| 7 February, A.C. 201 |
Relena breathed a sigh of relief upon reading the morning headlines at her desk, though her cheeks reddened in irritation at the specific wording of them.
The "Queen of the World" Makes a Comeback!
Relena Peacecraft Makes Peace with Casper Strickland
Vice Foreign Minister Impresses During Intimidating Second Interview
She frowned as she swiped the headlines away, the black surface of the table clear once more.
Will they ever stop calling me "Queen Relena"?
Even while this niggling annoyance remained, she felt, for the most part, content. After all, she had gone back on Casper Strickland's news program and successfully fended off his many "gotcha" questions regarding the rumours of restarted mobile dolls with a far defter diplomatic hand than she'd employed the last time around. The news coverage reflected that, even if the manner in which it characterised her "triumph" was a little too theatrical for her tastes.
What had surprised her more than her own confident "comeback," though, had been the sudden outpouring of public support for the Mars project—her fierce and unflinching defence of it on the widely-watched news show had the unexpected effect of boosting interest in it and increasing recruitment levels overnight where before there had been a dearth of applicants.
She'd even had the rare call from Milliardo and Lucrezia from their station near Mars, and both had beamed (or, in her brother's case, looked mildly pleased) at her like proud parents.
Added to this welcome surprise was a surge of support for the Preventers in the ESUN parliament as a result of the successful raid carried out in Bangkok by Lieutenant Po's team on the ground in January. The capture of key leaders of one of the biggest illegal arms and narcotics rings in Southeast Asia gave the organisation a serious boost of credibility, and with this came an increase in the funding that it had so desperately needed.
Of course, the bust-up of the crime ring didn't come without its own set of rumours to quash: namely, that the leaders had been taken down in a one-night raid by a single agent while they slept.
She frowned as she recalled hearing the details of the attack from Sally, who—although denying the rumours—had nonetheless been hesitant enough in their private conversation to lead Relena to believe that, indeed, what she suspected was the truth.
Heero, you idiot.
The thought of him charging into enemy territory without back-up was both terrifying and infuriating, even a month later. The fact that he was due to return to Brussels to give a full report detailing the specifics of the events any day now only made her temper grow worse; furthermore, it had been so long since she had seen him, and since he'd contacted her in any way, that the bitterness that had been roiling within her since his departure had only grown with time.
She pulled up her agenda for the day on the tabletop to distract herself from getting any angrier than she already was, focusing instead on the immediate business to be addressed.
Space Technology Committee hearing at 1000 . . . Mars Commission meeting at 1200 . . . Afternoon tea with the Foreign Minister at 1400 . . . Dinner with Mother at 1900 . . .
Relena scanned the appointments with a sigh, resting her chin on her palm.
At least when he was here, I had an excuse to get away.
Ever since Heero had left, she'd been starting to forget what it was like to have "free time," or what that phrase even meant anymore. When she wasn't running between meetings, speaking at public events, and overseeing committee hearings, she was reading materials for the next day's meetings, or sleeping—and she hadn't even been able to do much of the latter given recent circumstances.
She seemed to realise only with his second departure how precious their little liaisons—and their longer days away together—had been to her during those stressful times when she had no one else to rely on or talk with about her worries and fears.
She supposed that his sudden decision to leave again—regardless of how "necessary" his presence was to the success of the Bangkok mission—and his resulting absence from her life only served to disillusion her further when her thoughts drifted to him during those long, tiring days at ESUN.
She found herself alternately wishing that he would return immediately, or never again; with Heero, there was always a lack of closure about their "future" together, or even just the most basic aspects of their "relationship," and that had given her pause whenever she felt as though she was starting to miss him.
Relena shook off her brooding thoughts to browse materials prepared for her in advance of the morning's committee hearing, though little of it was unfamiliar to her, since she'd gone over them the night previous. Admiring the detail of the notes, she marvelled at her diligent, hard-working staff; since she hardly had the time to do the background research herself on the plethora of issues addressed by ESUN every day, she had to rely on them to develop her own expertise.
Just as she smiled at the thought of her team, the red incoming video call light blinked with Matilda's name next to it. Relena's eyes warmed at the sight, and she happily answered the call.
"Oh, Matilda! I was just thinking about you."
Her secretary answered in a flattered—and yet somewhat nervous—tone.
"Um, well, thank you, Minister Darlian. I, well—how to put this . . ."
Relena's eyebrow rose at Matilda's tentative expression, unused to the woman looking so unsure of herself.
"What is it, Matilda?" she asked concernedly.
The other woman seemed to be looking off to the side anxiously at something.
"Well, there's a visitor here to see you—hey! Wait, sir! You can't just go i—"
The call ended abruptly as the door to Relena's private office suddenly opened, making her jump back in her seat. Her eyes widened a little as the door shut again behind the unexpected visitor; after a moment, however, her gaze hardened.
She called Matilda from her desk, her eyes never straying from the person in front of her.
"Oh, Minister Darlian! Is everything all right? I tried to tell Agent Yuy that he couldn't just barge in like that, but—"
"It's fine, Matilda," Relena cut in, her tone even. "There's no need to worry yourself over it." She paused, and her eyes turned somewhat icy. "Would you be so kind as to deactivate the surveillance and transparency for a few minutes?"
Matilda sounded surprised, but complied. "Of—of course, Minister Darlian."
Relena ended the call with a gentle touch to the table, and her back stiffened as she stared ahead.
"You're here to give me a summary of your activities in Manila, I presume?"
Heero stared back at her in silence, though his gaze was far softer than hers. He walked a few paces closer to her desk until he stood in front of it, placing a thumbnail drive on top.
"You'll find the full report on this," he told her, unflinching at the cold blue stare that greeted his dark eyes. "Of course," he continued after a moment, "I would be willing to supply you with any further details if the information in the report does not suffice."
Her eyes sharply pierced through his. "Was it necessary to deliver this in person, Agent Yuy?" she asked him pointedly. "Surely you could have sent it through a courier from the agency?"
Heero didn't blink, though it took more effort than usual to keep his voice steady.
She's as angry as I thought she would be.
"I felt that the confidentiality of the information enclosed had the potential to be compromised if I didn't deliver it to you myself."
Relena's cheeks pinked in ire—it was the first real display of emotion she'd shown since his arrival, he noted—though it wasn't exactly the feeling that he had hoped to inspire with his visit.
Nonetheless, she calmly slid the drive over to her end of the table before placing it inside one of the several lock-secured drawers of her desk. Her gaze flitted back to greet his afterwards, and her fingers tensely interlocked atop the table.
"Do you have any further business here, Agent Yuy?"
A flash of disappointment danced across his eyes.
Don't say that, Relena.
He stood firmly in place.
"I do."
The resoluteness with which he spoke those few words seemed to affect her, though she could hardly admit as much to him in that moment; her face nevertheless turned red in response, and she looked away.
He held back a small smile at seeing this expression—it was far more familiar to him than any other she had worn thus far.
She swallowed uncomfortably, turning back to him after a moment with a sharp glare.
"Well, then?"
Heero paused at her tone, unsure as to how he should proceed; however, perceiving that her eyes wavered slightly at his hesitation, he began to walk around the desk to come to her side.
"Stop there," she said forcefully, halting him just a few paces short of her.
He complied with her request, but he continued to stare down at her seated form with his steady, solid eyes.
She looked back up at him cautiously, unsure of what his next move would be.
I just want you to look at me, Relena.
They were locked in this tense stand-off for what seemed an eternity; then, suddenly, Heero bent down until he was directly across from her, their faces meeting at eye-level.
The shock that this movement gave Relena was not to be understated—indeed, she even reclined backward reflexively when he did so, her face heating at the sight. When their eyes met again, as equals, she looked overwhelmed by the horrible flood of mixed emotions that she must have been suppressing up until that moment.
"Stand up, Heero," she said suddenly, her face too hot to meet his. "There's no need for this."
His look became gentler—and even a little regretful—as he regarded the confusion that passed over her expression, though he acquiesced.
"I was wrong, Relena."
She stared at him in wide-eyed and tense surprise.
He swallowed, and his lips twitched before he spoke again.
"I—I'm sorry."
Those words triggered a memory—a memory from not so long ago that suddenly burned in her mind.
"Relena . . . do you remember the day I left for Manila? You asked me to promise to come back. At the time, I couldn't promise you that, because . . . because I didn't know what I wanted."
"And now?"
"I want you."
It made her feel ill to even recollect such a thing, that time feeling so remote from what was happening in the present. Nonetheless, it seemed to infect her spirit, instilling her with a kind of righteous indignation towards him that she didn't know she could express aloud.
"That's not good enough, Heero."
His surprise was obvious, though, she thought, it shouldn't have been—after all, hadn't she put up with enough from him over the years?
Wasn't it clear, even to Heero Yuy, that human beings could only tolerate so much?
Her stare conveyed these rhetorical questions and more even while silence settled over the pair again, Heero evidently having understood her meaning.
Thinking on her words, he spoke again after a little while.
"I know."
She held back a twitch of disbelief from showing on her face, though her lips frowned.
"If you know, then you shouldn't apologize just for propriety's sake," she chastised him, her heart tightening in her chest. "You should only say what you mean."
He looked at her more determinedly than before. "But I do mean it," he responded, and his tone was such that Relena—though she didn't want to admit it—knew that he was telling the truth.
Her frown deepened as a consequence of this realisation.
"And so what?" she countered, anger bubbling up in her throat. "What difference does it make if you're sorry? If you 'know you were wrong'?" Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. "That doesn't change what you did—and what you haven't done—all these years."
He looked down, clearly chastened.
"I know," he quietly said again.
She suddenly stood from her seat, staring authoritatively up at him.
"No, Heero, you don't know—and that's the point," she snapped at him, her light eyes burning with a rare fire. "You don't know what it's like for the people you leave behind when you go running off on suicidal missions in the far corners of the world; you don't know what it's like to not hear from the person you love for days, weeks, months—even years, wondering all the while if that person is alive or dead; you don't know what it's like to try and slog through each day's struggles when the only person you've ever really trusted abandons you time and time again."
She was nearly breathless by the end of her speech as she sat down again in her chair, resting her heated forehead in her hand. As she briefly closed her eyes to cool down a little, she felt Heero's fingers suddenly rest on that hand, and it jolted her head up to meet his stare.
To her surprise, he looked somewhat hurt by her words as his brow furrowed, and he retracted his hand from hers.
"It wasn't easy for me, either," he said softly.
She covered up her small blush at his words with a well-worn frown.
"It was easy enough for you to leave, twice," she reminded him in a steely tone.
He frowned at the accusation. "Neither time was a simple choice," he replied defensively.
"But you always left in the end," Relena cut in, glowering.
Heero's tone tempered a little at this remark. "I did," he acknowledged, "but I now recognize that I did so for the wrong reasons."
Relena couldn't contain the pink colour that overcame her cheeks at this unexpectedly candid comment, though she pressed him further.
"And what were those?"
He hesitated to answer, at first; and in his hesitation, he detected her immediate doubt at his sincerity.
She never used to doubt me like this.
He couldn't bear to see it in her eyes, even for that instant—but he knew, all the same, that he had brought it on himself with his years of indecision.
I have to say it.
His eyes, usually full of mystery and silence, spoke volumes then.
I have to tell her.
"I didn't want to be tied to you like this," he said slowly, and the words felt foreign to him even as they left his lips. "And I was angry that I could feel something for you—something beyond what was required of me." He paused, and looked at her with a tight, honest stare. "But I also knew I wasn't worthy of your affections."
His fingers curled into fists at his side, and his next words had a bitter edge to them.
"I convinced myself of that, anyway."
She sat watching him, spellbound—he had probably said more in those few minutes than she would have ever remembered him saying in their years together, he guessed.
Granted, he still spoke in a restrained manner, but even given the natural limitations on his ability to convey what he felt, she looked stunned.
In her silence, he felt compelled to continue, though he hardly even knew what he was saying.
"I wanted to forget you," he admitted more softly. "I wanted to forget . . . all of this."
Her eyes relaxed, if only a little, at this, and Heero held her gaze gently.
"But I couldn't, Relena."
His voice wavered at the end, and it made Relena's heart thump wildly in her chest.
But I couldn't, Relena.
She suddenly recalled previous occasions on which she had allowed herself to indulge in speculation over what Heero's reasons might have been for leaving, and how she had conjured up some of the exact ones he was now voicing—his anger and fear, mostly—but she had hardly thought on them at all before her brain had quashed them mercilessly in the past, reminding her that Heero Yuy was not a man who could be controlled by such petty, human emotions.
He was, after all, a man always in search of a mission—forming romantic attachments wasn't exactly part of his "grand plan," so to speak.
But did he ever really have a "plan"?
To hear him say aloud what she had only imagined to be true was—needless to say—quite a shock, though at the same time somewhat of a relief. If he really meant what he said about having the "wrong reasons" for leaving, didn't that imply—in spite of everything—that he would . . .
Relena stared at him intensely, though much of her fury had dissipated.
Are you staying this time, Heero?
The question burned on her tongue, and she felt it begin to form on her lips—but just as the first sound formed in her throat, a red light flashing in her peripheral vision distracted her.
Instinctively, she answered the call.
Matilda's face appeared onscreen. "Is everything all right, Minister Darlian?"
Relena reddened.
I forgot about the world outside of this room.
"Yes, thank you for checking up on me, Matilda," she answered quickly, though her voice sounded more distracted than usual.
Her secretary raised an eyebrow. "Would you like me to reactivate the security system?"
The minister tried to keep herself from rejecting the offer too quickly. "No—thank you," she replied, swallowing in-between words. "But I'll let you know when that is possible."
Matilda nodded. "Of course. Oh—and Minister? Should I cancel your morning appointments?"
Relena was slightly amazed at how perceptive Matilda was, but merely nodded.
"Very well then. Goodbye, Minister Darlian," she answered shortly, and ended the call.
Relena couldn't form her own parting words in time, nor could she bring herself to look back up at him, still standing a little ways apart from her. She suddenly wished she could tear off her formal, ruffled white pantsuit, the costume making her feel exceedingly overheated in the small space.
She compromised with herself by unbuttoning the stuffy collar down to just a couple inches above her breasts, swearing to herself all the while that she wasn't doing it to get his attention.
Nevertheless, Heero—who seemed to have recovered somewhat from his lengthy confession—watched her actions with interest and bemusement. She caught his look after her fingers left the buttons of her shirt, and it only made her feel hotter.
Relena stood from the chair and met Heero face-to-face again, trying to keep her expression coolly professional in spite of the increasingly strange sensation growing at the pit of her stomach.
"I appreciate your honesty with me on this matter," she said matter-of-factly, though a small quaver was audible in her tone. "But I don't see the point in it, unless—unless you're willing to do things differently."
He was steadfast.
"I am."
Relena's cheeks flushed again as she attempted to maintain her composure.
"And? Why should I believe you?"
Heero drew closer to her, but Relena didn't step back like before. His hand reached up to touch her face—but then, she stopped him midway again, holding his wrist gently in the air.
To her surprise, he let his hand dangle in her grip, and he spoke.
"Do you remember the first time I returned from Manila?"
She glanced away, red-faced; it seemed to Heero that she was recalling the event from the frown that grew on her lips, but he continued, ignoring her reticence on the topic.
"I told you then that I had returned because I—because I wanted you."
The words caused a shiver to run down Relena's spine, and Heero, sensing this, grasped the hand that held his in a soft embrace, lowering both to the side.
Still, she would not meet his eyes, and Heero went on.
"You said that I don't know what it's like to live without the person I trusted most."
Relena looked a little guilty for her harsh words in retrospect, and his repeating them caused her to look up at him again.
He paused. "I've always gone into my missions expecting to die or be killed," he told her bluntly, and the jolt of her hand in his was evidence of her discomfort with the subject. "I assumed it would be the same when I was in Phnom Penh, but . . ."
Heero trailed off for a moment, remembering something Wufei had derisively snarled at him during their first tour of duty in Manila.
You can make excuses for yourself all you like, Yuy, but . . . it's that woman, isn't it?
It felt strange now to admit that his fellow agent had been correct in that assessment, harsh and overly judgmental as it had seemed at the time; and he realized, as he spoke again, that he had never related the story to Relena.
"Wufei saw it when I was there," he said, taking her off-guard. "He saw how distracted I was, and he told me as much." He held back a frown at the memory. "But I never acknowledged that. I couldn't, because if I did—"
His eyes snapped up to meet hers suddenly, and she jumped a little in his grasp.
"If I did, I knew it would weaken me." His brow furrowed. "I knew it would make me lose my resolve."
She stayed quiet throughout his speech, and he felt the pulse of her wrist slow as she listened to him. Its steadier rhythm relaxed him enough to finish his piece, if haltingly.
"But then, after the raid of the rebel base camp in Bangkok, when I returned to Phnom Penh, I—I saw you."
Her eyebrows furrowed. "Me?"
He clarified: "Your interview."
She rouged at the reminder of the unpleasant experience, and looked embarrassed that even he should have seen her utterly fall on her face on worldwide and colonial television.
"Ah, yes, that," she mumbled under her breath. Glaring at him a little, she added: "I'm sure you must have felt quite satisfied seeing yourself proven right, in the end." She frowned, mostly to herself. "Now you'll tell me that I should have listened to your advice, I suppose?"
Seeing her latent anger, he frowned. "No, Relena," he told her firmly. "Rather, I wanted to say that—when I saw you in that way—I was forced to re-evaluate my actions towards you."
A little colour crept into his cheeks at the recollection, and his voice grew quieter.
"I realized that I had caused you pain, and that you probably would not forgive me; and yet, at the same time, I—"
It was clear from his expression that he didn't know how to put the words together; Relena found it a little endearing, even if she was desperate to hear him say them.
"I still wanted to come back."
Finally, he let go of her hand—only to then touch her left cheek with calloused but light fingers. She covered them with her own after a moment, though she refrained from smiling at his touch.
He drew closer again until they were mere inches apart.
"I won't betray your trust again."
Relena's breath caught in her throat at that sentence; it sounded to her like a promise—a promise of loyalty, of trust, and yes, perhaps even of great affection—and such a promise was one that she had been waiting to hear from him.
Still, however, it left a lot to be desired; she wanted desperately to hear from his lips that he not only wanted her, but that he needed her, and—of course—that he loved her, too.
Don't I deserve to hear those things, after all this time?
Even while recognizing how significant it was for him to say what he had said, and how difficult it must have been for him to say them (being a man of so few words, she wondered how many times he must have practiced those few sentences in his head over and over again), she couldn't help but feel disappointed, and it showed on her face.
"Relena?"
Her lips trembled a little upon hearing his voice—a little older, deeper, and more thoughtful with the passage of time—say her name in the same way it always had.
Nevertheless, her fingers again drew themselves away from his, and her eyes shined with grit.
"Why now?" she asked, her lip pulsing. "Why do you only say this now?"
When he moved to answer, she put a hand up to silence him; suddenly, she didn't want to hear yet more explanations, more excuses, for his behaviour, and she looked away, hiding her face should she lose control of her emotions in front of him.
"Don't say anything unless you mean it, Heero, unless you really mean it," she stated again, though this time her voice was badly shaken. "I want to believe you, but . . . how can I, after so long—"
"Because I love you."
Her eyes, now full of unconcealed tears, stared at him in a startled way.
Wh—what?
He took her hand in his again, and drew closer still.
"I love you, Relena," he repeated firmly. "I know that now."
Her tears flowed freely once the initial shock of his words had passed, though she hardly had the mind to object when he nearly closed the distance between them, his lips hovering just near hers.
Her eyes remained as wide as ever as she took in his dark but utterly genuine expression, and she spoke without thinking.
"You'll . . . you'll stay here, then? With me?"
He nodded, and his cheeks finally rouged deeply as he pressed her hand in his.
"I won't leave your side, unless—unless you want me to."
His words made her deliriously happy, if only for a moment; in the next, she grasped hold of the lapels of his jacket, and buried her face into his chest.
"You love me," she whispered into his shirt as his hand came to rest on the small of her back, and she laughed suddenly, the sound an odd mixture of bliss and heartbreak. "You love me, Heero."
She felt his chest grow hotter from her closeness, though he didn't draw back from the cascade of tears that drenched the front of his shirt.
"Hn," he answered just as quietly, and his arms warmly embraced her.
They stayed that way for a long time, standing in the middle of her office; and subconsciously both were thankful for the lack of further interruptions by Matilda or any of the other office staff, though they hardly spared their surroundings much of a thought as they held each other.
Finally, Relena looked up at Heero, her tears dried on her cheeks.
"Things have to be different this time, Heero."
Relena grasped his arms firmly enough for him to take notice, and added with sudden gentleness:
"Maybe it's selfish of me to ask this of you—and maybe I don't even care if it is selfish, but . . ."
Her grip relaxed as she stared at him, and her eyes were persuasively straightforward.
"I love you—and I need you." A familiar heat pulsated from her fingers through the fabric of his jacket as she leaned in, her voice quieting. "So don't make me wait forever," she murmured, "because I can't bear it."
His body relaxed under her touch, and he paused before he spoke.
"I've transferred back to Brussels—permanently."
She looked surprised. "Permanently?"
Heero nodded. "I haven't been assigned a specific role yet, but most likely, I'll be back in the recruitment office. And, should the need arise to travel," he added at the end, staring at her meaningfully, "I won't be making the decision alone."
His arms tensed around her, their gazes locked, and his tone calmed once more.
"I will do everything I can to regain your trust."
Relena withdrew a little, but remained just within his grasp. A furtive smile tugged at her pink lips, and she pressed her soft hand to his cheek.
"I know you will."