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Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels.

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Chapter Three: Confidences

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"Miss Noin." It had taken most of the afternoon to get her alone, but Relena had been persistent, and determined not to involve her brother unless, or until, it became absolutely necessary.

"What is it?" The woman, who Relena expected would be her sister in the not too distant future, looked up from the letter she was writing expectantly.

"I wondered," Relena asked, "if you know anything about my mother."

It was clearly not a query Noin had been expecting, and she veiled surprise as she shook her head. "Not really, no. She died when you were so young...I wasn't fighting for the Sanq Kingdom for a good while. Why?"

Relena slid the picture from her purse and thrust it out impulsively. Noin, who had worked closely with Quatre far more than Zechs had, needed no further explanation. Her eyes widened, as she took the photo gingerly from Relena's hand. "Oh dear," she said simply, staring at the photograph for a long moment as if to confirm what she already saw as plain. "Have you asked Quatre..?"

Relena nodded. "Yes. It's true." Noin sighed, and Relena crouched on the floor at her feet. "So you see why I need to know. What happened to make her leave..?"

Noin shook her head sadly. "Relena, I was four. It's hardly the sort of thing they would have made public, let alone told children." She sighed, tangling long fingers pensively in her hair. "Why don't you ask Peygan?"

"Because," Relena grumbled, "he's too busy protecting me to ever give me a straight answer." She tossed her hair, frustrated, and sighed. "I will ask him. I'll go back home tomorrow and ask him then."

Zechs returned then, and Relena excused herself for bed. A part of her still wondered why she felt the need to attach herself to her birth family at all. The parents who'd raised her, loved her, done their best to protect her--the ones she grew up calling "Mother" and "Father", those were the people she'd felt close to. The Peacecraft monarchy had ended when she was too young to remember it. Her mother, it seemed, had abandoned her practically at birth, and her father had given her away. Zechs had done his best to sever his own ties, though they were both making an effort to get to know one another as siblings.

But wouldn't it be simpler if she and Quatre just pretended she'd never found that picture?

Scenarios ran through her mind as she brushed out her hair, staring thoughtfully into the mirror without ever really seeing herself in it. It would have to stay a secret regardless of what they found, wouldn't it? The Peacecraft-born vice foreign minister to the colonies and the Winner heir needed to maintain a certain separation, or the citizens of earth and the colonies were likely to become nervous. And their own credibility would be stretched, if it were revealed that the former Sanq queen had fled to the colonies and abandoned her family.

So. Whatever they found would be for their own peace of mind alone. Somehow, that made it easier to stomach. That was reasonable, wasn't it? She would find the answers, if only so that she could lay the family she'd never known to rest.

She really needed to get this off her chest. She stared at the mirror for another long minute, then abandoned it to flop down on her bed and flip on the vidphone. Only one of the Gundam pilots could be trusted with such a delicate subject...and one of those pilots had been privy to all her confidences for the past two years.

She forgot, when she sent the communication, that it was a ridiculously late hour on L2, a time when most respectable people would be asleep. Fortunately, it was not a respectable person who answered the phone.

"Hello--Relena?" Duo Maxwell rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looking only a /little/ bleary, wisps of hair escaping his customary braid to float around his face. "What's up?"

"Can I talk to Heero?" she asked, annoyance rising in her chest when he shook his head.

"Sorry, he's not here. He's out on a delivery, won't be back til Monday." Duo's head tilted, his eyes narrowed, assessing her. "You look stressed," he said after a moment. "Something wrong?"

She shrugged, willing her face into a neutral mask that would have fooled anyone /except/ the king of Masks himself. "I just wanted to talk to him about...some things."

"Well...." Duo shifted, his face wobbling on the screen--probably getting comfortable, though it was hard to tell on the small monitor. "Anything I can do for you instead, Relena? Contrary to popular belief, I can shut up and let other people talk on occasion."

Relena tried to keep her surprise from registering on her face. Talk to Duo? She considered. She'd never given too much thought to Duo after their first auspicious meeting--he and Heero had apparently resolved their difficulties, because they'd been best friends the next time she'd encountered them. From then on, that had been just what she considered him--Heero's friend, a sidekick perhaps, but hardly an entity in his own right. That was probably why it had hurt so much when Heero had elected to stay on L2 with Duo after the war and help him run the scrapyard with Hilde. The three of them seemed to be doing well together as friends and business partners, and Relena had felt abandoned.

She'd gotten over it, in time. Heero was right in his instinct. Without the conflict to keep them together, they had too few common interests, and the few dates he'd agreed to had hardly been satisfactory for either of them. They cared for each other, that was no secret, but it was hardly the passion that great love affairs are made of, or even the deep connection Trowa and Quatre had for each other. It was, she'd been finally forced to admit, puppy love that had evolved into friendship. That was all.

She had stayed friends with Heero. It had never occurred to her that Duo might want to be her friend too.

"Thanks," she said, realising Duo was waiting patiently for her to stop considering and either talk or hang up. "I would like to talk, if you don't mind...."

"Not a bit." He grinned at her, leaning closer to the screen. "I'm a night person, and since I've got the place to myself..." He shrugged. "So let's hear it."

And Relena, keeping her voice low, began to explain.