Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.
AC 201
"Purple," she growled in an overdramatized, pseudo-offended tone. "And not just purple. Pastel purple."
Silence. But he seemed willing to listen.
"They got me a purple coffee cup. And you know what's worse?"
He blinked lazily.
She pulled the ceramic mug from the decorative bag she'd brought home from work. "It was stuffed with a bag of coffee beans!"
He frowned and raised one eyebrow. "So you're angry with your friends that they got you a gift?"
"No," she moaned. "It's not that they got me a gift, Heero. It's that the gift just shows exactly who I am not." She plopped into the dining chair and hunched as she sulked.
His brows knit as he watched her. She felt as though she was prey caught in the light of the hunter's lamp. He was judging her. She felt it.
"I was polite," she said defensively. "I said 'thank you'."
"But you didn't mean it?"
She frowned, and twisted the mug back and forth on the table. "What would you have gotten?"
"I'm here."
She understood. Instead of bothering with a gift, he had learned that it was more important, more precious to her, if he spent time beside her.
She smiled. "Assuming, though, that you had to get me a coffee cup, what would you get?"
"That's illogical."
"Play the game," she pressed.
Heero looked around the room, thinking. "When you were younger, you were rather fond of pastel pinks. Now you'd prefer a dark, rich blue. Particularly royal blues and prussian blues."
Relena grinned.
"Of course, I hope the cup had a practical top, since you're always on the move, but I realize, also, that you'd take it off. You don't like covers."
"And the coffee?"
"You hate coffee. They should have invested in a black tea with medium caffeine. You seem fond of ginger and pumpkin. Loose leaf. Two sugars. No cream."
Relena sighed. She felt silly for feeling sad, but she was now vindicated and relieved. "You know me," she said. "That is the point. Friends know each other."
"It's just a beverage."
She reached out and touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. "It's not the cup. It's everything. Their idea of me is a shallow perception. I can't be real with them, at all. They're not friends, Heero. They're fans."
His gaze was soft and curious. Relena felt all of her self-preserving walls melt away when he looked at her this way.
"I think I'm so lonely," she continued. "You have more friends than I do."
"Hn." He looked away, again. "They're pretty twisted."
She grinned for a moment, but continued with her point. "My greatest fear, I think, is that I'll always be alone. I'll die this way."
"No," he answered. "I'll be here." He brushed her cheek with his knuckles.
Relena felt something inside her soul begin to swell. "What about you?" She asked. "What is your greatest fear?"
In these moments, Heero didn't shirk from the questions. Not with her. "They've given me command of dozens of men," he said. "They're all older than me but they know. They know who I am. They trust me."
Relena tucked her legs under her, so she was leaning over the table toward him. "It's not your first command," she said.
"That was different." He swallowed, looking at the floor. "That was war. They were already dead men. They just needed to know where to fall. These men? These men have families. They're planning to go home each night. They're counting on me to get them there."
"You will." She tried to sound reassuring, but as soon as she said it, she understood what he was thinking. She understood what he was really afraid of.
"One day I will give a peacetime command and it will cost my men their lives." Heero looked at his open hands, as though he could see the blood already there. "I dread that."
"Heero." She circled the table and climbed into his lap.
His posture relaxed and opened as he encircled her waist in his arms. Relena could sense his apprehension. Taking command as a Gundam Pilot in the middle of a battle was different from the life he had now. These men had something his previous subordinates never had. These men had hope that had nothing to do with Relena or war or Pacifism. And he feared he would be the death of that.
Cloaked in hope, his word would be their assassin.
"I'll be there," she offered.
Heero's eyes softened. She hadn't emptied tomorrow of its threat, but she had offered him companionship. He seemed comforted.
He pulled her forehead down and pressed it against his own, brushing her nose for a moment. He kissed her so softly she thought she might forget the feel of it.
Relena noticed that her hunter's eyes were darker than she'd imagined. She couldn't quite make out their color. Everything else in the room blurred as they peered at each other.
He was here.
He was going to kill her.
The words continued to flow, practiced, from her lips, but she could feel a shock run through her body, as though her heart had actually stopped beating. Her face and neck grew cold as ice and the world began to grow dark in shock and panic. Adrenaline flooded her mind so she couldn't quite remember what she needed to do next.
Thoughts of Juliet filled her consciousness. Her daughter was in a state where she could barely walk, and yet she was there, headstrong as ever, determined to see her mother through this. Juliet just had to come. Now how would they ever get her out?
Relena snapped her eyes shut, closing him out of her mind so she could take a breath and remember the plan.
Heero stiffened at the sound of a pen dropping to the floor.
Above, Trowa calmly turned and threw a fire alarm which alerted Lydia. She swept Juliet into her arms. Before Relena looked up, she was in a familiar embrace. He had her by the waist and was moving her away, opposite the crowd. He was pulling her deeper into the building.
"Heero?"
His eyes commanded her to trust him. He led on.
After the throngs of now uncomfortably panicked people faded from her hearing, Heero pulled her past an unmarked door into a small room. As the door shut behind them, she expected to be drowned in complete darkness, but she was not. One exit sealed and a second exit appeared from the wall beside them.
Suddenly Relena was looking down a concrete stairwell.
Heero started down the tunnel, first, holding her wrist gently as he led.
Her heels had slowed her, as he'd predicted, though not as much as he'd expect. The General shot her a warning glance as they reached the first landing, and she stooped to pull the shoes away. The grip on her wrist slipped to her fingers, but he did not fully release her. With her feet bare, their motion increased in speed as they maneuvered into the underground and down a long corridor.
"We're sure Jules got out?" She asked. she trusted him but she needed reassurance.
He grunted affirmatively. "I saw her exit the building," he answered. "She'll be brought to a safe location." He looked up at her in an expression swirling with seriousness and kindness. "I promise."
Finally, they laced through a hooked hallway and into a monitoring room.
Heero finally let her go in the middle of the room and moved to the computers, bringing the large screens around them humming to life.
"Team Charlie," he called into a transponder at his ear. "This is Echo-6."
He waited a moment, then responded, "Roger. Notify me when you're in place."
On the monitors above her, Relena could see the last of the civilians had flooded out of the auditorium, and a human barricade had fallen into place. Heero's people responded more quickly than she'd seen back home. She didn't know whether to credit it to Heero's training or the forewarning they had that there would be trouble today.
"Yeah," Relena heard Heero say, again, typing hastily on the keyboard. "Check."
He pressed a blue button on the side of the monitor.
Another man's voice filled the room around her. "Testing? Testing?"
Relena looked around, as if to spot the speakers.
"I've got you," Heero said, falling into a chair in front of her. He picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk. "Charlie said there's an unmarked bag at the back of the auditorium. Are your men on it?"
"Of course," a voice answered. Relena assumed it was the man emerging from the wall of soldiers on the screen. He was covered in body armor from head to toe and had an opaque shield obscuring his face.
"Derickson," Heero said.
"Surprised to see me, already, boss?" The man waved at the camera for good measure.
Heero watched with lazy eyes. "Hn. I can read a calendar. Thanks."
"Eh, you officer types," the man called out, pushing past the doors to the building. "I'm surprised you can write your own name."
Heero didn't bother to answer.
"You never visited, you know. The missus is cross with you about it."
Heero rolled his eyes, but Relena could make out the hint of a smile tickling at the corner of his mouth. "That's not really my natural habitat."
"What? A home and a family?" He knelt awkwardly, falling to the floor in front of the back with one knee at a time before shuffling into a more comfortable position. "Yeah, I guess not."
With a few taps at a computer in front of them the screens changed, putting the man's POV camera on the main monitor.
"Aren't you a little old to still be having children?" Heero said as he watched his subordinate work.
Relena blinked, wide-eyed, at the familiarity of the banter. She wondered how much Heero had changed in her absence, or whether he was always able to present such a pleasant social mask with his coworker.
The man chuckled. "Ah. You're just jealous. Keep in mind that you're not that much younger than me, kid. You're in your thirties, already. Of course," he added knowingly, "I'm sure you've got that all figured out."
Heero folded his arms across his chest and sighed lightly. "Stay on task and away from the water cooler," he warned.
Wires appeared in color on the screen. Relena couldn't make sense of it but she trusted the agents' training.
"Now, I had hoped to set you up with that girl who's keeping the books for the Chief, but there's a rumour going around." He tilted his head in observation dramatically enough for the cameras to see. "Something no one will quite say out loud. Care to confirm?"
Heero brought the topic back onto the subordinate's life, ignoring the implications about his own. "How many kids does this one make? Fifteen now?"
"Seven! He's my seventh child. Another boy."
"It's not a competition," the General added sarcastically.
"If it was, I'm sure we'd be having a very different conversation, boss. You have a tendency to be the best at everything."
"Thus the rank to tell you to shut the hell up."
The man on the monitor shook with laughter. When his hands stilled, he moved the wires back and forth to get a good view.
"Mind the dummy," Heero said.
"I can see it, General. I've only been off for six weeks. You don't have to tell me how to do my job, you know."
The man pressed a pair of clippers to the green wire in his fingers and cut it loose. The camera jostled slightly as the security footage showed him relaxing near the explosive. "That was easy," he said, but Relena didn't feel comforted.
Heero didn't seem calm, either. Something about the ordeal seemed off to her. Maybe a little—
"—Too easy," Derickson commented, lifting himself back onto his knees. "Something's not right, here. I clipped the incendiary device, but there should be more. This setup looks like it was put together by a grade schooler. There's no way that a guy who's escaped your custody for more than twenty-four hours would create such an easy device. It's like-" His heat resistant gloves moved through the wires, again, pulling at the walls of the detonation box. "It's like the outside is just for show. Like the explosive we're looking at is a red herrin—"
The screen turned blinding white and the speakers hissed and awful, ear-splitting sound before cutting to silence. Both Relena and Heero had instinctively covered their eyes and tried to shrink from the noise. When it stopped, Relena could hear little more than the ringing in her injured ears.
Heero surged to his feet calling out Derickson's name but it was too late.
The monitors showed only scorch marks where the new father had been only moments before.
A horrid, nauseating dread balled in Relena's stomach as she looked on. She didn't dare move. Glancing at him, she realized that Heero seemed to have turned to stone.
Audio communications had been destroyed by the explosion. They were alone.
Heero typed furiously at the keys, growling under his breath in frustration.
Minutes passed. He couldn't reestablish comms.
Relena turned her eyes on Heero and waited. She honestly didn't know what to expect, but she knew what felt right.
One day I will give a peacetime command and it will cost my men their lives.
He breathed slowly, snapping and crushing the pen in his hand. Shards stabbed into his skin, but he didn't seem to notice.
"Heero?" Relena's voice was soft and intimate. She moved close behind him and placed her hand at his back.
His muscles flinched at first contact, but he relaxed against her as he sighed.
She leaned her head against his spine and allowed her hand to slip around his waist. "Heero," she whispered again.
The crumbled pen fell to the ground. He touched her arms gently, following them around so his fingers wrapped over hers. Taking his caress as acceptance, she carefully tightened her grip on him, pulling him in a little closer.
Tears began to well in her eyes but she fought it. Fitful thoughts tried to rush her but she shut them out. There was only this moment. If it could just last—
"Heero." His name felt like a prayer on her lips, soothing the shock and pain that threatened to drown them.
This time she felt his body stiffen. He pried her hands free and moved away.
"Don't touch me," he snapped, refusing to look at her as he crossed the room.
Relena took less than a practiced second to recompose herself. "Right," she said, standing tall, and turning her face from him.
He was right.
That was then. This—
This isn't the same, she realized. She wrapped arms around herself in a self-soothing embrace.
Lydia stood back another moment in the shadow of the hallway. They hadn't heard her approaching because of the explosion, but now she was frozen in place, watching.
Perplexed.
She was absolutely sure, now, what she didn't like about Relena. They had known each other — and quite well by the look of it — but for whatever reason, he was keeping it from her. There was no reason to keep a friendship with someone of that caliber a secret from her, she thought, but he did it, anyway. Why hadn't he told her? Was it part of his play to protect Zechs?
Or was it as much more as it honestly appeared?
She swallowed and steadied herself, trying to add a hop of faux-momentum to her step as she pushed herself through the door.
"General," she called.
Heero turned abruptly. The expression in his eyes was like nothing she'd ever seen before. Was it because of how that woman touched him? Was it because he'd lost a soldier?
She, too, felt drawn to reach out and touch him.
Instead she straightened, coming to attention.
"Prichard," he responded, returning to his typical stoicism. "Have you secured the girl?"
"Yes," she answered. "I've got her in Sector B-42."
"And what about Mister—"
She kept her head high and her gaze level. "Marks?" She asked.
Heero looked at her expectantly.
"Chief Wind is still with him. They're also on their way here."
Heero turned away with a frigid posture, adjusting his comms device like he was finally able to receive a transmission from the blast area. "How long will it take to clean this up?" He called into a private line.
The subtlest buzzing indicated he had voices responding in his ear.
"Got it," he said, again. "I'm afraid I'm indisposed."
Lydia watched his face grow soft with grief.
Relena risked a glance at him but had to turn away. She was unable to help him now.
"Do you think you could handle the notification for me?" He asked.
Apparently the answer he got was an affirmative. He pulled the transponder from his ear and placed it on the desk in front of him as he sank into the chair. Lydia studied him, learning his subtle emotional cues, but Relena looked pointedly away.
The silence around them burned.
