Disclaimer - It's not mine. Never was. I'm not making any money off of this, just enjoyment. The songs are the property of whomever they belong to. I'm not stealing them, just borrowing.

A/N - Just so you know, the end of this chapter gets a little heated. It's nowhere near a lemon, barely even a lime, but here's your heads up just in case.

Release

Chapter 3

Truth or Image?

"…of all the things for you to do? A night club, Relena? Do you realize how dangerous it is for you to be….". Relena drowned out the lecture she was getting from her brother. They were back at her house outside the city, and Relena was sorely tempted to kick the whole lot of them out into the streets. Maybe the rain would cool their tempers off. Not a one of them had said a word to her until they got back here. Zechs and Heero were fuming mad, that much was easy to see. Duo seemed to think it was funny now that she had been found. He had even complimented her attempt at a disguise, saying the only way he'd known it was her was because he'd recognized the dress. And Trowa, well, he was quiet as usual, but Relena had a feeling he wasn't angry at her so much as he was angry at Heero and Zechs.

"How could you do this, Relena? With your position as Vice Foreign Minister, you can't afford…."

"My position can be thrown out the damned door, Milliardo, right along with whoever decided that my life was theirs to arrange." she hissed, finally loosing her temper with her elder brother.

"Relena.."

"Is it my safety or my image you're concerned about?" she demanded, causing the ex-soldier to look at her in shock. She never raised her voice at anyone, so for her to do it to him was a rare occurrence indeed. 'Well tonight just a night of shocks from me, now isn't it?' she thought, standing up from her chair and matching the lightning count glare for glare. "I'm old enough to go out on my own for a few hours on a Friday night! Is that so wrong, Milliardo? You and Noin do it all the time."

"I'm not the Vice-Foreign Minister." he said flatly. "You have a reputation to protect, Relena. You can't be……"

"I don't care anymore, can't you see that?" she demanded. "If you're so concerned with it, you take my job! Let's see how much you like giving up every minute of your life to baby sit a bunch of pissy politicians who can't take a step on their own unless someone's there to reassure them it's okay." 'Well, that seemed to shut him up.' she thought. Taking his lapse in stride, she continued on her rant.

"I'm a human, and I don't mind working. I don't mind sacrificing to keep this peace everyone has worked so hard to achieve. But how many other diplomats and politicians, either here or the colonies, put in as many hours as I do? How many women my age work instead of have some sort of personal life."

"At least you had enough sense to disguise yourself." he groused, seeing the wisdom in her words, and knowing he was not going to win this argument against her. He worried about Relena more than he rightly should, he supposed. But he wanted to keep her safe. He just wished she'd have mentioned being so unhappy with her job before now. It would have been easier to alter her lifestyle before now, before she decided to strike out on her own and leave half the Preventor force searching the city for her.

"The only reason you knew it was me was because Duo recognized the dress. You walked past me four times and didn't even turn around, you and him both for that matter." she said coldly, pointing to where Heero was standing near the door, silent as death.

"I think that's enough." Trowa said, stepping forward to put an end to the argument. Relena blinked rapidly, attempting to wipe the tears from her eyes. She hadn't even known he was in the room. "She needs some sleep."

"Barton…" Zechs growled, warning the pilot not to overstep his bounds.

"It would be prudent to let her get some sleep." Trowa said simply. "You're not going to convince her of anything while she's like this." Zechs said nothing, just grabbed his jacket and exited the room. A few seconds later, Relena heard the front door of her house slam shut and the start of an engine as her brother pulled out into the rainy night.

Relena felt a comforting hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Trowa's calm face. "Come on, princess. Let's get you in bed." he said, helping her to her feet. She said nothing, just nodded and walked out of the room. She said nothing to the glowering Heero Yuy that was still standing beside the doorframe, and he said nothing to her. Such was the norm.

Why change it now?

Heero watched from the shadows as Relena walked through her house, talking easily with Trowa now that she had calmed down. The Heavyarms pilot and Vice-Foreign Minister had went to the kitchen and fixed some tea to drink after leaving the study, more to calm Relena down than anything else.

It seemed to be working.

"Thank you, Trowa." Relena said, raising up on her tiptoes to give the tall Preventor a quick kiss on his cheek and slip something small into his hand. Heero couldn't make out what it was in the dimming lights, but figured it couldn't be too important. "I appreciate what you did for me tonight."

"Anytime you need me, I'm here." he said quietly, his usually impassive face turned into a gentle smile at the woman in front of him.

'What he did? What'd that clown do? And when the hell did Barton start looking at her like that?' Heero thought angrily.

Heero was about to start snarling and ripping the other ex-pilot into pieces. It was bad enough seeing her dancing around with that guy that had been at the club they had pulled her out of. The bastard had been way to close to her, and had his hands in places that they never should have been. Mind you, he had completely forgotten the fact that Relena didn't look like she had minded the contact.

He watched as Relena took smiled and turned into her bedroom, shutting it quietly behind her and leaving Trowa in the hallway.

Now Heero Yuy was mad. Relena was ready to claw out his and Zech's eyes for coming and pulling her out of that club…but she was thanking Barton? What the hell was he missing in this picture? He didn't even know when she had gotten on such good terms with the usually silent pilot.

'Guard detail.' he remembered suddenly, frowning at the oversight on his part. 'Barton was the night detail while I was gone right after the war, and he kept that until I came back.'

"Since when have you wanted her for yourself, Barton?" Heero growled as the other Preventor passed by him. He had come to the only conclusion he could. Trowa wanted Relena for his own.

Over his dead body.

"Get it together, Yuy." Trowa barked, anger actually lacing his usually calm voice. "She hates that pedestal of purity and chasteness you've put her up on. You saw what she was tonight, just well as I did. She's a woman withfeelings. And the ones she has for you are slipping away, real quick. So if you don't want to lose her for good, you better damned well find a way in there and talk to her."

Well, that definitely shined a new light on things. How blind had he been, honestly? Heero watched as Trowa's angry features quickly fell back into his normal expressionless face.

"Go talk to her." he said, leaving Heero to stand in the hallway. "And try not to fuck it up too bad."

Heero glared at the other man's back, silently wishing he could just pull a gun and shoot the bastard in the back of the head. He tamped down the homicidal urge and tried to calm down. He needed to talk to Relena, that much was for certain. The only problem was, he was pretty sure she'd rather throw him out the front door than talk to him right now. Heero braced up and walked the few steps down the hall, opening the door to her bedroom and walking in, shutting it behind him.

"Relena?" he called out, noticing the light in her bathroom was on.

"Oh, Trowa, I meant to tell you earlier about…Heero?" she started, coming to a complete halt outside the door that led off into her bathroom. Heero gulped, seeing that she had gotten rid of the disguise. Her light hair was loose and her blue eyes were sparkling, and she had changed into an oversized shirt that barely hung halfway down her thighs.

Heero suddenly felt like the temperature in the room had risen a hundred degrees. At least until he heard the ice her voice that had just so warmly welcomed him into her room as Trowa Barton. "What are you doing in here?"

"I'm not sure." he answered simply. He was such a coward. He'd told her he didn't know why he was standing there, when he knew exactly why he was where he was. He had finally admitted his feelings to himself about her one night at Duo's and Hilde's place; it was just stupid and utterly futile to keep telling himself that he wasn't in love with her. It was painfully obvious, at least to himself. Duo had been over the moon when he had finally admitted it to the Deathscythe pilot.

Of course the cheerful pilot hadn't been so over the moon when Heero had attempted to sabotage any chance of a possible relationship with her by giving her the cold shoulder routine.

It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to her, to interact with her. He didn't know what to do, what to talk about, how he should act around her. And in his mind, it was safer to do nothing and minimize the chance of a major screw up on his part , than to chance it and possibly make her angry with him.

Hence the reason he was standing there like an idiot, unsure of what to say or do to get into her good graces again.

"Well can you not be sure out in the hallway?" she asked pointedly. "Because I'm going to sleep."

"Relena…" he said, his mouth dry and his brain uncharacteristically blank. The name alone stirred unusual emotions and feelings within the supposedly unfeeling perfect soldier. Things like this weren't supposed to happen. Relena was supposed to be the pure, sweet, little girl who he had vowed to protect those years ago. After what he had seen tonight, he wasn't sure that description was appropriate anymore.

He frowned, trying to forget what his initial reaction had been to seeing her being so intimate with another human, another man. The provocative look on her face had been a ploy, he knew that. She wasn't anymore interested in that guy than she was in Quatre, but that didn't make him feel any better. Just recalling the way she looked caused him to feel like he'd just stepped out of a very hot sauna.

He had many times tried to understand these feelings he had for Relena, the emotions she stirred up in him. Subconsciously, he had a pretty good idea of what had happened to him, knew that it was too late to go back. But that didn't mean he had to admit it to anyone else, not even himself.

"Why him?" he demanded suddenly, pinning her with a cold look.

"Who?"

"Barton."

"Trowa?"

"Yes."

"What about him?"

"How'd he know where you were?"

"You'll have to ask him that." she said with a shrug. "Although from what I gather he tracked me down through the cab company."

"I'd rather beat the whole truth out of him." Heero growled, causing Relena to bristle up like a cat ready to pounce on it's prey.

"You lay one hand on him, Heero Yuy, and I'll have you shipped to Antarctica so fast you won't know what hit you!" she threatened, glaring at him venomously and daring him to defy her.

"You're taking up for him?" Heero asked, more surprised at her heated outburst than her defense of the other Preventor. She'd never raised her voice at him in anger, even after he'd come back.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"That's my business, and no concern of yours."

"Everything you do is a concern of mine." he said, watching as she climbed into her bed and rolled over onto her side, presenting her back to him.

"Go away, Heero." she said quietly. "You're not wanted here."

That simple statement was like a bucket of ice water being thrown on him in the middle of a summer day. He was in deep shit, and had better find a way out of it before he suffocated.

"I was before." he muttered quietly.

"That was before. Not now. Things change." she answered quietly, some of the wind gone from her sails. "You showed me that."

"Not that much." he said.

"Get out of here, Yuy, before I call Trowa in to throw you out."

"That's unlikely." Heero groused. Barton's name was the last one he wanted to hear her utter right now.

"You'd be surprised." she said. "He's stronger than I ever gave him credit for."

"How do you know this about him?" he asked.

"He actually talks to me, that's how." she said, finally sitting up in her bed and glaring at him. "Unlike someone else I know. He's stayed up with me on nights I couldn't sleep, talking about whatever subject we pulled up. Trowa is the one who let me cry on his shoulder when things got rough, told me everything would be okay in the end. Boosted up my confidence when I felt like I would fall apart."

"He's a soldier."

"You're right, he is." she said. "But he listens, and that's better than anything you've ever done for me. So get off of your high and mighty kick, and take a good look around. I don't need a soldier to watch over me. I need a friend. And if that friend is an ex-Gundam pilot turned circus clown who just happens to be working for the Preventors, then so be it."

"You love him, don't you?" Heero realized with a start. It was easy to see the affection floating in her eyes for the circus clown.

"Yes, I do. But only as a dear friend who's been there for me when the one person I did want at my side was off somewhere doing only God knows what with only God knows who!" she said icily.

'She's talking about Sylvia.' he realized. That relationship had been a mistake to begin with, and had only ended badly when he'd left to come to Preventors. Seeing the young woman again had thrown him for a shock, especially when she had welcomed him with open arms after just disappearing the year before. 'Of course Relena welcomed you back happily every time you showed up again as well.' his conscious pointed out.

"Sylvia was a….mistake, Relena. She wasn't who I wanted. She wasn't….". He caught himself before he could say 'you'.

"Just tell me what you want, Heero, please." she said. "Since is seems that throwing you into shock has the reverse effect and you're finally talking to me after all this time."

"A chance." he said.

"For what?" she demanded.

"To….to show you that…" he started, only to stop when he felt the words get all tangled up in his mouth. "I don't know… Relena you must know how I feel."

"I'm afraid I don't." she said, shaking her head. "All I do know is that I waited and waited for at least a word from you, Heero. Four years. Four years of worrying over whether you were alive or dead or somewhere in between. Then you pop up out of the blue. I welcomed you back, yet again, thinking maybe things might have settled down a little.

I offer you my friendship, and what do you do? You give me a cold shoulder. You ignore any semblance of companionship from me. Sure, you get along fine with Duo and Hilde, you even get along with Wufei and the rest of the Preventors. What was I supposed to think, Heero?

And then that little incident with Emily Myles and Sylvia in my office a few months ago. That was the proverbial final nail in the coffin, so to speak. I'll admit it. I was jealous of her, knowing she'd held your attention for such a long time, and still held your friendship. And I could do neither. That hurt, Heero. You wouldn't believe how that hurt me.

The only conclusion I came to was that there was something wrong with me. So, I gave up. I can't change who I am, nor will I, not even to please the man I've loved for years.

And now you come to me saying you want a chance to prove yourself? How many more do I have to give you? You've wasted four years of chances already. What's to say you won't do the same again?"

"You…still love me?" he asked. He hadn't heard anything she'd said after that declaration, although he knew it was probably important. The fact that she still cared about him was enough to make him feel this attempted endeavor to tell her his feelings was possible, even if it was minutely so.

"I never stopped." she admitted candidly, despite the fact she clearly didn't want to. "Nor do I think I will anytime soon, despite the way things are between us."

"You lie." Heero said, looking her in the eyes.

"What?"

"You lied, about changing yourself." he said. "What I saw tonight was not the Relena I know."

"Maybe that's because the side you know is the only side you've ever taken the time to get to know." she said. "I've grown up, Heero. There's more to me than this two dimensional character of peace you and the rest of the world has put on a pedestal. Just like there's more to you than the 'perfect soldier' façade you were given during the war."

"But…"

"I enjoyed it, Heero. Can't I get that through your head?" she asked. "The dancing, the touching, all of it. There's nothing wrong with that. I haven't done anything wrong!"

"A temporary reprieve from your self induced isolation it might be, but it is hardly conducive to keeping you untainted." he said gruffly.

"Now you're starting to sound like Zechs. What are you more concerned about. Me, or my image to the public? They are two separate entities, you realize." she accused.

"I know that."

Relena heaved a sigh of aggravation and looked over at the clock on her nightstand. It was going on two in the morning, and she was tired.

"Look, we can finish this argument in the morning. I'm going to bed." she said, climbing back into her bed and covering herself up with the blanket. "Good night."

Heero just stood there for a few minutes, trying to sort out what was going through his head.

He loved Relena, more than anything else, had for the longest time. It had just taken the shock of seeing her in the arms of another man to make him realize that there were in fact others who could possibly take her away if she let them.

On many levels, Heero realized that she didn't need him. She had a career, she had friends, and she had many admirers that would happily be standing in his place right now. He truthfully had nothing to offer her, other than his affection. Hell, he didn't even know his own name! But she had seemed not to care about that before, or now.

She just wanted him, that was all. Why he couldn't give her that, he didn't know. But it probably dealt with the fact that every possible scenario he had imagined with him at her side usually ended up with her losing her career because of someone finding out his past history with the Gundams and OZ.

A sudden, annoying voice that sounded too much like Duo for his peace of mind quickly and happily pointed out that that realization hadn't stopped either Hilde or Dorothy from getting engaged to himself or Quatre.

'Words cannot describe what love is. It's not in a dictionary or an encyclopedia. It's just knowing that you can count on the other person no matter what, that they'll be there forever. Their past doesn't matter, nor does their present. You overlook mistakes each other made, and pray not to make them again. It's all you can do in this world we live in.' Hilde had said once.

He had only come close to losing his mind once, but he was close to it now...and there was no ZERO system to blame it on this time.

'Just show her, Heero.' Duo had told him that same night. 'Sometimes you can't say what you want, you just have to go with what you feel, what comes natural.'

Heero stilled himself and walked over to where Relena was lying on her bed. He carefully sat down beside her, feeling her taunt body tense even further as he began to speak quietly to her.

"I can't tell you how I feel, Relena, because I don't know the words for it." he said simply, his voice sounding husky and far away…even to himself. "But I can show you, if you will let me."

Relena rolled over and sat up, looking at him carefully. The timbre of his voice had lowered, and it scared her to hear him sound so unsure of himself. This wasn't the Heero she knew, the one who had rescued her half a dozen times in the past with cool efficiency. She reached out to touch him, but he caught her hand in his own, turning those beautiful eyes onto her. "Heero…?"

"Just once, let me show you." he pleaded intensely . "It's the only way I know how. Words…confuse me. But actions…I can show you my feelings better than I can tell you."

"I can't…" she began, only to be shushed when the pilot in front of her closed the gap between them and kissed her softly on the lips, driving everything but that electrified contact out of her mind. His tongue probed her lips, quickly invading her mouth the moment she relented and let him in. He teased her tongue with his own, silently challenging her to meet him halfway. He groaned, mercilessly twisting the back of her nightshirt to keep his hands from going any lower down her body.

It was so much…so quick. Relena honestly didn't know what to do. Oh, she knew what her body was telling her to do, and that went somewhere along the lines of stop thinking and just react to what was happening. Her foggy brain was on the verge of complying wholeheartedly when Heero pulled back away from her and looked down with those deep blue eyes of his. Relena's breath was coming in short pants, and it gave her a sadistic gleam of delight to see that she wasn't the only one affected. Heero didn't look to be in much better control than she did. He took her hand and placed it on his chest. She could feel the quick thumping of his heart through the shirt, and brought her surprised eyes up to meet his.

"You see what you do to me?" he asked huskily. "The control you have over me?"

"Heero…"

"Please, Relena…I'm sorry…for everything." he begged, his smoldering blue eyes boring into her soul. "Let me show you the only way I know how that you're the world to me."

That was it.

That was her undoing.

Her last wall of resistance faltered….and fell at his feet.

She could already tell she was going to regret this in a few hours, but what the hell….

The level headed Relena Peacecraft crumbled with that one whispered request from him. She'd never been able to deny Heero anything, no matter what it was. She had no will power when it came to this man…and it killed her to be so weak around him.

"Just promise me you'll be here in the morning." she relented, wrapping her arms around his neck. He pulled her into his lap and kissed her again, his jealousy giving way to pure, unadulterated passion for the woman before him.

"I promise." he said, breaking their contact only briefly to readjust himself on the bed before dragging her back towards him. "We'll figure the rest out tomorrow."

Relena was heady with emotion. Forgotten was the aggravation and anger she'd had with him, gone was the indecision and cautious front she'd been presenting for weeks now. It was no use. The time and effort they had put into ignoring their feelings was swept away, leaving her feeling dizzy headed from the release. This was what she had dreamed about for so long, the exact same scenario that had caused her to wake up hundreds of times drenched in sweat and calling out to an invisible facsimile of the lover she so desired.. The lover who was currently holding, caressing, and kissing her senseless.

But in the back of her mind, she knew this would more than likely simply be a temporary reprieve that had been brought on by his raging jealousy that stemmed from what he'd seen earlier…..but she didn't care. She wasn't ashamed of how she felt about him.

At least not at the moment.

'Just tonight.' she thought, reaching for the hem of his shirt in an attempt to remove the barriers between them. 'I'll probably regret it tomorrow. But it'll do for tonight…'

Heero felt her hands tangle in his hair after she digested him of his shirt and they continued to duel for supremacy in the kiss. He could feel the light scraping of her nails as they pulled along his scalp and down his neck. This felt right to him. He was where he wanted to be for so long, where he was needed. This was what he had imagined for the past five years. Having her by him, with him, was better than anything his overactive imagination had managed to conjure up.

Her skin was smooth, her lips were soft, and her body was hot to the touch, her curves molding to fit to his body as he settled her over his legs, startling his lap.

This was more than he could stand.

"Relena…." he muttered, trying to get a hold of himself before this went to far. He hadn't come in here with the intention of sleeping with her, but at the rate he was going it wouldn't be long before that's exactly where they ended up. "Relena..."

"Just shut up, Yuy." she growled, causing him to flush at the untainted, coarse desire that was lacing her usually honey voice. "Before you say something stupid."

"Relena?"

"If you've got something to show me, then you better do it." she said, burying her head into his hair and raining kisses along his neck. "I'm not a very patient woman, you know."

That was all he needed to hear, her acceptance of his actions. She was opening her heart up to him for what could possibly be the best thing of her life, or the worse possible disaster. Her surrender left him breathless, and he felt like a god as she moved against him.

His mind was set, and his single minded focus would prove to be a valuable asset to him in the coming hours as they slowly stripped away the walls they had thrown up to ward the other off, the physical barriers that were hindering them.

And he only had one thing on his mind right now, to show Relena the truth behind the words he couldn't say…but had always been present in his mind and heart.

A/N - Well…(Reads back over that chapter and blushes intensely)

I don't rightly know where THAT came from. But…uh…suffice to say this whole fic has been monstrously out of character for me. So, I don't exactly know what to say…other than it's probably the result of that bottle and a half of Nyquil I took. (I have a horrible cold!)

Anyhow, please, by all means, review. I'd love to know what you're thinking.

(Even though I'm not so sure I know what I'm thinking…Once again, I blame it on the Nyquil…)