Author's Note: Ok, this isn't exactly the wrap I'd hoped it would be. But we're getting there.

Warnings: Discussions of suicide.


I leave Wufei sleeping. I leave him. I leave.

For what it's worth, I didn't lie to him. Never said I'd stay. And if that's what he wanted to believe, well, so did I.

It's not that he's wrong. He makes it better as much as he makes it worse. It's just, I don't deserve better. Didn't come here for that.

The shuttleport is nearly deserted when I get there, people preferring a nice, daytime flight, as if it matters once you're in space. I make my way through the quiet corridors, the empty food court, and to the terminal with service to L2.

Because I told Howard not to expect me back. And L2's where you go when you've got nowhere left. L2's the end of the line.

I feel the wrong of it immediately, before I even get to the terminal. Quiet becoming silence. The empty magazine stand. The woman pacing endlessly in front of the bathroom. The man staring blankly at his phone, never touching the screen. My fingers itch for a weapon, but I keep walking. Imagine how much easier it would be, if this were a trap. Save me a hell of a lot of trouble.

But it's not terrorists, guns drawn, waiting for me at the back of the terminal, sitting tall and elegant in an uncomfortable spaceport chair.

Relena.

Of course. Because nothing on this fucking planet can be easy. She stands as I approach, straightening her skirt.

"Duo, I was afraid I'd missed you." Her tone is light and easy, like we're meeting by chance in some upscale shop. She's a good liar, Relena. People don't realize that. She lies the way I lie. Less with her words than with her entire being. And the thing is, she makes other people want to lie with her. She told the world a lie about peace and we all loved it so much we tried to make it true.

And now, here we are. Pretending.

"Hey, princess," I say. "Heero know you're out? I'll bet he doesn't like you wandering. I won't tell, but you better hurry back."

"Of course he does. I'm not you. I can't exactly sneak away, can I?" She opens her arms and tilts her head. "Last time I saw you, I got a hug."

I don't want to touch her. She's so pretty. So clean. And I have loved her for it, but right now, it just makes the moment all the more pathetic. She chased Heero across the planet. Followed him into space. She made herself a symbol of something he didn't even know he was looking for.

And I'm slinking away from Wufei in the dark.

I try to find the words to deflect her, try to make a joke, but there's nothing left. Every good, bright part of me fell asleep in Wufei's arms. Maybe it's all still there, while the shadows left behind get ready to launch themselves into space. No great loss. There was never much in me worth saving.

Relena lets her arms drop. "Oh, Duo."

"Why are you here?" I ask, shrugging off any semblance of playing friendly, the words coming sharp and aggressive.

If she's distressed by the change in tone, she doesn't show it. "Because Wufei's new to this game, and I'm not. I thought he could use some backup. I never had any."

"Backup?"

"Do you know how many times Heero's disappeared on me?"

I can imagine. I don't care. It's not that she doesn't have a right to my sympathy, but I've got no right to give it. I just want her gone.

And I figure, that's easy. One cool trick to make someone hate you? Just be honest.

"I fucked him you know," I say, grinning. "Your Heero."

Her brow furrows, lips drawing together into an irritated frown. And I think, there, see? You don't want to help me.

When she speaks, it's on a sigh.

"Duo," she says. "Twice a month, Une and I meet to discuss current events, coordinate joint efforts, and make small talk about the weather."

I blink at her, lost.

"Une," she says. "The woman who murdered my father. Killed him in front of me when I was fifteen. I sit down with her, and we drink tea, and we say, 'oh, it's rather cold for June, isn't it?' Some meetings, I hardly even wish her dead. I say, 'I hope you are well,' and I mean it."

Her eyes are darker under the florescent lights of the spaceport than they ever look on TV. She's so tired. So tired and wounded and so utterly irreplaceable and she knows it.

And I hate myself. But then, I already did.

"Do you really think I care who Heero's slept with? That I'll storm off? Call my guards? Come on, Duo. Do you honestly think that anything you could say would hurt me?"

She's right.

"No," I say. And then. "Sorry." And it's not a lie. I am sorry, and I am sorry, in the sense that I am shit.

"I sort of envy him," she says, more to herself than to me. "He had you four. And what did I have? Dorothy?"

I laugh, though I'm not sure it's funny. It's just, she wants me to laugh. And I owe her that much. She laughs too, soft and quiet, and then she stops, and I stop, and we are left, staring at each other. And I'm still broken.

And so is she.

So that's when I hug Relena, and she hugs me back, and Relena hugs like she's taken classes in hugging, which maybe she has.

"Not too late, you know," I say, as she steps away. "If you want to try another Gundam Pilot out."

She pretends to consider it, then shakes her head. "One's enough," she says. "And more than enough."

"You should go then," I say. "They're supposed to be boarding soon. People are going to want into the terminal."

"No," she says.

"Sure they are. L2's unpopular, but it's not that unpopular," I say, though we both know that's not what she means.

"You're not leaving, Duo," she says, settling back into her chair and crossing her ankles. "It's too soon."

And it's too late to hate her now, and I can't help but wonder if that, too, is intentional, if she planned the little arc of our conversation to leave me helpless here, at the end of it.

"You gonna stop me?"

"If I need to," she says. "They'll close down the shuttleport, if I ask them to. I could site security concerns." She smiles "Dangerous terrorists spotted sneaking around. But I'd hate to inconvenience everyone."

I let my bag drop and collapse in the chair next to her. If we're gonna argue, I might as well be comfortable.

"Wufei would tell you to let me leave," I say. "He tried to take me here himself."

"I'm not sure he would," she replies. "But regardless. He's not here. I am. And I want you to stay."

"I can't be here." The words come out louder, more urgent, than I intend. I lower my voice. "I shouldn't be here."

She grabs my hand, and hers is small and cool and soft and steady. It's mine that's shaking. When did I start shaking?

"You can," she says. "I promise you can."

"You gonna tell me it gets easier?"

"No," she says. "But I find you can get used to anything, eventually. We got used to war. We can get used to peace. But it'll take time. It's only been five years."

"When?" I ask.

"Maybe when we decide we're ready. When we start looking forward instead of back." She squeezes my hand. "When we start daring to make connections."

We're silent again, my hand in hers, and outside the shuttleport, the sun is rising. Wufei's probably awake by now. He'll know I'm gone.

"He'll understand," she says, following my gaze.

And she's probably right. Somehow, that makes it worse.

"What do you care?" I ask. For something I meant as an accusation, it comes out pleading. "Like you said, one pilot is enough."

"Maybe I like to keep my options open. Maybe I want to see if your offer still stands in another five years." She grins at me, then the grin softens to a smile. "But mostly, I just think you deserve better."

"Not after what I did."

"Because of what you did." Relena locks her gaze with mine, and her eyes are blue, blue, blue like a projected colony sky. "Not because it was right. Not because of freedom or peace. Because it was you, and it shouldn't have been. It shouldn't have been any of us. You deserve better than who you had to be, what you had to do."

"What if I liked it?" I ask, searching her expression for disapproval. "What if I miss it?"

And for a second, I think it's there, in the way she sighs and shakes her head. But again, I've got it wrong, seeing the idea and not the reality of her.

"You think I don't miss it?" she asks. "The world turned around me. They called me the Queen of the Earth. Can you imagine? Everything I did mattered. The future was mine to change. Now, I can barely get proposals past committee. I'm so tired, Duo."

And she rests her head against my shoulder, and I put my arm around hers, and we are quiet, quiet, thinking of what we were and what we are, and how much easier it might be if we could just set it all ablaze.

Or anyway, that's what I'm thinking.

"Kids grow into the spaces they're given," she murmurs against my shoulder. "We were given too much and all in the wrong shape."

She sounds nothing like any Relena I've ever known. Nothing burns in her voice. I can hear the absence of her smile.

"Relena."

"If you try to say anything inspiring, I'll murder you," she says, reminding me of no one so much as me. And no, I don't believe her, but I love the lie.

"Not exactly the inspiring sort," I reply. "That's your job."

"I know," she says. "How am I doing?"

"Well, better than Trowa."

"Heero told me. Sorry about that."

"S'alright. He got me home." The words stumble out, unconsidered, and I rush to correct them. "To Wufei's, I mean."

One of Relena's guards walks past at the edge of my vision, gaze locked ahead, deliberately not watching us.

"Your people are getting restless."

"I've got inspiring to do," she says, with such perfect hate I want to kiss her. So I do, kissing the crown of her head in as much brotherly affection as I can muster.

"You want to run away with me?"

"We're both staying, Duo. Come on. I need someone to talk to. And Wufei needs-" She's quiet too long. "You. He just needs you. You make him alive again. I like seeing the light in him."

"You can talk to Heero," I say, attacking the safer argument.

"No. I can't," she says. Just that.

It makes me sick, the way she says it. The weight of truth there.

"Princess…"

"Don't start," she says, more brittle than sharp. "He does the best he can. So do I. We're alive. That's enough, for now."

And who, after all, am I to judge?

"And later?"

"Is later."

"And that's what you want for me, is it?" I ask. "For Wufei? Just being enough for now? Surviving?"

"Yes," she says, with a quiet, vicious sort of passion. "What's wrong with surviving? What's wrong with getting by? We made it through. We just have to keep making it through."

Is this inspiration? The promise of a fucking miserable slog, and who knows if it ever stops?

"There are good moments," she says, to my silence. "You start with seconds, until you find minutes, and maybe sometimes there are whole hours."

"That's not much."

"It's better than death." She sits up, smoothing her skirt, and I can feel her restlessness. She'll stay here as long as she needs, I believe that. But she's not supposed to. "Tell me honestly, do you wish you'd never come back? That you shuttle had exploded in the atmosphere?"

"Wufei-"

"No. Not Wufei. You don't get to decide what he feels. You."

I haven't been running the numbers. I lick my still sore lips, remembering the impact of Trowa's fist. But even that was a sort of comfort, a twisted attempt at a pat on the back.

And the rest of it? The memories burn like sunlight on earth, the too much, too bright, too vivid heat of it. The instinctual need to flinch, to not look too closely.

Of course, Wufei's better than dying. He's better than living, in any way I've ever lived.

And I don't deserve him. And she doesn't care.

I don't say anything, and she kisses my cheek.

"Moments," she says. "They won't all be good. But they'll all be better than the alternative."

"I'll hurt him," I say.

"And he'll hurt you. And you'll probably both hurt me. AAnd it will still be better than the alternative." She stands and holds her hands out to me. "Come on Duo. Let's get you home."

I let her pull me up. Let her lead me out of the terminal.

And I think of all sorts of clever arguments, as we walk. A million million reasons I should go, and she should let me.

But I don't say any of them. I just walk with her, her arm through mine, the sunrise to the right of us, turning the sky all pink of gold. And she doesn't hurry, and neither do I, and her guards fall in behind us, and everything feels almost safe.

It's such a perfect moment. And I can't bring myself to break it.