Disclaimer: Now if I owned these guys, why would I be writing the stories when I could just make them into episodes and make money off them.
Summary: After Relena's 18th birthday, she goes through her childhood things that Zechs recovered. What happens when she finds a locket that has a picture of herself and Heero? What had happened so long ago?
Once So Long Ago ~ Chapter 3: Arrival on the Colony - By ~Crystal Delphina~
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A shuttle was among the infinite stars and darkness that was dubbed space. Relena looking out at the stars remembered how beautiful space and the earth looked from where they were. Someone was saying something to her, and she was taken out of her trance.
"Relena, what are you looking at?"
She turned to look at Heero, who as usual, had a serious expression on his face, but was curious as to what captivated her attention for such a long time. She leaned back into the chair and closed her eyes a minute a Heero patiently waited for an answer. She listened to her friends idly chatting quietly and just thought for a moment. Heero also leaned back into his chair and waited. With her eyes still closed, Relena began to speak.
"I was just thinking back to my memories of flying between the space and colonies. When I was fifteen, all the trips were usually because of war. But I had to do a lot of logical thinking while waiting to arrive to my destination. With Mariemaia, I was trying to find out the logic in this girl and what she was trying to accomplish, and well frankly, if someone would come to save me again because of how weak I was."
Heero was about to argue that she wasn't weak, but she just simply put up her hand all ready to silence him so she could continue talking, knowing that the argument he always but up with her comments like that.
"And earlier, on my way to Libra to try and stop Millardo, I questioned his motives, because why would a Peacecraft be willing to cause such havoc? I was trying to come up with ways I could convince him to stop, though of course we both know how well that plan went over. Of course there were other trips, but the last two really stick out in my mind, and that is why I was thinking about them the most. The first would probably be with my 'father' Mr.Dorlain. He told me to look at earth from space and remember how beautiful it was. I treasure what he said to me and whenever I go up into space, I always think about that. And the second thing is the very first time I was coming back from a colony visit with my father. While entering earth's atmosphere, I saw a shooting star. After a little while longer, and me wracking my brain, I realized that that shooting star I saw was, well you. I was just thinking back to that memory."
She stayed quiet and still kept her eyes closed, waiting for Heero's reply.
He started off kind of slow and was thinking about what she had just said.
"You should treasure those memories Relena. Those are special and taught you something. You were very mature at age 15 and 16, to actually think through a plan to try and achieve peace. Your father raised you well." He paused for a moment before he continued. "I never knew until now that that civilian shuttle contained you. If it hadn't been for Zechs, I would have shot it down, and I would have destroyed the girl that saved me from the sea, and that stole my heart." He looked over at her in all seriousness and she just smiled and opened her eyes.
In a mock hurt voice, she brought her hand to her forehead and in a melodramatic gesture threw her head back so it lightly hit the chair.
"You were going to kill me. And the only reason you didn't is because of the man you hate that just happens to be my brother, stopped you. I don't think I love you anymore." She smiled over at his smirk. "Though at the same time, it sounds so romantic."
"Relena, I tried to kill you many times. That was the first of many times that I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger."
They both smiled at each other, then simply closed their eyes and rested their heads on the chairs and leaned back to relax.
Duo smiled listening in on their whole conversation sitting behind them in the next row.
Those two are so funny sometimes. Not as funny though as Wufei and Sally.
He looked over to the next row and back a couple to see Wufei and Sally were in another argument.
"Why can't you just let me get some sleep Wufei?" Sally questioned with a side look at him. She covered her mouth when she felt a yawn coming on. She really was tired, and wasn't in the mood for a big argument with her partner.
"You can't just be sprawled out across the seats, especially when I'm occupying one of them. Besides you never asked if you could lay down on my onna."
"Is that all?" Sally gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. Turning towards Wufei, with her best pout and puppy dog eyes, she began to twirl the end of his ponytail between her fingers, much to his discomfort. "Wufei," she began in a sweeting southern drawl. "You would't mind if I lay down on you so I'm not uncomfortable. I mean, I'm really tired and all, and I was just hoping you wouldn't mind helping out poor lil' ole' me."
"Uh..hh..." was about all Wufie could manage.
"I take that as a yes then." Sally gave a coy smile to the frazzled young man, before laying down, her head resting in his lap while the rest of her body spread out between the two seats.
Finally reganing some composure, he seethed through his teeth, "Onna, get out of my lap before we cause a scene."
Sally's reply was simple. She just mouthed goodnight Wufei, and then gently let her eyes flutter close. Wufei just sat there again, and felt her body give in to sleep a couple of seconds after closing her eyes.
She must really be tired... or faking
Surprisingly, he grunted, and just leaned back into his chair finally giving in.
It's wonders what a girl can do to change such a stubborn fool. Trowa looked over at Zechs and Noin who were chatting quietly. He tried to glance back at Quatre and Dorothy, who looked caught up in a chess game. Leave it to them to try and battle each other logically even after dating for a couple of months. He glanced over at Catherine who seemed wrapped up in a novel.
It would be at least another hour until they reached the colony, and until then, Trowa decided to read his own book and enjoy the silence.
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"Please prepare for landing. We will be landing in 10 minutes," the stewardess' voice came over the small speakers in the flight cabin.
Relena woke with a start realizing that she had been sleeping for so long. After rubbing a hand over her eyes quickly to help waken her further, she looked around to see her friends. Mostly everyone was slowly waking up, while some like Duo, were trying to hang on to sleep as long as possible. She looked over at Heero by her side, and realized he was still sleeping. She gave a small smirk. She gently placed a hand on his shoulder and lightly tried to shake him to wake him up.
He stirred but seemed to still fight against awakening. Relena sighed and shoved him a bit harder. His eyes snapped open glaring at Relena, which startled her and she moved back a bit in her seat.
"Did you have to wake me?" he said in a cold voice. She hadn't heard that voice in a while. She only heard it when he was really upset about something, so she figured he was pretty pissed. Well he wasn't going to get away talking to her like that, grumpy or not.
"Sorry Heero, but we are about to land, so I thought you might want to get off with the rest of us." She gave shot a glare at him to accompany her sarcastic remark.
"You're right. Thank you for waking me up." He wasn't stupid. He wasn't about to go piss Relena off over a matter of sleep.
She smiled, and once again, everyone was chatting lightly waiting for the shuttle to dock so they could go see Dr.J.
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"Where did he say he would meet us?" Catherine questioned. They were standing outside the aero-space port to get a taxi.
"He said we could come directly to his house to drop off our stuff," Quatre replied. Finally, three taxi cabs arrived and they all climbed into separate cars, two couples in each. It only took about 15 minutes to reach their destination, and soon everyone was standing outside a large house.
"Well looks like he's done well for himself to be able to afford this kind of house on a colony," Hilde commented.
Heero just grunted something and began walking towards the front door, with the others in tow. Before he even knocked on it, the door swung open to reveal a Dr. J without a laboratory coat on. He was wearing slacks and a dark gray shirt. He gave a kind of sly smile.
"Hello everyone one, and welcome. Come in, come in. I'll show you to your rooms. I expect that you will be here for a few days," he called towards the large group. He stepped back so that they could enter. Heero muttered a 'hi' and stepped into the well lit house. He stepped right into a hallway, and saw that a couple feet away was a living room, so he made his way there. Everyone else followed saying 'hello' to Dr. J as they passed.
As soon as everyone had entered, he shut the door and followed the large group in.
"Make yourself comfortable. I'll be showing you your rooms in just one second. I hope this will be no inconvenience, but you will have to share rooms because I don't have a big house. Luckily, it is enough to house all of you so you don't have to waste money on getting hotel rooms."
"Thank you very much Doctor for taking us in. We appreciate it." Relena commented.
"It's quite all right Miss Relena. It will be a good excuse to catch up anyway, since I haven't seen many of you since the, well... war. So let me tell you were your rooms are situated so we can leave soon."
"Leave?" Duo questioned. He didn't remember anyone mention them going somewhere.
"Yes, we can all go to a restaurant nearby. I already made reservations, and it will be a private room to hold all of us. I thought it would be a nice welcome for your first night. Besides, unless you want canned soup, crackers, and coffee for dinner, I thought it would be better." He replied with a smile. "SO, finally onto the rooms. I really hope you won't get to offended with my pairings, but I'm sure you will deal. Zechs and Noin can take the first room on the left. Dorothy and Quatre get the first room on the right. Wufei and Sally have can take the second room on the left. Trowa and Catherine can take the second room on the right. Duo and Hilde, third door on the left, and Heero and Relena, you two can take the third room on the right. Okay, all the rooms are upstairs so get going. Oh, and a warning. Stay out of the basement. No, there isn't some secret gundam down there, but it is a huge mess, and I don't suggest you get caught in it."
Everyone nodded and began to walk up the stairs. There was one person who grumbled a bit about 'having to spend 5 days in a room with a onna' before a certain blond onna punched him in the arm and told him to live with it.
Each couple broke off to go into their separate rooms. In each room there was a small bathroom, two dressers, and a large bed that could easily sleep two people with extra space. They were each modestly decorated and had simple furnishings.
"It almost seems as if he has been expecting us," Zechs commented as he entered the room with Noin.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I mean who just happens to have six guest rooms when they live by themselves?" she added. She just shrugged her shoulders though, not wanting to ponder on it, and threw her stuff on the bed. "Let's just get downstairs. I'm sure it won't take the others long to put everything away."
"Yeah, well, I'm still not to happy about the rooms. If you must know, it bugs me knowing that Heero and Relena live in the same house, but now in the same room? If he does anything, I'm going to beat the stuffing out of him," Zechs said clenching his fists. Noin smirked and covered a giggle before he could hear it. Sometimes, he was way over protective. She walked over to him and put her hands on his shoulders.
"It will be okay. You know Heero would never do anything to hurt Relena. Anyway, this living arrangement is going to last for five days. Also, I kind of like the sleeping arrangements. I mean, I would rather be in a room with you, then with Duo." She gave a small laugh, and he finally loosened up enough to smile. He still had a slight reluctance though and muttered.
"Fine I guess so."
"Okay, that's the spirit. Now let's go down stairs."
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Luckily the restaurant wasn't that far away that they couldn't just walk, instead of having to figure out a driving arrangement. Dr. J simply led the group for the few blocks to the restaurant.
The slowly fading artificial light, clean air, and slight wind blowing all seemed so natural, that visitors from earth, would only doubt for a minute if they had ever left the blue green globe that was the birthing place of the colonies. Yet, one look at the slopped buildings against the other side of the colony brought them back to the floating mass in space. Both were wonderful though, it was just that one was the copy of the original.
They sat in the back of the restaurant outside, were no one else was seated except for them. They were able to enjoy the last of the light, and as soon as it faded, lights came on, including white Christmas lights strung from the few trees surrounding the patio. It was quite enjoyable.
After ordering, they all got ready for business.
"So Dr.J, when will you be answering our questions?" Duo asked.
"I will gladly answer all your questions tomorrow. So how was the trip here? Not to un-enjoyable I hope."
"Actually it was quite nice. Most of us slept, or like Quatre and Dorothy, kept themselves entertained. Wufei and Sally seemed most comfortable however," Duo said with a grin and a side look at Wufei who turned red in the face and was clenching the side of the table.
"Maxwell..." he warned through gritted teeth.
"I was tired, and Wufei was putting up a fight, so I just decided to have my way," Sally explained, her coy smile from before returning.
"Yeah, and I'm sure Wufei hated every minute of it," Duo goaded one last time, before he would have to run away from a mad Wufei. Duo didn't really want to hear about the whole integrity, honor, justice sermon right now, so was trying to come up with another topic to get Wufei's mind on other things. Luckily, the food came and they enjoyed their orders while talking over times past and present.
Dinner went smoothly, and they soon returned to the house to go to bed. It was late at night and everyone was tired and ready to sleep.
"Thank you for dinner again Dr. J," Noin said, before walking up the stairs last.
"It was a pleasure. See you in the morning," Dr. J said with a nod of his head. As soon as he heard her door close he sighed and his shoulders slumped. He walked into the living room and sat down in one of the chairs.
"I'm getting to old," he mumbled to himself. He closed his eyes for a second. He was about to drift off into sleep, but someone woke him.
"So what are you not telling us?" A darkened figure stepped out of the shadows.
Dr. J was not frightened at all.
"Ah, Heero my boy. Always needing to know everything. Didn't I say I'd tell all of you tomorrow? Nothing is going to change if you find out right now, or tomorrow. Now go upstairs. Morning will come soon enough. Patience is a virtue you never learned to well."
"So you do know more then what you let on. I am impatient when you know something that concerns not only my past, but also Relena's."
"Yes I know. I know a lot about both of your pasts, and you have just decided, after three years to start asking? Oh well. I don't care what else you say Heero. You will find out in the morning. Now get to bed. Besides, you know Relena will wait up for you until you get there."
Heero gave a snort before finally walking out of the living room, down the hall a bit, and to the stairs. Dr. J gave a small smile as he heard his old student give in. He really had softened a bit over the years, but that change in Heero was for the better. He got up and removed himself from the chair, headed out of the living room, and further down the hall to his own room.
All in the morning. They can wait until the next sunrise.
Sunlight would soon consume the colony, and everything would be reveled in the new light.
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Well I hope you guys enjoyed that. Now just take the two extra minutes to review it.
~Crystal Delphina
