Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing

Blackness.

But it was peaceful.

Relena's eyes fluttered open to find the darkness. Weightlessness. Nothing.

Taking a breath, she tried to focus as she saw him appearing in the space. He was in front of her and coming closer.

She could feel the warmth of his hands as they enveloped hers. She smiled up, into his deep, midnight blues.

"Relena," he said in a soft baritone.

She wanted to speak, but had no words for the peace in her soul she looked up to him.

Slowly, in the distance, a box came into view. She looked over his shoulder as it drew near. Gravity slowly seemed to be, giving her the ability to walk.

Touching Heero for assurance, she stepped past him to investigate. The box was a coffin. The lid was opened. The female inside was just a girl. The corpse looked almost gleeful as she lay in her final rest, golden hair engulfing her in the box, cushioning her sleeping form in natural, loose curls. Slowly the child opened her azure blue eyes and looked up at Relena, still smiling.

Relena looked upon her younger self, lying dead in her resting place, and smiled back.

The peace faded into nothingness. Studying the sleeping beauty, Relena felt no emotion. She was not happy. She was not sad. She was emotionless and detached.

The nothingness began to light up with the flashing of nearby cameras. Looking around, Relena realized they were at her school in Newport City. The coffin sat, open, on the platform of the conference hall. Burgundy curtains draped the lining of the polished wooden stage. The media swarmed at their feet, hungry for a glimpse of the dead princess.

Slowly they became aware of her presence, turning the cameras onto the adult Relena with indistinguishable questions and prods.

The light of the cameras hurt Relena's eyes, making her look up and away. Above she saw a bird flying; its chest was yellow and its back and wings were white and grey, speckled with black marks. Suddenly, the bird gave up flight, diving and crashing at Relena's feet.

Heero's form came back to life, picking up the fragile thing with an expressionless stare. "A lark," he said dryly.

The sight of the dead bird brought feeling back, filling her with panic and fear. She was gasping for air, unable to feel it refreshing her lungs. The pounding of her heart stung in her burning chest as a very real feeling anxiety attack engulfed her.

She tried to ask what had happened, but when she moved her lips, she had no voice.

Tears welled in her eyes.

The reporters continued to bombard her, bringing her attention down to them as they pressed her. The chairs and walls had disappeared. The hordes were crowding at her feet, and behind them the nothingness had become a grey, cold, wintery cemetery.

The lights grew brighter, like a spotlight, so she could only focus on herself for a moment.

And then she realized.

Relena stood naked before the masses, with light coming from seemingly everywhere. She reached to cover her breasts, only to find they were gone. There was nothing but a large, ugly scar.

In a panic, she turned back to Heero, but he would not face her.

Finally she found her voice. "WHY WON'T YOU LOOK AT ME?" She screamed.

After several moments, he turned stoically, and looked her over. "You're beautiful," he said softly, and turned away, again, with a look of disgust on his face.

"Beautiful?" She rasped out.

He was lying. A cold knife of betrayal ran through her heart.

"Beautiful?" She asked, again, backing away from him. "Beauti—"

Suddenly, her foot was not on the solid floor. There was no floor; nor was there weightlessness.

She was falling.

Panic.

:::

Relena jolted in the bed, nauseated with the terror that ran through her body in tremors.

As her eyes focused in the darkness, she slowly regained her awareness. She was in Duo's guestroom.

Relena sighed, allowing her body to relax as she reached to cover her naked breasts. They were still there.

It was just a dream.

She buried the fingers of her left hand in her hair, using her right to cover herself. She was bare from the lovemaking. The thoughts of Heero softened her heart as she felt his warmth at her back.

He must still be asleep, she thought.

Her right hand cupped her left breast, her fingers running over the small lump on the outside. Her sigh was nearly a whimper as the heartbreak began to resurface.

Relena's breath caught when she felt Heero's arm move up from around her waist, purposefully gliding across her own, and interlacing his fingers with hers. She expected him to pull back on her hand, closing his own around it; but instead he mimicked her motions, feeling the side of her breast. His fingers hesitated over the growth, showing recognition. His touch was more gentle than any she had ever known. She almost wondered if she'd imagined him there.

Relena closed her eyes, fighting the emotions.

"Does it hurt?" He asked softly.

"Not physically," she answered in a shaky whisper. She opened her eyes, again, as warm tears fell down, across the bridge of her nose, trickling across her temple. "Not yet, anyway," she clarified.

Heero adjusted, pulling himself closer, so he leaned over her, protectively. "It won't change the way I feel about you," he tried to assure her.

Relena turned further from him, hiding her face in her hair. "You don't know that," she argued, breaking into sobs. Heero did his best to silently console her, but the more she thought about it, the angrier she became.

"They're going to cut me, Heero. They're going to cut it out. As much as they want. All of it, maybe," she said, as she lifted herself up, into a sitting position, allowing the blankets that barely covered her to fall of her naked body, and pool at her ankles. She refused to look at him as she opened her fears before him.

Heero waited quietly, looking up at her and listening.

"How can you really believe you'll still find me attractive? I won't—I'll never be the same. I'll never look the same."

His face gave away nothing when she did look at him. His eyes were on her face, statuesque, but soft. His hand gently ran up and down her right leg, occasionally pausing at her knee, where his thumb massaged the smooth skin, memorizing the feel of it, under the pad of his finger.

"Even if they try to replace it, after, there will be this huge scar. I'll look—hideous."

Heero almost flinched at the sound of her words. He couldn't imagine how she could think that something like this could ever change his view of her. Yes, she was beautiful, but he knew that his love for her would keep her beautiful until she died; whether of illness or old age. She would always be an angel.

"And then you know what they're going to do?" Her voice was tired and weak as the tears slowed, again. "They're going to poison me, Heero. They're going to poison me, to try to kill whatever's left of the disease."

Heero took a deep breath, giving the only outward sign of his lack of comfort with the statement.

"'Treatment'," she said. "That's what they call it. Chemo. Radiation. Poison. And do you know what it will do to me, Heero?

"All of my hair will fall out. I'll be sick. So sick. All the time. And bald. Can you really find me beautiful without my hair?"

She turned away, the anger growing heavier and she stumbled through the words. "It'll destroy me. It'll destroy my body, one system at a time. I'll never have ch—" She choked as the sobs wracked her body, again. "I'll never have children. I'm twenty-two. And I'll never have children."

She was shivering from the coldness inside her. "If you love me, Heero, you will never be a father."

Fear and pain met with anger, deep inside her heart, and it created a violent storm of emotions she couldn't suppress, anymore. As her body grew weaker from the tempest of feelings, Relena slowly collapsed around herself, wailing as she curled into a ball in Heero's arms. "How can you say you'll still love me?" She asked in a small, weak voice.

Heero cradled her into his chest, bringing the covers back up and over her. Underneath the blankets, he rubbed his hands up and down her arms and back to create friction. He knew she was trembling from the emotion, but he knew she felt cold, also, so he would tend to the wounds he could reach.

"I will always love you, Relena. No matter what," he said calmly, pulling her against him, as she finally drifted back into a restless sleep.