Aquarian Wings

By: A.R. Taloff

'I can't stand to fly, I'm not that naive,
I'm just out to find the better part of me.'

Chapter Seven: Waiting for the Beginning of the End


Heero stood in front of the couch and knew that he shouted orders, followed by Quatre and Dorothy, Midii and Trowa, Wu Fei and Kai Ling, and even Lady. There was something in him, his bearing, that stated respect. Perhaps it was his voice, or the way he handled the situation with calm that made the rest listen.
Bullets riddled the lock of the door, and the eight in the library crouched behind tables, loveseats and chairs, which, by bullet fire, spewed fluff and wood bits. Relena held Aquarius close and prayed. Prayed that Aramis was safe, prayed for time. Anything. Life. Her daughter's.
Heero felt the backfire of the gun reverberate through his right arm and hoped that whoever was trying to get in was looking forward to being turned into Swiss cheese. The doors burst open, and Heero shouted to the group, signaling Relena to duck even lower and hold onto Aquarius.

The eight emptied half their magazines and waited for response. Heero stared at the doorway and found nothing. No one stood there.
A cough was heard from the door's edge, and Heero elevated himself to catch a glimpse of the would-be intruder.
"Jesus Friggin Christ, you'd think that the damn thing would just work right away, but no. Of fucking course not."

Heero almost choked out a sigh at the familiar voice and wiped the sweat from his brow. Zechs appeared with Noin at his side. Both looked like hell with a side dish of shit, obviously from a long trip. Noin looked strained, and Zechs's eyes had dark shadows underneath. He stared at Heero with a look of discontent. "You know, you almost shot my wife, dickweed."
Heero shrugged and scratched his neck with his middle finger. "You almost gave my girl a heart attack, fuckshit."
The corners of the silver haired man's lips twitched upwards, and he sighed. "Good to see you too, Yuy. Where's my baby sister?"
Dorothy and Quatre smiled at the two comrades macho bantering and lowered their weapons, Trowa and Midii following suit. Lady and Noin embraced and whispered to each other calmingly.
Heero turned to find Relena standing behind the couch, straightening her hair. She looked disgusted at the both of them. Pointedly ignoring Heero once again, the Vice Foreign Minister shot her older brother a dirty look and pointed the gun at his feet. "You nearly hurt my daughter," she said, her voice deadly.
Zechs smiled tentatively and waved his Beretta in the air as though it was no big deal. "I wouldn't have -"
He was cut off when a bullet made a destructive hole in the floorboards at his feet.
Relena didn't find him amusing. "Don't press your luck. You nearly made me sick with worry when you didn't respond to my emails; now you expect my forgiveness when you put the lives of what's left of the Thirteen at risk. You're lucky I didn't shoot you in the thigh for your bad behavior."
Zechs was still trying to understand her reaction and stared at the hole in the wooden flooring, hoping to find the answer there.
Aquarius stood on her shaky legs and looked at the intruders with fear in her eyes.
New people.
Noin's sharp intake of breath was so audible that it brought Zechs back from his minor detour from reality. He looked up and caught sight of a tall, young, and very scared-looking girl. She was dressed as most teenagers were - jeans, T-shirts, probably a grungy pair of sneakers bedecked her feet. Aquarius, his baby sister's adopted child. Relena hadn't gone into much detail about why, just that she adored the young girl.
That alone was enough for Zechs.
But the look of absolute fear really scared the hell out of him. She'd obviously been through a lot in the last week, and since Relena, almost irkingly, had never bothered to tell him exactly how much damage had happened, he was pretty much in the dark about the pain that had been dealt.
Relena expelled the tension with a sigh and found herself already forgiving Zechs, a trait which she had endlessly tried to ebb out of her personality. She lowered the gun and smiled softly, looking at her brother and his beautiful wife.
"Aquarius, this is your uncle, Millardo Peacecraft, better known as Zechs Merquise, and his wife, Lucrezia Noin Peacecraft-Merquise."
Zechs stepped closer, wanting to let the girl see that he was safe and that he wouldn't hurt her. She looked so desperate and childlike that he found himself remembering Mariemia.

One thing Heero knew that Relena hadn't expected was for Aquarius to grab the gun, which had been held lightly in Relena's left hand. In fact, he realized, everybody nearly passed out when Aquarius lunged and grabbed the loaded weapon in her shaking hands.
Everyone, with the exception of Relena, that was. She stared at the gun, whichAquarius, having never really ever held a gun before, was holding in a very desperate and incapable grasp. Aquarius kept moving the gun between people, going from Wu Fei to Midii, to Relena and eventually everyone. It wavered about, trying to find its enemy.Fei felt his heartbeat in his ears, thudding like a drum. Riu with a gun. Unstable, she might shoot anyone. He mentally ticked off the statistics of teenagers who'd taken their own lives or the lives of others with light firearms.
Relena stepped forward, immediately causing the youth to point the quavering weapon at her. Good. "Aquarius, darling, give me the gun."
Riu shook her head wildly, and her eyes darted around the room in a way thatreminded Heero of how psychopaths do when they desire immediate freedom and will do anything to get that liberation.
Heero didn't like how this was shaping up, even with the fact that the safety was on. Relena shouldn't have directed Riu's anger towards herself.
The click of the safety was heard throughout the room as Riu shook her head again. "Mommy, I just want to have silence, please. I want silence, I want to be warm. I want peace. I want gone. I want to go home. Mommy," Riu continued the monologue with herself, her voice dropping to a dangerously quiet whisper.

Heero nearly went into cardiac arrest when he heard the safety lock click off. Great. One hopeful end gone down the toilet with an unceremonious flush. He needed to get Relena out of harm's way, and he needed it done yesterday.
Relena sighed slowly. "Pumpkin pie, we can't go home with that gun. They won't let us go with that in our hands. Just give it to Mama, and we can go get warm." Relena chanced another step and held out her hand for the Beretta.
Aquarius stared at the gun and slowly brought it to her temple, a triumphant look lighting upon her face. "I can get peace with this gun," she whispered to Relena softly, as though she shared a girlish secret about now using tampons. "I can go home, where it's warm. No blood or brains there now, Mommy." Aquarius looked so sure of herself, it was frightening. Relena tried to ignore the fact that Aquarius had now decided that no one but she deserved the bullet.

"Honey . . ."

Instead of the quiet plea she wanted to give Aquarius, an insidious voice interrupted, whispering something that had not been spoken in many years.

"Adriaaaaan . . ."

Kai Ling had stared at Riu, who looked three seconds to pulling the trigger of Heero Yuy's gun. The legendary mercenary kept his guns oiled to perfection, and it was said of him that any weapons of Heero's were so touch-sensitive that he barely needed to depress the trigger and it would go off. She needed to get the girl's attention before more insides decorated any walls. An idea had taken shape in her mind then, of a soft whisper Kai had heard whispered between Fei and Lady. "Aquarius Julianna Renata Peacecraft. Much better than Adrian Jones."

"If you don't put that gun down, Adrian, I'll hurt your new Mommy," continued Kai Ling in her most cruel voice, hoping against all odds that this tactic would give leeway.

Riu immediately focused her attention on this newcomer to her party. The gun was instantly trained on the intruder. Newcomer was mean. "No."
Kai crept forward, pulling out her own gun. She pointed it at Relena and grinned in a way she hoped came off as scary to Riu. "I'll hurt your Mama so bad they won't even want to see her when she lays in her coffin, Adrian."

Heero glanced at Wu Fei in tense understanding that Adrian was Riu's old name.
That Kai was doing this for effect and that Relena couldn't possibly try to evade a bullet in her condition. But Wu Fei was keeping his own terrified eyes on the agent, all the while trying to decide exactly what Kai was hoping to accomplish other than drive Riu into a complete mental breakdown.

Adrian/Aquarius's face grew taut, and her eyes grew even more frenzied than before. The trigger was so close, all she had to do was pull it, and the bad person would stop playing tricks on her new Mommy. The bad people would go away. Everything would go back to normal again.

She pulled the trigger and heard a thud, dully realizing that it was her gun.

Kai knew the bullet was coming before Riu's finger even moved and rolled swiftly to her right, feeling a sharp pain in her back thigh for her troubles. She grimaced, realizing that something, most likely a large chunk of wood, had lodged itself in her leg.

Riu immediately returned back from her delusion and dropped the gun quickly, causing it to let out another shot, which hit a bookcase, causing pages and more splinters to fly. She jumped from the noise and found that her legs were no longer able to bear her weight and that someone's arms were holding her tightly. "Mommy . . ." she said softly, letting her eyelids droop after she had seen that Relena's arms warmly held her close.
Relena gritted her teeth against the pain that was caused by trying to hold up her daughter. The stress had been taking its toll on her body, leaving her sore, stiff, and unable to perform most menial tasks without Ibuprofen. Because without, she would grimace in pain, letting the others know what she did to herself. Relena understood that she taxed herself too hard. She wasn't stupid or naive. She also didn't want everyone to shelter her from the facts. It bothered her more than they knew.

Kai felt Fei's arms around her and decided that for once she'd pretend that it was okay to be normal; an average person. She let herself be scolded, let herself go to darkness. Let herself be human for a change. It wouldn't hurt. Not now, when she knew she was bleeding and Wu Fei was going to take care of her. She'd sleep and dream now; she'd dream of Wu Fei and the good times that they'd had, without the knowledge that he still pined for his courageous and dead wife. She'd pretend that he loved her, Kai Ling the little half-breed from Misfit Island.

Heero found himself at Relena's side, nearly seconds after the shock of it all. Zechs was there too, prying Aquarius from his sister's arms and allowing Yuy to take Relena into his.
Zechs knew how they felt about each other. It was too obvious to reject, and Heero's possessiveness was damn obnoxious most of the time. Right now, Relena needed to be coddled and held, and Aquarius needed Valium and a good rest before anything else triggered another bout of mental imbalance. He'd find out about the rest of this before too long and then have a talk with Relena.

He didn't have to tell everyone that seeing Aquarius's stunt nearly caused himself to loose control of his already near-bursting bladder. Things like that weren't suited for ex-mercenaries. Heero himself probably got an ulcer from it.
They were getting soft in their age.

The thought was distressing.


Heero watched everyone move about Aquarius with purpose, his blue eyes glittering in a way that denoted deep thought. She was laying on a bed in an ICU room where the doctors monitored her carefully. Aquarius was hooked up to a drip IV and food source, and would be until she woke up. Relena had been well enough to be sent to her bedroom for bed-rest, where, Heero knew, she would pace and worry and devise some plan to sneak out and check on Aquarius and Kai.

Kai Ling had been hit in the thigh by the ricocheting bullet and needed it removed surgically. Wu Fei had not left her bed-side, even had went so far as to pull rank in the emergency room. Kai's plan hadn't included the possibility of metal beams under the flooring, which was the reason the bullet ended up in her thigh, though Heero was proud of the agent for the strategy that had ended the madness.

Heero kept his eyes on the brunette who lay in the bed, surrounded by interns and doctors alike. He knew about the elusive Adrian Jones, who'd killed her mother in self defense then disappeared. It had been plastered on papers everywhere: Daughter Smashes Mother's Head In With Skillet. There were X-rays of shattered bones, doctors' records of stitches, and almost every photograph Adrian owned had her ornamented with bruises and cuts. It was an easy trial. Mother guilty, Adrian protected herself in defense of her mother's abuse. There was nothing else to say other than that a fragile girl who'd been dealt years of pain had finally broken.

But where Relena came in, now that was the tricky part. Relena had been in San Francisco before and after the quick trial had taken place, there for a goodwill tour of the Americas. Had Relena met Adrian one day, made easy friends with the youth? Relena's gift of speech made her a likable person to nearly everyone, her charm was so subtle that the hardest heart could be tamed by her gentleness.
It was difficult to speculate the reasoning about Adrian's adoption. The girl was obviously fragile when it came to stress, and she was very protective of those she chose to love. Kai threatening Relena was brilliant, but only so brilliant as to make herself a target.
Adrian/Aquarius would never harm Relena, and Relena had known that. No one else had though, and that was the one fallacy of her plan to place herself in harm's way.

He turned and looked into Kai's room. Wu Fei was smiling and talking to Kai, all the while holding her hand between his own two.
That girl had put herself into the line of fire to save Relena and Aquarius. She was interesting, that Irish-Chinese girl. Her attitude was a feisty one, exactly what Wu Fei needed in a partner. Someone who could lighten him up but could take care of herself and others. She knew when to ask others for help, knew how to take criticism, and knew how to deal it out. Kai Ling was the best choice to complement the too serious Wu Fei, who had hid in a shell after Duo died. Fei had just begun to climb out of his cave when their brother and sister died, and that in itself caused him to regress, though not as much as Meiren's or Sensei Long's or Sally's death had. Fei currently was at the peak of his forthcoming, and it was obvious from the way he spoke of his dead wife. Aquarius, Relena, but mostly Kai's presence had done that to him.

Heero took a deep breath and decided that he needed to buckle down and talk to Relena. She had kept right on ignoring him after he'd carried her to the mini-hospital in SafeHouse Six, and he was damn sick of it.


Relena had let herself out of her spacious room and into the library to think.
Nothing worked better than pretending to read when you wanted alone time. No one bothered you, not at all, when they thought you were reading something that would better the world. She could've been reading a trashy romance novel, and the populace wouldn't have said a damn thing.

Heero.

She couldn't get him out her mind. Why he had said that he loved her out loud, she didn't know. Why he shook when he looked at Aquarius's face was another mystery.
There was a new facet of Heero Yuy that Relena had missed. A different personality hadevolved over the years. She had seen it over the last month and a half of confinement in this SafeHouse. Watched him play with his son, joke around with Lady and Zechs, even going as far as to challenge Dorothy to a playful game of chess, knowing as well as everyone else knew that Dorothy was a champion of the strategy game. She'd thwarted him almost immediately, and he'd laughed when Quatre made a dirty remark about her being strategic in other areas of play as well.
Something drastic had changed in him, and she had missed it. There was still the old Heero Yuy, the brains and brawn and capability to destroy that there had been before; just now there was the Heero Yuy that liked long walks and cuddling and telling silly stories to his son at bedtime. When she finally decided to notice this, it felt like a slap on the face to see what he had become. Obviously being an uncle had helped, but he was all father. Seeing him this way made her heart ache; was this the person hidden under all that Heero Yuy used to be?

Parts of her heart denied this, while others believed that Relena had made a grave mistake in not telling Heero about their child.
Gwynhwyfer. Relena blinked back tears that the name elicited from her.

Heero watched her from the doorway and knew that she was not reading. It was a tactic she'd secretly shared with him, about how when she had a really big idea in her head and didn't want to be bothered, she'd grab Tolstoy or Thoreau, sit in her library, and pretend to read.
She was dressed in a thick cerulean blue sweater, jeans, and warm looking socks.

He remembered how she'd stick her cold feet underneath his behind when they sat on a couch, grinning and telling him how she had chronic cold feet disease. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, and he remembered the feel of those long
tresses. He remembered so much about her, and because of that, he was haunted. Haunted by the memories of how she felt beneath him, how she smelled, how soft she was …

And dammit man, if you want to feel that way again, do something about it: echoed Duo's all too familiar voice.

Heero pushed off the doorjamb and wandered over to Relena. He carefully sat on her ice cold feet. Christ, he could feel them through the denim of his jeans and cotton of his boxers.
Relena, in response, did nothing.
He waited for nearly a minute, ticking off the seconds in his head. He had learned patience from Aramis, but right now, patience was not the operative action. Heero had used that before, and it got him precisely nowhere. He needed to be impatient, obnoxious.
Think Aramis, Yuy. What would Aramis do at a time like this: An idea poofed into his mind.
He gently tilted the book up so that he could read the back cover, which had a small summary about the book, and then proceeded to recite it out loud to the empty library. Relena was watching him above the lenses of her reading glasses, her blue eyes trying not to belie how she felt inside: like a silly girl.
Heero knew she watched him now but continued reading:
"She was a mesmerizing sight, as perfect as an ice sculpture, but with one passion-igniting kiss, Cale Whitfield could tell that she was pure fire. So when the former secret service expert was hired to provide security at her wedding, he vowed he'd do
whatever it took to claim the bride as his . . ."
Heero realized that Relena wasn't ever going to admit that she was really into cheap romance novels, so he continued, trying to smother his own laughter.

Relena on the other hand, nearly expired from the realization that the book she had always used to describe how much her employees ignored what she read was exactly what she grabbed. Midii had gotten addicted to the things almost four months ago, and Relena must have really been a space case, to grab this horrific piece of literature. All right, it wasn't too horrific, but to tell anyone the truth was like screaming to a hoard of feminists that she liked fetching a man's slippers. She wanted to disappear into a magical hole that would appear sometime to rescue her from complete embarrassment. She needed to get this book away from Heero, before he humiliated her further, but he snatched it out of her shocked fingers, stood, and continued in a sugary sap voice.
"Joanna Damaron couldn't give him any promises, knew that loving him might be courting danger, but after she'd tasted his rough sensuality, would she be able to let him go?" Heero finished with a suspenseful voice, looking at Relena inquisitively.

"So, does she?" he inquired softly.

Relena stared at him, dumbfounded, and Heero fought off the urge to pump hisarm and fist in complete joy.
He sat down, and looked at the Vice Foreign Minister seriously. "Relena, you've been ignoring me for a little too long. I am sick of these games."
Immediately, Relena regained most of her wits. "I haven't been ignoring you alone, Heero. You just haven't been a-."
"Around? Relena, you've run into me four times in the last twenty four hours alone. I have purposely run into you six times, and we've eaten four meals sitting right next to one another." He looked at her with a pinning gaze.
Relena supposed that crow probably tasted like chicken, but knew that if she tried to go anywhere with the 'I haven't been ignoring you' line, she'd be forced to find out at dinner tonight.

"Relena, I understand why you didn't tell me about our baby."

Relena stared at him, just then realizing how much it hurt him to say that. It wasapparent in the quiver of self-consciousness and self-derision.

"I know how I acted. I know that I wasn't the best of men, but Aramis showed me how I could become one. I know that you weren't afraid of me hurting you in any other way but out of responsibility." He looked down at his hands.
"I wasn't even close to being who I am today. It took Duo and Sylvia and no war and loving you and Aramis in my life and the huge house with the nannies and pools and orchards and trees and Christmas lights, even the ones that don't work right away, and Thanksgiving with too much turkey and cranberry sauce." He ran a hand through his hair.
"All those things made me a better person than I was. I know you loved me then, and I know you loved me after. And I know you were right in the decision you made. You were right to think that I'd marry you out of responsibility. But I hope I would have married you out of love and love for our baby. I don't know exactly how I would've reacted then. Hell, I don't know how I'd react now. All I know is that . . . I don't know."
Relena sighed. "Heero, it was a long time ago . . ." she pawned off. "I was young.
We both were. I just was too young. Too busy. I didn't care enough about myself. Don't
feel bad about the baby. It wasn't your fault . . ."
Heero grabbed her fidgeting hands and yanked her close to him. "It wasn't yours
either," he bit off.
When she saw how angry he instantly became, Relena's eyes grew wide and scared with guilt. "I . . ." She knew that he knew that she blamed herself. It wouldn't have taken him very long to figure out anyways. He knew her inside out and right side left, and even though he had evolved and so had she, he knew how to elicit the truth when it came right down to it. He had just needed to find the right path for now. Before, when she was a young girl, his previous approaches might have served him well, but now, forget it.
"Tell me . . . please," he whispered softly as he brushed his lips over her temple.
:Dammit Heero, you turn me inside out, just like you did before . . . why can't the
past have never happened . . . :
"Her name was Gwynhywfer. The nurses said she had dark brown hair. It was curly." Relena squeezed her eyes tight. Found that it wasn't hard to evoke the memory of her daughter. "I miscarried."
Heero held her close, murmuring in her hair, listening to her pain.
She took what comfort he gave, knowing that he meant it. It felt good to share the
grief of death with another. "I held her inside of me, and she kicked and told me she was
there. She was there always. My little baby girl. I didn't want anything else but to have
your baby. I knew I'd never have you, but your baby would love me and I'd have a part of you that was only for me to have."
Heero felt everything squeeze inside with every word that spilled out of Relena's
mouth. It was like a vise was around his entire chest and it just kept tightening. He'd never known what it was like to feel a baby's kick. He'd never seen how perfect a child between them could be. All because he didn't know any better. He didn't get it then, but there'd be hell to pay if anyone got in his way now. He knew what and how he'd messed up, but he'd be damned if he'd let it happen again.
Relena sobbed in his arms until there was nothing left but a headache and him. She sniffled on his shirt and nearly started crying anew when she saw how much she'd ruined his shirt. She said as much when he asked why, and he laughed at her.
"Shirts I can buy any day." He pressed his lips to her hot forehead and brushed
aside her bangs.
Relena sniffed again and then blew her nose on the Kleenex that had magically
appeared near her fingers. No, not normal magic, Heero magic. Never, not once, did she
stop looking at Heero's face. There were differences. Old scars had faded, and a new one
sparkled on the left side of his forehead. Crows feet danced at the edges of his eyes and
smile lines were etched where once there had been nothing.
He was a older now, with a son and a job, a house and maids.
And he still wanted her.
He smiled softly, and the smile lines deepened, dimples appearing. When had he
ever had dimples? "I never thought you liked those cheesy romance novels."
Her eyes squinted at him. "What are you talking about, I d-."
Heero's eyes narrowed slyly. "Oh, but you do." He kissed the ring on her left
hand. "Otherwise you wouldn't have worn this."
"But Sylvia said that one of the neighbor boys had a crush on me, and he had made this for his apprenticeship with Duo," Relena fought off a grin.
"Well, it's half true." He lined his hand up with hers, seeing how much smaller hers were to his. "But I think you hoped it was me, since I was one of Duo's more difficult and infamous apprentices."

Aquarius hadn't said a word to anyone after she woke up, she just looked around the room, ignoring everyone's presence.
Everyone, but Aramis.

He began sneaking in the day after shed woken up. He brought dorky little gifts to
her with a big grin on his face. One day it was bubbles, the next it was coloring books.
Nothing was too silly or too wrong. Aramis was perfect, the way everyone should be.

It was three days before Aramis asked about what happened. He already knew that something had happened. Relena and his father had begun holding hands, and they both had sat down and explained what had happened to Aquarius. Aramis was glad they trusted him, but now he wanted to see exactly what Aquarius had to say about the ordeal.
"I don't really remember. I know that my uncle arrived, and then, that I was very
cold and thinking many things at once. I didn't know what to do. I was scared. No ones
told me what I did, but I remember seeing Kai on the floor and she was bleeding. I shot
her."
Aramis looked at her with honest eyes. They didn't judge, just took in.
Aquarius smiled softly at him. "Come 'ere," she said, motioning her lap. He
complied, snuggling into the quilt that Dorothy had made, and then given to Aquarius. She propped her chin on his head. "I'm going to tell you a story."

Relena snuggled close to Heero that night and felt safe. The large couch in the
great room was very comfortable, and they held one another through the night. He hadn't
asked anything else of her. Not a kiss, not romance, just her presence. They talked. Lord,
they talked for hours, about everything and nothing. She rested her head over his heart
and heard it thunk in his chest.
"Thump thump . . . thump thump."
He chuckled and ran his fingers through her hair. "Do you remember Duo's
wedding?"
"Mmm-hmmm."
"Remember when Hilde showed up? I don't think anyone thought she wouldn't.
We kept on believing right on up until she finally led Sally down the isle."
"I miss them." Relena remembered how much Hilde had taught her when it came
down to business; in fact, the ethics taught could be transferred to politics. Hilde always
had a grin on her face, a laugh in her eyes. If she and Duo hadn't been so close, there
might have been reason to believe the two were in love with one another. But Hilde had
met Gavin, and the two had nearly fallen into each other.
"Has Hilde even responded at all?"
Heero rubbed his closed eyes with the palm of his hand. "No, but my source says
that she, Gavin, and Howard have flight plans for 0100 Earth time this morning. They
should be here in about ten hours." Heero tried to banish bad thoughts from his mind;
Hilde and Howard were the last left to come.
"Remember how Sally use to call us up and tell us to go in for check-ups. I swear
to God that that woman was psychic. She knew us inside and out."
Relena smiled. "Sally felt you all needed a mother. So she became one."
Heero's eyes smarted with tears as he thought back to Sally in the final stages of
her cancer. It was a deadly viral cancer that clotted internal organs, and she had most
likely received it during the Great War, or the revolutionary attack. It had lain dormant for years, then cropped up, allowing her only a year at most, to live. Sally's skin, once peach with life and love, had yellowed, her hair grayed and she eventually died in her sleep.
Wu Fei had been there throughout the ordeal. Wu Fei, out of all of them, felt her
absence the most.
Relena kissed his chest softly, and he looked down, holding her eyes. "I miss her, too."

Hilde opened the door and walked inside, shaking her head. Howard had unlocked
the doors again. Gavin had warned her that Howard didn't believe anything would happen to them in this part of the Mars colonization.
"Gavin, baby, I'm home!" she shouted up the stairs and walked into the kitchen,
dropping the bags on the counter.
She waited for her fiancé to come bounding down the stairs to greet her and
received silence for all her efforts. Gavin must have fallen asleep with Cheshire, their cat.
He did that constantly. It was rare that Gavin wasn't found on their huge bed with
Cheshire curled up on his belly. Hilde would sit sometimes, just watching them. It was at
those times that she truly thought about her life. Everything that she had wanted and
believed in.
She fingered the locket that Duo had given her for their last Christmas before he died. It was true, she had loved him.
Everytime she put the locket on, she remembered Duo, or an adventure that they'd had. She remembered how he looked when he laughed. There was something to be said about that. It was a look that could be held in your mind to always make you smile. It was a happy thought, one that if Tinkerbell danced in now, could make her soar higher than the stars.
She loved Gavin, was lucky enough to find love in two men. Two good, wonderful, and loving men. But Duo had fallen for Sylvia Noventa in a flash, far harder and stronger than he could ever have loved Hilde. So she'd let him be happy, became Sylvia's sister and confidante. She dashed away the tears that pooled in her eyes. Damn things.
Hilde walked into the living room, around through the paneled doors and around
the corner to her office. She could always think there, in a place where there was infinite
solitude. Hilde put some soft music on and turned to see that her computer had been
activated.
Someone was here.
Hilde walked to the PC and leaned over it. Her mind raced with a thousand
thoughts as she stilled herself to hear the assassin's breathing. She knew that she had
deleted everything on her drives before leaving to go grocery shopping. The intruder
hadn't come for what was on her PC though. He'd come for Howard and her.
Hilde knew that Gavin was most likely dead, with Cheshire and Howard. Gavin
hadn't even known why someone would seek him for death. She regretted that decision.
Perhaps he hadn't known though. Perhaps he'd remained asleep, only felt the prick of
death.
With her last moments, she remembered Duo, Heero, Relena's smile. Heero had
said that they'd finally gotten together. She wouldn't be able to see them together for
awhile. Aramis, her dear nephew; how would he fare? Trowa, Quatre, Midii;
Dorothy, that crazy woman. She remembered a thousand adventures and how she lived
her life. Hilde felt everything all over again and knew that she would have done it over
again in a second, given the chance.
As she turned, she knew that before she was cold, Heero's sources would find her
body.

Relena woke the next morning. She had fallen asleep beside Aquarius in her room.
Aquarius had been moved there late that night. Aramis had crawled in on Relena's other side because Heero had decided to wait at the Spaceport for the last two and Gavin. But now the bed was empty and she was alone. She ran a hand through her hair and untangled herself from the covers.
She walked down the stairs and saw Heero walk in. Relena put on her best sleepy
grin, but bit it back when she saw Heero's eyes. He hadn't shaved at all, and his eyes
looked so much older than they had last night. Relena's sleepy mind began to wake up as
many thoughts started to connect in her mind.
In a matter of seconds she had rushed down the stairs and into his arms.
He was here, not at the Spaceport.
Heero slid a hand down her cheek and held her close.

Relena was bewildered by this, but hugged him just the same. Then she saw Trowa and Quatre standing in the doorway. Quatre's face was wet with tears, and Aramis was being held by Aquarius, who looked lost.
"Hilde . . ." Relena whispered desperately, more denial than anything.
Heero's shoulders shook with silent sobs and she held onto him. Her vision went
blurry, and they knelt, holding one another close, to the floor at the foot of the stairway.
Wu Fei walked in, his face stoicly cold and his eyes opaque as they were black.
"They found Hilde Schbeiker's body this morning at 2:00 am Earth time. The assassin was also dead, a letter opener in his jugular. Howard and his grandson, Gavin, were found dead in their separate beds."
"The assassin wasn't the perp."