Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, which is a registered trademark of Sotsu Agency Co., LTD. TM & Sunrise & under license by Bandai.
A/N- We're at the end of the road! This is the longest flashfic I've written yet, this week for a prompt from the gw500 LJ community: "duty." Goodbye, Properly can be considered a sequel to Mi Casa, Su Casa; For Remembrance; Danger Dogs; The Queen; Some Kind of an Honor and Finished Business, but also stands alone. Some details don't mesh exactly with the Valhalla universe, but I still consider it to be an important glimpse into two of the most important characters in that story.
Goodbye, Properly
by Terra
It had become a weekly ritual. When the last bundle of shredded paperwork was tossed with vengeance into the trash on Friday afternoon and she was free to surrender to tantalizing thoughts of bubble baths and aromatherapy, she invariably found herself detouring from her usual way home, going instead to the outskirts of the city. As her car pulled up to the rocky footpath, she looked up at the house slowly taking form; it was such a stark contrast from the surrounding structures that pedestrians passing by found their eyes drawn unconsciously to it; every week, some gawking dog walker made her want to laugh with abandon.
Hers was the only home which wasn't trying to imitate some past palace of luxury. There were no columns, no cornices, no lavish overhangs from an earlier century; it was being built for remembrance, but its design honored only the creative faculty, the force in man that strove relentlessly forward and never looked back. As she entered, she greeted the flurry of workmen departing for the day. She found Heero leaning over a blueprint, editing a small corner with careful precision – the long, clean lines of his suspended posture as refined as one of his buildings. She liked to watch him work, enjoyed seeing his peculiar intensity travel down from his furrowed brow to the hand that drew steadily, unerringly.
It was the same way he approached everything in his life; she found it unnerving on occasion when he trained that gaze at her, like she was an engineering problem he had been struggling to solve. Some days, she marveled at the changes five years had wrought on him. He always smiled in greeting now and his dry humor never ceased to surprise her. When she had the time, it was amusing to remember how she had believed herself in love with him at fifteen when she had known nothing about the man behind the glamour. His favorite time of day (sunrise), how he took his coffee (black), his only concession to fashion (belts). "Don't they mind that you're always here?"
Heero glanced up at her with no surprise on his face. "Not always. Just on Fridays."
"You can be so blunt," she said, smiling, faintly flush. "Look at this, you're making me blush."
"You're spending too much time at work," he replied, pocketing his drafting pencil and walking to her side, "if hearing the truth is uncomfortable."
"Yes, I know. If we politicians, second only to lawyers on the scale of cosmic villainy, weren't so necessary," she quipped, a little startled to find that she needed to tilt her head to meet his eyes, "people would be drawing lots for the honor of taking off our heads." She had forgotten how tall he'd become; she barely reached over his shoulders. Looking at him now, their height difference was jarring; in her mind, he had always been incorporeal, a force of will and grit so potent that he had never seemed solid enough to be contained in something as fragile as flesh and bone.
"Still doesn't seem to stop some people."
"I wouldn't be doing my job if someone didn't try to off me every year," she muffled a laugh, "it's the best gauge of public opinion really. I must be making a difference if someone's bothering to order a hit."
"That's one way to look at it."
"If I didn't look for the silver lining, I'd ask to be committed for being crazy enough to want this job."
"Are you alright?" Heero's eyes skirted over her face, lingering briefly on the stitched cut above her left eyebrow.
"Just a nasty bruise from when four quarterback-types tackled me on stage," she said lightly. "My hip may never be the same again."
"I'm sorry," he offered clumsily, hesitantly.
"Heero Yuy…you have nothing to apologize for. I'm glad you weren't there. You have a life now, a life that's your own, where you don't have to answer to anyone else. People like you," she said, touching the soft fabric of his shirt with the tips of her fingers, "are why I go to work at all. Besides, I thought you'd put your stalking days behind you."
"I never stalked," he said, his tone mildly affronted.
"Oh, don't think I never noticed you lurking around on balconies and such during my speeches. You weren't that sneaky."
"I didn't lurk."
"Fine." She rolled her eyes. "I couldn't help but notice you prowling around like the sly, terrifying super secret agent that you are."
Heero smiled faintly. "I did promise to protect you."
"And you are. You're doing something much more important. You're protecting my dream. Every day that you're here, that you draw breath, you make the duties I've chosen to bear worth it." She squeezed his hand lightly before stepping back. "Although, I did miss you when I realized that you were gone for good."
"It was time," he said, his fingers flexed in reaction to the loss of her touch, as if he hadn't expected her to let go. "I wanted my own reason to live."
"I think I knew that, but it made me feel lonely at first. Then I realized that we both needed time apart," she smiled ruefully, "for me to learn that all the hope and inspiration wouldn't disappear without you."
"And for me to be able to come back someday," he agreed, answering the question she had not asked.
At this somber turn in the conversation, her expression became woeful. "And to think I was once a little madly in love with you. Ah, the follies of youth!" she sighed dramatically. "Oh, don't pout. It's unbecoming."
"I'm not—" Heero raked his hair with bristling agitation. "You're baiting me."
"Yes," she replied solemnly. "It's the only reason I look forward to Fridays. I get to unload all the witty repartee I've been saving up all week."
"Stop trying to distract me," he warned, the rumbling admonishment in his voice diminished by the humor in his eyes. "I'm trying to say goodbye properly this time."
"I know. I saw this coming…weeks ago." At his quizzical expression, she added: "After knowing you five and my brother, I can write the handbook on tortured, self-flagellating emotionally unavailable men."
"It's not very flattering being compared to Zechs."
"How typical. I call you a tortured, emotionally unavailable man and you take exception to being grouped with my brother."
"He tried to kill me," Heero reminded her. "Practically every time we met."
"So you have a volatile relationship," she dismissed. "I remember it used to take the threat of death or blunt force trauma, at the very least, to get you to stop by."
He looked down at her then, nullifying her attempts at levity with a naked glance that made her shiver and lean unconsciously towards him in sudden longing to press against the roughness of his clothing, the cool metal of his belt, the muskiness of his nearness. "This house will be finished soon." As if in sudden realization of their proximity, but unable to move away, Heero absently glanced over her shoulder and added: "I'll probably be gone for a couple of years."
"Where will you go?"
"Dubai. To build Winner Tower."
"I'll miss you." The words tore themselves from her lips in a single breath. She had not been aware of this thought until she had spoken it. Heero turned back to her as if he had expected this admission, had been waiting for it. As they stood silent and still in the wake of her confession, she found herself listening to the unevenness of their breathing – his made audible by the curious artificiality in which he held himself, straining to remain unaffected. In that moment, she realized with that clang of finality which always accompanied sudden truths that he wasn't immune to her, and was doing just as poorly a job of hiding it.
At the fierce vulnerability in his eyes, she willed her face to give him the answer he wanted. Whatever he saw must have satisfied him. Relena heard herself saying, "Don't be a stranger. Drop me a line if you're ever in the neighborhood."
"I will," he promised.
-
A/N- A deep, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been keeping up with this flashfic series! If you've reviewed, thank you so much. For any fanfic writer, it's impossible to overestimate the power of feedback, and constructive criticism, and it's no different for me. Well, this is the end of the "taking out the trash" series. This one blurred the line between friendship and romance a little, but only if you want to look at it that way. In my mind, Heero and Relena have always had a thermonuclear chemistry, attraction notwithstanding. I've had such a great time writing these short snippets that I'm not sure if I'm ready to give it up yet.
Right now, I'm mulling over the idea of a new flashfic series with a new theme. Because goodness knows, I need the cathartic release after I've pounded a few hours into Valhalla, which for those interested will resume next Tuesday, January 20th. Is there anyone out there who would be interested in more flashfics?
