Chapter 13 - The Motorcycle

Heero marched briskly on the marble floor, between boxes and metal shelves, full of all sorts of weapons, ammunition, and quite vast supplies that Wufei piled up in his fortress. The further he went, the less surprised he was that his friend defended himself for so long. He felt uncomfortable after losing control when talking to Relena earlier. He sensed that he had crossed some invisible border that had existed between them. This border wasn't easy to define in the first place, but now he sensed that it had just ceased to apply.

He found Wufei in one of the side rooms. Like all rooms in the building, that one held the traces of multiple pillages too. Wufei stood with his back to him, rummaging through the canisters. Some of the tin containers made a clear sound indicating that some liquid was still in them. Heero knew that Wufei already sensed that he had entered the room, so he waited for him to speak first.

"What's this story that you got involved in?" Wufei asked unexpectedly. He chose one of the canisters and cast Heero a curious look over his shoulder. "Is that your woman?"

Heero measured the Chinese with his eyes completely free of emotion. "She is not my woman."

"Whatever," Wufei raised his eyebrows. "I have several motorbikes in the garage of this building. Maybe at least one of them turns out to be running."

Heero lowered his eyes, then followed the Chinese man down to the lower floors. The twisting stairs led them to a dark garage. They lit their way with flashlights and reached a dozen or so parked motorcycles. Heero looked around, illuminating the darkness around them. "There are no infected here?" he asked.

Wufei knelt at the first motorcycle. "They can be anywhere. There were no infected here in the morning," he looked up at Heero. "Make yourself useful, Yuy. Give me some fucking light here."

Heero approached the motorcycle lightening over the engine. They weren't talking much even before Wufei left and started his solitude in Washington; both weren't talkative types. But now it was merely anything to talk about. After a few minutes of rummaging in the guts of the engine, the metal cover slammed shut.

"It looks like the engine and the candles are all right," Heero noticed.

"Looks like it," Wufei confirmed, then opened the tank inlet and began pouring gas from the canister. "I'll give you a full tank, but then you have to look for gas on your own. Do you have a tube?"

Heero nodded. "We'll manage."

Wufei shook his head slightly as he finished pouring gas. "Trust me, I don't give a fuck about that."

"I know," Heero replied dryly. He walked around the motorcycle and got on the saddle, then turned the keys and the handle. The engine choked loudly, then went out. He tried the second and third time. Finally, after more than twenty years, gasoline began to circulate through the veins of the old motorcycle, and the engine gave out a predatory murmur.

"And there it is," Wufei said, not without a sparkle of pride in his voice, as Heero made a few circles around the dark garage to charge up the battery. "So, you'll be out of my sight even faster than I thought."

Heero stopped the engine. "We can leave anytime. I just need to pick up Relena."

"I'm here," they both heard a soft voice from the entrance. Relena was standing in the doorframe to the parking. "I didn't want to stay up there, so I followed you."

Heero let out a sigh. "Then get on," he said, tilting his head at the seat for the passenger behind him, then glanced at Wufei. "Where's the gate?"

"I'll guide you," Wufei replied, then walked straight into the darkness. A few seconds after the cellar was illuminated by the light of the midday as he opened large, tin doors.

Heero felt Relena squirming nervously on her seat. "What's up?"

"I don't feel stable. What should I hold on to?"

"Find your footrest. And grab me."

Relena fell silent for a moment, then she shyly slipped her hands on both sides of his torso and joined them over his stomach. Heero turned on the engine and drove slowly to the door that Wufei opened for them, stopping right next to the Chinese man. Sunlight blinded them, depriving the world of its colors for a moment. Heero covered his eyes with his hand and looked at Wufei.

"Take care," he said. The Chinese gave him a hard-to-decipher look in return. They both didn't know if they were seeing each other for the last time or whether fate would lead to their meeting again. They didn't know whether they would live to the end of this nightmare or they would die before.

"Get out," Wufei eventually said with a cold voice, then he turned on his heel and entered the basement again, closing the gate. The metal doors slammed shut behind him.

"Well… that was quick…" Relena noted quietly. "What now?"

"Grab me tight." Relena obediently tightened her grip around Heero's chest. He felt her cheek resting on his shoulder blade. "We drive."

x x x

The motorcycle's engine roared steadily as they drove through the districts toward the northern outskirts of the city, where the last bridge was to remain, on the narrowest stretch of the Potomac River. Heero sat slightly hunched, leaning his weight on the steering handles, the wind blowing in his hair. He was choosing empty and wide roads, making no stops. Just below his chest, he felt the warmth of Relena's small, clenched hands. Feeling her chin brushing his back over and over again, he figured that she was looking intensely around. She was probably looking at her hometown. But she remained silent.

When they passed the city buildings and entered the outskirts, the environment changed. Streets became calmer, full of greenery. Neat houses appeared on the sides, some more like villas. The forest slowly appropriated these areas for itself, grass covered most of the once asphalt road, parked cars were falling apart in the process of the progressing corrosion. Traces were indicating that the place was abandoned in a panic.

As the sun began to set behind the tree line towards the river, Heero suddenly felt Relena tug at his jacket.

"Heero, stop!"

He glanced over his shoulder. Relena was frowning intently at something in the distance on their right side. "I say, stop!"

"What is it?" he asked tetchily, slackening the motorcycle in case she wanted to jump off it. He planned to cross the Potomac before night, and any delay doomed this plan to fail. "Relena, what's the matter?" he continued.

But when the motorcycle stopped, Relena jumped off the seat and bolted into the overgrown yard. "Relena!"

Heero quickly realized that there was no point in shouting for her. He cursed loudly, dismounted the motorcycle, and chased after the girl. When she ran into the bushes, he lost sight of her. He ran into the plants, feeling sharp branches whipping his face. He never saw Relena running this fast. The bushes thinned quickly and suddenly, a ruin of a spacious, two-story white colonial house appeared before his eyes. Part of the roof was collapsed, the front door to the house was balanced, no windows remained. The house showed signs of arson, but it still stood, more and more densely covered with ivy, which gradually appropriated its walls.

Heero looked around for Relena, but couldn't hear any rustle of grass. Suddenly, however, he heard a loud, distinct clatter of shoes against the wood. He directed his steps towards the stairs leading to the front door hanging on single hinges.

"Relena!" he shouted, but she didn't answer him. The floor in the hall collapsed, and only one of the two pairs of stairs leading to the first floor remained. He could feel musty smell everywhere. Then he noticed shoe prints on the mud-covered floor this year's flood that led upstairs.

"Relena!" Heero called for her again. Although he didn't hear any suspicious sounds, he automatically pulled out his pistol. He started climbing the wooden stairs, holding himself close to the wall.

Suddenly his jacket was caught by some obstacle on the wall. When he turned around, he noticed a half-crumpled picture of four people on a garden bench. He was about to pass it by when something caught his attention. He looked closely at the landscape. Just behind these people stood the same house he was in. Something else, however, seemed strangely familiar to him in this photograph. He frowned at the faces of people looking happily toward him, frozen in time, when the world seemed so peaceful. Heero's eyes fixed at the tall, handsome man standing next to a beautiful woman with royal features. The man was holding a young boy with blond hair and blue eyes by his hand. The woman in the foreground, holding a small child in her hands, looked remarkably much alike Relena Peacecraft.

A realization came to his mind.

He whipped his head up, looking at the top of the stairs, then slowly moved further on. The first floor was spacious, and the corridor led to several more rooms. They were all open, orange-red rays of the setting sun fell through the windows on the damaged, dusty floor. He passed a place that resembled a room of a teenage boy, full of posters with robots, and then one of a little girl, all painted in pink and arranged in princess-like style. He noticed a shadow moving in the last room and headed in its direction.

The room he entered in had to serve as a matrimonial bedroom once. It had to be pained in white or pastel colors, but now the walls were covered with black mold, the paint peeled off with entire patches, and once a silky, soft carpet was rolled out of moisture. Fiery light came through three large windows along with the smell of evening moisture and the fading singing of birds.

Relena stood in the center of the room, her back to him, gazing at the empty bed. Her petite silhouette cast a giant shadow on the floor.

"Relena," Heero said quietly, trying to make sure she was aware of his presence.

Relena slowly turned to face him. He couldn't guess the expression on her face as it was shadowed on the background of the setting sun. "Heero," she whispered. "This is my home."

He said nothing, stopping at the doorstep of Relena's parents' bedroom, still holding a gun in his hand. He didn't know what he could say, so he remained silent. Relena looked around the room for a moment longer, then directed her steps to Heero, stopping just by the door frame. She reached with her hand and gently wiped the wood by the door hinges with her fingertips. "Look here."

Heero followed her hand with his gaze. On the surface of gray wood, he noticed the scratched lines, appearing every few or several centimeters. Each was given a name and year.

"2013 - Milliardo."

"2012 - Milliardo."

"2013 - Relena."

"2012 - Relena."

"2011 - Relena."

"2010 - Milliardo."

"2010 - Relena."

Heero watched in silence as Relena brushed her slim fingers over the wood as she read the chronicle of her growth. It ended in 2013. In the year of the outbreak. When the world of their childhood ceased to exist once and for all.

"Mom was always busy saving our growth progress. Only once Milliardo wasn't measured," Relena said, holding her finger at the date of 2011 and smiling slightly. "Dad told me it was because he was angry that he had grown so little for a year."

Heero realized that he was no longer looking at the scratches on the doorframe to her parents' bedroom. He was staring at Relena, wondering how the line of her chin might have been so shapely in the spot where her swan neck was joining her face. He realized that her forehead, partly hidden behind the loose fringe, was so genuinely royal. That her delicate, honey-colored hair curled a little just around her ear, then cascaded down her thin shoulders. And just how frighteningly beautiful she was when tears started streaming down her face.

Heero wasn't sure if he was more afraid of the enormity of her beauty, which he now realized, or the vastness of fondness that filled his chest, which he still didn't understand and didn't know, and which escaped any of his control.

He could say he was sorry to comfort her, and that would have been the most absolute truth, but what good would it bring? He could tell her to not cry, but should he ask her of that?

"Heero," she suddenly whispered, but didn't look up at him, then drew a deep breath into her chest, letting out a soft moan, like a broken toy. Her body trembled as tears streamed down her cheeks, her neck, and upon her chest. "Heero...!"

He couldn't figure why she was pronouncing his name all over again; maybe the syllables corresponding to his name settled just accidentally in subsequent, short breaths that shook her body every one or two seconds. They had to. Why else would she say it? Witnessing the torture she was undergoing, the bloodless anguish of her body and soul, his own body behaved as if it had the will of its own. Casting off all attempts to regain control of himself, he took a step towards her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to his body.

She didn't stop crying. Instead, her breaths got shallow, she almost choked out crying, pressing her face and hands against Heero's chest and clasping the material of his shirt. He rested his chin on her head and cradled the back of her neck, slowly caressing it, the silk of her hair tangled between his fingers. She slowly got quieter, but her body was hot as if she was suffering from a fever. After a few other trembles, he felt her body relax under his arms and sensed her hands sliding up against his sides, resting on his shoulders.

Heero finally pulled back, grasping her by her shoulders. Relena looked up at him, her eyes swollen, cheeks blushed red of crying. He searched her face, her eyes - now so tired of the lament they suffered - and ran his thumb along the line of her chin, her jaw, her cheek, and temple. Touching her like that for a second time today, he was amazed that a human's skin could be this soft and fragile. It almost felt out of this world, the world of endless dirt and plague. This Earth just couldn't give birth to a beauty that was standing in front of him.

Relena's lips parted slightly as she placed her own, little hand on the back of his. She was mere inches from him, her eyes glistened with some inexplicable glow. He could kiss her then; he wanted it, and he knew that she would probably let him. For an instant, he felt a thrill shot through his body. He suddenly wished that the old house collapsed around them, so he could protect and shield her, never caring about his own life. It was new to him and unexpected, just like the feeling of yearning that followed it when he realized that he did not deserve her.

Not daring to take any step further, his hand fell to his side, and he cast his eyes down, letting his dark hair shroud them.

"It's getting dark. We have to go," Heero stated flatly as he turned on his heel and stepped out of the room, into the shadow of the gloomy corridor. "I'll wait for you outside."

He could feel her eyes on him as he descended the stairs, but he didn't turn. He sensed that if he had, his legs would lead him immediately to her.

He was infected. The virus was nestling in the cells of his mind and body, slowly taking over control. But it wasn't a virus of the Cordyceps Brain Infection.

However, that night, Heero didn't yet fully realize that. When Relena left the house and got back on their motorcycle, he started the engine and headed for the red glow, which marked the tomb for the setting sun.

TBC

And this little bittersweet scene is my Christmas gift for you guys :) I wish you a magical Christmas, full of love and warmth. See you soon!