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Chapter 46 - The Life That Will Always Go On
One month later
October
.
Relena POV
.
She closed her eyes and took an exaggeratedly deep breath.
Tilting her head slightly back, she involuntarily smiled as she smelled the distant, fresh whiff of the ocean again. Imperceptible before, at that moment, this familiar, salty scent was perfectly distinguishable, carried with a cool breeze throughout the vastness of the swamps.
Ah, now I see.
She slowly opened her eyes. We're close…
"Relena! Look!"
Standing right next to her, Quatre pointed at something far in front of them. Surprised, Relena gazed at the pointed direction, shielding her eyes from the sun.
"Wow...!," she gasped at the blissful view.
In the distance, in the green swamps and the reeds, she noticed a flock of white and black colored cranes. They were steeping up, running on their long, thin legs, stretching slender necks forward, then all of them, sequentially, spread their wings and took off. Although they seemed large and powerful as they stepped on the ground, they hovered in the air as if they weighed absolutely nothing - dignified and graceful.
Relena, Quatre, and Trowa stopped their horses and gazed enchanted at the majestic birds that flew a circle over the surrounding green swamps. Their loud and shrill unison call was carried by the wind through the wastelands.
"I know those birds," Quatre muttered, "I remember that they were on the verge of extinction before the outbreak… What are they called…?"
"Whooping cranes," Trowa said without taking his eyes off the birds. "I've never seen so many of them."
"They're stunning..." Relena couldn't take her eyes off their broad, white wings, rising with the wind in such harmony as if they were the unity with it.
And suddenly, a thought that lingered in her head slipped out her mouth:
"I wish Heero saw them…"
Only the shrill call of the flying cranes broke the sullen silence that fell between Relena and her companions as she spoke those words.
Another moment passed before Quatre rode his horse closer to Relena, and she felt the comforting touch of his hand on her shoulder, along with the concerned tone of his voice. "Relena…"
Relena sighed, then faced her friend with a gentle, almost inconspicuous smile. "Can we take a break soon?" she asked as if nothing happened, her hand resting on the more and more precisely outlined curve of her belly. "I need to pee, and I'm so hungry…"
Quatre blinked, and then he kindly smiled at her and at Trowa. "Of course. The sun's going to set soon anyway. We can make a stop right there."
As she rode her horse Treaty a few hundred yards to the berth where they planned to spend a night, Relena looked over her shoulder at the burning sky again. The cranes made another circle around them, then landed in tandem, like a giant white plane on the surface of one of the lakes. She realized that the first time she had made her way through these swamps, she didn't see those birds... maybe they flew here for wintering-
As usual, Quatre obsessively persisted in helping her get off her horse, to which Relena ultimately had to agree. As she carefully landed on the ground, grasping her friend's hand, she made a sigh and smiled with a slight embarrassment.
"You don't have to worry about me that much, Quatre. Pregnancy's not an illness... and I have had many dangerous adventures during my pregnancy so far."
Quatre smiled his natural, heart-warming smile in reply. "Relena, please… If this isn't a burden for you... let us help you in any way possible. Especially now."
Relena bowed her head and objected no more. Maybe he was right. Why always pretend to be so strong and invincible...? Under the facade of the tough girl and the reconciled survivor, there was her "second self" hidden - still trembling and heartbroken, suffering from unhealing loss and longing. She had hoped it would be easier for her with each passing day, but it wasn't so, and with each passing day, she awoke with even greater anxiety in her heart.
The sun went down very quickly that evening, and the night fell on the surrounding swamps like a black curtain. The night's onset was accompanied by nature's orchestral concert: from the croaking of frogs to the persistent humming of mosquitoes.
Towards evening, Relena took a nap, feeling extremely tired from the road, and when she woke up, the moon was already hanging high on the dark sky, shining like a pale sun.
Trowa and Quatre were seated by the crackling bonfire, both immersed in their silent thoughts. Relena realized that they probably didn't want to wake her. It wasn't until she sat down next to them that they dared to speak.
"I was convinced you wouldn't wake up until the morning," Quatre joked. "I mean, you slept so soundly."
Relena smiled at them, crossing her arms over her chest and hiding her hands under her armpits. The October night in the marshes was much colder than expected, but the fire was giving them enough of pleasant warmth.
"I'm a sound sleeper. Heero was always-"
Her voice died in her throat, and she bowed her head, letting out a remorseful, resigned sigh. She felt even colder as if the warmth from the fire wasn't enough. The longing for him was slowly becoming unbearable, even mentioning him didn't relieve her of pain. The unspeakable weight that she was carrying within her heart nearly took her breath away, while Trowa and Quatre gazed at each other, mutely over the dancing flames.
It's been over a month now.
During that time, Relena realized that each of them went through the mourning in a completely different way. Each of them had a different relationship with Heero. To Quatre, Heero was one of the few people who knew about him and Trowa, while Trowa, on the other hand, owed Heero his life, and was convinced that he had failed to pay the debt. Despite this, none of the boys even tried to appropriate the feelings of loss and grief exclusively for themselves. In their eyes, what they felt was no match for the loss that Relena had suffered.
But the looks they exchanged that night… Relena realized that they were different than before.
Since they left Houston, each conversation had to end with one and only outcome: Heero. With a recollection of what he had done, obviously rarely of what he had said. During the day, memories swelled in their hearts, and in the evenings, those remembrances and accompanying emotions kept flowing out of them like from a life-giving spring. It was fascinating to observe how differently each of them remembered Heero, how different details each of them paid attention to. By cause of these memories - funny and scary ones, of the everyday life's moments and of the blood-curdling skirmishes, the well-known ones and those told for the very first time - it seemed to them that they were bringing him back to life. That wherever he was, they were drawing him closer to them, allowing him to sit among them by the bonfire even for a brief moment - but when the fire was dying, he was leaving them again, heading in whichever direction dead souls would go.
It was hard to resist the feeling that Heero Yuy was repeatedly rising from the dead and dying every night.
Like someone smart once shrewdly had stated, mourning's for the tough ones, as it's all about deliberately inflicting yourself pain with memories over and over again. Anyone can be a masochist - some even call life 'the greatest form of masochism' - but not everyone perseveres in this idleness for long.
That evening Relena sensed that for Quatre and Trowa would very soon come a particular moment, in which they would get up and say, "The things are as follows: Heero is dead, but we're alive. We must get over it. We must live on."
What she also knew was that for her, this moment wasn't meant to come.
"When we return to Evergreen, we'll take care of you," Quatre suddenly stated. He looked at Relena with a patient yet so sympathetic gaze that she almost wanted to blindly believe him. "We'll provide you with a home, Sally and Catherine will help you during the pregnancy… then with the baby."
"We'll do everything we can to make Evergreen feel like home to you," continued Trowa. "You won't have to worry about anything. We owe it to him."
Relena smiled wistfully at them while her hand tightened in the air just above the collarbone. She still involuntarily wanted to catch her cowries pendant, the only present she ever had got from him, but it was gone, lost some time in Houston's hospital. Relena sighed; she couldn't get used to the feeling that she didn't have it anymore…
Instead, her fingers gently brushed the scarring-over wound just below her left clavicle: the only one he'd ever inflicted on her. As she expected, her immunity had worked. She couldn't get infected. Over time, the bite healed properly, and she hadn't worn a dressing for several days already.
But the wounds that were scarring her soul healed much worse. They required much more drastic measures. And the right time for this finally came.
Relena was aware of this, although she wanted to spend the last evening with her closest friends. Friends, who tried to help her with all their strength, but in reality, could do almost nothing. Therefore, Relena wished that this last evening should be adequately remembered by them.
"Do you remember the songs by the bonfire from your childhood?" she asked happily at one point, looking searchingly at their faces, then smiled blithely as ever. "Let's sing something. Together."
Quatre and Trowa initially looked at her with puzzled eyes, as if they thought she had lost her mind, but then complied with her strange wish.
Their initially sluggish, devoid of rhythm rehearsals soon sounded joyful and harmonious as they found familiar songs, known by all of them, and remembered some stanzas. They sang songs from their childhood, the songs from a time when the world was predictable and safe; songs they had listened to and sang with their families, that they had heard in movies or sang at school, marching songs, hymns, and lullabies. Whenever they couldn't remember the words, they simply hummed the beat.
Their singing, heartwarming, joyful, and free, soared over the swamps until they moved on to calmer songs and romantic, sentimental ballads—nameless and derelict songs, whose authors were forgotten over time, but not the songs themselves.
And among them this last ballad followed by silence:
"Beyond the door, there's peace, I'm sure.
And I know there'll be no more tears in heaven."*
(* by Eric Clapton - "Tears in Heaven")
That verse was sung just by Relena, in a trembling voice that broke dangerously halfway through and then died down abruptly after the last word.
Though the lyrics of the song were probably meant to sound comforting, she didn't believe them. She couldn't imagine how badly the heavens must have been left out of peace now and weeping as they watched what was happening here on earth - the abysmal hell that people had doomed for themselves.
Neither of them had said any more words that evening. Soon Trowa and Quatre fell asleep by the fire, and Relena looked into the flames as the lyrics came back through her mind like words of lousy consolation.
And then, when the bonfire was almost out, in the middle of the night… Relena Peacecraft got up and climbed her horse, taking Heero's shotgun with her, without waking the boys up.
In the morning, Quatre and Trowa would discover that she disappeared without a single trace, leaving behind only a letter:
Quatre, Trowa,
I'll always be grateful for your friendship, although I never deserved it.
I want you to understand: with Heero's death, I've lost more than just the love of my life. I'm not ready to start living in Evergreen just yet. Thus I'm begging you: don't look for me. I promise you I'll be all right, and you should go back to Evergreen. You're needed there, while you can't help me in any other way. Please, respect my decision.
I just want you to know that I'm so sorry for everything.
I hope that when we meet again - because I'm sure we will - I'll find you in good health and embrace you like long unseen, dear friends.
Please tell Catherine and Sally that I'm still missing them.
Love, Relena.
x
As the cold night air ruffled her hair, Relena pursed her lips, rushing her horse Treaty into a gallop through the wetlands.
I'm so sorry. It was all she could do—repeat that slick, superficial, and evasive confession. While it seemed a relief for the one who asked for forgiveness, in reality, it dredged the divide between the sinner and the one who they sinned against.
She realized that this is what happens when behind these words, hides a truth so terrible that it takes away all the hope.
x
x
x
Relena rode all night.
She flashed through the world plunged in darkness like a night wraith wandering from the afterlife, unable to find eternal peace because of unfinished matters left on the earth. She galloped around abandoned villages and wound through swamps and rivers to lose her tracks. Only the stars and the bright moon illuminated her path, but Treaty was racing ahead without hesitation as if he perfectly knew the way.
Not encountering any obstacles in their way, they reached the coast just before dawn.
Slowing down, Relena looked around cautiously, realizing that almost nothing has changed. Maybe the tide had brought some more dry branches and pieces of wreckage to the beach. Perhaps the bushes around the crumbling houses and the fallen electric poles were a little more overgrown. Maybe it was quieter than the last time, as nature was holding her breath in that tense moment just before sunrise.
Their stilt beach house was still standing intact - the way she and Heero had left it less than two months ago.
As she reached the beach, Relena got off Treaty. She patted the side of the horse's neck, letting him amble freely nearby, while she wrapped her sweatshirt tightly around herself and stepped onto the sand.
The seashore was deserted. The sea air was crisp and transparent like a glass of the highest quality, and a gentle breeze carried the intense, moisty scent of sea salt. As Relena took off her shoes, she felt the cold surface of sand under her feet, slightly damp, kneading under her steps. She strolled a few more meters towards the shore, then sat down on the sand, drawing her knees under her chin.
She looked east.
Beyond the horizon, at the distant sky, a breathtaking projection of the changing colors began. Hundreds of small clouds and banks were gently floating over the bay. As dawn approached, the line of junction of heaven and sea started gradually burning brighter with each passing second, releasing successive waves of colors into the sky: purple, light blue, pink, orange, finally golden. All these colors seemed only apparently chaotically jumbled together as if were spilled over on the careless painter's palette, but matched each other in perfect harmony.
Relena watched the spectacle with bated breath, watching excitedly that primeval, doomed battle of darkness with brightness. After a while, she finally felt a touch of warm light on her cheeks and shoulders as the golden globe slipped out over the horizon, wearily, as if it didn't want to look at this world at all; Relena thought it wouldn't be surprising if the sun really thought so. Oddly enough, she felt relieved and grateful to the sun that it had risen - this one more time.
At that beautiful moment, wrapped in the eternal whisper of the waves, Relena felt genuinely grateful.
She was fortunate to be born; fortunate because she survived for so many years and dangers; fortunate because she had wonderful parents and a brother whom she miraculously managed to see again, no matter the circumstances; fortunate because she had friends she could count on and would never forget them; fortunate because she had met a man she loved and who had lifted the hem of his complicated soul for her, though never stopped intriguing her; fortunate because, in a few months, she would give birth to a child to whom she will try to show and explain that Earth, apart from the fact that can be dangerous, is in itself the greatest wonder of which... we, as humans, are fortunate to be an inseparable part.
Though this scary world was not supposed to change, she didn't resent it of anything… how could she, while she was still alive, still breathing... and gazing at this beautiful festival of lights-
...waiting for him.
The golden, Elysian globe gradually began to detach itself from its reflection in the sea, rising upwards. The bright, daytime blue sky was slowly driving away all the magic colors to the west. Somewhere nearby, she heard a cry of seagulls taking flight, and soon a small flock of these birds flew across the sky to the west. Relena tilted her head to look that way…
…and she finally spotted him.
He was riding a horse at an unhurried pace across the shallows at the far west end of the beach. The horse's hooves rammed evenly against the water surface, sloshing thousands of tiny droplets into the air, and its black mane blew gently in the breeze.
Even though he was still far away, Relena knew - felt - that he already spotted her too. Her heart pounded so hard it ached. She shivered as if an electric current had passed through her. She felt an irresistible and exciting impatience warming up her insides, that almost made her get up and run towards him across the shallows, to drag him off the horse's back and make love to him on the beach...
However, he took his time and led his horse calmly and slowly, not speeding up a bit, approaching her slowly like a revenant. His slender form on his proud, tall steed cast a soft shadow over the water beneath that faded gradually as the world continued to fill with morning light. Relena pressed her legs closer to her chest and rested her head on her knees as she watched him, controlling the beating of her heart as it almost jumped out of her chest.
When he eventually stopped and got off his horse, she knew only by watching his movements that his wounds weren't still wholly healed. As he jumped down from the saddle into the shallow water a few meters away from her, his right leg slightly trembled, though he didn't lose his balance. But his left arm hung limply in his sling. The sight stung her heart painfully.
He took off the bit and loosened the girth, then released the horse free. Zero stamped his hooves happily, as if out of relief, splashing the water around and trotted across the shallows to meet Treaty.
Any more waiting was too much than Relena could stand, and she got up, directing her steps towards the man. He turned towards her as well, though he walked much slower. They approached each other bit by bit like two indrawing molecules. Meter by meter, second by second, breath by breath... there was no need to rush.
They both stopped in the water, right on the edge of the shallows, attracted to each other by an invisible, magnetic force. It was quite a challenge to stay within each other's reach without hurling into each other's arms. They gazed at each other with the first humans' fascination and the longing of ones that waited centuries for this day.
"You've come," she welcomed him in a calm, slightly breathy voice.
"...yeah," Heero sighed.
The look on his face told her that perhaps he didn't believe it himself yet, but her heart quivered with emotion at the mere sound of his deep and slightly hoarse voice, that she didn't hear for so long. "Did I make you wait?" he asked.
She smiled, and the shook of her head was her only reply. Then she reached out and grasped his right hand. The skin of his palm was pleasantly warm to the touch, slightly coarse and dried from the dry sea air, and she sensed under her fingertips every unevenness, every fold, especially… the dished bite wound. It was healed, the upswelling and blisters that covered the wound were almost gone.
He was so real.
"I was scared," Relena looked up at him, chasing away the memories, "that I'd believe you were dead. And that… you wouldn't come here."
The so well known to her and beloved shade of broken blue suddenly flashed through his parted eyelids, and he breathed a shallow, trembled breath. She stared at him in bewilderment, her mouth parted while her throat was still tight from crying. It worked so much faster than she had expected…
"Heero-
Please, don't move. Don't speak. Just breathe… and listen to what I have to say.
I don't have much time. Soon Quatre and Trowa might come here, looking for me.
They can't find you.
I took care of your wounds, stopped all the bleeding. It's all right now. Those crates around you happen to be full of Fireflies' supplies. You can stay here for a few days until you regain your strength.
We'll survive, Heero. You're not gonna turn. The vaccine… or whatever it was…
It saved you."
He looked somewhat shyly back at her, then his gaze wandered down to the perfectly visible, scarring-over wound on her chest. Suddenly, he slipped his hand from her loose grip and lifted it as if he wanted to touch the injury, but hesitated, his fingers hovering mere millimeters above her skin as if touch might burn him. The tone of his eyes darkened to a hue of the boisterous sea as he stared at the mark that would surely remain on her body for all eternity, as a visible reminder that he had hurt her.
"I should've died there, Relena."
Relena held her breath, involuntarily recalling the flashback of that nightmarish moment.
"Why are you telling me that?" she whispered. "After what I've done… you're hurting me now."
He locked his cautious gaze on her wound, while his fingers lowered gently against her skin, feelingly stroking the disfiguring, scarred protrusion.
"It's entirely my fault that you were faced with such a choice. I wasn't able to end my life before I turned... Before you had found me-"
"Stop it."
His gaze drifted up and locked onto her eyes mutely, and an unnamed emotion flickered across his face while her heart lurched painfully at his startling confession. Another shudder ran through her body at the contradiction; his touch on her skin was intimate and soothing, but his words were harsh and cold-hearted, piercing through her heart.
"Do you remember what did you say yourself when I had been bitten?" she whispered, touching his hand on her chest. "You said: how is that supposed to be fair, to die with salvation in the reach of your hand…"
He looked back at her intensely, the storm in his eyes intensifying at the recollection on his own words. He balled up a fist under her fingers, apparently controlling the unrest tormenting his soul and reflecting in the dark-blue sheet of his look, half-shrouded by long bangs.
"You've chosen differently, Relena. You did what I hadn't dared to do. The chances that the vaccine would work were zero. It could not have worked on me at all. I could have killed you-" Heero stopped short and swallowed hard. "…I almost did."
She couldn't look away from him. Her body still remembered the atavistic, overwhelming pain and fear she had felt that day, while her memory came back to the words that Dr. Noin had said to her before her death.
For you, it's only one person…
Those were ambiguous words with so many different meanings… But when Relena had later found out about Heero and had gotten the key from Milliardo, those words had allowed her to stick to the absurd and nonsensical hope that the vaccine, or whatever the substance it actually was, might still work. And this small hope worked like blinders - taking away any logical thinking, forcing Relena to take this risk and the responsibility for all possible consequences…
"If I was faced with the same choice once more, I would act the same again."
His eyes twitched while she scowled at him, fearlessly.
"Whatever choice I made, I had to sacrifice something: either my love for you, my life, or the rescue for humanity for the sake of which my father and so many other people laid down their lives or hoped for," she declared, barely controlling her shaky voice. "Any choice meant killing a part of myself. Any choice was sinful and painful… so much that being devoured by an infected is no pain compared to what I took on."
"Relena-" Heero sighed, but stopped short, as she cupped his cheek in a remarkably loving gesture.
"However, the choice was paradoxically simple," Relena whispered so softly as if she was telling him her biggest secret, "I wouldn't leave you there. Even if you would kill me."
He gazed at her, with an impossibly soulful and heartbroken look in his eyes.
"And yet…" he said, "it would have been better for the world if we both didn't survive back then."
Relena dropped her eyes, her hand slipped down his cheek, and she shivered as the sea breeze grew significantly robust around them.
"…perhaps you're right."
There were no more words to say on this subject. The two stood in profound and thoughtful silence, knowing that it was a bitter truth that would mark their fate forever. Sacrificing her life could have saved millions, and the only existing portion of a vaccine that could have saved millions had been used up to keep him alive.
Surviving, they both sinned against mankind.
This sorrowful truth took root violently within them, inflicting painful wounds that refused to scar over. It was eating into their flesh and making itself at home within them like a ravenous parasite. With each passing day, the burden of their sin felt like a poorly sewn piece of clothing yet deliberately worn by them every single day, never letting itself be forgotten.
As the fresh morning breeze blew, Relena looked briefly over her shoulder toward the sun hovering over the horizon, and then Heero simply grasped her hand in his firm grip. Her head snapped back at him; the look on his face turned suddenly so kind and peaceful. After all this time, he was here… so real, so alive.
Heero swiftly turned her hand in his and interlaced their fingers, closing on her.
"What about Quatre and Trowa?" he asked, looking down.
"…They're perfectly fine," Relena replied, also fixing her gaze at her bare feet immersed in chilly water. As she slowly walked at his side, his arm gently rubbed against hers. "I sneaked out in the middle of the night. I don't think they're looking for me."
Heero snorted softly in response. "I'm convinced they are."
Relena smiled sadly to herself. Yes, knowing them, they surely didn't give up that easily. But she predicted it. "I left them a letter, I was covering my tracks. I'm sure no one will find us here."
She sensed he was glancing at her stealthily, but she felt unable to look back at him.
"We can't go back. We can never return to Evergreen," she said. "That's the price we have to pay."
"…I know."
"I know what you're thinking, Heero. What I did was so unimaginably selfish…
I broke the word I had given to my father, and I betrayed his trust. Duo had given his life so I could escape, bring this world to a change. I failed the hopes of Quatre, Trowa, Catherine, Sally, Sylvia, and all the Evergreen people. The Fireflies' efforts, the people who were sacrificed for the sake of science, Noin, Milliardo - all this for nothing.
And I will never be able to keep the promise I had made to you.
All is lost. The world will continue as it is now. There will be neither a drug nor a vaccine. Never.
To the world, you're dead, Heero. And I don't want to live in a world without you. I have to disappear, too. And there's only one place where I'd rather be."
Before she stood up, she left a kiss on his forehead and squeezed his right hand.
"…Please, promise me that you'll meet me there."
The light reflected in a billion diamonds in the crystal-clear waves of the sea that wrapped around their ankles when Relena suddenly noticed that Heero shot a sidelong glance at her slightly rounded belly.
Her stomach tightened, but he remained stubbornly silent, and she nervously combed her fingers through her unbound hair.
The air between them seemed to thicken with unspoken, belated words.
"They think… that you're dead. It better stays that way," Relena continued in a shaky voice, trying to keep the conversation going. "They don't know, and they never knew about the vaccine. One person in the world who has survived an infected bite is already too many, anyway. If they found out that there was a vaccine and that I used it to save you-"
"Relena."
Heero suddenly addressed her with just a little bit of tremor in his voice, stopping and turning to face her. His thumb grazed the top of her hand, while his gaze drifted carefully up over her entire form until it locked on her eyes.
"Since when did you know?"
Relena stared back at him for a long moment, entirely understanding what he meant. There was no reason to hide it anymore, it was also unimportant from where he knew about it, plus, at that moment, it was already perfectly well visible. Not to mention that he had a right to know...
She instinctively jerked her hand away from his grip but was unable to tear her eyes away from his thoughtful gaze.
"…since Evergreen," she eventually let out her answer in a silent whisper.
"…" Heero swallowed hard, his body suddenly going very still. "How long…?"
Relena clasped her hands together in front of her.
"It's around the fourth month."
Hearing those words, Heero closed his eyes and breathed air into his lungs as if trying to keep his composure, then a pained expression painted on his features.
"Heero-"
"…all because I wouldn't have let you go like this?"
Relena studied him as he spoke quietly, with a low, placid voice, but reproachfully.
"You preferred to keep it in secret, refuse food when you felt sick, cover your body even in front of me, and dash away early in the morning so that I wouldn't have noticed that you were vomiting-"
He paused abruptly, without taking his eyes off her as if he desperately waited to hear her denial. However, Relena remained uneasily silent, gazing back at him, and he continued after giving a sigh.
"Why did you take that burden entirely on your shoulders? I wasn't blind, Relena. I noticed that something wasn't right, but I didn't expect that I might not know… That you could keep something like that from me. And yet you have been lying to me… for entire weeks."
Those quiet words of his really hurt her, and the feeling of guilt almost blacked out everything around her. All because they were so true and she couldn't turn back time.
"Be honest with me, Heero-"
"I've always been honest with you."
She shuddered at the harsh tone of his voice.
"Please, hear me out. What would you do if I told you? Back then, at the party... if I had told you then, wouldn't you have left me and go alone?"
He looked back at her mutely, but she read the answer in his eyes.
"I was protecting you, too, Heero. You've always run into danger after me. You've been through a lot during this journey, completely ignoring your safety, your life. If I had to count all the wounds you suffered because of me-"
Relena walked over to him and touched his chest. When he didn't shrug her hand off his chest, she slid it up to his neck and brushed the unruly bangs away.
"I lied to you because I didn't want you to take all this risk alone. I don't want to excuse myself but-" her voice broke, and eyes glistened, yet Relena didn't allow herself cry even a single tear, slowly shaking her head, "all this time… there hasn't been one second when I didn't want to tell you…"
Heero's expression flickered and eventually softened, as he smoothed her hair away from her face with his only hand. When his fingertips brushed her cheek, Relena closed her eyes and leaned onto his touch, breathing deeply in his familiar scent. When she opened her eyes, the feeling of defeat clouded her senses again.
"Oh, god… I'm so sorry," Relena sighed.
He shook his head, sorrow and guilt crossed his face. "It's okay now-"
"It's not…! All these sacrifices we made throughout those months to change this world... so that death would no longer lurk around each corner… And now that there are no Fireflies and no vaccine left... I failed, I failed my father, I failed you, I failed everybody-"
"Relena," Heero made her stop in mid-sentence and leaned closer towards her, whispering so softly that his voice almost faded in the sea breeze, "it doesn't matter anymore. We're alive. That's the only thing that matters right now."
She looked at him, feeling defeated and desperately searching for comfort he was offering her, but which seemed impossible to achieve.
"Back in the hospital, I thought that this feeling of guilt would be so painful that it would ultimately kill me," she said. "When I rode here... I imagined you would be resentful. Disappointed. That you would pass judgment on me. But it turned out that you're comforting me."
His intense expression clouded slightly while Heero Yuy remained silent. Crystals of golden light from the rising sun reflected in his deep-blue irises. Unable to read his mind, Relena felt misunderstood as if he was mocking her.
"How can you take it so calmly? We both believed that we would change this world. But now… there will be no change. The world will continue to be this hell on earth. People will still die inhaling spores, attacked by the infected, chased like rats..."
"You're right."
When he finally spoke, she stopped cold, looking at him with fear and anxiety.
"This world's fucked up," he summed up calmly, "but I don't want to be anywhere else. It is here in this hell on earth where you've found me."
And then he moved his head, and Relena shivered, feeling his shamelessly heartfelt but agonizingly brief kiss on her lips. Left breathless and almost stunned, she gazed at him as he pulled back only slightly...
"If I was faced with a choice…" he whispered against her lips, "I'd rather die today, even now, at your side, than live for a hundred years in any other universe without you."
Every inch of her skin yearned for his touch, and when he took her lips again, Relena almost lost her mind. She wound up her arms around his neck, her hands found their way into his hair, while he wrapped his right arm around her back, pressing her whole form against him. She voraciously deepened the kiss, craving the taste of him like air, and he let out a soft grunt like a sigh of relief. His arm on the sling stuck between their bodies, but when she pulled back a bit, afraid to hurt him, he drew her even closer, never letting go and kissing her fervently and lovingly as never before. And she clung to him desperately, as if he was the last man standing on earth.
Although the world they fought for was never to come, and they stood in the middle of its ruins and ashes, Relena could already feel a germinating feeling within her that lit up her soul, like the rising sun she watched this morning.
Hope.
That stubborn creature that, despite everything, would always continue to live on, even if the whole world burned.
"We'll survive it. I'll protect you… both," Heero declared when he broke the kiss, pressing his forehead to hers. "Always. Not only when you'll think you need it. Even when you'll want to hide your pain from me."
"Heero…" Relena's voice wobbled. "I-"
"Please," he cut her short, "hold out your hand."
She looked at him uncertainly, then obediently held out her hand. As Heero took a small, almost weightless object from his pocket and placed it on the center of her palm, she sighed with excitement, recognizing the cowries pendant he had given her on the same beach. The same he had torn off her neck...
"You've got it…!," she gasped. "I thought I've lost it forever."
Some non-physical pain flashed through his gaze, and Heero clenched the fingers of his right hand around the shamefully unmoving wrist of his left hand, still hung on a sling.
"This time… you have to put it on by yourself."
Understanding what he meant, Relena let her saddened gaze drop while she held the necklace in her hands, inspecting the broken loose string. Then, as if nothing happened, she put the pendant in her shirt pocket and grabbed Heero's limp left hand, gently pulling it out of the sling.
Heero watched her actions in silence, although his gaze was full of tension and embarrassment as if he wanted to tear his useless limb out of her caring grip. Relena took his hand in both of hers, gently, slowly moving his wrist and all his fingers…
The hand, though limp, was still warm...
"Relena," she heard Heero's slightly impatient sigh, "it's useless. I can't..."
She looked up at him with a forgiving smile.
"There's no rush. I'll wait," she said. "Until the day you'll fasten it around my neck again."
Although he certainly didn't believe it himself, maybe didn't even dare to hope for it, Heero didn't say anything and merely looked back at her with thoughtful, calm eyes. Still smiling, Relena lifted his arm above her head, and whipped around, as if it was him who spun her around in a dance. Then she rested her back against his firm chest, and they both faced the timeless sea. The world around them shone with a riot of bright colors, illuminated by white, almost heavenly rays of light, and the waves flickered as if someone had scattered a handful of diamonds on their surface.
"What now?"
"Hm?"
"You're dead, I'm missing, the world will stay the way it is," she summed their situation, stroking his arms wrapped around her shoulders. "Will we be all right? It's gonna be tough…"
He thought for a moment. "It wasn't easy from the beginning."
Relena gazed at him over her shoulder. "What are we going to do now?"
He smiled at her charmingly, and as Relena faced the sea again, she felt him press his face to the side of hers.
"Breathe," she heard his low and vibrant whisper. "Now, close your eyes and just breathe, Relena… As deeply and as freely as you possibly can."
x
THE END
x
Well, that's it!
You can't imagine how hard it was for me to keep you in suspense for the last few chapters, but it was necessary. However, if some of you believed that Heero died for real, then my writing assignment has been accomplished. The vaccine worked in a way that only Noin could expect because only she had examined it (albeit superficially). She expressed it in her words to Relena, and this was how she saved Heero, whether she wanted it or not…
I'm a supporter of bittersweet endings, such as they usually are in life. Life is never black and white but full of various shades of gray, and all our actions have long-term consequences. After a lot of hardship throughout their journey, Heero and Relena ultimately survived, although the whole world paid a lavish ransom for it. They will live, but with the feeling of guilt and isolation. Undoubtedly, it cannot remain without an impact on their future life... but that's already another story.
It's a great moment to mention, once again, that Gundam Wing and The Last of Us don't belong to me. However, I will be eternally grateful to their rightful creators for those stories that left their mark on my life and enriched me, inspiring me, allowing my imagination to flourish.
I sincerely express my regretting to all the native speakers for my mistakes and linguistic inaccuracies. Still, I want to express my endless gratitude for following the story despite these shortcomings!
Last but not least: I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who supported me from the very beginning of writing this story. In particular, my most loyal commentators: Mistaken-Miracles, Hellocat42, sushidango. Yours and all the other readers' comments gave me encouragement and the will to bring this story to an end (worthwhile one, I hope). I also want to thank each and every one of my readers who simply followed the story without revealing themselves up. It was an honor to have an audience like you!
Stay safe, everyone. Until next time!
Hugs,
~enelle