Believe me, I love me some yaoi. It's all I've written so far. But in this instance, my desire to tell a story overrode my pairing preferences. This is het. And as such, I'm going into this knowing that this story won't win any popularity contests. But somebody out there might at least find it interesting, which is why I'm sharing it.

I dusted off my copy of the Episode Zero manga a while ago and found myself getting into Heero's story. This story uses the manga as a jump-off point. I'm not going to write around the dialogue and precise actions. It will be a rough guide, not a recipe. I'm going to change things, words, and implications. Because the truth is that, aside from the supplemental information it provides the series, I'm not an enormous fan of the manga.

Pairing: Treize/Leia

Warnings: Combat violence, light mutilation of canon, het sexuality/sensuality (nothing too graphic), military stuff.

I'll be using officer rank as indicated by the armies of America, Canada, Britain, and Australia. The story takes place episodically in the years 188/189. Treize is seventeen/eighteen.

This story is dedicated to LoveyouHateyou, whose amazing talent and kind, constructive support continually inspires me to keep writing, even when I don't think I can write any more. You can find a link to his profile and work in my Favorite Authors section.

I hope you enjoy, even if het isn't your cup of tea.

xXx

Prologue: November 17th, 189.

The docking clamps sound like they're grinding into the sides of the shuttle as they lock into place. Treize is already on edge, and the colony's rough reception does nothing to settle him. The infrastructure. The halted development. The unrest. It's all rough, even though it's the newest colony in the Earth Sphere. It is the most prevalent of the colony's many contradictions.

The shuffle to disembark is short and marked by little casual interaction. None of the eleven of forty possible passengers seem particularly moved by their destination as they mechanically unharness their luggage from overhead bins and collect their personal effects. Most wear the same look as Treize: thinly-veiled apprehension.

He carries nothing more than the casual clothes he's wearing and the wallet in his pocket. He's not staying. He can't. He has a 0330 wake-up tomorrow morning, like every morning. He has formation to lead. Training to plan and conduct. Soldiers to mold. He has to carry on like nothing in his life has changed dramatically. Completely. Irreversibly. He has to, because it's the only way he can grasp it.

After a sharp-eyed and curt customs interview, an attitude assumed only after Treize presented his Federation identification, he leaves the terminal with compounded unease and hits the street on foot. The colony appears the same as when he left it last. The same buildings that were only half-constructed are still webbed with scaffolding and overlooked by unmoving cranes. The people look just as cagey and hurried as he remembers, like typical big-city dwellers. Though this is no typical big city. It's X-18999, a colony whose citizens bear its already heavy burden wordlessly. But it's there, in the slump of their shoulders and the reservation in their stride. Treize stands out among them. An Earther. A soldier. A square-shouldered young man who, even in his sour-stomached distraction, presents himself like he's been bred and trained to. It's as automatic as an inhalation.

He walks inattentive to where he's headed. He's nervous, unsure, and, perhaps, a little bitter. He shouldn't have to be going through this. He shouldn't have to feel the way he does, a way so contrary to his typical perspective and comportment that he feels alien to himself. The foreign sting of self-pity bites into him, and today he revels in it. Wallows and sighs dramatically in it. He cuts himself a break, because doesn't he deserve it? Look what's become of his life. Look what his reality has become. Look at me, he thinks. Look at me.

The self-pity leaves him somewhere between Districts One and Three, as he approaches the sprawling campus of Barton Plaza. It's a name that was so blessedly far from his mind for a few months. Had he unwittingly ejected it from his consciousness, or had it been the natural progression of a phase's passing?

Passing. If only, he thinks.

This kind of brooding doesn't suit him. It's tiresome, and he wonders how certain people hold to such moods as he considers how to occupy his time for the next hour. He crosses into Triple-Nine's equivalent of the Champs-Elysees, which has none of the glamour or caliber of merchandise but rather puts on a valiant effort to imitate breezy greenness with sapling maple instead of full chestnut and fans instead of wind. The charm of the few boutiques and cafes is obliterated by the unattractive and gaudy faces of cheapy super-retail joints that have elbowed their way in with the tightening of common belts. It makes for strange juxtapositions, impossible ones. Merced & Dominico nested between Lowrey's and QuickShop.

Humor pulls at the corner of Treize's mouth, and he feels a knot at the nape of his neck uncoil by small degrees. It's not funny, not when he thinks about what it's indicative of, but he needs a laugh right now, no matter how dark. He stops in front of a shop he's never heard of, one that speaks to the purpose of his visit. For a few moments his eyes pass, unseeing, over the window displays as his brain scrambles to make a decision. Go in, walk on. Go in, walk on. Go in… Go in? Go in.

And so he does.