Disclaimer: Don't own GundamW... that's all copyright of Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, Bandai, and others

Chapter 7:
Two Are Better Than One

Heero continued to walk silently as the warm afternoon began to change into evening. The sky was lit beautifully with hues of red, yellow, blue, and purple as the sun slowly began its decent behind the mountains. A slight breeze began to blow, cooling the young traveler. For once in his life, Heero felt relaxed and greatly at ease. It was indeed a beautiful sight that lay before him. Never during the few months that he had spent on earth had he actually stopped to gaze at a sunset. He was always way too preoccupied with fixing and upgrading his gundam to even notice that unlike the colonies, the earth's sunrises and sunsets were more than just the sun coming and going. They were a dazzling display of light put on by Mother Nature.

"Where are we going?" WuFei's voice brought Heero back.

Heero shrugged. His guess was as good as anyone else's. For the longest time they had been following all the credible leads they had heard about the Goddess Mariemaia. It seemed like every city and town in this country wanted to claim that the Goddess was or had at one point stayed with them. But as it turned out, all those rumors were just that, dead end rumors.

"We can't just keep walking around aimlessly you know."

Heero's temper was beginning to thin. "Do you have any better suggestions?"

WuFei glared at him menacingly. Another direct challenge. Why did Heero come off as being so pompous and arrogant? Was this really how he was or was it a front he put up to everyone? He could understand that the other youth was of few words, but those few words were always so hollow. WuFei had been accused of being arrogant with his few words, but at the bare minimum his words were filled with life and passion.

WuFei halted and quickly glanced around. They had been to almost all the towns and villages in this mountain area, crisscrossing the mountain peaks back and forth many times now. And now they seemed to be heading back to a previously visited village. "We really a plan," he informed.

Heero stopped a few steps ahead of his companion visible upset. He glared back with those piercing dark blue eyes. No words needed to be exchanged between the two in order to understand each other. This was one of the few beauties of life that existed between the pair. They could practically carry out full conversations by just looking at one another, an ability that the other pilots could never come close to comprehending.

WuFei scowled viciously and was the first to break the silence. "I've been following you aimlessly for the past few days now and gotten nowhere!"

"No one asked you to," Heero responded coldly.

"What is your problem?" WuFei reputed as he finally lost his cool. "I've been saying we should head to the capitol of this place! Or at least the closest castle-town that houses this place's warlord in order to find Mariemaia!"

"I've been trying!" Heero snapped back.

"You've been leading us in circles!" WuFei outstretched his arms and gestured to the whole of their surroundings. "We were in that village," he pointed to the valley down below, "just the other day! And we were at that one we seem to be heading for about a week ago! We're going around in circles!"

Heero looked around and bit down on his bottom lip. "Why didn't you say something?"

"About?" WuFei was growing impatient.

"That we've already visited that place?" Heero pointed to the village he had been heading for all day long.

WuFei was dumbstruck at the question. But gazing into his comrade's eyes he could see that the other young man was dead serious about the question. "I though that's where you wanted to go," he responded.

"Not if we've already been there!"

"Then why the hell are we heading back there!" WuFei felt like tearing his hair out in frustration.

Heero's eyes left WuFei's as he looked back down at the village a fair way's off. Again, he bit down on his bottom lip and looked to be lost in thought. He seemed to be examining his surroundings.

"You're lost, aren't you?" WuFei finally realized.

It took a moment, but Heero finally nodded. "I didn't realize we were heading back somewhere we were already at…" he half whispered. It was no wonder these places were starting to look a bit familiar. If he remembered correctly, they had approached the village they were heading for from the opposite direction, which means that they had backtracked on their journey.

"How can you be lost?" WuFei was at a loss for words. "We've traveled the world and the colonies with the deadliest accuracies! Hell, we all descended to earth in the most suicidal way and hit our targets on our very first missions!"

Heero remained silent. That was very true for the others and it would have been the same for him had he not run into an OZ carrier on his decent. But that wasn't the point that WuFei was getting at. It was true, they had all eventually traveled the whole world over in those few months that they had been on earth and none of them had ever gotten lost. He glanced over at WuFei and pouted, muttering something under his breathe.

"What?" WuFei tilted his head a little.

"I don't really have a sense of direction…" Heero repeated himself, this time loud enough for his friend to hear him. A slight blush colored his cheeks.

WuFei's head tilted even more. "How can that be?" he questioned in disbelief. "It's much easier to get lost in space and you've never gotten lost before!"

It took a moment and much hesitation on his behalf, but Heero finally answered. "I always relied on GPS systems to get around."

The answer was so simple and honest that WuFei was nearly floored by it. Was Heero really telling him the truth? He had to be. He practically looked like a lost child at the moment. The perfect soldier seemed to have a huge flaw that no one ever noticed.

Heero narrowed his eyes at his traveling companion. "Colonies don't have compass points," he began, the red in his cheeks had extended to his ears as well. "There is no North or South or East or West up there! And every time I was on earth I relied heavily on my GPS."

WuFei tried hard not to laugh. This simple notion of Heero relying so much on gadgets to orient him didn't suit the image of the perfect soldier that everyone had come to know. He watched as Heero turned on his heels and was about to march off angrily. "The castle-town is that way," WuFei stopped him and gestured in the opposite direction, to the other side of the valley.

Heero looked back at the Chinese man and then across the valley. He nodded softly and began down the road leading into the valley below.

WuFei chuckled to himself as he caught up to the ex-pilot. "I won't tell anyone," he reassured.

"Thank you," Heero responded sheepishly. He was much more embarrassed then WuFei could possibly ever imagine. Plugging coordinates into computers and letting the machines do all the work had left him utterly useless in this current situation. He was completely ashamed of himself. Even so, WuFei didn't seem to mind and offered to teach him what he knew about compass directions. Heero modestly accepted.

And so the two began their trip once more with a much clearer destination set before them. This small exchange had strengthened their friendship and understanding of one another.

A/N: heehheheee... Just like Heero, I'm starting to feel ashamed that I'm so bad about updating. I'll keep trying.

On a side note, I fixed grammar and sentence structure to previous chapters (if anyone even cares to reread them... or maybe you will because you can't remember what I've written so long ago). Also fixed up the other short GundamW stories that I have. Now, to continue to pound out the details of this nonsensical story.