Disclaimers: I don't own them any more than I own the Hope Diamond

The ship was just about to take off when Relena opened her eyes again. She had been lain down on another couch, but it was in a shuttle. Where the rows of seats should have been there were other sofas and recliners. (AN: if you've ever seen Independence Day sort of like the inside of Air Force One) The prisoner stretched out and sat up just in time to see Heero walk by. "So, Mr. Kidnapper, where the hell ya taking me? Or do I have to hit you again?" Relena inquired bending backwards a little to stretch out her back.

 Heero smirked and sat down next to her, "That hurt, you know," he stated. "So, you want to know what we intend to do with you."

 "Didn't I just say that?"

 Heero just snorted, "For my prisoner, you certainly have an attitude."

 "Well I'm not only a princess, but I was queen of the whole freakin world,"

 He just snorted again, " you know, you're highness, you're a brat." Relena opened her mouth to say something but Heero cut her off, "but I'll tell you what we're going to do any way."

 "You sound like Duo," she muttered.

 "We're taking you to Mars to see Zechs," Heero said like it was no big thing. But Relena could feel her mouth hang open. ~Go to Mars? See Milliardo?~  She was very confused about that. Although her brother had not been able to contact her, due to the fact that he wanted people to believe that he was dead, Relena and Miliardo had not been able to keep in touch. ~But why are they KIDNAPPING me to go see him?~

 Heero sensed the inner question, and continued on without her asking, "He's sick. It's curable," he said hastily before she could get too worried, "But sick enough that he wouldn't be able to make it through space. He wanted to see you, but your damned administrators refused to let you go to visit him since he wouldn't tell them his name. They wouldn't even let him through to talk to you," Heero confirmed angrily. "So he contacted me and the guys and asked us to stage an abduction and bring you to see him," Heero finished.

 Relena placed a hand over her mouth in shock. It was unreal, but she believed every word. Then her stubbornness and political training stepped in. "Was it really necessary to kidnap me when I would have gone voluntarily?" she asked sweetly.

 "Heero thought it'd be fun," Duo declared happily. "And Trowa says that Wufei said we're ready to go!" Duo added walking back to the cockpit.

 Relena raised an eyebrow while crossing her arms, "Fun Heero? Since when did you do fun?"

 Heero buckled the safety harness and looked back to his captive, "Since awhile," he replied leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes.

 She shook her head in disbelief before fastening her own. "The Armageddon must be coming soon."

 That was the last of the conversation for about half an hour. Relena was looking out her window, out into the voids of space, while Heero watched her out of the corner of his eye.

 Relena finally took off her seat belt and laid down, paying no mind whatsoever that her head was resting on Heero's lap. He on the other hand looked down at her with a look of mild annoyance, "Comfy?"

 Relena gave a very large childish smile, "Yep, is there a problem?"

 Heero just shook his head and closed his eyes. He soon got the feeling Relena was watching him, but it didn't bother him, it never did.

 Relena gazed up at him. He really had grown up, just like the other pilots. But twice as handsome, he'd filled out some, and boy did he get tall. From what happened earlier he must have been at least six foot, and that was a good six inches taller. ~I wonder how his hair stays like that,~ Relena mused silently noticing that his hair, like Trowa's had miraculously stayed the same. ~Maybe, he found a special barber,~ She started to giggle, the idea of Heero having his hair cut, especially so that it looked a certain way was just funny.

 Heero peered down on Relena, "I don't want to know, do I?" he assumed.

 "No, I suppose not." Relena looked thoughtful for a moment. "Heero how did you come to be, 'fun?" she urged.

 Heero looked up at the ceiling then back down to the girl, or now the woman resting comfortably, with her head on his lap. He drew a deep breath before responding. "I really don't know WHY but I know what I've been doing," he stated calmly. "I was spending a lot of time with Quatre and Duo. And the rest of the time I spent with Trowa working in the circus. Just to learn about people," Heero said quietly.

 Relena wasn't sure how to take that, sure it was great the Heero was learning about humanity and so forth and so on. But he had left her out of that process. Relena was undoubtedly hurt and a little envious of everyone else Heero seemed to care so much about, or at least enough to go and be taught by.

 Heero could tell by the look on Relena's face that she was jealous. It really didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Almost four years ago he was almost positive she had a crush on him, but still he had reasons for going to someone else for help. " I wanted to come back to you perfect," he whispered in audibly to anyone else but himself.

 Also, she wouldn't have had enough time for him. He knew enough about her job to know that she spent almost every waking moment working on such politics.  Which got him thinking,  "Relena, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

 She sat up a little bit and looked at him questioningly, "If you weren't in politics," he added quickly.

 Relena got this sort of wistful look on her face before laying back down, "You won't believe me, but a mechanical engineer, or something like that," she blurted covering her face with on hand.

 "As in work with computers," Heero said with a slightly teasing tone to his voice, like he was mocking her.

 "Yes, actually," Heero looked at her disbelievingly and she split her fingers apart to look between the slits. "No I'm serious. You didn't think that I had all those snotty, boring…girls (saying this for lack of anything else to say about her so called friends) as acquaintances because my I daddy /I was a rich politician, did you?" Once again he gave Relena a truly questioning look. "I liked to hack into the school computer and mess things up a bit."

 Heero snorted, "I doubt YOU would do anything like THAT."

 Relena just shrugged, "Neither did my teachers, besides no one noticed either. There were too many students to be sure about the grades of EACH student, and the teachers were all lazy anyway." Heero glimpsed at her a tad bit impressed. ~So Romefeller weren't the only people to underestimate her.~

 She smiled at Heero and removed her hand completely. "What did you want to be?"

 It was an innocent question, one that Heero couldn't answer. He'd never thought about it only because he really couldn't. But that was then this was now. Despite the fact that he never really did want to be anything when he grew up, he knew what he wanted to do NOW. 

  Heero closed his eyes and thought about it while Relena pulled her hair out from beneath her so that it was draped over the rest of his lap like a piece of gold colored silk. He thought about all the interesting careers there were. He could be a doctor, no he had no tolerance for whining. Or there were chefs, he was a pretty good cook, but had no wish to be bossed around and have snobs complain to him about, 'their meal was cooked all wrong.' There were people to work with computers, like what Relena was aiming for, but that was something he just didn't have the heart to do anymore, or shuttle technicians or pilots. He could go back to working in the circus with Trowa, like he'd been during his years of personal study… But all those ideas, those best suited to him all felt wrong to him. They just didn't fit anymore.

 "You could always go join the Preventors, Heero," Relena pointed out midly.

 He shook his head and soon found a fascination with a lock of her hair. He played with a little, twisting it around his finger and then letting it unwrap in his hand before letting it drop down to join the rest, only to find another strand just like it.  "No," he said sounding tired. "They have me enlisted, like all the other pilots, but I have no intention of having anything to do with the Preventors unless there's a full blown war."

 She took a breath and closed her eyes, "Why not?"

 Heero knew that was coming, that question, although had it been anyone else, he'd never answer it, but it wasn't anyone else it was Relena. "Because," he sighed, "the war was something that was, that was…Something that I'll never forget and never want to live over. I'm not who I used to be anymore. I changed, if I wasn't human before," Relena giggled softly, "than at least I'm human now. Besides," he said running a hand through the rest of her hair, "The world achieved peace already, I don't want to witness first–hand anything that might even shake that peace, much less break it. I've worked too hard and I never want to work that hard again."

 Relena nodded her head in agreement, but thought bitterly to herself, ~at least your works all over.~

 He had still left her other questioned unanswered. ~What do I WANT to be? I don't think I've ever really wanted anything except peace and Relena's safety, still, what could I be?~ He continued his thought, store clerk, no, policeman, no, firefighter, maybe. Musician, no way, actor, yeah right, mechanic, possible. Teacher, not really, wait. A teacher, someone who shares their knowledge with others, someone who can help others.  He pondered the idea a moment longer. A teacher, "Relena what would you think of me as a teacher?"

 Relena smiled at him, "That's a good choice, Heero, a good choice. I think you'd do pretty good, depending on what grade, possibly Jr. High. Actually I can actually picture it. I really do think you'd be good at it," she finished with an even bigger smile. Silence soon reigned and both parties got a little uncomfortable.

 "You know," Relena continued, "I didn't just hack into the school's computer." Heero raised an eyebrow. "you remember when Dorothy came to the Sanq kingdom right? Well she kept a diary on the computer, she used to have the hots for sooo much you," Relena laughed at the crestfallen look on Heero's face.

 "You're kidding right, Trowa would not be pleased if he heard."

 "Oh? How's that?" Relena asked folding her hands over her stomach and crossing her ankles.

 He gave an odd smirk before adding, "they're as you probably would put it, 'a couple' now."

 Relena giggled, "Did you just gossip?" she inquired coyly.

 Heero didn't answer but closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair.

 She sighed, ~There he goes, all quiet again.~ Relena's face brightened a little at some inner thought before looking to Heero. "When I followed you to Antarctica, what did you think?"

 Heero snorted, "That had really crazy crush on me?" he replied.

 "Shows how little you knew about me," Relena stated. "I was on an assignment from Dr. J," she finished.

 Heero's eyes shot open, ~what the hell was she doing with Dr. J.?~ "What would he have you do?"

 Relena snickered. She had defiantly caught him off guard with that statement. "The one time I met with him," she began, "he told me to stay away from you if I valued my life. But when I got back from the colony, there was an encrypted message in my e-mail. The only part of it that was understandable was 'if you can read it.' Well I took it as a challenge. After two hours of sitting at my computer I finally got the damn message deciphered." Relena paused and noticed the small bit of interest in Heero's eyes. "It said since could figure out the message encoded with a medium level incription I could act as a spy for him. With you Heero, you were his soldier, he just borrowed me as a spy."

 "What does that have to do with you following me to Antarctica?" Heero cut in.

 "Everything. Dr. J. told me to see if you were still alive. He said he couldn't do it himself and that he couldn't trust anyone else. After I went back to Sanq though, I had to tell him no more missions," she finished with a sigh. "So, I wasn't what you thought I was, was I?"

 Heero's eyes were closed now and his only response was a slight nod before drifting into sleep. ~So maybe I underestimated her too. She's supposed to my innocent inspiration, the one I was supposed to be protecting?~

 Relena closed her eyes, and decided to sleep some herself, ~how can I be this tired?~ She yawned and smiled, "I don't even want to know."