Standard disclaimers apply.

"The emotions of those considered beautiful

are always full of sorrow."

--Treize Khushrenada, Gundam Wing episode 25

He walked slowly down the hall, carefully feeling his way with the balls of his feet before fully setting his weight down at each step. He was taking his time, because time was all he had now.

His footsteps clicked and echoed off the marble tiles of the floor and walls. He could have walked silently if he had wanted to, even in these stiff, polished dress shoes; but today he did not feel like it. Today, he only wanted to walk through this mansion, seeing the treasures that it housed. He walked along, steadily but hardly swiftly, trailing his right hand beside him so that the tips of the middle and ring fingers just barely grazed the glossy wooden surfaces of the end tables against the wall. He touched many things: ornate lamps, though only just their bases, which were now considered antique works of art and could not be used; a musicbox that was in his fingers' path, made of dark cherry wood and with a small gold winder on the side. His fingertips lingered on the dial for an extra second or two, and a small, sad smile appeared on his face; a wall mirror framed in wrought silver, which stopped him in his path. He looked at his face and upper body that was reflected in his polished glass, studying the Prussian blue eyes and the hair that hung into them, though they were trimmed to a shorter length. Then, something caught his eye, and he blinked. There, in the bottom left corner, was a fingerprint on the otherwise immaculate and gleaming surface. An index finger, judging by the shape and size. Somebody had been here before him, though clearly after the maids had made their rounds, and decided to leave a mark. Was it out of carelessness, spite, or mischief? The corner of his mouth lifted slightly in amusement, and he reached forward with his own index finger. He pressed it firmly into the glass at the lower right-hand corner. When he lifted it clear, there remained a distinct print in the same relatively position as the first, and of almost exactly the same size. His smile stretched a little bit bigger and he turned to walk on.

In the middle of the hall there was a faded portrait of a man. He had long, platinum-blond hair that hung straight and fell just below his shoulders. His uniform placed him solidly in the time of the Sanc Kingdom, and he gazed out of the painting with kind, wise blue eyes. There was such dignity radiating from his image. The walker looked down to the plaque below the frame: "King Peacecraft." That was all. The walker blinked once and looked up at the portrait again, nodded once at it solemnly, and moved on.

A distance away, he came upon another portrait, similar to the first in both the composition and the subject matter. It was another man, who also had long, straight, blond hair and clear blue eyes, and wore a uniform in the same dated style. Only this man had a different air about him. There was dignity, yes, but mostly pride. Great pride. And if one peered deeply enough into those narrow, ice-blue eyes, a shadow of profound sadness. He did not need to read the long title etched in the plaque below it, and he did not nod at this man. Instead, he raised his right hand until it was leveled at the portrait's eye, with fingers curled as if he were holding a gun. He called the man in the painting a strange name that was too short to be the one on the plaque – "Zechs." – and jerked his hand gently in mimicry of the kickback produced by a firing gun, his eyes reflecting grimness and a solid respect. For a moment more he locked eyes with the man in the portrait, and then he turned from it as well.

Resuming those slow, firm, and deliberate steps with which he entered this hall, the walker proceeded toward the end of the corridor, where an arch framed a passage to a room on the right. Just as he was reaching the doorway, he heard gasping pants and hurried footsteps behind him pattering out the odd half-walking half-running rhythm that adults in a great hurry used when they were supposed to be particularly respectful. He paused in his walk and turned to receive the messenger, who reached him and bowed in greeting.

"Vice Foreign Minister Yuy, please excuse my interruption, but your retirement announcement conference is going to start soon. If you would allow me to escort you to the meeting hall immediately, I—"

"Thank you for informing me, Mr. Mirai, but I know what time it is. I have some personal business to attend to right now, but I will be there shortly. Please go and inform the audience." His voice was quiet but firm, and left no room for argument.

"Ye–yes, Vice Foreign Minister," stammered the assistant, and he hurried back in the direction that he came from.

Heero Yuy was a natural choice for the position of Vice Foreign Minister. He was always composed and collected, determined like one before him, and he was used to giving orders. He was also charismatic, though not in the traditional sense of the word. His reserved detachment from anything even remotely personal, including such things as gossip, threats, and emotions, became a magnet that drew people to him once he had studied and incorporated the ins-and-outs of proper social interaction. But that magnetism — it was inherent, and it was there from the start, when the first person he met instantly became attached to him and thereafter always kept him in her thoughts; But even before she came into his life, there was an eccentric but brilliant old man with robotic eyes and a robotic claw for a left hand who saw him in the rubble and called him to do great but terrible things. Only, no one knew where he had come from, or even who he really was. Vice Foreign Minister Yuy made it clear that he absolutely would not publically discuss his past.

But today he would be retiring from his post. He had seen the progress that the world had accomplished since the days of the Eve Wars, and while he knew there was still a long and difficult road ahead, he acknowledged that things were moving in the right direction. And with a vast pool of new and dedicated talent with the courage and the good heart to continue to lead the world, coupled with his own feelings that he had done everything he could for the world in this capacity, Heero Yuy decided that it was time to step down and entrust the new world to the hands of the new generation — a generation of children of the war in time but children of the peace in heart.

Heero resumed his trek into the room at the end of the hall with the same leisurely pace. Although he really did know how close to press time it was, he would not allow himself to be rushed. It became his creed after the war; to one who never expected to live past the age of fifteen: any and every bit of time was a luxury to be savored.

Finally, he reached the arched doorway and entered the room. Eyes shining with reverence, among other complex emotions, he surveyed the decorations before him. Hanging on the opposite wall, in a frame even larger than those of the two Peacecraft men, was her portrait.

In an embodiment of grace and beauty, she stood posing in the mansion's garden, ensconced in blooming white roses, gazing out of the canvass with clear, blue, peaceful eyes. Relena Peacecraft. The woman who had changed his life forever. He studied the gold plaque beneath the frame. "Queen Relena Darlian Peacecraft, Former Queen of the World and Vice Foreign Minister." Her portrait certainly did reflect an air of royalty. She was standing straight and tall, with her shoulders thrown back and her head lifted high. She was wearing a simple yet elegant white gown, and her hair was gathered in a tasteful upsweep. A small, glittering diamond hung at each ear. But the brightest point of the picture was neither the jewelry nor the outfit, but rather the expression on her face.

She was beautiful. There was no other way to describe it.

Her porcelain skin glowed with a natural blush, her rosy lips curved delicately in a small, happy smile, and her eyes looked straight out and into the viewer's eyes. Oh what eyes they were! A blue that shone like the summer sky, clear as a flowing stream, deep as the starry space, and shining with love, happiness, and hope for the people and a world of peace. Heero found that he could not tear his gaze away from her face, her eyes — such was the skill of the painter, and Relena's natural ability to captivate. She was just the way he remembered her. She was even holding it. Braving misunderstanding and perhaps even ridicule for unprofessionalism, she embraced with her slender arms a small, brown, stuffed bear. Heero recalled a press conference that she gave shortly after this portrait had been unveiled. A brash reporter had inquired about the childish icon, but Relena only smiled gently and told him that that bear was as much a part of herself as her body or her voice... that if her image were to be captured and preserved for the future, she wanted it to be complete and to show the "whole" Relena. When pressed for even further details about that bear, Relena replied that someone very special had given it to her, and that it would stay beside her until the day she died, because she could not have the giver of the bear be with her. That was all she would ever say about the matter, and the world never found out the truth...

He was the one who had given it to her.

Now, that same bear rested in a display case in the center of the room. A recognized symbol of the former queen, its fur was now old and dull, but it was protected well behind a thick layer of glass, and its eyes still shined. Heero knew that there had also been a card accompanying the bear, but it wasn't around anymore. It hadn't been for a long time now. Relena had torn it in half right after she received it.

He smiled nostalgically at the memory. They were both very young then... very old and very wise, but so very young.

Beside the bear, in an equally secure display case, was what he had come for today. It was a document, already made rare by the fact that it was hand-written in a world where everything was stored in electronic form, but rendered invaluably priceless because it was the only copy in existence. It was rumored to have been penned by the one person who was the most important to Relena, the giver of the legendary bear, and supposedly the one who saved the earth from destruction. No one ever knew for sure though, those firm, flowing handwriting it was. But the rumors alone, and the contents of the document itself, made it so that any replication would almost be considered a defilement.

Heero had heard these rumors, and today, the day of his retirement from the office of Vice Foreign Minister, he had come to see it for himself. He stepped before the display and began to read.

It had hurt. For the first time in her life, she had been shot with a bullet. She had been the intended target of many before, and had stared down the barrel of a gun more that a few times, so she was wholly unafraid. Those that had been way off their mark in the past just ended up lodged in some nearby piece of furniture, wall, or floor. The ones that had been more skillfully aimed were taken by bodyguards. Actually, mainly just one bodyguard. And it was precisely because of that fact that Relena was enduring the pain. Because he had taken so many bullets for her in the past, the burning lumps of iron that had been intended for her flesh and her organs continuously found his hardened muscles instead; the pain that had been intended for her nerves and her mind continuously burdened his body instead. Each one he gladly took upon himself for her sake, and never did he blame her. That was why she decided that she would be strong enough to take the bullet that was meant for her; strong enough to feel the metal break through her skin and tear through the flesh of her abdomen, slightly to the left and dangerously close to her stomach; strong enough to bear the pain that she had been spared from for so long, that seared her consciousness with an intensity that was almost beyond comprehension, that that man had borne — and fought on while carrying — countless times. For once she was sharing something that had, up until now, been something only he had been allowed to experience, and she felt closer to him for it.

Because he had not been there when the gun had fired, and because right now they were trying to escape the enemies' base, her bodyguard was unaware of the fact that she was wounded. The jacket that she wore fell before the wound and hid it from view, so that no one could tell just by looking at her body. Relena was grateful for it at the moment, since he was preoccupied with and concentrating on maneuvering the maze of corridors and taking out the guards who noticed them. She knew he did not need another distraction now, did not need a wound to hold them back. It was enough that she wouldn't fire any weapons; she refused to be a hindrance for any other reason.

Her bodyguard led her on, around sharp turns and down winding hallways, calling on his memory of the base's blueprint to get them closer to reaching the exit, all the while shooting the enemies with deadly accuracy. Relena gritted her teeth against the blinding pain, refusing to faint and reveal it all, clutched her side with her right hand, and stumbled on as quickly as she could.

They had reached the last corner. Through the pain that threatened to draw her into unconsciousness, Relena could faintly detect a bright green glow on the far wall, an indicator that heralded the appearance of the exit. "We've arrived!" she thought, and the last of her strength and endurance gave out. She closed her eyes and fell against the metal wall on her right. Two nearby gunshots jolted her drifting mind to half-consciousness again, though her eyes remained closed to the burning pain. In this half-awareness, she heard his voice speaking to her, though the fact that his back was facing her and her own agony made it seem faint and far away.

"We're at the exit. Let's go."

Relena moved her right leg to take a step, but she had reached and passed her limit of endurance long ago, and instead of following the man who had rescued her from her captivity, she collapsed onto the cold, metal floor with a tiny but insuppressible cry of pain.

At the point of turning the corner himself, the bodyguard heard that tiny whimper and turned just in tome to see Relena fall to the ground. A sudden and almost immobilizing chill shot up his spine as his senses and instincts told him immediately that Relena was in a critical condition.

In the blink of an eye, he was kneeling by her side, brows knitted deeply in concern. Relena's head was turned toward the wall, and her hair splayed all around her in a curtain of fold, so he could not see her face. But her left arm was extended, and her tightly clenched fist was plainly visible and violently trembling. He could hear her breathing in shallow, erratic gasps, and suddenly he was very afraid.

Somehow, he knew what had happened. Gently, but firmly with urgency, he took her by the shoulder and turned her so that she was facing upwards, supporting her with an arm that cradled her head and neck tenderly. The look of agony on her pallid face broke his heart, but he tore his eyes away to scan her body for the wound that he knew existed somewhere. His sharp eyes immediately caught the blooming bloodstain on the front of her shirt. He followed the stain until it disappeared behind the jacket, which he now knew was covering the actual wound. When he pushed it aside, the sight that greeted him made his eyes widen and his brows draw together darkly, and he cursed. The part of her shirt underneath the jacked was entirely soaked in her blood. He saw the bulled hole in her shirt and knew how the bullet had torn through the body. But she was lucky. The bullet had exited the back of her body, so thin was she that her abdomen could not contain the momentum of the bullet.

However, with two wounds, the amount of blood loss was tremendous. Her bodyguard savagely tore off the shirt he was wearing to make a makeshift bandage. Her situation was dire as it was; she could not afford to lose any more blood.

As he was winding the strip of cloth around her middle, Relena open her eyes with great effort to look at him. She tried to speak his name, but she could only manage the first syllable. Her voice was weak, and filled with pain.

"Hang on, Relena," he said, as he finished wrapping her side. He took his eyes off his work to steal a look into her eyes. Surprisingly, along with the obvious pain in there, he saw apology. She was sorry? Why would such a thought even cross her mind? He couldn't understand it. If anything, it was he who should be...

He blinked. Perfect soldier mode kicked in again. The situation at hand needed to be taken care of. Talk could come later, but only if he acted now.

He picked up his gun, gathered the broken Princess into his arms, and ran.

Through the haze of pain that caused the world to darken, Relena sensed that she was moving again. She was also surrounded by warmth, she realized, extreme warmth. Comforting warmth. Familiar warmth.

She cracked her eyes open and found herself, much to her surprise, in close proximity to his bare chest. She gasped mentally, and would have blushed if she had not lost so much blood already. His body was hot and hard, but that was all she had the capacity to comprehend. Before she blacked out entirely, she ignored the pain and breathed in deeply, drawing his scent into the core of her body, expending the last of her strength in an act of unifying them. Her last thought was, "To die here, like this... it's more than I could ever have asked for. I am happy..."

Faintly, Relena became aware of her immediate surroundings. At first, she only felt softness against her skin. As the seconds passed, her consciousness slowly strengthened. She saw the inside of her eyelid lit by the light in the room and heard the low hum of electronic equipment. Her eyelids were heavy, like lead, but she willed them open.

She was in what appeared to be a hospital room. "Where am I..." she wondered, panic beginning to settle in, the confusion she felt almost overwhelming her newly reawakened consciousness. Suddenly, it all came rushing back to her. Her capture, her injury, her rescue, everything hit her at once, and she began to shake uncontrollably. Instinctively, she looked around the room, trying to find the only person whose presence could make her feel safe and at ease.

But he was not there.

Disappointment flooded her, and tears began to well up in her eyes. She had not died, but with her situation right now — confined to bed, hurting, and without him, she would have preferred to leave the world.

That thought jolted her like a flash of lightning. Venturing to entertain that thought, she wondered: What would happen, if she had died? There was peace in the world now, thanks to what the Gundam pilots had done and what the Preventers were now doing. The world was no longer led by military powers, but rather by elected government officials. It seemed that, finally, her work was done. She was not really needed anymore, she realized not with bitterness but with tranquility.

The world would be fine if she were not there, she concluded. But what about her personal life — her family and her friends? They were the only ones she would live for now. Would they be saddened by her death? Milliardo and Noin were living happily together; so were Duo and Hilde, Quatre and Dorothy, and Wufei and Sally. Trowa had returned to the circus, where he and his sister Catherine took care of each other. They would all probably be sad, but they did not need her either.

Was there anybody who needed her? If there were, she would live for that person, she decided. But who is he? Does he even exist? There was one whom she had secretly hoped, but could it ever be? As she thought about this heavy question, the door across the room opened quietly. The disruption of her train of thought at such an important point caused her to give a little start. The person at the door was the one who had rescued her, but he looked at her with cold, expressionless eyes. The shock turned swiftly to joy when she recognized her visitor, and turned swiftly again to fear and disappointment when she saw his eyes.

In truth, when he had opened the door to find her awake, he was rather surprised, and a great deal relieved. But his own oversight of her injury, and his failure to keep her from physical harm in the first place, weighed freshly and heavily on his heart. His eyes were cold and hard with anger at himself.

A soft, timid voice calling his name brought him out of his dark contemplation. She was still looking at him with wide, uncertain, almost fearful eyes, glimmering with some other emotion that he could not place.

Suddenly, he needed to be near her. "May I come in?" he asked her, in a carefully flat voice so as not to betray his unexpected weakness. She nodded, and he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. He approached her bedside, drew up a chair, and dat down.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes... thank you."

They fell into an awkward silence; he torn between telling her how lucky she was and berating her for her stubborn way of trying to carry everything on her own, she still trying to reconcile her coincidentally interrupted thoughts with the coldness of his demeanor.

Uncharacteristically, he made the first move to revive the stagnant conversation. "I'm sorry I could not protect you and allowed you to get hurt."

Relena started to shake her head in disagreement, ready to tell him that it wasn't his fault, but he cut her off by continuing, "I failed my mission to keep you from harm, as your bodyguard, first by letting you get kidnapped and then by not stopping that bullet."

Unexpectedly, that statement made Relena very sad. She shook her head as she had intended to, and made one last effort to change his attitude about this incident. "What happened was not your fault; Stop blaming yourself. And please don't think of me as your 'mission'."

The man brushed her kind words aside, and along with them her masked plea, with one stoic shake of his head. "As long as you are alive, you will be targeted by those who wish to destroy the peace. As long as I am your bodyguard, it will be my duty to keep you safe from harm. You are my mission, and in undertaking mission assignments, failure is unacceptable."

Relena lowered her eyes to hide the tears of disappointment that began to well. "I see. Thank you." Her tone was tired and defeated, as if she had surrendered to something. He caught this nuance and interpreted it as her wishing to rest, so he made to excuse himself. As he stood up to leave, Relena lifted her head and fixed her glimmering eyes on his Prussian blue ones. She had a strange expression of concentration on her face, as if she were trying to burn the image of his face into her heart. She reached a slender, trembling hand toward his, but stopped it just inches away, before they could touch. She drew the hand back apologetically, clutched that hand to her chest as if she had been burned, and squeezed her eyes tightly closed.

The bodyguard needed an excuse to leave her room and let her rest. "I have to make the report..." he said softly but flatly. Relena nodded but did not move to lift her eyes to him again or to put her hands down onto the bed. As he turned his back to head to the door, he saw tears falling down her face. When he reached the door, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small wooden music box that he had brought to give to her. He almost turned around to tell her, but he heard her quietly sobbing and hesitated, and finally opted to lay it silently on the small table before leaving the room.

All the while as he was writing his report, he could not shake the unsettling feeling that something bad was happening. When the report was submitted an hour later, he decided to check on her. As he approached her door from the hall, he sensed without a doubt that something was terribly wrong. He ran down the hall and broke through the door. "Relena!"

His outburst was greeted with silence. The window was open and the curtains fluttered innocently in the breeze. All the IVs and monitoring devices were scattered haphazardly across the bed and floor. The room was empty; Relena was not here. The bodyguard cursed and ran to the bed where she had lain only an hour ago. The bed was cold, indicating that she had been gone for the better part of the hour. On the pillow, weighted down by the music box, was a piece of paper which he automatically assumed was a ransom note. He unfolded it with wrath, but the emotion slowly disappeared as he read:

I know what you are thinking. Do not worry, I have not been kidnapped, although the fact that that was your first impression only justifies what I am about to say.

You said that as long as you are my bodyguard, you are bound by duty. And I know that as long as such things as kidnappings are a very real possibility, you will carry this burden. I do not want this for you, because you are an important person to me.

As long as there are threats to my safety, you cannot rest. As long as there are threats to my life, you cannot have peace. And as long as I am alive, there will be these threats. You even said so yourself. Thus, I will relieve you of this mission. May you lay your guns down and live in the same peace that you have fought so hard and sacrificed so much to give to the world.

I know that you do not see me as anything more than a mission, an icon, and that you have never shown any indication otherwise, but please allow me to selfishly express my feelings one last time.

I am grateful to have met you that fateful dusk on the beach; to have known you as we both fought for peace; and to have fallen in love with you and for the first time truly lived.

Thank you, and goodbye.

The bodyguard felt his body temperature dropping ice cold, as if he had just been plunged into the ocean. How could this be?! Relena is going to take her own life?! And she didn't even say where she would be going. He cursed. He had to find her before it was too late.

He sprinted out of the room, deciding to figure it out as he found a means of transportation. Running out through the main entrance of the hospital, he spotted an ambulance idling conveniently by the sidewalk, ready to be commandeered.

He grabbed onto the top of the vehicle, kicked through the window, and threw out the frightened and bewildered driver. And then he sped off down the street, sirens on full blast to clear the way.

As he tore down the street at a dangerously high speed, the other drivers on the road scrambled to get out of his way. Inside of his mind, his thoughts were equally chaotic as he tried to figure out where Relena could have gone.

Suddenly, something clicked. He consciously noticed every aspect of the situation: He had stolen an ambulance and was currently driving along the shoreline with sirens blaring. Outside, the setting sun stained the clouds magenta against the orange sky. Everything fell into place, and he knew, as surely as his heart was thundering in his chest, that Relena had gone to the same place to end her life as where she had considered it to begin.

He pulled up by the stretch of fencing that Relena had strolled along that fateful day. He had flung open the driver's side door and swung his feet out onto the gravel before the ambulance even came to a complete stop. He ran up to the fence, searching the breaking waves, and then his blood froze in his veins.

Relena was there in the water, already very far out. Only her head was still above waterlevel, but her golden hair splayed over the surface, glimmering in the light of the sinking sun against the deep blue of the ocean, betrayed her location.

"Relena!" he yelled, but in the ocean's embrace she could not hear him. He sprinted down the first few steps of stairs and launched himself off from the middle of the flight. He ran, fleet-footed even over the treacherous sand, ran to make it to her side in time.

By the time he had crossed the sand bar and reached the lapping waves, Relena had already slipped under the water long ago. Without a thought of hesitation, he dove into the frigid water. His strokes were strong, but the riptides were stronger, and he struggled to advance in her direction.

When he finally reached the area where she had slipped under the rolling waves, he took a deep gulp of air and went under. He strained to see her, but it was dark and the salt stung his eyes. Finally, a glint of gold flashed before him — her hair — and he reached out to grab her. As his broad, strong hand firmly closed around her slender wrist, he instinctively tried to feel for a pulse. Perhaps it was the fault of the cold temperature or the turbulent current, but he found that he could not detect even a faint movement underneath her skin. All this he noted, though, in only a few seconds — the time it took for him to rise up to the surface with her.

It seemed like he had been underwater for an eternity before he broke the surface with his hard-earned prize, and three things happened simultaneously. One. He was struck by just how far away from land they were; he couldn't even see the chain-link fence anymore. Two. He gasped his first breath of air in what must have been three or four minutes. Three. Relena did not take a breath with him.

He looked at her face. There was no color in her cheeks, in her lips. And she was clearly not breathing.

"Hang on, Relena!" he thought to himself, and began swimming toward shore with urgent strokes.

He was exhausted by the time his feet touched land again, but adrenaline and desperation fueled him. He carried her just out of the reach of the waves and laid her down gently on the sand. There was no way he could have known that at that moment she lied on the exact same spot where he himself had lied, all those years ago, when she found him washed up ashore.

She was so pale and so limp and so still that it frightened him. He knew he needed to do something to make her breathe again. His body moved logically — no, instinctively — and he bent to close his mouth over hers, giving her his breath. He rose up and pumped her chest rhythmically, willing it to beat again. But his inexperience was obvious. He neither knew precisely where to press down nor how many times. The Perfect Soldier had been trained in every way on how to take away life; but he knew nothing about how to give it back. His shortcoming here did not escape him, and frustration began to grip his mind. Frantically, he pumped her body, all the while calling out to her between giving her breaths. "Relena! Relena!... Stay with me!... Don't leave me!... Relena!!" Streams of salty water streaked down his cheeks, dripped off his jaw, and landed on Relena's own white cheeks. Whether they were the tears of the Perfect Soldier, or mere rivulets of seawater, will never be known to the world.

As the sun set in the sky five years ago, a girl knelt next to a boy who snapped open his eyes, jumped to his feet, and covered his face. Today, the sun descended below the horizon line on a hauntingly similar but tragically heartbreaking scene: a young man kneeling beside a young woman, frantically and futilely trying to revive her, begging her with all of his heart to open her eyes again...

The story of Relena Darlian Peacecraft ended there. For a year the entire universe mourned. Shortly after, this mysterious manuscript surfaced, and a heretofore unknown man appeared on the political scene, announcing his intention to become the new Vice Foreign Minister. His name was Heero Yuy, and he spoke with a wisdom far beyond his years — a wisdom of the sort that only tragedy could teach. A name and an air. That was all anyone could find out of him. Those who were against him tried to use his lack of political experience and pedigree to undermine him. They tried to cast the shadow of doubt over his integrity by pointing to the fact that absolutely not one bit of his past existed on record — a fact that Heero himself neither denied nor tried to defend. In essence, he was someone who did not exist in the world up until now.

But there was a fire in his Prussian blue eyes that was apparent in person and even on camera, and the people could not explain it, but out of their stormy depths they saw Relena's spirit shining through. So in the end they asked him to take up her work, and he accepted solemnly.

That was sixty years ago. Throughout that entire sixty years, Heero Yuy had executed his duties faithfully. He considered it his last mission, but for the first time he did not treat it like one. He had humanity now. It had been bought at a terrible price — the life of the woman who loved him and whom he loved, but that only made it all the more precious. In a way, that woman had been his humanity and his heart. But in losing them, he was able to find them returned to him in a different form. It reminded him of the saying: If you truly love something, let it go and it will come back to you. And even though she was not physically with him anymore, he could feel her closer to him than they had ever been, because he knew that his newfound heart and humanity were given of her, and as such were a vehicle by which her spirit lived on, to guide the world, and his soul, down the path of peace.

Heero Yuy went to the conference and announced his retirement, outlined his plan for the dissolution of the office of Vice Foreign Minister and the creation of several smaller positions in its place, and then excused himself without taking any questions or comments. When he left, Relena's manuscript disappeared too, although the event was not discovered until long after both it and its holder the retired Vice Foreign Minister had vanished from the public world.

Neither were ever seen again.

"Foolish are those who start wars.

But the blood shed during battle is never a waste."

--Dr. J, Gundam Wing episode 13

Author's Note: Look for me now as Amaya Takeshi, instead of Wings of Moonlight. See my profile if you're wondering why the change. As for this story, I've carried it in my mind for a very very long time. It is older, I think, than even my first published fanfic, "Valor." It took a strength that I did not have until now, after having seen and succeeded and failed and grown this past year and a half, to shape the vision into words. I don't know if this will sound cliche, but I just wanted to say that this piece is quite possibly my heart, laid out in writing and defenselessly exposed. Thank you for showing it kindness by reading it.

Because I imagine this story may be confusing to some, saddening to others, and angering to others still, I have included a section of explanation of my intentions and my reasoning regarding many aspects of this fanfic. Feel free to continue downwards if you're interested in how this story came about, but you are by no means obligated to do so. The story ended long ago, and what follows is only the author of this piece trying to explain herself. The fact you have come this far is already appreciated more than you will ever know.

I suppose I shall start with the plot. Why did I have Relena take her own life? Well, to be honest, it all began because I grew tired (and I'll admit, annoyed) at all the fanfics out there which portray Relena as a victim of kidnapping after kidnapping (I myself have contributed to this phenomenon with my first -- and now suspended -- story). In each of these, of course, it is mandatory that Heero comes to rescue her. And then, they reach a mutual epiphany of their love and dependence on one another, and it's happily ever after. One day I realized that, just as I did not want to read any more of those kinds of stories, perhaps Relena herself, with her strength of character, also did not want to be the "helpless victim" anymore, forever doomed to be kidnapped and saved and kidnapped again. Wouldn't that be a dull and meaningless existence? I wanted to have Relena herself address this issue in my story, and to do it in a way that has never been attempted before; so I chose suicide... but not one without purpose. Because while Relena may be passionate and strong-willed, she is also neither short-sighted nor depressed. She is someone who wouldn't give up her life easily, I am certain, but who would do it fearlessly if from it could come greater good. I basically wrote this reasoning into the story already, in the form of Relena's goodbye letter. The greater good, in this case, is Heero's redemption. After all, she has healed the world and made it whole; the only thing left that still needs healing is Heero's own heart. And of course I am a great believer in their love (and you are free to disagree with me on this), so I think Heero's humanity is a treasure that Relena would be willing to buy with her life.

Since I was already having Relena commit suicide, I decided I might as well take one more liberty of having her actually get shot for once. As you could probably imagine, I was equally tired of seeing Heero protect her from any hint of harm.

Now I will address the flow of the story. I wanted to begin the story with a scene of Heero walking among all the heirlooms of the Peacecraft dynasty, showing respect to each and every object, because that was really how this story first came to my mind. He would be well into old-age, but at peace with the world and with himself. And on a whim I decided to have him succeed Relena as the Vice Foreign Minister, mainly because I wanted to show how her sacrifice was not wasted but really was needed to make him whole (and in the process unify them solidly in love), but also because he just plain needed an occupation. Of course I tried not to expose the time period of the story's setting until after Relena's last story had been told; I wanted this old age and old peace of Heero's to come unexpectedly at the very end, so that all at once everything's meaning became clear. I'm a little bit curious -- were you surprised, or did you suspect?

Naturally, when Heero left the position, it had to be destroyed, for no one else could step into the sacred office without treading in the dirt of inunderstanding and tainting the purity that the two of them had created.

In actuality, this is not a tragedy fanfic, because the focus is not Relena's decision to commit suicide, but rather the intention that led to the decision, and the glorious manifestation of that intention in its truest form -- the full healing of a boy who killed adolescence so that he may stain his hands red to pave the way for a lost and hurting world. This is a story, at its heart, about giving hope and finding peace, even when you thought you were the person who was farthest from it. I hope I was able to convey that adequately in the writing.

The main story itself really takes place in this time frame -- sixty-five years after the events of the anime (Heero is now eighty years old). If you wish, think of the functioning body of the story as Heero's retirement and subsequent disappearance from human sight. The account of Relena's own death some sixty years old is really only a prop that Heero interacts with along the way to his conference, and we are only privy to it because we are reading it with him. The amusing thing is, of course, that within the prop is another prop. A note within a note. A story within a story. All in all, I thought it rather clever, and even now I smile a little, though I do apologize for causing any confusion that you may have experienced. It must be mentioned, however, that it's never explicitly stated who the writer of Relena's story was. All that is certain, to the people inside the story and to us the readers on the outside, is that the writer is the last person to be in her company. And since he chose to refer to himself as only "her bodyguard" or "the bodyguard," then really that's all we have to go by. Undoubtedly, this man desires greatly to protect his own privacy by hiding his identity, but many of us I'm sure have already formed our own opinions regarding the matter.

Finally, I will speak a bit more about the quotes at the beginning and end of the story. "The emotions of those considered beautiful are always full of sorrow." There seems to be a great deal of wisdom in this quote. Of course, I can't classify it as universally true (for I do know a few beautiful, happy people, and I envy them very much), but after all how much do we really know about other people's emotions? It may be that the most beautiful person you know is also secretly the most sorrowful of them all. In considering a person other than yourself, how much of him or her can we see, and how much of what we can see is real or true? Sorrow and its counterpart, joy, are inherent and necessary parts of human life, this much I know. Because life is beautiful, and since we know it is true of joy, then certainly sorrow as well will impart its own unique but undeniable beauty to the person experiencing it or carrying it. This is how I look at it, and this is why I am impressed by this quote's wisdom. But perhaps I am all wrong. Perhaps this is only one of those quotes which was spoken just for the sake of sounding wise; which doesn't really have any well-thought out meaning behind it except to elevate the speaker to a higher level of perception, and, in turn, perfection. My, that sneaky Treize...

But I digress. In regards to the story, the quote applies mainly to Relena. She is always the "beautiful" one, but inside she carries so much sorrow -- the destruction of her family, the assassination of her adoptive father, the responsibility of leading a kingdom and then the world, and the brokenness of the man she loves. If the world knew this quote, perhaps they wouldn't have idealized her so much. If Heero knew this quote, perhaps he would have treated her differently. Here, then, is the tragedy of the story: If we all only knew how much sorrow each of us carried, perhaps the world will be a much different, much kinder place.

That was the quote I chose to lead into the story. The quote I used to tie it up is one that I hope imparts that hope I was talking about earlier. "Foolish are those who start wars, but the blood shed during battle is never a waste." I won't even go into those words as it may or may not apply to our world today. Instead, I will admit that this quote is not a perfect fit for the situation in the story. There is no war being started or fought in my story, so the first half may seem a little out of place. But it is the second half that I fell in love with. In Relena's case, she definitely shed her blood. And, true to the quote, not one drop of it was wasted. It was her gift to him; Heero understood that much. It seems that from the beginning, when he decided to fight to stop the fighting, and if this visualization of mine is in any way plausible, then Heero is able to understand this line and believe in it, in its entirety and as it applies to many different situations of life. To me, the quote seems to suggest that whatever goal, whatever end a battle or a war is being fought for does not actually hold value in and of itself; Rather, it is the willingness of the people to die for it, to buy it with their blood, that gives it its value. It is made valuable because it is covered with blood that did not have to be shed. It's a beautiful thought, isn't it?

Very beautiful, and very sorrowful...

All right, I think it's about time I wrapped this little essay up, since it has taken up a full fifth of a document that was never short to begin with. If you had the patience to carry you here, to the very end, I hope you have been able to find something in here that you are able to take away with you, so that your time and effort may not be wasted. And I thank you, first for reading the unskillfully-written, second fanfiction of this amateur writer, and second for caring enough about the story that you ventured into my self-centered and short-lengthed "Author's Explanation." If you've found it helpful, perhaps I will add AE's at the end of my future stories, just after the AN's, so that you may get a better sense of what this naive, novice fanfiction writer is trying to say. I'd love to hear from any reader who has the time to leave me a little message. Maybe tell me if I'm going in the right direction, as a fanfic writer? I am, after all, only two stories old. : ) Amaya.