Chapter Twenty Eight

Relena woke up suddenly. It was happening again, Heero was having another nightmare. Getting up quickly, she grabbed her dressing gown and ran towards his room, located immediately next to hers. She knew that one of the nurses would be there in minutes but, as usual, she managed to get there before anyone else.

Opening the door, she ran to sit by his side. He was fast asleep but he was screaming. Relena, carefully, placed her hand on one of his shoulders and with her soft voice tried to calm him down.

"Ssh…Heero, it's me, wake up…" she said while shaking him slightly.

Heero opened his beautiful Prussian blue eyes and stared at her, confused.

"It's just one of your bad dreams…Heero, I'm here now, you're safe…" said Relena hugging him.

"I had to do it again…" Heero said and then added, "I killed them all…".

"I know, but it was a dream. You don't need to kill anyone, not anymore…I swore I would protect you, didn't I? Just like you promised three years ago, remember? We will protect each other…we are a team, rembember?" said Relena pulling him away to look straight into his eyes.

"Yes. We are a team…I'm safe now, this is home…" confirmed Heero.

"Yes, Heero, you are home…Now, you need to go back to sleep, tomorrow you have another session…the doctors are very happy with you and, I'm happy as well, you're doing lots of progress, did you know that?" asked Relena.

"I know, all of these emotions are so confusing sometimes…" replied Heero.

"Yes I know, but that is normal, it's called to be alive and be a human being…Now, you go back to sleep. If you need something, please let me know, ok?" asked Relena.

"Sure. Sorry for the trouble…" replied Heero.

"Don't worry about it. Good night Heero" said Relena tucking him in bed.

"Good night Relena" said Heero.

Turning off the lights, Relena closed Heero's bedroom's door and went back to hers.

It had been six months since Heero had been transferred to the Peacecraft's mansion. Relena's mum had been a little bit surprised about it but, since Relena was so determinate to carry on her decision to take care of Heero, said nothing. At the end of the day, this was Relena's house, she was grateful Relena had asked her to move in with her. She had felt very lonely since her husband, the former Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, had been killed. Relena now knew that this woman was not her real mother, but she did not care about it and she kept treating her like if Mrs Darlian was her mother. Their relationship was not a conventional one but, again, Relena was not a conventional girl.

Relena got in bed quite tired. It had been a long day. She had to attend that trade conference and then, there were two very stressful meetings and tones of paperwork to check and sign. Her life was almost back to normal, at least her political life. Everyone had almost forgot about Mr Valliant's incident. In these times, everyone tried to forget very quickly everything that could threaten peace. Her personal life was a completely different matter. To this day, only three people knew about her lost baby, she still had not told Heero and she thought she would never do it, now Heero was too frail emotionally speaking to cope with such news and, even if, no, when he would fully recover, it would be useless to cause him so much pain... Relena kept herself busy at all times during the day, but there was no night that she went to bed without thinking about her unborn baby. It was long ago that she had stopped crying about it. Now she just felt very sad about it. She hoped that with time, she would come to terms with it. Not forget, for she would never forget.

In any case, she still had Heero, she was forever grateful of this even if, maybe, Heero would never be able to return her feelings, still so, she was as happy as she had told him. His progresses were, as judged by the doctors, extraordinary. He was now able to make a normal conversation with everyone. Did not feel constantly threatened by everything and, recently, he had started to feel some emotions like sadness, happiness and, sometimes, frustration and anger. He had even started going out, though always accompanied by either Paygan or herself. It was only when he slept that he kept getting nightmares. Tomorrow's session was to see if the doctors could do something to stop them.

Just as Dr Greene had predicted when they were transferring Heero, it had been incredibly difficult, Heero was completely uncooperative and it took all of Relena's patience and willpower to get everyone to be optimistic and not to give up. Especially Heero, at the beginning he refused to follow the treatment and, very often he had become dangerous so, to Relena's immense displeasure, the doctors had been forced to tie him down on his bed.

Tomorrow was going to be a good day for Relena, she had to meet Lucrezia. They were going to do the final fitting of the older woman's wedding dress. Lucrezia and her brother were finally going to tie the knot in a week's time.