Chapter 9

The car ride to the salvage yard was deathly quiet, as had been the shuttle ride before it and the departure from ESUN headquarters in the early morning. They had been driving now for the better part of an hour without a word between them. Relena insisted on sitting as far away from him as possible, eyes focused on the passing scenery of the L2 colony. Heero, never one for conversation, had not tried to engage in idle chitchat. Instead, he used the time to study her from his position on the seat beside her, considering his next steps.

In the light of day, dressed for business, she appeared unscathed. Her expression remained neutral, her composure pristine. Her honey-colored hair was brushed but unbound, leaving a glossy curtain to hide behind, and the skin on her face was almost exclusively free of damage save for a handful of scalpel-thin cuts from ricocheted pieces of space rock. Her hands cupped each other in the well of her lap, legs together and angled delicately toward the door of the vehicle: a reflection of her aristocratic upbringing. Five days after their return from Coranis, if anyone had not heard of their fall, they would be completely ignorant of it had they looked upon the Foreign Minister.

David had noticed the tension between them almost immediately, becoming wary when faced with the steely quiet his wife imposed upon the former pilot. Their return to Earth had been a one-sided affair where Relena rather pointedly spoke only to her husband and ignored Heero's presence, causing David to consider both of them at length in puzzlement, trying to gauge what had changed between them while his wife steadfastly and with uncharacteristic disinterest denied that there was anything wrong. Heero joined her in the denial, which only deepened Relena's anger and solidified David's suspicion until a haunted expression started to characterize the other man's face. A shadow now lingered in the eyes of the sandy-haired entrepreneur when he looked at Heero, concern for his wife obvious when she and Heero were trapped in a space together. It had been particularly stressful for Relena's husband when it became clear this morning that he could not accompany her on this newest trip, but the time at Coranis had made it dire that he return to his own job.

Heero thought distantly that, soon, David would no longer have to worry.

After departing ESUN headquarters the night before, Heero had spent the early hours of the night wandering the city, deciding how to approach the situation. He realized he would only have the time on L2 to mend what he had broken to whatever extent possible before he would need to be gone from her; any longer, and he risked placing her back in the same situation they had seen on Coranis. He understood Relena's words beneath Coranis, about staying by her side, but disagreed with them. He was not a deterrent to Litz; he was an incendiary. If he stayed, the Naturalist would only factor Heero's presence into his calculations when he next tried to eliminate Relena, and perhaps even succeed. He had to operate from the edges to protect her. To stay would be… foolish.

Instead, Heero was determined to help her find some peace with his words before he left. It was all he could do on the occasions where he made such irreversible mistakes. Unfortunately, this time it was not so simple as offering a gun and the choice of his existence to every member of a pacifist family in exchange for a stolen life.

As though reading his thoughts, Relena shifted subtly closer to the door, further from him, as though subconsciously rejecting the idea of reconciliation in light of betrayal. Heero's resolve solidified further.

"You should say it," he told her abruptly, his voice loud in the quiet of the car. The chauffeur, a short, balding man who had greeted them at the spaceport with poorly concealed alarm when he first saw Heero's battered face, glanced back at him through the rearview mirror. Relena's gaze remained fixed out the window. A beat passed.

"…And what is it you think I should say?"

"You're angry with me."

Another beat passed, followed by a heavy sigh. "I do not know what you mean," she said, still refusing to look at him. Her knuckles had gone white.

"You've been holding back since we returned from Coranis," he prompted again, awarded by the furrow of her brow. "The conversation we had within the satellite – it's unfinished. You should say what you need to say to me."

Her lips thinned, jaw tightening. "This is not an appropriate topic to discuss right now," she replied, voice carefully measured but laced with rebuke. The driver very deliberately took to staring out the windshield of the car, shoulders tense, gripping the wheel in anticipation. If the man were a dog, his ears would have twitched. Heero ignored their audience.

"You should be true to your emotions, Relena."

It was like watching a rubber band break: her entire body pivoted, hair fanning out wildly around her before crashing back down around her shoulders, hands splaying across her thighs before contracting viciously in the fabric of her pants. Her posture angled suddenly, aggressively toward him. She inhaled sharply at the pain that must have coursed through her at the abrupt movement, but for the first time in almost a week, she looked at him. Her face had gone pale with fury, eyes blazing hot and fierce with all the emotion she had been repressing, the foremost betrayal and accusation. Heero was not the kind of person to be frightened by the expression in another person's face, but even he wanted to look away for the briefest moment. Instead, he returned her gaze steadily, bearing the brunt of her wrath without reaction.

She opened her mouth to speak, to react to his words, trembling with the force of her emotions, before closing it again slowly. Deliberately. He could see the effort it cost her in that simple gesture, the way her teeth clenched together in a gesture so unlike her. She wanted to say those words she was biting back. She wanted to unleash all her pain upon him, as was her right. It was her nature to be open and honest, to be passionate and outspoken, no matter how different or difficult her feelings might be to the person she addressed. But not now. Not for this.

Heero felt his own fist clench.

She struggled for a long moment as he looked on. When she did finally speak, it was strained, but controlled. Her eyes, still furious, now held a hint of the same shadow that lingered in David's face.

"I know what you're trying to do. You do not get to decide when we have this conversation; if we have this conversation." Her gaze fluttered to her hands, particularly the rings that adorned the fourth finger of her left hand. She uncurled her fingers, carefully placing them back in her lap and forcing her muscles to relax. Her eyes returned to his face, wounded but resilient. He wanted to touch her. "You do not get to fix this by forcing conflict; We both know that is not the way to find peace."

The driver was looking decidedly uncomfortable now. The car had slowed considerably, indicating they were either close to their destination, or the man was so distracted by his passengers that his ability to direct the vehicle was suffering greatly.

She leaned toward him subtly. Her body still trembled.

"You waited ten years to tell me the truth, and it took almost bleeding to death within a frozen piece of space rock for you to say it. You can wait a little longer for my reply."

The car rolled to a halt.

"We've arrived, Minister," the chauffeur announced meekly from the front seat.

Without waiting for a response Relena offered her gratitude to the driver and departed the car, closing the door quietly and walking calmly down a long driveway leading through a large metal gate. A sign hung over the gate announcing, "Maxwell's Salvage and Scrap", towering piles of metal and discarded mechanical parts peeking through the large open doors. Heero watched her disappear through the entrance before rousing himself from the car as well.

"Princess!"

He heard the happy shout before he even stepped foot in the salvage yard, followed by the joyful screeching of two women greeting each other. The sound of old friends reuniting filled the space that stretched from the depth of the yard to the gate where Heero approached. Relena's distant laughter was cathartic after the tension of their travel.

It had taken several minutes to disengage from the driver. The small man had been hesitant to leave, first insisting on helping to pull their luggage from the trunk, then staring in awe at the colorful bruises on Heero's face while stumbling over words that failed to form coherent sentences. Heero simply stared back and waited for the man to fade off into awkward silence. Eventually, clearly unnerved by the steady gaze of the former pilot and unable to conjure words to voice his concerns, the bewildered man wished him a speedy recovery and security in his job before he climbed back into the car and drove hastily away. Heero simply shook his head and walked through the open gate, luggage in hand.

They really were trivial injuries, Heero thought. The bruises were healing rapidly, and the cut to his forehead was closing nicely. The severity was summarized by the blood loss: easy to fix and quick to recover. Thanks to the enhanced mechanics of his body, in another week it would be as though he had never suffered any of it at all. Civilians put too much stock in superficial wounds.

"Hey budd—WHOA! Where's the bus that hit you?"

Civilians, and Duo.

"It was a resource satellite," he heard Relena mutter bitterly.

"Ha! That's for sure! Man, you'd think you had tried to stop its orbit with your face!"

Duo's jaw dropped dramatically upon Heero's appearance, goggling as though he had never seen war injuries. Never mind that Duo had seen him five days ago when Heero first called him; had commented rather animatedly about his appearance for approximately ten minutes while Heero tried to discuss his purpose for calling, and then promptly called back when Heero said he'd ask Trowa instead and hung up. Now, Duo's eyes glittered wickedly across the distance as he used the opportunity to harass his friend. Heero scowled.

He would never ask Duo for anything again. Ever.

The trio stood on one end of the yard: the long-haired man, a small dark-haired woman, and Relena. Duo looked the same as he always did: dark clothes, long chestnut hair braided down his back, and a mischievous grin. Hilde similarly failed to change much in the years since he had last seen her: petite, short hair, seeming to waver between smiling, scolding, and rolling her eyes at the man beside her. Heero distantly noted the addition of a subtle swell over her abdomen and the way she absently ran her hands over her stomach. Both wore gold bands on their left ring fingers from when they had married a few years after the end of the war.

They were flanked by tall piles of metal, electrical parts, the husks of cars, and the occasional disembodied piece of a mobile suit. Behind them a five-story building rose, probably a former mobile suit hangar considering the four massive doors that opened nearly to the top of the building. Inside, Heero could see several half-built shuttles, a warped mobile suit transport, the dismantled torso of an old Leo suspended from the ceiling, and… half a tank, split perfectly down the middle. Heero blinked. Suspended walkways meandered around the perimeter of the interior and branched off into stairways that disappeared into the upper levels. Several oversized metal tables stretched through the space, littered with parts and tools, and what looked like a glass-encased office area sat tucked in the back corner.

Done with his verbal perusal of Heero's face, Duo peeled away from the women and practically skipped to Heero's side.

"Hey buddy! Good to see what's left of ya!" Heero saw the movement too late, Duo's arm slapping down casually across his shoulders as he greeted the Wing pilot.

Fire detonated across his back. Stitches strained to hold together ruined flesh, fresh blood leaking out onto bandages that hid beneath the fabric of his clothes. Unlike his face, the injuries to his back were still in the process of healing, much of the skin so damaged that he would have to wait for it to granulate in before the pain would completely recede. It took every ounce of Heero's considerable control not to elbow Duo into the next colony.

A gasp reached his ears from where the women stood, and he heard the murmur of Relena's voice, too low to discern her words, but before Heero could shrug off the arm, something small but heavy streaked through the air to strike the braided man directly in the forehead. Duo staggered back, stunned, the offending appendage slipping away as he fought to maintain his footing. A small sandbag landed at their feet.

"Duo, you idiot! Get your arm off his back! Weren't you listening to Relena just now?" Hilde yelled as she stomped toward the dazed man. Relena remained where she stood, but Heero briefly caught her gaze before it stubbornly slid away again. The shadow was starting to overtake her face completely now, just like David.

"Damn, Hil, your aim is murder," Duo swore, rubbing the red welt blooming on his forehead. He peeked sheepishly through the crook of his arm at Heero and offered a crooked grin. "My bad."

"Hn."

"Sooo, what have you crazy kids been up to?" Duo asked, choosing to sling his arm around Hilde this time. "Ended any regimes lately? Decimated any underground bomb shelters?" The grin warped to once again stretch knowingly across Duo's face. He was enjoying this entirely too much.

"Hardly any of that, Duo," Relena replied with amusement, walking over to join them as she spoke. When she stopped, her body remained angled exclusively toward the couple, maintaining her wall against him. Duo's eyebrows rose a fraction and he glanced at Heero, a question lingering in the air. Heero shook his head subtly. "In fact, it's been perfectly boring lately. Nothing exciting to report at all, I'm afraid." Her tone was teasing, a small smile playing on her lips. By now, everyone with a screen knew exactly how 'boring' life must have been for the Foreign Minister recently.

Just as Heero had warned, the story of the Coranis disaster was plastered across every news station both in space and on Earth, replaying Relena's fall several times a day at least and Heero's blurred form as he dove in after her. Litz claimed control of the story was out of his hands, as the participants of the conference had been independent members of the press, not his own private staff. The media now speculated widely on the cause of the accident, the safety of the Mars Project, and the identity of the indecipherable Preventer who had jumped in after the Foreign Minister and saved her life.

Duo laughed at her words and leaned toward her, conspiratorially blocking the view of his mouth with one hand while whispering loudly, "I'd find it boring, too, if I got stuck in a hole with Mr. Personality over here." He jabbed a thumb in Heero's direction. "I bet that was a fun conversation, huh, Princess?"

Relena paled, her smile faltering so abruptly that even Hilde noticed the slip and frowned in concern. She caught herself quickly and offered a thin chuckle. "You have no idea."

Duo hesitated, clearly unsure how to move forward with the conversation, and glanced again at Heero at the same moment that a peal of high-pitched, surprised laughter split the yard along with "ghost in the graveyard!" and a child, perhaps seven, bolted suddenly around one of the piles of scrap and stopped abruptly. He spotted Duo and his face transformed fanatically. "Base! I see home base!"

"Ah shit, they're still playing," Heero heard Duo mutter to himself a second before kids came streaming from all corners of the scrapyard, zeroing in on the braided pilot like sharks tracking blood in the water. They descended upon him with all the frenzy of piranha feeding on a carcass, small hands reaching out to touch or grab fabric and limbs. Within half a minute, the former Deathscythe pilot was covered in a cloud of children ranging in ages from four to sixteen. Hilde grinned maliciously at her husband, conveying wordlessly that she thought this assault of small creatures was clearly karma. Relena's eyebrows disappeared into her bangs at the strange scene.

"There's more, so just give it a second," Duo cautioned cryptically, sighing dramatically.

A beat passed, and an auburn-haired girl, perhaps ten, tore around one of the piles with a younger girl on her back at the same time that two older boys emerged from behind a pile on the opposite end of the clearing. Another beat, and a third dark-haired boy flew out from a pathway almost halfway between the others. All five children froze. Almost as one, they looked at Duo, then back at each other. The last boy to emerge wavered, leaning first one way, then the other, before exploding into motion in the direction of the two girls. The choice was a catalyst to all the children, the two older boys sprinting to Duo and practically tackling him, while the girl turned and ran head-first toward the dark-haired boy who was obviously the tagger in this game. Looking as though they would collide, the boy reaching for her with triumphant glee, at the last moment the girl threw herself into a flawless slide that sent her and her passenger beneath the reach of the boy and through to the other side. Before the dark-haired boy realized what happened, the girl pivoted and launched herself across the open space, skidding to a stop beside a long-suffering Duo and pausing by the braided man to stare pointedly back at the dark-haired boy. A vicious smile bloomed on the girl's face and she placed one delicate finger against Duo's shoulder.

"Safe," she announced haughtily.

The rest of the kids, who up until then had been holding their collective breath, exploded into cheers, clearly as impressed as the four adults by the skills of the red-headed girl. The "ghost" scowled and kicked a stray piece of metal across the yard while the others jeered and screamed in delight at the turn of events. Heero could not help the almost soundless chuckle of amusement that passed from his lips.

"Alright maniacs, that's enough for today. I want hands and faces washed in ten minutes before dinner! Not you, Lini. Hop to, chop chop!" Duo bellowed. The children, wild-eyed and clearly exhilarated from their game, giggled and rushed off in the same horde-like manner they had arrived, leaving the area suddenly empty save for the auburn-haired girl. She looked up at Duo expectantly as he leaned down to address her. "There'll probably be a visit tomorrow. I'll tell you the plan in the morning." The color drained from the girl's face, but she nodded curtly. Duo returned the nod and patted her gently on the back. "Go get cleaned up now, too." And then she was gone.

Silence stretched for a long moment after the kids disappeared. Duo became conveniently preoccupied with a stray piece of metal at his feet. Hilde was red in the face and fiddled absently with her wedding ring. Relena quirked an eyebrow and looked expectantly at her friends, crossing her arms over her chest and fighting a smile. Heero allowed his lips to quirk subtly.

"Something you forgot to tell us?" Relena asked.

Duo squirmed where he stood, then shrugged mulishly and threw up his hands. "The Colonies never had too much of a need for orphanages before the war. Orphans usually end up on the streets, or at the nearest church if they're lucky. We just filled the need when it came up."

Relena's smile bloomed and turned warm. "You run an orphanage?"

"Think of it like a shelter," Hilde explained, pride making her face bright with enthusiasm. "We offer food and a place to sleep to any kid that winds up at our door. If they can go home, we help them get there. Most of them just decide to stick around."

"Do you ever get parents that come looking for their kids?" Relena asked, her interest piqued. Heero found himself listening with the same level of intensity.

"Sometimes," Hilde said. "Lini—the redheaded girl you just saw—her parents showed up a couple months ago, asking if she was 'holed up here'." Hilde's lips curled in distaste at the memory. "They brought the colony's councilor with them. Everyone knows we'll take any kid that shows up on our doorstep, no matter the reason. They guessed she'd come here."

"What happened?" Relena prompted, a frown beginning to form on her brow. Heero could guess Hilde's words before she spoke, having heard the tales of runaways in the course of his own childhood.

Hilde shot a knowing look in Relena's direction. "You should have seen these people. Her mother looked like she hadn't eaten in days, but her makeup and hair were perfect. Her father is the kind of guy who wears jeans and t-shirts but still manages to look rich doing it. He did most of the talking. They didn't like when Duo told them we didn't have any kids matching that description. They left, but not before they threatened to destroy our business and have us arrested for child abduction. I thought Duo was going to jump in that Leo we have in the hangar and open fire before they left. They make it a point to come back for surprise visits every few weeks looking for her."

Both women glanced in the direction the little girl had fled, protected from sight by towering piles of metal and the safety of the salvage yard.

"An hour after they left the first time," she continued, "Lini appears and tells us she'll give us anything we ask for if we don't ever tell her parents where she is. She told us she would owe us "favors"," Hilde practically spit the word, "like we would own her if we didn't tell. Relena, her eyes—" She looked at her friend helplessly, clearly disturbed by the memory. Her hands clutched at the swell of her stomach. "I've seen kids who have come from some bad places. I've only seen eyes like hers on soldiers who have had limbs blown off or seen people torn to pieces in the war. This kid hasn't even hit puberty yet."

Duo, who up until then had been gazing out at the scrap yard in uncharacteristically grim silence, growled low in his throat. "If I ever find out what they did to that kid, I'll put that look into their eyes."

"I just wish we could guarantee they can't get her back," Hilde sighed, worry tightening the skin around her eyes.

"Over my dead body," Duo vowed, clenching his fists at his side so hard that his shoulders shook. "I'll blow up the whole damn salvage yard and move the lot of us before that happens. Those assholes think they can threaten Shinigami, I'll show them how dangerous I can be. They'll have to pry that kid out of my cold, dead hands to get her back." A feral light burned in Duo's eyes; the same kind of fire that had made him so formidable in battle as a Gundam Pilot. Duo was adept, Heero would never deny that, but it was the pure will of his personality that made him indomitable when he had a goal in mind.

Relena stepped calmly forward into Duo's space, startling the braided man out of his savage state, and rested a hand on his arm solemnly, looking between the couple with all of the composed determination that made her so influential in the public arena. "Lini has someone to protect her now; someone who will not hurt her or let her be hurt. When she wakes up in the morning, she will know she is safe. She will know she has someone to rely upon. You're giving her everything she needs. Don't let these people take that away from her by acting recklessly on her behalf."

Duo stared at her mutely for a long moment, his mouth working but producing no reply. Clearly, he had not expected her to temper his righteous declaration with reasonable advice. Eventually, the unusually speechless man closed his mouth and nodded curtly, blushing mildly in embarrassment. Hilde brushed away tears as they gathered at the corners of her eyes and mirror the nod with vehemence.

The conversation lapsed uncomfortably as all four adults looked in the direction the children had run. Heero had briefly lived on the streets before Doctor J recruited him, but he knew that Duo had run for years with the street gangs that sprung up in the L2 colony cluster because of the Alliance. It did not surprise him to know that the former Deathscythe pilot harbored orphans and runaways, nor that he would be willing to burn his life to the ground for the sake of one of those kids. Their lives as children had all been altered radically by the conflict of the era that produced them. None of them could fairly say that they enjoyed a childhood. It was only natural to want to protect future generations from suffering through the same.

"Anyway, who's hungry?" Duo crowed abruptly, effortlessly brushing away the gravity of the moment so that a wave of ease swept over them all. Heero heard the collective exhale they all expelled. "Hilde's got something boiling in the barracks that might be edible— Ow! Babe! Geez, you always go for the gut…"

"Careful Maxwell, or you won't eat at my table for a month," Hilde threatened, blue eyes glinting dangerously, long-suffering humor creeping back into her face. Relena giggled.

"You shouldn't insult a woman's cooking, Duo," she warned, wagging a finger at him, "especially your pregnant wife. You'll be doing baby duty every night for a year." Hilde's lips stretched wide and her eyes lit up. Duo face twisted as though he'd swallow a bug.

"Don't give her ideas, Princess! Geez, she's diabolical enough on her own without your help," he grumbled. "Do you know she told the kids to hide all of my laundry in the scrapyard because I forgot to put it away?"

"Forgot! You left it in a pile for a month! A month! I bet David does his own laundry, irons his shirts, and hangs everything up himself all in one day. Doesn't he, Relena?"

"Well—"

"What guy in his right mind would do that? Relena knows that's a crock of shit. Ten bucks says David has a clothing service launder them, so he doesn't have to deal with it, right Princess?"

"Actually—"

"You know which guys put their laundry away, Duo? Adult ones! Heero, tell him that men put their clothes away. Boys leave them in piles for their mommies!"

"Hah! Heero, tell her that she's full of it!"

"Be honest Heero, you keep your laundry folded in perfect little piles, don't you?"

"Have you met the guy? He probably burns his clothes daily from all the blood he gets on them. There's no way in hell he sits there folding single every piece of clothing HE OWNS—"

"I BET—"

"Heero doesn't stay in one place long enough to make laundry," Relena announced coolly, stunning both Maxwells into instant, shocked silence. Almost simultaneously, two sets of eyebrows shot up, and two sets of eyes looked first at Relena, then at Heero.

"Hilde, will you show me where I can put my things?" Relena asked, her expression schooled into polite attentiveness for the dark-haired woman. "I think I would like to wash up before we sit down for dinner."

"Ah, I—Y-yeah. Yeah, sure… Follow me." Hilde's eyes were wide, and she shot a bewildered glance back over her shoulder as she led her friend away.

Once the women disappeared inside the hanger, a long, low whistle escaped from Duo, who was still gaping at Heero. He looked again at the hangar, then back to the stoic man, and shuffled closer, shaking his head.

"Damn, she's really pissed, huh? You're really going to have to tell me what you said below Coranis." He continued shaking his head, paused, then barked out a laugh at whatever crossed his mind. "Wow, buddy, someone's in the doghouse," he announced cheekily, and clapped Heero on the back. Hard

This time, Heero did elbow him.

He left the braided pilot doubled over and gasping for air as he picked up the luggage and followed the women toward the hangar, catching the words that Duo struggled to wheeze out.

"I… deserved… that!"

AN: This chapter became it's own beast with how I originally planned to write it. What I wanted to do got pushed to the next chapter because... Duo. Really, it's his fault. Hope you enjoy!

~Sar