"You don't have to do this," Mariemaia states. Heero gives her a brief, cursory glance, and then returns his attention to rolling out the yoga mat. Mariemaia heaves a sigh and nudges her own mat so it unrolls on the floor. She takes a seat and looks over at Heero.

Heero had waylaid her almost as soon as she had entered the Preventers building, firmly herding her downstairs to change before marching her over to the studio. Nevertheless, he looks like he would rather be anywhere but in the small studio room with her. Then again, Mariemaia reasons, he tends to have that expression a lot.

"Really," Mariemaia insists. She holds out her hands, palms up. "I probably won't be able to do a lot of the poses."

"You'll be fine," Heero states. Mariemaia isn't sure if it's his words or his tone, but she feels a sudden stab of apprehension. "You'll be working on other things."

The "other things" turn out to be a ridiculous amount of core and leg exercises. She loses count of how many sit-ups, leg lunges, warrior poses, tree poses, leg raises, flutter kicks, dolphin kicks, and lying on her stomach and alternating leg and arm raises she does. There's also some kind of arm-rotating, leg-bending manoeuver that almost makes her fall over. When Heero finally calls time after an hour and a half, Mariemaia collapses onto the yoga mat, panting hard and feeling her tank top stick to her skin. She doesn't think she'll move again.

"Too much?" Heero questions, crouching next to her.

"I preferred the shooting," she mumbles. Her legs are on fire and she can feel the throb from the back of her right knee all the way to her thoracic vertebrae. Her stomach feels ready to heave. She sees him raise an eyebrow and she sighs loudly. "I hate you."

Unsurprisingly, he ignores her. "Since you decided to injure yourself, this will be your new training routine," he states.

"Fantastic."

Heero shifts slightly, balancing on the balls of his feet, and studies her. Mariemaia frowns back at him through sweaty strands of hair. She isn't sure what she's waiting for or what he's looking for. He looks away first and she feels a brief sense of victory. It doesn't last long.

"You'll be training on your own from now on."

"Why?" She pushes herself up into a sitting position, brushes her sweaty hair out of her face. Heero raises an eyebrow at her, leans back on his heels. "Are you being sent undercover too?"

Heero snorts and pushes himself to his feet. "I don't have the patience for undercover work."

Mariemaia tilts her head, watching as he rolls up the practice mat. "Really?" she asks. "It seems a useful skill for a terrorist to have."

He flashes her a scowl and purposefully bumps the side of her head with the yoga mat as he walks past her. She heaves a sigh and rolls up her own yoga mat, setting it against the wall. Heero is pulling on his shoes and Mariemaia bounces lightly on the balls of her feet.

"Does this have to do with…Trowa's work?"

Heero pauses in tying the laces of his sneakers, glances over at her. Mariemaia shifts and digs her bare toes into the worn wooden floorboards. "No," he says. "Relena's going on a diplomatic trip and I'm working her security."

"Oh." She sits down, grabbing her own shoes. The throb in her leg has eased somewhat, but it still thrums as she stretches to pull her shoes on. "Is this about the trade issues?"

"Mariemaia."

"I'm just asking," she protests, shrugging. "No one tells me anything." She leans back against the wall. "How long'll you be gone?"

"A few weeks." He glances at her hands again. "If they heal, you can always have Wufei fire the starting pistol."

Mariemaia frowns at him. "I'm not sure he'd agree to that." Her frown deepens. "Or that he wouldn't use real bullets."

Heero shrugs, pushing to his feet again. He offers her a hand. Mariemaia stares at it for a moment before taking it and being pulled effortlessly to her feet. "You'll be okay."

Mariemaia glances at him quickly, startled by the intent look on his face. "I know that."

He nods, releasing her. Before she can say anything further he's picked up the yoga mats and disappeared out the door. Mariemaia adjusts her ponytail before heading to the locker room to change.

. . ... . .

"You're hovering."

Mariemaia jumps in surprise at her guardian's voice. Lady Une hasn't moved from where she's stretched out on her bed, hunched over the laptop in her lap, and blue light reflecting off her eyeglasses. Not even to look over to where Mariemaia's been peering through the slightly ajar door for the past few minutes. She hasn't been hovering. She's just been waiting for a pause to interrupt.

She pushes the door open and steps into Lady Une's bedroom. Lady Une glances up at her, eyebrows raised curiously. "What is it?"

"Tomorrow's the pizza thing."

"I remember," she replies. "I've already told Henri you'll call when you're ready to be picked up."

Mariemaia's eyebrows pull together in confusion. "I'm going by myself?"

"I didn't think you wanted guards." Mariemaia frowns and Lady Une sighs, setting the laptop on the side table next to her. "Henri will drop you off and pick you up after."

"Alright." She still hesitates, shifts her weight from one foot to the other and tugs at the hem of her T-shirt. Lady Une watches her calmly, her expression betraying nothing of her actual thoughts. "I'm sorry. About…yesterday."

Lady Une sighs again, removes her glasses and sets them neatly on top of the laptop. "Come here." Mariemaia crosses the room, takes a seat next to her guardian on the bed. "You never had guards, Mariemaia. At least, not in the way you were thinking."

Mariemaia pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them. Absently, she chews on her bottom lip.

"After the rebellion, there was a lot of unrest and suspicion. I needed to make sure you were kept safe. You were…vulnerable in those days."

"You needed me for information," Mariemaia counters. She picks at a loose thread on Lady Une's quilt. "Don't deny that was part of it."

"It was," Lady Une admits. "You were a witness to Dekim Barton's entire operation. But you were never meant to be restricted, just…protected." Lady Une leans back against the headboard and Mariemaia can't help but note how young her guardian looks with her hair down and the make-up scrubbed from her face. "You'd gone through so much; I just wanted to keep you safe."

Mariemaia winds the thread around her fingertip, tugging lightly at it. "The other kids already talk, having an armed escort just makes it worse." She frowns at the thread, tugs more insistently. "They suspect that I'm going to start another rebellion. That I can't be trusted on my own." She sighs, releasing the thread and wrapping her arms around her bent legs instead. "Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if my mother never died."

Lady Une is quiet for several minutes. Mariemaia occupies herself by staring at the print of African plains on the wall across the room. When she was younger, she would stare at it for hours trying to find the animals hidden in it, convinced that if she looked long and hard enough she would be able to spot a lioness or cheetah in the tall grass, stalking the giraffes in the distance.

"Heero Yuy said that Miss Relena is going on a diplomatic trip, but wouldn't say where. Is it the trade thing?" she asks, changing the subject.

"Yes, she's smoothing things over with Yergin." Mariemaia jumps when Lady Une's hand rests lightly on her shoulder. "I never knew your mother," she says. Mariemaia stares hard at the print, ignoring the hand rubbing soothing circles over her back. "But, I imagine she would be proud of you." The hand pauses briefly before resuming the circular motion. "Both of your parents would be proud. You've shown a tremendous amount of maturity and resilience over the last few years."

Mariemaia nods silently. She stares fixedly at the print until her vision begins to blur. "I guess." She blinks away the blurriness, unfolds herself, and stands. "Good night."

"Have fun tomorrow."

Mariemaia nods again, slipping out of her guardian's bedroom. She pulls the door slightly closed behind her once more, before pausing to peer through the opening. Lady Une has replaced her eyeglasses on her face and retrieved the laptop from the end table. She can hear the grandfather clock downstairs chime the hour. Lady Une doesn't comment again and Mariemaia wanders down the hall to her own room.

She falls into bed, pulling the covers up around her, and stares at the light from outside her window glinting off her mirror. She can just make out the squares of the photos stuck there. Uncle Trowa. Her mother. The photo of her father and Dorothy. She tries to tell herself that Lady Une is right, that her parents would be proud of her. She wishes she had known them well-enough to know for sure though.