Author's Note: I don't own Gundam Wing, if you happened to miss all my other disclaimers. Lime in this one.

~ Skeletons in the Closet ~

Part 6

By Zero's Wings

Aftermath in a Country Without a Good Merlot

A nurse in a stark-white uniform applied stitches to Heero's foot with quick craftsmanship. To Heero, she appeared irritable and abrupt. According to her watch, she had good reason to be; it read 3:15 AM. The nurse was cleansed in plastic process, hiding the moldy residue of death that lingered on every surface. She finished, left, and still Heero could not stand to look at the bloody remnants of his toes. After seeing so much violence, and having committed so much himself, he was still shocked at the juxtapositions raised by such an injury. He saw a part of his body as meat. Beneath all the emotional machinations, he was hamburger meat. Whether it be blood flowing through a bag of meat, or sparks chasing their tales through circuits, it made no difference. He was the same as the Gundams. They were—

At that moment, petal-like lips graced his cheek and found their way to Heero's mouth. Relena's flowery taste was between them. That was the difference. Zero could not love someone as he did. Heero knew these feelings were not paltry emotional gestures, they were what made him alive. They characterized life.

Heero reluctantly finished the long kiss with a swirl of his tongue. Ecstasy. He looked up at Relena's face. Her makeup had run down in pastel smears and he was reminded of the sound of her crying at his bedside. It sounded like church bells. He was about to kiss her again, and words rushed out of his throat unexpectedly.

"I love you, Relena," Heero said breathlessly. He felt a mixture of fear and exhilaration. Heero had never said that to anyone, but who better? She was the love of his life. He had no doubt of that.

"I've been waiting a long time to hear that, Heero. I thought it had been too long." New tears were ready to spring down Relena's face, but she held them back; what she had to say was too important. "I wanted more than just being in a comfortable relationship," she continued. "I wanted love; passionate, mutual love." Heero kissed her forehead with delicacy.

"I'm sorry it took so long for me to say that," Heero said quietly, his face flushed and his head lowered. "I thought I'd lost you. It was the worst feeling in the world." He held up his brutalized foot, the coarse, black stitches like ugly bug flesh mixed with the scrapes and avulsions rendered to his fragile, pink toes. "When this happened, I realized that losing you was more painful than any physical torture I could be put through. I had felt real loss, and this," he said gesturing to his missing toes, "was nothing. You are part of me. We belong together." He drew a few strands of hair away from her face, and his hand lingered down and explored the rest of her body. Relena stood with her eyes closed, her mouth a tiny, open slit through which only a few sharp, shallow breaths could escape. Heero pulled back just before reaching that point of no return in passion. He took her hand and they left that cramped hospital room filled with the deceptive smell of plastic and disinfectants. They would continue this at home.

Duo was waiting on a small couch in the hall. He was slouched over an ashtray that said he had been up the entire night. A dozen magazines were spread over the coffee table in front of him. To Heero, the braided pilot appeared to be a haggard shell of his usually happy-go-lucky self. Even so, he was wearing a funny, little smile that didn't match his bloodshot eyes, the huge, black bags under them, or his generally withered expression.

"I'll drive you home," Duo offered in a croak. Heero nodded, and put a comforting hand on Duo's shoulder. At that moment, Quatre rushed into the room nervously, with a slightly battered Trowa in tow.

"Don't be ridiculous," Quatre protested. Trowa nodded, trying to keep a dignified expression despite the large bandage that covered his nose and most of his face. Quatre sighed empathetically at the sight of the wounded Heero, the emotionally wrecked Relena, and the exhausted Duo. "You need rest, Duo. Heero, Relena, you two should be getting home as well," he added, seeing the lust in both their eyes. "I'll have Rasid pick us up. Duo, you can stay with me and Trowa." Duo stretched out and cracked his knuckles, yawning.

"That might be a good idea, old buddy. Thanks." Duo said, chuckling tiredly. He groaned and got out of his chair, his back having already called it a night. Heero, Relena, Duo, Quatre, and Trowa left the hospital together, all limping along with their respective ails, their faces comprising an immutable flag of surrender.

*****

Heero and Relena twirled together in a flurry of passion and heat. He fumbled with her blouse, gritting his teeth in frustrated impatience. Too many damn buttons! he thought in angrily. Finally, he managed to undress Relena, and took in her fully developed, feminine body for the first time in absolute freedom. She was beautiful, more so than he could've possibly imagined. Heero felt everything this time. It was real love, expressed in its purest form.

Exchanged kisses ran up and down every part of their respective bodies, and Heero managed to shut the door of his apartment just before becoming fully undressed himself. He felt smooth and sleek with a layer of cool sweat over his skin. He groped and twisted and kissed as fiercely and eagerly as he knew how. Even in the intense moment, Heero tried to be careful and gentle with Relena's body. It was not his property; it was a unique privilege for him to touch it.

Heero melted the ballet of intrusive gestures back into a simple, warm kiss. He took Relena in his arms and laid her down on his bed. She looked angelic lying there, her slender figure stretched out, her golden hair splayed in all directions, her face having shed its child-like predisposition, and yet retaining her innocence and purity. God, she drove him crazy! Heero planted a few more kisses on her face and down her chest; then he lifted his head and arched his muscular back. Relena let out a soft cry, and then they fell silent in awe and pleasure. They were joined as one.

*****

Hours later, the moans and cries of pleasure finally died down. Heero fell silent, breath returned like the sparkling blue tide to fill his lungs. Soon after, he was asleep. Relena was lying beside him, her small hands caressing him in tender discovery.

Relena's hands traced over his back, an unexplored and largely unseen region, and she recoiled, shocked, as her fingers found themselves in a road map pattern of deep, rough-hewn scars. Heero rolled over completely, and she saw the terrible patterns of old lacerations, ghosts of the war. The skin that had grown over the scars was the awful pinkish-gray of rat's feet. It was wrinkled and had a rubbery texture, yet was displeasing and rough to the touch. Most terrifying to Relena was the large tattoo, in thick, black ink that was scrawled over his back, seemingly in a rage. It was a picture of an upside-down cross. The word Dominus was inscribed upon it in a bold, flowing text. On the arms of the cross were crude stick-figure drawings, denoting kills. Relena drew in a surprised, hurried breath and covered her mouth in shock.

Heero rolled over, still half-asleep, and put his arms around Relena. "It's all right," he said in a gentle, comforting tone that she had never heard him use before. "I was a different person then. These marks, they are reminders of a time I've been trying to forget."

"It just surprised me a bit, that's all," Relena said, biting her lip. Just ghosts left over from the war, she thought tiredly. Still, Relena couldn't help but wonder how much their relationship had changed him. She could hardly even remember what he was like when they first met. That time was all like a blur. But Relena forgot her worries easily in Heero's arms. They embraced and shared in each other's warmth. Soon they were fast asleep, sharing in each other's dreams.

*****

That afternoon, while Relena was back at work, Heero received another unexpected call. An hour later he was sitting uncomfortably on the edge of the old, cast-iron bridge above a serpentine river. The structure was hard and unwelcoming, with a sort of gothic flair in its support structures, which rose up like flying buttresses. The few clouds strewn across the bruised sky were ugly, gray sacs. Just the type of meeting place Heero had expected, the instant he heard that cold voice.

The reddish fog around the bridge parted like a curtain, and Zechs Marquise walked out, his large trenchcoat billowing in the wind. He pulled the coat close around his body and shivered, pleasantly cold, just enough to make him feel alive. Few things made him feel that way, among them were being with Noin, fencing, and the cool spring winds of the Sanc Kingdom. Needless to say, comfort in a peaceful time was still an elusive state for Zechs.

"I wasn't expecting to hear from you, Zechs." Heero said in his monotonous, soldier voice. "I figured you were going back to Mars to continue the terraforming." Heero would never feel completely comfortable around Zechs, and he had assumed that Zechs felt similarly. He supposed that was why he was so surprised by this social call.

"The project hasn't started back up yet and something else insisted I stay." Zechs' voice was bitter and cold, as it had always been. It was like the lilting chimes of souls, trapped between worlds. His eyes were filled with a suppressed intensity, like a cobra, hood reared back and fangs poised to strike. Zechs reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. Heero took the paper and unfolded it gingerly. It was a PDP- Potential Danger Profile, the preventer agency's version of a rap sheet. Heero's eyes widened.

"What the hell?" he murmured in shock. The sheet was describing Emulat.

"He's alive," Zechs said. "And he's in the Sanc Kingdom. He is behind the uprising in Croatia, and he will no doubt use it to try and destroy us."

"I know," Heero replied, exhaling a thin, vaporous cloud of lifestream. "The good doctor told me so himself. He called it project Yeh-meer, or something like that. Do you know what that means?"

Zechs shook his head. "We have learned that Croatia's forces are gathering on our borders," Zechs said worriedly. "They have disseminated false rumors that we are holding their soldiers prisoner within the country. The media worldwide is playing this up as an arrogant show of the power and immunity from conflict of an aristocratic, pacifist nation. Croatia's support is growing."

"I've seen all this before," Heero said, shivering. The cold air was not bothering him. "This is exactly how it was when the Sanc Kingdom fell last time." He turned to Zechs, and genuine sympathy bled through his features. He could not imagine what it was like, to lose your homeland twice, and then, in a state of absolute peace, have it lost again.

Zechs brought his fist down firmly on the iron bridge. "I will not let that happen again," he growled. Zechs closed his eyes and shuddered. When he opened his eyes back up, he was clam and collected, perhaps even relaxed. He took a bottle of wine out the folds of his coat and twisted the cork off. "The finest Merlot to ever come out of Sanc," Zechs said with a calming look of satisfaction. He smelled it with delicacy, then took a swish in his mouth and offered the bottle to Heero.

Heero took the wine in reluctance, and found that it tasted like old motor oil. He cringed, but tried to suppress it out of consideration for Zechs' feelings. To his surprise, Zechs was wearing a similarly disgusted look. They both spat the wine out over the bridge and laughed hysterically.

"I guess," Zechs began, wiping a tear from his eye and still giggling uncharacteristically, "that wine stops aging well after the first hundred years." Heero looked a bit green at that bit of information, and they erupted into laughter again.

"If my grandfather could've seen this," Zechs said, "he would smack us both right upside the head. He was so damn proud of this wine. It was the Sanc Kingdom's original legacy. Before the initial takeover, there were vineyards stretching out as far as the eye could see," Zechs said, sweeping his hand out over the fog-laden river with a grand gesture. His cold eyes were now glossed over with the warmth of reminiscence. For a moment, he was caught up in times past, when his family was still alive and intact. In sadness, his eyes lost the filmy layer of nostalgia. They were quick to turn cold again.

"I'll die before I see this country in ruins again." Zechs said, looking at Heero intensely. "I swore upon my father's grave that I would see no harm done to this place."

"I swore I'd protect Relena," Heero said. "And I'll kill Emulat if it's the last thing I ever do."

"You love my sister, don't you?" Zechs asked nonchalantly.

"Yes," Heero replied immediately, his eyes taking on a distant, impassioned look. "I love her very much. As her brother, I think you should know that I started sleeping with her about a month ago."

Zechs nodded and looked back out over the river. A second later, his mind did a sort of double take, and he turned around, his features whirling into absolute fury as he punched Heero brutally hard across the face.

End part 6

Author's Note: So, how do you like the fic so far? How is this part compared to the others? Tell me everything.