Author's Note: Repost, because the first version just sucked. Thanks to "sockpup", who gave me concrit! It was greatly appreciated and helped immensely. For everyone else, please know that this is my pet project, and it will end up having a lot of chapters. Please enjoy!

Italics: Characters' thoughts or foreign words.

Definitions: Haute couture is European high fashion, and couturière is someone who designs and produces high-fashion clothing.

Warnings: OC main character. Relena-bashing in the beginning. (Stay with me! It's a momentary thing.) Politics galore.

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. (Sigh...) Except for Wing; she's mine. The story's mine, too, so if you want to post it anywhere else, ask or I will sic my fluffy bunny slippers on you.

Last Waltz

Part 1: Wing Gundam Zero

Chapter 1: A Lesson In Anger

Wing growled, a low-frequency sound she knew from experience no one else around her could hear, and slammed her fist into the brick wall in front of her—creating a substantial indentation. Withdrawing it, jazzed on adrenaline, she didn't even flinch as she ran the hand through her dark blue hair.

She was angry. She hated to admit it, but she was angry. She wanted to kill something. Snap something in half. Toss something off a mountain, or better yet down the Grand Canyon.

That something was Relena.

Bad enough she was royalty without the little bitch trying to get her hands all over Wing's pilot every chance she got. It was disgusting! Every time Heero stepped out the door she materialized: "Oh, Heero, where are you off to? Oh, Heero, you look so great in those shorts! Oh, Heero...oh, Heero..." GOD! It was enough to make a Gundam's stomach churn.

Which was precisely what was happening.

How could Heero possibly stand her? Wing couldn't fathom it. He, the most emotionally detached person she had ever known, just stood there and took it when it would have been the easiest thing in the world to snap her neck and be through with it. Had any other one of Heero's acquaintances been doing it—with one exception—he would have killed them. But he took it from her.

Why didn't he just kill her and get it over with? Why, why, WHY!

In a surge of blind rage she slammed her entire body into the wall, pushing the energy churning in her core along with it. With a final pathetic groan of buckling metal, the thing shuddered and crumbled into a pile of mortar powder and grime. That was the third one she had destroyed that day.

Not much of a challenge, these steel-reinforced ones, she thought as she nonchalantly brushed brick dust from her clothing. She shook out her custom-tailored Versace skirt very gently and successfully avoided ripping the linen twill. Gentleness was a human skill she'd only recently mastered.

Good thing it's Kevlar-reinforced, Wing thought of the fabric in relief, fingering the herringbone pattern before inelegantly sliding the strip of black cloth on her left arm back into place. Everyone in Relena's political entourage was still in formal mourning for Dekim Barton, though the war criminal was cool enough in his grave for Wing's taste. Wing's skirt-suit was a sunny golden-yellow—as an aide with no previous association with the Barton Foundation she was not required to don full-mourning black—but she bore the required black armband.

The park around her was empty. It was Saturday and the noon hour on Colony X-18999, and Wing's trim shadow cowered close at her heels under the regard of the unforgiving artificial sun. Even though it was spring, the usually mild climate was stifling and Wing's three-piece power suit was beginning to cling stickily to her body. So much for perfect weather. Build a fully climate-controlled space colony and the Brass invariably thinks it should mirror Earth right down to the droughts. The shade that dripped from the large trees that dotted the gardens looked deep and cool, and promised relief from the worst of the temperature sensitivity and pain brought about by her altercation with the wall. But Wing turned away from the cold peace she saw there and assumed a bench she knew presided over a stunning view of the park's grounds.

X-18999 was primarily a Japanese settlement. The buildings were distinctly of European construction, yes, but the influence of the Japanese colonists was blatantly reflected in the sweeping Oriental landscaping that graced the inner-city preserves. And the colony's six-day work week. Today was the last eight hours before multi-national trading ceased, and all the unfortunate blue collar workers near the park were sacrificing a pleasant outdoor lunch to wring all they could from the remaining crucial four hours of the day. Wing was left to enjoy the park's beauty in solitude while she waited for Heero to emerge from his meeting with the L4-3088 rebuild project's newly elected Oversight Committee. The committee was gathered in the Cinq Kingdom's official embassy, an imposing white granite building three blocks south of the park.

Turned to silent introspection as she was, Wing was broadsided by knifing mental pain as a wedge of Power suddenly drove her soul in two. Her pilot was approaching. Winded, bright sparks dancing behind her eyes, she faltered and narrowly avoided collapsing on the bench. I can't let him know about this reaction. Straining her knuckles against the wrought ironwork at her back until they were raw and lily-white, willing the world to stop thundering down around her head, she recovered herself—barely—spun like a cat, and was utterly composed by the time Heero rounded the corner.

He gave only a passing glance to the demolished wall. "Gwin," he nodded to her, eyes sweeping just over her head as she bowed to him.

"That went quickly," she attempted to sound cheerful, respectfully focusing her eyes on a spot near his feet. Heero was well-matched and immaculate in a somber cotton haute couture three-piece suit, as befitted a member of Relena's entourage, many of whom made up the ranks of Earth's Upper Ten Thousand. There was no doubt her pilot was handsome, and Wing wished she could see more than his hands and torso, but she carefully avoided his gaze. Looking into his eyes would set off another reaction, and her hold on her composure was too thin to withstand another dose of pain.

Her pilot snorted, jaw muscles clenched, mouth a taut, hard line. "There was nothing to discuss. They were not prepared for the meeting."

"Is that it." She nodded. So his anger with the Oversight Committee had been the source of her irrational rage...not Relena. Wing's outburst had just been her folly—fueled by Heero's sudden, palpable loathing, she had lashed out at the first image that popped into her head. Shame burned in Wing's stomach. Heero had never held such negative emotions toward Relena. And his whole heart was in the L4-3088 project; no wonder he'd been angry.

L4-3088 was Duo Maxwell's home colony; a place that people having a polite conversation delicately termed "one of the colonies worst hit by the Wars." In plain language, it was a cesspit. Rebel factions in the first war had collapsed 3088's local economy and torn its vital systems apart, and OZ had seen little reason to put them back together. The few hundred miserable souls who still eked out an existence there were either too poor to leave or fighting a losing battle to revive what was beyond their means. On a visit to 3088 with Duo just weeks after Marimaia's official surrender, Heero had seen the horror-reality of life there and how it affected Duo. Now that the peace was stable, he'd convinced Relena that her next move as Prime Minister should be to start reviving what the Wars had ruined...starting with 3088.

Relena had agreed whole-heartedly with his plan, but she was only twenty and newly elected as Vice Prime Minister. Even with her family's political ties, she didn't yet wield much power in the World Nation and colony reconstruction was a risky, costly business. So, Relena had had no choice but to let the World Nation's ruling body hand-pick the Oversight Committee's members.

The Committee was, as a consequence, a mass of simpering, weak-spined, out-of-touch politicians Wing considered herself fortunate to have dealt with only once. Everyone involved with the project knew the committee members didn't care one whit about such a small, insignificant colony any more than the ruling body did. Obviously, they hadn't changed one bit in the past months, and the planning stage was not going as well as Heero expected.

Wing shook her head. They would all soon yield to Heero's will or face the combined wrath of his well-deserved political reputation and Quatre's money. But there was nothing she could do at the moment, except talk to Sandrock and pray that Heero didn't lose his temper. She touched her arm and winced. The blood vessels beneath the skin give a wrenching, tortured throb against her finger pads. Cushioned by that outpouring of energy or not, she'd still slammed herself into a wall. Several walls. And she was still human enough to bruise.

She mused on this as she tried very hard not to agitate her wounds.

"Come on, Gwin. We're going home." Her pilot turned sharply and stalked off in the direction of their apartment complex. Snatching her briefcase and coat from where she'd flung them to the ground, Wing skittered hastily after him.