Author's note: Sorry for the long delay as always but I promise further updates will be coming more regularly! The following scene was one of the first I wrote in full for Aftermath and, despite many editings, it has remained remarkably close to the original. Hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think!

Aftermath – events so far

The Eve Wars are over and the Gundam pilots are struggling to live in the tenuous peace that has resulted. A civilian life seeming impossible, they end up working with the Preventors and Relena in trying to hold the peace together, despite the numerous political groups and former military factions trying to reshape the new world in their own image.

All of the pilots suffer from nightmares of the things they saw and did during wartime and they each react in different ways in trying to deal with the aftermath of their experiences.

Heero and Relena are both pouring everything into holding the peace together with Relena acting as the world's symbol of peace while Heero works behind the scenes within Preventors alongside Trowa and Wufei. Wufei is now in charge of the Preventors internal security and seems to be dealing the best with a new life. Trowa has returned to engineering, satisfied to be a small part of the Preventors machine unless called upon to do otherwise.

Duo works with the Preventors as a simple operative although this is usually a cover for his more dangerous assignments. He lives with Hilde who has cut herself off from the military world completely, instead running a small scrap business which Duo helps her out with whenever he isn't required by the Preventors. As a method of stress-relief Duo begins tinkering with some of the scrap in their yard, missing his Gundam so much that he begins to construct a mobile suit. The possible consequences of his actions don't occur to him until Hilde finds out what he has been doing. At the beginning of the story he admits what has happened to Heero, triggering a sequence of events which results in Heero reaching the conclusion that something more has to be done to preserve the peace, namely resurrecting the Zero system and using it as a way to predict and prepare for possible revolutions.

Despite the reservations of the people surrounding him Heero succeeds in reviving the system, but is having a hard time mastering a system that takes advantage of every chink in his emotional armour. There are cracks appearing in the hard-won peace everywhere and both he and Relena are feeling a sense of urgency as if war could once again overtake the world. They push the boundaries of the human body and mind in their respective battle arenas and events begin to accelerate. This chapter focuses on the one thing that is constant for them both in a changing world.

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Aftermath: Constancy

They were standing in a room so huge that he couldn't see the walls...or maybe they were just bleached out by the brilliance of the light before them.

Heero could feel the reassuring solidity of the wall behind him and knew that he and Duo, who was standing just to his left, had only a moment before come through an ordinary door, the door to the Zero lab.

Relena was slumped on the floor in front of him, surrounded by a dazzling dome of light. Her skin glowed as if she were the source of the light, her hair glowing gold in a crackling haze around her head. From this distance it appeared as if her shoulders were shaking, but her hair hid any expression.

Heero took a step forward and the hairs on his arms pulled his skin as they stood on end; he could feel the unmistakable prickle of electricity as he tried to smooth them. The entire situation felt as if it were building up to something, the tension singing through the air.

Heero tried to step forward again but the light was like a pane of glass through which he could not pass. He moved, automatically searching for an entrance, moving systematically through all possible options as the tension rose even higher. A muffled exclamation from Duo brought his attention back to the centre of the tension, Relena.

His eyes widened as he saw what had caught Duo's attention. Relena's body was lifting slowly off the ground, her back arched and her head lolling uncomfortably...was she unconscious? Irrationally Heero thought of a fallen angel and for a second he was almost able to see the bloody wounds on her back where her wings had been torn off before she had been flung to earth.

The light became thicker as if the room were flooded with a golden liquid. Heero felt his body relax as if into the support of water and his mind began to drift away from his body...as if he were looking down on the entire scene from above. Thoughts no longer commanded limbs, no longer connected to anywhere...a warm sense of familiarity spread across his skin and he took a deep breath, feeling the golden water rush into his lungs.

Vaguely he could hear Duo choking, fighting the intrusion but Heero welcomed it finally feeling as if he had found his place once again...but suddenly it changed.

Somewhere inside his mind a gate was breached and old memories surged outwards, his consciousness immediately became bogged down with the faces of those he had killed and had never been able to forget. Old battles replayed in slow motion, showing him all the decisions he could have made differently...made better.

He tasted blood in his mouth, felt it on his hands and streaming from every pore on his body and suddenly he was choking, surrounded, bathed in the blood of innocents. Everyone who had stood against him was his enemy and they would die...they had died.

The visions moved faster, battering what little remained of his sanity and Heero recognized the presence in the base of his skull, like a familiar bad taste in the back of one's throat.

Zero.

It was inside his head, relentlessly tearing away at the mental barriers he had put in place during the war and that had weakened since then.

It searched for the cracks in his facade as the Perfect Soldier...and it found them. Heero had more to hold onto than he had ever had during the war, giving him more incentive to fight for the small corner of his mind he still called his own...yet those things were also weaknesses, areas of exploitation for the Zero system to achieve its ultimate goal. It wanted destruction, to wipe out life...a world without humans was the only way to ensure that peace would remain...the only way to fix the problem of war...and to wipe out humankind it needed another war.

Heero opened his eyes as he felt the light begin to pulsate and a high pitched mechanical screeching tore at his eardrums. Relena's body stiffened and her hair fell back from her face to reveal her mouth opened in a soundless scream as her face twisted in pain.

Heero could feel the Zero System watching her, considering all of the options and knew, with a dread certainty, that Relena was going to die.

Her death would throw the world back into the cruel throes of war and Zero would live again, its purpose fulfilled. He started forward and felt a malicious glee in the Zero system as it tightened its hold on him. 'Too late', it gloated, 'you're always too late.'

Heero opened his mouth to shout and the light containing Relena exploded. Her body was vapourized, the blood still warm as it coated Heero from head to foot. He fell to his knees as the blood dripped from his face and formed a black pool beneath him, a dark mirror reflecting the anguish on his face back at him.

'Just flesh and blood,'mused the Zero System, 'Just flesh and blood like all humans. So weak...why should just one human stand in the way when life is so fragile?'

Heero looked around but all he could see was blood. The blood of yet another innocent.

The smell choked him, stopping any sound escaping his throat but he could hear sobbing and knew that it wasn't another of his nightmares because Duo had seen it too. He licked his lips as blood had already begun to dry and crack on them and the iron taste was more than he could bear. Body shaking, he retched until he had no strength left, though his reflex continued long after his stomach had emptied. There was a salty dampness on his cheeks, evidence of an emotion he had thought he no longer possessed.

Now alone, in a dark room stained with blood, he struggled to hold onto the little bit of mind he still called his own...the tatters of his sanity if it even still existed.

When he woke, it was to sheets soaked in sweat and an uncontrollable trembling in his limbs. He tossed the bedcovers into the corner of the room and stalked into the bathroom, furiously massaging one temple to rid himself of the tension he was carrying around like a grudge.

Once in the bathroom he examined himself closely in the mirror...nothing looked any different. But the dream remained as fresh in his memory as if it had just happened; he could see images from it replaying on the backs of his eyelids everytime he blinked. He could still feel the blood drying on his skin, cracking and flaking off...and the skin across his cheekbones felt stretched and stiff with faint residues of salt. Tears; tears he hadn't shed since his first kill when he was still a child...but he couldn't deny the material evidence.

Disturbed, he splashed water on his face and scrubbed all traces of stiffness form his eyelashes. If the dark eyes staring back at him from the mirror were any different it wouldn't show. His mask was intact, unbreakable.

In the shower he alternated between boiling hot and freezing cold water, scrubbing his skin until it was red and raw. He imagined the water swirling away down the drain to be pink, tinged with the blood he could feel all over his body.

As he dressed in his normal uniform and left for work he couldn't help but wonder how many people guessed that a murderer walked among them...that the touch of his hand could kill as easily as assist.

He felt as if his dreams were trapping him, a web of questions and answers that didn't seem to relate to one another. Were his dreams simply nightmares given life by the revival of the Zero System and the trauma it constantly exploited? Or were they a subconscious warning of how dangerous the system could be...how easily he could lose his grip on reality?

Mask firmly in place, next step was to calm the irrational dread in his stomach and make sure that Relena was safe. Grabbing his keys and motorbike helmet he slammed the apartment door behind him, leaving it once again quiet and undisturbed by anything but the unpleasant aftertaste of his nightmares.

Relena glanced around her office once more, searching for the eyes she could feel watching her. Maybe she was getting paranoid but she doubted it...with a quick flick of her wrist to check her watch she brought her schedule for the day on screen. She had some documents to prepare for a strategy meeting with Lady Une that afternoon, a planned video conference with Quatre at 11 and a diplomatic service meeting shortly after that, but there were no official visitors booked for the morning. Nobody would notice if she took a short break.

Acting on her instincts she looked directly at the main security camera and mouthed a message, "Heero. What's wrong?"

It had to be him; she could always feel his eyes on her.

She knew that all the sound and video feeds led directly into a custom-built module next to her office before being recorded in the central security centre logs. If her suspicions about the distracting eyes on her all morning were correct, that's where Heero would be. The last time he had watched her so closely was after an assassination attempt had come too close for anyone's comfort...Relena herself had been convinced that her time had come.

Heero's regular office was located near the central security mainframe, rather than in the specific module attached to her office but she always trusted her intuition, at least when it came to him.

Almost a full minute passed after she spoke before anything happened. Relena almost smiled, that alone seeming to confirm what she thought she knew. Heero would never let himself be rushed.

There was a barely perceptible click and one of the panels in her room appeared to move slightly. If there was any noise in the room or one didn't know where to look it would be invisible...but Relena knew exactly what to look for.

Standing, she calmly checked the lock on the main office door before walking to the panel and firmly pressing her right hand against it. With another almost inaudible click it opened and she was able to step through into another room. It was tiny, little more than a cupboard and Relena found it claustrophobic as it was crammed with electrical devices, the dusty air almost humming with static energy.

Heero was seated in front of the main monitor, stance deceivingly relaxed. His hand was loose as it sat carelessly on the mouse but Relena could tell that something was bothering him from the stiff set of his shoulders. Staying silent she closed the panel behind her and took a seat next to him. He had transferred data from his computer station in the security mainframe and was obviously keeping up with all he needed to do, but there was a window in the top right of his screen showing the video feed from her office.

As she watched he set the video of her working at the desk on a loop...it would be noticed before long but it would buy them some time. There was no sound so as to give her some semblance of privacy, but she didn't doubt that he had been watching her all morning.

It was something he couldn't explain but she had always been able to tell when he was near her. Many of their friends had commented that they found it uncanny but Relena just accepted it as it was, like so many things about Heero and their odd relationship.

Heero didn't even glance at her as she sat down, not even to acknowledge her with a nod but it didn't bother her like it used to...Heero would speak in his own time. The only sound in the room was the soft hum of the computer, like the breathing of a living creature and the clicks of the keys as Heero's hands danced across the keyboard. Relena let out a held breath and relaxed back into the embrace of the seat, turning her face up towards the ceiling. Just being with Heero made her feel more in control...she didn't stir as his hand moved form the mouse to cover her own, but she opened her eyes to search for an expression on his face. At first he continued to type carelessly with one hand but after a few seconds he turned to meet her gaze. There was something in his eyes that caught her...the closest thing to confusion she had ever seen there. It was almost as if he were asking her for help in the only way he could. Relena leant closer, letting her concern surface, "What happened?"

He paused and licked his lips as if he were considering saying something...then turned back towards the screen and began giving her a standard progress report on the Zero System project in his usual toneless voice.

Relena tried to hide her disappointment but his hand tightened on hers as if he felt it. She responded by intertwining her fingers with his. That small gesture would be the closest he ever came to giving her an apology or saying "Wait for me". Things like the details of his training as a pilot or what he had seen the first time he had encountered the Zero System were questions she would never ask him and information that he was unlikely to ever volunteer. But occasionally he came out with snippets about something that had happened before or during the war and Relena always had the feeling that she was the first and only person to ever hear the disjointed memoirs of the most deadly Gundam pilot. Still, she was aware that she only knew a fraction of the things he had been through.

Relena came back to herself with a start as she realised that Heero had asked her a question and was waiting for an answer. She blushed, "Sorry"

A smirk twisted his mouth, "It's okay"

He checked his watch, "Lady Une's ETA at your office is 2minutes 38 seconds. Don't tell her I'm here"

Relena nodded, so used to odd requests of this sort that she no longer questioned them. She trusted that Heero always had a good reason.

He seemed reluctant to let her go, their fingers lingering together like a long goodbye. As she stood he did too, filling almost all of available space in the tiny room. Heero seemed to be struggling for words again so Relena stepped closer, searching his eyes for what he wanted to say.

An unbidden memory came to her, of the kiss they had shared on an abandoned resource satellite, years previously when words had failed them as they often did. It had left her so confused but neither of them had even mentioned it...the lack of acknowledgement sometimes made Relena question her own memory.

Colour rose to her cheeks and Heero brought a hand up to touch her face, as if to feel the heat of the blush or to smooth it away. They stood that way for what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds. Relena rested against the physical proof that Heero cared, even if nothing were ever said between them. Then just as quickly as that it was over; Heero pulled all tendrils of tentative feelings back inside his shell and turned towards the computer display.

"You should go"

Relena nodded and turned to leave. Heero shifted slightly behind her, "And Relena..."

She paused in the open doorway and looked back, "Yes?"

Heero held her gaze for a second, then looked down, "Nothing"

Relena smiled then, "I promise I'll be careful"

A slight smile broke the severity of his expression but he didn't look up. Relena stepped back into her office, blinking at the sunshine flooding every corner, no room for shadows. She couldn't rid herself of the image of Heero sitting alone in the dark room, while she stood in the sunlight. Working behind the scenes to keep the peace while she worked in the eye of the public...in the shadow created by her light.

Two halves of a whole.

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Author's notes: Thank you as always to all readers and reviewers and I hope to be back soon with the next update!

Player Zero – Sorry to have kept you waiting but hope you enjoyed this chapter too!

Skytyne – I'm really happy that you feel I have captured the characters as i have worked really hard on Aftermath in order to make it as realistic a continuation to the series as possible and to explore my own curiosity about the Zero System and the mental states of all involved in war.

Thanks again for reading – reviews are also greatly appreciated (and read so many times that I can memorize them)

Hope to see you again next chapter!

Chrikaru