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the road – switzerland -andermatt


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After the rain, Trowa drove on for many, many kilometers.

Heero's "on the way" had been loosely meant. The map, and eventually the internet, when he resorted to it, showed a labyrinth of crossing roads, none of which remotely took him to Andermatt without driving him in circles through the Swiss countryside at least twice.

But to Trowa, the notion of getting lost was almost foreign. So, with a slight, faint sensation of bother, he spent the best part of a lovely sunny morning in a petrol station, alternating between decent coffee and croissants, and the tangled road maps the owner offered him to borrow. When he'd been satisfied with the course he'd marked, he asked the locals for advice. But, what do you know? They'd have been as lost as he was.

The annoying sensation of bother at the chance of confusion (and at Heero) lasted until he was again on the bike. But then, he tested the brakes and, drawing in a deep breath, felt the cool, healthy mountain air filling his lungs –and soon it was all forgotten.

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The elusive town of Andermatt hung high up, snugly, between the breasts of old, weather-worn mountains; and consisted of barely a couple of houses scattered on the surrounding slopes, and a tiny town-center; with quaint cobbled streets and noble wooden houses in the typical fashion of the Alps. Riding there felt to Trowa oddly like a desecration, so he cut the engine and slowly pushed the bike alongside until he found himself in the outer streets again. Not that it took long, since the town was really small.

From what he'd seen, he'd liked it very much. He'd felt strangely welcome, although few people were on the streets at working hours. Indeed, he got the feeling that he could very well learn to live in such a place, where you were greeted with a bow of the head of passers-by, and where the scent of appletart seemed to belong in the air.

I wonder, thought Trowa with a quiet smile, if Heero felt the same, before he ended up here. Is he settled permanently? As his eyes traced the way on his phone's map, and he easily followed it to the address that Heero had texted him before (almost nonchalantly –as though he'd not just invited him over, or as though he did that often), his thoughts carried on- Can –we- settle permanently?

He pondered on that. He'd never given it much thought before.

The address Heero had given to him turned out to be a rather large house, also wooden and very Swiss, beautifully sequestered in the glen-like heart of a grove atop a hill. The road leading up to it was an old stone path, that suggested that the locals had fancied that place even before the house was built. Out of respect for the comforting, natural silence that sheltered the place, Trowa cut the engine once again, and pushed the bike all the way up, although the climb was, sometimes, steep.

When he was within clear sight of the house, he noticed it was actually an inn, with little flags hanging artistically from under the numerous windowsills, all pleasantly lined with red-blossomed plants whose flowers were yet unconcerned with the cold.

Many pleasant scents tinged the air: pinewood resin, roses, freshly-cut grass. And as a backdrop, the distinctive smell of the beginning of the winter: a dampness mixed with the hearty scent of logs burning in a hearth.

From all the places in the world, Trowa thought, amused, contemplating the tranquility and earnestness of the mountain inn, this is the last place where I'd have expected Heero to be.

But before he could further wonder about the sudden unlikelihood of his present situation, and before he could even think whether he wanted to appear like he was not looking at the place in good-natured confusion; the main wooden door opened, and there, in only rolled-cuff-shirt-sleeves and dark slacks, stood Heero; eyeing him with a slow, calculating look which was all but unkind.

Suddenly, Trowa knew, that though he was not sure about how much he'd changed since he'd set out; he was sure that, at the very least, he was not Heero-like changed.

Not that Heero looked any different –he looked pretty much the same he did when they were younger and Preventers: lean, strong, tall-ish and with his hair forever tousled, like he lived unexpectedly jumping out of bed. But, in his eyes –Heero's most expressive feature –there was something that Trowa knew was new.

And, good, yes, definitely good.

Heero, on his part, had also been assessing his friend with a trained eye.

'You look like you traveled a lot,' he said, offhandedly in appearance and warmly through his tone, and strode to meet him with a firm handshake.

Trowa nodded, allowing a genuine smile for his friend.

'You look relaxed.'

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It was not in Trowa's nature to ask questions, so he just followed Heero into the sunny inn. Despite its being empty, it had a friendly, welcoming air.

'The rooms are upstairs. We're closed, now, so pick the one you like best,' Heero instructed. 'Get comfortable, I'll make coffee.'

Again, Trowa did not ask anything. He'd known the other man long enough to have the certainty that he'd get an explanation once everything had been orderly taken care of, and he respected that modus operandi. To his mind, if it worked well in the battlefield, it worked well everywhere else (and so far, he'd not really been proven wrong by ordinary life). It was that respect what had made such a good team of him and Heero, long after the Eve Wars were over –but that was not what Trowa was thinking about when, picking a room at random, he found it ready as though someone had known he'd pick precisely that one.

He opted not to check the other rooms to see whether they all looked as inviting as his, and went downstairs to Heero, following the gratifying trail of the scent of coffee.

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The ample room reserved for breakfast, when there were customers, was now empty and basking in the last warmth of the afternoon sun- a reddish light that meekly percolated through the pine trees outside the window.

The scent of the seasoned wood that made the walls interwove with the gentle scent of hazelnut, and Heero's coffee- which was as good as Trowa remembered it from their sleepless nights sifting through paperwork and case files in Preventers' HQs. They sipped it in companionable silence, knowing that neither of them was using it as a shield to strategize (like they would've done years ago), but, rather, that it was a sign that they were at ease in each other's company although it'd been… how long had it been? Maybe five, or six years, since they had last seen each other.

Trowa smiled into his coffee, enjoying the songbirds hidden in the foliage outside- And so many things must have changed, right?

The friendly silence lasted until soft padding came from the stairs, where the wooden steps hid no noise, with a soft rhythm.

'I thought we were alone,' Trowa commented, mildly curious.

'We are,' replied Heero, his mysteriousness bordering on teasing.

'He's here, already? Heero!,' the voice from the stairs complained, 'You should've told me! Geez, I fell so asleep, how embarrassing!'

Heero's lips combed into a little smile-smirk.

When Trowa's mind processed the voice and recognized it as belonging to someone he knew, Relena had already skipped into view, and was happily embracing him as if he were a long lost friend. Taken aback, his immediate reaction did not entail hugging her back, but smiling awkwardly and whispering how he was always glad to see her well.

She was in her slippers, wearing a thick, oversized pullover over her nightgown that reached right above her knees.

As if she lived here, Trowa's mind idly noted.

Relena expertly looked around, and immediately took notice of their coffee cups.

'Heero, really? After running this place all this time, a friend comes over, and you can't be a better host than only coffee? Geez. Where would you be, without me!' she mock-complained, placing a comfortable hand on Heero's shoulder, and then rushed away somewhere (to the kitchen, presumably), while Heero shook his head with a small smile and muttered,

'Where indeed…'

It was then that, with Relena out of sight and hearing distance, Trowa blinked, face blank, and whispered, confidentially, 'What is she doing here?'

Surprisingly, Heero laughed, albeit quietly. Trowa felt that maybe his friend was having a picnic with his evident puzzlement. He let him: after all, if he could make sense out of it all, maybe he'd find it funny as well. Probably.

'She's staying until the ski season begins,' Heero said, 'We got married a couple of months ago, but she's got work to do, so that's our deal.'

'You're married,' Trowa deadpanned, and that didn't really happen often.

Unfazed, Heero smiled.

'And you are running a ski resort.'

Heero's smile was starting to show traces of amusement.

'I thought…' for once, he trailed off. What had he thought? All that he had heard so far pointed to Heero being in charge of the inn, but he'd let it off with the belief that there was a logical explanation to all that. Undercover activity, perhaps? But, no. Judging by Heero's chill behavior, the logical explanation seemed to be that he was indeed running an inn.

Very well.

Relena waltzed into the room with a trail filled with pastries and tiny sandwiches, berries and cheese (they were, after all, in Switzerland!). She arranged everything artfully before them, and, grabbing a cup of coffee herself, masterfully wove the two former pilots' stunted, loopholed exchange of information into a decent, fluid conversation.

'I was so glad when Heero told me you'd come visit,' she told him, with a warmth in her words that did not match how little they'd been actually acquainted, 'You're our first personal guest. Ever!'

'I can't say I'm surprised,' Trowa said, smiling slightly.

Heero shrugged. 'You're probably the one ex-pilot I wouldn't mind having around for more than two hours,' he conceded.

Relena, politely, said nothing, but Trowa laughed in his usual, quiet manner.

'True that,' he said.

'But I do hope we invite all our former friends here, some day,' said Relena, hopefully, 'There's plenty of room…'

There was silence, of a contemplative variety, that is, Heero and Trowa picturing their former acquaintances all together, in the same house… Before the picture could take shape, though, and before they had time to shudder, Relena sensed where their minds were taking them and said,

'I'd say we owed it to them –they'll know of us sooner or later, and it'd be the right thing…'

'Indeed, you invite them. Give me the precise date so Trowa and I can go into hiding, though.'

Trowa laughed again, and Relena, seeing through Heero's seriousness, play-slapped his shoulder at the mock-indignant cry of 'Heero!'.

Heero chuckled, and Trowa was glad at the changes in his friend. Life seemed to have rightened its wrongs with him.

It was not in Trowa's nature to ask more questions than he needed to form a general picture of situations, but here he discovered that he wanted to know more about the whole affair. He tried to be tactful.

'So, no one knows you're married?'

'No,' said Heero.

'Yes,' said Relena.

'Yes…?' Heero asked, arching an eyebrow.

She chortled, good-naturedly: 'Noin might know…'

Heero looked at her. 'Of all people…?'

'Oh, come,' she said, amiably, 'They're in Mars. So what it my brother finds out? It's not like he can suddenly show up in our doorstep. Besides, he likes you.'

'He does?' asked Trowa, quizzically.

'He'll never admit it to Heero,' said Relena, as a confirmation.

'Sounds logical,' said Trowa, with a shrug, and she laughed.

'You know,' Relena said, in a confidential manner, reaching out to scoop up some blueberries from the table, and popping one into her mouth in an unvoluntarily ladylike fashion, 'I was playing a secret betting game with myself, about which of you guys would wind up here first. Honestly, I thought it'd be Duo. It seems I lost against myself!' she said, mirthfully, and laughed.

'How can you know he didn't?' Heero said, mischievously, 'If he had, he'd have been so soon on his way back, you wouldn't have even noticed him.'

'Aw, Heero,' she said, drawling his name, 'You say that, but you don't really mean it.'

Heero arched his brow, playfully, 'How can you know that?'

But Trowa knew, too- he didn't mean it.

Although he'd not have thought he'd live to see Heero bicker with anyone, and curious though it made him, he politely focused his attention elsewhere. At first it was on the patterns on the wooden ceiling, then on the lifelike-looking wood-carvings of animal heads, hung deceptively to appear like hunting prizes.

However, he inevitably eventually ended up noticing that Heero wore a ring, but Relena didn't. Instead, he discovered later, she wore it in a chain around her neck.

He was aware of his keen observation powers, and so, before he noticed other things that led him to find out or assume stuff, he respectfully cleared his throat. Relena laughed mildly at this- she seemed to be at complete ease with him, although they were hardly more than strangers.

Trowa smiled. And Heero, he just looked at him in the eye and declared:

'In any case, I'm glad it's you here and not Duo.'

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It was night, after dinner.

Relena had excused herself, saying there was a video-call she could not fail to make.

Heero knelt before a large stone hearth, gathering everything to light a fire. He cut a noble figure, and his air and the dim light made it appear like a movie-scene from somewhen in the Middle Ages: the lord, the stone wall, minus the dogs and plus Trowa, who sat comfortably on an armchair in his socks alone (taking off his boots had made Heero raise a diverted eyebrow), and who was too much of the present times to be mistaken for a lord himself.

Maybe if he did away with the hair…

Heero's quiet voice did not disrupt the peaceable atmosphere.

'What are you thinking?', he asked.

Trowa smiled a little.

'What was the first language you learnt? Do you still remember it?'

It was not that he intended things to reach personal levels with Heero, but they just did. Probably because they were too much alike.

Maybe because Heero had no prejudgements at all.

'It was long ago, but it must have been the common tongue. It's what my mother must have spoken in the Colonies.'

Or because his answers were always honest.

'And you?'

'I thought I didn't. But I'm wondering now, if I maybe do…'

Heero looked over his shoulder, and for a brief seconds, his striking blue eyes met Trowa's, and told him he understood that what he would say next would be meaningful. So he'd better say it.

'I wound up in Romania, after I set out. I understood some, from within. I can't explain. But I got a feeling… like nostalgia.'

'If you think it is, then it must be,' he said, dusting his hands, and standing away to check how well the fire took. It took nicely, so Heero grabbed his neglected cup of tea, and sat on the armchair opposing Trowa, more formally but not less comfortably.

'Is that why you're travelling?'

Trowa sighed, and looked up, as if searching for an answer. He'd known that, sooner or later, someone would ask him that question. He was thankful that it had been Heero, because he supposed that no one in the world could empathize with him, and, thus, read him, better.

'I don't know,' he said, closing his eyes. 'It may be is. I told myself I would stop running away, though this is hardly consistent with that.'

Heero looked at him. He looked at him for a long while, as though, by looking at Trowa, he were looking at himself.

'We each have a personal way of grieving,' he said, at length, 'Some make the mistake of thinking they're supposed to do it immediately and go on with life. But they're wrong. We, humans, are frail, and healing takes time.'

'Healing?' Trowa asked.

'Yes,' Heero said, quietly, 'Our hearts take the blows the hardest, and heal the slowest.'

Trowa's gaze became lost in the dancing of the tame flames in the hearth. He felt warm inside and tongue-tied.

'But we heal,' he whispered. His voice sounded soft –it always did.

A moment passed in which Heero just looked into the fire too, probably lost in a memory of a kind both greatly alike and unlike the memories Trowa had. And then he said, gently,

'Yes. We heal.'

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Author's Note:

Nothing Heero says is not the voice of my Inner Wise Man, who has learnt all he knows from the experiences I've had throughout my life -the good, and the bad.

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I'm one grade away from graduating, and the teacher decided to torture us. Oh my, why won't it just end. I hate university. Anyway. That's the reason why my updates are so erratic lately.

I'd love to read you, as always :)