Chapter 2

Officially, Heero had never been inside Relena's apartment before. Despite the long years he had always seen her off at the steps to the building—if they even got to that point as they had tonight. Inside, the Foreign Minister shared a life with her husband and there had never been an occasion where Heero had needed to venture further into the building to accompany the young politician. Officially, he was a professional acquaintance whom she had known for more than a decade: an ex-soldier-turned-Preventer who worked closely with Ms. Darlian when he was on-planet and whom the doorman knew on sight from years of brief goodnights and small pleasantries. Officially, Heero was a nuance in the life of an otherwise busy political figurehead.

Unofficially, he knew the layout and interior of her home better than his own, able to navigate the apartment in darkness if needed without disturbing the integrity of the rooms should someone be present to notice. He had been there when she had first moved in, and little had changed in the years since despite her marriage. Relena preferred to maintain a strong sense of order, everything holding a place; furthermore, she was disinclined to rearrange furniture. To counteract the occasional deviations, Heero entertained periodic visits to the apartment to take note of any small modifications – never when she and David were home, of course.

The elevator deposited them into a short but wide hallway, complete with rich black carpet that was easily several inches thick, cream-colored walls framed by crown molding and wainscoting, a crystal chandelier, and a small black decorative table sporting vibrant red geraniums in a black vase and a wide mirror equally framed in black. Across from the mirror and table was a single black door with a silver "20" in large elaborate lettering. Heero surveyed the hallway as she searched for her keys, noting with satisfaction the discrete security camera blinking subtly in one corner of the ceiling. As with his previous visits, it appeared the building always maintained its equipment to the highest standards. He knew that the camera streamed live video down to a small surveillance room on the main floor of the building that was constantly manned by a guard; he was patched into the signal remotely through his own laptop.

"Why geraniums?" he asked as she unlocked the door. Relena's eyes flickered to the bright flowers. A knowing smile touched her lips.

"Geraniums are a symbol for folly," she said, slipping her key into the lock. "Every morning I leave for work, I see them sitting there and I remind myself what it is that we've left behind; the mistakes we've made that we must never make again."

"And in the evening?"

Her smile turned enigmatic and she gazed at him pointedly. "Some nights you just need something beautiful to come home to." The door gave way before them, spilling light into the darkened apartment.

Heero stepped past her instinctively for a preliminary sweep of the familiar space, ignoring the loud snort behind him when she realized what he was doing. A decade had given the politician plenty of time to grow used to his paranoid habits. She never asked him to curb the impulse and he never denied the accusation he was a few meters north of obsessive.

Satisfied that the apartment was free of threats, he turned on the lights and surveyed the open area of her living room as she put away her coat and removed her shoes. His own clothes were still uncomfortably damp against his skin. He had stopped dripping enough that the tile floor of the small vestibule held only a few errant drops of moisture, but it would take time and a dryer before the fabric was acceptable. His duffle bag lay by the door where he had left it upon entering and he moved to retrieve it. Placing his shoes beside hers, he removed sopping socks and pulled fresh clothes from the bag.

"Do you mind-?"

"When do I ever?" she interrupted, practically shooing him towards the bathroom. "Throw your wet things into the laundry!" she called after him.

Minutes later he emerged wearing dry jeans and a cotton t-shirt. The dryer hummed from its place in a separate laundry room off the bathroom.

The room he stepped into was large and spacious, with high ceilings and an open concept that then bottlenecked into the hallway where he stood. A large granite island separated a gourmet kitchen from the living and dining areas, sporting gunmetal gray cabinets for the island and pristine white for the remainder of the kitchen. The top row of kitchen cabinets displayed fine china dishware and crystal glassware through glass doors, all organized to reflect order and class. The floors were the same tile throughout the living and dining areas: a pewter travertine whose colors varied between silvered blue and a light beige depending on the square you stared at. A large dark table with chairs stood just beyond the kitchen, looking austere and refined. Conversely, the living room was inhabited with thick-cushioned cream couches, comfortable dark chairs, a plush area rug, and a flawless glass coffee table upon which were fresh flowers. A handful of photos adorned both the walls and several small decorative tables at various points around the apartment. Windows made up the entire east wall of the apartment, looking black against the flood of artificial light.

The space was unexpectedly inviting in its severe beauty, able to appear both intimate and impressive just based upon the layout Heero knew Relena had designed. "The apartment looks nice," he said.

In the time it had taken him to change she had started to prepare dinner, bustling around the kitchen and opening drawers with an efficiency that still baffled him. Having been served more meals than either of them could count throughout her life, Heero had been surprised to learn the blonde politician loved and excelled at the art of cooking. She glanced up at him as he spoke, features blooming into an appreciative grin. "David likes the penthouse feel, but it's never been my taste. I told him that if we bought this place I had sole control over the furnishings. I tried to compromise a little with the colors." Meaning she hadn't splashed the walls with anything brighter than paintings, a few of which screamed at him with their bold pops of color. "He's never complained, at least."

"Men don't need much to be comfortable," he offered, thinking of his own unimpressive apartment complete with sparse furnishings, bland walls, and a bed. Relena chuckled quietly at the comment.

Entering the kitchen alongside her, the dark-haired pilot fell easily into the role of sous chef, pulling down plates and stirring the contents of pots and skillets periodically as Relena prepared a dinner more sophisticated than any he'd had in weeks. They worked in comfortable silence, moving around each other effortlessly as though they had made dinner together many times before.

Throughout the process, he could feel her eyes on him. For once he felt as though he were the one being scrutinized, her gaze following him since the moment he had first stepped foot into her office and startled her. For what reasons, he had yet to figure out.

As she started to plate their meals, he felt her pause.

"Should I ask how many times you've been in here before now?"

He smothered the quirk that threatened the side of his mouth. "That depends on how the answer would make you feel." Silence greeted him, indicating she was weighing her options. He turned to study her face: lips pursed and eyes narrowed speculatively as she mulled over the decision. She nodded subtly. He shrugged, "thirty-eight."

"Thirty-eight?" she balked, head snapping up to look at him. "Thirty-eight times since I've lived here?"

"Thirty-eight times since you've been married." The quirk threatened again and won this time, turning one corner of his mouth up in amusement as she stared at him wide-eyed and gaped. Her unladylike fits were rarer these days; he had learned to enjoy them when possible.

"Heero! That's five years! I don't think you've been on planet half that amount in five years!"

"Fourteen official trips," he offered. His amusement spiked and he inwardly reflected he had known Duo for far too many years to glean such emotion from the simple act of teasing the former princess.

"Fourteen—"The word squeaked breathlessly out from between her lips. "Heero!"

He retrieved the prepared plates from the counter where she had become undoubtedly frozen in horror, skirting around her and placing them at the table with previously set utensils and napkins. Schooling his lips back into submission, he quirked an eyebrow in her direction. Deadpan, "did you still want to eat?" Emotions battled on her face: anger, outrage, shock, bafflement.

Her progress to the table was slow as her mouth worked to form words, rendered effectively speechless by his emission. Eventually, she settled into a chair to continue staring at him as the food cooled before her. When further words failed to come, she picked up her fork and began to eat. Heero followed her lead.

After several bites, Relena placed her fork gently down and glared at him, seemingly having focused on one particular emotion. By now, the amusement had cooled back to calm professionalism. At her expression, he recognized she was more than upset at his revelation. "What in God's name gives you the right to break into my home and go through my things?"

"It was necessary to ensure your safety." He failed to point out he had never disturbed her belongings without deliberate need.

"Thirty-eight times?" Apparently that number was going to become a bone of contention.

"If I can get in, so can anyone who might want to harm you or your husband," he explained. Relena's expression turned skeptical.

"I have a feeling the actual list of people-capable-of-invading-a-twentieth-story-penthouse is quite a bit smaller than the one in your head," she accused. She took another angry bite of food and waited for an explanation.

He studied his own meal briefly before meeting her eyes directly. "Fifty-three active Naturalists have either the personal or private means to enter this apartment without the knowledge of building staff, all while you may or may not be home to witness the act. After the incident with Mariemeia when we were teenagers, Une charged me with ensuring your safety despite how impossible the likelihood that someone may have unauthorized access," he explained, watching her face transform to surprise and then bitterness. Although time had seen the progression of her career and goals, the decade had also seen its fair share of covert attempts on the young minister's life. Heero did not doubt she was aware there were more than she had been told about.

Despite this information, Heero could see that her anger still simmered at the thought of his invasion; for what reason, he could only guess. "That still doesn't give you or Une the right to invade the privacy of my husband or myself, no matter your intentions." Another bite, followed by a scowl. Injured eyes looked up at him, her lips pursed. "You could have told me."

For once, Heero made himself look away from those bright eyes. "You would have been uncomfortable."

"You don't think I'm uncomfortable!" She stood abruptly and spun away from the table, the food all but forgotten as she ran a harried hand through her hair and spun back again to stare at him. "Heero, you just admitted that you've broken into my apartment more often in the last five years than you've been down to Earth for visits! More often than the number of days I've seen your face in all of that time! I know you've always looked after my safety, but this-! Do you know how David would feel if he knew that you had been in our home—our bedroom—without our knowledge? Do you—Oh, God, do you spy on us, Heero?"

It was his turn to scowl, rising to meet her as she paced a small rut into the tile of the floor. "I don't spy on you, Relena. If you or David were here when I had to be, I would knock on the door and wait to be invited in. I have never entered your apartment when either you or your husband were home; there hasn't been the need. My only purpose in those visits have been your protection; if I can enter in undetected, so can your enemies." When she continued to pace, he took hold of her arms and forced her to stop and face him, ducking his head to look her in the eye. "I didn't mean to upset you; I just need to know you're safe."

Her eyes were wild, searching. Her body was tense, muscles so tight it must be causing her pain. "Then why did you even tell me?"

"You asked me."

The wind went out of her sails at the same time the tension eased. Suddenly, she looked uncharacteristically helpless as his hands continued to hold her fast. He felt his own muscles relax, exhaustion seeping through his bones over an unspoken argument they had been having without ever acknowledging it.

"Relena, why did you ask me here tonight?" he asked in a quiet voice, releasing her and stepping back. So solid in the public eye, Heero thought she appeared waifish in this moment: something he had only glimpsed in recent pictures as she drew herself deeper into the Mars controversy. Exhaustion caught up to everyone, but this… It was part of the reason why Une had asked him to come down—part of the reason why he had agreed. There were problems she was not telling him.

"I—I don't… I just needed a familiar face for once, I—" Tears began to fall, a sniffle burst forth and she spun violently away from him, scrubbing angrily at her cheeks. "Excuse me, I'm more exhausted than I thought, I—" He watched as she tried to regain her composure, but her shoulders trembled and a sob tore through her chest.

For months now she had been bordering on the state he was presented with now. He had watched her speeches and been present for the occasional ESUN congressional meeting, noted the deepening circles beneath her makeup and the tense strain behind her mask of diplomacy. Relena had never been a person to fake her interactions with humanity, but he could see the effort it had started to take in recent history. The problem was, it was difficult to recognize the signs if you did not know the Relena that had existed before the end of the wars: the tireless determination and profound sense of direction. Her ideals had not changed, but something had been slowly eating away at the Foreign Minister. Une suspected it involved the Mars Project; Heero was not so sure. He could not remember a time when she had ever accused him of being less than honorable, as she had done tonight. If they understood nothing else about each other, it was that each had the best interest in mind for the other. What stress was crushing down on her so hard that she couldn't release it to anyone's confidence?

Despite the wordless screaming in his brain, he picked her up and carried the distraught woman to one of the couches across the room—let her cry until her body stilled and she fell asleep against him, head buried in his neck and cheeks streaked with tears. He wondered distantly if this was ever a state that her husband had witnessed. If so, what had he done?

Careful not to wake her, Heero stood and carried her into the bedroom where he pulled back the covers and laid her down. He hesitated as he pulled the covers up around her—her face was still contorted in distress despite her slumber—then returned to the kitchen, disposed of the remnants of dinner and washed the dishes. Afterwards, he sent a message to Une requesting that a sick day be issued for the Foreign Minister and her schedule be cleared for the following day. Five minutes later, he received a reply telling him it was done.

Pulling his laptop from his duffle, he confirmed that businessman David Earlhelm was off-planet until well into the following day, his encrypted company itinerary announcing his flight to arrive at 1600 hours. Then, settling himself onto one of the couches with laptop in hand, he began to delve into the past several months of the life of Relena Darlian, intent on knowing every step she had taken since he had last been to visit.

Relena woke when the first rays of sunlight streamed into her bedroom, the sun just peeking over the horizon and flooding the space around her with red haze.

The first thing she noticed was that her eyes felt gritty and swollen, the second that she had fallen asleep in clothes that were not her pajamas. She lay beneath the covers for several precious moments, floating between full awareness and that soft drowsiness that threatened to pull her back under. Ultimately, the feeling of being rumpled and stiff won over and she sat up, pushing back the blankets to stare down at that same outfit from the previous workday.

Her mind flooded with memories of the evening with Heero: his uncharacteristic teasing and her hysterics; cooking dinner together; the image he struck when he first emerged from the bathroom in fresh clothes; their meandering walk through the city; his unexpected appearance in her office after such a long absence. A tremor ran through her body.

She always missed him when he was away. Realistically, she knew he was present more often than she saw his face, but she missed seeing that face and longed for the easy way they slid back into a routine with each other despite those long absences. But last night, she…

There were boundaries that neither of them crossed with each other—refused to cross with each other—for reasons that were too numerous to list. Last night, she had most definitely bulldozed over that line and made a few angels in the sand. She had accused him of spying on her married life, even; accused him of being a lecher and a criminal with one ridiculous sentence that should never have crossed her lips. Her hands trembled at the thought, pulling forth memories that were better left buried of people that he himself had protected her against.

Relena allowed her head to droop, her hair falling in a golden curtain around her face.

Exhaustion was a kind word for what she felt recently. Last night, it had caught up with her in shocking ways that made her stomach roil in the light of the morning. His admission should have earned a playful reprimand on her part; some shock, maybe incredulity (thirty-eight, really?), but never the overwrought outburst she had thrown at him.

And he had endured, as he always did.

Heero had never hidden the fact that he watched her, usually from a distance and always with respect. He told her the truth when she asked, and sometimes when she didn't. They had come to a mutual understanding several years back that it was better to wait until she asked him, because the alternative left her distracted and him paranoid – more so than usual. Also, she found that she preferred not to know, because it was better to find out after the fact that a person you cared for was taking bullets for you that you never knew were coming than to be constantly waiting to watch that body fall from nowhere.

The thought chilled her.

She forced herself out of bed despite the overwhelming urge to curl up and lock herself away for a week in humiliation. Stripping off her clothes, she changed into comfortable pants, a tank top and her robe, trudged down the hallway of the apartment to clean the mess from the previous night, and stopped to gawk at her spotless kitchen and the man asleep on one of her sofas. Dark hair spilled forward as his head lolled at an uncomfortable angle, arms crossed over his chest with his laptop still open and slumped to one side of his lap. Even in repose, Heero looked ready to spring at any moment.

A soft, sad smile touched her lips. She approached on quiet feet, torn between waking him and allowing him to continue sleeping. Ultimately, she laid a gentle hand on his bicep and said his name.

Prussian eyes opened to meet hers instantly, intense and alert as only he could be. She did not wonder how long he had slept; it didn't matter with Heero, he was awake when he needed to be awake. Those eyes searched her without hesitation, knowing exactly who he was looking at and exactly what he was looking for, a hand rising to brush invisible tears from her cheek; so focused that it made her chest ache. "You're still upset." She nearly burst into tears again, but fought them down and settled beside him on the couch.

"I'm sorry for last night. Thank you."

He continued to study her in the early morning light, a slight frown creasing his forehead. "I had Une clear your schedule. You need a day to recover." It was not a question. She nodded calmly, feeling anything but.

"I… think that might be a good idea." Her heart was hammering in her chest the longer she had time to dwell on the previous night. Beside her, Heero was as steady as he had always been, unwavering and composed despite the nuances she saw flickering behind his eyes. It was hard to see his emotions, so trapped behind that calm mask, but over the years Relena felt she had become a specialist on the complexities of Heero Yuy. He was actually a very expressive person, if you knew what to look for. At this moment, he was worried; that alone worried her.

"I checked your itinerary from the past several months," he said, glancing at his discarded laptop before returning his focus to her. "You haven't taken a day off since before I was last on-planet; you've been up to the resource satellites eight times in the past two months and have been in near-constant debates with the Naturalists who oppose the terraformation. How often have you seen David?"

Right to the point. Her nerves started to calm as she listened to his voice, allowing her to appreciate the fact that the man was never one to beat around the bush.

"Maybe once a week we'll get a few hours together," she admitted, plucking at the hem of her robe as she thought about the breakneck schedule she had been subjecting herself to recently. She had spent fewer moments with her husband in a month than she had with the press secretary in the past week. "I don't think this week is one of those weeks, though." Relena sighed—as she had done so often in recent days—and leaned her head back to stare at the ceiling. "I feel like everyone gets more time together than we do." Beside her, Heero nodded wordlessly.

"You two should take a vacation."

"Vacation!" She laughed outright at the notion, sitting up abruptly so she could face him. "That's a lovely dream, Heero, but we'll never get a vacation the way things are now. David has a lot riding on a deal at work and I can't just disappear in the middle of these debates; the media would have a field day—"

Suddenly, a horrifying thought struck her.

"You slept on my couch the whole night?"

"Hn."

"Oh, God!" She nearly jumped out of her skin, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him to his feet with more energy than she had felt in weeks. "You have to leave, now! Oh, God, the doorman saw you come up. He's a wonderful man, Evan, but he gossips worse than Duo and Hilde on a drunken binge! Heero, you have to GO!" She was shoving him towards the door when he calmly stopped, turned, and cupped her face in his hands, stunning her to silence.

Boundless blue eyes met hers. "I made a show of leaving shortly after you fell asleep. My clothes are in the dryer again because I wet them down so that I left looking the same as when I arrived. Evan gave me his umbrella and told me that I shouldn't plan meetings with the Foreign Minister if I was going to look like a slob. I think he admires you."

She forgot sometimes how direct he was.

He released her gently and stepped back as she composed herself. She knew her cheeks were nothing less than a brilliant scarlet. "Sorry."

"Hn. Vacation, Relena."

"Heero—"

"I'll take care of it. Go call David and tell him."

She hesitated, but the expression in those eyes brooked no argument. She turned away slowly and headed down the hall to retrieve her phone. No sooner had she started moving than she heard the clack of a keyboard and a ping indicating a message had been sent.

Ten minutes later David was enthusiastic about the sudden deviation and confident that the company could do without him for a week. As she washed her face and regained some semblance of propriety, she received a message from the ESUN President stating that her vacation had been approved and was effective immediately; the media would be informed she was off-planet attending to concerns with the Mars Project and would be out of contact for that period.

Heero helped her pack, then disappeared from her apartment without a word of goodbye. A note taped to the mirror said he would see her soon. Hours later, she climbed into a car and left to join her husband.