This is for the Heero and Relena friendship themed stories I've claimed as mine to write on LJ. This is for the first theme, "beat".

The poem Relena mentions is "if I die" by Pablo Neruda. A really wonderful poem, which I suggest you read if you like the lines Relena quotes.

My brother asked me about this, so let me just say - it's not important who this story is talking about; just that Relena loves them.


Beep. Beep. Beep... Beep. Beep.

The machine counts out his heartbeats, slowly, painfully, and Relena watches, her eyes frozen; fixed on his face. Heero watches her, his pain just an echo of hers. He moves his chair closer, wraps an arm round her waist. "Relena," he says softly, but he doesn't have anything else to say. He's just reminding her that he's there.

The heart beat of the man in the bed is slow, measured, but feeble. Now and then it falters, and Relena clutches Heero's arm almost painfully, catching her breath. It happens again, falter, falter, and she is hardly breathing at all. Heero reaches up, wraps his arms around her and presses her close. She's frozen into place with tension, but he holds her, hoping to help somehow. He's never had the right words to say, so of course, there are none now. She takes strength from the embrace, from the silence, finds the strength to pierce the heavy silence like the beeps do.

"Heero," she whispers, "I love him."

"I know," he says, and holds her tighter, almost painfully tight. He's afraid to crush her, so he eases up a little, but she still clings to him, fierce and tight.

"Heero," she whispers again, "I don't know what I'll do if he dies."

The heart beat faltered again, then strengthened. Relena closed her eyes, her lips moving silently, like she was praying. He didn't know what to say, but he found the words somewhere, brushing her hair back from her face with all the gentleness he had in him. "You'll live, Lena. You'll survive. That's all you can do."

The beat goes on, and she clings to him still. Then she whispers softly, "That's like a poem I know."

"Tell me it," he suggests, hoping that her remembering it will keep her mind off the man in the bed and the slow beat of his failing heart.

"It's a poem by someone called Pablo Neruda." Her voice is quiet, her eyes still shut, but he feels a strengthening in the body he's holding; an easing of tension and a stirring of hope. "I don't remember much of it."

"Just a few lines?"

"Yes. 'If I die, survive me with such sheer force, that you waken the furies of the pallid and the cold,' and then, then..." Her voice fades, but the beat in the room is still strong; stronger, perhaps. Her voice strengthens then, with it, "I don't remember the next part. But there's another bit..."

He watches her open her eyes, smiles at her, and she smiles back.

"'Absence is a house so transparent, that I, lifeless, will see you, living, and if you suffer, my love, I will die again'... that's the end of the poem."

"Survive, Lena," he whispers, smoothing back her hair again, "he will."