Never, Ever, After

By: Prinder

Warnings: Slight swearing.

Rating: PG-13 just to be safe.

Summery: Relena really should be more careful about what she wishes for…

Disclaimer: *Grumble, grumble* *sigh* …I do not own Gundam Wing, nor will I ever own it. I am just a poor, pitiful wannabe-author that isn't worth suing, so, if you please, just don't.

"Denotes speech."
'Denotes thought.'

Denotes writing.

"Denotes over a phone or any other form of com-system."

(Denotes my interruptions.)

For those of you who want to know, at the bottom of the main page on my website is an edited picture of Heero with Green hair and eyes if you want to see what he looks like. I'm telling you, it's a hoot!

And for those of you who are wondering why Heero wasn't admitting to the whole crying bit… well, lets just say that I don't think that he would be one to admit a weakness.

Anyways, on with the story!

Chapter seven

'What is that?' Relena thought as she sat up in her bed; she had been woken up to some strange noises within the room that she found hard to distinguish. It was almost like a cross between the squeaking sounds that a mouse would make with that of the mewling of a cat, only slightly more muffled. She furrowed her eyebrows as she concentrated on where it was coming from. "Heero…?" she whispered as she slid out from under the covers and onto the cold floor. Shivering slightly before she forced herself to focus on the noises once again, they were coming from the other bed.

"…No… just stop… I won't do it again… I promise I won't…" He seemed to whisper.

Halting her movements towards him; thinking it was her that he was talking to, reached out slowly to feel for the edge of his bed, she barely managed to just graze her fingertips over it before she lost her balance; she had been leaning over too far, grabbing for anything that would catch her fall, she snagged the wires to the her unplugged heart monitor, taking the large piece of equipment along with her; the loud crash waking him up.

"What?" He gasped as he looked around the room wildly.

"Oh… ouch…" Relena muttered as she shifted the object off of herself, drawing his attention down to her form on the floor.

"What did you do?" He said harshly as he got out of the bed and began helping her up.

"Hello to you too Heero and, oh yes, I'm fine, thanks for asking." she said wryly as she steadied herself, "You were talking in your sleep and I wanted to see if you were alright." she explained.

He shook his head as he fought back the flashbacks from the dream that he had been having before he said, "It was nothing."

"If you say so… I couldn't really tell. Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" she asked as she seated herself back onto her bed.

"Yeah." he replied as the light was switched on and Trowa walked in.

"Is everything alright in here? I heard a crash." He said as he eyed the monitor on the floor.

"Everything is fine, Trowa, I just had a bad dream and Heero woke me up; I must have been flailing around a bit because I must have knocked something down. I hope I didn't brake anything." Relena lied.

Heero looked at her in wonder, 'why is she trying to cover up for me?' he thought.

Trowa walked over to the monitor and set it upright and checked it over before saying, "It still looks to be fine; just don't go knocking it over again." making Relena smile a bit.

"Sure thing. Goodnight Trowa."

"Night." he replied as he left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Don't stare at me like that; I have my reasons for everything, let's just leave it at that." Relena said as she curled back under her sheets. Heero widened his eyes a bit; he hadn't realized that he had been staring.

"What… why did…?"

"I care about you Heero, I've already told you that and I knew that the last thing you wanted Trowa to know is that you have nightmares… I can only guess what they are about but, if you don't want to talk about them to me, then I'm guessing that you don't want to talk about them to anyone. It's okay, I don't mind." She replied before motioning him to go back to sleep, which Heero did, but not before checking the clock above the door, which read: two thirteen AM. He had a long wait before morning would come and he had the feeling that he wasn't going to be getting anymore sleep that night, not if he could help it.

*****

"…I really don't see what's so funny about it, Wufei…" Quatre said sternly as they left Une's office.

"I didn't say that anything was, but, Q-tip?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's just a nickname he gave me." Quatre sighed, 'This is going to be a pain, isn't it?' he thought as the rounded the corner going left to Wufei's dormitory room.

"Why did you get it?" Wufei asked, amused; he wasn't about to let Quatre off the hook without sharing.

"I got helped him and some of his other collogues find the location of a local brothel on L2 that I had gotten wind of from Duo; he had stumbled upon it one day when it suddenly started to rain when he was caught without an umbrella, and because of the "hot tip" that I had given them, Darren Q-tip, that and partly because it annoys me." Quatre explained.

"When do you think we'll get the orders to take Muller in?" Wufei said, changing the subject.

"I don't know, but it'll have to be soon; it looks like he has spies everywhere so, when we do move out, we'll have to be extremely careful that we don't tip them off." the blonde replied as they walked into the dorm room where he promptly wrinkled his nose up at the state of the mess it was in. Kicking one of Wufei's dirty sweatshirts out of the middle of the room he said, "How can to stand living in here?"

"I don't have time to clean." Wufei replied as he opened the small refrigerator and revealed the mildewed walls inside it.

"Ewww…"

Wufei just shrugged as he pulled out a can of soda and took a swig before he replied, saying, "If you don't like it, you can clean it. You want anything?"

"I'll think I'll pass, thanks." Quatre said, still somehow remembering his manners within the slop.

"Suit yourself." Wufei replied coolly before having to set his drink down as another fellow Preventer stormed into his room.

"Preventer Five! We're moving out!" the wide-eyed, newly graduated, soldier cried before leading them to the parking garage where they were already loading up into two, hunter green, vans with the Preventer Logo on the sides.

"So soon; isn't this a bit sudden? I mean Une couldn't have THAT much evidence against him already, could she?" Quatre asked as he and Wufei scrambled in with the other men before being whisked off to apprehend one Joshua Muller.

"She must have, though, I agree, it's too soon to be striking." Wufei replied as he checked the ammo in his pistol.

"Do you think that he's already on the move, Sir?" one of the older soldiers asked.

"He has to be, otherwise I don't think that we would be on the move yet either." Quatre replied, his face solemn as he stared out the back window, thinking, 'I only hope that he's not waiting for us when we get that far…'

If Joshua Muller knew what was coming, he didn't make any indication when they surrounded his home while Quatre and Wufei personally escorted him outside and into their holding car in an operation that seemed to be completed in record time. Even when shown the evidence against him, though, he refused to answer any questions without speaking with his lawyer. Une was not pleased but, after five hours of receiving the same response, she finally agreed to his demands.

*****

"Joshua Muller was arrested today by Preventer, under the charges of conspiracy and attempting to assassinate a Peace Delegate. While both Preventer Earth and Mr. Muller refuse to comment at this time, Mr. Flatwik, Joshua's lawyer, had this to say…" the News caster said as the scene cut to that of a chubby man with an oily, pug-like, face as he said, "All I know is that my Client has been wrongfully acc--" Heero had hit the power button on the remote control, shutting the TV off.

"I was listening to that." Relena said as she crossed her arms, sourly, as she tapped her foot on the floor next to the window where she went to sit after she had woken up that morning.

"And now you aren't."

"That would be a vary accurate assumption, Heero. Would you please turn it back on?" Relena asked sparsely; her painkillers were wearing off.

"You will be hearing more then enough of it as soon as you get checked out." Heero replied calmly, he was almost wishing that the doctors hadn't denied giving her another dose. She was, no doubt, in a lot of pain by now.

"I want to be well informed, Heero, for when I do get out of here; if I'm not the press will, knowing my luck, eat me alive when they get their chance. I have to be ready for everything." Relena said as she stood up and, by pressing her hand to the wall, walked over to his bed and sat down at the foot of it; staring blankly up at him, she felt his muscles tighten slightly in reaction. 'So,' she thought, 'There is another way to tell what he's thinking after all.'

He said nothing, as he turned over on his side, fighting the urge not the wince when he jarred the wound in the side of his chest, in an attempt to avoid the topic.

Relena's eyes narrowed slightly and began to waver back and forth, as if searching for something that they couldn't see, as she reached one delicate hand out and placed it on his lower leg as she said, "It doesn't matter if you hide it from me or not, I can still tell when you're hurting Heero, I've always known."

Heero lifted his head and twisted it to look over his shoulder at her; her head was bent forward, as if attempting to hide her eyes from him.

"You don't like seeing them, do you?" Relena asked suddenly.

"Seeing what?"

"My eyes; you cringe every time I feel you looking at me, at them. They're hideous, aren't they? That's why you don't like seeing them, isn't it? Don't worry, as soon as I get out of here I'll buy some dark sunglasses and you won't have to be afraid to look at them anymore." she said in a rush as she stood up and stumbled her way into the bathroom, mumbling an "Excuse me." as she went.

'That's not true. I just don't like seeing them so blank.' Heero thought as he stared at the window that looked in from the hallway outside the door. Absentmindedly he noted that Duo was standing guard while Hilde and Dorothy conversed with him along with Mrs. Jones and Pagan. 'They're still worried?' He thought as he read their lips.

Hilde's lips began to move and Heero quickly took a guess at what she had said: "I think that she will get better; she has too!"

"There is no way for her brain to repair itself like that." Heero read Dorothy's reply.

"But, didn't doctor Po say that…" Heero couldn't make out the words "…could at least give her a form of sight?" Mrs. Jones said.

"Yeah, but you forget that…" There was that same word again "…needs another person to act as a partner, remember?" Duo said, his hands moving about, as if he was trying to brush the idea away. Heero's curiosity was piqued as he continued to watch them.

"Thank you Mr. Random Access Memory. I knew that!" Hilde seemed to snap.

"Still, I think it should be Miss Relena's choice. I don't think that finding a volunteer would be so difficult; who wouldn't want to help Miss Relena?" Pagan asked.

"…How about the people who did this to her?" Duo muttered before a crash was heard from within the bathroom and everyone rushed inside the room to see what had happened.

"Miss Dorlain? You alright in here?" Mrs. Jones called as she walked into the bathroom where she found Relena on the floor, picking up some broken bottles of perfume that she had accidentally knocked down.

"Yes, I'm fine, I'm just being very clumsy today it seems…" Relena replied, using dry humor to cover up the silent scolding that she was giving herself for knocking the whole tray over when she was feeling around for the knob for the hot water.

"Here, let me to do--"

"No, I want to do it on my-- ouch!" Relena said, trying to cut Elena off, not fully paying attention and slapping her hand down onto a small bit of glass. A thin trickle of blood slid its way down her arm.

"Oh dear… Pagan! Call in the nurse!" Mrs. Jones said, as she found a towel and quickly applied pressure to the wound.

Heero, meanwhile, had managed to get off of his own bed without any help and had limped his way over on his crutches to see what had happened as Pagan turned and left.

"Hey, buddy, you should still be in bed resting; it'll only take longer for you to heal if to keep straining yourself." Duo said as he tried to guide his friend back to the hard hospital bed. Relena snapped her head up at that and instantly felt ashamed for getting herself hurt again and alarming Heero enough for him to leave his bed where he needed to be if he wanted to recover.

"What's happened?" Doctor Conner had said as she and Sally Po ran into the room in a blind panic.

"Nothing much, Relena just got a bit of glass in her hand that's all." Duo replied casually.

"Relena, are you okay?" Hilde asked, concerned.

"I'm just fine. It's a little cut, that's all." Relena said as she stood up, removing her hand from Elena's as she took the towel in her other to apply the pressure on her own; she made it a point the grind her thumb into the wound as much as she could to remind herself not to be so foolish again.

"Why don't you let us be the judge of that?" Sally joked as she helped Relena out of the bathroom and back onto her bed where she and Doctor Conner looked her hand over.

"Well," Doctor Conner said once they had finished, "It doesn't look to be too bad and I don't think that you'll need stitches or anything like that, but I do think that you might have a small scar there in the future."

"Thank you." Relena said, as she made sure to keep her eyelids closed; more for Heero's benefit then for her own, as they, along with the others, left the room. Heero scowled from his spot in the corner of the room, he had retreated there after he had fought Duo off; he had seen what she had done with her hand even, if the others did not, and he was fuming over it.

'How much do you want to die, Relena? How much? Is your life really that miserable?' Heero thought as she leaned back on her bed and appeared to be trying to rest. Heero, swinging himself skillfully step by step on his crutches, quickly crossed the room and made it over to her bed and watched as she attempted to be calming her breathing, a trick use to center one's self.

"Stop it." Relena said softly, shocking Heero out of his reverie.

"What?" He asked before he realized that she was talking in her sleep.

"Stop it." she repeated.

"Stop what?"

"Stop me from being in love with you…" she sighed as she snuggled deeper into her pillow.

"What?" He gasped as he thought, 'Is she talking about me? Or does she think I'm somebody else?'

"I can't do this, not anymore. I tried, oh god I tried, but I can't stand it; I'm not that strong. Every time I'm around you another part of my heart brakes, because I know you don't feel the same way. Please, please, don't let me suffer in a one-sided romance. Let me stop being in love with you…" She cried, her voice in a sobbing whisper as she turned her head into her pillow; her breath still even, a sign that she was either very good at controlling her body in that manner, which Heero highly doubted, or she was still asleep. Heero, having nothing else he could think to say without betraying her trust in him, returned to his bed and went to sleep as well. In the back of his mind though, he couldn't help but wish that maybe, just maybe, it was him that she was talking about; that she loved him like that and it wasn't someone like Joshua that she called out to in her dreams.

*****

As if living the whole thing the first time wasn't enough, her mind seemed to think that it was a fun joke to play on her, showing her just how horrible she had been on that day. She was acting like an absolute bitch, she thought as her brain replayed the scene.

"Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about! Joshua might not be perfect but he would never try to poison me!" She had screamed as she fought with the man that meant more to her then life itself. It was so vivid; she could still see the worry that flickered, waning slowly into the greenness of his contact-covered eyes.

"How can you be so sure, Relena, how? Tell me, how do you know for sure that he didn't just drug you so that you would fall into some scheme of his? One of Haber's side affects is the inability to think clearly. How can you be sure that he hasn't brainwashed you into believing him to be everything that you've said?" He demanded before she slapped him, making her hand sting. The pain from seeing his lack of belief in her was hurting far worse.

"How dare you accuse him of anything? You don't have any proof! He could merely be an innocent pawn in all of this and you're already condemning him for something that he may not have known about!" Relena seethed as she rubbed the slightly tingling flesh on the palm of her hand, glaring up at him angrily. With a shadow over her broken heart, she pretended that she didn't agree with him.

"Why aren't you listening?" Heero asked in a deathly quiet tone as he turned his head to slowly face her again, his cheek held a red palm print where she had struck him. "Can't you see that I'm trying you get you to at least think about your actions before you do something stupid?"

"Like what? Trust someone that I don't know? I think I already learned that with the drugging episode! Why don't you just go crawl back into whatever hole you came out of and stay there this time? I'm finally starting to get my life in order, I have a steady boyfriend, work is running smoothly, my brother and his wife are doing well in dome three… and, until five days ago, right when I start thinking that everything is going right in the world, the dome gets attacked, five of my coworkers, all of which I thought I knew well, are arrested and charged with being with the Titans, the ones responsible for the attack, and I end up not only assisting in their capture, I end up picking up their paperwork and find out that they had been at it for years! Years of dirty dealings and god-knows what else! Then you show up, after almost three years of having no contact with you, you appear in my bedroom and tell me that the man, that tells me that he loves me every day, is out to control and KILL ME! If you think that I haven't learned anything from this then you are sorely mistaken! I've learned that whenever things seem to be at their worst, you always show up to rub salt into the wound even more then it already has!" She ranted.

"Relena, I'm not--"

"Oh stuff it Heero!" she said as she pushed him away roughly and managing to make it into her closet and slam the door shut behind her in an effort to keep herself from crying in front of him.

"Relena? Relena! Open the door!" Heero's muffed voice said from the other side of the door as he twisted the knob, trying to get in. Relena sighed, thankful that she was able to get it locked in time; this was where she would usually hide when Joshua got in a fit and she always felt safe when she was in her closet for that reason.

"Just leave, Heero, leave and never come back!" she said, sounding surprisingly calm, considering that she was ruining her makeup, again.

"No. You can't stay in there forever Relena." came Heero's muffled, but still very clear, reply from the other side of the door.

"Do you want to bet on that?" Relena challenged.

"Seeing as you are in a closet, yes, I would bet on it." Heero sighed, his voice sounding frustrated even to her ears.

"I don't care! I don't want to see you ever again!" Relena called back, not fully realizing what those words would mean.

"Relena you aren't making things easy for me!"

"TOUGH!"

"Relena, fine, if this is what you want then fine, you can stay in there all you want; I'm not leaving until we talk." he said before she heard him walk away from the door and, judging by the slight squeaking sound that she recognized as her bed, he had made himself comfortable to wait her out. She began screaming and ripping her wardrobe into shreds, wanting to do something, anything, to vent. It wasn't until she had woken up in her bed later that she realized that she had passed out from the stress.

"But, but why?" she asked when she opened her eyes to see him stooping over a trash bag, tying it shut.

"You didn't mean it." he had replied as soon as he was finished.

"You don't know that… for all you know I could have meant every word of what I said," she murmured, turning her face so as to hide it in her pillow.

"You're right." He replied, making her gasp, he had somehow crossed the room and was at the head of her bed without her knowing, and look up at him with watery eyes, "But I think you know differently." he added.

"I don't know what to think anymore, I honestly don't, I don't even know what got into me… well, actually I do know what got into me, but that's not what I mean what I mean… what I mean to say is, I didn't know what was going on with me until was too late… I can't do this alone anymore, truth be told, I never could to begin with; that's why I started seeing Joshua to begin with. That was always what it was about in a way, I needed someone to be there, someone who would help me… just goes to show how poor a judge of character I am!" She explained, "He has a violent temper you know, when he doesn't like what he hears, I thought that all he needed was someone to care, someone to love him unconditionally, like the way that I am with--" She said, shaking her head, forbidding herself to utter the last thought within her head, 'You, Heero, you.'

*****

It took her a moment before she realized that she wasn't still in her dream; that she wasn't just laying in a black void that was meant to represent something she couldn't quite grasp. She was lying in the hospital's unforgiving, starch-white, bed with her eyes, undoubtedly, blinking, unseeing, up at the ceiling. "Why…?" she asked the blackness, "Why did I put us through that? Why did I do this to us?" she paused to listen to Heero's steady breathing from the bed next to her as her harsh words came back to haunt her.

"I don't want to see you ever again!"

"…Be careful of what you wish for… now if only the wishes that I wanted to come true would…" she whispered, thinking, 'Heero…' as she allowed a tear to roll down her face before sitting up and wiping it away; she wasn't going to cry with Trowa, or anyone, watching.

"It's nice to know that you still hold some feelings for him." Trowa's voice said suddenly as he moved from his place by the door. Relena only adjusted the thin sheets over her waist and legs, picking at imaginary lint.

"You can't tell him, you have to promise me Trowa. If you are my friend, you won't say a word about it to him! I couldn't stand for my heart to be broken again." She pleaded softly as she kept her eyes closed, not wanting to make him nervous around her as well.

"And if he finds out by someone else?"

"Then I'll just simply wither away into nothing, oh wait, too late, it's already happened." Relena replied cynically.

"You don't give yourself enough credit." Trowa said, earning him a curious look from the young woman in the bed.

"I'd rather not talk about it…" she sad as she rested her head back onto the pillow.

"That's a pity." Trowa commented dryly.

"Huh?"

"You could still do so much more, if you were willing to try." Trowa answered her puzzled voice.

"Not without running the risk of being fooled. I can't trust anybody with the truth when it involves the peace. I can't just have someone read documents for me, not without worrying about them lying to me. Any number of things could happen." Relena replied.

"You're afraid." Trowa stated.

"Yes, I'm afraid, I have every right to be too! I can't and won't do that to my people! I won't set them up for a downfall. I'd kill myself first." Relena said firmly.

"I'm sure you would, but, don't you think that he would miss you?" Trowa said, unknown to her, he motioned towards Heero's sleeping form in the other bed.

"Which 'He' are we talking about? I have many 'he's in my life that might cry for me." Relena replied offhandedly.

"Heero." Trowa replied, not missing the sharp intake of breath from both Relena and Heero. Trowa smirked, 'So, he's not as sound asleep he pretended to be.'

Relena turned her face to the cool night air that flowed through the open window, removing the soft heat from her cheeks as she said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Trowa narrowed his eyes, cursing her stubborn streak and the politician's ability to lie with a straight face, 'she is not making this as easy as we had hoped.' He thought. "I think you do," he said, quickly covering the sharp snap in his voice with that of his cool tone.

"Think what you want. I don't care." She replied tartly. Trowa's tactics didn't fool her in the least.

"I wonder what your brother would say to that…" Trowa commented, purposely letting his words trail off.

"He would tell me that I should start caring and think about how others would feel if I let something happen to me." Relena replied; she had already gotten that lecture from Milliardo a few months ago.

"You don't want to scare him off." Trowa said, his voice seeming to taunt her.

"No… I don't. He can't ever find out how I feel, why can't you understand that? It's wrong of me to wish for something more, but, it's like… when I'm near him, I want to do nothing more then to just hold him and tell him to let go. But, if I were to do that, if I were to give myself away, he would run from me again, I know he would." Relena explained.

"You still care for him like that?" Trowa asked as he walked closer to her bedside.

"That and so much more I'm afraid. I really am a love-sick little fool, aren't I? To be paining after a man who wouldn't know what love was if it snuck up behind him and kicked him in the butt," Relena paused to sigh, "But isn't that the way it always goes? Unrequited love can be so powerful that it could eat you alive and, yet, you still ache for more of it, more of the pain that comes from loving one-sidedly. No matter how little the other person may feel for you." she said, wringing her hands pitifully.

"You never know, he just might feel the same way but doesn't know it yet." Trowa said as he turned to walk out the door.

"Trowa…"

"He may surprise you someday, just remember that."

"But--"

"If it is one thing that I have come to know about Heero Yuy it's that he'll always surprise you with doing the impossible." Trowa finished as he gently closed the door, content that he had done his part in his best friend's, Quatre's, scheme.

"But that's the thing Trowa," Relena said to the darkness, "letting himself be loved and learning to love back… it isn't impossible."

________________________________________________________________________ Thank you all for the reviews once again. I'm sorry if this is horribly late, I've been really busy this week!

I have a shout-out for you all: Check out Penybright on FF.net, she's back for spring-brake and she's updated her not-yet-famous Escaflowne/Gundam Wing fic. This was the story that's inspiring me to write my own so, please, give her a look and let her know that I said hi!

Now, as for the current standings for the voting, we have as follows:

In first place: #7 with Sixteen votes.

Second place: #6 with Nine votes.

Third place: #1, #2, #12 with Eight votes.

Fourth place: #4, #8, #13 with Seven votes.

Fifth place: #10 with Six votes.

Sixth Place: #9, #15, #14 with Five votes.

Seventh Place: #3 with Four votes.

Eighth Place: #5, #11 with Three votes.

Thank you all again, for those of you who voted, and I hope to see more votes soon as this story starts slowing down.

Take care everyone!

~Prinder