A.C. 196.

Heero woke without raising his heartbeat or changing his breathing, and slowly opened his eyes. After he had assessed his surroundings, he sighed in relief and sat up carefully. A flimsy folding chair had been placed by his bed, a dusty pink blazer draped over the back of it. There was no mistaking the embroidery on the lapels, she had come to see him at one point. She may yet come back for her jacket.

He quickly checked over his physical condition. Left clavicle was cracked, along with a fractured acromion process on the same shoulder. His head was bandaged for a cut he knew was just behind his temple. Numerous other scratches, bruises, and superficial puncture wounds covered his left side, and a swollen ankle from a miscalculated fall. Nothing too serious that a few courses of anti-inflammatory drugs couldn't fix. He was hungry, dehydrated, and really needed to use the facilities.

There was a washroom attached to his small hospital suite, he limped to it urgently in his bare feet. The papery hospital gown made him feel very undignified as it wisped around him, chill of winter seeped up his soles despite the central heating that vented out of the ceiling. Afterward, he scrubbed his face and teeth at the sink, and looked himself in the mirror. A patch of his hair had been shorn off for stitches, an abrasion on his left cheek had scabbed over. His chin sprouted a few scraggly hairs, it was annoyingly itchy. He hadn't shaved nor showered for days, his skin felt sticky from dried sweat.

He ran a list of pertinent tasks through his brain, while wiping himself down best he could with dampened paper towels. There were a number of loose ends regarding his connection to the Barton Foundation, things he didn't want others to find. He needed to go back to a few of the bases in the colonies to purge any trails that led back to him, time was of the essence, it wouldn't be long before Preventers started digging. Of course there was no hiding anything from the likes of Trowa, but the man had tight lips, and the pilots all had so much dirt on each other already, it wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. And then there was the matter of disposing Wing Zero...

She found him sitting in his hospital bed around 8pm, scooping green jelly out of a plastic cup. The shaved spot on his head reminded her of her only childhood friend, a chocolate lab mix who had once come back from the vet missing a patch of its fur. Heero was no puppy, but he brought out the mother hen in her regardless. She suppressed the sentiment, having judged it to be wholly inappropriate.

"The rescue efforts are just wrapping up, they've found only two more injured soldiers with non-fatal wounds, and no casualties on either side."

He nodded thanks, and up-ended the rest of the jelly into his mouth. She hoped it would ease his worry to know that he had not caused unnecessary loss of life.

His eyes followed her as she came in to the room, while he put down the empty plastic cup on his blanketed legs, and leaned back onto the propped up pillows.

It occurred to her then that she had never seen him eat before, nor look this relaxed. The thought made her smile as she sat down in the folding chair, and stared back at him. She observed absent-mindedly that at the tender age of sixteen, he had managed to put a permanent wrinkle between his bushy brows. It made his otherwise neutral expression appear rather severe.

"Commander Une wanted me to tell you that a job opened up, Noin has...was, reassigned."

More precisely, Noin left with her brother two days ago and had sent back a message as an afterthought. A part of Relena envied the older woman, but her days of chasing after Heero had ended when she took up her father's mantle.

Heero spoke evenly. "There are other things I must take care of first."

She almost deflated until the last of his words sunk in. First...He meant to come back. The quirk at the corner of his dry lips told her he saw the full sequence of her thoughts. She blushed and stood up to walk around his bed, and hid her embarrassment by looking out the window.

In the shadow casted by her own reflection, she could see satellites blinking in the clear night sky. A streak of light zipped in the distance, a piece of debris burning up in the atmosphere, and she traced its path on the cold glass with her fingertips. She sought his eyes with her own, and they looked at each other through their reflections.

"I think I saw you when you first came to earth, there was an atmospheric entry capsule behind our shuttle." She closed her eyes, remembering. "Father called it Operation Meteor. I was sure it was you." I thought you were a prince from the stars, she didn't say that part out loud.

Heero's eyes widened and he bolted upright, hands fisted the sheets. Hurriedly, she turned with concern, afraid that somehow her words had hurt him.

"I'm sorry Heero, those memories must be unpleasant for you, it was thoughtless of me..." She trailed off, at a loss of how to continue. When it was clear that he refused to meet her eyes again, she signed in defeat and touched his arm hesitantly, the muscles there were tense and hard as a rock.

"Relena... I'm not worth your trouble."

He looked lost in his memories, and she silently cursed herself for bringing it up.

Life is cheap, especially mine.

"You're wrong you know, your life is infinitely precious to me."

He shook his head from side to side, as if he could shake off her words. She was beginning to fear that her presence would always remind him of the days of battle. He sat there mute, with his head bowed, arms shaking from over-contracted muscles.

"If you want to protect me, Heero, you need also protect what I value most."

She knelt down to look up at him, her chin level with the edge of the hospital bed. His face was turned away from her so only his profile was visible, eyes squeezed shut, nostrils flaring sporadically.

"Heero please," he felt her touch the white knuckles of his right hand, and then felt something much warmer, much softer. His head jerked up and he looked at her, eyes wide with fear and wonder. Having achieved the desired effect, Relena continued.

"Please take care of yourself as you would care for me."

She was not saying such things out of conceit. Of all the times he had expressed his high regard for her, she never detected even a trace of insincerity. She knew she held at least some influence over him, and was not above using it for an occasion such as this.

He blinked slowly and swallowed, and finally croaked out an "I will."

Knowing how many times he had refused to make her promises he could not keep, she was satisfied with this response. Relena stood up and gathered her blazer, stopping at the door to glance back at him once more.

"I'll see you soon."

It was not a question, so he did not answer. Instead he watched her close his door, her slow, thoughtful footsteps picked up speed and faded away down the hall.

Heero looked down at his hand, and let out a shuddering breath, feeling an impossible mixture of self-disgust and elation. Waves of cold sweat made him feel clammy all over. The image of the small shuttle against the blue earth flashed again and again behind his eyelids. How close had he been from shooting it down that day? This thought alone was what rendered him immobile in front of her.

And she had just kissed the hand that would have so carelessly erased her existence.