even possible, then turned inwards. A shield to his soul.

"I'm leaving."

[sono koe o omoidasu no atashi wa tada namida de
I think about your sweet voice and with tears in my eyes]

For a second the words did not register in her mind and she blinked at him, and then their weight hit her with all of their implications.

"Leaving?" she repeated dumbly.

He smiled sardonically. "Does that surprise you? The war is over."

"You can't leave! What about everything that needs to be done here? What about Duo…Trowa…Quatre?"

What about me? her heart whispered, but she caught that thought before it became speech and hurled it out of sight.

"There's nothing for me here."

"Then there's something out there for you? Out-" she gestured to the wide expanse of the hangar, but meaning the space beyond and knowing he knew that. "-there?"

He didn't answer.

[chisaku furuete kono te o kimi ni nobashite
I tremble just a bit and reach out my hand to you]

There was nothing else to say. There was nothing else she could say, because something she had realized at the very end was that Heero was bound by nothing and no man, and she herself was only one woman and very small in the grand scheme of things. And that she had to let go, because if she did not of her own volition he would fling her off and cast her aside.

Some lessons she learned very well from Duo Maxwell.

"Good luck, Heero," she finally said.

"Relena."

When he said her name like that, it was as if time stopped.

"Yes?" she whispered, in a small voice. In a very, small, tiny voice.

For a moment, his eyes found hers. "Take care of yourself."

"Heero," she said, softly, desperately. "Don't go."

She saw him stiffen. "Is life so terrible without me," he said harshly, "that you would have me stay?" His voice rose. "A killer? A murderer? An emotionless robot like me?"

Her hands clenched. The paper in her grasp tore, crumpled. It didn't matter now, Sally's list of things to do. There was only one thing she needed to do.

"I've seen your heart, Heero. Don't lie to me."

[doko e kieru no
where could it have vanished to?]

"It's over," he said, in a voice that sounded like time breaking, scattering to the faraway stars. "Everything is ending…my time is over."

"What do you-"

"It's your era now, Relena. Yours. Do you understand? My part in this drama is over, and you are on center stage now. That's why I need to go."

Was he mad? He wasn't making sense at all…not at all. "I don't understa-"

"It doesn't matter," he said, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. The veins in the arm were long and blue, running up the length like a spider. She hadn't realized how thin he had gotten. She hadn't had time to notice these things.

"Heero, I-"

He bowed, the formal Japanese bow that her father - no, not her father, but Darlian - had taught her all those years ago. Douzo yoroshiku. It's nice to meet you.

"It's been an honor, Relena-sama."

[kimi ni nagareru toki ni wa
as time drifts away does it drift back to you?]

"Heero!" she called out desperately after him, anything to make him stop, to keep him from getting into the cockpit of Wing Zero and from launching out into cold space, away from her forever. But he reached the Gundam and then he was passing it, leaving it behind…

"Heero! Aren't you going to take your Gundam?"

He stopped, not facing her, but she saw his fist clench.

"I don't need it anymore."

And when he started walking again, she knew he would never look back.

"Heero! If you leave now, I won't stop looking for you!" Empty, childish threats, because they were both older than that now, but it was the only thing she could say. "I'll keep looking until I find you! You won't get away from me!"

"No," he called back, not stopping. "I'll find you."

What?

"Heero!"

He kept walking.

"That's a promise, Heero!"

[atashi no sasayaku koe ga todoku no
these whispers I pray…does it take them too?]

There was a bag by the farthest shuttlecraft at the end of the hangar, and he picked it up, opened the hatch and dropped it in before entering the craft himself. The door hissed shut behind him, and then the power-up whine of the shuttle filled the cold air.

She couldn't watch anymore. She ran, ran back across the echoing hangar that truly would be empty now, ran until she couldn't run anymore and then stood against the wall of the hallway, panting. Her eyes stung.

I'll find you.

[oh kaze yo dou ga kimi ni todoke
oh, I pray that the wind can carry them to you]

The war was over and her brother was dead and Heero was gone. And now only she was left.

Through the porthole across from her a shooting star streaked through space, bright and blue and fiery, leaving in its wake a shining trail of ethereal light, ephemeral and fading even as she pressed her nose to the glass. Or it might have been a spacecraft, with the insignia of the Peacemillion painted on it, carrying a cargo which was not so much any tangible thing but a voice, a touch, an untainted ideal still so pure. The only vision which she had left, the only one which really mattered.

That's a promise…Heero.

Through distant space, the shooting star shimmered and was gone.

[kimi ni todoke
carry them to you]

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