Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and it's characters do not belong to me.

This first entry is dedicated to my mother who's Bithday is in a couple of days. (May 4th). She know's Relena's story all too well.
Entry 21: To Love

POV: Heero


Relena watched the news everyday.

She saw how the world progressed without her at the foregront. The Earth Sphere was still a peaceful place, even without her.

Over the time she'd spent sick she slowly driften into the shadows and faded into the background...disappeared.

I think she watched the news, at first, because she wanted to make sure she had made the right decision in leaving politics. I think after she was satisfied, she just wanted to make sure that the earth was still maintaining proper levels of peace and functionality.

She would get upset sometime, when she had pushed for got shot down. She broke our small ALF screen once with a shoe, then dragged a smal ancient television out a closet and tuned in again.

It was an obsession with her. It was her life. When she saw she was no longer needed...she left me.

Relena died this afternoon.

I stood by her side, holding her hand.

She'd gotten to the point where she couldn't walk, she couldn't talk. She was in her own world, conscious, but paralyzed--mostly. You could tell when she was uncomfortable because she would bend her legs at her knees and stretch out again, running her feet over the wrinklied sheets--over and over again.

The dark stubble blanketing her legs stood out against her white skin. I rubbed her claves, trying to calm--soothe her, but she would groan and I would trung my attention back to her swollen face.

2:49 PM, Sunday, June 8th, AC 207.

Her lungs filled with fluid--it took all night to happen. I couldn't do anything as she slowly suffocated.

She gasped for breath for an hour, breathing, wheezing, gasping. It killed me each time life flickered in her body. She was a flame, standing against the wind--almost being snuffed out, but then regaining strength, only to flicker once more--and finally go completely dark.

Funny, what ultimately killed Relena was the fluid in her lungs. She drowned in her bed...A candle needs oxygen to burn, a flame to live, a life to function. But when a gust of oxygen becomes too strong, it is snuffed to a smoldering wick, and slowly, it dies to a burnt-out ash.

Relena needed oxygen--space in her lungs.

She could have taken the modern treatments. She could have...but she chose the ancient ways. Less harmful chemicals she said like what was inside of her wasn't harmful in the least. After as far as our technology has progressed, we still haven't found hot to cure abnormal cells.

Why not me? I was the one experimented upon. I was the once who'd had drugs-steroids pumped into my system--why not me? Why--why not me?

Oh God, she's dead.

It was just like me dream. She was still, cold, gone. I couldn't do anything. I was dead. I cried--I wailed and called Sophie. I broke down.

I think I'm drunk. Does a bottle of Scotch affect a person much? I've never had it before, I'm not sure where it came from.

I peeked--around the corner when they were taking her out of the house. I saw her body being rolled out by a mortician in a black velvet bag. I could see her feet sticking up on either end of the mattress. She was dead gone--no more. Nevermore.

Is it my fault that I did nothing?

Maybe if I had saved South--maybe this wouldn't have happened--I wouldn't have married Relena. That's selfish. She would have been alive at least.

Oh God! What has happened to me? I used to be strong. Perfect--almost. Why am I so weak now? What do I do?

She's dead. I have nothing to live for. I want to die.

She's dead. Dead and gone and dead. Not 'passed away'--she's dead as a fucking doornail and I couldn't help her. Please love me Relena.



Entry 22: After Mariemaia's War
POV: Heero


The past couple of weeks have been hectic, with the funeral and moving and all.

I can't live in the apartment. I got a place on L1--one of the central colonies this time.
I have to get away from Earth.

In my free time, I've read through this journal, this project that Relena so wanted to put together after I moved in with her. She was so excited about it, so I went along.

I still can't believe that I kept those letters...


I remember reading many time when we both mentioned what took place after Mariemaia's War, but neither of us ever wrote about it.

I don't believe that the journal can be complete without recording that.

So here it is. I remember it vividly.

I woke up in a foreign place. I had no clue where I was. I reached for my gun under my pillow, only to discover that it wasn't there. My heart rate increased and my full attention went to watching and listening. I was on guard. I was read to strike at any moment, despite the excruciating pain echoing through my entire body.

I reached to my side, perhaps I'd fallen asleep with my gun still tucked in my waistline--It'd happened before. To my surprise, I wasn't wearing any clothes, well, besides underwear. No gun there.

Not my bed.

Not Wing Zero' cockpit.

Didn't fell like a hospital.

My eyes adjusted quickly to the lighting when I finally kept them open long enough to allow them the luxury. I found myself laying in a four poster bed in a room with molding on the ceiling and gold leaf gilded on the walls. Pure Elegance.

No hospital has ever existed that was that nice. It could have been a hotel. How would I have gotten there?

Then, I noticed her. In a chair next to the bed, Relena sat, with her head back, mouth open, asleep. She didn't snore, didn't even sound as if she were breathing, but she was.

Why wasn't I wearing any clothes?

She was fully dressed--in sweatpants and a t-shirt, but that was still clothes and a hell of a lot more than I was wearing.

I propped myself up against the pillows, carefully covering myself with the bedclothes and took inventory of my injuries.

My chest and left arm were wrapped. My right foot had a temporary cast around it and my head rang like a fucking bell. Fractured arm, cracked ankle, broken ribs, gash on the head, and many other cuts and bruises.

Not too bad after...after what?

What had happened?

I closed my eyes and dug and pushed the memories from my hazy brain until they were clear.

There had been another war. I had died after I killed Marimaia. I killed her and died. Relena caught my dead body.

I was sixteen--almost seventeen. I was dead. I killed Trieze's daughter. Relena caught me. I was dead.

I was at Relena's house. Relena caught me. She brought me here. Relena caught me when I passed out. She got me a doctor and kept me in her spare bedroom. She didn't let me fall. She didn't let me die.

I wasn't dead--alive. I had been born. No more war.

No more Zero. zero. No more.

I was at Relena's house.

And from examinging my injuries It'd been a few days since I fell out of Wing Zero and killed Mariemaia.

I had stubble. I had been unconscious for at least three days.

Relena jolted herself awake. I didn't respond to her movements at all.

"Heero?" she said. "Heero, are you awake?"

I sat, silent. Just looking down at my hands two fingers on my right hand were in a splint. Why didn't I notice that sooner?

I flexed my hand to discover what other damage it had procured. None.

"Heero? Are you alright? Can you hear me?" She asked, sitting next to me on the bed. She was close. I could feel her breathing.

I slid out from beneath the covers and stood out in the cool air in only my briefs and my bandages. I only wanted clothes.

"Heero, your leg...You shouldn't be standing..."

"I'm cold Relena. Where are my clothes?"

"I can get you some sweat pants," she said and left the room quietly. I got back beneath the covers. Goose bumbs had begun to form over my skin. I was in Europe. In the winter. Why? Did Relena bring me here? She must have. Her house is in Europe--why didn't I make that connection before?

She came back in with black sweat pants and a faded black t-shirt. I slipped them on and joined Relena on the bed.

Neither of us said anything for a really long time. I don't know what she was thinking. I was rehashing the events of the war. Everything made sense until the end. I shot her didn't I? I killed Mariemaia--didn't I?

I stood, said I'd relieve her pain, aimed, pulled the trigger--and then I don't remember. I heard it click. I didn't shoot her. I had no more bullets. I remembered. The sound was different--the was the gun works--it kicks a little differently--it protests when fired with no ammunition.

"Did I kill the girl?"

"Mariemaia?"

"Yeah. Is she dead?"

"No. She's in the hospital, but alive."

"Good."

She nodded, smiling a little and then lay down on the left side of the bed and closed her eyes.

"You should sleep Heero." She said.

"I just slept for days."

"You're healing. You can't tell me you're not tired."

"How long was I unconscious?"

"Three days." I was right.

"Heero, please lay down. The doctor told me to make sure you plenty of rest."

I laid down.

"What did you tell the doctor?" I was afraid that she'd given me away in her innocent ways.

"I told him you were a dear friend of mine that came to save me and got hurt in the Gundam attack. I think he bought it. It's not a lie anyway, so I don't know why he wouldn't." She propped herself up on her elbows and looked me straight in the face. "I would never give away your identity Heero. I couldn't do that to you--any of you."

I didn't say anything, just closed my eyes.

I never made love to her until we were married, amazingly enough. That night we just shared a bed.

One'd think that a guy would be happy to have a girl in his bed. I stayed at the very edge of the bed, as far away from her as possible. Relena was asleep, peacefully, next to me. She wasn't in danger--or was she? Why else would we be like this? I protect her, she gives peace to the world--that's the simplified version...Together, we had a system--on the edge, but a system nonetheless.

I lay awake most of the night--only dozing lightly, waiting for the break in. I was waiting for the action, the danger, the adrenaline, the life.

I needed some test to know that i was really alive. Am I alive? Relena caught me, didn't she?

She stirred at dawn and I blinked in greeting to the sunlight. I had to piss.

I got up and my muscles screamed, my leg tightened. I needed to stretch.

I stumbled over my bulky cast and compresses muscles and knocked a small table. The glass vase on top fell over and shattered, spreading water and day old lilies sprawling across the floor.

I slipped and a shard of glass cut my foot. To examine it I sat down and lifted the foot to chest level. A small thin line tickled down, tickling my skin. It was so beautiful...I wanted more.

To my right lie a hook shaped shard--the perfect shape for cutting, especially flesh.

I grasped it in my left hand and lifted my shirt to expose the tender skin along my stomach. With one quick stroke blood was dribbling down my abs.

I remembered the scars on my wrists. Only the right was exposed. Would the glass sever the scar tissue?

I wonder...

The shard bumped into the tissue and then sliced smoothly through the cell layers. Red appeared immediately and dropped from my wrist to my leg and then soaked invisibly into the black knit fabric.

"Heero?"

I looked up, Relena stood over me with her eyes glistening. Tears.

I wasn't ashamed. I was light-headed. I wasn't scared, I was sorry. Sorry for the pain saturated in her tears. Sorry for the sight, the nightmares, the beautiful spilt blood.

Did I want to die? I would if the blood didn't stop flowing. Was my purpose server? Had it been?

Relena pulled a handkerchief from a drawer and pressed it to my wrist, sniffing back her tears.

I was paralyzed for a moment--she was trying to clot the flow. Trying...

I pulled my hand away and she struggled to regain control. The handkerchief was soaked through with crimson.

It was no use anymore. Why couldn't she just let me go in peace?

Peace?
Peace.
I struggled with her, gently. She wanted to help--I wanted to help myself.

Now her hand clenched my wrist with an iron grip.

It hurt. She was desperate not to let me go.

Violence wouldn't work with her.

I put my left hand over hers. "Relena."

Her gaze met mine and I pulled her bloodied hand from my wrist and the brought her down so she was sitting beside me on the floor. Her large eyes never left my face.

"I can stop it," I said and pulled off my shirt and wrapped it tightly around my wrist.

"Why do you want to die?"

"Hnn.....I don't really want to die. I just don't see how my being alive helps anything."

"It doesn't hurt anything though."

"It does when I kill..."

"You won't always have to kill Heero. You said you wouldn't have to ever again, remember?"

I raised an eyebrow in question.

"Maybe not...It was right before you passed out. you said that you'd never hurt anyone again because you didn't have to, then you fell, I caught you--and then you passed out."

"Well then, I'm a liar."

"Why?"

"I just hurt myself."

"You see yourself as a person?"

"You do. By hurting myself, I hurt you."

She moved my shirt to check up on the bleeding. It wasn't quite stopped, but better.

"Will you come back to me?"

"I need time Relena."

"Take it."

After that...well, it doesn't matter. That the important part. It was a turning point which we both counted as a promise of the future.

It seems less eventful on paper, less emotional, but then again, I'm a soldier, not a writer.

Well, I suppose this is the end of this journal, literally. There are only two pages left...

This was really Relena's baby. She wanted to tell our story, it was a different one, though oddly romantic. I'll let it end with her. It's what's only right. It feels good.


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Well guys, that's it--well not quite. There will be an epilog, which corresponds directly to the prolog, so if you don't remember, take a look. I'll have the epilog out by friday, but I want to know what you guys think of the last chapter before I end it completely. Thanks for taking the time to read!!

---marla