Disclaimer: I make no financial profit from writing and the Gundam Wing characters do not belong to me.

A/N: Many thanks to K.S. and Dyna for never giving up, and to Snow for letting me play in her sandbox.

Apologies for the delay in updates; moving across the world has been more time-consuming than originally anticipated, but we are definitely on the home stretch now.

Chapter 96 – All Change:

Once Trowa had left, the next couple of months were all about goodbyes.

Relena and Dorothy flew back to Sanque a week later, after 'Lena had attended an emergency round of meetings at the ESUN. L4's attempt at secession; the threat of other colonies, even countries on Earth, following their example in the future, and the level of support they'd received, had raised all sorts of issues.

So far, there were just talks going on, but it seemed likely that it would end up with the colonies being granted a very limited measure of autonomy as regards taxation and budgets. It wasn't much but it was a start; more than they had ever had before. It laid the groundwork for more in the future.

Then there were the kids. They'd spent a couple of short trips at their grandparents' home and come back smiling. Gemma had been bubbling happily about the two pet collies and her grandmother's craft room and home-made cup-cakes. Nat hadn't said all that much, but he'd liked the dogs, and his grandfather had taken him fishing and boating on a local lake and they'd cooked their catch over an open fire. Lily still wasn't saying anything, but she'd drawn pictures of the trips, full of bright colours and even her flowers had smiley faces.

The family was eager to have them there full-time; they'd arranged for therapists, and for tutors to coach them during the summer, before going back to school in the fall. The social worker was full of praise for all the arrangements.

I did take Nat out for dinner one evening, when the others were watching a movie, just to make sure he was OK with everything, and felt just a tiny pang that he so obviously was. Ridiculous; they hadn't even known me for long and for most of that time, I'd been shunting them off to other people. At fourteen, if I'd been offered a home with a kind family, I'd have taken it like a shot.

He was still keen on becoming a pilot, or maybe a vet or a marine biologist, and was grudgingly starting to accept that he'd need an education for any of them, although it was pretty obvious that he wasn't too keen on the idea of school itself. I totally understood.

'You'll manage, you know,' I told him through a mouthful of ice-cream. 'It won't be easy, but you're a survivor. You're tough. I know that. And some of it might be fun. You'll have a chance to make new friends.' Friends who wouldn't end up getting shot in front of him. 'Maybe a nice girlfriend. Boyfriend. Whatever.'

He flushed darkly. 'Fuck off, Duo.'

'Language,' I leaned over and rapped his knuckles with my spoon, feeling like a bit of a hypocrite. 'Listen. I know how it's been for you; it's not always like that. One day, you'll meet someone and they'll show you.'

He shrugged and nodded and obviously didn't believe a word and I hadn't pushed it. At his age, I wouldn't have believed it either. It was something for him to think about, though.

We'd talked about it and decided we didn't want some huge goodbye scene, that it would be better to do things just the way they'd happened on their short visits, that the kids would be escorted by their social worker, who they'd got to know pretty well. We wouldn't make that big a deal of it. There was a quick round of hugs and a last minute rush back inside to find Lily's new teddy bear, and then the book Nat was reading, and then Gemma jumped back out of the car to give Zechs her latest drawing, and by then they were running late for the flight, so they had to rush off.

That was that. I mumbled something about something or other and mooched down the drive, half-expecting them to come racing back for some other precious object that had been forgotten.

Fuck.

It was midday and hot and I went and stood in the shade of one of the massive trees lining the embassy driveway. Wufei'd told me some long, incoherent story about cutting one of them down, but it hadn't made a lot of sense, and at the end he'd just blushed and taken off, rather abruptly, to find Zechs.

I was picking at bits of tree bark with a fingernail, when Wufei himself materialised.

'You're not supposed to do that. It's bad for the tree.'

'Yeah? At least I'm not taking a chainsaw to the thing. That'd probably be bad for it too. So.'

Wufei leaned comfortably against the sun-warmed tree-trunk and looked at me. 'So. We knew this was going to be horrible.'

'Yeah. I just wish….I knew for sure that this is the right thing for them.'

'The relations seem like nice people.'

'I guess. I just keep thinking that they have this idea that it'll just take a couple of weeks of bedtime stories and home-made cookies and they'll be normal, happy kids and they'll forget about everything bad that happened. That's not how it works.'

'I know. But children are resilient, and the family means well. If you'd wanted custody, it would have meant an interminable court case, and the children would probably have ended up being appointed wards of court, and assigned to a foster family for an unknowable amount of time. Would that have been better, really?'

'I guess not.' I sighed, hooking my fingernail under a long, curling ribbon of tree bark until Wufei slapped my hand away. 'I thought I was OK with all of this, that it was the best thing, but now I've lost them and I don't know anymore.'

The grandparents had called that morning, while we were at breakfast; they'd spoken briefly to the kids and then asked to speak to me. The grandmother had thanked me for everything and invited me to visit; it sounded polite rather than heartfelt and it wasn't hard to work out that she'd be happy never to see me again, that I would always be a reminder of what her grandchildren had suffered.

'Heero said I would probably have had a case, if I'd wanted. That we could have given them a home. I don't know…maybe I should have at least tried.'

'Oh, Duo.' He shook his head. 'I think you did the right thing for the children. I think it was right for your relationship with Heero.'

'Maybe.'

Yeah, definitely. I got that, really. We had ourselves to start out; that would enough of a challenge without throwing three kids into the mix. But …if Heero hadn't been in the picture, the guys and I could have taken them home and…it would have worked. I was pretty damn sure of that.

'You're right.' I plastered on a smile, knowing how fake it must look. 'Come on. Let's get back before I destroy this damn tree with one finger.'

The hardest thing, really, was saying goodbye to Wufei and Zechs, two weeks later. They'd wanted me to fly home with them, something that would have made perfect sense, really. I had things I needed to ship to Italy. I had my car. A glasshouse full of orchids. Friends I hadn't seen for months.

I'd originally planned to do just that, and ended up changing my mind as a bit of a last minute thing, a couple of days before we - they – were due to leave.

I couldn't elaborate exactly why. Just vague ideas that it might be nice for them to get some time alone, as a couple, now they were engaged or married or whatever they were calling it, and that I'd have to take the plunge sometime and officially move in with Heero.

They'd hired a jet, which gave us access to a nice private lounge to say our goodbyes. Wouldn't want to upstage Quat and Tro's big farewell scene in front of anyone else, not after the media had shelled out a fortune to some college kid who'd snapped a little video of that very public kiss.

I got the usual full-on body hug from Zechs, something he made a habit of doing in Heero's presence, as often as possible.

'So, when we finally get around to having an actual wedding, you're happy to give him away?'

'Never going to give him away,' I muttered. 'Might consider some sort of semi-permanent loan arrangement.'

'Joint custody?' Zechs sounded amused at the idea.

'Something like that.' I turned away and came face to face with Wufei. My friend. 'Oh. Shit.'

'We are not saying goodbye,' Wufei said firmly. 'You are coming to us soon, yes?'

'Yeah. Really.'

'Right.' He gave me a clipped little nod and turned on his heel.

I watched them walk away from me, took a deep breath and looked around for Heero. Very self-effacing when he wanted to be, Heero Yuy. He was standing a few metres away, pretending to read a flight schedule, but sneaking glances at me every so often. I knew I just had to give one sign for him to be at my side; instead, I walked over to him.

We waited, not speaking much, until they'd taken off. Right. That was it then.

'Let's go…' I didn't finish the sentence. Heero's house wasn't home, wasn't anywhere near it. Home was where 'Fei and Zechs were headed, not me.

He just nodded, fell into step beside me as we headed to the parking lot.

'Where to?' He didn't ask until we were both in the car.

'Your place, I guess.' It sounded kind of grudging, and I smiled, trying to soften it, not sure if it worked at all. Damn. Instead, I looked out of the window; advertisements for tours and hotels and car hire firms. Oh.

'I was thinking, I should look into hiring a car. For a bit anyway. I'll need transport.'

'Yes, of course.' I was just a teeny bit surprised by his easy assent; he was still twitchy about me going anywhere near public transport, and I'd had visions of him wanting me to get me a missile-proof car, and a Preventers driver. 'You can borrow mine whenever you like, though. I can walk to work.' He stopped at the car park barrier, and handed over his parking ticket. 'Have you thought at all about having your car shipped over?'

'Um. Yeah. I was thinking, I might wait a bit. I mean, I'll be going to visit them soon, probably. I'll need a car; you have no idea, where we live, it's totally out in the wilderness. Once I'm there, I can look at shipping companies and whatever, and arrange it myself. It's a pretty special car, I don't want to rely on some guys I've found on the internet or whatever.'

He nodded, accepting that. It was true, sort of. Just….if this didn't work out, I wanted to be easily able to leave, with a couple of bags. That was practical. I didn't want my lovely car ricocheting back and forth across the Atlantic.

'Of course.' He took one hand off the wheel, dipped in his pocket, and handed me a slip of paper, a computer print-out.

It was a return ticket to Toronto, open-ended.

'Heero? What's this?'

He kept his eyes, very fixedly, on the steering wheel. 'Duo, this isn't always going to be easy. I know they're important to you and I know that you hate feeling trapped. If you need some space, or you just miss them, I want you to know that you can leave whenever you like. Just – don't run off on me, OK? Tell me.'

'OK.' I sat like a fool the entire journey back to his house feeling….pretty awful, actually, just holding the damn slip of paper.

My escape clause. He'd given it to me.

Heero got my stuff out of the boot when we arrived; something I'd kind of forgotten about. I'd finally got around to packing up my room at the embassy, deciding this would be as good a time as any to make the move permanent. Not that I had much to take, in any case. I'd done some shopping for essentials, but it all boiled down to a smallish holdall full of clothes and toiletries and a laptop bag.

It was .. like after the war. Heero and me moving into our first house with just the clothers we were in and a couple of backpacks holding a few spares and some weapons.

It should have felt, maybe like a homecoming. I'd been all but living with Heero for weeks. I had most of my stuff there already.

It should have felt like coming home.

It didn't.

This was going to be where I was living for the indefinite future. It was nice enough, really; a small, modern townhouse on a fairly quiet street.

Heero put down my bags as he rummaged for the key in his pocket. 'I feel I should be carrying you over the threshold,' he said, a little uncertain.

'That's for marriage, isn't it?' I bit my lip, another thing we hadn't discussed; the fact that I'd basically proposed and he'd accepted.

'I suppose.'

Neither of us said much as he put my bags down in the living room, me feeling pretty much as awkward as I'd ever felt with him.

It didn't help that we hadn't spent a lot of time together in the last few weeks. I'd been busy with the kids and then doing stuff with 'Fei and Zechs, and he'd been busy with Preventers and while I'd stayed at his place most nights, there hadn't been a whole lot of conversation.

Then there was a bit of madness as he opened the back door to let Honey inside and she rushed around sniffing the new bags and licking us both and whining for treats. Great ice-breakers, dogs are. By the time we'd calmed her down a little bit, we were both laughing, even if it was a wee bit forced, and then he got me backed against the kitchen door.

I kissed him back, hard, and then reached down to get a good feel of his ass, and then he swung me into his arms.

'Going to do the carrying thing after all, 'Ro?' I teased, nuzzling into that special spot beneath his left ear, and nearly making him drop me. We were both laughing, breathless, when he finally staggered up the stairs, into our happy ending.

Then his phone rang.

Yeah.

Preventers of course. I did get another kiss at as he put me down, but a fairly perfunctory one, and it was pretty obvious that his mind wasn't anywhere near me.

I watched him walk out the door; he turned to give a little wave and I darted forward and kissed the hell out of him.

Hah! That'd make sure his mind was fixed on me, and not on whatever Une wanted.

Bitch.

The bloody plague-carrying fly in the ointment.

Didn't matter, I decided, sitting down on the bottom step and petting Honey. Shit, though. this was it. Me, in an empty house, in a city, a country where I didn't know anyone. Couldn't even speak the language, apart from a few phrases I'd heard Zechs use, phases I couldn't use outside a brothel or I'd get myself locked up for indecency, and need Heero to break me out.

Didn't matter. I had Heero. We'd got the happy ending.

In the first month, I left him three times.