Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. I am making no profit through the online distribution of this fic.

Chapter Rating: PG-13; for mature content

Categories: Drama, Angst, Romance

A/N: Please forgive any typos. I checked it over myself, but I am tired and sleepy and probably missed one or two.

"An Ideal Match" By: Moonkitty

Chapter IV "A Promise Made Through a Gap"

"They knew they had to put their faith in fragility. Stick to Smallness. Each time they parted they extracted only one small promise from each other:
'Tomorrow?'
'Tomorrow.' They knew things could change in a day. They were right about that."

--Arundhati Roy, 'The God of Small Things'

.

"Heero, I need your help. Dorothy did not commit suicide. She was murdered." Relena is focused entirely on me, her face intent, "The Preventers won't follow up on it due to lack of evidence. I'm not going to rest until I find out who did it and why."

I stare at her.

"We can't talk here," Relena says, looking over my shoulder towards the busy public street. We both know exactly what that means. "Visit me tonight, will you? You know where."

"Are you Doctor J?" Doctor Inquiz asked stupidly. He knew. He'd seen pictures. Doctor J's unmistakable bionic eyes and clawed hand made him quite remarkable.

"Yes." The scientist replied simply as he strolled into the office of Doctor Inquiz and pulled up a chair, "I understand you have recently been given a rather sensitive case. An engineering student named Heero Yuy, I believe?"

"Yes, that's true," Doctor Inquiz replied absently, his mind focusing on the intrusion and not the question, "but I see no reason why you should barge into my office on a Sunday morning requesting classified information. Please call during normal business hours and my secretary will be sure to arrange an appointment."

"Ah, good point." Doctor J replied, his expression unfathomable behind his insect-like eyes, "Except my business is not normal, and not something that can be covered in an appointment."

Doctor Inquiz let out a funny little sigh and nodded, "I thought it might not. What is it you want?"

"I want to see Heero Yuy. I want to confirm with my own eyes what I have heard."

Doctor Inquiz ran a hand along the curve of his bald head and then leaned back in his chair. He would never admit that he was stomach-clenchingly nervous, "That's interesting. I want something too."

"What?"

"My treatment of Mr. Yuy has made.limited progress." He started carefully, "There are things I don't know about Mr. Yuy, things that could help me help him. I have been led to believe that my file on him is.incomplete."

Doctor J nodded. The planes of the scientist's body were shaped like the face of a mountain and his eyes were as inscrutable as those of a beetle. The firm line of his mouth opened like the entrance to a cave, "I've always believed that humans work best when they work together. Perhaps we can make an agreement?"

"You have my complete attention."

"I will give you an account of the time Heero spent in my care, and you will let me see him."

"How do I know you won't leave anything out?"

The unblinking beetle eyes remained trained on Doctor Inquiz as Doctor J studied him. The psychiatrist commanded himself not to give in to the urge to shift his weight. The firm line of Doctor J's mouth twitched into a smile, "You won't."

"You're scared of him, aren't you?" Doctor J asked mildly, "Knowing that he's a Gundam pilot and all."

"Of course I'm scared of him," Doctor Inquiz replied, "If we didn't have such tight security-"

"Don't even finish that sentence. Let me assure you, if Heero Yuy wanted to escape this place, he would have been long gone days ago." Doctor J interrupted, "I trust that puts your mind at ease?"

"Hardly," Doctor Inquiz replied dryly.

"When I saw Heero he was still just a small and starving boy." Doctor J began, "I was walking through the less savory parts of Colony L1 looking for a person we could train up to pilot a Gundam for Operation Meteor. I had decided to search the streets, where I was sure to find some one resourceful, intelligent, and.unrestrained by moral imperatives. The street urchins were out and about on the sidewalks, begging, pick pocketing, and doing deliveries or message-runs for the drug dealers. A scuffle broke out on the street-not uncommon in the slums of the city, I can tell you-and someone began shooting." Doctor Inquiz couldn't have stopped the grim narration if he tried. The old man's voice was dry and crumbling, like the sound of rocks falling, but not unpleasant to listen to. The gravelly tones hung in the room like gossamer strands, and with every word the web grew more dense and entrapping until Doctor Inquiz found he was quite thoroughly caught up in it. He continued to listen, hypnotized by those insect eyes and the horrifying story they were telling.

"I backed into a corner," Doctor J continued, well aware of the fact that he had captured his audience, "but I was not alone. I found myself standing near a scruffy runt of a boy with the most focused eyes I've ever seen. Several more shots were fired, but the shooter was not in his right mind. He had taken stolen drugs from one of the more dangerous dealers, and when he was caught, he consumed them instead of handing them over. He starting getting seizures, and in his panic, he dropped the gun. The little boy beside me darted forward, picked up the gun, and shot the man without a second thought. The minute the man fell, the crowd closed in. He darted through the crowd and slipped out of sight.

"I remember asking him why he did it years later. He shrugged slightly, completely unaffected." Doctor J's expression became very intense, as if he was reliving the moment, "I will always remember what he told me then for the rest of my life. He said: 'He could have killed me. I don't like living, but I've never been dead. I'll take my chances with what I know.'"

Doctor J's lips quirked into a funny sort of smile, "It took me two weeks to find Heero again, wandering the streets. I told him I liked the look in his eyes and asked him to join up. He said 'yes' without hesitation, and I knew I made the right choice."

.

Heero's consciousness is dipping and soaring like a meadowlark over a wide yellow prairie. The azure sky is so intensely colored that he feels like he is inhaling the color instead of the air. He considers the possibility that the sky could be the sea and the prairie could be the ocean bed and that he could be actually underwater instead of in the air. He weighs the likelihood of this in his head for a while before it slips away like a fish in the hands of an inexperienced fisherman.

He continues to fly without care or worry until he feels an inexplicable urge to look towards the steadily-darkening horizon. He wants to frown in concern, but soon realizes that he is not made up of flesh and blood. He wonders absently if he has any form at all, but that thought is pushed away as an inexplicable fear of the darkness at the horizon overtakes him. As he approaches, he sees that the prairie is coming to end and beyond the prairie is an inscrutable blackness. He dips down and manages to contract his consciousness to a point fine enough to rest on a long thread of yellow grass without it bending under the weight of his thoughts.

He ponders the blackness. He longs to go back to his flying, but the darkness has bewitched him. He stares at it like any small creature standing before a hulking predator with no hope of escaping.

The shadows of the blackness are moving. Without warning, a hint of gray appears. The congealed shadows loosen and liquefy, and a woman emerges. Heero has no eyeballs, nor eyelids to cover them, but he tries to blink anyway.

He opens his eyes and finds himself in a room with three white walls, two white floors, and a wall-sized mirror. But he is not looking at the scenery. He's looking at the girl standing over him.

"Hello, Heero."

She looks like the sky and the prairie inverted with the yellow prairie color of her hair framing the blue sky color of her eyes.

"Relena." he says, "Are you here?"

She nods, and her mouth softens into a smile.

"Are you dead?"

Again, she nods.

The hairs on the back of Heero's neck are standing on end. Is it Relena standing over him? Is it a ghost?

Or is there really no one there at all?

"How are you here?"

She sits beside him, tucking her legs beneath her and touching his forehead with a small hand. Her eyes are dark and serious as she stares at him, running her palm down the curve of his cheek and resting on his lips.

"There is a place, "she whispers, her voice as soft as falling leaves, "where the conscious mind touches the parts of the brain that we visit only in our deepest dreams. We are at that place where your imagination is strong enough to overpower logical thought and let me visit you."

Heero eyes slide from her eyes to the unfathomable darkness from where she came, "That place we visit when dreaming.that's where dead people go?"

"That's the question, Heero. Maybe I have gone there. Or maybe only the part of me you remember has gone there. Maybe this conversation is a hallucination. But I think I'm real," she flattens her palm on his face, "and I feel real," she lifts her hand, "so isn't that answer enough?"

"I think I tried to kill myself, Relena," Heero says. He feels her fingers trace the pink scar on his left cheek, "Duo told me I missed by accident, but I don't think I did."

Her eyes bore into his. She is staring at him intently, but not rudely. His tongue loosens.

"I'm scared." He has said it. He feels infinitely better, "I'm scared of dying."

"You will die, Heero. You've been dying since your conception. It is the only thing you can count on in life."

"No, I said it wrong. I know I will die. I'm scared of dying. I'm scared of losing myself."

Heero knows the chemical process of death. Heero knows that every thought he makes results in a connection of neurons in his brain. He knows that the result of a lifetime of living is a spider web of these connections in his brain. They are the physical construction of his sense of identity. Heero knows that when he dies, his heart will stop beating and his body will slowly, ever so slowly, cool to room temperature.

And Heero knows that the brain will stay active for hours after the last beat of his heart until every neural connection he made during his lifetime slowly breaks apart.

The word 'death' is too brief to describe the experience. It is the unmaking of existence.

It is that unmaking that Heero both fears and longs for at the same time. Relena understands this. Relena has experienced this. He wants her to tell him exactly what it feels like. He wants the reassurance of knowing what the sensation will be like.

He stares up into her eyes, blue like the ocean: light and cheerful on the surface, but dark and inscrutable deep below.

She will give him no answer.

The Newport Library is a true tribute to reading. The library itself is not an architectural feat in any regard. It is far too small for the number of books it holds, and the result is cramped aisles and bookshelves in every location the fire warden will allow. The simple wood paneling and drab surroundings force all of your attention on the books themselves and nothing else. This forced focus creates is a silent and scholarly atmosphere and a very discrete location for a private rendezvous. I go to our agreed meeting place: the Stoics section in the Philosophy aisle. The bookshelf is one of those two-sided varieties that you can look through to the other side of the shelf. I finger some of the titles while I scan for Relena's blond head to appear on the opposite side in the Epicureanism section.

Relena enters five minutes later and starts to peruse titles on her side of the bookcase. Her hair is loose but it looks stiff, as if she has just taken it down from an elaborate hairstyle. Her shoulders are slumping and she seems tired. I suppose the diplomatic dinner she had been attending has worn her out, "You there?" she asks softly, taking out a book and opening it.

"I'm here." I reply. We take on an air of diligent readers as we whisper over the pages of the books. Relena, a trained politician, has learned to control her body language to a degree that surprises even me, "How do you know Dorothy was murdered?"

'That's the problem. The only thing I have is a note she sent me the day before." Relena slips a piece of paper through the gap between the books and the shelf and I pick it up casually.

IDearest Relena,

I'm writing this letter to say good-bye. I will be traveling soon. I wish I could give you the details in this letter, but I am afraid you would stop me if you knew where I must go. I find I no longer have the ability to control my life. I always feel as if there is someone here, telling me what to do.

A friend once told me that the most pathetic thing in life was a woman who could not cry. I found myself crying last night, sobbing for hours as I realized what I simply had to do. By making this trip, I am finally freeing myself from burying what I feel. No matter where I go or however long I stay away, a piece of me will always remain behind, eternally devoted to you.

Most affectionately,

Dorothy i

"This is definitely Dorothy's handwriting," I say, scanning the neat lines for signs of forgery. There are no inconsistencies, no telltale wobbles when the letters loop, and Dorothy's unique slanted scrawl would be virtually impossible for any copyist to believably forge, "But her words seem.odd."

"She never wrote like that in her letters," Relena explains, "she had changed since the wars, but she always remained strictly formal whenever she spoke to anyone. I don't think she ever called me anything other than 'Miss Relena.' And the way she says things. Like the way she mentions she feels like she's 'lost control' and someone is 'telling her to do something.' It really frightened me when I read it, actually."

"You showed this to the Preventers?"

"No. I did show it to a psychiatrist friend of mine who can be trusted for his discretion. He said that the writing is a clear sign that Dorothy had a mental disorder. Probably manic depression." She pauses. I think she is hiding something, "He also said I should have brought it the day I received it instead of waiting."

"You waited?"

"It came in the mail the morning before she killed herself. I know I should have brought it in then, but I believed that something.else had prompted her behavior."

"What?"

To my complete surprise, Relena blushes lightly. I can just barely see the top of her cheeks if I lift my chin a bit and look down through my eyelashes. I lower my chin again and train my eyes back on my book as I strain to hear her voice.

"She and I had just had a.disagreement," Relena whispers, "I had thought it was about that."

Relena looks reluctant to say more, so I let it drop, "What else do you know?"

"Dorothy has always had many enemies in high places. She has been using her fame to help me convince others to think twice about their stance against pacifism. Many people consider her a traitor."

"Did she mention any direct threats to you?"

"Well, there was last Friday," Relena puts back the book she had been perusing and pulls out another, "I came to visit Dorothy's home to talk about next month's conference. When I arrived she was going through the mail. We just started talking when she suddenly froze up and went white. I looked over her shoulder and saw a blank envelope. She read the note inside very quickly and then threw it into the fireplace. I asked her what it was and she told me it was from a group of people trying to scare her into withdrawing her support from me. She told me that they had been writing to her like that for months. Dorothy truly was courageous."

'Did you tell that to the Preventers?"

Once again there was an awkward pause, "No."

"Why not?"

"Dorothy made me promise not to speak of them ever again. She told me that they had already infiltrated the Preventers. I didn't want them to know that I knew about them yet."

I know Relena is waiting for a response, but I cannot speak yet. There's too much to think about.

"I was going to contact Colonel Une or Quatre right after the funeral, but I saw you. Heero, if anyone can help me solve this, it's you. I trust you more than anyone." She is peering over her book to see my expression. Her eyes dart back down nervously when I meet her gaze, "Say something." She implores me, "Anything."

I feel like someone has squeezed a drop of black ink onto my heart, and that my heart is soaking it up as if it is made of paper instead of flesh. My mindless self-pity has made me hopelessly inattentive to the people around me. I stare at the delicate curve of Relena's cheek and the bow of her lip as she scans the pages of her book. Her posture is so relaxed and casual, standing like a carefree woman caught up in a good book. It hurts to look at her like this while I know that her heart is crumbling like a sandcastle being eaten by the tide.

I once promised Relena that I would protect her. I promised her that I would clear the way for her to rebuild the world. I promised that I would protect her for the sake of her vision.

Now, as I look at her through the horizontal bars of the bookshelf, I find myself repeating that promise of protection. But not for the sake of an inspirational and idealistic pacifist. I'm saying it to the young woman before me. I'm saying it to the curve of her cheek, to the bow of her lip, to the curves of her form, to the sweep of her eyelashes, to the bend of her hair, and to the heart inside of her that just told me she trusted me.

"Well, Heero? What do you think?"

"I will protect you, Relena."

Footnotes:

Heero's choice to study the rational and logical Stoicism in these meetings is not a coincidence. I rather like to think that the book he is holding while speaking to Relena is Marcus Aurelius' 'Meditations,' which is, I am told, an essential to any follower of Stoicism. I would like to draw your attention to one line that Marcus states in regard to the "irrational" fear of death:

"But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature. " ("Meditations," Chapter 2)

Relena, of course, is in the Epicurean section, a philosophy whose chief belief is that the ultimate goal in life is pleasure. I am fascinated by their stance on death, which was summed up by The Philosophy Garden () as:

"The soul is regarded as being composed of fine particles distributed throughout the body. The dissolution of the body in death, Epicurus taught, leads to the dissolution of the soul, which cannot exist apart from the body; and thus no afterlife is possible. Since death means total extinction, it has no meaning either to the living or to the dead, for "when we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not."