I fixed up this story for this year's X-mas hols, I hope you all like it.  The spelling and grammar were pretty bad before cause I wrote it all on emotion in word pad where there is no spell check.  I hope you all love it, please review at :

Prncss_Earth@hotmail.com

Merry Winter Hols all.

Author: Fate's Child
Date: December 16, 2001 

Revamped for December 2002

Merry Christmas, Heero Yui.

Heero Yui, the perfect soldier was spending his Christmas Eve in some smoky bar on the wrong side of town. The same side of town that he had spent part of his childhood in-before Dr. J had found him. He figured, in whatever way, this was symbolic. The last time he had been aloud to have feelings had been in this type of "town" and it only fit that he was going to let his feelings show for the first time since leaving the Doctor. He stared intently into the drink he was too young to be having, thinking of what he had been thinking of all day. All week in fact. Even all month. Because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get him off his mind. He was hoping that being surrounded by smoke and loneliness, it would take some of his confusion away. He was vaguely aware of the person that sat down next to him but ignored the figure as they ordered their drink.

"Wanna talk about it?" The voice startled him slightly and he turned to see a girl about his age staring into a glass of beer.

"No." The answer was given in a tone of voice that should have scared her away. It didn't. She just raised an eyebrow.

"That bad, huh?" She stared into her own drink. "Don't have to talk if you don't want to. I can't make you." Heero was silent for a minute.

"Why are you talking to me?" The girl lifted her shoulders and looked at him.

"Maybe I look at you and see exactly what I'm feeling."

"And what's that?"

"Loneliness. The thought that there'll never be someone there- in that way. Maybe a little bit of fear."

"I don't feel fear. I don't feel pain."

"You don't have to talk about it, buddy. But let me tell you something. You feel it. It sure as hell looks like your feeling a whole hell of a lot of it right now."

"I don't have emotions."

"No matter how hard you try to turn them off, they're there. Believe me, I know."

"You know? You know pain?" Heero scoffed. "You know nothing." Anger flashed in the girl's eyes, but she just lifted her drink to her lips again.

"Hell. What do I know about pain."

"You're telling me you know about pain." The disbelief was evident in Heero's voice. "You know about loving someone so much you'd give your life for them, but you can't tell them how you feel?"

"Ah. So that's your problem." She shook her head. "No. I don't know about that. I know about looking around the world and not feeling that kind of love for anyone that's not family.  And the pain and fear of wondering if I'll EVER feel that way.  Because I'm just about as numb in that area as you claim to be."

"What?"

"Never mind. So tell me how Fate screwed you over?" Heero debated telling her before looking in her eyes for the first time and seeing pain. And loneliness.

"I love him." He waited for disbelief to cross her face. Or disgust. He found none. "I love him." He said it quietly, like it was his first time letting the words out.

"He doesn't know." It wasn't a question.

"No. How could I tell him? He would hate me. I hate him.  Sometimes I think I hate him. For making me feel like this and knowing that I could never have him. Not in the way I want."

"Why not."

"He would be disgusted."

"Why?"

"Because he is straight." It was said so seriously, that the girl smirked.

"Do you know for sure?"

"Yes. He is always flirting with girls, and he had a girlfriend once."

"So?" Heero blinked at her before opening his mouth again.

"What?"

"So what if he's had a girlfriend. One of my best friends is gay and I'm telling you before she met her soul mate, she was 100 % straight. Or thought she was."

"He's... not like me. He is so full of life, so warm." Heero looked down in shame.

"Let me tell you something. All everyone wants in life is to be loved and to love." She bent down so he was looking at her straight in the eye again. "All everyone wants is love. There are so many things in this world that are wrong, so many things that hurt. And all we want is a little bit of piece from that pain, a little escape. All we want is to find someone who will love us in spite of our faults and because of them. They will love us because it is who we are. Every single part of us."

"I am not the type to fall in love with."

"If you are capable of love, someone can love you." She looked down for a minute and continued in a soft voice. "Everyone wants to belong somewhere, to someone. Love is everything you're afraid of and everything you could want. It is every pain you have experienced and some you haven't. Love is work, a whole hell of a lot of it, mister. And it never stops taking. But it is also everything you could ever want. All the pleasure and warmth you could ever need. And it never stops giving."

"How can it be both?" Heero's voice was incredulous. He stared at her and she saw the open vulnerability in his eyes. "How can it be both?"

"Because love is everything." The whispered answer caused him to sit up straighter. "Love is everything."

"That doesn't help me." She smiled.

"Tell him. He is already your friend, I'm guessing from the way you speak of him. If you don't tell him, it will eat away at you until there is nothing but resentment for the feeling and questions of 'what if'. If you tell him, at least you have a chance. And it takes more guts to tell him how you feel. If he rejects you, it'll be pain but at least you won't look back and see a lie. And if he accepts you..." She smiled. "You'll have everything."
Heero looked up at the girl and gave a small smile.

"Christmas day in a half an hour." She nodded

"Yeah."

"You spending it alone?"

"I have friends waiting for me somewhere." She closed her eyes and he noticed a lone tear make its way down her cheek. "But they don't know what it's like to be truly alone. So I need tonight for myself."

"If you have friends you'll never completely be alone. I guess I've learned that over the last year."

"Friends are the family you choose for yourself, I know." She gave a sad smile. "But there's always that gap, ya know. You have a chance to fill it. I'd try."

Heero looked at the girl that was-just as he was-too young to be in a bar and in a part of town that she didn't belong in anymore.

"How about you go home to your friends, and I'll go home to mine."

"You'll tell him?" Heero thought for a minute.

"I don't know." It was the honest truth. She smiled again and stood, leaving money, as he had, for his drink. They made their way outside.

"It's cold." She shivered once before turning to him. "Thanks for just being silent company. It was what I needed." He nodded.

"You'll go back to your friends?" He waited for her nod, not stopping to wonder why he cared what happened to this girl. "Thank you for helping me."

"Everyone needs an ear sometimes and I think in times like these, it helps for it to be a stranger." Heero seemed to think of something.

"I'm Heero Yui." She smiled.

"Terraline Brooks. Merry Christmas, Mr. Yui." She smiled before walking off into the night. She stopped, just before stepping completely into the darkness, and without turning around, said, "I heard a quote once.  Or maybe I made it up," she shrugged.  "At any rate, it said 'You can't runaway from the past you leave 'cause your memories form you to who you'll be'. But I say that we sure as hell can shape our own futures."

Heero took one last look at where she had stood a moment before, before he started his walk home.


"Merry Christmas, Terraline."

* * *

Heero made his way quietly up the stairs to the room that he and Duo shared. The walk home had given him a long time to think and he had come to a conclusion that made him nervous as hell. He opened the door and stripped off his coat before making his way to the braided boy's bed. He stood above it.

"Duo, you awake?" The boy didn't open an eye and Heero turned to walk to his own bed when a voice stopped him.

"Heero? You back? Where'd ya go? We were worried about you." Heero turned around and sat on the edge of the boy's bed.

"Went to think for a bit. Duo, I got something to tell you." He waited until Duo sat up.

"What's up, Heero?" The normally stoic boy's breath caught as he looked at his partner in arms. Duo's hair was out of its braid and hanging down his back, his indigo eyes still slightly clouded with sleep.

"God I love you." The words escaped without conscience thought. When he realized what he had said, Heero's eyes raised to Duo's in shock. And fear.

"What did you say?" The pilot of Death Scythe's words were slow.

"I... I love you Duo Maxwell." Heero stared right into Duo's eyes waiting for the revulsion. He saw none. Only satisfaction and a little surprise.

"I've waited for since I shot you when we first met to hear that, Heero Yui." And before he could say another word, Heero was pulled into Duo's warm embrace, captured in his first kiss. Duo pulled Heero into bed next to him, and the pilot wound his arms around his newfound love.

"Goodnight, Heero."

"Oyasumi, Duo-koi." Heero smiled slightly before resting his cheek on Duo's and thanking Terraline his head. Yeah. He'd form his future. He'd started tonight and it looked like it was shaping up good.

* * *

A lone figure stepped into her apartment looking around and smiling. She had lied earlier. She had no one waiting for her here tonight. But as she thought about the brown haired boy she'd met that night, she smiled. She knew he would tell his love and find that the feelings were reciprocated. She just knew. And maybe, one day, she would find love for herself in this world. After she'd finally found the destiny that was waiting.

THE END

I was feeling extremely lonely tonight and so I wrote this. Terraline Brooks is me, in a sense, only I don't live in an apartment alone.


Merry Christmas, everyone. May love find you, no matter how different you are.