Disclaimer: I don't own the GW characters – am just borrowing for my own personal amusement

Warnings: Yaoi, Future angst

Pairings: 1x2 , 3x4

A/N – I want to give a huge thanks to Miss-murdered who will be doing the awesome work of being my Beta for this story. So much love for all the help 3

February 21st After Colony 201

The times of peace have been long and it has taken many a hard, gruesome transition to come to terms with things as they are now. It was a world devoid of massive weapons and battles to decide power as had been the way of the world in years previously. This has come to me just as hard as many of the men I have come to know in these times of peace. As it goes I, Heero Yuy, have slowly and through a great trail of personal growth have begun to find my place in this world.

The times have not always been easy. It took some failures before I truly found where I belonged. For a time I worked in a position as Relena's protector. The job itself was something I was well equipped for. The woman was a political target and even in these times of peace, danger was not unheard of for someone in her position. It was thanks to having this place to start my life in this new world that I was truly able to settle into it so.

Thanks to my training with the Gundam project I have always been good with spotting things out of the ordinary. Both in people's behaviour and in the environment around me, making the job of finding dangers one I excelled in. By the first year I had trained a handful of guards to help ensure that Relena's safety was absolute. Seeing as how the woman had a knack for getting herself into all kinds of dangerous situations, I felt that the more that were trained to protect her, the easier keeping the fiery woman safe would become.

Unfortunately, I had to leave that position. It is not that I did not enjoy my job, rather I felt it would be impossible to continue with the relationship as it progressed over the time I spent watching over Relena. By the year AC 198 I could feel that there was something more to the way that woman looked upon me. With later consideration I have come to realize that this had probably always been the case, however, I had not noticed in full until she approached me one night.

The entire thing was rather saddening and I suppose sad would be the appropriate way of describing the situation. Relena came to me with her feelings for me and I was unable to do anything but to accept them and to thank her. As it stands I do not truly understand what it means to be "in love" with another as she declared she felt for me. When I made a social inquiry to Quatre and Trowa in later days they gave me an explanation of how they felt for one another, one that did not match with my feelings for the brown haired woman.

To be as thorough as I could be I spoke with my other two former comrades. Wufei I found easily, for he still worked with Sally in the Preventers. The Chinese male was as always a riddle inside of an enigma, however, his words in regards to his colleague Sally left me wondering if he did not feel something similar to what Quatre and Trowa had described to me for the woman.

Duo had been the hardest to find. Despite him having given Quatre and Trowa regular updates in regards to his wellbeing and life, none of the other three knew exactly where he was. In the end I had to send him an email with my number in hopes that the American Pilot would reply with contact information, or perhaps call. During this time I had kept mostly to myself. I had begun positioning a young male by the name of Ryan to take over the role as head bodyguard and had him shadow me in my routes with Relena.

The last of my old allies and companions finally got back to me almost a week later. The day had been long and taxing, having to find several reasons for why I would not answer Relena's declaration with one of my own. The female at one point stating that I clearly felt the same for her…I had just begun to unwind in my apartment when I heard the tell-tale signs of a call coming in.

Accepting the call I was rather surprised when the screen accompanying it was black and all that came across was the usually cheerful voice of my old companion. Duo had apologized profusely for his delayed response to my emailed inquiry along with the lack of communication between us in the years after the war. His reason for the week's lapse was that he had been salvaging some wreckage in one of the decommissioned colonies and had been without access to his main server for the duration of the trip. Thinking on it, I do not believe I really thought much of the absence of the other save for the sudden loss of the one who had been what I had at one time called a "daily annoyance." His explanation seemed one that was plausible so I let the other's strange insistence slide.

What I had expected to be a rather unhelpful jumble of ramblings from the usually air headed ex-pilot was far more insightful than what I had even been given from Quatre. Duo had listened to the situation I had been experiencing with Relena in silence, something I had not known he was capable of, and then explained to me gently about what he felt love meant. When the other had finished I knew very clearly that I did not love Relena like that. Duo also explained to me that there were many forms of love and that I may love one person without being in love with them. When I asked the American pilot how to tell the differences between the two he had fallen silent.

As I remember it now the response that followed was strange. The other's voice was tight and soft and in the entire time I'd known Duo, I'd only ever heard that tone once before. It had been one late night where the five of us had found ourselves discussing what little of our pasts we trusted to tell each other in that time. There had come a small tale of how Duo had come to have his name…in that moment that same, pained and sad tone had been in his voice.

After that I had been unable to really understand much more of what Duo was saying. Though before I could say anything, he had gone silent and with a somewhat "Duo"-esque laugh he had proclaimed that he was tired. Apologizing for his overly serious lecture and with that the beginning of the end of our conversation had begun. The American rambling briefly about Hilde and the work he was doing before finally excusing himself, with a promise that we would talk again soon.

I do remember a faint twinge of regret as I accepted the other's words. I noticed both then and now that the line went deathly silent. For a moment I had almost thought that the other ex-pilot had hung up without saying anything more. I had been about to reach to disconnect the line myself when a soft, " goodbye Heero" had sounded softly over the line, followed quickly by the sound of dead air as the call was ended.

With the conversation with Duo over I had come to truly understand something very important. I did care deeply for Relena; I in fact did love her. However, I was not in love with her as she was me. Armed with this information I prepared the paperwork to transfer all responsibilities to Ryanin case the news was not received well and then made my way to where I knew Relena would be.

To this day the memory of the conversation with Relena has remained a painful one. I have undergone many forms of pain in my many years of war and training but the pain that I experienced from watching that woman fall to pieces before me was a shocking one. I did what I could to explain to her how I felt. How I cared for her and wished her happiness and safety but did not in fact love her as more than a close friend and someone that I thought of as important in my life.

Relena cried, screamed, even threw things at me. She pleaded at me to give "us" a shot. That even though I didn't love her "that way" I could come to love her and that she would make me love her. In the end the light brown haired woman cried herself into a stupor as I was helpless to do anything but hold her awkwardly. I left Relena in her bed, ensuring that she was wrapped up in her blankets and safe before I walked out of her apartment.

That day was spent ensuring that Riley was ready to take over my position and that he knew Relena's schedule backwards and forward as I did. I was oddly pleased with the slightly older man's abilities as he seemed to easily slip into my role. Reassured that Relena would be safe without me I did the only thing I could do. I visited her once again to inform her of my decision to remove myself from her guard detail.

I still feel that I did what was best for the both of us. Even though it is well known that Relena and I cannot be alone in a room without the other leaving in a hurry there has been some progress. We have slowly begun to repair some of the awkwardness that was present between us in the times we saw one another after that.

What I did after that? To be honest it is all quite a blur for me. I spent a bit of time with Quatre and Trowa figuring out what I wanted to do, what I would fit into with my specialties and abilities. The two were gracious and gave me plenty of space. In fact, after a while they offered me the use of one of Quatre's condo's here in the city I have taken to living within. Something I will attribute to the fact that they could tell that I did not find the country a settling place.

I much prefer the bustle of a busy lifestyle; the sounds and smells of the city around me are far more calming to my senses then the silence that comes from a country night. Perhaps it comes from the fact I grew up in the colonies. Where even at night there is never total silence. While staying in the city in Quatre's condo I was able to experience many different specialties and jobs in my search for one that suited me.

I believe the closest fit other than the one I have settled into now and the bodyguard job I had first stumbled upon with Relena would probably be the work that I did in a local "garage". Really the place was no more than a small hole in the wall between a rundown bakery and a bank but it had a wide variety of different tasks and jobs brought in daily. I enjoyed working with my hands on the cars and the other things that needed fixing. The sensation rather nostalgic and often made me think of the many times I needed to perform maintenance on Wing Zero.

For almost six months I worked for the small garage, my boss a burly man by the name of Roger. He was hot headed and loud but he had a soft spot. Something I often witnessed when he would forget to charge elders when they came to claim their repaired items. I enjoyed my employment there until Roger finally came to me with the news that he would have to close up shop. He explained to me that his mother was sick and that he had every intention of returning to the town he'd grown up in to take care of her.

Roger insisted on paying me for the time I would have worked had he not come to this abrupt and sudden decision, along with a rather handsome bonus he said was for "hard work". Despite my insistence that I did not work for the money he forced me to accept the bonus he wished to give me - a fact that was rectified when his mother's bank suddenly discovered "a banking error" to the same amount Roger had given me - with a little extra to make sure that he and his mother were able to spend what time they could together without troubles.

After the shop closed I took a while to decide what it is I wanted to do. Really, I fluked into the position I have now with the Preventers. I was visiting with Quatre and Trowa again. The two having gladly taken me in to alleviate some of the boredom I was suffering from with nothing to occupy my time.

For a change Wufei had come to visit the two at the same time and for the first time in a long time since the war the four of us sat together at a table and simply experienced each other's company. It was strange to sit with the three others and have that fifth seat be empty. I remember realizing this as I sat eating my dinner while Quatre and Wufei were discussing the work the Preventers were doing.

I was in the middle of wondering what Duo was doing when I suddenly caught my name in their conversation. My attention snapping to the two in question as I found all three of them watching me. Clearly the blonde had realized I had not caught what they had said as he was quickly restating what he had been discussing with the Chinese pilot.

From the sounds of things there had been several attempts of an uprising in a small colony near the outskirts of the colonies'. In the work to stop the troubles and keep the public from finding out several of their men had regrettably been killed in the line of work and there were several positions available. The idea intrigued me as I listened. I had heard much of what the Preventers did and the fact that many of my skills would be beneficial to their work seemed to have Wufei agreeing that I should speak with Sally and the others.

Which is precisely why I am writing these logs; after taking Wufei's offer and contacting Sally I was quickly allowed to take the initial training all within their ranks took. I have been informed that these are merely formalities and that I have already been confirmed a position but I have to undergo the appropriate testing to ensure I am a fit for the job.

Part of these have included a rather tiring task of speaking to one that they classify as a "counsellor" in order to determine my mental health and if I have the potential to be more of a liability or hindrance than help. Wufei has been rather silent as to his experience with this pushy and, at times, invasive female that insists on digging into every aspect of my life both prior to becoming a Gundam pilot and throughout the war. However, he has said that by going through with these sessions he came to understand a side of himself he could not previously…and he has encouraged me to listen to what she has to say.

So for this purpose I have allowed her to question me and have relived much of my time in the war. Something's I have found painful and hard to remember. The meddlesome woman has requested that I write a post war account for how I have come to decide that this will be a beneficial job and to keep track through this journal going forward any hardships or things in particular that I feel I have need to discuss but wish not to.

Mission accepted.

Heero Yuy

March 5th After Colony 201

Having spent a large time explaining how I came to be in the situation of keeping logs of my mental insights and observations, I will not waste time re-examining that which I have already stated previously. I will, however, explain the main reason for this entry.

The days since my earlier entry have been as I expected. Common training and evaluations that I have found no issues in successfully completing -Wufei and Sally have both expressed a delight at how easily I have been progressing and there have been mentions of fast tracking the basics if the counsellor will give me the mental go ahead.

It is because of this that I was sent to have a double session with the woman today. It is always difficult to spend more than the regular amount of time with her. She is what I call annoying, whereas others may classify her as "insightful" or "perceptive". She seems to pick up on things that I myself have not. Or perhaps, more accurately, she registers the emotional meanings behind these things that I myself have a hard time understanding.

Through my sessions today we began to pick apart my relationships with the other pilots during the war. She explained to me that this was in order to help me emotionally accept my feelings for them and to understand and utilize these in relationships with others.

The easiest to understand was Quatre RaberbaWinner. I have always felt that he was too gentle for what we needed to do, a fact that she classified as an instinct of wishing to shelter the kinder male. I cannot deny that there were instances through the war that I wanted to make sure that the Arabian pilot was not in the line of fire and that I would rather take on a dangerous task to spare him.

Next and also easy to understand was my relationship with Trowa; this one even I had come to understand myself. I had often looked to the taller male to explain things that I was not able to comprehend. Although Trowa is very much like me in that he is able to shut off his emotions when needed, he has a far more developed understanding of them and the connections between humans. In the days of the war I had often relied upon him to help me sort out what I was feeling in a way that I could analyse logically.

Even Wufei Chang was one I could figure out mostly on my own since the years of the war…The black haired man was the one I knew the least about, however, I always respected his drive and devotion to his cause. Throughout the war I always trusted the Chinese pilot to have my back and that trust had carried on throughout our relationship since.

This all led to the one person that I could never understand. The counsellor listened to my retelling of the many irritating things I suffered at the hands of a certain fellow pilot and the way he annoyed me to no end. The belief that Duo was not needed in the war and that he would be better off as a clown somewhere was a memory that surprised me. Despite the other's foolhardiness I know that he was an integral part of our team.

The last hour of our time had been spent taking apart the relationship between Duo and I and I have come to understand that it was far more complex than I ever thought possible. The counsellor has expressed a fascination with the American pilot. Apparently he seems to have exhibited attributes of an emotionally solid confidante for me without my knowing it - the ways in which he acted having worked to alleviate my agitation and stress without my conscious acknowledgement that this was in fact the case.

Even more there is something that has further bothered me. In the time that we were delving into the past of mine and Duo's relationship, there is a period in time near the beginning that I do not yet remember. A time in my mind and life that is just simply gone. I can attribute this to the time in which I self-destructed. There was a good period of time in which my body had needed it's time to heal and so I had been bed ridden and unconscious, cared for by Trowa in the time before the five of us had come to be as closely knit as we became later in the war. Prior to this time I can remember finding Duo to be an annoyance, the American having been nothing but a thorn in my side, and after the gap in my memory the pilot was similarly just a pain…but the counsellor brought something to my attention that I did not notice myself

The difference in how I felt for the American pilot was non-existent but the obvious and noticeable difference in how the braided teen behaved towards me and his understanding of my moods and how to handle me was definitely there. The thought had never once occurred to me and now it is nagging at me like a knot gnawing at the edges of my mind. There is something in that period of time that I am forgetting. Something in regards to Duo Maxwell and myself that I cannot understand.

I will be returning to the counsellor tomorrow to work further on this matter.

Heero Yuy.

The room was completely silent as Heero leaned back his eyes slipping closed. Letting his head fall backwards, Heero felt the tension slipping from him as he forced his whole body to relax. From the muscles in his face all the way to the tips of his toes, everything clenching voluntarily and then relaxing to leave the dark haired male slumped completely into his seat.

This had been a useful tool that blasted woman had taught him in these sessions he had been attending. It was one element of them that Heero felt was truly useful. Of course being the well trained pilot that he was Heero could control each muscle in his body at will, clenching and relaxing as needed to attack or defend against damage…but it had honestly never occurred to him to use it as a relaxation tool.

The faintest sound of a sigh echoed in the otherwise silent room brought Heero's mind back to the forefront of his attention. Being the only person to inhabit this small apartment, the sound could have come from no one but himself. Blinking his eyes open Heero shrugged his shoulders forward and then backwards once each to further alleviate stress and then glanced to the laptop that he had not looked at until the past week or so.

To be honest, the ex-pilot had almost forgotten that he had kept this laptop. After the war he had never really had much use for the hacking skills he had mastered. There had been a few exceptions when he had used his war time expertise but he was not too concerned with high tech protection and hacking anymore. So his hardwired, firewalled, tanker software had never needed to come into play.

However, the idea of sitting at his office computer to write these simple and self-explanatory logs had been less than appealing to him so Heero had pulled his old friend from his few memorabilia's from the war and booted it up. So far he had found that he definitely had missed this laptop. The processing speeds were faster than most of the computers he had worked with since and he had the convenience of sitting in his bed and writing a report if he so wished. Not that he, Heero Yuy, actually would be so lazy as to do such a thing.

No, that was something Duo would do.

The sudden and unprovoked thought of Duo Maxwell brought another sigh from Heero as he ran one callused hand through his hair. Truly his mind had been hard to keep focused the last twelve hours. Perhaps it was all this talk with the counsellor into a period in his life that he could not remember. He had called Trowa later to ask him the details of that time and had only gotten the information he had known from when he woken up.

These thoughts of his were drawn to a close as a flash of something caught Heero's attentions. His eyes skipped automatically to the computer screen as something was flashing before him. A link had formed under the words "something in regards to Duo Maxwell and myself that I cannot understand" and it appeared to be attempting to open a hidden, buried sub folder somewhere in the recesses of his computer.

For a long while Heero sat staring at the computer, the words now underlined and highlighted in green and the subsequent screen that was popping up asking for his permission to open the link. Heero reached slowly to scroll his mouse over cancel, hovering it there for a second before giving into that part of him that had become curious at this. Clicking the "yes" Heero waited for almost five minutes until a folder opened upon his screen.

Heero sat staring in surprise at what was staring back at him. There was a series of files and folders staring back at him. All with similar titles, "Duo" "02" "Maxwell" and the like. The entire folder was in fact titled "Duo Maxwell". Scrolling his mouse over the thirty or so files, he was startled and frankly rather disturbed to see the dates attached to these files. Each and every single one corresponded to a day in his life he could not remember….

Finally, with a moment of hesitation, Heero selected the first file and titled "Maxwell" and opened it….

A/N: Okay so I totally should be working on my Forgotten choices story but I can't seem to get the right emotions behind that story…and for some reason for the first time in months outta the blue bam I had a pretty cool Gundam wing story pop into my head so I was determined not to lose this one. XD So I hope you enjoyed it. I love Duo and Heero and I totally ship them together. So be warned there will be Heero Duo pairings in this story.

Cheers all

Stary