I walked across an empty land

I knew the pathway like the back of my hand

Is this the place we used to love?

Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?

I'm getting old and I need something to rely on

So tell me when you're going to let me in

I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin

"Somewhere Only We Know," Keane

January 8, A.C. 197

Newport City, former Sanc Kingdom

The late afternoon sun was clinging onto its final fleeting moments as the luxury car wound its way up the long, stone driveway. Relena was jarred awake by the motion, unsure if she had completely fallen asleep or simply zoned out. Perhaps she had been somewhere between.

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, peering up at the imposing structure that was the former Peacecraft palace. Or, more recently, the Peacecraft Institute. It felt like a long time had passed she had walked its gilded halls when in reality, it had been less than a year. And yet, already, she felt far removed from the girl she was back then.

So much had changed in the past week alone. After a year of relative peace, her world had been upended again. The Gundam pilots had resurfaced to set everything right. Even her brother, the disgraced prince of their childhood kingdom, who she thought had been long dead, had reappeared in what in all likelihood was the final mobile suit battle her generation would ever see.

Or so she hoped.

Relena had spent the past week in Brussels doing her part to repair the damage the battle had wrought - as much as a Vice Foreign Minister could do in the political realm. That meant a week of meetings that stretched into the wee hours, but sleep was a luxury she and her fellow ESUN representatives simply could not afford. Aside from the brief reunion with her long-lost brother, and her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Lucrezia Noin, Relena hadn't had a moment she could call her own. Until now.

"Big storm coming tonight." Her driver's voice cut through her thoughts as he lowered the partition. "Will you be alright in this big, haunted castle?"

Relena couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I'll be fine, thank you." She was sure the people of the former Sanc Kingdom had plenty to say about the abandoned relic. This conversation was proof of that.

The driver unloaded her bags and carried them up the long, wide staircase leading to the castle entrance. Relena would wait until she was alone to open the massive doors into the foyer. She had gotten enough lectures about being lax on security to allow a stranger inside, even a friendly and helpful one. She was especially skittish, having been kidnapped a week ago, but still refused the Preventer organization's offer of a bodyguard.

Besides, the bodyguard she would have preferred was supposed to be resting in the hospital where she had left him to recover, although Relena doubted he had remained there for long. But that was another issue entirely… and while Heero Yuy was on her mind - of course he was - he was far from the only thing.

Relena paid the driver and thanked him, giving him a little wave as he sped off. Then she took out a long, rusted key and opened the doors. If Heero had been there to see such an outdated method, surely he would have gone white with shock. Picturing his expression was enough to make her giggle.

She pushed the heavy doors open and flicked on the nearest lights. Even then, with the sun setting in the distance, the castle felt drafty and eerie. It was far too big and too quiet, even for Relena's liking. Her work throughout the Earth sphere and colonies kept her surrounded by people, constantly, to the point where she had daydreamed about coming back here to her childhood home and enjoying a little solitude. Even if she hadn't remembered living there as a little girl, not really, before it had been attacked and destroyed - her family executed, forcing the little prince and princess to go their separate ways…

Relena thought, as she pulled her bags inside and shut and locked the doors behind her, that she might as well have been musing over the plot of some old fairytale. It certainly didn't feel like her life.

She wandered over to the heavy curtains covering a long span of windows in the grand hall and gave their dangling velvet cord a hefty pull, sending up a cloud of dust. Orange evening light flooded the vast room, casting the princess's long shadow across the marble floor.

Relena looked out to watch the sun slipping behind a long row of pines, a familiar sight she had long taken for granted. But, then, at sixteen, she had already seen much of the world and colonies. This was no longer home to her.

She had lived her life among the stars.

Even still, she wanted to enjoy her time on Earth, while she had it. Although she wasn't sure when she would be heading back to space, she knew it wouldn't be long. Right then, at least before she shut herself in the castle for the night, she wanted to breathe in the crisp January air. Tucking her long, rusty keys back into her coat pocket, she stepped back outside, the frost immediately stinging her face. She inhaled deeply and smiled.

The driver was right; there was snow in the air.

Relena looked up and, sure enough, cumulus clouds had enshrouded the castle. At least it felt like they were honing in on the princess and her property. She smiled at them, too, welcoming the visit.

Snow.

It had snowed that night in Brussels. She had paused, palms up, to feel the swirling flakes kiss her skin once more before she was pushed into the fortress that was the underground bunker her captors absconded themselves in. Like cowards, they hid from the fray. She thought, perhaps, it would be her last time seeing, feeling snow.

But her life didn't end that night, because he had saved her. He was always saving her, it seemed.

She couldn't help but wonder, as she strolled aimlessly around the castle grounds, where he was and what he was doing now. As if she had any right to know. Sometimes she felt as though she did, that perhaps they had some obligation to each other that went beyond their roles as two central figures of the Eve Wars, and what was now being referred to as the "Mariemaia Incident." She dared to hope, sometimes, when she was alone, staring back at her own reflection in hotel and shuttle windows, that what they shared ran deeper than that. She even dared to dream that he might, in the same moment, be thinking of her, too.

She clutched her chest just then, feeling her heart thrum, and raised her eyes skyward once again.

Heero...

The clouds overhead seemed to swell, but Relena continued her walk unabated. After the flight from Brussels and car ride from the airport, she felt the need to stretch her legs. Besides, darkness had yet to fall.

She came to the center of the castle gardens, where a large pond was covered in a sheet of ice. Tufts of snow still clung to the ground, encircling the body of water like cotton balls that had been placed there by a child doing a craft project. As a young girl, Relena had made her own skating rinks for her dolls like that, dotting aluminum foil she had cut into circles with the fluffy cotton rounds.

Milliardo had probably skated on this pond as a boy. Relena would have been too little; she was only a toddler when their parents were killed, and she was taken to live with Minister Darlian and his wife.

Relena knelt and pressed a hand to the ice. It felt surprisingly solid, but then it was much colder in Sanc than in Belgium, even. Her head snapped up when she heard rustling sounds in the distance. There, on the other side of the pond, a herd of deer had emerged from the forest, nibbling at thin, wispy branches. Relena watched them, transfixed, wishing she had something to offer them, even though she knew one wasn't supposed to feed wild animals, or so some might say.

She reached into her pockets and found that she had a granola bar she'd purchased at the airport but forgotten about. Relena carefully unpeeled the plastic wrapper, hoping the crinkling sounds wouldn't scare the beautiful creatures away. She broke off small pieces of the treat and flung them across the pond, then watched in shock and delight as a fawn came forward, followed by a doe she assumed was its mother. The rest of the group held back, watching carefully, staying close to the forest's edge.

But then, one by one, the others joined, until six deer were inching tentatively across the pond. Relena did her best to throw the food as far as she could, so that the animals wouldn't have to venture too far. The ice may have seemed sturdy, but she would never be able to forgive herself if any of the animals fell through and got stuck. Or worse...

Relena was down to the last piece of granola, which she tossed over to the deer with a final, mighty flick of the wrist. To her horror, Relena's bracelet went along with it. If it had been some mere trinket, she wouldn't have felt panic strike her heart, but it wasn't just any bracelet- it had belonged to her great-grandmother, one of few Peacecraft heirlooms the Darlians had managed to safeguard for her.

Relena let out an unladylike curse that surely would have made her great-grandma blush as the gold bracelet skittered across the pond, coming to a stop near the center. Her raised voice caused her new forest friends to flee back into the woods. Knowing she was truly alone, Relena allowed herself to groan out loud. How could she have let something so foolish happen?

She had to find a way to get the bracelet back. But it was quickly getting dark, and if she waited until after the snowstorm, it would be lost forever. And if she waited for the snow to melt, months from now, the bracelet would surely disappear into the water.

Relena started searching for sticks long enough to create some sort of pole, but with nothing to bind them together, the task was proving impossible. She hazarded a glance at the sun dipping below the horizon, the light quickly fading. It was now or never.

The deer, all six of them, had practically glided across the pond. Surely Relena weighed less than a herd of deer?

Relena pressed both hands to the ice once more before stepping out with one foot. She tapped her foot against the ice several times, more forcefully each time, before venturing forward with her other foot. She stepped out slowly at first, tiptoeing her way toward the center, wondering if she should get on all fours and crawl instead, before breaking into a sprint. She thought she would be better off grabbing the bracelet and running for dear life, in case the surface should start to crack.

She had come close to her precious heirloom when she heard the sickening sound. Relena threw her head over her shoulder and watched in terror as the ice splintered into a jagged, angry zigzag that was headed straight for her. She bolted toward the other side of the pond, her bracelet forgotten, but she was too late, and the frozen layer holding her gave way.

With a shriek, Relena plunged into the icy water.

Don't panic, don't panic, she urged herself as she treaded water, grasping at the edges of the hole her body had created. She would have to find the strength to hoist herself back up. For a fleeting moment, she thought she could perhaps tear the ice apart with her bare hands and attempt to swim her way to the pond's edge, but knew she wasn't strong enough. Besides that, she was freezing to the point where she was already starting to lose feeling.

Her body shook, trying in vain to warm itself in the dark, frigid waters. Everything below her neck was growing numb, her eyes, ears and lips stinging. She was sure by now she was turning blue. She cursed herself once more for her own stupidity before allowing herself to relax, to succumb to her watery crypt. This isn't so bad, she thought.

She watched as the clouds overhead all but disappeared in the darkness, the last of the light scattering like the deer. It wouldn't be long, now…

Relena's head felt too heavy to hold up any more. She closed her eyes, resigning herself to fate, allowing herself to slip beneath the surface.

And then light and warmth enveloped her, flooding her vision. Relena blinked against the sudden brightness. She felt lightheaded and woozy as she realized she was not in heaven, but back inside the castle.

Relena stared up at the glimmering yellow light of the chandelier overhead as what she thought had been her final few moments came swirling back to her. Two strong arms, pulling her from the pond, carrying her to warmth and safety.

Had her savior returned?


A/N: Greetings, loves, and Happy Birthday to our Queen Relena! I've missed posting on here and chatting with you all, so I hope you've been well, and I'm sorry for the extended absences. Rest assured that I will get back into updating my other stories more regularly... It's been a hard winter and I haven't been writing for fun, but I desperately need to start again.

So, this story has been living in my documents folder for a good year or so (yikes!) and while I was hesitant to post it, I figure it's doing no good dwindling in there... At this point I would just like to share all of my WIPs with you, whether near completion or not, in the hopes you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing! If my stories can bring a smile to your face, that is more than enough for me!

I am still excited to keep working on each and one of my stories and spending as much time with these lovely characters as possible (I will love my OTP FOREVER), so please continue to check back. :) Thank you so much for your favorites, follows, and kind words.

Stay tuned for MUCH more!

Love, hugs, and Heero ;)

- RFP