Authoresses Note: It's been a while, and I won't waste anyone's time with excuses. Basically, I took enough time to figure out why I was writing this, and I personally feel that it's all the better for it. I don't know if you've noticed, but I always try to have a theme with my stories. With Two Steps it's about the struggle to retain peace, with Taking Time it's about settling into peace once successfully retained, with A Conflicted Peace it's a marriage of the two. With my MKR story Forbidden, it's a little about war, but mostly about letting love conquer all. This story hits an important note for me, in that it's about grieving for those that have gone before, but finding a new life for ourselves even in the process. Because, you see, Relena will have to make a very important choice in the upcoming chapters...

Chapter Four of The Woman's Piano: The Wing Zero Machine

It was turning into one of the most beautiful nights that Relena had ever seen. Not a single gray cloud fogged up the brilliance of the black sky, and within a portrait of stars, the fully round moon sat as a proud, glorious centerpiece. She had just kissed an amazing boy that, if she was just a little more whimsical and less hysterical, she could spend the rest of her life with – and she was absolutely miserable. Relena was absolutely miserable because she was smart, and this intelligence had lead her to realizations she had been suppressing for a year, longer...

Treize is a murderer.

My brother is missing.

My brother did not comply with one of Treize's strange requests to find the missing 'Wing Zero'...I believe that was their last argument.

Treize just tried to kill an innocent person – or at least seemingly – for i/the 'Wing Zero'...

And then: Oh god. Oh no, no, no...

Heero was staring at Relena, and finding her the most frustrating girl he had ever met. Totally in the dark, he could only wonder why kissing him passionately – although nothing he would complain about drastically – constituted as saving his life. It was awfully egotistical of her to decide he could not live without her, although not an altogether insane assumption, especially if he received more kisses like that. He certainly hadn't been fighting it, he had to admit, because at the time he had kissed her back with perhaps even more bravado – but hey, who could argue that, it had caught him at surprise and he hadn't had time to observe self-control. And he would have liked to follow that kiss with another, but now she was somehow very upset, the reserves of strength and energy she had been operating on slowly shutting down on her...

"What's going on?" He pressed her, concerning growing as he watched her eyes fill with big, bloated tears. "Relena, is it Sylvia...? I know she gave the other girls a hard time when I first started to talk to them." Anger flashed across his features as he remembered her earlier state. There was still a bruise spanning her cheek line. "She has no business being like that. I have absolutely no interest in her, and I'll tell her when I see her."

Relena wrestled control from her own hysterics and stood up straighter, consoled herself by being aware of how very beautiful the stars were that night, told herself she'd gotten used to the idea of Zechs being gone a long time ago, and said, business like: "What's Wing Zero? Do you know what that is?"

Through the thin veil of tears that was falling out of her control, she saw Heero take a step back, his expression suddenly unreadable. Darkness fell between the two of them, the night somehow colder, and she could not repress a shiver.

"What would you have to do with Wing Zero?" His tone was accusing, but strangely flat.

He sounded hurt and betrayed. She could not argue this – after all, hadn't that been her original intent? And it had almost gotten him killed, because if she'd remained her usual introverted self, he would have never been drawn to Treize like a fly to a spider...

And yet...she was intrigued. What was this Wing Zero technology, that seemed to tie and break lives all around her? The world was spinning out of control and she wanted to understand the faulty axis that had lulled them into catastrophic rotations.

They were both increasingly curious about each other, but it would have to wait, because a braided, grinning fool was running up to them, followed by an amicably smiling Hilde.

And it seemed so...odd, namely after recent events, (that little incident where she realized the only 'family' she had left was, in reality, a cold blooded murderer) to have high school friends reveling in the simple delight of each other's company. They were smiling, like there wasn't a care in the world, when for all she knew they had the worst home life imaginable, or were terrified to the point of suicide about their grades, or had cancer or some other such atrocity befallen them. These could be the best friends in the best time of your life, and all the same, you could know absolutely nothing about them.

They did know, however, that Relena had been crying and that Heero was upset. This was on account of the obviousness, which included Relena crying and Heero looking upset.

So, their smiles faded, and their sprint slowed, and Hilde blurted out: "What's wrong?"

"Um..." Relena took a step back, inadvertently putting more distance between herself and Heero. Visions of her brother flitted past with surprising speed – Zechs chastising her for her grades, as he often demanded perfection in the fatherly role he had usurped – Zechs and Noin kissing on the doorstep and she whining with annoyance, because the ten year old Relena really just wanted them to unlock the door already – Zechs giving her a pretty sweater for Christmas, one doubtlessly picked out by a fashion-minded Noin – a rare hug after he found her crying by the piano in the family room – and that infuriating way he always seemed to know more than she did...

Like with mother, she would never partake in learning anything from him ever again...there was a real possibility now that he was dead...

Well a sickeningly optimistic thought thudded in her brain you did manage to save at least one person...that boy, Heero.

But, especially since she knew she had only been undoing her own betrayal, it was not enough.

Today was a very strange day. It was almost as strange as the day those sharks had come, demanding knowledge from his grandfather about the Wing Zero machine. His grandfather, of course, was as stubborn a man as Heero had ever met, and so had refused...no, that had been a horrible day, and today was merely a strange day, resurfacing with a piece of that horror.

Heero was vaguely aware of a light rain, cold and piercing, falling against his unguarded skin, but he could not immediately ascertain the difference between the cold outside and the cold within. Then, he felt a small pang of remorse as a beauty with golden hair turned and ran, somewhere deeper within than the cold screaming for him to follow her, grab her wrist, implore her to explain...but he couldn't, because he wasn't even there anymore.

He was back in his grandfather's apartment, begging these strange men wearing all black, to spare his grandfather. He was begging and begging, staring down the barrel of a gun, and then he began to beg his grandfather to just tell them, but the stubborn man could not be detoured, even in this life threatening situation.

So, the shot heard round the world had happened anyway.

"Tell us how to use the Wing Zero, old man. Tell us, damn it!"

Then, strong hands were clenching his shoulder, and he swiveled to peer into Duo's earnest hazel eyes, wide with alarm and confusion.

"What happened between you guys, man?"

Heero wished he had the words to ask the same question. But he did not. Instead, he felt his shaking knees give out beneath him, and he collapsed into the same puddle the agenda had found a home in. "Where did Relena go?" He asked at length.

"That's..." Now Hilde was speaking. "We were going to ask you that, Heero. She just ran off, like ten minutes ago. You've been practically comatose until now."

If only I was Heero found himself thinking and I would never have to feel anything ever again.

Treize was having a surprisingly good day that became surprisingly bad surprisingly quick. Being a cool, calm and collected individual, however, he tried his best to meet these surprises with an air of indifference, and after some tactical thinking, he assured himself, he could use these changes to suit his plan anyhow. No matter what strange cards Relena's pluckiness managed to deal him, he still had the upper hand by the pure nature of the situation, and always would.

Plus, now that he knew she cared for the boy...

He swished his wine in his glass and chuckled a little, perhaps at the deceptive irony that he believed was romance. Presently, a figure appeared out of the shadows of the room, a vision from an earlier part of Relena's day, except that where there had once been a warm smile, there was a frown of seriousness married with concentrated thought.

"Dorothy. I thought you'd get here sooner or later." Treize was his familiar polite self, charismatic and charming.

"Never mind that." said Dorothy quickly; her presence was darker than when she'd previously conversed with Relena as a normal, chipper high school teenager. "Why did you summon me here, Treize?"

"Must you always be so curt?" lectured Treize, a little irritably. "It seems that I am not a trusted figure."

"You hold my grandfather's life in your hands, Treize. You're helping us, but for what price? I may be a teenager, but I am not as silly and unintelligent as most my age. I know a thing or two about the old political game."

"You're a fool to pretend this is about politics." responded Treize in equally dark tones. "Don't presume to know about my feelings for your grandfather. I knew him before he was a grandfather."

This was cutting, and the profundity of the statement hung thick in the air. For Dorothy, who did not know Treize as well as Relena, it was startling to see the emotional, reflective side of Treize, just as it was shocking for Relena to see the side of Treize that was cruel and calculating. "I will do the best I can for Catalonia, but it is difficult. Even if I can get the money for the medicine, there's no assurance that the medicine will work."

Dorothy looked down at her feet, remembering her beloved grandfather's grave condition, lying sick and frail on the hospital bed, the cancer slowly eating away at his lungs. She suppressed a shiver, and felt her strong politician's demeanor falling away as carelessly as the rain on the windowpanes outside. Tears, however, were still out of the question, though when she raised her dry face to meet Treize's eyes, brimming with a strange mixture of cold intelligence and knowing regret, it was hard to meet his stare.

"Shall I show you," said Treize, "something that would make your grandfather's death obsolete?"

From somewhere far away, Relena was in control. She knew exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it, and what she was doing was going where she needed to go, and she, of course, in this high state of awareness, knew exactly where that was. Then there was another section of her dulled brain that was entirely on autopilot, hysterical and on the verge of tears. Which side won out? It was, of course, the in-control-Relena, because she was used to utilizing this strange alien force detached from reality's troubles, and besides, it was necessary for her survival.

She had to get to Noin's house because she had to find Noin, and she had to find Noin because there were some very crucial questions she had to ask Noin about her brother's disappearance. Relena had never thought to suspect Treize in the past, because he had been the only warm hand ready to embrace her as she sobbed her sorry heart out. It had not happened often, because Relena had a lot of Zech's unnatural poise within her, to be detached even from life altering events like the loss of a loved one (at least, in appearance, completely detached) but when it had happened – and this was important – Treize had been there. But this was the present, and though she still had enough affection for him to stop herself from absolutely hating every inch of him, she was suspicious.

Relena ran through the rain, barely noticing it was raining. She could help but think about him, however, so like distant bells from a faraway land where doves sang and the world was at peace, she remembered an already fond and cherished memory:

"I suggest you get out of the rain."

And Heero, staring at her with a casually powerful gaze she could barely meet, seemed to be someone she knew deep and personally, because somehow, in this mixed up world, the two of them were so alike...and she wasn't sure how she knew this, she just knew, like how you stare at yourself in the mirror.

So, at eight at night, Noin got a rather unexpected visitor from her own past. Her missing boyfriend's younger sister was wheezing on her porch, wild-eyed and soaked to the bone, and Noin, capable of ascertaining the difference between rain and tears, could tell that she'd been crying. Noin stepped out onto the street, looked sideways down at the other cramped apartment buildings to see if any nosy neighbors were watching, and quickly ushered the surprisingly small girl inside.

"Relena, what's going on, why are you here –"

"I'm sorry to bother you, Noin..." Was she? No, she didn't know what to say, so she was wasting time with pleasantries. What she really wanted to do was blurt out: "Did Treize kill my brother, Noin, and did you know?"

"It's no trouble. Come in, come in, look at the state of you –" If Relena had her wits about her, which she didn't, she would have been amused. Noin was acting maternal, which was not normally an aspect of the feminist's personality.

"Look, Noin," said Relena when she was out of the cold and wet. "I have to know something about Zech's disappearance."

Noin sighed, but smiled sympathetically. "I knew this time would come someday."

Relena was talking so quickly that, at first, she didn't hear Noin's subtle admittance of important knowledge. "I remember how you felt about Treize, you didn't trust him – and now, something has happened, and I don't trust him either – what...?"

"Treize...no, I've never trusted Treize." agreed Noin, turning away. "I was making scrambled eggs, do you want some?"

Relena ignored this. Besides, who, even a self-declared cooking menace, made scrambled eggs for dinner? "Noin!" She burst out, "You're not working for him, are you? He just tried to kill an innocent boy my age...someone I..." Resolve tightened her throat and made it hard to breathe. "...someone I care g-greatly about..."

Noin swiveled to give Relena a look that utilized all the intensity that she possessed. It didn't last long, because Noin loved Relena with all the passion of an older sister, but it did get the message across to Relena: which was that here, even though it was her brother they were talking about, she was trotting on shaky ground, out of her realm of understanding.

"Don't get me wrong, Relena. I hate Treize more than anything. I would gladly kill him if I could. But put the idea out of your head that Treize was responsible for what happened to Zechs. He came close to saving your brother, far closer than even I could."

The attention of the three equally befuddled teenagers was suddenly diverted at the sound of high heels chipping against wet pavement. They looked up, and found to their surprise:

"Lady Une!" yelped Duo in surprise at the sight of their homeroom teacher, very pretty and very proud, with her hair long and loose (always a good sign when indicating her mood). "I didn't have anything to do with the water balloons in the cafeteria, I swear to god."

"Very well, Duo." nodded Lady Une sagely. "That just means if must have been your friend Trowa, right?"

Duo was suddenly the epitome of innocence. He could get that way, especially when fabricating lies. "Beg your pardon, Lady Une, but that would be Sylvia. See, they used to go out and all that, except she always liked Heero, so she made it difficult for other girls, but when Trowa found her making it difficult for Relena, he broke up with her and she – "

Lady Une was quick to interrupt the lengthy explanation. "Relena. I believe I saw her when I was at the opposite end of the street. Where has she gone?"

Duo and Hilde exchanged a glance, but Heero, upon seeing Lady Une, gave a polite nod, and then busied himself with an intense studying of the sky and his shoe. It is amazing how, when things are difficult, your shoes and the sky can be the single most important things in the world, and much time is needed to derive the connection between them.

"We don't know." chirruped Duo and Hilde in perfect unison.

"Heero?"

"Hn." He looked up at her blankly.

Her arms were crossed, business like, but a smile seemed to set the small, dirty, wet street afire with unexpected warmth. "What happened when you were at Relena's house?"

"I'm...not sure. I asked to see Relena, because I was worried about her...Sylvia had, you heard, made things difficult for her. I talked to her brother when I got there –"

"You talked to Zechs?"

The response was too quick, it sounded laced with a strange greed for information. Duo raised his eyebrow, while Hilde, remembering her earlier conversation with Sally, narrowed her eyes with suspicion. Strange things were at work here, fighting among richer families, and she wondered vaguely if, unknowingly, their teacher was a member of a richer family.

"Zechs? I...don't know. Maybe." Now, Heero was suspicious too, suspicious and frustrated and wanting very badly to talk to Relena.

Lady Une sighed. "It was not Zechs. Go on, Heero."

"He left," continued Heero, now a lot more focused in the conversation, "and then Relena came." A memory of her jumping like an acrobat, totally ignoring the stairs, would have made him chuckle in happier times. "She seemed in a hurry, and ushered me out of the house." Another memory, this time of the kiss, made him really want to talk to her. "Then...she ran." He tried an attempt at cheerfulness. "Maybe Duo scared her away?"

But Duo, the king of cheerfulness, was not feeling cheerful. He frowned. "No, man, something was going on, something serious."

"I...see."

If the three children were socially perceptive, they would have noticed the pained expression, just momentary, that reigned in her eyes as she cast a downward glance for a moment. They did not, perhaps because they could not have easily thought of their alternately severe and kindly, always mature, teacher that way.

"Heero," continued the Lady Une, and she said the words so flippantly: "For your own good, please do your best to stay away from Relena." She turned to regard the other two. "I suggest the same for you two, although especially for Heero. The situation is not safe. I only have the best interests of my students in mind. And if you ever even hear the name Treize, stay as far away as her possible." She was manifesting the stern Lady Une now. "He is excellent at spreading exaggerated stories around, much like young Maxwell here. I will have Sylvia punished for fighting another student on campus, while you, Trowa, Wufei, and Sally will have to be held responsible for the water balloon fiasco earlier today."

Then, as quickly as she had come, she turned and left, leaving the three students staring after her with mouths wide open. Except for Heero of course, who was far too dignified and caught up in remembering his grandfather's death to waste much time on surprise.

A babble of talk brewed, entirely between Duo and Hilde:

"What is she talking about? Relena is the nicest girl I've ever met – " exclaimed Duo, "Except for you of course, Hilde, eheh."

"I don't trust her...I have to talk to Dorothy and Sally, maybe Quatre too."

"Why should that matter?"

"Because they're rich."

"What? Sally's not rich."

"Relena is rich, too." continued Hilde, on her own, separate vein of thought. "I wonder if there's a mob war or something going on...is Lady Une rich?"

"What? Whatever – Oi, Heero, where are you going?"

When Heero turned over his shoulder to face his good friends, his face was smiling like nothing in the world was wrong. "Home, that's all. I'll see you guys tomorrow in school."

"What happened between those two?" wondered Hilde loudly when he'd gone.

Dorothy could do nothing but stare at the machine. It was not so much its appearance but what Treize promised was its capability that astounded her. And, if every word he spoke was pure truth, then she would never have to worry about her grandfather's death. Somehow, she couldn't help but trust him. It was the way he carried himself, so she was able to entrust faith that she wasn't talking to a complete psychopath.

"It was created by five old insane fools, but genius fools at that, always the greatest kind. Someone sits in there." explained Treize, waving absent- mindedly to an egg-like chair with wires and other various panels and contraptions jutting out of it. "We're actually within a giant robot right now, not that you can tell. The thing cannot move, except for when the right trigger is pulled, and his left hand can pull apart the door between life and death."

"Trigger?"

"Something to do with Heero Yuy. I don't entirely understand it myself yet. Technically, the person that sits in that chair should be able to control it, but something is blocking it, and somehow it is Heero Yuy's existence." He paused, eyes going dark again, like when he'd professed to care about her grandfather as a dear old friend. "It can be very dangerous, this machine, especially with the blockage. An old...partner of mine, I suppose...he tried to use it anyway, to resurrect a woman. He turned into a vegetable."

"This..." Tentatively, she stepped forward, reaching out a hand to caress the rough, metallic machinery. Treize did not stop her, apparently because there was no risk unless it was turned on, which it was not. "...I heard my grandfather talk about this, the Wing Zero." A smile twitched at her lips, playful, carefree, innocent, and excited beyond explanation. "I thought it was just a fairytale."

"My brother is in a coma because he tried to do what?" said Relena weakly, feeling very much like the ground was spinning upwards to meet her.

"I couldn't tell you, Relena, I was being a fool. I sought to protect you, and only hurt you further. I am so sorry." With little hesitance, Noin advanced, and embraced the far younger, smaller girl in a tight embrace.

And that wasn't what Relena wanted, not at all. She didn't want to be coddled, not in this foreign world, because god knows, no place was her home since Zechs had left, and she had often felt like a weary traveller traversing between worlds, observing and sometimes understanding but never being able to stay. She wanted action, she wanted to bring her brother back, to destroy the evil machinery that had ravaged her life. Why was everyone she loved so dearly such a pitiless, insane fool, racing for immortality and the legendary like? You could not bring back people from the dead - what was Noin saying, saying it like she believed in the whole crazy thing?

"Treize fought so hard to stop him, Relena, he almost choked your brother in the fistfight, to wind him, knock him unconscious. But," Noin laughed a hollow laugh that echoed against the empty walls. "Zechs used to be so strong. Used to. So, I hate Treize, because he's manipulative, he's not a man, he's a snake, but in this particular case, Relena, it wasn't his fault."

When he had put enough distance between his friends, Heero sat down on an empty street corner, and took out a piece of paper. The darkness was so total that even directly under the streetlight, he had to strain to see the picture. But it was there nonetheless, beautiful, brimming with an artist's genius, a melancholy picture of a piano.

He could tell it was unfinished, because he could see the faint outline of a hand in a corner, about to press the keys. Briefly, his original mission concerning the trip to Relena's house flitted through his brain. Before Sylvia had got to her – Sylvia, who he would have to deal with tomorrow – Relena had been dutifully drawing a picture in the art room. Faintly, he mused that he wished he had this talent, but it was far beyond him. Relena drew with a woman's hand, sensitive and emotional and almost always sad...

And he, he was a man, an insensitive man prone to being overly emotional, but this sad fact on the male existence only made him desire her more. He wanted to learn about her, to understand her, and, yes, admittedly, to kiss her again, and again, and then move on to other late night activities. If he could do this before he died, he would die a happy, satisfied man – this, he was sure of.