"Manifestations"
By Isis cw
Chapter 2

"…In one single day, we all took it upon ourselves to determine the path that we would take. Each and every one of you here, and all who are listening to this broadcast, had to decide for yourselves whether to work for peace or to allow war to continue threatening our United Nation. I am so very pleased to be standing here, surrounded by those who chose to fight for the peace that they so desperately want. I salute all of you who came to this battleground to contain and deter actions of war against our unified peoples."

Relena paused, looking out over the crowd of cheering people. A crowd that had arrived on "ground zero" in answer to her plea for people to fight for the peace that they desire. She smiled out at them as they yelled and clapped and waved Earth Sphere flags.

"But it is not enough." She let the noise die down. "It is not enough for the burden of preventing war to rest on the shoulders of those who could gather here. It is up to each and every human being to make a conscious and deliberate choice every single day to fight for the freedoms of peace. This task falls on all of us, no matter how young or old, no matter how fit or frail, and no matter where on Earth or in the Colonies we are."

Once again the cheers went up and Relena stepped aside, presenting the podium back to the President of the ESUN. He had reached the site as soon as he could, and he was now acting the part of the figurehead for the people gathered here.

Relena didn't mind being spit out of the limelight. She slipped into her seat on the makeshift platform, far enough from the podium that the camera didn't catch her in the background. She once again wore the pink pantsuit that she had been in at the time of her abduction by Mariemaia's men. The borrowed overalls were returned to their owner and she had been thoroughly scrubbed up for the camera event.

This was the first time that the media had been allowed to get into the perimeter around the safe house that Mariemaia had taken her to. Up until now, those people out in the audience had been scavenging through the wreckage, attempting to find any other survivors. They had only uncovered two bodies, both having been crushed in the explosion, but no one believed they would find any more. The rest would be up to the appropriate construction crews.

Relena sat with her ankles crossed neatly under her, her hands were folded in her lap, and she looked out at the throng of people before her. They had indeed done their part to win their own little wars. She wondered if there would be a time when the desire for war would be an ancient and despicable thing. Something children learn in school that people in the old days did, something that would seem barbarous by their new and cultured standpoint.

Looking out into the crowd of dirty, smudged faces of those who helped to search for their fellow humans, whom may or may not have been on the same side, it gave her some hope.

The conference had lasted much longer than she had wanted it to. Relena had even been conned into a couple of private interviews, asking about the threat to her safety and her kidnapping. She had brushed it aside, stating that those who wished for battle where confused and did not believe that humans—left to democratic decisions—could avoid war. Somehow, she didn't figure most of the readers would understand that. She was only beginning to herself.

After her escape from the reporters she had entered the closest hospital. There were many in the area that were caring for those injured during the battle. She intended to see them all, speak with a few of those who fought, and offer her help in seeing them back to their homes. But this hospital had to be first. She had a few interesting patients to check on.

Relena brushed off the reporters that crowded the front doors, not being allowed into the building for the express purpose of preserving the peace for the recovering occupants. Once inside she breathed again, the slightly over-purified air coming sweet to her after being word-beaten on the streets outside for hours now. She calmly walked up to the duty station and requested the condition of "a young girl."

The password worked and the nurse nodded to her and asked her to step across the hall to a waiting room. She complied and chose a chair next to the window, her companion Preventer officer slipped into the room and stood against the opposite wall. It only took a few minutes for Commander Une to enter the waiting room and whisper something to the officer. He nodded sharply and left, closing the door behind him.

Commander Une took a seat next to Relena and sighed quietly. Relena simply waited for the older woman to catch her breath, not wanting to rush any bad news.

"The doctors believe she will pull through. The surgery went well and she is resting easily."

"That is good to hear," Relena smiled.

Commander Une nodded and then looked over at her. "We will need to relocate her and convince the public that she died with Dekim."

Relena nodded, worry setting in. "Will she be safe?"

Une stood up, smoothing down her uniform. "I will make sure that she is." The Lady walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind her.

Relena waited, thinking over what would happen to the child now. She was wise far beyond her years and would not adapt well to the quiet life of a little girl. But she was alive, that was testimony enough to the fact that there was a place for her.

She smiled faintly and stood up. The officer attached himself to her again as soon as she left the waiting room. Slowing, she let him catch up with her and asked in a whisper if he could wait next to the entrance, that she had one more person to visit this evening and that she wouldn't be long. The man gave her a nervous twitch but finally nodded and retreated back to the nurses' station.

Relena smiled simply at him and turned down the hall. She reached the same room that she had before; the door still opened a crack. Slowly she pushed it in and peeked into the dimly lit room.

There were no surprises for her this time. The room was empty; the IVs were pulled out and left uselessly on the bed. A pile of bandages were discarded as well, left on top of one of the various machines.

Relena smiled to herself and closed her eyes a moment. For some reason, she felt happy inside.

She returned to the nurses' station and asked when the patient in room 312 had been released. The nurse flipped open a couple of files and frowned at her. "That patient has not been released. I'm afraid he has not regained consciousness yet."

Relena blinked at her before smiling, "I'm sure I didn't have the wrong room."

The nurse wheeled her chair around and uncovered a monitor station. "We are still monitoring a heartbeat for that patient, Miss. You must have been mistaken."

Relena smiled again and nodded. "I suppose I must have been. Thank you for your help."

As she walked down the hallway toward the outside world again, she was satisfied to hear the nurse ask an orderly for an unscheduled bed check for room 312. She couldn't help but smile at the thought. The poor hospital staff would be working for days trying to figure out what happened. She wondered idly how someone mimicked a heartbeat….

Relena Darlian picked her way across the snow-covered driveway and up the front steps of her home. The doors were both propped open despite the below freezing temperatures that the early evening brought. Workers were rushing in and out, carrying ladders, scaffolding, wires and various other equipment.

She entered through the doors surrounded by no less than three uniformed Preventers, who escorted her up the main flight of stairs. They allowed her to enter her personal sitting room only after the trio had checked in with house command that none of the motion sensors had shown any un-authorized activity in her rooms during the day.

The three men nodded to her and wished her a good evening before she closed the door on them—and the rest of the world—for the night. Relena stood staring blankly at the door for a moment, deciding it would be best if she just didn't think about it.

If she would just not think about how her entire house was now being impregnated with video cameras and surveillance equipment. How every corner of her house and grounds were being raped by crews of workers—all with security checks of 3 points or higher. For nearly two months now her security had been completely over-hauled, ensuring that the Vice Foreign Minister, Relena Darlian would have security measures equal to the President of ESUN himself.

Setting her briefcase on the table beside the door she walked over and sat down in a chair next to the window. She hated trying not to think about things….

Looking out, she could see the last rays of sun trying to peek through the heavy clouds, just before retiring for the evening. Having not turned on the light when she entered she sat, bathed in dim, red light, listening to the muffled thuds and bangs from downstairs.

Ever since her kidnapping the Preventers' headquarters had been using her for a field test of every kind of new and improved surveillance and anti-terrorist device they could get their fingers around. It had been instantly decided that her home, office, and a few other locations she visited regularly, would be completely monitored at all times.

It had taken every ounce of convincing power she had to allow her the privacy of keeping her own set of rooms free from cameras. After all, what would happen if there was a leak and the tabloids got a hold of actual pictures of her in her night clothes—or worse, in the shower! No, she had been allowed to keep a certain set of rooms off limits.

However, the fact that there were no cameras didn't mean that she had complete freedom. All of the doors in, around, and through her rooms had active motion sensors, as well as all of her windows. A fact that she had forgotten only once….

Rolling her eyes she sighed and looked down at the little chess table sitting in front of her. Each night that she came home to this she would sit here and move the pieces around absently, and wait to be told that all "non-essential" personnel had been cleared from the area and that she could then come down for dinner.

Relena lived alone in the house with only one cook, one maid, and her guard force of fifteen Preventer officers, five for each shift, and a few backup replacements. Oh, except on weekends, when each shift had six different officers. She knew each one by name and face—whether she wanted to or not; it was mandatory that she memorize each one of them to prevent any "intruders" from gaining her confidence.

She sat staring out the window that she dare not open. At least not without first informing house command that she was intending to, and promising that she wouldn't lean out. In that case they would send up an officer to join her in the room to ensure that no one infiltrated the "safe zone" by tricking the computer into thinking it was her.

Relena picked up a pawn from the board and let it roll around in her hand. "All you do is march out and die for your queen," she mumbled to it before placing it back on its square.

A beep sounded from the little intercom next to the door and Relena stood up and walked over to it, pressing the button. "Yes?"

"Miss Relena, I have been informed by security that the workers could be late this evening. I have been told that it would be alright if they brought up dinner to you in your rooms, if you would prefer not to wait?"

The cook was a sweet lady, young with two adorable children at home. She always ran recipes by her first, to see what was to her liking, and she always made sure to have snack food stocked in case she had a restless night. However, Relena doubted very much that she would be inclined to frequent the camera-filled house in her robe at three in the morning after this.

"That would be fine, thank you." Relena was about to turn away when she thought of something and pressed her finger back to the intercom. "Marie, do we have anything chocolate?"

Heero lazily walked down the crowded streets of L1 colony 193677, taking his time getting to the inter-colony rail station. He didn't have anything to hurry for. It was a change to simply walk along with everyone else in the prime of after-school traffic. He held a couple of books in one hand, blending in with the un-uniformed college crowds.

Adjusting to the fact that he no longer had anything to offer a potential threat—and therefore didn't warrant being monitored—was something he was still getting use to. Instead, he was finding it relatively easy to blend in, to be able to float in and out of groups around him. He would listen to snippets of conversations, learning to hear without searching for key words and phrases.

All right, so he really didn't have anything else to do. He had spent nearly the past two months bouncing around from place to place, closing up "safe houses" and cleaning up his haphazard personal history file. With the sheer number of aliases he had lived under, it was taking longer than he had thought to collect and destroy the false identities and addresses, as well as leaving behind a neat—albeit scattered—history of one Heero Yuy.

But it didn't matter. With Wing Zero and the rest of the gundams gone he had no need for his former way of life. His atonement wouldn't be finished until he erased what he could of his past. And this would be one of his last stops.

Heero picked a spot against the rail station's gates and waited, watching the crowd around him and trying to learn to not suspect them.

A younger girl ran by him, waving frantically to a group waiting on the bench nearby. They were obviously schoolmates; all of them wore the same blue uniform, complete with the same braided hairstyle. Heero smirked just noticeably, wondering how they found the time to coordinate such things.

The group of girls was definitely louder than the rest of the waiting public surrounding the gates, but that wasn't what drew Heero's interest. The final girl to arrive had something of obvious interest to the rest, and their excited squeals stilled him considerably.

"Hot off the magazine rack!" the first gushed, breathless.

"Oh, let me see!"

"Miss Relena made the front cover."

"Oh, isn't she adorable! We should do our hair like that tomorrow."

The group giggled uncontrollably.

"Hush, hush! Hurry up and read – we've only got a couple minutes."

"In Depth with Relena Darlian," one sing-songed as she opened the magazine and began to read.

Heero glanced sideways at the group of schoolgirls. Somehow an article on Relena didn't seem like something a group like that would be so… capricious over.

Just for once Heero allowed himself to let his curiosity take over. Stepping away from the gate's guardrail he walked over and took a seat on the opposite side of the large round bench from the girls. He pulled out one of the books he had with him and opened it, feigning interest in its words.

"Alright, article or personals?"

"Personals!" the group chimed in.

Hn, so this wasn't a political article at all. It was somehow amusing to think that Relena had a schoolgirl fan club. Flipping the page he settled back against the concrete bench.

"Okay. Question one, 'What is your favorite color,' answer was blue. 'Favorite Season,' is Spring. 'Favorite food,' is chocolate!" A round of giggles mixed with a list of agreements went up from the group.

Heero almost chuckled; maybe Relena did deserve the under-aged following.

"Oh, we know all this, skip to the bear!"

…Bear?

"I'm looking, I'm looking. '…I asked Miss Relena one of my favorite interview questions: What is the one thing you couldn't live without? Her response was immediate: 'My teddy bear.'" The group erupted with ohs and giggles.

Heero froze. The page he was turning stopped in mid-movement.

"Shh! 'I was shocked to say the least. I informed Miss Relena that she didn't seem to be the type of young lady that would hold onto a stuffed animal. She laughed and replied that the person who gave it to her didn't seem like the type who would give a teddy bear either. The small bear, pictured on our front cover, is said to travel with the young Vice Minister wherever she goes. When at home, Miss Relena revealed that she has a special place for Teddy, as she calls him, to sit.'"

"Hurry, the train's coming!"

"'Miss Relena also said that Teddy is an intricate part of her staff, and always revises her speeches for her, being sure to let her know when one is too long, or too boring.'" The girls giggled non-stop as the small transit train pulled up to the gate.

"I'll bring this tomorrow!" the reader yelled as she boarded with one of the other girls, leaving the rest to wait for their connection.

Heero didn't bother trying to catch his train. He stared down blindly at the book in front of him. A fuzzy, dumbfound feeling settled in on him that he could not describe.

He hadn't expected anything from the little bear that he had given to her as a birthday present. It was just something, like what he was doing here today, that eased his ties to his past. The little girl, taking Mary the dog for a walk…. It was the biggest mistake of his life, and had killed nearly a hundred civilians in the housing complex next to the mobile suit factory. He had found the little dog's body in a pile of rubble next to a badly burned teddy bear….

He looked up from the book and out to the busy sidewalk in front of him. Relena, at some point, had replaced that little girl in his mind. Protecting her, he had somehow thought he could make up for the accidental death of an innocent girl and her dog.

Heero stood up from the bench and walked away from the rail gate, out onto the busy sidewalk again. The bear had been more of a symbol to him than he figured it would be to her. It was a peace offering… and maybe even a promise. A promise that he didn't realize fully until he locked the crosshairs of Wing Zero on that presidential safe house for the third time. There were too many people in there. And too important of a person.

But she had kept the little bear. Not only kept it, but she kept it with her….

Somehow the fuzzy feeling left, being overcome with something close to… pride. He blinked at the thought, wondering about the odd switch. "…Didn't seem like the type of person who would give a teddy bear either." So he didn't seem like the type. That didn't bother him, it was clear he didn't really understand the action completely himself.

But that touch of pride wouldn't leave him. She kept it, whether she associated that bear with him or with anything else didn't really matter.

Heero stepped smoothly into the oncoming foot traffic and doubled his previous pace as he traced his steps back past the rail gate. He realized that he was allowing one girl to overrule his better instincts but he indulged his curiosity. If he was honestly going to begin his life over again, and truly follow his emotions, then he didn't really have a choice.

The old man was snoozing inside the magazine stand when he found it. The one he was looking for was hard to miss. Girl's Interview was on prominent display with Relena's picture holding up the little bear next to her. The man woke up and looked at Heero a bit oddly when he picked up the top copy. But Heero gave him an out-of-place expression and the old man chuckled as he wrapped it in a plain paper sack, giving him the sage advice that his "girlfriend owed him a kiss for this one."

Heero favored him with an un-characteristic smirk before pacing off quickly. Maybe he did have somewhere he needed to be.

"It's not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let's face it, far more reliable than a man." - Miranda Ingram

"A teddy bear is a faithful friend. You can pick him up at either end. His fur is the color of breakfast toast, and he's always there when you need him most." – Author Unknown.

Proofed by: Lisa. Thank you.