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CLASSIFIED/SECRET/FOUO

TO: Relena Darlian, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs

FROM: Office of the President

DATE: December 14, A. C. 202

SUBJECT: Mandatory Convalescent Leave

A request has been received from the Preventer Office of Physicians to alleviate your work load and prepare your office for an extended convalescent leave of absence.

The request has been approved by this office. Time required for medical recovery will be given with no further questions. Medical and leave related expenses will be routed directly to the Office of the President and handled by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Your physical and mental wellbeing are of the highest concern to me. No information is to be given out about your situation to anyone inside or outside of official government channels without a confirmed need to know. See that you take as much time as is necessary to get your work affairs in order, and then give all of your energy to your recovery. I send my kindest hopes and beg you to get well, soon. The people and I love you and only wish to see you living life to the fullest.

Signed

Charles S Erwin

Office of the President,

Earth Sphere Unified Nation

CLASSIFIED/SECRET/FOUO

:::

Relena looked at the memo, again, still unable to find words. She knew she should be grateful—relieved, even—but she only felt anger. How could they do this to her? For all intents and purposes, the President of the ESUN was relieving her of her duties! For a medical condition he didn't even know the specifics of, himself. The worst part was that though the tone seemed genuine on paper, she suspected there was only apathy for her mysterious diagnosis. There was no real compassion; just flattery and false piety.

What Sally had said was true. She had been neglecting her relationships for work. But why shouldn't she? It's not like she was a barista at a local café, or even a sales executive in advertising. She was the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was her job—née, her life—to maintain peace between the Earth and the Colonies. It was a gift entrusted to her by the most powerful men in the universe, when she was just a child, and she'd be damned if she didn't give their dream the nurturing and protection it deserved.

So here she was, six years later. Relena sighed, allowing the paper to float slowly from her fingertips to the polished mahogany of the antique desk below. The memo cloaked itself in the afternoon shadows of Relena's private home office as it settled. The politician shook her head and turned back to the setting sun, folding her hands across her elbows, back straight as she took in the view. With a heavy sigh she closed her eyes in contemplation.

Over the last several days, Relena had found the time to settle on exactly how she felt about her situation. Frankly, it felt like an annoyance. Facing the threat of death was nothing new, and she was ready to begin the process of treating the issue, so she could get back to work. This thing couldn't actually kill her, as far as she was concerned, and there was no point in everyone fussing over it. She really just felt like if she ignored it, it would finally go away.

It was a good thing that everyone involved was keeping it so quiet, though. The down side to having neglected her friendships was that she really dreaded her friends fretting over her, especially when she was actually dealing with something. They loved her, and she knew they meant well, but she had become such an introverted person that she had nothing but anxiety for the idea of face to face connections. It had become so obvious in recent months that when she did speak with Duo and Hilde last, they spent an hour and a half explaining in great detail how she'd become like Heero Yuy, her wartime flame.

Heero was an enigma. He was a shadow, passing through the night. A hero, invincible and immortal, defeating the hosts of hell in close quarters combat. He was everything that set her on fire, and the icy incarnation of her loneliness. Heero was once her dream, he became her guardian angel, and he was now a haunting apparition of memory that made a silent cameo in her busy life once every several months. But he was the one she loved.

She sighed heavily, trying to release her thoughts of him back into the night. "Heero," she whispered as she finally opened her eyes.

As if to answer the nearly silent call, a ghost stepped up next to her from the empty room. He stood outside her peripheral vision, he never said a word, but his presence made the hair the back of her neck stand on end.

Normally, Relena would have sighed happily, basking in his company, but her temperament had turned coarse in the last week. "Long time no see," she bit out.

Heero turned his Prussian blue eyes on her with a hungry curiosity. He opened his mouth to ask something, but thinking better of it, he sealed his lips, again.

Relena's eyes darted to him, her eyebrows knit in frustration. For a moment she looked on him with anger she'd never allowed herself to show him, and then she realized how foreign the feeling really was. Anger for Heero.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, wiping her face of the pointless emotion. "I didn't mean—" Her voice trailed off.

"Hn," he grunted, once he was sure she wouldn't complete the sentence. He turned his eyes back out to the finishing sunset.

Relena looked up at him for several quiet moments. Her eyes twinkled with anticipation, as though she'd expected him to speak, but she knew there was nothing, yet to say. Any conversation between them would have to be started and stoked by her. Her fingers tingled with an urge to touch him, but she fought the thought away with practiced discipline.

Relena smiled as she took in his profile. He'd grown taller in the years they'd known each other. His shoulders and chest had filled out. Where she once had looked level at a boy who had no direction or hope, she now looked up to see a man who seemed to have all the answers. His chestnut hair fell just as messily as ever over his dark blue eyes. His dark, Japanese skin glistened in the golden dusk light. But as every time before, he was still.

Finally she sighed in defeat, dropping her head and turning back to the now blue sky of early evening.

When her attention turned off of him, Heero's eyes narrowed, scanning her up and down methodically, before he turned to the desk. She was very upset about something, and it hadn't slipped past him.

Relena's ears perked at the sound of his rough fingers getting a grip on the paper that lay on the table. She spun and snatched the sheet from him. "That's classified," she scolded.

When his gaze turned back on her, he emitted annoyance. "That's never been a problem for me, before."

"Did you see anything?"

"No," he lied.

Relena folded the paper in half, creasing it in the center, as her phone started to ring. She gave him a warning glance as she sank into her seat and picked up the phone. "Vice Foreign Minister Darlian speaking."

"Relena? It's Sally." There was a pregnant pause. "You told me just to call when I get the information—"

Relena scanned Heero, again, unconsciously lowering her voice. "Yes?"

"Honey, the cancer is Stage 2."

"What does that mean?"

Heero held eye contact, willingly showing her his interest in the information. He didn't like her attitude, today, but her obvious desire to keep a secret from him put him in a much more emotionally compromising situation than he was used to.

"That's not good, Relena, but it's not the worst. The cancer is localized to your left breast, but it won't stay there forever."

"So," Relena said, choosing her words carefully, as she continued to focus on the powerful midnight blue eyes watching her. "What's the plan?"

There was a long silence on the phone, as Sally hesitated to speak. "Relena—this means surgery."

"Um—" She swallowed, and her eyes finally shifted with the ache in her heart. "Like—?"

"It won't stay a secret, once we start treatment. We have to remove the corrupted tissue."

"So the—?"

There was another moment of quiet as it sank in. "Yes, Relena. I'm sorry."

Relena's gaze fell low, looking through Heero. Her head hung, allowing her golden bangs to obscure her features as she chewed on her bottom lip. This was not something she'd ever seen in her future. "Is there another way?" She pleaded in a weak whisper.

"No, baby."

Relena closed her eyes and nodded, as though Sally could see her. "Okay," she said in that same weak whisper. Upon hearing her own defeated voice, she cleared her throat and tried, again. "I understand."

"Relena?"

"Yes?"

"As your doctor and your friend, I think you should take a little bit of time off before we start treatment. You'll have a much better chance of recovery if you have—support."

"Pardon?"

"Relena. Go spend time with the people you love."

Relena's head lifted at the order, and she eyed the stoic soldier she worshipped, again.

"You don't have to tell them, yet. Just—see them. They miss you. We all miss you."

"I—understand," she finally replied. She took another steeling breath, meeting Heero's stare with a powerful resolve of her own, as she hung the phone up.

"Who was that?" He pressed.

"No one." She tucked the classified memo into her purse and started toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

"My bedroom."

"Why?"

"To pack."

"Pack for where?"

Relena stopped in the doorway with her back to him. She thought for a moment, then rolled her shoulders back. "It doesn't matter," she answered softly.

Heero watched the young woman disappear into the hall. Once she was out of earshot, he settled at her chair, searching her desk, call logs and hacking her computer. He only got a few words off of the paper before she snatched it away, and there were two words he needed to know more about.

Convalescent Leave

Relena was hiding a sickness, and he was going to get to the bottom of it.

A/N: I'm sincerely not being cold toward the victims of this disease; I'm just trying to write in the concept of denial. I hope it's tracking. :-) LMK what you think!
PS, I changed something. If you don't know what, don't worry about it.