Feels Like Home
By Shikata ga nai
~*~
The next morning Heero was woken by Pagan knocking on his bedroom door. After reviving a bit in the shower, he dressed in jeans and a blue T-shirt and went downstairs to breakfast. Relena was sitting at the dining room table eating toast while she read the paper. She chirped, 'Good morning,' while he poured a cup of coffee from the sideboard and sat down in front of his scrambled eggs. He nodded in reply and tucked into the hot food.
After breakfast, they walked through the estate's huge backyard to a gate in the wooden fence. Fifty paces beyond that, through a stand of trees, they came to another house with a stable in the yard. Relena went right towards the stables and called to a man passing by with a rake and a bucket. "Hi, Jake! This is my friend, Heero."
Jake, an older man with brown hair streaked with silver, nodded at Heero in greeting, obviously not one to waste words. Heero liked him immediately. "The horses are in the stable, Relena. Go ahead and saddle them up."
She beamed. "Thank you!" Jake smiled and walked away and Relena tugged Heero's arm. "Let's go!" she said excitedly.
The horses stood placidly inside their stalls and nickered as the two young people entered. Relena went directly towards a chestnut mare and started stroking the horse's neck. "Hey, Sugar," she cooed. Heero looked around; one other horse had a saddle draped over its stall door, a large, silver-grey gelding that snorted and shook its head when he approached. Relena looked over from where she was starting to saddle Sugar. "Are you all right with that one?"
"Yeah." Heero picked up a brush. "What's his name?"
"Bullet."
Heero winced and stared at Bullet. The horse snorted again and started sniffing him agitatedly. There was a fiery glint in its eyes. This should be interesting, he thought with dread.
Heero got the horse saddled without too many problems, and was thinking as they rode along the trail that he had been worrying about nothing. Bullet behaved himself admirably as they followed the path up a mountainside, and Heero settled down to enjoy the scenery and the fresh air. Relena rode in front on the mare, stopping to point out landscape features or squeal happily about the wildlife they passed.
After an hour, he was lulled into a trance by the steady march of his horse and the beautiful view, when suddenly he was jolted awake by Relena talking to him again. "What--?" he said distractedly.
She sighed. "I said, do you want to pick up the pace a little? I'll race you back home."
"Okay," he said agreeably, and almost immediately was nearly run over by Relena and Sugar as they turned and galloped past him down the pathway. Bullet, who would not be outdone, reared up into the air angrily. Heero was startled and barely had time to grip the reins to keep himself from falling off the saddle. He nearly yelled as they tore down the trail after Relena. After a minute, though, he got himself oriented again and leaned forward against Bullet's neck, following his instincts. Bullet responded by going faster. The yell became a whoop of delight as the two wild creatures raced along as one. This was thrilling. It was better than blowing up mobile suits in outer space.
They passed Sugar and soon were leading by three lengths, with Relena fading into the background rapidly. He saw a glimpse of the stable buildings ahead through the trees and sat up, pulling back to slow down the horse. They stopped, Bullet's sides heaving, to wait for Relena and Sugar to catch up. When they trotted into sight, Heero grinned devilishly and led the party at a normal pace back to the stables.
Jake was waiting for them. His eyes widened when he saw Heero ride into the yard. "You rode Bullet?" he asked incredulously. "Your first time? He's hard even for me to handle!"
Heero dismounted and patted Bullet's neck. "I've ridden before. He was fun, though."
Relena led Sugar over to the two men. "I think they understand each other."
Jake scratched his head. "Well, if you ever want to…feel free to take him out again. He can use the exercise and discipline."
"Thank you, sir."
"Call me Jake."
Relena nudged Heero in the arm. "Let's get these two cleaned up."
The two of them led their horses into the stables to be unsaddled and brushed.
***
Heero spent the next three months living in the white room at Relena's mansion. Every day he got up early and spent a long time in the gym before going down to breakfast, slowly but steadily building up his strength again. Relena preferred to do her workouts in the evenings when she got home, so they never saw each other in there. They ate meals together and talked a lot, about the issues she had to address at work and about the overall political and social state of the world. On her days off, they would get out of the house and go to the zoo, or go hiking, or play tennis, or go horseback riding. Heero spent his days alone reading or wandering the countryside around the estate.
He enjoyed taking it easy for once, but as the days passed, the novelty wore off and he started to get restless. He started wondering about the other former gundam pilots and how they were coping with their new life. The weights in Relena's gym were getting too light for him, and he started running, farther and farther each day, and swimming laps in her pool until the pool felt so small that it seemed he was doing more turning around than swimming. The books in her house didn't hold his attention, and he was always fidgeting. He felt like a wild tiger trying to escape its cage.
Finally, one night at dinner, he put down his fork and looked Relena in the eyes. "I want to go find the others."
She contemplated him for a minute, then sighed. "I can find their locations for you to the best of my ability tomorrow, while I'm at work."
He stared. "It only takes you one day? You could have had them already."
She looked slightly hurt, but tried to smile mischievously. "I thought I'd wait until you asked me, first."
He shrugged. "All right. Thank you."
He went back to eating without another word. He didn't notice Relena still watching him, blinking rapidly once or twice, and then the tiny sigh that escaped her lips before she went back to eating.
***
Relena walked in the front door at five-thirty the next evening, briefcase in hand, feeling about a hundred years old. Heero came in through the back door an hour later, breathing heavily and sweating from his daily cross-country run. He excused himself to shower and change, and was back in the downstairs sitting room within fifteen minutes, clean and groomed as much as he would ever be. He wasted hardly any time with pleasantries, obviously very impatient to hear the news.
"So what could you find?"
Relena drew herself up to her full height and willed herself to keep calm. He has no idea how I feel. He just wants to see his friends again. She opened her briefcase and removed a printout. "Trowa is with a circus troupe currently touring the former France. They'll be on Earth for another three weeks, and then are scheduled to go to the L3 colony cluster. Duo is living in the L2 cluster, running a salvage business. Quatre is still at home at L4. I looked and looked, but I couldn't locate Wufei anywhere. That's all I have." She gave him the sheet.
"I can find Wufei." He folded the paper and put it in the pocket of his jeans. "I appreciate the hospitality you've shown me for the last few months, Relena. I'll repay you someday."
Her eyes went very wide. "You're not leaving right now, are you?"
He looked at her in confusion. "Why not?"
"Well…you…you should at least get a good night's sleep first!" she blurted. "You can leave tomorrow morning, and get an early start!" Nice recovery, she thought.
Heero considered, and then nodded in acquiescence. "You're right. I'll leave first thing tomorrow morning."
Pagan popped his head in the door leading to the dining room. "If you'll excuse me, Miss Relena, supper is ready."
They ate in silence and didn't talk for the rest of that night.
***
Heero was up with the sun the next morning, or he would have been, except that the sky was covered in murky grey clouds that threatened rain. The weather didn't sober his mood, though. He showered quickly and dressed in his own jeans, tank top and yellow runners for his journey. He walked downstairs and was assaulted by the silence. Pagan and Relena were nowhere in sight. He had somehow expected them to be there before he left.
Oh, well, he thought with a shrug. I don't need their send-off. I never have before. He ignored the eerie quiet and walked into the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind him. A bowl of steaming porridge was sitting on the table. He furrowed his brow. Hot food, but no butler. Fine, then. He sat down and ate, relishing the warm feeling as it hit his stomach.
After depositing the dirty dishes in the sink, he walked out of the kitchen and into the front hallway. Sitting next to the front door were a blue nylon jacket and a brown canvas backpack. There were three days worth of fresh food and a week's worth of dry rations inside the backpack, as well as a map, compass, first aid kit, and $500. He pulled out the money. I don't want this… But if he knew Relena, she'd never let him return it even if she was around to return it to. With a glimmer of guilt, he put the money back in the backpack, threw on the jacket, and walked out the front door, closing it softly behind him.
The rain had just started, and as he walked down the driveway to the road, he was battered by drops of cold water. He got to the end of the driveway and stopped. He was about to turn around and look back at the house, but he stopped himself in time. Don't look back, Heero. You can't go back now. Although for the life of him, he couldn't figure out exactly why he was dreading the next step. He took it anyway, and was walking south along the empty road before he could regret what he was doing.
*
Relena stood with her head resting against the cream-coloured wall as she stared out the window at the driveway below. She was in her home office on the second floor, watching Heero and biting her lip as she twisted the sheer curtain anxiously in her hands. She watched Heero stop at the end of the driveway and her heart lifted. Please look back, please look back at me… But the moment passed and he stepped onto the road, walking away from her. She exhaled sadly and dropped the curtain, squeezing her eyes shut as she relied on the wall for support.
Pagan's voice penetrated her misery from where he stood, by her desk. "Miss Relena, if you don't mind my asking, why didn't you say goodbye to him?"
She didn't look at the old man, just trained her eyes on the retreating figure outside. Her voice was hollow. "I didn't want to interfere. If I had been there this morning, he might not have…" She swallowed. "I didn't want to risk holding him back. He needs this. I haven't got what he needs. Not right now."
"I see."
They were both quiet for a moment. Relena's vision blurred and she blinked back tears. She looked for Heero again, once her eyes cleared, but he was no longer visible. Gone… She turned away from the window and walked to her desk, shuffling papers around aimlessly as she tried not to think.
"Pagan, I have a lot of work to do today. I don't wish to be disturbed."
"Yes, Miss Relena." The butler bowed and walked to the door. At the threshold, though, he stopped and turned back to her. "Miss…?"
She looked up from the report she was staring at. "Yes?"
"Do you think Master Yuy will return?"
She was silent for a moment, staring at him sadly, but her answer was the quiet, controlled monotone of a woman who wouldn't let disappointment interfere for long. "I don't know, Pagan. I just don't know."
**********