T. K.: PART TWO!!! My first chaptered fic!

Neko-Chan: *laughs* Kami, you're excitable. Check part one for disclaimer. There's one translation... Kyoju: Professor

T. K.: I don't know what age OZ normally started enlisting it soldiers, but Ayame was young when she joined. I mean REALLY young. By the way there is 2x5 and 6x9 in this. It's not really talked about or expanded upon but it is mentioned.
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The floor was cold, the door was metal, and there were no windows in the concrete walls. In a corner, a man no older than twenty sat, his knees drawn to his chest and rocking slightly. "Baka, baka, baka. How in the world did you end up here?" Heero Yuy was talking to himself. With a harsh laugh he answered himself. "I ended up here because I was overconfident and got myself shot and captured." It was true; the mission itself wasn't any harder than most of the ones he'd accomplished as a teen. The objective was simple... get in, get the information off the computer, blow everything up when he was done. But instead, he got in, got shot in the leg, and then taken a blow to the head when he was thrown in this cell. Outside the wind howl across Siberia's snow covered land. He sighed and wondered what Ayame Suisei would do if she saw him like this. Heero growled. "She'd leave me."

'Would she? Because if I recall...' a little voice in his head teased.

"It wasn't Ame who left now was it?" he asked himself and finishing for the little voice.

The answer was obvious. He'd left her in front of her apartment with the words, "I'll return."

Heero scoffed, "Who's more foolish, her for believing me... or me for believing me?"

He'd had every intention of returning, but the rumors were true. White Fang had returned and Relena, as suspected, had almost been assassinated. Duo had taken the bullet for her. Wufei, upset that his friend and lover had been shot, resigned from the assignment to take up watch at Duo's bedside. That had left Lucrezia Noin, Quatre Winner, Trowa Barton, and Heero to watch over Relena. Then things became more complicated. After Heero had been there two weeks, Zechs Merquise, who had been working for the Preventers in trying to put out this fire, had been called to the colonies. Plus, he had taken Lucrezia Merquise/Noin (his wife of two and a half years as Heero had been told later) with him. Trowa was in fact only a temp on this job. He had a steady job at the circus and Katherine worried terribly; he was leaving soon. As for Quatre, he had put the satellite in the hands of his sisters while he was away and was leaving soon as well.

Heero shoved himself off the floor and started pacing. His thoughts were on his friends. They could leave this assignment at any point in time. "I quit, I FUCKING QUIT!!!" he screamed. "Fuck being the 'Perfect Soldier', I want to be the 'Perfect Boyfriend'." Heero looked at his shaking hands as they clenched into fist, his nails cutting into his palms. His eyes started to blur. His leg was throbbing in pain but a second pain that had been in his heart for months was even more intense --- he missed Ayame terribly.
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"I'll return," he had said; that was five months ago. Ayame sat on the same leather couch where he had told her about Relena Peacecraft, the thought of that...

"That WOMAN!" Ayame fairly hissed. The thought of Relena made Ayame start crying all over again. Heero hadn't called or written since he'd left with her. Ayame wondered if he'd actually return to her or if it had been a lie to make her shut up. Enough was enough. She had waited five months. "Classes be damned, I'm going to do something."

Ayame was pacing the floor thinking when there was a rap on the door. She sighed and looked in the mirror by the doorway. She looked like Hell. Her hair hadn't seen a brush since her shower this morning, and she was still in a robe that barely covered her backside. Her already thin frame was getting thinner. Her eyes looked puffy from crying and glassy from lack of sleep with dark bags under them. Luckily it was Saturday and she didn't have classes. In her psych class, which she had had with Heero, Kyoju Kinoko had discussed that unless they could find a way to change human nature there would always be wars and fighting.

Ayame sighed, shaking her head and sweeping the memory away. Looking out of the peephole, Ayame gasped, then screamed, "GO AWAY!" On the other side of the door, Zechs Merquise/Millardo Peacecraft pounded on the door.

"Ayame Suisei! OPEN THIS DOOR! I'LL BREAK THE THING DOWN!" he yelled. "HEERO'S..." Zechs was cut off as the door opened. There stood a very disheveled, very upset looking Ayame.

"What?! What about Heero?!" she asked hurriedly.

Zechs looked at Ayame. The once very composed lieutenant was now this distressed child. He frowned, amazed at the turnaround. "Heero has been captured. Lady Une wants to see you at Preventer HQ."

"The news said that you were on the colonies," she said, suspicious. She heard what he'd said about Heero and it hurt, but she also knew that Zechs Merquise or Millardo Peacecraft had been the leader of White Fang. Ayame had served under Colonel Zechs, she had even went to Antarctica with him and had worked on the Tall Geese as well as the Gundams Wing and Heavy Arms. Ayame wasn't just suspicious, she was down right paranoid.

Zechs sighed. "Yes, I was, but Lady Une felt it necessary for me to return."

Ayame got a niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Who... how did..."

"The other pilots told me that you and Yuy were friends," he said cutting her off. Heero, on the other hand, had been pretty tight lipped around him and the other pilots. He was practically non-existent around Relena.

Ayame seemed to be thinking. "Give me a few minutes, Zechs. Come in and sit down," she said. Zechs closed the door and Ayame headed for her bedroom.

Standing for a few seconds, Zechs sighed. He thought Ayame had changed, but as he looked around he realized that she really hadn't. The room was painted white with finished oak wood floors and black leather furniture. A laptop computer sat in a corner of the room on a wooden desk; who ever sat behind it could see the people in the room and the door, but nobody could see the screen of the computer. A fencing sword hung behind the desk and an artist rendition of the Wing Zero hung beneath it. He walked over to a curio cabinet. To the right of him was a sliding door that lead to the balcony; he'd bet her room had its own door out to it as well. Zechs turned his attention back to the cabinet, it was filled with medals and pictures. The first picture to catch his eye was one from when Ayame had first joined OZ at 11 (her father, an aristocrat himself and loyal Treize supporter, had pulled strings to get her in, Zechs remembered) it was she and three of her male classmates. All four stood saluting to a picture of someone he couldn't see. The only thing was, they all had their tongues stuck out and were flipping the bird with their left hands.

He looked at the other pictures. There was only one of Heero in it; Zechs couldn't tell when it was taken, but it must have been in the last two years. A white silk shirt was slung over his lithe body and he was at the foot of a bed. Blue jeans had yet to be buttoned or zipped and Heero was... "He's smiling?" Zechs asked himself. A bright spot in the mirror behind Heero drew Zechs' attention, there he saw an almost nude Ayame with a camera obscuring her face. 'Ah,' Zechs thought, 'that explains it.'

A picture on the top shelve was of himself, Lucrezia Noin, and Ayame at the Lake Victoria Base just after Ayame had been promoted to Lieutenant. Lucrezia or Lu, as Ayame had called her, was wearing Zechs' red jacket; Ayame had his helmet on. Zechs was giving Lu a hug from behind. It was one of a few pictures of the three of them together. "I'm not wearing my helmet in any of these pictures," he murmured as he looked at them. He smiled and kept looking. In a frame he saw a line she had written, it was familiar but changed. "Life is like an endless waltz. Someone asks you to dance and you say, 'No, I'd like to sit it out'," he read aloud and smirked. "I'll tell Mariemaia that when I see her."

He looked in the cabinet a little longer. He found a picture of a family, a husband, his wife and their two children. It had been pushed to the back of the cabinet and almost hidden by the picture of Heero. It was Ayame's family. Her father was a tall, blond haired man with glassy brown eyes; his wife was petite with black hair and dull golden eyes. Ayame's brother looked to be an exact replica of his father, while she obviously mirrored her mother.

"Having fun, Zechs?" Ayame asked.

The former Lightening Baron turned around and was stunned for a second time that day. Ayame had down a 180 in the past five minutes, her hair was brushed and pulled back into a braid, a pair of light purple leather pants hung on her like second skin, a black long sleeved shirt that laced up the middle of her front did the same. A pendant hung between her small breasts... a locket that carried a picture of Heero and her that had been taken in a photo booth at a carnival.

"It's February, there's snow on the ground, you're gonna freeze your ass off," he said.

"I'll wear a coat, let's go," she said. "I'll follow you in my car."

"Fine," Zechs said, slightly hurt at the wary yet accusatory tone in her voice but understanding why none the less. Being the former leader of a group that had tried to destroy the world tended to make a person less than trusted.
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A cold wind swept through the garage at Preventer HQ sending a shiver up Zechs' spine, Ayame walked on as if the wind didn't bother her. "Think it's going to snow, again?" Zechs asked, trying desperately to make small talk. The silence was uncomfortable.

"Hnnn," was all she said. Zechs rolled his eyes and made a mental note that if you were around Heero too long, he began to affect your conversational skills. Inside the building Zechs quickly pushed past the other Preventers and into Lady Une's office. Ayame walked quietly into the office and stood silently until Une finally noticed their presence. Even after all her years in OZ she had only met Lady Une once; they had saluted, said hello, and been on their separate ways. "You wished to see me, Ma'am?"

"Yes, Ms. Suisei," Une said skipping all formalities. Rising from her desk she started shuffling paper as if looking for something. "If I recall correctly you had great stealth skill." Ayame nodded and Une continued, "I was wondering if you would be interested in one final mission."

"Colonel?"

"It's not colonel anymore. Just call me Une," she said. "I want you to rescue one of or men, Heero Yuy." Then it dawned on Ayame that maybe Une didn't know that Heero and she were involved.

Behind Ayame, Zechs gasped but before he said anything she cut him off. "If I were to accept, I would first have to look over any information you have. See if a mission would be at all possible, as well as know exactly what I'm doing."

"Yes, I know. This is all the information we have," Une said handing Ayame a folder that she had pulled out of a stack of papers. "Inside you will find the original mission and the information on the building." Une sighed. "Should you need anything else don't hesitate to ask."

"Yes, Ma'am," Ayame said taking the folder from Une. After thinking for a second she asked, "How about a computer in an office. I'd like to go over this here and see if I can't scrounge up some more information."

"Of course. Zechs, could you find her an empty office?" Une asked. Ayame turned around to face Zechs as he started to speak, shooting him a death glare that could rival Heero's. Zechs swallowed and nodded. "Suisei, if you take this mission it will be dangerous. And I'm not sure I can promise you Preventer back up."

Ayame turned half way around and nodded. "I know," she said. Turning to Zechs, she smiled and said, "Lead the way."
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