A Gundam Wing Fanfic: Twilight's End
by Celestialmew (celestialmew@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: I recieve no money or profit of any kind by this endeavor except the satisfaction of writing. All Gundam Wing trademarks belong to their respective owners. (You lucky persons, you...) Suing a poor, starving artist will not be in your best interest, and make you unpopular.
Author's note: This story is set a few years after Endless Waltz. The chapter is rather short, but is mainly to tie up one or two loose ends and serve as an introduction. Chapter Two will be a bit more extensive and eventful. I'd like to thank my boyfriend, Gengar_99, for inspiring me to this with his fanfic.
CHAPTER ONE
Heero faced Relena in a quiet, shadowed room. They had just come back from a dinner date at a small cafe in the greenhouse section of this colony. It was near nighttime, or the facsimile thereof. There was no true night and day here but the mirrors outside that simulated that process with reflected sunlight.
Relena adverted her eyes and moved over toward the small, square porthole facing the abyss of space. Bright, blue and beautiful earth hung in the black sea of stars, and another colony was just marginally in front of it. She sighed and turned toward Heero again.
"It's been a long time since we've been out together, hasn't it?" she asked.
He nodded, and got a distant look on his face. He was no longer sixteen but almost nineteen now. All mobile suits had been banished, and he'd been trying to make it on his own on this remote colony. Some people still weren't fond of the Gundams' part in the war so he laid low. Heero had plenty of talents at his disposal and he worked here as a engineer and technician.
All in all, he had found it rather dull compared to the constant life on the battlefield. Wufei had been right: he had found his purpose, his sense of being alive by fighting. Day-to-day matters simply failed to catch his interest.
Relena stretched her arms over her head, and yawned. It wasn't that she was tired, but her muscles were sore. She had been tense all day runing about as a dignitary between the colonies, and tonight was the first time in over a week she had begun to unwind.
She sat down in a chair, and looked around the room. This was where Heero stayed, and he seemed to be quite meticulous about neatness. The furnishings were rather spartan. A few items on a desk with a laptop and wrinkled sheets were the only things that made it look lived in.
She rolled her shoulders to try to relax her muscles. Heero drew closer slowly and started rubbing her shoulders and neck for her. Relena looked at him, surprised, for a moment then slumped as his hands worked out the tense spots.
He finished up after a few minutes. "Better?"
"Yes," Relena replied. She turned to face him suddenly, her eyes large. He was transfixed by that gaze, so demanding it was of complete attention, and curious as to why she had moved so quickly.
A question had been on her lips for years now since she had known him. Relena had asked him before but recieved no answer. She had meant to ask him over dinner, but shyness got the better of her in a public place. But she had to know.
"Do you have feelings for me, Heero?" she asked.
He was silent what seemed like a long time, one minute, two minutes ticking by on his alarm clock. Relena only waited, her heart beating hard and slow in her chest. A drop of sweat broke out on her forehead from the anticipation. She was praying he wouldn't say 'no.'
Heero was thinking over very carefully what had been on his mind more than once. The only emotions he had ever known, he felt were in battle... anger, focus, doubt, a short-lived grief when he was younger... but with her, he felt differently. He wanted to both protect her, and no matter how many times the war had called for him to destroy her, he had never brought himself to it.
His mind drifted back to the time where he had faced down Maraimeia. Relena had shouted his name as he had fallen, wounded, and leapt to keep him from crashing to the floor. She had never known how close he was to surrendering himself to her. All he could remember was her worried face as he had went unconscious, and her whispering to him there would be no more killing.
After that, he had almost said something to her after she gave her speech, but habit had made him leave again. He couldn't face that part of himself yet. They had been meeting off and on for several years but only for short times.
And here with her now, Heero was feeling something. He was feeling challenged, and fulfilled, and had forgotten all the minor considerations that nagged at him. He had been raised to feel little or no emotion, but he could not deny that this was more than that.
Heero closed his eyes, not bearing to be able to admit this while under that blue-eyed gaze. He would be leaving behind the emotional scars of the war, and that took effort. He would be saying that what had been his goal for years was disappeared now.
"Yes," he answered. He didn't use the distant, crisp tone he usually did.
"Oh..." she trailed off into thoughtful silence for a few minutes. She wasn't sure how to react now. The first thing Relena felt was an overwhelming burst of emotion out of her heart. What she had been hoping for he had finally confirmed.
Heero was still struggling with his own epiphony. He did hold a deep affection, respect, and consideration for her. Did that mean- that he loved her? Wasn't that a definition of love?
"Oh, Heero!" she cried suddenly, and covered the distance between them. She embraced him tightly.
He was caught offbalance as he quite unexpectedly felt her close to him. Relena always had been forthcoming; but politics and war didn't build shyness. He blinked then wrapped his arms around her with a slight smile. He didn't smile often. She looked up to see his countenance, and her face lit up.
There were tears standing in her eyes. Heero looked into her face, and saw the telltale glitter in those eyes as deep as an ocean's wave, or a dark earth sky. He was strangely moved and hugged her tighter.
Relena glanced out the porthole. "I'm tired now. Let's go to bed."
"Very well. I'll sleep on the floor." Heero said matter-of-factly.
She shot him a withering, exasperated look. He was holding a faint smile that undermined his stoic attitude. She let her forehead sink into her hand and muttered something with a slow shake of her head.
"Very funny, Heero..." she commented.
It was early morning, and the automatic cover over the porthole was down to protect its occupants' sleep. The room was very dimly lit, just enough to see two slumbering forms, one with their arm over the other. There was the warning beep of someone at the door.
Heero rolled away from Relena, and kicked the sheets off himself. He was dressed enough to answer the door, but probably in a disarray. He walked across the room and tapped the panel beside the door. It only partially opened.
"Hey, Heero," Duo greeted him cheerfully, "You forgot to turn in your report on the conduits last night, and I need it today to complete the job."
He blinked. He usually woke up quickly and coherently, but not today. Even leaving a task or duty undone was very unlike him... but he had had other things on his mind that would probably affect the course of his life. He looked at his alarm clock on his desk: 5:30. His usual time of awakening.
"I'll get it to you this afternoon," he said flatly, shooting a dark look at Duo. Sometimes he thought the other boy wasn't so bad, other times he loathed him. Now was one of those times even though it wasn't Duo's fault he was off-schedule.
The braided boy looked at his stormy face, and agreed quickly. "Okay. Afternoon is good."
As Heero turned to go back in his room, the other boy couldn't help but ask another question. His friend - in his eyes, anyway - was acting a little odd. "This isn't like you. What happened?"
"It's none of your business, Duo. Tell the manager I'm not feeling well," he answered.
"Alright, alright..." his visitor said, relenting. Trying to get information out of Heero when he didn't want to tell was like prying open the hatch of an ancient spacecraft with your hands. Nearly impossible. There was the sound of buttons being pushed and the door snapped together all the way with a click.
"Yeah, goodbye to you too, Heero," Duo said, putting his hands in his pockets and walking away. Heero was usually an early-morning riser and not irritable upon awakening. Oh well... everyone was entitled to their off days. Maybe he was sick although strains of mild viruses were uncommon in L-2.
He knew the path back toward the facility and followed it easily. There were not a lot of people out on the streets besides executives and other working class people. Come 6:00 and it would be packed though. He hurried up, and made it to the building within a few minutes.
Hilde intercepted him at the door expectantly. "Do you have the papers? Ms. Hana wants them soon, and I might be able to make a transaction for conduit parts."
"Heero says he'll have them by the afternoon. He has a headache or something so he's not coming in," Duo said, shaking his head.
Hilde just nodded and replied, "Hmm. Well, you can do the report if he doesn't get it in."
Duo grumbled something beneath his breath along the lines of "Thanks a lot, Heero". Hilde tried not to smirk about that and went back down the street to her scrapyard business. All the agencies were grouped together for convenience. Duo disappeared into the corridors of the building.
Relena woke up at the sound of beep-beep, visitor! She laid in bed, not really moving or opening her eyes even though she overheard a conversation. She finally identified the unfamiliar voice as Duo's, an impertinent boy that she had only met a few times. One of the former Gundam pilots.
Heero tapped the panel, and there was the sound of the doors closing again. He sighed and climbed back into bed, to try to fall asleep again. She stirred, rolled over to face him, and opened her eyes drowsily. He moved her hair away from her face.
"Duo came by to remind me to make a report," he said.
"I know," she replied, "I wish the entire world would just go away. What time is it?"
"5:34," he answered.
Relena sat up, moving the sheets off herself. She stretched and blinked a few times to clear her vision. "Good. I don't have to check in until 6:30."
He nodded, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He got back to his feet, went over to his desk, and turned his laptop on. Heero typed in a few commands that pulled up a menu. He browsed through the list, highlighted one, and turned back to her.
"You have two meetings to attend to at 7:45 and 9:00. You also have to meet the commander of the L-5 sometime in the afternoon," he said simply.
"Thank you for informing me of what to do before I even knew it... how do you get your information?" she asked.
He shrugged, and said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world, "I tapped into L-2's logs, and the World Federation's schedule for today."
"Those files are protected by one of the best security systems money can buy, Heero. I should have hired you," she said.
He shook his head. "I'd rather not."
Relena laughed and stood up. She walked across the room and re-opened the doors. "I'm going to get us breakfast," she told him, "Do you want anything?"
"Not really." He was back to typing at his keyboard, scrolling through files and information. She frowned and strode back to his desk. She typed in something and the screen flickered, and the program crashed. Heero's mouth twitched, and he turned his chair away from the desk to look at her.
"I changed my mind. You're coming with me to breakfast," she stated.
"Alright," he agreed. She looked at him suspiciously as if wondering why he didn't protest. Heero only looked back at her blankly, his face giving nothing away.
They walked to the door. Relena tapped in the open sequence code in the panel. The doors didn't slide open. Heero moved her hand aside, and typed it in himself. Again, the doors didn't budge.
"That's strange. It's not working," Heero said without emotion. He appeared confused; it had always worked before.
Relena pressed her shoulder against the sliding doors. Suddenly, there was an exploding sound and a brilliant flash of light. Artificial gravity flickered on and off, the porthole cover flew open, and the doors snapped open all of a sudden. She stumbled through the doorway, and fell to the ground.
"What was that!?" she gasped breathlessly.
To be continued...