Title:  "Scars"

Author: Demeter

Disclaimer: All rights and privileges to Shin Kidousenki Gundam Wing are trademarks and property of Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties. All the characters belong to them, and all stories, relationships, ideas are fiction. They are not related to the original plot. The story, the relationships and original characters within the fic are copyright of the author Demeter.

Part Seven: Goodbye is not Forever

Whoever said "time heals wounds" must have never been hurt. Time does not heal wounds; they only allow them to scar over. Never, ever heal. Now that the river of time has passed the pilots and families by for seven years, what will happen?

~*~*~*~*~*~

Seven Years Later.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Shade, I think the Suit is off-balance."

Shade, a woman, about the age of twenty-four, turned from her work on the computer. "What do you mean?" Her expressive cerulean blue eyes glittered with anticipation.

"I think there might be a glitch in the main-frame computer."

"Hn. I'll check it out." Leaping lightly off her chair, Shade propelled herself into the space, and set herself lightly onto the large robot. Entering the Gundam, she started setting the preflight mode. Finishing, she perused the information which flooded the screen and within minutes, amid the scrabble of binary codes, she spotted the problem. Typing rapidly, she righted the alignment, and got out of the cockpit.

She floated toward one of the halls, and she walked briskly to a dark red door. Opening it, she asked brusquely, "What's my next mission?"

Silk looked up, her silver hair tied back in a bun, and  smirked. "Thought you'd never ask." Pulling out a drawer, she took a CD out and handed the shiny case to her. "Here it is. Enjoy."

"Oh, I will. I will."

"Too bad I can't go on this mission. I would have dearly loved to jump into Milliardo Peacecraft's bedroom and scare the shit out of him!"

Shade snorted, before slipping the disk into the computer. Reading the material, she frowned. "Silk, are you sure this is what they want me to do? I mean, look at it. They want me to infiltrate the Sank castle. That's not going to be easy."

Silk looked up, her eyes twinkling. "Well, if you don't think you can handle it..." Her voice trailed off with a question in the air. Shade scowled, before stuffing the disk back into her pocket and walking back to her room for her suit.

She wasn't one to give up a mission because of difficulties.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Shade looked down the hallway. It was clear. She was lucky that Silk had already set the bombs in place, in the unforeseen chance that something would go wrong. Walking silently on the marble floor, she suddenly felt a sense of deja vu. It was as if she had walked down before... but that was impossible! "I must have watched the mission video one too many times," she growled, before quickly tapping the access code into the security channel. Quietly setting the system "trap", she stepped into the darkened room.

Spotting the computer, Shade uttered a small cry of triumph. She had found it!

Booting up the hardware, she quickly accessed the back-up system, before hacking into the CPU. Biting her lip in concentration, Shade slipped the disk into the computer, and started downloading all the information that she found onto the disk. Frowning, at what she found, she started viewing all the screens.

"What in the world?" Shade muttered. Her slender fingers flew over the keyboard, as she tried to understand what she was reading. "All this info is at least seven years old. Why in the hell would they want me to infiltrate a highly-guarded compound, slip into a politician's room, and then hack into a computer, who's information is seven years old?" Scratching her head in puzzlement, she typed in a few words. Moving the cursor over the screen, she clicked on the "PROFILES" icon.

Time apparently had been hard to this computer. All the faces were blurred, erased, or completely lost. Unless...

Suddenly, with a look of intense concentration, she started typing rapidly. Soon, some of the pictures were slowly replacing themselves. But only a few would even consider reviving.  No matter what she did, a majority of them refused to clear up or return from the black hole of the electronic world.

"Hn, might as well. Wouldn't be anyone I recognize any way." Shrugging her shoulders, she ejected the disk, and stood up; placing the chair in the exact position she had found it. Leaping over the table, she accidentally knocked over a paperweight. It clattered to the floor with a soft thud, and she held still, holding her breath. Hearing nothing, she picked up the weight, and saw it wasn't a paperweight, but a nameplate. Squinting in the dark, she felt out the engraved letters.

"R.. E.. L.. E.. N.. A.... D… A… R... L… I... A... N... Relena Darlian." Shade cocked her head. She spoke aloud to the quietness, "Relena Darlian... that pacifist princess who disappeared years ago." She shrugged and continued searching the desk. Finding nothing, she stuffed the disk into her jacket and quickly walked toward the door. Tapping the "out" code, she slid open the door, and poked her head out the door. Seeing no one, she danced out, typed in the "lock" code, and started slinking through the darkened hallways of the quiet mansion.

Sighing in satisfaction, she started moving cautiously toward the backdoor. "That was... uh... simple. " Wrinkling her nose, Shade moved toward the wall. Pressing her wristband, a red light beeped and a tiny picture appeared. Silk appeared, and her normally sunny face was tense. Seeing Shade, she let out a sigh of relief.

"Geez, Shades! Let a person worry all night why don't you!" Silk scolded. Shade smiled, before reporting where she was.

"I'll be out, as soon as I get the main gates open. See to it that the computer is up and running when I get there. I have some information to look over when I get back."

Silk nodded. "Acknowledged."

The screen disappeared. Shade looked around, and started cracking the code for the gate. Hitting the last number, she straightened, and the gate started opening.

"What in the world are you doing?" A soft voice interrupted.

Shade spun around, simultaneously whipping her gun out. Leveling the barrel at the voice, she whispered harshly, "Who's there?"

The person's eyes widened, before stepping back slightly. He eyed her gun and then looked at her in the face. With a blurred movement, the person leaped forward, and had grabbed her throat. Shade choked, before aiming the gun and shooting. He grunted with pain, and they came face-to-face, and grim eyes, which were the color of an angel's, stared right into her cerulean blue eyes.

His eyes widened in disbelief.

His fingers loosened.

Shade took the opportunity to wrench her neck out his grasp. Cocking her gun, she managed another shot, as he leapt out of the way. By this time, the gate had opened. Sliding out the door at top speed, she leapt onto her motorcycle, and screeched away, leaving the man in a cloud of dust. By this time, the rest of the castle was waking up, as lights blinked on from one room to the next.

Shade cursed herself and the mystery person before she sped toward her aircraft.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Back at the castle door, the young man, known as Quatre Raberba Winner looked after her with disbelief in his eyes. He glanced down at his bleeding arm, before staring at his hand, which was curled. Bits of skin, which had flaked off her neck, were still on his nails, and he looked at them, before back after the motorcycle.

And he uttered a name that he hadn't in six years.

"Relena..."

Only silence answered him.

Trowa came out.

His green eyes narrowed as he took in the bleeding arm and the dazed look on Quatre's face. Walking over the blond-haired Arabian, he wrapped his long arms around Quatre. Closing his eyes, he inhaled the scent of the faint cologne Quatre usually wore.

He didn't speak for a few minutes, just holding the angel he loved close.

"Don't ever do that again."

Quatre gave him a smile before a troubled shadow crossed his face. Trowa noticed and then asked in a quiet voice, "What's wrong?"

Quatre turned to him, his eyes puzzled. He answered, his voice faltering, "I... when I... tried to stop the intruder, I... saw... I saw her face."

Trowa frowned, looking at his lover. "What?"

Quatre continued in a hesitant voice. "She looked exactly like someone. Someone we knew a long, long time ago."

The brown-haired Gundam Pilot felt something in his stomach turn, and change to a pit of ice. He stared at Quatre, and he tilted his head slightly, asking in a voice laced with steel. "Who?"

Quatre stared out the door once again, and in a distant voice, devoid of emotion, he answered. "Relena Peacecraft."

Trowa grew still. He felt his heart thud within the confines of his chest, and the bile rose in his throat. The one name that had become some sort of curse in the last few years and had never been uttered, was coming from the lips of one of the only people he trusted. He too, stared out into the inky blackness, after the ghost of the person who seemed to have miraculously come back.

After seven years.

Trowa's troubled eyes, looked upward to the sky, which was filled with stars, shut them tightly, before letting Quatre go with a kiss. Heading toward the milling people, he sent a medic to Quatre, and went in to make calls to a few people.

Quatre continued to stare at the skid marks on the road in silent wonder.

~*~ Part Seven ~*~

~*~ FINIS ~*~