Silky strands of hair against his face, once soft skin, hardened on the hand now entwined with his. A warm, soft breath in his face. Not a common dream for Hiiro Yuy to say the least. He wondered at the sensations that lingered with him even now that he was conscious. His eyes shot open quickly as they did whenever he woke, to stare into a sleeping face that he had known only shortly, but of which each lovely intricacy was already engraved in his mind. Rei, that...place, the fire. He looked around, seeing the familiar surroundings of downtown. He felt the arm which encircled her small waist and hand still entwined with hers seem to burn, without pain, but left them there as me maneuvered himself into a sitting position, holding her up. Her eyes blinked several times, then rested in a half-open position.
"Ice-eyes...you're alive."
"We're alive," he echoed, numbly. She never heard him; she had already drifted back to sleep. A rain-drop hit her cheek, rolling off, like one of the tears she no longer shed. He lifted her up, and carried her...home...through the storm, her words repeating themselves in her mind against the background of rain hitting pavement like a trite movie soundtrack.
The first time Rei and Hiiro had arrived together at the gundam team's lair, the situations had been quite different. This time, Wufei opened the front door to see Rei cradled in Hiiro's arms, and both of them soaked. Wufei's eyes were already narrowed to the point of nonexistence, but had they not been, they would've narrowed farther.
"So. Just as I thought, Hiiro Yuy has to rescue the weak onna again."
"She saved my life," Hiiro said, in a voice barely more than a whisper, as he brushed by Wufei, the black-haired boy's face contorted in a mixture of surprise and disgust. Wufei stood there briefly, watching Hiiro continue down the entrance hallway before slamming the door shut and following them, yet making no effort to catch up. The door to Quatre's office was open, and Hiiro nudged it wider to where he could carry Rei through. He found both Quatre and the blonde in a quiet, yet seemingly personal chat. As they both looked up at the interruption, the blond girl rushed over, bursting into tears at the same moment. Hiiro turned his head indifferently; the girl's sobs touched only his annoyance, not like fire of Rei's eyes, ant their quiet, strong plea. He raised his voice to be heard over the high- pitched screams of the blonde's crying.
"Quatre, where will she sleep?"
Quatre paused, though only momentarily. This is closer to the normal Hiiro, he thought. Quatre knew from the sentence, that the black-haired fire warrior was not dead, or seriously wounded, but just need to rest, and that Hiiro needed to know where to set her down, so he himself could get away.
"I'll take her, Hiiro," he said, quickly calculating the appropriate form of action.
Hiiro gave her up with a trace of reluctance deep in his psyche. He knew however that Quatre and the other girl would have soft arms, gentle hands, and soothing words; none of which he could offer. He turned away quickly, walking briskly away from the strangely moving scene while the sobbing grew fainter and fainter, eventually disappearing completely. He had meant to contemplate other things, important things, like what those creatures had been, why his gun hadn't been effective, the firewall she had created, and finally how they had managed to survive, but try as hard as he might, his mind kept drifting back to the first traces of panic that had emerged in his mind as the fire nearly smothered them, and her words.
"Ice-eyes, you're alive."
For one of such few words and emotions, even that simple statement could mean oh, so much.
A/N: You know, when I put the top category of this story as Drama and the secondary one as romance, I really did mean to write it that way. Really, I did! but well, I guess I'm just a romantic at heart. Well, I got some really cool ideas to put a clever loop in the storyline, and they'll probably make you hate me, but just remember, I said this would be Rei/Hiiro, and I really do mean that. I promise. Cross my heart and hope my account to get deleted.
BTW. thanks for the reviews. I'm pretty sure I am going to include at least one other real physical character in here. Also, don't think Wufei won't get his comeuppance. The thing is that, Rei's temper has slowed a bit when concerning herself. You'll just have to wait until Wufei starts to insult Usagi insert monkey island(tm) evil laugh here Fira Khushrenada