Author's Notes:

We're almost at the end!

The chapter's title is a line from Kitten's "G#," but this installment—especially the last part—was inspired by Sarah McLachlan's piano version of her song "Love Come." For me, the lyrics perfectly summarizes Heero and Relena's relationship. It's on Youtube (watch?v=seOIm1edM5A), and you can find it on Spotify. I suggest listening to it before reading.

Disclaimer:

Gundam Wing doesn't belong to me. The story is mine though, so do message me for and questions or requests!

Lunar Ember Presents

A Gundam Wing Fanfiction

Death and Taxes

Chapter 10: From Violence to Grace

It's been three days since the upheaval, and Trowa had Tarquin Hall send his letter of resignation to the office of Representative Kraz—or at least the double he had worked under. The real Kraz had already been rescued from L4 V0732 and taken to one of the many hospitals within the densely populated colony. The public official had suffered worse than Relena, and no one knew if he would recover from the brain damage he sustained after being forced to control Virgos. Trowa remembered the Representative's wife: in an odd twist of fate, it seemed that she would be the one who be losing so much from the incident.

Their small Preventer contingent was currently based in the hospital into which the Foreign Minister had been admitted; they had yet again claimed a doctor's lounge for the time being, and Trowa had resigned himself to staying up all night to finish his part of the incident report. He had been assigned to help clear out the ruined base after Heero and Duo had extracted Relena, and with an initial scan of its servers, he knew that he and the CID head would need to stay behind if they were to retrieve everything. It would probably take a few more back-and-forth trips to secure the data.

Based on the Preventer tally, the L4 V0732 base was run by 416 personnel, all of whom were currently being transported back to their home colonies and the Earth to face possible criminal charges. Somehow, it didn't seem fair to Trowa—it only felt that they were repeating the cycle that they had tried to break years ago.

Four hundred sixteen people used by Sylvia Noventa. Four hundred sixteen families that would bear resentment against ESUN. The Vice Foreign Minister who was currently taking over Relena's job for the interim didn't have the savvy or the heart that the former Queen of the World had, and he had only hoped that their political allies would step up until Relena herself would be well enough to get back to work. Yet, it was still a gamble: years after the Eve Wars, the idea of pacifism was still alien to many, and if its main proponent could not convince the Earth Sphere to believe that it was a kind of peace worth keeping, then future uprisings would be inevitable.

Preventer would have to be ready for that.

Trowa pulled up Sylvia Noventa's profile and scanned through it. The woman had been completely under the radar since her grandfather died in the hands of Heero—an accident, which would go down as one of the most horrifying massacres in the Eve Wars. Trowa grimly thought that each Gundam pilot seemed to compete with each other when it came to kill count; it didn't matter whether they were planes full of dignitaries or whole colonies, as long that it was what the mission dictated.

War always had far-reaching effects, and Sylvia Noventa was one of them. She had become an underground figurehead for former soldiers dissatisfied with the ESUN, and in a short time, she had amassed a group big enough to take up arms against the Preventers. Speaking with several of her personnel in V0732, they found that Sylvia had convinced them that going against ESUN would restore the dignity that they had lost when militaries were disbanded, and for soldiers who had nothing to lose, it would have been a welcome prospect.

The woman, however, had only used them. Her interests had been more personal—she had been obsessing over making Heero Yuy suffer for her grandfather's death—but as her wants were more or less aligned with the poor men and women who had only wished for a tinge of their former glory, she rode on them. She didn't exactly expect the plan to succeed, but at the very least, it would destroy something big enough that mattered.

The soldiers wanted Relena gone. She made a farce out of it to bring about Heero's return. The revival of the Gundams would serve as the revival of a revolution, but for Sylvia, it would simply be poetic justice.

The door to the lounge opened and Trowa looked up from his laptop to see Zechs walk in, throwing his Preventer jacket on one of the seats on which he had earlier deposited his duffel bag. He watched him zip it open and sift through the contents, before deciding to ask, "How's the Foreign Minister?"

"She's stable." The older man said as he pulled out a tablet from his bag. "The surgery was successful, but they still have to keep her under for a while."

"And you?"

"What about me?"

"How are you?"

Zechs looked at him with a slight tinge of amusement. "Since when did you start being concerned about my welfare?"

"That was your sister out there," he replied, suddenly thinking of his own. "I'm sure that it was difficult for you."

The man stared at him for a moment as if to confirm his sincerity, before relenting. "It's… frightening, to say the least," he admitted. "I've never seen her that hurt."

It was true. Somehow, Relena had always been lucky, but what had happened was far too close for comfort.

"How's the report going?" Zechs asked, changing the subject.

"Just about done with my part. I'll send it to you ASAP," He glanced back at his monitor, going through the list of names of soldiers in custody. "Is ESUN really charging all of these people?"

Zechs sighed. "Preventer will have to release a statement on the factory first. Then an inquiry will for sure follow. More debates, more politicking… But the soldiers will stay in custody for the duration of that. There's really very little room to maneuver on the matter."

"And Sylvia?"

"They've already brought her to a facility. She's… not all together anymore."

Trowa sighed. No one wanted this. In the end it was never really worth it.

"I'll be having dinner," Zech's said as he walked to the door. "Don't forget about your debriefing with Une tonight."

"Understood. I think Heero's in the cafeteria, too."

The older man paused and smiled to himself. "How convenient."

"Why?"

"Nothing in particular," he opened the door. "If you're planning to leave L4 with the Midway tomorrow, better tell Noin about it. I left command to her."

"I'll have to stay for a while longer," he answered. "Duo and I still need to secure the base's data."

The man nodded before leaving the room. Trowa gazed at the paperwork on his desk and rubbed the ridge of his nose.

It was going to be a long night.

Pulling out his phone, he tapped on speed dial, and waited for the sound of a well-missed voice.

"Trowa?"

"Catherine. I'm sorry I wasn't able to call sooner."

He listened to her sister's relief, and he found himself smiling softly even as she admonished him for not messaging often.

"It's been hectic but don't worry," he said. "I'll be coming home soon."

Zechs ordered a sandwich and a canned soda at the hospital's cafeteria. He had told Une that he would stay behind and look after Relena until she was well enough to leave, and she had agreed. Her presence in the colony was strictly confidential, and she needed people to make sure that it stayed that way. They wouldn't want anyone to panic.

He grabbed his tray and spotted Heero across the food hall, sitting by the windows with his phone in his hand. Before him sat a cup of coffee, and oddly, a teddy bear. Zechs had been hoping to catch up on a bit of light reading himself, but he knew that the conversation couldn't wait. He made his way to the spot.

"May I join you?"

The younger pilot acknowledged with grunt, and Zechs placed his tray and tablet down.

"I would hazard a guess that that toy isn't yours," he said, tilting his head towards the bear as he started cutting his sandwich in half.

"No."

"Someone left it on the table then?"

"No. It's Relena's."

Zechs gave him an odd look, but he knew that he wouldn't get anything else other than that. He placed down his knife and fork and picked up half the sandwich for a bite.

"Was there anything you needed to talk with me about?"

He glanced up and saw that Heero was now regarding him with a neutral expression.

"Very perceptive, aren't we?"

Zechs wiped his fingers with a piece of tissue before proceeding to pull the tab off his soda can. Better get straight to the point.

"My sister seems to have a knack for surrounding herself with people who have questionable pasts, and that adds another layer to the danger she already faces on a daily basis," he began. "Sylvia Noventa coming after you is an example of that."

Heero averted his gaze to the view outside their window. The colony's firmament had long dimmed for the evening, projecting the vastness of space decked by faraway stars. "I agree that she surrounds herself with unusual people," he said. "But I think her brother needs to be reminded that he has his own questionable past as well."

Zechs smirked in spite of himself since he knew what he said was true. No one in Relena's circle had clean slates.

"I had thought about it," Heero continued. "I know my actions during the war had resulted in this, and I've compromised her safety." The younger pilot turned back to face him. "I had… considered leaving."

He raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"And I realized that it would be foolish and more dangerous to do so. If I have enemies, Relena has triple of mine. I still have a semblance of anonymity. So do you, with all the names you collect. But she never had that privilege, which makes her position all the more precarious," Heero folded his arms over his chest, as if challenging him to counter. "There will be people worse than Victor Gaintz, Dekim Barton, and Sylvia Noventa. I am not about to leave her at their mercies."

"Noble," Zechs nodded. "I thought you'd say that you won't be leaving simply because you wanted to be with her."

Heero impassively stared at him from across the table.

"Yuy, since we're already here…" He sighed, leaning back on his seat. "I'm sure you remember that we have unfinished business, but you've always tried to keep my sister safe, and I respect that." The truth was that he understood that there was no point in seeing the end of their battle; while they both rarely agreed with each other, he knew that Heero felt the same way. It was a different era, and there were more important issues to concern themselves with, but sometimes, he would forget about how things have already changed, and that included Relena: It would slip his mind that she was not anymore the child he had always sought to shield from the world.

"I am guilty of burdening my sister with my own ideals," Zechs admitted. "I had always wanted her to remain as she was from a long time ago—optimistic and pure. It was unfair of me, and it did her nothing but disservice. I am assuming you have made a similar mistake."

Heero remained silent.

"At some point, I should have known that it was futile," he continued. "She would go her own way, fight her own wars. I just never knew she would find herself in the frontlines." He allowed himself a bitter smile as he gazed out the window. "I had blamed you for what had happened, and for many other things before that, but then I realized—how can I put the burden on you, when I myself have never been there her entire life?"

For all the times he had treated her sister like glass, he was never there when the world tried to break her. It was a sobering truth brought about by years of making up for lost time.

His words hung heavily in the air until Heero broke his silence.

"Relena is stronger than I am."

Zechs glanced back to see him staring at the raggedly bear. It was an admission that he never thought he would hear from him.

"She's strong because she understands weakness, and she turns weakness into courage. Into hope. I…" Heero shook his head. "I can only dream of being as strong as her, but as I am, all I can do is protect her."

For the first time, Zechs began to understand the dynamic between his sister and the soldier that sat before him. He chuckled under his breath. Maybe getting old meant getting a little soft, but Noin was right when she told him that the boy had changed.

"What are you waiting for then?" Zechs motioned his head towards the doorway. "Go to her. Don't you take the night shift?"

Was it an approval? A blessing? Even Zechs himself wasn't sure and he knew neither Relena nor Heero needed it. For a second, he saw surprise and confusion on the younger man's face before it was quickly masked by neutrality: there wouldn't be any sentimentality here, at least that much was certain.

Heero silently nodded and finished his coffee before standing up, pocketing his phone, and taking the bear. "I'll send my report first thing in the morning."

Zechs waved him off, and the younger pilot left him to his thoughts.

He already knew how he would sit by Relena's bedside every night, how he had memorized her doctors' schedules and her list of medications. Zechs was also aware that he was prepared for what was to happen after she leaves the hospital; he had seen him speaking with her nurses, listening intently on their tips on aftercare. It will be a tenuous recovery, but according to her charts, Relena was out of the woods, and while Zechs would never admit it to anyone, he knew she would be in capable hands. Heero Yuy was rough around the edges, but there were very few people he could think of that would be at par with the Perfect Soldier.

After all, who could ever compete with the person who had saved the world?

Quatre stood before Wing Zero. It's been a few days since the Midway left L4 and he knew that he would soon be on Earth.

He had checked on Dorothy earlier. She was still under observation in the ship's sickbay, but she was already making calls from bed to route the missing funds back to ESUN. Not everything would be retrieved, but it would seem that the losses weren't so bad as she was still in good spirits.

"Were you worried about me, Quatre?" She purred when he approached. "Maybe kiss me again to make me feel better?"

He did as she asked. He knew she wasn't expecting him to—her glacial eyes were wide when he pulled back—but he found that he enjoyed surprising her. It was a realization that he didn't expect, but felt right.

He gave her a smile as he hovered over her lips, and all she could say was, "Oh."

Rendering her speechless was quite enjoyable, too.

He didn't know how this newfound intimacy would bode for the two of them once they got back to their usual grind, but for now, Quatre didn't have any expectations—maybe it was simply about enjoying the moment. They were, after all, living dual lives. There were bound to be complications along the way.

But, he had to admit to himself that despite his initial misgivings, he was hopeful that it would lead somewhere.

With its head lowered, it seemed that Wing Zero was judging his thoughts: How could a killer like him even contemplate the idea of happiness? Quatre remembered how he had once piloted the original mobile suit that destroyed an entire colony. He had promised that he would never shy away from that mistake—he had owed it to those he killed to remember—but he knew he had to live his life not only by making amends, but by actually taking on an active participation in creating a new era. He approached the machine and laid a hand on its marred shell. Was it selfish? Cloyingly righteous? Maybe, but it was the only way that made sense to him.

"Sad isn't it?" Quatre looked over his shoulder to see Wufei approach. "It's a workable, but sad knock-off."

It was true: this Wing Zero was but a shadow of the original. While it seemed a direct duplicate from afar, its imperfections were glaringly obvious upfront, and it was more than just the lack of gundanium. He had looked at scans, checked the build of its cockpit, read through the schematics of its Zero System, and now he wondered how Heero had managed to control it as if it were no different from what he used to fly.

"This knock-off could have started another war, though," he replied, running his palm over the bullet-damaged armor. "I'm just glad that Preventer is decommissioning and scrapping it. I'm sure the Zero System would appreciate that, too, after being disturbed from its sleep."

"Did you know that they were trying to build the other three in the base?" The other man gave a condescending laugh. "They could never copy the perfection that was Nataku."

They were lucky that they had found the colony when it only had two working Gundams. It would have been a different story if there had been five. Quatre knew that they would still have won, but it would have been at a much higher cost.

"A knock-off controlled by the Foreign Minister," Wufei sharply sucked in his breath. "I've been biting my tongue around Yuy, but I've been wondering how she's still alive."

He had also thought the same. Many a soldier have tried putting the true Zero System to heel, and so far, only two have managed to do so: Heero Yuy and Zechs Merquise. Sylvia's was a poor imitation, but for a civilian like Relena to have survived long enough for Heero to manually override it meant that she had beat the odds stacked against her.

"I had told myself that it was a copy, a broken program to begin with," Wufei continued. "After all, Relena Darlian isn't a trained soldier. But then I saw the codes…"

Quatre smiled. "There weren't any firewalls or fail-safes, were there?"

"No, they weren't. The woman faced the full assault of a broken Zero and lived to tell the tale." The man folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. "I think I understand now why Yuy keeps on harping about how capable she is."

Quatre gazed back at Wing Zero. "When it all boils down to it, the Zero System is simply a collection of data. It's the pilot who gives it conscience. Ms. Relena had caused a lot of damage, but in the end, she managed to somehow go beyond the algorithm. For a while, it followed her wishes."

In a way, the system's imperfection had been a boon—while its original would simply have shut off and psychologically destroyed an untrained user, its duplicate allowed Relena a chance to somehow overcome it. She would never have survived a perfect system though, that he knew. Even up to now, he would never understand how Heero did it, but maybe, the explanation was simpler that anyone thought.

"Will," Quatre said. "The Zero System bends to the person with the strongest will. And I think even just a little, Ms. Relena had managed to do that."

"It was a damaged, sub-par, out-of-control system," Wufei bit his lip before admitting his own initial misjudgement, "But to overcome it is not something everyone can do. She has my respect, considering the mental state that Kraz is in now."

"Have you known him long?" Quatre asked. "Personally, I'm not even sure if it was the real Kraz I met, but it seems that the two of you go way back."

The former Altron pilot sighed, gazing up at the towering mobile suit. "I met him during the Mariemaia uprising," he said. "He was one of the group's tacticians, but was also one of the first people to defect. I had accused him of being weak and cowardly, but he just looked at me and said, 'I came here thinking that all of this was for the people. I stand with no one but the people.' I had thought of that a lot, which is why I never believed that he could do all the things that we thought he did." Wufei glanced at him. "He was—is—a decent man."

Quatre nodded, smiling at his compatriot. "I've been actually thinking of visiting him and his wife after all this is over. Would you be interested in coming with me? I'm sure Madame Lilian would love to hear your stories of him."

Wufei almost seemed surprised by the invitation, but eventually offered him a small smile.

"It would be my pleasure."

For someone who's Colony-born, Duo found the Earth's unmanufactured weather patterns interesting: how it could be sunny one moment and rainy the next. He could have chosen to be annoyed especially since he was soaked and the Preventer HQ's air conditioning was set to Antarctica, but as he and Trowa were finally done with their jobs, he didn't mind so much. After all, he'll be flying back to Hilde soon, so he might as well enjoy his last couple of days before going on a much-deserved vacation.

But first things first: he needed to check on the CID.

He took off his wet jacket. Good thing he always kept a spare uniform in his office. He'd change first, then probably call for a huddle for updates.

As he stepped into the threshold of his department, he heard someone call out, "Hand, salute!"

Duo reeled back as his entire team stood in attention, their right arms raised, fingers touching their temples.

"What the fuck? At ease!" He said incredulously. "What the hell is this about?"

Everyone relaxed—albeit awkwardly— and Kevin stepped forward, scratching the back of his neck. "Welcome back, Sir. We got all the data from the base that you sent us."

"And?"

"We started archiving. You know, the works."

"And?"

"And… well. We found something that was interesting and we kinda did a bit of digging…"

Duo blinked at him, still confused, until Kevin spat it out all in one breath:

"You're Gundam Pilot Zero-Two and you flew the Deathscythe."

That escalated quickly. There was a long pause as Duo practically heard his brain screech to halt. His team looked at him nervously, and he took stock of them, before walking back to the still open door and pressing a button to both shut and lock it.

"How," he began without looking back at them, clearing his throat when he heard his own hoarseness. There was no use denying it. "How did you find out?"

"Well," he felt Kevin uncomfortably shift his weight around. "We saw the flight patterns of Agent Barton, Mr. Winner, and Agent Yuy. Their skills were… Let's just say that no one in the Academy's history had that level of skill. That got us really, really curious. I mean, who are these people?"

"We got even more suspicious when we saw that the patterns coincided with the scraps of Preventer data on the Gundams from the Eve Wars." It was Yuri who spoke this time. "From there, it was pretty easy to follow the rabbit hole. Even Agent Chang's flight exercises were near similar to the data on Gundam Zero-Five. And yours, Sir…"

"We only needed data from the Blackbird you flew to match it with the previous activities of Zero-Two. The split-second decisions, the precision…" Kevin's voice slightly cracked. "We didn't want to pry, and we didn't want to offend you, but we have to admit that we don't regret finding this out."

Duo finally turned to look at them. His team. Mostly younger than he was, with only two or three members older by a couple of years. He out-aged them all in experience, however, and now they looked at him, unsure yet oddly hopeful.

"You do know that if we were still at war, I'd probably have to kill all of you because of what you know," he said softly as he watched for their reactions.

No one took a step back. Their eyes were clear and without fear—if at all, they only reflected worry about their intrusion. Duo chuckled under his breath.

"Nah, I probably wouldn't. Threatening to kill people is Heero's thing, not mine."

"Wh-what do you mean, Sir?"

"Nothing. Forget I said anything." He walked towards an empty swivel chair and sat before all of them. "Look, I'm sorry I never said anything, but these things…" He glanced away, slowly exhaling. "We had to keep these things hidden if we wanted to live lives that were sort of normal. You don't know how many people have asked us to fight for their causes. I mean, the Gundams are charged symbols. Their influence goes beyond their capabilities in battle. And since they're gone, there are way too many people who want to make poster children out of its pilots."

Duo gazed at all of them, steeling himself for their disappointment. "I guess you've heard stories about us. Most of them probably aren't true, but we've never considered ourselves good men either." He was the God of Death, after all. "I bet you probably hate me now. I mean, it was war. I did a lot of nasty things. Things not even regular soldiers would do. Don't worry, I'd totally understand if you'd feel freaked out about it. If you're mad, just tell me, but don't let it affect your jobs."

He watched for their anger and saw Yuri's face scrunch and redden. Ah, there it is.

"Are you kidding me?" She shrieked. "It's so totally cool to have a Gundam Pilot as my boss!"

That was not the reaction he was expecting. Duo leaned so far back on his seat he almost fell. "Wha—"

"I mean can you guys believe it?" The woman said to the rest of the group. "We're working with a legendary Gundam pilot, and hell we had almost all of them here in HQ for this past mission! Did any of you even think that Agent Chang was one?"

"No!" One voice answered. "That's batshit crazy!"

And the room burst into chaotic chatter.

"Yeah, but really? Billionaire Winner?"

"Hey fix your tone, that's my Mr. Winner."

"He ain't marrying you. He doesn't even know you!"

"Hey!"

"I dunno, but I think the Heavy Arms pilot is pretty cool. I mean we didn't really get a lot of info about him, that's a plus in my book."

"Dude, come on: Agent Yuy. He flew right into the path of that Libra chunk on re-entry. I'd ask for an autograph if I could."

"Oh! Oh! I'm willing to bet half of my next salary that he and the Foreign Minister are dating."

"They're not!"

"They are, too!"

Duo burst out laughing. He didn't know why, but the whole thing was just so absurd that he doubled over, clutching his stomach as he chortled and chased after his breath.

The cat's out of the bag. His entire department knew, and honestly at this point, he didn't care. Well, he would need to beef up the security protocols of the Preventer archive, but right now, he just felt like laughing his ass off.

"You kids are fucking crazy," he said between gasps. "Wait 'til they hear about this!"

"No!" Shouted the girl who seemed to have a crush on Quatre. "Please don't tell them—"

"Shh! Kevin's about to give a speech!"

The man in question approached with a bit of hesitation.

"Sir?"

"Grab a chair, Kevin, my neck already hurts from looking up at all of you."

"Oooh, Kevin's getting all the feels now."

"Shut up," he said, swatting away a random wet willie before facing Duo with a long sigh.

"Sir, to answer your question, I didn't know how I felt when we realized who you were," he said as he sat down, and the chatter around him died down. "My mom would tell me stories about the Gundams, how they stopped the war, how they saved the Earth from an endless winter. She thinks I don't remember seeing that bulk of metal falling from the sky, but I did. I was only eight then, but I did."

The room was silent. Kevin looked at him, his eyes honest. "Sir, Wing Zero may have taken that shot, but all of you saved the Earth that day. You saved the Earth and the Colonies. Sure, your hands aren't clean. We understand. When we got this job, we know that at some point we'll do things we'll one day wish we didn't, but seeing that piece Libra exploding into nothingness that day—that brought me here, Sir. You, all of you, are the reason I'm alive today. You're the reason why I became a Preventer. And Sir," he stood up and once more offered him a crisp salute. "It's an honor to be serving with someone like you."

Duo could only stare in disbelief as Yuri and the rest of the room followed suit. For all his unforgivable sins, his unfair wins and irreparable losses, he was still somehow deemed worthy by the future he had worked so hard to build, and he could see that hope budding from the eyes of the young men and women who stood in front of him, giving him the respect he knew he never deserved.

He bowed his head low and shut his eyes. He didn't know why they felt damp all of the a sudden.

"At ease," he said for the second time that day. "And thank you."

Shaking his head, he ran a hand over his face before looking up with an awkward smile. "Just swear to me that what you know won't get out the four corners of this room."

"Yes, Sir."

"And please, for the love of all that's good and holy, do not suddenly hug Quatre or ask Heero for an autograph." There were barely masked groans of disappointment from the back of the crowd, and Duo chuckled. "You know what, why don't you all order lunch? Any restaurant you want. My treat."

Yuri's eyes widened before she turned to the team, the earlier solemnity all but forgotten. "Oh my god can we please order from Cool Bun please-please-please-please-please—"

Duo folded his hands over his chest and leaned back on his seat as he watched Kevin and the others go through the menu on one of the computers. His past was nothing to be proud of, but as much as he could, he tried to be better than the person who was once nothing but the sole survivor of the Maxwell Church Massacre. He had told Father Maxwell then that he only believed in the God of Death before he found himself taking on its mantle, but seeing Kevin, Yuri, and the rest of his charges remember the lessons of a war they barely knew and forge their own path valuing the peace they were afforded, he couldn't help but regain a bit of his faith. Not the stiff, religious kind, but warmer. He still didn't believe that God existed—he doubted he ever would—but he would, without question, cast his lot on the unshakable determination of the people in front of him, who now argued about what kind of fries to order.

He smiled to himself. He didn't do so bad after all.

The kids were alright.

They didn't have to say she was lucky. Relena already knew she was.

It was an aneurysm, they said, and she was only glad that it was treated before it completely ruptured. She wasn't awake for most part—it was only after her surgery that doctors explained that it was a "leak" that had been immediately arrested, thanks to the Midway's medical team and to the two pilots who had brought her back just in the nick of time. If Heero hadn't severed her mental ties with the Zero System by actually jumping into the Gundam, and if Duo hadn't flown her out of the colony when he did, the damage could have been much worse.

She was already more than grateful. Even her previous injuries have also mended; now she only had to focus on the literal hole in the back of her head that had to heal. But while she rarely spoke about what she felt beyond conversations with her doctors, her dive into the Zero System had other effects.

For one thing, she sometimes slurred when she spoke. The doctors said that it would disappear as she recovered, but it made her heart drop when she felt the awkwardness in her mouth; for a woman whose life revolved around words, it almost felt like her body had betrayed her. Every time someone spoke to her, she fought the hesitation to answer and plowed through, and every time her mind went down the dark path of frustration, she berated herself. Who was she to feel bad, after all, when she was alive?

Another thing she noticed was how forgetful she had become. Sometimes, she would catch herself asking the nurse twice about her medications, and she would have a hard time recalling things she had just done a few minutes ago. Again the doctors told her that it was only temporary, but nonetheless, she had requested her brother for a small notebook where she could write down things she knew were important for her to remember.

The worst effect was the PTSD. The random beeps she'd hear from the machines that monitored her in the beginning would agitate her, and loud noises startled her to the point that she had to force herself not to cry. So far, she had been successful in keeping her panic at bay during the daytime, but it was a different story when evening came with the nightmares.

Scenes she had almost forgotten while she was forced to control Wing Zero came back with a vengeance almost every time she would succumb to sleep. How many times had she been awoken by the gruesome images that played before her? How many times had she seen Heero die by her hands? The thought of her even managing to hurt him was so illogical—she wouldn't be able to do so if she tried—but the probabilities that Zero had shown her had forced her to accept that it was possibility. When she didn't directly cause his death, it was her decisions that would have started a chain of events that would have eventually done in him.

How many times had she woken up in the middle of the night, gasping for words she couldn't form? Her only blessing was that he would always be there when she did.

When her fogged up brain would have a hard time recognizing dreaming and waking, it was the sound of his voice that would remain clear. He would call her softly before she would feel his hand on her forehead and see his eyes shadowed by the dimness of her room. At times she would try her best not to cry, but there were nights that the tears would just slide down her temples as she stared at him wide-eyed, afraid that he would disappear when she tried to speak, but doing so anyway to prove that the moment was real.

"You're here."

"Yes, I am."

"You'll just be here?"

"Yes. Don't worry. Go back to sleep."

She would then feel her heartbeat slow down to an even rhythm, and almost absently, he would brush his fingers on her forehead as she slowly fell back into a dreamless slumber.

She would pretend nothing had happened when morning came, and Heero being Heero, would not mention anything about her terrors. It was better that way for now. She couldn't have fear clouding her vision. They said it was avoidance, and sure, they could call it that, but that was all she could do to keep her sanity in check.

Milliardo had told her that she'd have a psychologist to help her process the experience once she returned to Earth. It was something she didn't want, honestly. Maybe she was like Heero in that aspect—for years she had always kept her thoughts and feelings close, and now she would be forced to speak about them to someone she didn't know. But the way that her brother was on top of her situation reminded her that he only had her best interests in mind, and she had to admit that for years that she was without a sibling, being cared for by one felt nice.

Sitting up her on bed, she checked her notebook. Yes, tonight she would be discharged from the hospital and would be flying back to Earth. She couldn't wait to be home. She'll take a few more days off before rescuing her Vice Foreign Minister from the mountain of work he was currently wading in. After all, she'd have to be more presentable than this if she were to make a public appearance.

Relena lifted her hand to feel the bandage around her head. They had shaved the hair at the base of her skull for the surgery—"clipping," they had called it—and she felt the sharp, tiny strands poke at her fingers as they jutted from the sides of the gauze. She was still at risk for seizures, they said, so she had to remember to take her medications regularly. She had written those in her notebook too.

She then ran her hand towards the simple collared shirt she wore. Did she have everything buttoned? Yes. She peeped beneath her blanket to see if she was actually wearing pants. Yes, I won't be flying out half-naked, she thought. It was funny, but with how she kept on forgetting things now, it was better to be sure.

The door opened to reveal Heero, and she almost felt a sense of de ja vu. Wasn't this how they met again when this whole thing started? This time, however, he wasn't in Preventer uniform, but in a gray, long-sleeved shirt. He hadn't been in uniform for a while, and it was more than a week after they brought her in that she learned of what had happened to him—the stab wound, the burns. His injuries would have been uncomfortable under the rough and thick weave of his military ensemble.

Relena had written his condition on every page of her notebook. She wouldn't allow herself to forget it.

"You're awake," he intoned, cutting her thoughts as he remained standing by the doorway.

"Awake and dressed," she smiled, trying her best to ignore the slight slur in her speech. "We're supposed to leave in around an hour, right? I didn't want to bother anyone by being slow or late."

She saw his eyes slightly darken, before he nodded and walked out her room. Relena's brows furrowed in confusion, until he came back in, this time with a wheelchair.

"You're not a bother to anyone," Heero said as he pushed the chair in. "It'll be a long flight back to Earth. The doctors said a bit of fresh air before that would be good."

"Oh." She watched set up the seat at her bedside before he held an expectant hand out to her. She automatically accepted his grasp as she slid in. "Where are we going?"

"Just upstairs."

Relena grabbed her notebook and pen from her bed before Heero rolled her out of the room.

It seemed that he had already prepped the floor for her leaving. There were very little people around and no civilians—only doctors and Preventer agents in plainclothes milled about. She saw her brother at the nurse's station discussing something with one of the personnel and gave him a small wave before they boarded the elevator.

As expected, they ended up on the roof deck. Relena flipped open her notebook, and after the date and time, wrote, "Final night in L4. Catching one last breather with Heero."

"Does it really work?" She heard him speak from behind.

"Which?"

"Writing things down. Does it help you remember?"

So he had noticed her forgetfulness. Of course he would have.

"Yes, it helps," she smiled to herself, flipping the sheets closed. "It keeps my life in order."

"Hn."

He pushed her silently past the hospital's central air conditioning vents, across the wide concrete roof, and a few ways before the walls. From here, she could already see dusk settling in the colony; only a hint of its artificial daylight remained, and a light breeze blew.

"How are your injuries?" She started. She had been meaning to ask him, but despite him being with her, there was hardly an appropriate time to talk about it.

"They're a minor inconvenience," he replied. "You don't need to concern yourself about them."

"Heero, I've said this before: let me worry about you." He always seemed to fall back on his old habit of deprioritizing himself. She placed her hands neatly above the notebook that sat on her lap. "I'd like to apologize for what you had to go through because of me."

"What do you mean?"

"You getting hurt. And everyone having to go after me." She bit her lips—that damn slur again—and closed her eyes. "If I had done my job, Sylvia wouldn't be able to convince all those people to help her build those mobile suits. They would have been happy at home with their families."

"If I didn't destroy the shuttle that Marshall Noventa was on, Sylvia wouldn't have done this in the first place."

"I should have been careful around her," she admitted. "And as for all those soldiers, I should have done more for them when I could."

He moved to stand in front of her, but she avoided his eyes.

"Relena…"

"I'm sorry for making your job difficult for you, Heero. I'll be better next time."

She felt him stare at her. Only when he looked away to gaze at the sprawling colony before them did she raise her eyes to him.

"How was it, Relena? Piloting Wing Zero?"

It was a question she hadn't expected, and one that evoked a lot of terrifying memories. It's odd how those have stayed in her head when the little things that mattered seemed to always flitter away.

"It was horrific," she whispered honestly. "It was painful and heavy and horrific. I thought I've seen everything during the war, but what it showed me was… It was a lifetime of pain in a few moments."

"And how many times did you see me die?"

He met her gaze then. His eyes reflected nothing.

"Many times," she said, trying her best not to make her voice tremble. "Many, many times."

He seemed to consider this before speaking.

"I've killed you many times as well. At least, in all the possibilities that Sylvia's Zero and the real Zero has shown me," he said. "I've seen people from my childhood die. I've seen mistakes I've made replayed over and over again. But these are nothing but results churned from data. I'm what's real. As you are. However, the system doesn't make it easy to distinguish."

He looked at her intently.

"How did you figure it out?"

She tried to remember as far as she could, but all she could see were what she now knew as hallucinations.

"I didn't," she admitted. "I just followed the sound of your voice. I chose that to be real instead of what I saw before me."

He looked at her with an unreadable expression that she couldn't help but smile at.

"You told me before to believe in you, right?"

She wished she could read his mind.

"You're tough," he said. "Tougher than you know."

Relena chuckled almost bitterly under her breath. "You keep on saying that, and maybe I am, but not enough for those soldiers who found no choice but to follow Sylvia. How can I even talk about peace if I couldn't help the people who brought about this era?" She tilted her head to one side, almost amused at her own foolishness. "I've gotten trapped in my own optimism, Heero. How can I even say that I did anything that was worth saving?"

His eyes remained on her, its blueness melting into the evening shadows.

"You've been on the battlefield. You now know how it is, first-hand. You've seen how ugly it could be. You now feel the guilt of hurting people, even if you didn't mean to."

It was Milliardo who had to tell her about the Taurus pilots she injured while she manned Wing Zero. It was one of the many reasons why she had a hard time sleeping at night.

"You've feared loss and death. Maybe not your own death, but those of others," Heero continued. "You know how it felt for those soldiers. OZ, White Fang—it doesn't matter. They all can use your help. And now you know exactly what they need."

It was funny how people looked to her for hope, when it was actually the man before her who brought it.

He was right. She would never fully understand life in the frontlines, but if there's one good thing that had come out of this disaster, it was that she had seen a bit of what those soldiers had seen, felt what they continued to feel.

The trauma would never really go away. It would only be managed, day-by-day. She knew that fully returning to one's past life was impossible. Soldiers have been marked; for them, life would always be different.

She'd have to do better for them this time around.

"Thank you. I'll do what I can."

"One more thing, Relena," he said, placing his hands on her armrests as he leaned over her. "Never say that you've never done anything worth saving."

It wasn't his sudden nearness that startled her. It was his eyes. Now unguarded, they seemed deeper as they reflected the city lights.

"Heero—"

"You," He held her gaze with a growing sense of wonder. "Back then I wanted to kill you. I had to. It was nothing personal. It was only about the mission. You compromised me."

Why was he telling her all this?

"You still do, until now, but in another way that I still can't understand. Logic would dictate you a weakness, but you never were. You still aren't. Sometimes you're too strong for your own good, and oftentimes, too kind. You've already done so much." He inched closer. "Which is why I don't understand how you could say that you've done nothing worth saving when everything that you've done has saved me."

Relena felt her breath hitch, but before she could speak Heero's lips were on hers, rough and angry and demanding. He leaned in further with a wanton hunger that surprised her and she met him where he was, not quite comprehending, yet instinctively knowing that it was where he needed her to be. It was where she wanted to be.

She tasted coffee in his mouth until he slowly pulled away. He unconsciously licked his lips as he lowered his gaze, resting his forehead on hers.

"I thought I would lose you when I realized you were locked in Wing Zero," he said softly. "Zechs said I didn't do my job. He was right. I'm sorry that you had to go through that because I failed to protect you."

"No!" She placed her hands on his cheeks. "No, please don't ever say that. If you weren't there I wouldn't even be here. You've already done so much."

"As have you."

If she was able to offer him a semblance of peace, then maybe she had done something right. A warmth grew in her chest and suddenly, she felt full. Seeing him this close, noticing how long his lashes were and how he smelled like both wind and man, she knew that another promise had been made.

His eyes hid nothing as he glanced up to her, and as the initial rush fell into a hushed haziness, he kissed her gently on her lips and on her forehead. It was odd—she never realized which boundaries they've crossed, but somehow, this new experience was already natural, familiar, and comfortable.

Pushing himself up, he turned away to the nightscape before them, but when in the past the action had felt like an exclusion, now it felt like she belonged within the small circle he kept.

"There's a lot of clean-up to do when we get back to Earth."

Relena smiled. We. She liked the sound of that. "Yes," she said. "The first thing I'll do is to visit Alex. I heard that he's doing better." He needs to meet Heero as well, she thought as she gazed at his figure. He'd probably like him. "Second, I'll propose reformation instead of punishment for the soldiers that Sylvia had employed. I want to end this cycle of hatred."

"I expected as much, but you do know that there will be dissent."

"When was there ever none?" She was oddly giddy, even as Heero turned back to her in all seriousness.

"I can shut them up if you want."

"Shut up the entire opposition? Oh, another rare moment of humor from Mr. Yuy! I think I should jot that down on my notebook."

His expression didn't change. Relena raised an eyebrow.

"You're joking, right?"

He stared at her for a long moment that made her nervous, until his lips slowly curved up.

"Oh my god Heero, your jokes should come with a warning for people with heart issues!" She reached out to lightly swat his arm and his smile grew a little wider. She had never seen him so open, and if this was how they would be from now on, then she was ready for tomorrow and the hundreds of days after that.

"It's time we headed down," he said, glancing at his watch. "Your luggage has already been brought to the basement, and Zechs would have signed the papers by now. The car will be at the back exit in fifteen minutes."

She nodded, and she gave the night sky one last look as she felt him push her towards where they had come from. Relena fiddled with her notebook, thinking if she should write everything down, but she decided otherwise. She knew that this evening would be something she wouldn't easily forget.

As they boarded the private elevator, however, she felt a small knot in her tummy. Yes, Heero may be here now, and he may be with her until they reached Earth, but for how long? While he had promised that he would always return to her, there was always the possibility of going through the next few years alone. Not that she minded especially that she had his word; the lives they led afforded very little time for themselves anyway, but only this once she wanted to be selfish.

"Heero," she said. "Aside from all those other missions that Une would probably give you at some point, would you be going anywhere else?"

There was a pause, and she expected that he would say yes—but he didn't. Instead, Heero sounded almost confused when he replied, "No."

"No?"

"No," he repeated. "Where else do I need to be?"

And for Relena, his question answered everything.

Up next: An epilogue of new beginnings