"It's just like the movies, I eat from the trees.

If I do not open the curtains then I cannot see

All the people run by"

-Just Like the Movies by Regina Spektor

Chapter Three

She had tossed and turned in bed all night, silently fighting with herself. Quatre had been right; there wasn't any need to worry about him. There wasn't any reason for her to lose focus of her job and worry about Heero's safety. To be honest, she was too busy to worry about him.

However, knowing she shouldn't worry about him wasn't helping her not to. She had fussed over his safety after hearing about his self-detonation attempt. Any time he had gone missing, she worried. She had been half tempted to put a tracking device on him. But he would have found it immediately and destroyed it.

What was the point of worrying about him? He always came back. What Duo said spoke the truth. He couldn't stay away from her for very long. A few months at most, whether he voluntarily came back or not, he always did. She really had to stop her distressing.

She gave up trying to sleep. 3 o'clock and not the least bit tired. It was just the stress taking its toll on her body. She would either have to forget about Heero until he returned or cope with the lack of sleep until he returned.

Now, she couldn't understand why a man, Heero of people, had so much control over her.

It was just the time of peace. She didn't have to worry about the war anymore. She didn't have a country to run or a pacifist school to teach. She had the responsibilities of being Vice Foreign Minister, but now after years of the position she felt bored. She busied herself with all the paperwork just so she wouldn't have to face the reality that she no longer had a personal life.

She didn't honestly have any friends other than the Gundam pilots or the few Preventer members she had met throughout the war. Sally was kind enough to spend some time with her whenever their schedules allowed it. Noin had gone with Milliardo to Mars so she was now out of her closest friends. All she was really left with was Dorothy Catalonia.

Dorothy wasn't exactly the type of person Relena wanted to call for a cup of tea and stress free conversations. If Relena ever felt like she needed a good verbal abusing, she would call Dorothy immediately.

Relena slipped her silk robe on, ignoring the plush slippers beside her bed. A walk around her house might help her clear her mind. She walked out of her room quietly, not wanting to disturb Trowa. However, halfway down the stairs she literally ran into the clown. He didn't say anything to her, but stared at her quizzically.

"I was just getting a glass of water." She lied.

"Can't sleep?" He asked, ignoring her terrible lie.

She hung her head, "No, I'm sorry."

"Would you like to talk? I know you don't like to talk to me as much as Quatre or Heero, but I think I have a good listening ear." He asked, offering her his hand.

She took his hand, not really wanting to talk. She'd much rather walk around and sort out her own thoughts. She really wasn't in the mood for his kind words. She wanted someone to shake her and tell her to get over Heero and move on.

There was going to be a time when he left her and he wouldn't come back. He would either die or just be so fed up with her and the position she put him in constantly that he left her. She didn't want to be fifty years old when he left. She was getting sick and tired of waiting on him to do something. It was time for her to move on and find a suitor that actually wanted her.

"Has everyone gone home?" She asked, trying to distract herself.

"No, Duo is on the couch. Quatre took his usual room and Wufei is helping me with guard duty." He gently pulled her hand to help her down the stairs. "We wanted to stay here for you because you're not the type of person to cry in front of us. We were concerned."

"Oh, I'm sorry about that. I've just been really stressed out at work and I really didn't know how to handle Heero leaving, even though it shouldn't bother me at all anymore. I didn't cry just because of him."

"That's fine. It's good to cry every once in a while. I know your job is very taxing on you and you can't really let your emotions show too much." He said, removing his hand from hers and placing it gingerly on the small of her back.

She flinched from the contact instinctively, but didn't miss a second of the conversation. "Yeah, I haven't had a good cry in a while, actually. Heero interrupted my last one and this time it was Wufei."

"He doesn't have any manners. He shouldn't have said that to you."

"No, it's all right. I should have kept it in until I went to bed."

Trowa offered her a small smile, leading her into the kitchen. "What's on your mind, then?"

She sighed, moving away from his hand towards the cabinets to make coffee. There wasn't going to be any point going to sleep now. "I don't know, honestly. It's all very confusing for me."

"Talking definitely helps sort out your thoughts."

She set her favorite mug in the counter next to the plain white one for Trowa, ignoring the fact that she actually had to brew it first. "Heero."

"What about him?" Trowa sat on the barstool, watching her.

"There's going to come a point in our lives where he won't come back and I think I'm afraid he won't this time. I don't really want go through the rest of my life not seeing him because I never had a chance to say some of the things I want to."

"Like what?"

"That I love him." She bit her bottom lip nervously.

"Hm," he paused, "that's what I thought."

"What do you mean? Am I that obvious?" She creased her brow, only slightly irritated.

"Sometimes. It's obvious whenever you and he have had a long talk, but normally you two act like coworkers instead of housemates. I'm surprised you haven't said anything to him before now."

"Well, I would have if I thought he thought of me like that instead of a job." She snapped. The lack of sleep was starting to become apparent.

Trowa raised an eyebrow at her, "He did come and get you from Libra without anyone asking him to."

She laughed lightly, "He said Noin and the others wanted me over on Peacemillion. He came for me because they asked him to and so he could argue with my brother."

"No one asked him to, Relena. Duo told him you were there and he left immediately. Quatre had to tell Noin and Sally."

She opened her mouth to retort, but she heard footsteps coming from the hall. She had hoped they hadn't woken Duo. She watched Trowa turned to look at the entryway and saw that he didn't look tense in the slightest. He must have been expecting someone.

Much to her disappointment, the Chinese man walked in, smirking at her.

"Nothing unusual?" Trowa asked.

Wufei shook his head, walking behind Relena and started the coffee machine. All three of them sat in silence for a moment, listening to the coffee gurgle and drain into the pot. Relena kept her eyes on Trowa, waiting for Wufei to make his leave so she could continue their conversation. Heero wasn't much of a liar, so she didn't know why he would have told her Noin wanted her out of Libra.

But he wasn't exactly the most honest person, either. He did bend the truth sometimes.

"Are you done with your crying spell?" Wufei finally spoke.

"Yes, I am."

"Good. Heero isn't someone to cry over."

"And Treize is?" Relena snapped.

Trowa laughed loudly while Wufei's mouth hung open, insulted.

It took a few seconds for him to regain his composure, but then smirked at her again and said, "Glad to see you're feeling better."

A.N. I'm a few chapters ahead on this story so I'll try to update regularly with it, however, I just started my EMT classes and they're very time consuming. Also with the holidays coming up, I'll be working a lot more. I'm going to try and keep this up as much as I can, though.