Author's Note: This might be the last chapter for awhile, but please don't give up on the story! The last four chapters of book 1 are written, they just need to be edited. Thank you all so much for your reviews! It's been such a delight sharing stories with you again!

Chapter Eleven

Control

Sally rolled over on the bed, her mind still mostly asleep, but awake enough to feel Wufei shift and stretch out his arm towards her. It was an open invitation for her to snuggle close to him, and Sally just about always took him up on the offer. She released a contented breath as she settled her face against his warm chest and felt his arm curl around her shoulders, holding her close.

Wufei was such a different man now than when she'd first met him. She'd read reports on his missions; she hadn't known at the time that they were his, however. Sally had been working briefly with a doctor who was focusing on a rather shocking trend among some of the soldiers working the more difficult missions.

Some men appeared to be cracking under the stress of their training. The word berserk had been used to describe more than one incident where a soldier had lost control and killed more than just his target objective. Sally shivered a little at remembering some of the reports she'd read, thinking of the vast amount of casualties.

Wufei's hand lightly shifted across her arm, and Sally pressed her ear to his chest, filling her mind with the sound of his heart. Releasing a sleepy breath as she stretched her right arm across Wufei's chest, Sally tried to remember the name of that doctor who'd been trying to find a solution to the problem, but it kept eluding her.

Whatever his name was, he'd had some interesting ideas of ways to help prevent those episodes. Sally vaguely recalled reading a proposal to try conditioning soldiers to react to a trigger, something that could snap them out of their rage or mental fog before they lost control. She squeezed Wufei's chest tightly, and he tipped his chin to rest on the top of her head.

He could have been one of those soldiers. Sally didn't know if Wufei had ever lost control like in those horrific reports, but he had been angry, headstrong, and convinced he was right. He'd been heading down a dangerous road when injury had landed him on her operating table, and put his recovery under her control.

"Mumph…" Sally chuckled sleepily. How he had chafed to be under her authority! She couldn't have told anyone what it was that she'd seen in this defiant, arrogant, overconfident soldier. It was a spark of something, beyond the fire of his attitude and the bravado he'd built up around himself. She'd seen a man worth saving.

'Was that what Relena saw?' she wondered, seeing filtered light suddenly as her eyes began to open of their own accord. Certainly Heero was in need of help, and not merely to be saved from his own destructive ways. The young man was a victim of OZ's lust for power. He'd been experimented on and changed in ways that Sally wouldn't have thought possible.

Blinking slowly, Sally heard the rush of air into Wufei's lungs as he drew a deep breath, though he still lay comfortably beside her. The doctor in Sally wanted to know, to understand what OZ had done to Heero. She desperately wished she had access to proper equipment, a fully stocked lab, and an MRI machine, just to name a few. Sally didn't know how willing a patient Heero would be, given all he'd apparently been through.

She pushed the thoughts aside for the moment. There was no point wishing for things she didn't have, and there was little she could practically discover in their current situation. Sally had wanted to avoid Heero as much as possible after her brief confrontation with him the night before. She didn't want to spark another occasion of seeing what he could accomplish using nothing but his mind.

Despite what Wufei might say or think, she knew Heero was far more dangerous than Wufei had ever dreamed of being. Sally squeezed a soft grunt out of him, and felt his arm return the favour, though without the same force. She'd overcome her hesitancy around Heero, when she'd heard Relena's desperate call from outside the trailer. As if the young man wasn't mystery enough already! To see him passed out in Relena's arms had kicked Sally's medical training into full gear.

It seemed with each half answer they received regarding Heero, another three questions were just waiting to be asked. Still at the forefront of Sally's mind were questions about how Trowa's signal jammer could have caused such a violent reaction in the young man. She never would have guessed that's what had caused him to collapse outside, until Relena drew attention to it.

Which drew Sally's slowly waking mind to another concern, namely this connection between Relena and Heero. Unsure of what was growing between her friend and Heero, Sally couldn't deny that there was something unnatural there. Relena had seemed to know things that Sally couldn't explain without opening her mind to other possibilities. And she couldn't decide how to feel about that.

…

Heero drew a breath as light peeked through his eyelashes, and he slowly realized he was awake. His mind—used to shifting from sleep to full wakefulness in seconds, even though it was a rare occasion that OZ had left him to sleep normally—didn't immediately try and drive him to his feet to check his surroundings. He realized almost instantly that he was laying on his back, and there was something warm and grounding draped across his chest, and that warmth continued pressed tightly to his right side.

Glancing through his lashes, Heero saw faint light of morning peeking through curtains over the bed, which gave the room a greyish light, making colours less distinct and shadows deeper. Heero felt Relena shift against him, the arm she had draped across his chest hugged against his bare skin, her right hand pressing against the side of his ribs. He could hear the distinct sound of her heart in the back of his mind, and feel the contentment of her emotions in sleep where she lay next to him.

As he shifted slightly, turning his head on the pillow, Heero looked down to see it wasn't just Relena's arm on his chest, but she'd pillowed her head on him as well. He looked down at her with a sense of wonder, being unable to remember a more peaceful night of sleep. Heero didn't understand what it was about Relena, but this wasn't the first time he'd experienced it with her.

The very first night he'd attributed his restful sleep to pure exhaustion from his injuries. Then, though it had only been a few hours, he'd slept soundly with her at his side in that second motel room. It couldn't simply be the connection he felt with her, that soothing rhythm of her heart in his mind, that allowed him to sleep so soundly, as that hadn't been there that first night. No, this was something unique to Relena.

Heero became aware of her breaths ghosting across his bare chest, as his body more fully shook off the fog of sleep. Careful not to immediately disturb her, Heero shifted his left arm out from under the covers, and trailed his fingers across the side of Relena's arm. Her hand on his left side flexed, her thumb stroking down the edge of his chest as she pulled a little closer to him.

"Mhmmm…" Relena murmured and Heero felt a flash of pleasure surge in the back of his mind a moment before her head was tipping up to look at him. Those aqua eyes surrounded by thick lashes blinked up at him, and her lips turned up in a warm smile. "Good morning."

Heero looked down at her smiling face and his left hand moved to brush aside some of the loose hair from Relena's pretty features. Her smile grew, and Relena pushed herself up slightly, twisting so she could more easily look at his face. Heero kept his palm against her cheek, enjoying the feel of his fingers entwined in her silky hair, as she drew her right hand across his chest, stopping just over his heart.

Relena's eyes dropped from his face to her hand, and she tipped her head into his hand. Heero got the feeling she was listening to something. He felt the corner of her lip brush up against his palm as she smiled down at him, causing his heart to pick up speed. "I love the sound of your heart," she whispered softly, looking at him through her lashes.

Drawing a breath, Heero looked up at Relena, his eyes settling on her lips, and he shifted his hand to brush his thumb against them. She pressed a soft kiss to the pad of his thumb, and in that brief moment Heero decided he wanted that for himself. Shifting his right arm out from under the covers, Heero pressed his hand lightly against Relena's back, drawing her towards him.

Her head tilted to the right as her lips brushed against his, and Heero raised his head from the pillow to meet her more intensely. He heard and felt the rhythm of her heart accelerate, as pleasure warmed the back of Heero's mind. Those feelings and sensations that came directly from Relena mingled and tangled with his own emotions, heightening what Heero felt as he continued to kiss her.

Heero reached into that connection, opened himself to it without thinking and felt the electricity of Relena's touch, her hand still between them pressed to his chest, his heart thundering against it. She felt the thrill of his emotions flooding into her as she nibbled his lower lip, her own pulling up in a smile as she pulled back enough to look deeply into his eyes.

The flash of excitement Heero saw in her eyes sent a shockwave through him, as he saw a flash of his own, as though through Relena's eyes. The connection between them hummed with life and emotion, letting Heero feel and experience what Relena was sensing, and amplifying what he felt as he pulled Relena back down to him. He didn't want to let her go.

…

Dermail twisted his chair away from the large desk in disgust. He'd just finished reading the detailed report of the damages sustained when 01 broke out. Almost all of their research material had been destroyed, along with physical samples they'd collected over time from 01. The research data wasn't a complete loss; enough backups existed that they'd never have to start back at square one. It was the loss of the samples that really made Dermail's blood boil.

01 was a success where before there'd only been glimmers of possibilities. A proof of concept that, despite numerous years of attempts, they'd never been able to replicate. They'd all but stopped trying to bring out these latent abilities in other children, and had switched their main focus to recreating 01. But that process was nearly as slow as searching out children with the right potential to undergo the infusions.

Pulling a hand down his beard, stroking the coarse grey hairs in a smooth rhythm, Dermail forced himself to relax. All was not lost, as they had access to the satellite array, and his engineers were busily working to put the finishing touches on the search engine they could use to track 01's unique signature. 01 may have escaped — his jaw clenched at the reminder — but he could still be retrieved. They'd grown lax, comfortable in their control over 01, a mistake Dermail wasn't about to let happen again.

With a frustrated breath, Dermail turned back towards his desk, eyes looking beyond the wood surface to the large screen across the room on the far wall. It displayed an image of a young woman: Relena Darlian. Dermail considered the picture, his eyes narrowing. It had taken next to no effort to uncover the woman's life story. So little effort, in fact, that Dermail felt certain the story had to be a cover.

A buzz sounded in the office, and Dermail tore his eyes away from the screen even as his right hand reached for the flashing switch on the corner of his desk. "Sir!" Tubarov's voice spoke crisply over the speakers, "we're ready to begin."

Dermail said nothing in reply, but released the switch and pushed back from his desk. Long strides took him to the door on the right side of his office, and he pressed his hand to the reader before stepping into the short hallway that only led to the war room. Passing his right eye before the retinal scanner, Dermail walked into the large high-tech room, which was alive with activity and a sense of excitement.

The screens, still displaying images from the satellite array, were zoomed out showing a much broader view of the city and the country surrounding it. Dermail spotted Tubarov in the thick of things, leaning over an engineer's shoulder and pointing at something on the screen before them. At Dermail's entrance, the room quieted significantly and Tubarov straightened with a satisfied expression. The head of OZ raised an impatient eyebrow at his head engineer, and that was all the motivation Tubarov needed to initiate the search.

The multitude of screens, each showing the same broad image, seemed to shift slightly, and one of the screens broke away from the overall picture to zoom in on a location that was familiar to Dermail's eyes. "That's the brownstone where we lost 01," Tubarov declared to the room, though it was obvious to all present.

The faint angle of shadows in the larger image shifted as time passed at an accelerated speed. The map shifted position rather suddenly, another of the screens zooming in on a different location, a structure in what Dermail thought might have been a small town. There was an obvious distortion to the image, a rippling of light that signalled the presence of 01.

"Get me information on that location," Tubarov snapped at the techs around him.

There was a flurry of activity as hands flew across keyboards and within seconds information was being provided. "It's a motel," one voice stated.

Followed almost immediately by, "in a town called Port Smith."

Dermail tuned out the rest of the information being gathered and shared, as another screen in the series zoomed in on another building, by the looks of it also a motel. 01 wasn't going to escape them for long.

…

Wufei smoothly gathered his loose hair, tying it back as he made his way to the door of Trowa's trailer. Stepping outside into the coolness of the morning, Wufei's eyes swept over the semi-permanent trailer park that the performers of the circus called home. He knew Trowa always set himself apart from the rest of the troupe, letting his sister's trailer be a buffer between him and the commotion of the circus.

More comfortable in this sort of crowd than say just a random spot in a town or city, Wufei still didn't know how Trowa managed it. There was just so much hustle, voices calling and laughing, animals raising their voices into the mix as well, and the circus wasn't even open to the public at this hour. Rolling his shoulders slightly, Wufei pushed such thoughts aside. Right now it didn't matter how Trowa could relax here; what mattered was the young man coming out of Catherine's trailer.

Heero stepped down from the tall trailer, deep blue eyes searching around briefly before they landed on Wufei. They regarded each other from a distance for a moment. Heero looked better rested and more alert than he had the day before. Wufei considered the younger man critically. Heero had displayed his powers, or at least a part of them, but Wufei suspected that it was another loss of control which had led to the destruction of the beer bottle.

Nodding to himself, Wufei crossed the distance to Heero, deciding now was as good a time as any to try and teach Heero some control. As he approached, Relena's voice called from a window of the trailer. "Heero, do you want something to eat?" she asked, and Heero's head turned towards the window just as Wufei came to a stop near him.

Sharp onyx eyes caught sight of an odd mark on the side of Heero's neck, just peeking out over the collar of his shirt. He realized immediately what it was, and Wufei's attention swept up towards the window where he saw Relena's pretty face, and he slowly shook his head. At least Heero had managed to get some rest during the night. "We'll get something later," Wufei spoke up, drawing both of their attention to him.

"Are we going somewhere?" Heero asked, not exactly cautiously, but his expression, which had been rather open while he was looking at Relena, shuttered down as he turned to face Wufei.

"We should talk," Wufei said with a nod towards the far side of Trowa's trailer, where a small expanse of grass was hidden from the performers and staff getting their day underway. "How are you feeling?" he asked as they walked onto the short cropped grass.

Heero's eyes narrowed a little. "Fine," he admitted.

"No lingering effects from the signal jammer last night?" Wufei pressed, curious to know if that had in any way contributed to Heero's loss of control with the beer bottle. He walked to the far end of Trowa's trailer, where it butted up against the tall fence and turned to face Heero.

The younger man had come to a stop a couple of feet away, his expression slightly guarded, but he gave his head a small shake. "No…" though he didn't exactly sound sure of himself.

Wufei considered Heero for a moment. he knew Sally was still bothered by how and why the jammer affected the younger man so strongly, but that wasn't Wufei's primary concern right now. "Then we can start working on your control," he said firmly.

Heero's head came up a little, his expression flashing surprise, and Wufei's lips pulled up into a slight smile. "You indicated you wanted to learn," he continued, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned back against the fence in a relaxed, non-threatening way. Wufei easily read Heero's body language in that moment, and could see Heero wasn't sure what exactly to expect.

Cobalt eyes searched Wufei's face cautiously, and their surroundings as well, before his attention refocused on Wufei. "How?" he asked, and Wufei briefly wondered if Heero was as laconic when he was speaking to Relena. Wufei smirked to himself a little, guessing words weren't on either of their minds currently.

Pushing off the fence, Wufei met Heero's eyes. "It's going to take time," he explained. Best to get that into the young man's head right now. Wufei was pretty sure he knew how he wanted to approach this, if Heero was open to learning, but control wasn't something that could be taught or learned in one day. "If you're willing, I'll show you some of what I know."

"Such as?" Heero asked, his expression still guarded, but there was a definite sense of interest about him.

Wufei reached for his right shoe, and pulled it off his foot. Having not bothered with socks that morning, Wufei placed his bare foot down on the cool grass, and removed his other shoe. "To build the mind, you start by building up the body," he said, and motioned for Heero to remove his shoes as well.

"Do we have time for this?" Heero questioned, still cautiously watching Wufei.

"We make time," he said firmly. Wufei was aware that he didn't know the full extent of the power this young man could wield. Perhaps even Heero himself didn't yet know.

Heero shook his head. "We can't afford to linger," he clarified.

"We also can't rush into things," Wufei countered evenly, "and running without a plan isn't the answer either." He waited patiently to see if his words would get Heero moving, and the young man appeared to consider them, glancing back over his shoulder once towards Catherine's trailer. "Trowa's going to gather further intel for us," Wufei continued, drawing Heero's attention back to him. "There isn't much we can do without that."

Still appearing slightly unsure, Heero slowly toed off his shoes before reaching down to remove his socks as well. Once they were both standing barefoot on the grass, Wufei moved away from the fencing and towards the centre of their secluded spot. Flexing his toes against the ground, Wufei shifted his weight to the balls of his feet before sliding his right foot forward in a wide arc, settling himself into a long, low stance.

"I'm going to teach you the moves of a kata," he began, drawing his left leg in another sweeping arc back to his right before sliding it out to the side in a line. Again Wufei settled his weight in a long, low stance, all the while keeping his eyes on Heero. He wondered what all OZ had taught him; with the power he could use with his mind alone, Wufei wasn't sure there had been much point in other methods of self defence.

"A kata is the layout of a battle," Wufei explained, pulling his left leg back in towards his right and straightening to turn and face Heero. "There are times for attack, and defence, each movement flowing from one to the next smoothly." Wufei took a moment to demonstrate the beginning steps of the simplest kata he knew, feeling Heero's eyes following his moves intently.

"Your stance should be long and low," Wufei continued, glancing over at Heero as he explained. "Each advancement," he said drawing his back leg in an arc towards his front, "should be smooth, a sweeping motion, almost like drawing a 'C' on the ground." He continued his demonstration sweeping his left leg away from his right smoothly before settling his weight again.

"Give it a try," Wufei encouraged, drawing himself back up to a ready stance before turning to completely face Heero. The younger man hesitated only a moment before mimicking the stance Wufei had just been in. "Make sure both feet are facing forward," Wufei instructed, moving around Heero to adjust his back leg a little. "Your stance can be more open, yes, just like that."

Heero glanced down at himself, briefly looking behind, before he swept his left leg in to his right, just as Wufei had done before advancing to his left in front. The younger man kept his back straight and shoulders squared forward, his arms out a little from his sides as though unsure what to do with them. Moving to stand in front of Heero, Wufei mirrored Heero's stance and raised his arms, indicating without words where Heero needed to place them.

"Keep your elbow tight to your side, and wrist straight," Wufei said, though Heero was doing a good job of mirroring him. "Punch out," he demonstrated, keeping his movements crisp as he shot out his right hand, pulling his left back to his side sharply.

Heero mimicked the strike and Wufei shifted to standing normally. Coming closer he took hold of Heero's wrist, pressing his palm to the first two knuckles of Heero's fist. "Keep your fist tight, you want to strike with this part of it," he explained. Wufei didn't suspect that they'd be sparring any time soon, if ever, but he refused to do things halfway.

Releasing Heero's wrist, Wufei raised both hands before Heero, keeping one in front of Heero's right hand, and positioning his other a shoulder width apart. "Strike," he commanded, glancing towards his left hand. Heero punched with his right hand, slapping knuckles against Wufei's palm as he drew his left hand back sharply to his side. "Again," Wufei said, keeping his hands firmly in place as Heero's left hand slapped against his right.

"That's good," he said nodding to the nice crisp movements Heero made. Lowering his hands, Wufei stepped back, and Heero drew himself back up to standing ready. "I'll show you the kata, then walk you through it," he said, seeing a light of excitement in Heero's eyes.

…

Relena smiled as she looked out Cathy's window towards where Heero and Wufei were working, feeling a surge of excitement in the back of her mind. Strange as this was, and impossible really to understand, Relena thought she was gaining a better understanding of what she was feeling from Heero. He'd been slightly wary but also curious when Wufei came over and took him aside, but he'd quickly become interested in what Wufei wanted to teach him.

She wondered what had brought on this lesson in the first place, but somehow didn't think Heero was surprised by Wufei's offer, even if he did still seem slightly unsure. Relena tipped her head slightly, listening to Heero's heart in the back of her mind; the pace was steady, the sound firm and grounding. She was so lost in it for a moment that Relena jumped suddenly when someone touched her arm.

"Sorry," Cathy apologized, pulling her hand back in a placating gesture. "I asked if you wanted some coffee?"

"Oh, yes please," Relena replied, turning away from the window and Heero to look back at Cathy's kitchen where Sally was sitting at the booth with a mug of coffee in her hand.

Her friend's eyes were watching Relena intently as she sipped her steaming drink. "What's got you so distracted?" Sally asked, placing her mug back on the table. "As if I didn't know…" she muttered softly.

Relena laughed lightly as she slipped into the booth with her friend, and looked directly into Sally's eyes. "I think the connection between Heero and I is getting stronger," she began, smiling a thanks to Cathy as she accepted her own mug of coffee. "Or maybe I'm just learning more from it…" she trailed off.

"What exactly is it that you feel?" Sally asked, her expression intense with a clear desire to understand.

Drawing a breath, Relena sat back against the booth and picked up her mug of coffee, sniffing the strong scent for a moment as she tried to figure out how to answer such a question. "When it started, I think it was just the faint sound of his heart beating there in the back of my mind," she said at last.

"A sense of it?" Sally asked, leaning back a little as she watched Relena. "Or actually the sound of his heart?"

Relena listened for a moment to the strong 'lub dub' of Heero's very active heart, and looked at the doctor siting across from her with an excited smile. "It's his heart," she nodded, "I don't need to look outside to know he's doing something strenuous right now."

"Aww," Cathy beamed, "that's so romantic!" She hopped up onto the counter top and twisted to look out the window over the sink. "Imagine knowing exactly when your man's pulse races," Cathy said with a broad smile as she looked back at the two of them.

Relena felt her cheeks heat a little to remember exactly what she'd felt from Heero that morning, and it had been more than just his heart racing. "It's more than that now," she said a little self consciously, tucking some loose hair behind her right ear as she twisted the coffee mug with her left hand.

"You hear more than his heart?" Sally asked, her expression difficult to read as she continued to study Relena intently.

Nodding her head, Relena took a moment to sip at her coffee, trying to order her thoughts to best explain. "I feel something of what Heero's feeling," she said, looking at her reflection in the blackness of the coffee.

"Emotionally? Or more physically?" Sally leaned her arms onto the table between them. "You said yesterday he was in pain, I had assumed that was just a guess…"

"I didn't experience his pain," Relena clarified, "when the signal jammer was turned on, but I did know it somehow caused him to feel sick."

Sally's expression was considering as she drained the last of her coffee. "When did this start?"

"I first noticed it in the motel we stayed at the day before yesterday," Relena answered, remembering the marvel of seeing Heero's power, feeling his mind touching her. She smiled at the memory, though her heart was aching for the fear she'd seen in his face and that he was convinced she would fear him for what he could do. "I think it was connected to him showing me what he could do with his mind…"

The doctor slipped from the booth and walked over to the door of Cathy's trailer, staring out the screen towards where Heero and Wufei were working. "What do you feel right now?" she asked curiously, not looking back at Relena.

Relena thought about it, casting her mind towards the steady sound of Heero's heart, and immediately knew he was concentrating. But how did she know that? Relena asked herself, and thought more deeply about the sensations of Heero at the back of her mind. The day before while they were in the car, Relena had felt she could read a little of Heero's moods in the rhythm of his heart. She'd felt his pain and discomfort when the signal jammer had been turned on, but was that actually his pain, or was she reading it in how quickly his heart had begun to pound?

No, there was more to this than just Heero's beating heart signalling her, feeding her understanding of what she couldn't readily read on his face. She'd sensed his pain, the memory of it at least. She was unsure what had brought it on, but she knew it was something from his past. Relena had also known how tired Heero was, though he'd done all he could to appear fine, he hadn't been able to hide his confusion and exhaustion from her the night before.

Turning her attention inwards, Relena focused in on that strong cadence of Heero's heart, let the feel of it fill her. She felt drawn to the sound, wanting to lose herself to the rhythm, her own heart picking up speed so that she wondered if it matched his. It felt to Relena like something inside her opened, and she felt a strength and warmth blossom in the back of her mind. Relena welcomed the sense of Heero's mind inside her own.

She felt the strength of him, how solid his presence was, and his emotions spilled into her. Relena drew a sharp breath at the sudden influx of feelings which were distinctly different from her own. They felt sharper and more intense, resting there at the back of her mind, but at the same time Relena thought she could push them aside, if she wasn't so fascinated by their presence.

"Relena?" Sally saying her name with a concerned note to her voice brought Relena's head up slightly. She realized she'd been staring intently into her cooling coffee, while her friend patiently waited for an answer.

"Sorry," Relena apologized somewhat absently, as her mind tried to filter through the tangle of emotions that was flowing to her from Heero. "What was the question?"

Sally walked away from the door of the trailer back to the table, and retook her seat. "I want to understand what this connection is between you and Heero," the doctor said, casting a brief look towards Cathy, who was still sitting on the counter and quietly watching them. "What do you feel?" she asked again.

"I'm not sure I can explain it, clearly…" she began, casting her attention back to the accelerated rhythm of Heero's heart, and the jumble of emotions it led her to. Relena could tell they were separate feelings, even if she couldn't pull them apart enough to identify each one by name. "It's like he's there in the back of my mind, or a part of him is, anyway," Relena said, tapping her right temple. Her lips turned up in a smile at the life she felt flow into her from Heero.

She pressed into that tangle of emotions, feeling two rising from the fray that Relena thought she could put a name to. "I can feel his confusion, at least I think that's what it is," she continued. "I'm certain it isn't my feeling of confusion though."

"How do you know?" Cathy asked curiously, and Relena saw Sally immediately nod in agreement.

"It…feels different," Relena said after a moment's thought, "sharper, more intense. There's a heat to it, I'd almost call it an anger…" she trailed off for a moment, then chuckled softly, looking from one woman to the other. "I guess it feels more masculine."

Sally reached a hand across the table towards Relena, her gaze intense, before she shifted herself to the back of the booth between them. "Is it constantly there?" she asked, her right hand coming to rest on Relena's wrist. "A constant distraction? Can you focus beyond it?" Sally peppered Relena with questions, her concern evident.

Relena mentally stepped back from the part of her mind that was Heero and offered her friend a reassuring smile. "It isn't like this is the only thing I can think of," she said, releasing her nearly forgotten coffee mug to pat Sally's hand. "I can push the sensations aside, or not delve into them as much," she corrected herself.

"No pain, or mental fog?" the doctor pressed.

"Sally," Relena said her friend's name with a smile. "This isn't a bad thing," she insisted.

"That you know…" Sally returned, her concern clearly not relieved by Relena's insistence.