Relena was nearly speechless when he first walked in.
Sure she had seen him here and there in the hallways for the past few months but she never expected him to waltz into the gym at such an ungodly hour, to disrupt her morning routine. It had been a little more than a few weeks since Heero had been transfered to the Earth Sphere's Mission Base near the Gaza Strip, where she herself was now residing, an at first his initial presence was startling to her, however after speaking to him briefly she was happy to hear that he hadn't really changed since the days of her youth. At least in some sense...
But the horrible crushing truth was he had changed.
The once suicidal, lanky young boy she had been so familiar with before had, in a matter of years, transformed into a devastatingly handsome heartthrob of a man, and she and everyone else noticed it.
She tried to act like it didn't bother her when she heard secretaries and other female employees around the office gossiping about him, calling him man-candy, saying what they would like to do him if they'd ever got the chance, but the truth was it did. For four years she had barely even had time to spare Heero Yuy a passing thought due to her rising political status and heavy workload but now that he was suddenly thrust into her life and workspace she found that he was all she could think of.
Love? Lust?
She didn't know, all she really did know was when she would hear the hens around the water cooler commenting on how strapping he had been that morning it set something off in her that made her want to break all their wrists. Why would Heero go for any of those woman anyways? Most of them really weren't that attractive and the ones that were moderately good looking probably wouldn't have compared to Relena do to the "halo affect" that everyone seemed to see about her. Not to mention the history that she and Heero shared, that surely counted for something right? All the time they had spent together during the war, Heero was even very briefly a knight charged with defending her former kingdom, but what did any of that really matter?
She stopped working out.
"Hello Heero," she said smiling, wiping a few beads of sweat from her brow. Though her workout was rather light and merely there to maintain, running on the treadmill had always got her blood flowing, "what are you doing here so early?" He hastily walked passed her barely making any sort of eye contact.
"The same thing you are." he said in the old lackluster tone that Relena had come to expect from him. After hearing him speak the exact same way for so many years anything else would have been just weird. She humored herself a minute and let the thought of a socially trained Heero dance around in her brain, how odd it would be to see him engaging in small talk with other people without having been forced to or without the strange awkwardness that he sometimes let show when he was.
"Ugh" she sneered inwardly at herself suddenly feeling twelve, daydreaming of impossible things that surely would never come to be while at the same time wondering if that's indeed what she would have wanted. Half the allure of Heero was the mystery of him. Would she still want him if he was an open book, just another normal person? Does she want him now? Why the hell was she thinking like this? She shook all thoughts from her head immediately returning her attention back to the real Heero, not the suave gentleman Heero that she used to imagine when she was 15.
He was working out on the bench press machine now, she tried not to stare at him when he would make funny faces while trying to lift the heavy weight he set for himself. It was the first time she had ever seen him struggle at anything before and found it reassuring, maybe he wasn't perfect afterall, at least not when it came to lifting hundreds of pounds of weight. She returned back to her brisk walk on the treadmill everyonce and a while sneaking glances at him in the mirror, pretending to be interested in whatever was on television. He really was gorgeous, everything about him dripped with sex appeal. His deep voice, somewhat reminiscent to her brothers but not as gravelly, the fluidity of his movement, as if she was watching mercury walk, the way his unruly bangs hung down in front of his face hiding by far one of his greatest assets, his eyes. My God she loved his eyes, but that wasn't really anything new she always had, but having not been around their striking beauty for many years she forgot just how much she did love them. They were clear as a bell, but still revealed nothing to the outside world and she didn't know how it was possible to both love something so much and feel violated by it at the same time. Every time Heero looked at her, really looked at her, she felt as if maybe he knew. Like he had somehow used those magnificent eyes of his to bore deep into her brain and pierce the very part of it that harbored all her memories of and latent desires for him.
Relena notices him stop his workout for a brief moment to take off his shirt, making a mental note to herself to add washboard stomach to the list of desirable traits that he possessed.
Oh she wanted him alright, that was very clear, she wanted him in the worst kind of way.
She wasn't the naive little girl that she used to be and she wasn't the innocent bureaucrat that the media always seemed to make out. Just because she was the Vice Foreign Minister didn't mean she was any less human, that she didn't have the same needs and wants as people in other positions. It had been a couple of year since her last serious relationship and Heeros constant presence was a reminder that something was lacking from her life. Sex. She hadn't had real sex since her last boyfriend and by the time the relationship was practically over she no longer desired it from him. Was it wrong of her to see Heero merely as a sexual object? She didn't care, men did it to woman all the time didn't they? Of course they did and when it came down to it the two genders were pretty much the same, except of course for a few physical traits.
"I only asked because I'm here practically everyday an I've never seen you before."
Heero stops what he's doing to look at her, confused by her late response to his previous statement. "It's less busy at this hour, I was getting annoyed." He stands up and walks over to the squatting machine.
"Oh?" Relena says curiously. She knew exactly what he meant, around her wing of the base all the woman knew when Heero worked out and always made a fieldtrip of it. "I guess he finally got tired of being their afternoon snack." she thought to herself. "I'm assuming that you're referring to your fan club?" Heero didn't stop what he was doing to respond, he knew she was making fun of him so rather than try and give a witty retort and possibly incur more embarrassment he just kept squatting. Relena chuckled to herself, "Touche, I see you aren't in the mood to talk about it." Slowly the treadmill comes to a stop, she had had enough today, "Well Heero it's been a pleasure as always, but 'all good things' you know." She grabbed her water bottle and proceeded to walk into the ladies dressing room.
After a quick shower and change she was ready to start her day fully refreshed when she heard something coming out of the weight room. "Music?" she said to herself baffled, as she made her way out of the dressing room she was curious to see who else would be there at that time listening to such loud music. To her complete surprise no one was there, except for Heero of course. Not wanting to linger too long to avoid arousing his suspicions she kept walking. "Heero listens to music?" for some reason it just seemed so surreal, especially that kind of "punk" music. See couldn't put her finger on it, why that question nagged at her. It's a perfectly normal thing to do, listen to music that is, and maybe that's precisely why it struck her odd. It seemed something too human for Heero to do, something the younger Heero would have though pointless and never bothered with, and on top of it all he was listening to that kind of music. Punk rock it was called? Relena didn't know, she barely had time to sleep let alone the leisure time it would take to keep up on todays new music scene. Still...punk music seemed too...liberal for Heero. She always thought of him being completely Republican, at least that's the way his thought process seemed to lean. He was a soldier involved with the war and a few years after was very politically involved with the leading party which happened to be Republican. Wasn't punk music supposed to be the siren song of counter culture? Or was she mistaken?
It plagued her all day so that she could barely even eavesdrop on Heero's biggest fans. Barely.
"Did you see?" One said
"Oh yes, he wasn't there today. Has anybody seen him in the halls at all? You don't think he's ill do you?" Another one replied in a fevered tone.
"My I hope not, you know how quiet he is, I doubt that there would be anyone to take care of him. He doesn't have many friends I don't think."
"Well, I saw him talking to that new girl the other day," Relena sat up alittle straighter, "you know the one," she continued, "that new Laura girl. I don't think I'm going to like her at all. Something about her just rubs me the wrong way." The four woman nod in unison all in agreement in their contempt for this new girl that only one of them had seen.
Relena scoffed at the most recent portrayal of group-think to come from the water cooler yet, but now she too was at least curious about this mysterious new girl named Laura. Of course she wasn't going to get sucked into the "hens" childish games and jump to any hasty conclusions, such as hatred, at least not without meeting her first. For now she would save her judgments, but still, Heero was talking to her? He barely talked to Relena and they had history dammit! History! Didn't that mean anything? Suddenly she wished it was something physical that she could pull out of her purse and shove into Heero flawless face and say, "It shouldn't be awkward to talk to me look at this!" and then she would go down the list rambling off every single thing that happened between them until he was forced to acknowledge her presence in a fashion that she deemed was fit. Like a naked luncheon.
She raised herself up from her desk and decided that she was going to find the new girl, of course if anyone asked her she would just tell them that she was stretching her legs for some reason or another. Sadly Relena had become quite good at lying, it wasn't something she was proud of but she recognized it as a necessary evil for her line of business. She tried not to make a habit of it but if presented with the option of causing nation wide chaos or telling a little white lie to keep the public seemingly safe, even if it was only in their own minds well then so be it, lie she would. They usually were just little ones though.
Now this was going to be no easy task she realized, other than her name she had no idea what this Laura girl looked like or even what department she was in. She was going to have to think like a newcomer. The building was very expansive and intimidating so the girl would more than likely stay within a short diameter for the next few weeks, venturing away from her cubicle only when absolutely unnecessary, unless she had someone helping her of course, a certain blue-eyed man came to mind and Relena could feel her blood pressure rise. She became instantly self conscience almost sure that the gigantic vein in her forehead was pulsating outwards rhythmically, as if threatening to hypnotize people with it's movements thus messing her otherwise perfect complexion. She quickly snapped her hand to the area the vein would have been if it hadn't been totally fabricated by her paranoias. Feeling nothing was there she returned her arm comfortably back at her side, maybe she should go to the bathroom and double check just to be absolutely certain. She was confronting the enemy today and would not show any sign of weakness, failure was not an option she must be prettier, skinnier, more intelligent, poised and have bigger breasts than this girl because if she didn't well than she was gonna go home an eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's and cry into a pillow. Except she just remembered she didn't have any Ben & Jerry's at home.