Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Author's Note: Here's Chapter Five. I had a hard time writing the end of this Chapter, but I wanted to include everything in the outline. I'm not really happy with the end of the chapter, it seems choppy to me. Since this is my first fan fic, I'm looking at this as a learning experience. So bear with me and my choppy writing. Plus, I haven't found a beta-reader and I hate editing my own writing. I'm rambling, I'll be back at the end.

Chapter 5: Breakdown

Sometimes, people find themselves lost and confused. They don't know how to escape this stage in their life; therefore, they just sit there and wait. They wait for the future, for time to magically fix everything, for everything to come into place and make sense. As Relena sits on the moist grass of the city park looking at the man-made lake, she finds herself in this dilemma. Everything in her life seems to be jumbled up – a cross between her past and the future. She sits there, waiting, waiting for time to magically make all the pieces come together; so everything in the present will be alright. However, she was no longer a child, a little princess that believed her fairy godmother would come and fix everything with her magic wand. No, Relena Dorlian is all grown up. Her fairy godmother didn't come when she watched her parents fall apart. She didn't come when the divorce papers were signed. She didn't come when Relena packed up her things. And she didn't come as Relena and her mom opened the door to their new house. There was no fairy god mothers and Relena needed to accept that.

Relena sat there looking at the lake, as the night breeze played with her hair and the smell of dried leaves permeated the air. It was almost autumn. There were a few yellow leaves scattered on the ground. The lush greens of summer was turning over to the parched yellow leaves of autumn. Autumn always reminded Relena of her father. It was her father's favorite season and he would always take time to rake the leaves. Ever since Relena could remember, she would always rake the front yard, which was adorned a the big maple tree in the center, with her father. When she wasn't big enough to hold a rake, she would gather up all the leaves that she could with her hands and bring it to the pile.

"You can carry more than that princess," Nicholas teased her daughter. A five year old Relena was bustling around the yard trying to gather up as much leaves as her little arms can carry. Her face was red from the excitement and activities added on with the cool breeze of autumn. Nicholas looked at his daughter with a serene smile on his face. She had grown so big. It seemed like yesterday he was holding a little bundle of joy. Now she was running around and giving him quite the exercise.

"Look daddy" Relena exclaimed with her eyes wide open and a smile as big as Texas. She had came up with the clever idea of using her sweater as a bag-like contraption in order to hold more leaves. "Look at what I did. I can hold more leaves this way."

"Is that right, princess." Nicholas beamed at the cleverness of his daughter. He couldn't help but chuckle at the picture she made. He was going to get in so much trouble with Katherina for getting her sweater all dirty. However, he was willing to face the upcoming rebuke for that smile that adorned his daughter's face. "Well, why don't you go over there and dump all that leaves into our pile over there."

"Okay." Relena ran as fast as one could when holding a bagful of leaves in their sweater. Relena's mind was so focused on the pile ahead that she did not noticed the stick on her path. She tripped on that stick and all the leaves scatter on the ground. Relena looked at the ground with her mouth agape. Her eyes that were once gleaming with happiness was now gleaming with unshed tears. She had worked so hard to gather all those leaves and now they were all over the ground. She was trying so hard not to cry because she was a big girl now. The boy next door had told her that big girls don't cry. However, as she looked at the leaves on the ground, she couldn't help the tears that escaped her eye.

Nicholas looked at his daughter. The hurt in her eyes broke his heart. He had noticed that she was preventing herself from crying and that had made him so proud. His little princess was full of surprises. He walked over there and picked her up off the ground.

"It's okay, princess," he cooed as he run his fingers through her hair. "We'll gather more leaves. I'll help you. Forget the rake. Today, we're only allowed to use our hands. Okay?"

Relena beamed at that idea and a smile once again adorned her face. Nicholas felt a surge of happiness when he saw the smile returned on his princess' face. He spun her around the air and dropped her carefully on the pile of leaves. Relena laughed at her father's tactics.

"You think that's funny, huh princess? I'll show you funny." Nicholas started to tickle Relena and the sound of Relena's laughter echoed throughout the neighborhood.

The memory of her father brought the tears that had been threatening to fall to finally stream down her face. It was all too much for her, the divorce, moving away, and starting over. It all happened too fast and she never really thought about what was happening. She just wanted to make sure that her mother was okay. She wanted to make sure that her mother could adapt to her new job, the new house, and the new lifestyle. Therefore, she just pushed back all her worries, her pain, and sorrow. Relena just wanted to make everything easier for her mother. After all, she was the one going through the divorce, loosing her husband. What Relena forgot was that she was loosing her father at the same time – loosing the only life she knew.

Relena knew that that the divorce was necessary. She knew for a long time that it would eventually end in a divorce. However, it still took her by surprise when it came. No one is ever prepared for anything because imagining or expecting something will never be the same as experiencing it. Her father was far from perfect; he was far from normal. There were times when he had hurt her mother and there was that one time when . . .

Whatever it was that her father had done, that still hadn't change the fact that he was her father. For every bad memory he had of him, there was a good memory. The whole thing with her father just confused Relena. There was a part of her that loathe her father. That part wanted to yell and scream at him for what he had done. That part wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her mother and her. That part of her refuse to forgive him, refuse to forget. However, there was still that part that loved him. That part remembered all the smiles, the kisses, and the laughter. That part remembered memories of raking on autumn mornings and opening presents on Christmas day. That was the part that wanted to forgive him, wanted to ask, 'why'. She wanted to figure out what could cause him to hurt her mother like that, to hurt her. She was her father and nothing he did could change that. And now, he was gone. She was without her father. She hugged her knees and continued looking at the lake, as the tears streamed down her face. The tears started to fall and they wouldn't stop.

Heero watched as Trowa drove off. The basketball court was empty now and it just added to the void within him. How did everything in his life become so complicated. When did it become so complicated. He didn't know what to feel about Trowa. Trowa had always been like this, going from one girl to the next. Why should it bother him now? It never bothered him before; he never cared before. Those girls willingly threw themselves at Trowa, so why should he care.

It was just Relena. She was a nice, sweet, and smart girl. It would be a miracle if she hadn't heard about Trowa now. The first thing she saw when she walked into this school was Trowa making out with some girl. Of course, she knew what Trowa was all about. If Trowa went after her, then it was her decision to make. Relena would be crazy to get involve with a guy like Trowa. She was too smart for that. She wouldn't' fall for his charm and good looks. Relena wasn't like the other girls. There was nothing to worry about.

All he knew was what he felt when Trowa finally confirmed his suspicions.

"Rel . . ." Trowa did not have time to finally reveal the girl because to everyone's surprise, Duo had stood up.

"Don't even think about it." Duo had a hard and concrete countenance. This was rare. Duo was innately goofy and jovial. Sure he would have his game-face on during games; but it was never like this. No matter how serious he was during games, there was still a glimpse of enjoyment in his eyes – the joy of the game and competition. Duo was serious, and it was kind of scary. "Any girl but her Trowa. You can have any girl. Just leave Rel out of your little games."

"Why so overprotective, Duo?" Trowa was extremely surprised by Duo's reaction. He knew that they were friends, but he didn't think that they were this close – close enough that Duo would look like he was going to jump Trowa any moment now. Trowa wasn't one to back down easily and Duo would not scare him off. He could handle Duo. "Is there some information that you would gladly enlighten us with?"

"Do you think I'm joking Barton?" Duo didn't like that smirk on Trowa's face. He had something plan and it involved Relena. Duo noticed the staring game between Heero and Trowa. Trowa wanted to aggravate Heero and he was going to use Relena to do it. Duo didn't care what was going on between Heero and Trowa. They always had a peculiar friendship. One day they would seem like they were as close as brothers and the next they would act like they were barely acquaintances. Whatever it was going on between them, they weren't going to bring Relena into their games. "Don't bring Relena into this?"

Duo walked straight towards Trowa and came face to face with him. "STAY . . . AWAY . . . FROM . . . RELENA." Duo's voice was fierce and steady, he reiterated every syllable.

"Is that a threat Maxwell?" Trowa was not the kind of person to back down. At first, he was just goading Maxwell. However, now Maxwell seriously pissed him off.

"No, it's a warning." With that closing statement, Maxwell walked to his car and drove off.

Wufei just shook his head with all this drama. He just happened to be friends with this people. Drama seemed to always follow him around. He stood up and followed Duo's lead.

"Why her?" Heero asked quietly. He had remained quiet throughout the commotion. When he mentioned Relena's name, the first thing that popped into his head was too give Trowa a nice shiner in his left eye. However, something was stopping him. He couldn't get himself to move. He just sat there and let it all happen. Duo had stood up for her and basically threatened Trowa, but he didn't do anything . . . he couldn't.

"I should be asking you that question." Trowa answered and walked towards his car.

When Trowa said her name, it was if a part of him disappeared. Now, there was a void within and he didn't know why it was there or how to get rid of it. He stood up from and just started walking. He needed to clear his head. It was all muddled from the prior situation.

Relena just showed up. She was just the new girl who would gawked at someone for making out in public. The girl who would complain about Sylvia, but would never do anything remotely rude to her. The girl who had the hardest time trying to figure out stoichiometry. When did she start to matter? She even mattered to Duo. Duo's overprotectiveness did not surprise Heero at all. Duo was very overprotective of his friends. Heero was one of the few people that had seen one of Duo's overprotective streak.

Heero was kidding himself. It didn't matter when, the only thing that mattered was that in the midst of it all - he started to care for her. It was those eyes. Behind the childish innocence was pain and fear. He could see it. Heero once saw her staring at the maple tree in the school courtyard during chemistry class. There was so much pain and sorrow in those eyes. He was knocked off from his reverie by the sound of sniffling. There sitting by the lake, was a blonde girl hugging herself crying.

he . He knew that body structure and that hair. It was Relena and she was crying. He stood there, a few feet away from Relena, and watched her cry. Something inside him shattered, seeing her like this broke his heart. She looked so sad and vulnerable. Heero did the only thing he could do, he went over there to her and held her. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, considering she didn't know he was there; but it felt right.

All his fears faded away when Relena hugged him back and cried. She cried on his shoulders.

Hilde was chomping away on Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked Ice Cream crying her eyes out once again due to The Notebook while her three month old nephew slept soundly in the basinet next to her feet.

"He wrote to you, everyday for a year, damn it." Hilde wailed at the television screen quietly, so the baby wouldn't wake up. If you are watching a movie for the very first time, Hilde isn't the best person to watch it with. She tends to get really engrossed in the film and she has no problem voicing her opinion. If you watched a movie with Hilde, you'll probably end up missing half of what they said. She's great watching something the second time around, since she always provides extra entertainment with her outburst. Plus, she always find the most miniscule things about the characters and their actions. She gives you something to think about, to look at things at a whole new perspective.

Hilde had to shift her eyes away from the romantic epic on television due to the telephone ringing. She hurried to kitchen because she didn't want to wake up the baby.

"Hello." Hilde answered still sniffling from the movie and a little out of breathe from running. 'We really need to get a phone in the living room.'

"Hilde, are you okay?" Duo was alarmed by Hilde's voice. "Have you been crying?"

"Duo?" she questioned. Duo had never called her. She didn't even know that he had her number. As far as she can recall, she had never given him her number, even though they were working together.

"Yeah, it's me. Have you been crying?" he asked worriedly.

"Oh, not it's nothing. Just something sad on TV." Hilde said. 'Oh my gosh, Duo's calling me. And he was worried that I was crying. Awww.' Hilde was definitely excited about Duo's call. During their time together, her small crush on Duo had "somewhat" extended. Oh, who was she kidding? Duo was amazing. He always made her laugh. She can't imagine a dull moment with him.

"That's good to here." Duo said relieve. "I wanted to talk to you about Relena."

"Oh" Hilde said quietly with a tinge of disappointment in her voice. 'Relena. Of course, he called me to talk about Relena. What was I thinking?' With Hilde's ego definitely inflated and with her self esteem going down a notch she tried to cover up her disappointment with curiosity. "Oh, Relena. What about Relena?"

"Trowa wants her."

"WHAT!" Hilde bellowed into the phone. "What do you mean Trowa wants her." 'There is no way in hell, Trowa is going to lay one finger on her.'

"You know what that means."

"Why are you telling me this. Shouldn't you be telling Relena?"

"I tried calling her, she wasn't home."

"Duo, we have nothing to worry about. Come on, it's Relena. She's not going to fall for Trowa's tricks." Relena might not open up about her past, but Hilde still knew her and she wasn't the type of girl to fall for Trowa.

"I know, but I'm still worried. Trowa's never really been turn down before. How would he take it?"

"Your friends with Trowa. Sure he gets around, but he had never force himself upon anyone, right?"

"No, no, all those girls were willing candidates. Trowa wouldn't do that. He's not a bad guy." Duo really didn't know much about Trowa's past. He only met him in high school through basketball. Trowa had always been popular with the ladies, but he had always been a nice guy, a good friend. It was common knowledge amongst the basketball team that Trowa did not have the best family-life. However, Duo didn't really know the details of that situation. He's heard from one of the guys that besides Trowa, Heero was the only one in this that really knew about the details. After hearing that statement, Heero and Trowa's relationship had always been an enigma to Duo.

"Then we have nothing to worry about, right?"

"It's just . . ." Duo paused trying to put into words what he wanted to say. "There was something in his eyes, Hil. He's planning something." Duo didn't know how to explain the look that Trowa had when he was talking about the "girl".

"What do you mean?" Hilde was growing increasingly worried. She didn't know Trowa personally, but she knew that Trowa had never force anyone. However, Duo was really worried. He was starting to scare her.

"It's always been a game. All those girls, they were all games. But there was something different in his eyes."

"You don't think this is a game anymore?" Hilde asked as she twirled the telephone cord around her index finger.

"No, it's still a game. But it's different."

"Duo, I don't get what your saying."

"Neither do I." Duo was confused about this one himself. There was something there that he couldn't put his finger on. Trowa was planning something.

"What do we do?"

"I just wanted you to watch over her."

"You didn't have to ask me that. I would watch her nonetheless."

"I know. I guess I just wanted to talk to someone about it; maybe it would help clear things up."

"Well, I'm always here to listen."

"I know." There was a comfortable silence between them, but that wouldn't last. The baby in the next room started to cry.

"You hear that?" Hilde asked apologetically. "I have to go."

"Okay. Thank you for listening. I know I didn't make a lot of sense."

"Anytime."

Heero didn't know how long they sat there holding each other. However, he never let her go. He didn't want to let her go.

"Do you randomly hold crying girls in the park." Relena asked out of the blue, still sniffling from the waterworks.

"No, just pretty ones." Heero answered, smiling down on her.

"So you think I'm pretty?" she teased.

"Did I say pretty? I meant horrid looking ones." Relena rolled her eyes.

"Whatever, you think I'm pretty. You can't take it back."

"Hn." Heero didn't have anything to say to that.

"Okay. Take the easy way out."

"Are you okay?" Heero asked seriously.

"No" she confessed with a sigh.

"You want to talk about it." He started to soothe her by running his left hand up and down her back and running his fingers through her hair.

She took a deep breathe, turned her head, and looked up. She looked into Heero's eyes, filled with concern.

"I can't" she said as she closed her eyes. "Not now."

"It's okay. When you're ready."

"Thanks for giving me a ride home." Relena said. "It's almost pass my curfew. I can't believe I was out there for so long. How long was I crying?"

"I don't know. I lost track of time."

"Thank you for being my shoulder to cry on." Relena smiled at him and stepped out of his car.

"7:20" Heero yelled out after her. Relena gave him a confused look. "I'm taking you to school in the mornings. Be outside at 7:20."

Relena nodded and watched Heero drove off.

This was a crazy day, very emotional. Relena needed to lay down, no more thinking for the night. Too much thinking had lead her to her emotional break-down stage. 'Heero' Relena smiled at the thought of Heero. When he put his arms around her, she just knew it was him.

"11:58," her mom called out from the kitchen.

"What?" 'What was up with people and randomly calling out times today?'

"I thought this was going to be the day that you were going to break curfew. I am greatly disappointed. You couldn't wait 3 minutes outside just to make me happy."

"I'm sorry, mom. I'll think about you next time when I decide to come home on time."

"I heard a car pull up. None of you guys have a car." She was giving Relena one of her interrogating looks.

"Good night, mom." Relena smiled at her and ran upstairs.

"Hey, you can't withhold information from your mother. You already came home early, you should at least have the decency to tell me who brought you home on time." Katherina shook her head at her daughter's antics. She'll find out tomorrow.

"Does she really think she can keep things from me?" Katherina said to herself, smiling.

AN: It's me again. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Even though the last part is choppy, I really worked hard on this chapter. I was experiencing some writers block at the end. I was debating whether or not just to cut the chapter short. As you can see, I didn't do that. I decided to face the writer's block head on.

PLEASE REVIEW! It's easy and it makes me really happy (-)

Thanks to all my reviewers from the last chapter:

AngelOfGoodandDark: Thank you for all your phrases. I'm glad you think that I should continue to write. Writing and I have a love/hate relationship.

Remiera: I really didn't mean to leave the last chapter in a sort-of cliffy; therefore, the suspense-building wasn't great - it was pathetic. I don't think I'm capable of writing suspense anyways. Thanks for the review!

Reignashii: I haven't really thought about how Sylvia is going to react. I should get on that since that should be included. Thanks!

Mlle. Verity: Yeah, I've noticed the character development needs work. I actually research in ways I could improve my character development. I wrote up a history for the main characters and certain things that pertain to each characters. Hopefully, that will help. I guess I get so caught up in moving the plot that I forget about the characters. I just feel like it's taking too long to get to the plot. I guess I'm rushing both, the plot and character development, huh? Thanks for the suggestion.

PureAngelEnchantress: Yeah it gets deeper. I really wasn't planning this whole Trowa thing when I first thought up the story. I don't know where that idea came from. I guess we'll have to see where it goes. I hope I don't make things too complicated with all these ideas running in my head.

CrimsonDragon010: It's always so nice to hear from you. Your reviews are so filled with enthusiasm. I'm glad you like the writing style because I have my qualms about it. I feel like I keep shifting writing styles or wanting to shift. I don't know what I'm talking about. It's almost 11 and I think I've been writing since 5 or something. I'm trying to be good with updates since it's summer and all.

Thanks again and Remember to Review! ()