Chapter 4: Where do we go from here?
On earth at the Peacecraft Estate, Relena was alone in her room, crying over the fallen pilot. "Heero… why did you have to do that?"
"You should shed tears for me, and I did it to protect the other pilots."
Relena turned to face the man who had said those words, she was shocked to see Heero standing before her. "Heero, but … how?"
"I orchestrated a fake death to stop the investigations."
Relena then slapped him "and It didn't occur to you to mention this ahead of time!?"
"I was busy planning it, and you've been in nonstop meetings since I decided to do it."
Relena was now over the shock of seeing him, and was now more glad that he was alive, "Heero, I don't ever want to loose you like that, please stay this time."
"I'm going to L1 next month to start teaching computers at a university."
"Do you really have to go?"
"No."
Relena paused and looked at Heero as if he'd grown a second head, "you don't?" He shook his head. "Then… why?"
"I needed something to do with my life, it's a chance for me to just go and do some simple good."
"Isn't there something you could do here?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't you?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Are you saying this is up to me?"
"Are we going to keep asking each other questions?"
She laughed lightly, "I suppose we don't have to, but wouldn't it have been easier for you to just leave without coming to see me?"
"Probably, but I haven't lied to you before and I don't plan to start now."
"Well I do have one more question before you go Heero, what is there between us?"
"At the moment, friendship maybe, mutual admiration possibly."
"Is that all it's ever going to be, I don't want to spend my life wondering what could be."
"As a solider, I was trained to kill my emotions, so I wouldn't feel remorse or hesitation about what I did. From the time I was twelve until the night of your school dance, I never experienced any hesitation."
"So I'm just a distraction that makes you hesitate?"
"No, you're the one person that ever broke through. For that I admire you more then anything. I told you once, I'm nothing compared to you, It's still true."
"I'm not sure what to say to that, by the way your mission was a success the Judiciary Committee dropped the investigation. By the way, I'm dieing to know how you pulled this whole thing off."
With a half smirk he answered "Bad choice of words, The Preventer who took charge was Greg Noventa, he was in on this and orchestrated a switch of bodies, the one that was pulled out at Preventer Headquarters was murder who was executed by lethal injection 36hours earlier. Which is why the Tox. Screen they did showed up like it did, and Sally was to broken up to do a real identification of the body. By now Greg's made sure the body is ashes, and he'll make sure the deaths of the other Pilots are confirmed as well."
"So Sylvia?"
"She didn't know, Greg will tell her after he's sure the investigations are dead."
"Heero…"
"Hn?"
"If I asked would you stay?"
"If I stayed, I would probably end up hurting you, I don't want to do that."
"Why would you…" she began asking in a questioning tone, but he cut her off.
"What you see is what you get, my emotions aren't just buried behind I mask, I've spent years killing them, to become unfeeling and fearless. But the one I feel for the most, is the one I'm most afraid of hurting. I may never be in touch with emotions Relena, I'll never be able to be very empathetic, and all I can do is try. I don't want to hurt you, and I might do it without ever knowing I'm doing it."
"Heero, you really don't have to be perfect, no one is."
"There are few things I know about my emotions Relena, but there is one thing in regards to them that I always want you to believe."
"And what is that Heero?" She asked with a smile, they were slowly leaning into each other.
"That I love you." As their lips connected, neither of them ever felt so alive as they did at that moment.
When they briefly broke apart Relena responded, "Heero, I still believe in you, and I love you."
For the world, the Gundams were now but a legacy, something gone the way of Knights in armor and notions that the world was flat. People could no longer think of the pilots as faceless killers, instead the image and words of pilot 01 stuck with people, and the five were remembered as fighting for peace, but making some mistakes along the way. For five young men, they enjoyed the hard earned peace and quietly lived out their lives
