A Final Solution
Chapter 7

The doors swung shut behind her, and Relena moved to take her accustomed seat. She bit her lip, saying nothing to the driver, worrying about Quatre and those two people and everything else that seemed to be spinning out of control . . . How she wished there was just some way to tell the Preventers what she had seen! Well . . . a Preventer she trusted, anyway. It seemed almost unfathomable that the organization could have any spies, but judging from what she had seen . . .

Sighing, Relena leaned back, growing frustrated. Worry was Hell when there was nothing you could do about it. She wished so much that whatever point there was to all of this, she would learn it and move on already . . .

The bus drove along whatever random road it chose to be on (she had long since noticed that the bus obeyed no natural laws whatsoever) and after a while Relena opened her eyes again, staring dismally at nothing. She didn't understand. Obviously, the whole point of this escapade was not just to make her feel guilty-- she had felt that for a while now, and yet it still didn't even seem close to being over.

Relena twisted her head backwards, sitting up a little in her seat to see to the back of the bus. There were four passengers back there, now-- one of them was the same small boy she had seen every time she came on this bus, but the other three were unknown to her; two males (one rather old) and one female. The bus seemed far too silent . . .

Relena frowned at the small little boy. He was in the same position she had last seen him in, even-- same seat, same clothes. Turning back to the driver, she asked quietly, "Why is he here?" He just seemed too young to look so miserable . . .

"He has the longest trip," The bus driver said softly, the same thing she had said before, when Relena had taken notice of him. Frowning, Relena opened her mouth to ask another question, but was shushed immediately by a, "No talking to the bus driver" from the lady.

Sighing, Relena sat back and pursed her lips. Would she ever understand what was going on?

A feeling of deceleration suddenly came over her, and she straitened, blinking. Slowly the bus came to a stop and the doors opened. Instead of anyone getting off, though, a young woman stepped on, eyes wide and afraid. Relena blinked at her; the woman looked to be about Relena's own age. She wore a white blouse and shirt, with honey blonde hair reaching almost to her shoulders.

"Bad trip, Dear?" The driver asked kindly. The lady glanced at her, and suddenly her face seemed to crumple. She sat down in the seat across from Relena, covered her eyes and began to sob. The driver simply shook her head and started the bus, and quickly they were rumbling off again.

Relena could not stop staring at the woman just across from her, hunched over and sobbing as if her world had just come to an end.

After a while, the woman finally looked up, sniffling loudly and trying to wipe the tears from her face, roughly. She stopped and froze when she noticed Relena's stare, which immediately caused the former politician to blush and glance away quickly. No one else on the bus had ever actually noticed her before . . .

Sobs dying down, Relena saw the woman continue to try and collect herself, a bit more quietly. It startled her when after a moment the woman spoke.

"You're new, aren't you?"

Relena blinked and spun to face her again. She was wiping at her eyes with a handkerchief she had gotten somewhere, but she stared directly back at Relena, seriously.

Relena cleared her throat and glanced at the bus driver, who had given no notice of the sounds of talking. Unused to it, but hoping it was okay to talk to the other passengers, she replied quietly, "I guess."

The woman nodded. She blew her noise and put the handkerchief away, sniffling once more and pulling a golden strand of hair behind her ear. "It's hard, isn't it? I think I'm almost done."

Suddenly a bit more awake, Relena straitened, eyes widening. "You are? Can you please tell me what this is all about? What happens? What's the point?"

The woman managed a small smile, though her eyes were still a bit red. "You'll understand in no-time." She closed her eyes, glancing down. "And by the end you'll wish more than anything you could get another chance . . . "

Relena frowned. "But . . . "

The woman shook her head silently. "Part of the procedure is figuring it out for yourself."

Relena sighed and sat back again, irritated. She didn't want to figure it out for herself! She just wanted to go home!

"My name is . . .was . . . Chelsea Tomaren." When Relena looked up, she saw that the lady was offering her a hand to shake. Relena sat up, taking it.

"I'm Relena. Dorlain." The last was a bit belated; she felt somewhat ashamed admitting her true name to this lady whom she hardly knew.

The woman's eyes widened. " . . Dorlain . . .?" She asked quietly, obviously amazed. "I thought you looked familiar . . . But you're one of the last people I expected to be here . . ."

"Uh . . .yeah . . ." Relena murmured awkwardly, pulling her hand back. Not quite sure what to say and feeling strangely ashamed, she was very relieved when the bus pulled to a stop. She barely waited for the driver to announce it was Relena's stop before standing up, moving quickly to the doors.

"Good luck," Chelsea called after her, and Relena nodded, hopping out without looking back.

The bus rumbled off quickly behind her, kicking up a large trail of dust as it went. Wincing, Relena covered her mouth and began to cough instinctively. Gods, this place was filthy. It was some dark, bad place of a town that obviously lay on the wrong side of the tracks. The houses that lay in jumbled clumps around the blocks looked more like broken down shacks, some of which made Relena wonder how they were still standing. A group of teenage boys in black jackets and chains lounged in a tight clump near on corner before her, chatting calmly. A cat screeched off to her right, making Relena jerk around in startlement. The roads seemed to be broken and badly hanging on, and she saw a pot-bellied man relaxing in a broken lawn chair on his front porch to her left, sipping a beer and eyeing the group of boys distrustfully.

This was definitely not any place she would've gone to in life. Even as a ghost she felt a bit uneasy, eyeing the group of teenagers that had so far not noticed her. She shivered, not from the temperature that she couldn't feel, but from a dark chill that wormed her way up her spine. Definitely not a nice place. Who in the world would ever want to live here, anyway?

A 7-11 lay across the street, opposite the corner of the teenage boys. Being it was the only true illumination of the intersection, Relena quickly headed towards it. On her way, she passed under a sign which stated in bold letters,

NO LOITERING
Violators will be persecuted

The sign was badly graffitied, to where it was almost hard to read the words. Hunching up her shoulders, Relena quickly walked up to the store, relieved to find that the door was open. She stepped inside, relieved a little at the bright light. She wasn't sure what this trip was meant to produce, but figured that it was already her worst so far . . .

The man behind the counter didn't even so much as look up. He was writing something down, distracted. Hearing a sound down the isle to her right, Relena turned, spotting the only other customer in the store.

IA mess of brown hair . . . /I

Recoiling, Relena backed up all the way to the counter, suddenly terrified. Oh, no. No! She didn't want to do this! No way in Hell!

Turning, she quickly made way for the exit. Who cared if this went against whatever plan had been made for her? She wasn't doing this, not here, not now. No way.

She stopped dead as one of the teenagers from before stepped inside, inconveniently blocking her way. She moved to the side, about to go around him, when two more of his buddies stepped through. All three moved deeper into the store, sidling along different isles. A forth teenager stopped right in the doorway, glanced around calmly, and then leaned back against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest nonchalantly.

Relena glared at him helplessly. He was blocking her escape, Damn it! She spun, lips pursed tightly together, hoping there would be some back exit. She took all of two steps when the source of her immediate frustrations appeared out of an isle before her nonchalantly, making her stop dead before she ran into him.

He turned his head towards the entrance once he reached the counter, placing two items on it calmly and without looking. He briefly studied the boy blocking the doorway, raising one eyebrow a hair of a fraction.

ICobalt blue eyes . . . /I

A lump rose in her throat, and Relena found she could not tear her eyes away. She would give anything to be able to run away, at that moment . . . anything but be forced to stare into the deep blue gaze of someone who didn't see her, someone who had never really seen her . . .

Heero turned his head back to the man behind the counter, who was trying to eye all four black-coats-and-chains boys at the same time, distrustfully. Relena, however, found that she had suddenly been rooted to the spot, unable to so much as turn her gaze away.

Finding that he had a customer, the man refocused his attention on Heero, clearing his throat and quickly ringing up the items-- Chips and a coke. Heero paid silently and then received the bag the man handed to him the same way, turning towards the exit. His gaze brushed right by her without feeling her, though Relena felt him-- far too acutely. The lump in her throat grew.

Who would love to torture someone with this, like this? Who? This wasn't fair!

Heero paused calmly , facing the boy in the doorway, asking--without saying anything-- for him to move. The boy raised and eyebrow calmly, arrogantly.

"Oh no . . .I don't think so. There ain't nobody leaving 'til we says so."

The man behind the counter straitened. "If you boys are going to buy anything, I suggest doing so. But if you harass my other customers, I'm going to call the--"

"You ain't calling nobody, Pops." Said one of the other boys, who had come up silently to stand in front of the counter. "Nobody is."

The other two boys had stepped forward, and they now framed a triangle around the counter. The man was beginning to look very nervous. Heero still hadn't moved.

"Now, listen here, you punks--"

The boy who stood at the point of the triangle laughed as though the man had just said something uproariously funny. " 'Scuse me? You talkin' ta us?" He had wild black hair, long, pulled back into a low ponytail. The other boys chuckled. Carefully, calmly, the one with the wild hair opened his coat, pulling out a very deadly-looking silver gun. The man behind the counter quickly clicked his mouth shut, eyes widening.

"Ya see . . . we's the ones givin' the orders 'round here." The boy's eyes narrowed dangerously now, not laughing. He raised his arm, pointing the weapon directly at the poor man.

"Actually . . . you're not."

This new voice came in a calm, deep monotone that Relena still heard in her dreams . . . her gaze swung to Heero, who for all the world looked like he was relaxing at a park on a Sunday morning.

One of the other boys, the nearest to Heero, shook his head. "You just be silent and don't move. This is between us," he jerked his thumb to the man behind the counter, "and Pops over there."

"Yeah," stated the one with the mess of black hair, motioning with the gun. "Now open them drawers for us, will ya?"

Heero glanced toward the one with a gun, gaze becoming very intent and focused. "Don't."

"What did you say?" The one with a gun swung around a bit to face him, disbelievingly. "You jus' stay the Hell outta this . . ."

Heero! Relena thought, silently. What are you doing? Stop it! You're going to get yourself killed!

Heero, apparently, didn't give a damn. "I am not in a good mood right now. Put down the gun."

After a startled moment of silence, the boy began to laugh-- although a bit nervously. He turned his head to face his comrades, raising both eyebrows. "You hearin' this guy? I think he might needa be taught a lesson . . ."

While his head was turned, Heero suddenly moved forward, so fast he was almost a blur. The boy spun around, again startled, but Heero simply threw his bag at the boy in the middle of his lunge. Confused, slow, the boy instinctively moved to grab it, and in that moment-- that moment of grabbing instead of shooting-- Heero had his hand around the boy's wrist and was swinging it hard against the counter, the muscles of his arms tensed and coiled. The boy let out a sharp cry of pain, and the gun dropped, landing on the floor.

"I told you," Heero murmured in a quietly dark voice, "I am having a bad day. Week, actually. Now get the Hell out of here."

He released the boy's hand, who quickly took a few steps back. His gaze swung to where the gun had fallen, but before he could do anything, Heero drew his foot back and kicked the silver weapon far away, sending it skidding into the candy isle.

"Get. Out." He ordered in that same, dark voice, one which any sane man would run away from. The boys hesitated for barely a moment before quickly exiting, with Heero's gaze following them the entire way. They moved quickly, disappearing around the block, and after a moment Relena heard the squeal of tires moving away.

"You got a date with death or something?" Asked the counter man shakily, staring at Heero as if he were some creature no one had ever heard of before.

Relena was in shocked silence.

Heero glanced at him emotionlessly, stooping to pick up his bag where it had fallen on the ground. His eyes traveled downward, after the path the gun had taken when he had kicked it away. Rising again, turning away, Heero murmured simply, "The safety was still on."

He walked out, not pausing to look back. The man behind the counter seemed to be in shock, but just as Heero disappeared into the night, he seemed to take hold of himself. "Wait!" He called after. There was no response, so he simply glanced down. "Thank you."

There was no way to tell if Heero had even heard.

Relena wondered if she could get away with not following him. But it was so blaringly obvious that she was meant to . . . what in the world could following Heero prove? That there was one person in the world who was no worse for the wear after her . . . disappearance?

Then she wondered how she ever hoped to get out of her situation if she didn't follow whatever . . . Ithey/I . . . had planned.

Running her hand through her hair in helplessness, she turned and walking out of the small store, glancing both ways up and down the street. A small motion of a moving shadow caught her eye, and, taking in a deep breath for strength, she started after it. To say she was reluctant to do so would be an understatement-- but her want to be relieved of this ghost-life out-reached her reluctance to see him, however slightly. She had to jog a little to catch up to him, a shadow of a person that she technically barely knew, yet felt she had known all her life.

She watched him silently, trying to match his languid-seeming fast pace, watching how his gaze never flickered or even moved from the path in front of him. He was as emotionless and unreachable as he was in real life, ironically. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or be hurt by that.

"Hi, Heero." She murmured quietly. Funny. It was just as hard to talk to him, now, here, where he really couldn't hear her. She supposed that was because he had never really heard her at all. Even that day no-so-long-ago, when she had stood before him, in all her still-naïveté, opening herself to him like an idiot, as if that could ever change him . . .

"I wouldn't've come if I'd had a choice." She wasn't sure why she was talking, only that saying those first few words seemed to have unlocked some sort of barrier she had erected, leaving pent-up emotions pouring free. "Just wanted you to know that. I'm not following you because I want to. They . . .whoever they are . . . are making me." She paused, if briefly. "I know how much you hated it when I followed you around during and after the wars . . ." Another pause. "Sorry."

She swallowed, looking away. Heero, of course, didn't give any sign that he noticed her presence.

Figured.

"It's been a while . . ." She hesitated, and cleared her throat, correcting herself. "Well, not a while, technically. Just . .. long, in my mind . . . " She glanced away. "I bet it's been a relief for you, not having to deal with me. Was that why you ran away? You knew how much I hurt and you couldn't bear dealing with me anymore?" She chuckled dryly, without mirth. Then, "I should've just kept my mouth shut." Her tone was soft. "I should've never come looking for you. I should've . . ."

She trailed off and he turned suddenly into a driveway, leading up to a cheap-looking apartment building. She glanced down at the ground, though still continued to faithfully follow him, wondering what the point was. It would be so much easier if she could just figure out what they wanted from her!

She followed him through the nearly-empty parking lot and to his door. He fished out the keys from his pocket mechanically, his movement and eyes lacking the brief intenseness they had shown when confronting that boy with the gun-- that same intenseness that she had come to expect from him. It was strange, seeing him without it.

She followed him inside. Closing the door behind him, Heero threw his purchase with sudden, frustrated force at a very shabby-looking couch, startling Relena. His apartment was shabby and untidy, with clothes strewn about carelessly and Chinese food containers laying open on a small, tilted table. Dirty dishes were piled in the small sink, and the stove and counters looked like they hadn't been wiped off in ages. The bed was unmade. A small desk with a laptop computer that glowed faintly was heaped with papers, and the only other piece of furniture-- the small two-person couch-- was torn and stained.

Relena turned again to face Heero, bewildered. Of all the time she'd known him and of all she knew about him, one thing she knew he certainly was not was a slob. He could be a jerk, careless, callous, misleading,--certainly unexpected--, brutal, blunt-- but never a slob. She wondered if he wasn't staying with someone else, but the small one-room apartment had only one bed and seemed small enough for one person, as it was.

Heero had moved to the middle of the small room, where he now stood, fist clenched at his sides. Turned away from her and staring at nothing, he murmured, "The safety was still on." His tone had a very strange quality to it, and a longing that Relena felt was very misplaced.

She stared at him, quite a bit in shock . . . the same continued shock that she had been in since running into him.

He glanced once at the computer, noting what was on the screen for only a moment. It was a bunch of blue-lettering that made no sense to Relena, and seemed to be working on it's own, every now and then coming up with a new set of numbers and letters which sent the page scrolling upward a bit.

Evidently finding nothing of interest, Heero simply sank onto the small couch, not bothering to shift aside the mess of things that cluttered it. He leaned back, letting his eyes fall closed. His hair-- which was a touch more untidy then usual- seemed to have grown a bit longer, and it covered more of his features than Relena remembered.

A shudder abruptly ran though him, and he clenched his fist at his side, putting slow pressure into the cushion beneath him. Every muscle in his body seemed to be tensed up, and he looked like he was struggling with something internally.

"Damn it . . ."

And as suddenly as that, all of his muscles relaxed, and he leaned forward into a hunched position. He rested his elbows on his knees, putting his head in his hands.

"I am such an idiot," he groaned into his hands, the sound somewhat muffled, looking for all the world as if he could sit there for the rest of his life and never move again.

It was such a display of weakness that Relena had never seen from him, and it caught her off-guard. Relena watched him for a long moment, feeling the lump in her throat rise up again. Why did she feel sympathetic towards him? Worried, even? What was wrong with her? Pursing her lips, she tried to cover it up with anger at him. But it was hard. She had always been a person ruled by her emotions.

"Damn it, Heero," She muttered, staring at him, surprised at the pressure that was springing up behind her eyes. Could ghosts cry? "You are an idiot!" She sank down onto the chair nearest to her, closing her eyes tightly as if in pain. "You idiot," she repeated, not being able to bear looking at him anymore. He had no right to . . .to . . . "Why did you have to say the things you said? Why couldn't you have just said no?" A barely-caught sob tried to force it's way past her lips. She grit her teeth in determination. Even as a ghost, she refused to cry in front of him! "You heartless bastard . . . " She whispered softly, letting her head fall into her hands. Her wrists seemed to throb even more strongly at the pressure, though she ignored that. "Like you never knew how I felt . . . you idiot." She hesitated just a moment, swallowing another sob. "But . . .not as much an idiot as me."

She raised her head slightly, scrubbing at her eyes furiously, refusing to cry. Not here, not now, damn it! "Not as much an idiot as me." She drew in a shaky breath-- or at least, seemed to . . . she wasn't sure if she was really breathing-- and opened her eyes again, staring at the man who had collapsed on the couch. Why did she still feel for him? Couldn't even death give her a break from that heart-wrenching pain he had delivered unto her?

"I still love you, don't I?" She asked the air softly, voice breaking midway through. She closed her eyes again, tightly, as if trying to deny that fact.

Then she repeated, "Not as much an idiot as me."

*******

Author's notes: *Looks about, innocently* Aren't I just an evil little devil? ^_^ *Hides* I know, I know . . . I swear, there's a very good reason Relena is very upset with Heero. ^_^; And at least the person who I originally intended to be the main supporting character has arrived . . . as promised. *Beam* Next chapter . . . perhaps you'll find out what happened between these two. Or perhaps more on the organization known as the White Doves will surface . . . Perhaps you'll all learn how Quatre's doing, or maybe even be shown what Relena's little lesson-to-be-learned is. Or . . . maybe not. ^_^ You never know, and I've given up trying to predict how this story goes . . . Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are -very- much appreciated!