Thanks to everyone who still remembers this fic :) Your reviews mean more than I can ever say... and with any luck, the road to the end will be short.



She had grandparents.

It was as if Heero had believed she had sprung up from nowhere, born from the concrete of the cell they had been in. She was very nearly magical to him, the culmination of dreams he had never given credence to as a child.

How could this family now want her? If they knew she had been held in that dank little cell how could they have allowed her to be there? If it had been him... He would have fought till the death to see her free of that place. They didn't deserve her, was his first vicious thought. If they had let her stay there they didn't deserve her. Lauren's mother had been their only daughter, how could it be possible that they couldn't know that she had had a child? Lauren had never mentioned to him that she had ever met any grandparents. His mind supplied him with the image of a smiling older couple with Lauren, and they were waving to him. They were waving goodbye.

He could hide the information! He could erase any records, hide all the evidence. He would be committing several crimes in the process but it would be best for all.. wouldn't it? If it were not for his guilty conscience that he would live with for the rest of his life he might be able to pull it off. He couldn't be sure that keeping her from knowing her grandparents was the right thing. He didn't know that they would want her, or even care. At heart, though, he knew there was no way they couldn't care about Lauren. Lauren had received too much love from her mother, had been too well adjusted, for him to believe that this Rachel Bentley had not been loved. People did not always reflect their background, but in this case he was positive. Lauren's grandparents would love her, and because of her nature he knew Lauren could come to love them in return. In him she had found someone she had wanted to call daddy, but these people were two stable adults, a couple. Perhaps she would see them more as her family than she did him. It was ironic that he should worry. He had thrown away everything he had with Relena to save Lauren from some ambiguous risk, and now his irrational mind was wondering if Lauren would want to stay with him more if he were married. It was deeper than that! He was continually doubting those around him, his own insecurity being projected into those closest to him. He doubted Relena's loyalty, he doubted Duo's friendship, and now he doubted Lauren's love.

"We are meant," he whispered, feeling more certain than he had in weeks. Suddenly confident he picked up the phone. "Please get me the vice foreign minister on the phone."

"If she's busy, sir?" came the voice of his capable secretary.

"It's urgent, let her know that."

"All right, sir. Just a moment."

Relena would know what to do, he told himself. She would not turn away his request. He was going to make it.

***

Telling Lauren had been a thousand times harder than it had been to tell Relena. While Relena had been appropriately shocked, determined and supportive, Lauren had outright broke down and begged him not to get in contact with the people she didn't know. She didn't need them, she told him, and they didn't need her. The feeling of Relena's hand on his had steeled him, explaining to the frightened girl why they had to do what they were doing. She had run to Relena as she had before to beg her to tell Heero differently but she had been unable to do anything but comfort Lauren and keep on hand tightly on Heero's.

On the day of the meeting Relena had pulled Heero away to see what she could do to steady him, leaving Lauren with the calming Duo. After only minutes when he got to Lauren she was already near tears. The moment she saw Heero and Relena approaching she couldn't hold them back any longer. Heero went straight to her, dropping to his knees to hold her close. Relena moved to stand next to Duo who looked a bit at a loss.

"They won't..." he began, then swallowed. "They can't..."

"I hope not."

"I should leave you guys..." But he had made no move to leave. "You know... seeing how those two found each other... it's almost enough to make one believe that there is some omnipotent figure guiding our lives. But seeing them tearing apart like this..."

"It takes real faith to believe," Relena agreed.

Duo smiled, the first real one he had shown since they had entered. "I have faith in the two of you. I guess that'll have to be enough. A kid could overcome this... but I'm not so sure about Heero. We're all rooting for you."

"Thank you, Duo."

He squeezed her arm before leaving. Heero had quieted most of Lauren's tears. He held her face in his hands, this thumbs wiping away her tears.

"I don't want to go," she whimpered.

Neither do I, Heero thought. "We shouldn't think badly of them. They are your grandparents."

"I don't need grandparents. They didn't even know about me. Why'd you have to go and tell them?"

"It was the right thing to do. Lauren, we have to be strong about this. This visit doesn't have to mean anything, it's only so you can meet each other."

"What if they're mean? What if they want to adopt me instead of you?"

"They they'll have to adopt me too," he said fiercely.

"You're too old to be adopted," she said with a near giggle.

"Not where you're concerned."

"I love you, Heero."

He accepted the girl into his arms willingly. There would be no world without Lauren. And so help him he would do what he had to do to make her his.

The car ride was tense at best. There was cheerful music playing on the radio, but any attempt at conversation fell flat.

Heero's face looked as if it had been cast in stone, and she hoped that once they arrived he would be a little less tense. She really didn't doubt it though, because he would know that his mood would weigh heavily on Lauren's.

As they pulled up to the house he looked for a second to be debating whether to stop or keep driving. Once they exited the car, man and girl were not visibly tense. In fact, the only outward sign of nerves lay in the way they clutched each other's hand. Relena hung back as they approached the door, knowing she was there for reinforcement.

The couple who opened the door had eyes only for Lauren. The girl's hair was neat, and her gray jumper was very cute on her. She looked all in all healthy, her weight gained back, and her cheeks pink from the winter chill. There were tears in the woman's eyes as she ushered them in. That could be either a good sign, or a bad one.

It seemed as though they finally saw the adults with her as there was recognition from both parties.

"Heero Yuy," the woman murmured. "I'm sorry, I never made the connection before. I want to thank you and Miss Darlian for coming."

After a second of handshaking and polite greetings the attention was focused back to Lauren.

"Hello Lauren," the lady said, getting slowly down to Lauren's level. "We're your grandparents."

The girl contemplated the woman in front of her. "You have eyes like my mommy did."

"So do you."

The initial ice had been broken. The time now passed as Heero explained how he and Lauren had come each other, his voice strained as he told them how she had asked to stay with him. It led him to the search for Lauren's past, and he suddenly was out of words.

"The lady we spoke to on the phone told us you had begun to set the ball rolling towards adoption."

He nodded, unable to think of anything appropriate to say.

"She also indicated you had information on our daughter."

"Yes." Heero gathered himself. Lauren knew it all already, so there was no concern other that telling it tactfully. "The records I found indicated she had left home about eight and a half years ago... is that correct?" At their agreement he continued. "She traveled with her then boyfriend to a military base about 60 miles away from here where he found employment under an assumed name. She gave birth to a full term baby girl about five months later, the child of her and her then husband."

This was apparently a new concept to them.

"Why didn't she tell us?" Lauren's grandmother asked tearfully. "We wouldn't have turned her away if we had known." Her head bowed briefly. "I'm sorry... please continue."

"The husband was killed in the line of duty during the wars and your daughter and Lauren were cared for by his comrades. Leadership changed, and they were about to be shoved out into the streets except that your daughter was killed in an automobile accident. Lauren was to be kept safe instead of sent to wander by herself. That's where I found her."

The couple across from them was very quiet, sitting still as they squeezed each others hands. Lauren looked back from them to Heero and Relena. They both sat still as well, their heads slightly bowed in deference of the older couple's resigned grief.

"We always hoped she was happy," Lauren's grandfather said finally. "At least now we know."

"We got some pictures out of your mother for you... we thought you might like to have them. You look just like her," the green eyes of the grieving mother smiled sadly. "She would have wanted you to have them."

"It's Christmas," Lauren exclaimed over one of the pictures that held a smiling dark haired girl in front of a Christmas tree.

"Christmas was her favorite."

"She wanted it to last forever," Lauren said somewhat brokenly. "It never did."

Some sort of understanding passed between the woman and girl. Lauren had grieved for her mother, but she had Heero to chase away the sad thoughts now. This lady was here with her husband and they were all alone with no one to make them feel better.

"She told me about you," Lauren said, making a revelation that she hadn't even told Heero. "That you tried to make Christmas last all year. She said you loved me very much and that we might go to see you some day. We never did."

Lauren suddenly stopped, her fingers clutching the pictures as her face closed up from how open it had been before. These people had known her mother, but they could be trying to take her away from Heero. They looked sad, but it wasn't her purpose in life to make them happier. Her heart was torn, though, because it was not in her nature to close herself off from people. But she had been alone for all those months by herself, surviving and feeling she had to fend for herself. She trusted Heero, but now it was up to her to hold herself apart.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" Lauren asked finally. Directions were given and Heero was imploringly taken along as if the house would snatch her if she was alone.

Relena had been somewhat silent up till now, and suddenly she was faced with two people whom she was unsure she was supposed to like or distrust. She felt for them on one hand for their loss, and certainly she could understand a need on their part to know their granddaughter, but she could not go past that understanding.

"He loves her very much," Lauren's grandmother acknowledged.

"They've become so close in the time that they've been together," Relena agreed.

"We have heard a lot of stories about the gundam pilots. We followed their plight very closely during the wars. We hold that man a hero. He has such a fitting name. And you as well. We've never seen him look like he has today, though."

"No, you wouldn't have. He's held himself back for a lot of years. Lauren has been instrumental in allowing him to open up. She's a very special little girl. She is to both of us."

"I know that the two of you have been connected in the media many times, but I hope you won't mind me inquiring about the nature of your relationship?"

"Close friend," Relena said with a smile. "I love them both, and I only want what's best for everyone."

"I can see that. You've always seemed very compassionate, and that's really what the world has needed. It hurts me... more than I can say, to see the fear and distrust in her eyes when she looks at us."

"I can't... I'm sorry, I really don't know what to tell you."

"She has come to see him as her father, hasn't she? She clings to him."

"If he had ever thought that it would come to something like this he might have held back. But yes, he... I don't know that he could love her more than if she was his own. In his heart she is."

"We're sorry that it came to this as well," the older woman acknowledged. "She looks so much like our daughter, it's as if she had come back to us. We want to give her everything."

Relena's heart froze at these words, and the room fell silent as Heero and Lauren appeared.

"We needed to get back... I'm sorry," Heero began.

"It's no trouble. I'm so very glad that you came today. We do have one thing that we'd like to say though before you leave."

Lauren's hand was firmly entrenched in Heero's and holding so tight she thought her fingers would break from the effort.

"We've lived a long time here, and we've grieved for our daughter for a long time. We will be able to let some of that go now, and there's no doubt that we want to be a part of Lauren's life."

Heero's stomach clenched, and doubled more so as he saw Relena, serenity itself, clasping her hands.

"She seems to have found a family of her own, and the last thing we want to do is break up the security she's found for herself. Heero, we'll do whatever we can to support your adoption. She deserves a family who is young enough to give her what she needs as a child, and you both belong together. We just ask... Lauren, maybe sometime, a weekend here or there, you might come to visit us? We'd like the chance to get to know you as we might have."

Lauren grasped the concept quicker than Heero, and she let go of his hand to move to her grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa as she could now think of them as, and offered herself to be hugged.

"We can share more stories," she promised them. "Heero will always be my daddy, but I'm glad I can have a grandma and grandpa too."

The older couple had hugs for both Heero and Relena as well, asking them back to visit again as the trio left in a state of mind somewhere between relief and not fully understanding. Heero drove in silence for almost 10 minutes, his passengers reflecting his mood. Suddenly to their shock he pulled over next to a field and hastily shoved the car in park and exited the car. He opened Lauren's door and pulled her clear of her seatbelt, staring at her for one long moment before hugging her tightly to him and beginning to spin around. They had done this once before, she and Heero, but it had never been quite like this. Lauren's laughter rang out as she realized she finally had what she had been longing for. She had a home, and a father who wasn't going to let her go. She had a father who was laughing with her, the first time he had laughed without holding back.

Behind them stood Relena, holding her hair back from her face as the wind blew, and smiling as it dried her tears. The two unsteadily made their way back to her, and Lauren clasped Relena's waist as tightly as possible, as Heero sandwiched her between them. It was over, they were done. Heero and Lauren were finally free to be together. They were going home. Relena couldn't have been happier... except that she knew she wouldn't be returning with them.

***