Get Rel

NOTE: I don't own Gundam Wing or its characters.

"And that concludes today's lesson," announced Zeches after the dismissal bell rang. The College Board felt the need to install bells so that the professors would know when their lessons were over with. "I hope that all of you have begun your papers!"

Many groans were heard from the students that were exiting the room as fast as possible, freedom from class did not fade over time for most students. Still, much to Zeches' amazement, one student stayed behind and still sat at his desk, all of possessions packed.

"What is it that you need Salem?" questioned Zeches, the kid was just one out of a number of his students who seemed to be doing more than just listening to his lectures. Quite a number of his students, he had noticed, were more or less studying him as though trying to see through his disguise and into his true identity. Of course, it could have been his non-existent imagination running wild.

"Actually I was wondering Prof. where you got the idea that Sir Willis Scott was making references to the Sanc Kingdom in Withering Memories. He never stated specific places or events of the country that would lead anyone to believe that the middle country was the Sanc Kingdom, if anything it probably was Italy," Salem corrected.

The kid was too observant for his own good, in Zeches opinion. He just had to point that out after the lecture Zeches had given the class about the usage of indirect clues and pieces that appear at varies intervals in books.

"If you must know, I read the notes of the book, thoroughly, and he stated clearly that he meant the middle country of the war to be the Sanc Kingdom," explained Zeches, lying just a little bit. He had read the notes but nowhere in the notes did it state that Scott had written the middle country as the Sanc Kingdom.

"Oh, and here I assumed that you just had a deep connection with the country," Salem commented with a sort of knowing look which made Zeches a little uneasy. "Thanks Prof. see you in Tuesday."

"See you," returned Zeches, watching the boy leave the room. Why was he suddenly curious about the references to the SancKingdom? he wondered, putting a finger to his chin. Could they be onto me already?

Why was this becoming so difficult to figure out? It was supposed to be all in black and white, right? Either he cared for Relena professionally or not, either he was infatuated with her or not. Where was the difficulty in that?

Well, wherever the difficulty was Heero had to deal with it. He was sitting out on the steps at ten at night trying to make sense of his feelings-which he had been ignoring-and what Duo had told him.

Apparently a lot of the Preventers, both in the office and out on the field, were under the impression that Relena and Heero were secret lovers and that was why Heero was her bodyguard rather than one for hire like most of them. Of course that was insane, he was only trying to keep his vow to protect Relena and that was to be her bodyguard, unfortunately the protecting from the shadows had been becoming increasingly ineffective.

Then there was the rumor that Heero had taken the night shift so that he may sleep with the Vice Foreign Minister. For all those idiots' information, Heero was only in Relena's room once every night and that was to check for bugs and bombs, other than that he had never set foot into her room.

Another infamous rumor was that Heero and Relena were secretly engaged or married, and had been since after the Eves War. It was all nonsense! How and where were these people coming up with such farfetched ideas?! Heero had not given Relena anything other than that teddy bear for her sixteenth birthday, but other than that he had never given her anything personally, he usually would chip in with Duo or Hilde on a present.

Now, sorting out the Preventer gossipers' mistakes was easy enough but dealing with the possibilities and emotions that came with each idea was another story. Heero had taken the job as bodyguard to be with Relena, but now came the question of, was it for more than to protect her? To one extent he wanted to deny any other reason and that was the side of him that was still a soldier, but another part of him, that more human aspect, told him that there was more to it. How could there have been?

As far as him going into Relena's room at night, he had to admit that there were those few times when the thought of going inside, to check up on her of course, had crossed his mind. Then the possibility of being caught or freezing at the sight that may have been before him if he had went in kept Heero from going in. Still, those few crossing thoughts about going into her room did tempt Heero quite a few times.

But being engaged or even…gulp…m-ma-married to her was unthinkable! He could well assure anyone whoever knew and did not know him that the thought of marrying Relena had never ever once crossed his mind. The same with Sylvia, the thought marrying her was never in his mind when he began dating her, it more or less the opportunity to try to live a more…normal life.

Wow, people certainly had active imaginations and seemed to like making up motives behind every action, motives that took little to no thought. How was that Heero? He usually thought things through…well, for the most part, he did have his mishaps. Perfect soldier indeed.

"Eiji, what are you doing out here?" Jason inquired, coming out of the house ready for work.

"Thinking," he told her and this time it wasn't some cover for his real actions.

"About what?" she pried, taking a seat next to him.

"Just how people can just confuse the simplest motives for something more emotional," he explained but that didn't quite make sense when he said it.

Still, he saw Jason nod, so she must have gotten his meaning. "Yeah, that's for sure. Is that what happened between you and your run-away friend? A bunch of people began spreading rumors about you two being a couple and she ran from you when she found out it wasn't true?"

Heero couldn't help but snort. "I was right when I told Robin that word gets around fast around here," he coughed.

Jason laughed at the comment in that sort of ironic way, but she didn't seem to be fazed by the comment much. "Well, I'd hate to burst the bubble but you're right. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is sacred around here. Once one of us gets a bit of information everyone gets a hold of that information, and that's because we're all family really," Jason replied.

Heero raised an eyebrow at her last statement.

"Not by blood relation of course but we've all known each other for most of our lives so we are really like a huge family. That would be why we're always doing these cook-outs, movie nights, and such," clarified Jason before glancing at her watch. "Oh my God, I'm going to be late! I've got to go Eiji, see you later."

"Jason, can I ask you something?" Heero spoke up, stopping her from leaving after she got up.

"Sure."

"Have all of you been living here for the most part?" he questioned.

Giving him a small smile, Jason bent down and whispered in Heero's ear, "Everyone has lived here for the last ten years except you and your friends. Night Eiji." With that, Jason gave Heero a peck on the cheek and then left.

A few moments after she left Heero was still sitting on the step but with a hand to his cheek. It wasn't as though he had never been kissed on the cheek before, please. Sylvia had only been his girlfriend for several months and before her, Relena had an infatuation with him so she would sometimes-not very often-she would give him a kiss on the cheek.

Even so, Heero hadn't expected Jason to give him a kiss on the cheek. After all this was Jason, the girl with multi-colored hair who had a father that wasn't afraid to give bear hugs to young men, and she was probably one of the only people in the entire town who really gave him space for the most part.

What pulled Heero out his little daze was the sound of his cell phone ringing from his pocket. Pulling out the portable device, Heero flipped it open ready to hear more of Duo's rant about how Hilde shouldn't be working.

"Yuy," he stated simply.

"Heero, do you think that Relena would be into comics?" came Hilde's voice at the other end.

"What?!" he had to ask. What was this all about comics and Relena?

Hilde sighed, "Do you think that Relena would by some perchance be into comics at all?" The exasperation in her tone was hard to miss.

"Relena? No, I doubt she ever picked up a comic in her life," Heero answered wondering what had brought about the question in the first place. "Why?"

"Well," she began and Heero could feel a long explanation coming on, "today at the bike shop Robin and Jackson brought in this magazine and were discussing some of these people and stuff being at some comic convention in Philadelphia in a few weeks. They mentioned how basically everyone was going to be going, so I was wondering if you may have thought that Relena would be interested in such things."

Heero sat back and pondered on this. Her friends keep telling me that I don't the 'real' Relena but rather a façade version of her. So, for all I know she could have been or became a comic fan and we would never have known. Then again, she could be as I suspect, not interested in such ridiculous things and she wouldn't go. But she could always go even if she didn't like comics just so that she could be lost in a large crowd and away from us…

"Heero?" Hilde's voice broke the perfect soldier's train of thought.

"I'm thinking," he told her. Well, we don't necessarily have to really gamble on this one, he smirked. They say that I don't know the 'real' Relena, well she obviously doesn't know me as well as she thinks she does if she's just trying to throw me off her trail with this convention thing.

"Hilde, I have an idea but I'm going to need more than just yours and Duo's help on this," he informed her.

"Care to elaborate?" suggested Hilde, completely at a loss as to what he was trying to tell her.

"Give me two weeks and I'll be able to tell you and Duo exactly what my plan of action is, okay?" Heero promised and that promise was all Hilde needed to agree before hanging up.

Flipping his phone closed, Heero went into the house only to have his cell phone go off again.

"Damn it," he cursed, flicking it open. "Yuy."

There was a moment of silence and Heero felt that perhaps the person forgot what he or she was going to say, or maybe Duo was trying to pull a prank call on him.

"Duo if this is you then you better admit now or I'm hanging up," threatened Heero; he didn't have time to play these childish games, he had a paper due in a week and then a short story due in three weeks.

No one replied still but Heero knew that someone was there by the breathing he heard and judging by the hiked up breathing pattern the person was nervous, or excited?

"Who is this?" Heero finally demanded but he just got the dial tone. Pulling the phone away from his ear, Heero just stared down at it as he wondered who could have called him and how would they have gotten his cell number, only a select group of people knew his number.

Who could that have been?

Frankie-3

Robin-3

Joey-1

Salem-2