Disclaimer: Gundam Wing does not belong to me. And neither does this song.

Author's note: I should have expected the muse to bite sooner or later during finals. Of course it chose one of the worst possible moments on the home stretch, and of course it chose to bite when my own life was in turbulence. So Heero gets to angst with me, proving that misery does love company. I guess you can also call this the 'Relena redemption fic' that I said that I'd write after reading 'Zel-chan's 'Courtship Rituals.'

The Old Ways
By Blue Jeans
Lyrics and Song by Loreena McKennitt

The thundering waves are calling me home to you
The pounding sea is calling me home to you

From the beginning, I could tell that she was never going to be mine. Of course, this statement would have met bewilderment with many people... Duo especially would've asked me what I was smoking at the time. I understand why he would have said this, considering it was she who followed me around all the time, even putting her life on the line just to get to where I was. She was persistent. She was scary. But there were moments when I looked into her eyes and saw something that lurked inside those sky blue depths. Intelligence, loneliness, pain... hope. In me. Something no one had ever dared to put on me before. Sure, I was the 'Perfect Soldier' and I had to keep up that reputation, but soon it just became something that was expected of me, like the belief that an answering machine would save messages, or a copy machine could provide photocopies.
Suddenly, as the ocean became a reflection of the sky, I became something similar of that to her. Remember when she said that I wasn't alone and that she was on the same side as I was? I finally understood what she meant by that, and the endless blue sky became 'home'.

On a dark new year's night
On the west coast of Clare
I heard your voice singing
Your eyes danced the song
Your hands played the tune
T'was a vision before me.

But as it turned out, I never really knew who she was. Maybe because she really was like the sky, divided into many sections and with different depths leading out to space. I know Duo would come in here and argue that it was the same thing for me, only my depths would reach to the bottom of the ocean. However, my depths stop at a certain point while hers keeps going. I couldn't figure her out, I couldn't understand her... and the more I tried to find out about her, the more complex and vague she became.
Relena was undeniably beautiful. She has a deep earthy beauty to her with her warm blond hair, sky blue eyes, and sunny smile. In many ways, she really was the sun that smiled on the Earth and reflected off of the colonies. I guess in that aspect she is approachable. But she's untouchable.
I think we both realized this when Quatre threw a New Year's eve party in one of his mansions off the west coast of Clare. It was a very small, cozy affair in his favorite music room which mostly centered around a vast collection of musical instruments and surprisingly, a state of the art karaoke machine. We had many performances that night, some not as enjoyable as others (Wufei and Zechs drunkenly singing 'Endless Love' was one of them). But Relena, under pressure to sing from Dorothy, surprised all of us. No one knew that she had a talent for singing, as well as the ability to play the piano (it turned out that her foster parents had signed her up for many music lessons), but her performance was definitely one of the best that night. She positively glowed.

We left the music behind and the dance carried on
As we stole away to the seashore
We smelt the brine, felt the wind in our hair
And with sadness you paused.

The party was slowly winding down at around four in the morning. Yet, I was still feeling alert and awake enough to go for a walk down to the shore. To my surprise, Relena was already standing on a large boulder that reached into the water.
"Relena!" I shouted and quickly climbed up the rocks to stand by her and quickly wrapped my coat around her bare shoulders. "It's freezing out here! When did you get here? I didn't notice you slipped out-"
"Something slipping your notice? Why Heero, I'm surprised!" she laughed and sat down, motioning me to do the same. When I did, she slipped part of the coat off her shoulders and put it around mine. "No use in having the both of us freeze, although I wasn't cold in the first place."
"Hn, then why does your arm feel like ice against mine?"
Relena smiled at that but didn't answer, instead cuddling closer to me. We both took deep breaths, just enjoying the smell of the ocean and the feel of the breeze, as well as each other's company.

Suddenly I knew that you'd have to go
My world was not yours, your eyes told me so
Yet it was there I felt the crossroads of time
And I wondered why.

"Heero..." she suddenly looked at me with intensity. And then I saw it in her blue eyes. She was claimed for something that I had fought for. The world. The people. The lasting peace. Relena had become Queen in their eyes, and ultimately their caretaker and guardian. When she had stepped into the guardianship of the Earth and the colonies, she had given up herself to play the part of the leader they wanted her to be.
Her world was not mine, nor would I ever share a part in it aside than being a trusted friend. There was no room for a lover, even though she desperately wished there was. I could tell this when she suddenly clung to me, holding me tightly and burying her face in my shirt. And I couldn't help but hold her as tightly as she held me, feeling like I had suddenly encountered a brick wall that I couldn't cross.

As we cast our gaze on the tumbling sea
A vision came o'er me
Of thundering hooves and beating wings
In clouds above.

Together, we held each other, looking at into each other's eyes, even kissing a little. But mostly, we watched the ocean and the sunrise. The irony hit me all of a sudden. Duo had often teased Relena about being a fairy tale princess and me being her knight in shining armor riding away into the sunset. Yet, if it was a fairy tale, we would be together, only living for each other and living life day after day inside one of her mansions. We wouldn't need anyone or anything, just each other and love.

As you turned to go I heard you call my name,
You were like a bird in a cage spreading its wings to fly
"The old ways are lost," you sang as you flew
And I wondered why.

"We should get going soon," Relena muttered.
"You go on ahead." She nodded and smiled sadly, letting one tear escape. I watched her as she unwound herself from my arms and my coat, then after one gentle kiss goodbye and one last whisper of, "Heero," she leapt down from the boulder and headed back to Quatre's mansion.
I watched her as she stretched and squared her shoulders, going back to the world that she was required to guide and I began to wonder why it was Relena, out of all the people that lived, that had to do this. Of course, that thought didn't stay long since it was automatically replaced by the obvious answer: who better?

Owari.