The London Space Terminal is crowded with people making their way in groups to and fro. I stand wishing it was like the one in Hong Kong, where I can see over most of the people, but am, at the same time, glad that it isn't. And besides, Trowa will stand out.

After talking to Lady Une, once she recovered from the biggest amount of shock I've ever seen on her face, she agreed to let me pick the two of them up alone, in order not to cause a scene, with the understanding that Quatre would be coming with me, and since I'm 'officially' off-duty and in plain clothes, I can do what I want with who I want. Quatre even dressed down for the occasion, the Winner Corporation CEO wearing a pair of baggy jeans and a broken in tee-shirt with a baseball cap to hide his bright blond hair.

I was very nervous when picking out the outfit that I was going to wear this morning, despite knowing that Wufei likely couldn't see it. If I hadn't known I probably would've cared less. But knowing… somehow it made looking proper more important.

Backwards logic, but my own.

If he could see what I had on, I could've worn a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, because he would've been able to chide me for being so informal. But without him being able to see it, I felt the pressure of everyone's eyes but the ones that mattered. I only do things like that to make him react, if I'm being honest with myself.

And if he can't react to them… there's no reason anyone else should get to.

So I'm standing next to Quatre, nearly a head taller than him, wearing a pair of pressed slacks and boots fit for the ice and snow outside the terminal, and a button down blouse under a long, thick wool coat. Wufei's long coat is over my arm as I glance around anxiously, and needlessly.

Trowa rarely has a problem seeing over anyone, and he spots us before I can think to see him over everyone. "Sally," he says in the same quiet voice that made me trust him the first moment I met him.

I turn and find Quatre's launched himself forward, nearly knocking the startled, taller young man over in his enthusiasm. I watch with a reserved expression as he latches slender arms around Trowa's strong neck and buries his face against the tan skinned man's shoulder. And then I see Wufei, and all rational thought goes out of my head.

My knees are weak as I step over to him, extending a hand blindly for his cheek, "Fei?" I start, but my voice catches in my throat.

He looks a little thin, and his eyes are a little dull as he looks in my direction, but the warm cheek under my hand is his, and the calloused palm that lifts to catch my hand against his face certainly belongs to the man that left me months ago.

In the background, I hear Trowa's startled attempts at conversing with Quatre, but they seem to melt into the background as I hear him speak my name with a little hesitancy, "Sai Lei?"

"Yes. Fei. I'm here."

His fingers tighten around my hand, and I see the faint pleased smile that spreads across his lips, lighting up his handsome face. "Then I am home."

And that's it. There's no triumphant embrace, no bone crushing hug in the middle of the concourse. Next to Quatre's welcome, mine probably seems much colder, but at the same time, our reunion is different. "I brought your jacket," I say, dumbly, and offer it to him.

"It served you well then?" he asks, and I glance up from where my eyes had lowered to stare at it and find a smile on his lips as he pulls it on. "I hoped it would find you better than I was when I left it with Trowa."

Eventually, I'm going to want a real explanation about what really happened to him, but at the moment, as Trowa is attempting to get Quatre's hat back on so that no one recognizes him, and Wufei takes my hand in his, I really don't care.

***

After I allowed Trowa to get whisked away by Quatre without commenting, I was bundled into the passenger's seat of her car. Sai Lei told me in a soft, quick voice that she had brought him so that Trowa would have a sense of the welcome she didn't think she could properly give him. There is silence in the car around us, and it is pregnant with things we haven't said to one another, and things we are afraid to say.

Finally, she breaks it, and her tone implies that she is aware it had to be her to make the first breach in the silence, whether or not I knew it until she spoke. "I never knew you named me as your next of kin."

"There was no one else," I say simply. The truth, as I see it.

"Trowa," she offers softly, "Heero."

"I was never what I would consider family to them," I say, and know that it is also true. "Nothing between the three of us could truly be considered more than a loose camaraderie, before… I have not spent enough time with them to know them well enough to call them my family, and when those forms were completed, there was no one but you."

There is silence in the car for a moment, and I feel the stoplight approaching more than see it. The car slows and I feel a calmer atmosphere extending in the space between us. I lean my head back on the headrest and she turns on the radio, speaking in a quiet voice, "I didn't know I was that important to you, then."

"There was no decision made," I say, and wince at the harshness of my own words. Duo may have been right. Whatever love or care she has for me is based not on my actions, but on something else entirely. I have given her precious little to go by.

The radio turns up.

"Where are we going?" I ask, speaking up a little to interrupt the song.

"I haven't had the heart to go into your apartment and see how you left it," she says, and I know she's chewing on her bottom lip by the way her words are garbled just slightly, "So I'm taking you home."

"To your apartment?" I ask, curious. It seems years ago when I was last in her apartment, rather than the few months it has been in reality.

There is a long pause, and then she catches herself from whatever facial expression she was making in answer and says, "Yes, to my apartment." She must have been nodding.

We both start speaking at the same time.

"You'll have to walk me around… I can see shapes, but not clearly enough to discern what unfamiliar things are."

"It's only temporary, until I can make sure that your place is-" she stops short, a curse word on her lips, and I smile involuntarily.

"What?"

"Blockade on the street up ahead… we'll have to detour." She sighs. It's a frequent enough occurrence that we're used to it, living in London, where car accidents and small acts of terrorism or riots are all causes for bad traffic and long delays. Just because we have reached such a height of technology does not mean that we have made the world perfect, and it does not mean that we have mastered the parts of our humanity that are most antagonistic or destructive.

"Where are we?"

"Thirteenth and Kinnel."

"Then go to my apartment. You have the keys with you, I trust?"

"Yes, Fei, but-"

"I promise you that the apartment will be only dusty if not otherwise immaculate. I am not one to leave a mess before a mission," I assure her, and hear her sigh. "And there is little harmful that I may do to you, Sai Lei."

She stutters a moment, and I hear the soft clicking of the turn signal. "If you say so," she mutters.