A/N: Thank you to everyone who is still following this story, I know I have been erratic about updates, it means the world to me. Here's an exceptionally long chapter. It didn't mean for it to be quite this long but there didn't seem to be any natural breaking points in the plot. Don't worry, they won't all been this long.
The Wilderness
Relena's relationship with fame was not a new one. Even before the events of the war, she had some notoriety for being the daughter of the Vice Foreign Minister of the United Earth Sphere Alliance. She began to understand and fully take on the weight of her public persona after his death, which culminated with her as the chief representative of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation, in the guise of Queen Relena. Perhaps, it was the intoxicating fervency of the war, or perhaps it was simply due to her youth and naïvety, but to Relena, fame never seemed to bother her in those days. It was a secondary, perhaps even tertiary, concern. So despite her privileged upbringing, despite her time as Queen, despite her actual royal lineage, there was something different about her fame rearing its head this time around.
Perhaps, it was because she was invited to, no, sent for by her mother Mareen, lunch in Paris the very next day.
There was something uniquely uncomfortable about the experience of sitting in a stately restaurant across from her mother the day after making the loudest statement she has ever made to the world. She may have commanded the attention of the world and faced down dictators and tyrants, but nothing quite compared to a sternly punctuated text message where the from line read Mother.
The clinking of silverware was the most audible noise that could be heard between the two as Relena waited silently in her seat, back straight, chin up, forearms resting against the table; her mind panicking as she mentally reminded herself of the rules of etiquette that in all other instances would have been second nature. Her mother's silence unnerved her more than all of the chaos of battle and all the criticisms that regularly came her way from the world of politics. There was nothing that made her feel more like a naughty child than the deafening silence of her mother at a dining table.
The waiter came by and refilled both their glasses. Mareen did not acknowledge the waiter's presence. Relena merely looked up and smiled timidly. The waiter replied simply with a pair of raised eyebrows, apparently fully aware of the daunting ordeal that was dining with a parent.
"Lovely Mass." Relena decided to break the silence first.
Although, it was probably the worst opening she could've come up with. If there was anything worse than talking about her recent media entanglements, it was her age old battle with her mother over her church attendance.
Mareen said nothing.
Relena sighed and continued to pick at her food. What was she thinking? If there was one point of tension between them that ran deeper than their difference of opinions about public presentation, it was religion. It wasn't that Relena was anti-religious, quite to the contrary, she felt that the power of faith and the love of God, when put to good use, could be and one of the strongest pillars to peace and the firmest foundations for society. She just wasn't very good at the church thing herself. In her youth, she dreaded Sunday mornings, the uncomfortable dresses, the tight fitting shoes, the solemn songs that she could never sing or understand, the ceaseless wave of old people that seemed to always envelop her, not to mention the creepy gargoyles that seemed to watch over her from the arches above.
"You were late," Mareen finally said as she took a sip of her coffee.
"Well, it is a Sunday morning after all, I've had a busy weekend," Relena said, mounting a half-hearted defense.
She had indeed arrived a couple of minutes late, and despite her best efforts, made a somewhat loud and rather clumsy entrance. Luckily, the bishop recognized her and gave her a welcoming smile, forgiving her for her momentary disruptions. She acted appropriately for the rest of the mass and did as little as she could to draw any attention her way. Afterwards, she stayed behind, while her mother chatted briefly with the other parishioners, always playing the part of dutiful daughter and never confident diplomat.
"Evidently," Mareen replied.
"Will you just come out with it," Relena said as she leaned back against her chair. She had finally had enough. "I'm a bit old for the silent scolding don't you think?"
"Well that depends, you haven't been acting like it lately," Mareen said, unphased by the girl's sudden rush of vitality. "Your little charade in Parliament, that little stunt at Winner House, and then to top it all off… Vogue?"
"I thought you'd approve," Relena said.
"Fifteen years old, my dear." Mareen's voice suddenly stiffened and a familiar dread overtook Relena. "I've been trying to get you to do that profile, since you were fifteen years old. At first you thought it was stupid and antiquated. So I said okay; I wasn't going to make you do it. And then you were too busy, and I understood; the war did make things like being presented seem rather trivial. And then you said it was in poor taste, and thought of doing the interview right after the Armistice did seem a little gauche."
"Well, I'm sorry I didn't call you beforehand," Relena said apologetically.
"At least you represented your father well," Mareen said with equal parts condescension and genuine nostalgia.
"It's a little insulting that you would think I would do anything else."
'It was a little insulting to find out about it by watching it off one of the d'Amboise sisters' phones to say the least." Her voice stiffened once again.
"I never understood why you still associate with those people," Relena countered.
She couldn't help it. It didn't matter that she had made it through the war and played an indispensable role in its resolution. It didn't matter that she was one of the foremost statesmen of her time. It didn't matter that she was holding down a full time job while attending university. It didn't matter that she was all that the world could talk about at that moment. This was their pattern, this was their way. Timeless and annoyingly so, she was the petulant daughter to her mother's domineering overseer.
"Contrary to what you believe, society still matters, good breeding still matters, manners matter," Mareen replied.
It wasn't that Mareen was cruel. Quite the opposite, she cared and supported Relena and was the one that kept her from falling apart after the death of her father. But she was a woman of standards, and much of Relena's effortless grace and charm, was due to Mareen's efforts. And after the war, their relationship only matured and deepened.
"I think you're conflating grace with snobbishness again," Relena said.
They just bickered a lot.
"It's fine, I understand." Mareen relented as she took another sip of her coffee. "You're all grown up, you have a life now, you make your own decisions."
"Your tone is so convincing mother. You can barely hear the judgement and disapproval," Relena said as she gave up the pretense and put her elbow on the table and rested her face on her gloved palm.
"It doesn't matter if I approve or not, I have no control over you anymore."
"You think I'm out of control," Relena said.
"A lady in possession of her wits would not be seen on the back of a motorcycle with a dress, if one could even call such a thing that, that barely covers her derriere."
There was a unique way in which Mareen seemed to express her disapproval that always maximized Relena's embarrassment.
"It wasn't like that, mother," Relena said meekly.
"Oh Relena, surely you know better. It doesn't matter what it was like, it only matters how it is going to be perceived, and you did yourself no favours by avoiding the question during the interview," Mareen said as she looked up at Relena once again.
"There are certain things about my life, about my job that I have to keep private," Relena replied.
"Oh, Heero Yuy is part of your job now, is he?" She raised one eyebrow quizzically as she took another sip of her coffee.
"How did you know?!"
"It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. Plus, Pagan called me the night he took you to the palace," Mareen replied simply.
"That traitor!"
"And they're going to find out, sooner or later." Mareen said matter-of-factly as she signalled for the waiter. "He's not exactly living off the grid is he? He's in all your classes, isn't that a little suspicious? How long until one of your classmates rats him out to the gossip rags?"
Once again, Mareen was one step ahead of Relena. As she had always been. What was more disheartening though was that this was exactly what Heero was afraid of.
"How long until he decides that he's had enough of your world?" Mareen pressed her advantage.
A brief but awkward silence took a hold of them as the waiter came by and refilled their cups.
"Are you two having sex?" Mareen asked once she was sure that the waiter had withdrawn.
"Mother!" Relena exclaimed a little too loudly. "Gross! Inappropriate! And no!"
"I was just asking," Mareen said nonchalantly as she poured cream into her coffee.
"Since when do you ask that?"
"Since you've turned 18," Mareen answered calmly as she blew gently on her coffee. "Since the war has ended and men are flocking to you in droves, it's a reasonable question."
"I can't believe we're having this conversation," Relena said, exasperated. She wasn't prepared for such a blunt line of questioning. This wasn't really something they had ever discussed before.
"Relena, you were just a sweet little girl before all of this began, but you aren't 15 anymore," she said, affecting a more nurturing motherly tone.
"Now I'm just an uncontrollable raging whore," Relena replied blithely.
"There's that sarcasm again."
"This is so not what I was expecting when you invited me for lunch," Relena said.
"Calm yourself, my dear," Mareen said. "It's sex, let's not be so dramatic."
"First of all, no, I didn't have sex with him, and second, why would you even think that?" Relena's leaned in and whispered.
"First of all, I invited you for lunch and you show up for mass, I thought I detected a little guilt," Relena's mother said. "And secondly, that boy Heero has always made you a little bit crazy. Thought it might've finally happened."
"Mother!"
"Relena…"
"How did you even know?" Relena whispered viciously. She couldn't manage to get her voice above a whisper at this point.
"Relena, did you really think you hid your feelings so well that I couldn't tell? I knew, the moment that you returned from the spaceport that day you found him, that something had changed," she said as she leaned back against her chair and folded her arms. "I understand the appeal of a bad boy like him. After years of socializing exclusively with the sons of aristocrats, diplomats, and Alliance statesmen. What could be more exciting than a boy from the wrong side of the stars, especially a Gundam pilot? He shows up at your school and a few weeks later there is a mobile suit battle in which he saves your life. That's a story straight out of one of those romance novels you used to love. You've been chasing him ever since."
That was masterful. Relena could always appreciate a good takedown, even if she was the victim. In some version of the her life story, it could be said that through the fires of war and her battles with the great men of the age she learned the craft of oratory. In another version, she simply got it from her mother.
Relena fell silent, her hands clenched her knife and fork. Her mind tried to expel her mother's words from her recent memory, but of course, it was to no avail. It was hard to ignore that version of events and she completely understood it from her mother's point of view. Teenage infatuation gone too far. The romance of dire consequences, a war that left their budding romance, unexplored and neglected. To her mother, it was all child's play. But she didn't know Heero, not like Relena did.
"He's not a bad person," Relena whimpered.
"No, I don't think he is. I believe he cares for you deeply, perhaps even loves you," Mareen replied frankly with no sense of remorse in her voice.
Relena knew what was coming,she looked up towards Mareen and for the first time during their entire exchange there appeared a true fire in her eyes.
"Don't say it," she warned.
"But he's not the one for you."
There was apart of him that wanted to take the easy way out and actually fall asleep for a few minutes. The fact that this was even a little challenging, proved to him that he was far out of practice. But then again, he had been suffering from chronic insomnia since the end of the war so maybe this shouldn't have been such a surprise.
The gentle rumbling of the car traveling on German roads was almost enough to cause his consciousness to drift. The blindfold over his eyes did not help either. Heero kept himself awake by counting the seconds and feeling the gentle turns of the car to mentally track where they were going. He and Duo hadn't slept since their mission briefing the day before. They were on a tight timeline. They were given a battery of test through the night as they were transported to a German Preventers training facility near Freiburg.
There, the tests continued as they were made to run 10 kilometers in the frigid air of an Olympic sized track in under half an hour. Afterwards, both of them were tested by the local Preventer master-at-arms to evaluate their hand to hand combat readiness. Duo took a big beating by the old sergeant, although not before getting a few good punches in, one even cracking the old man's tooth. Heero made it through, although not without some difficulty. The lack of sleep certainly didn't help. He mostly relied on his judo and jiu-jitsu techniques. After that, they had target practice in which both Duo and Heero scored exceptionally well despite fatigue and battle wounds from their earlier trials.
Saving the cognitive response test for after the physical ordeal, Heero and Duo were forced to memorize the layout of an approximation of the Lucio headquarters (all 60 floors) and answer a series of questions about the power, ventilation, and plumbing systems, before being asked to craft a hypothetical escape plan given a specific encounter at a specific point in the building.
The car came to an abrupt stop. Heero could hear Une and Hope getting out of the front the car and opening the doors for Duo and himself. His blindfold and handcuffs were removed. Duo got a couple of slaps from Hope to wake him up.
"Jesus, where are we?" Duo asked as he yawned and stretched out his arms.
"Preventers black site 003, former OZ Special Forces training camp 17, codename Nilfheim, on the northeastern edge of the Black Forest," Heero said.
"See, told you the blindfolds were unnecessary," Une said as she shot Hope a smug look.
"How did you know that?" Hope asked.
"Colonial intelligence prior to Operation Meteor made us aware of this facility," Heero answered.
"Great, more of this shit," Duo said as he rubbed his wrists.
"You pass this, you're home free," Hope said as she dropped two tiger stripe coloured backpacks, a pair of assault rifles, and a couple of magazines in front of Heero and Duo.
"This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I signed up for this mission. What's with all the brutal OZ training tactics?" Duo asked.
"From what I've read of your files, your training for Operation Meteor was far more extensive than this," Hope said with a slight smirk.
"Yeah, nothing more fun than going back to school," Duo said as he hoisted his backpack up and slung it over his shoulders.
"So what's the last test?" Heero asked as he picked up his backpack.
"The entirety of the training ground will act as hostile territory, it's crawling with armed sentries," Une explained. "The entire operational area is equipped with a mesh network of holographic emitters that will simulate the enemy combatants. Your task is reach the enemy base and retrieve the asset. There's some background information, and a map in your gear. Once you've retrieved the asset, head to the extraction point where we will be waiting. You have 10 hours to complete your mission."
"10 hours to extract one guy?" Duo asked in disbelief. "Piece of cake."
"You sure you can do this without your Gundam?" Hope asked.
"What are you implying?" Duo said as he reached for Hope.
Heero stiff armed Duo before he could grab Hope. "Shut up, let's go."
Heero and Duo picked up their guns and ammo and parted ways with Une and Hope. The ladies watched as the two young soldiers headed towards the derelict checkpoint that marked the entry into the training grounds. It was a brisk autumn day. It was a shame that they couldn't enjoy it more, but both Heero and Duo understood that time was a precious resource as was sunlight. There was a long fight ahead of them. Now, as it had ever been for them, there was no room for hesitation.
"He's right," Hope said as they watched the two young men move towards the treeline.
"What do you mean?" Une asked.
"Their scores were great," Hope answered. "This is excessive, all they need to do is infiltrate a building and plant a bug, they aren't going to war or anything."
The vastness of the German landscape loomed large over them. Heero and Duo were but a speck in the distance. But Une knew these young men, they were lions in their day. Forgotten by history, a choice and everyone of them made willingly and without hesitation. They had been trained well, taught that self-sacrifice was the ultimate virtue. She understood the impulse, that unfailing sense of honour, the dedication to a cause that no longer existed. She asked this of them, not for the sake of the mission but for their own sake. They needed to look at themselves, to understand what they had become and if they were ready for the road they were going down once again.
"For them, the war never ended. Trust me, they need this."
White marble walls flanked her on every side as she moved through the little boutique, fully aware of the fact that all eyes were on her. What else could she expect in that moment? But she tried not to let it get to her. In fact the close scrutiny and curiosity of anonymous faces was nothing compared to what she had just endured that morning. Dragging herself out of bed to go to church in a city two hours away, only to be sit through a torturous lunch with her disapproving mother was not the Sunday she had envisioned. She deserved this little shopping trip.
Still, she felt a little embarrassed about the shop attendant that the store insisted on providing her with. The poor girl followed Relena at a respectable distance as Relena meandered through the store looking at various things that caught her eye. Relena would point at an item of clothing and the girl would go into the back and fetch her the exact dress in her size and colour. There were a few other patrons in the store but none of them dared approach Relena.
Relena even tried on a couple of the dresses but the store staff was no help in helping her decide. Apparently everything looked amazing on her. She understood that they just didn't want to offend her but it was still a little frustrating nonetheless. In the end she just decided to buy everything. It made the store happy and there was bound to be something in that pile that genuinely looked good on her. She could sort through them later.
Relena waited at the door as two of her burly bodyguards in matching black suits stepped out of the store first. It was standard procedure and she was used to it by now. As soon as the door opened, Relena could hear a sudden chorus of screeching voices and camera shutters. They chanted her name over and over again. Her bodyguards formed a perimeter around her and forced their through the small crowd outside the store. Even still, it was a little overwhelming for Relena. She was used to protestors, reporters, and to some degree, the paparazzi. What she wasn't used to was this; a sea of obsessed fans, mostly preteens girls, just begging to be in her presence. Ultimately she relented and against the wishes of her security lead, she stood outside the store and signed some autographs and took some selfies with the girls.
"Can you make it out to your biggest fan?" Relena's hand immediately stopped and looked up. There she was, Dorothy looking powerful, beautiful, and smug, with a picture of Relena as Queen in her hand.
"Are you following me?" Relena asked as she moved on to sign the next girl's photo.
"It wasn't hard," Dorothy answered. "I just followed these kids around until they found you."
Relena shot Dorothy a knowing look before she returned to signing autographs for her actual fans. A few minutes later, Relena had managed to work her way through all of them. She was hoping that Dorothy would be gone by then. No such luck. Relena began to walk away with her entourage.
"You should be proud, you're a natural born celebrity," Dorothy said as she followed.
"I don't want to be a celebrity," Relena said.
"Relena, are you sure? You look so damn cute in those selfies!" Dorothy asked.
"Yes, I'm sure. The public scrutiny from political pundits is enough, I don't need the screaming adoration of preteen fans, that's too much to handle—" Relena stopped herself mid-sentence, as she realize what she was admitting to.
A mischievous grin appeared on Dorothy's face.
"You think you're so clever don't you?" Relena asked rhetorically.
"I do have my moments." Dorothy did not let her pride abate.
"Nice try, but you haven't convinced me yet," Relena said.
"Don't be a sore loser, Relena," Dorothy said. "It doesn't suit you."
"What's stopping me from promoting Augusta to Chief of Staff?" Relena suddenly stopped and spun around to look at Dorothy.
"Because she doesn't understand the political side of your work, she doesn't care about the terraformation project," Dorothy answered without hesitation.
"And you do?" Relena asked incredulously.
"Well, I care that you care about it, you're interests are my interests," Dorothy said as earnestly as she could manage.
"How comforting," Relena commented.
"I don't remember you being sarcastic, when did this happen?" Dorothy giggled.
Relena, Dorothy, and Relena's security detail made their way down the Champs-Élysées, occasionally stopping at random shops and going in. Relena was on a spending spree and felt no urge to stop. For a girl who effectively had infinite wealth, she spent very little time actually shopping, only going on wild indulgent spending sprees a couple of times a year. This was one such time. Relena did make an effort to indulge Dorothy's wild musings but found her thoughts wandering back to her conversation with her mother. Still, it was nice to have a companion with her even if it was Dorothy.
Eventually, after tiring of shopping, Relena and Dorothy found a small ice cream shop and decided to go in, order something, and take a rest. The shopkeep recognized Relena and insisted that she and Dorothy try out one of his signature creations. They were even kind enough to give each member of Relena's security detail an ice cream cone on the house but Relena insisted on paying.
"You don't give up easy, do you?" Relena leaned back against the chair, crossed her legs, and smoothed out her dress.
"Does that really sound like me?" Dorothy said as she licked her spoon.
"You know, I did always admire that stubborness of yours," Relena commented.
"Just say the word, and you can put my stubbornness towards your endeavours," Dorothy said.
Relena fell silent for a few moments. She looked directly at Dorothy, reading her the way she would read her political opponents. She examined her eyes, her posture, the rhythm of her breathing, the state of their hands. She was rock solid, but of course, Relena already knew that.
"Alright... tell me how I should go about this housing issue?" Relena asked.
Dorothy didn't immediately jump to answer Relena's question. Instead, she thought about it for a second, she considered the question carefully.
"You tackle it head on. You don't shy away from it. That signals weakness. But not in an official capacity, stepping on the toes of the city government and the court would not be wise," Dorothy finally said. "You show up to the refugee camps and hand out food, you meet with the community leaders, but you do it as a private citizen and not a representative of the World Government."
"What about the aristocracy?," Relena asked.
"What about the aristocracy, Relena?" Dorothy asked. "They are old and irrelevant, their power is waning, if you stand up to them, you become the champion of the people."
"Bold moves," Relena said, sounding rather impressed.
"Well, you haven't exactly been subtle as of late anyways," Dorothy said as she took another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.
The natural silence of the forest was what unnerved the two former child soldiers the most. They were used to battlefields, they were used to the howls of men in pain, the boom of bombs detonating around then, the violent rattle of machine guns, and the screeches of discharging beam weapons. This was the complete opposite of that. There was a serenity here, within the maze of ancient trees that cut the light of the sun into a million strands of perfectly straight rays of gold. There was an eerie sense of peace within the stones and creeks that were older than the evanescent memories of men.
Heero and Duo had been in the depths of the forest for the better part of an hour. So far they hadn't encountered a single hostile. Under any other circumstance, the natural beauty of the forest would've been enough to calm them. In the early days of Operation Meteor, though they were preoccupied with their mission, they both often found themselves in awe of the natural beauty of the Earth's biomes. Something that the colonies could only simulate with a modest degree of accuracy. But in the end, they found the misery and cruelty of the men who occupied the planet to be more powerful than the beauty of its natural environment.
But they hadn't slept in more than 24 hours and had just been put through the most arduous series of physical and mental tests they had endured in years and neither of them had the peace of mind to enjoy the natural majesty of the forest. They were on high alert, they were in battle mode.
A few moments later, Heero suddenly ducked down underneath a protruding root of a large elm tree. Duo quickly followed.
"Did you see that?" Heero whispered as he checked his gun.
Duo nodded.
"I'll lay down the suppressing fire," Heero said.
Duo pulled out his knife from his boot and moved towards the far edge of cover. He waited for Heero's signal. Heero popped out from behind cover and started to fire towards the top of the hill in front of them. Immediately the holographic soldiers saw him and returned fire. Heero ducked back into cover and looked over at Duo.
They silently counted down.
"Go!" Heero shouted as he popped out from cover and returned fire.
Duo sprang out from cover and swung wide and circled around the hill. Once in position, Duo waited and listened for the sound of gunfire and only moved when they were exchanging fire. He quickly sprinted his way up the hill and before the holographic guards could react, Duo put his knife to put of them, dropping the two of them immediately.
"Clear!" Duo shouted.
Heero popped out from cover and hopped over the root and made his way up to hill. He took a moment to look around and once he was satisfied that there were no more guards in the immediate vicinity, he went back for his backpack and continued to move.
"No, good job, Duo! No, that was some slick knife work Duo!" Duo sighed as he went back for his backpack.
"I'm not going to compliment you for doing your job," Heero said.
"For the record, this isn't my job," Duo said as he hoisted his backpack over his shoulders. "I just signed up to help. Some of us actually moved on."
Duo made his way over the top of the hill that they had just cleared and slid down the other side. At the foot of the hill, he found a small river blocking his path.
"Fuck, I hate this shit, the woods always confused the hell out of me," Duo said.
"I was told we all had the same training regimen for Operation Meteor, how did you not learn wilderness survival?," Heero said as soon as he slid down to the hill.
"That was three years of nonstop training, Heero," Duo said. "I spent most of that time avoiding the regimen. I cared about infiltration, demolitions, small arms, hand to hand combat, and mobile suit operations. That's it. I mean come on, some of that stuff was insane. Remember all that boring stuff they made us read? History of warfare? Combat theory? I mean, did you really learn to sword fight? How to hunt with a bow and arrow?"
Heero merely gave Duo his usual stoic stare before he turned around and started to follow the river upstream, presumably to see if he could find a crossing.
"Oh my god, it's so obvious," Duo said in shock. "How did I not see it before. You're a nerd."
The rustic details, both inside and out, of Mareen's apartment in Saint Germain-des-Prés had been immaculately restored within the last few years. Relena's mother had relocated to Paris after the Eve Wars. Still haunted by the memory of her late husband, Mareen found it difficult to keep living at Darlian House. With Relena having her own living arrangements between her permanent hotel room in Brussels, her townhouse in Vustgaarde, and the Peacecraft Royal Palace, Mareen found the large and empty mansion, once a place of love and warmth, too cold and gloomy.
Mareen came from a minor aristocratic family based out of Normandy. Marrying into the Darlian family was a huge achievement. Although her family was wealthy, they lacked the social and political connections to advance further in the ranks of society. In those days, under the careful watch of Romefeller, such things were heavily monitored and highly valued. She was lucky to have found Robert and even luckier that they fell in love and married in a time when marriage was primarily a tool for political advantage. Her in-laws, and Relena's paternal grandparents had always taken issue with Mareen's relative low rank and saw her as a social climber.
Mareen's move to Paris was largely due to her need to extricate herself from the internecine intrigues and conflicts of the former Romefeller families, of which the Darlians were still very much mired in. This however did not mean that Mareen was happy with Relena's fascination with the former Gundam pilot. She had some standards and there was never a shortage of aristocrats out there and she found those of her native France, who had largely resisted the influence of Romefeller to be much more agreeable.
The apartment was on the top floor of the building and although smaller than Darlian House, was still a formidable in its ability to impress. It's 4000 square feet of living area was large enough for Mareen to through the occasional society event, that with great effort, she managed to get Relena to make an appearance at least a couple of times a year.
Relena and Dorothy had moved their conversation from the ice cream shop back to Mareen's apartment so that Relena could drop off the spoils of her shopping rampage.
"It's not that it is unpopular. It's that people misunderstand it," Dorothy said as she took a sip from her wine. "The problem is that the terraformation project is out of the public eye."
Relena had invited Dorothy stay for a light dinner to further discuss her ideas if Relena were to take her on as her chief of staff. Mareen's personal chef made them a roast lamb.
"Two hundred years of continual Lagrange based colonization and people have gotten used to that as what colonies should be." Dorothy continued. "They forget that the Lagrange base colonies were meant to be a stepping stone towards the colonization of other planets."
"I understand the problem of public perception, but that doesn't help with my funding issue," Relena said.
"The fact that you can't get enough people to sign up for the first wave is a large part of why you are stuck in this continual budget fight," Dorothy said." Of course, the World Government can't shut down the project outright, it has too much symbolic value, but you're the only one what truly cares about this project anymore."
"What are you suggesting? That I abandon the project?" Relena asked as she poured herself more wine.
"No, it's your pet project, you can't abandon it." Dorothy shook her head. "And even if it weren't yours, it's a worthwhile endeavour."
"Thank you for saying that," Relena said.
"I mean it. With the end of the war and disarmament, the research and industrial sectors of the economy need a new focus, this is it," Dorothy said with a surprising amount of genuine enthusiasm.
"You mean, open up the project to the private sector," Relena said.
"You want to maintain peace?" Dorothy asked as if giving an ultimatum." Give the world something to work towards together. This way you don't have to have a knock-down-drag-out fight with the budget committee every year."
Relena thought about the idea for a moment. She understood that Dorothy was playing to her ideals, but that had always been her modus operandi. Still, despite the cheap rhetorical tricks, it wasn't a terrible idea. Right after the end of the war, there had been so much destruction and carnage that no private sector company was in any position to take on a gargantuan an endeavour like the Mars Terraformation Project. But things were changing and the economy was starting to recover. Perhaps a massive public works project like this could even act as a stimulus.
"It's actually not a bad idea," Relena finally said.
"Thank," Dorothy said cheekily.
Relena downs the rest of her wine in one big gulp. She closes her eyes and savours the taste. Slowly, she felt the stress of the last few days melt away.
"Alright, despite how it started, today was fun, and oddly productive," Relena said as she opened her eyes again. "Do you need a ride back to Brussels?"
"Relena," Dorothy said as she leaned in. "We're in Paris on the weekend after your exams…"
"What are you suggesting?" Relena asked, sounding equal parts suspicious and intrigued.
"I'm suggesting that we ditch the suits, put on one of the million dresses you bought today, and go have some fun."
Several hours after their first encounter, as they neared the facility that housed the asset, Heero and Duo began to encounter more and more enemy sentries. At first, the picked them off as stealthily as they could but as the frequency of encounters and the number of virtual hostiles increased, they abandoned their stealth approach and switched tactics to full on engagement. It was just as well as they were primarily trained for this kind of combat anyways. Just the two of them versus a seemingly endless onslaught of enemies, just like most of their battles during the war.
The safehouse sat at the top of a large hill and after a slow and steady approach, they could see it from their positions at the bottom. Luckily, the approach was heavily wooded and they had ample cover to allow them to inch their way towards the target. Fighting uphill was a definite disadvantage but their lack of numbers actually meant that they were relatively mobile and hard to track. Despite being trained to operate by themselves, their training instinctively kicked in and allowed them coordinate their movements.
"I forgot how fun this was," Duo shouted as he hid behind a large felled tree trunk. There was no point in being quiet anymore. The enemy was fully aware of their presence.
"Move up, I'll cover you," Heero shouted back as he jumped and laid down suppressing fire.
Duo popped and from his cover, threw a grenade into the enemy position while they were focused on Heero and ducked.
Three red dots disappeared in an instant as the two green dots slowly moved northward on separate but parallel tracks. Hope watched the abstraction of the battle deep within the forest on her tablet while Une sat beside her in their car reading a book. Hope was unnerved by the rapidity of their progress, the total number of neutralized hostiles, and the general lack of encumbrance the two operatives. They had sent the two into the forest hours earlier seemingly exhausted and dehydrated and yet none of that seemed to matter when it came to the moment of battle.
"This is disgusting. What if those were real people?" Hope whispered, still trying to process what the rapid disappearance of red dots on her screen would really look like if she were on the ground with them at that very moment.
"Well to be fair, we didn't specify exactly how they were to extract the asset," Une said as she turned the page of her book.
"They're psychopaths," Hope said.
"Efficient ones too ," Une added.
"How are you being so glib about all of this?" Hope turned and asked.
"Hope…" Une said as she closed her book and turned to look at Hope with an austere expression. "I know you entered the war late. Your family connections allowed you to immediately jump to officer, and I'm not saying the war wasn't real for you but those boys, they fought the war and this is what it was. To them there's no difference between killing men with assault rifles and killing them with their Gundams. They were bred for this."
"I'm starting to question if they can complete the mission without killing people," Hope wondered.
"They can," Une answered confidently.
"How are you so sure?" Hope asked.
"Let me ask you something, what do you think is the purpose of this exercise?"
Euphoria took hold Relena's of body and rendered her completely helpless to the whims of a new and wondrous experience. Her senses abandoned her completely. The deafening force of the music propelled her into a new state of consciousness as her perception struggled to make sense of her surroundings. The intense strobes and multi coloured lasers that pierced through the mass of bodies, played tricks with her eyes. She was in the furthest reaches of space, nebulas of brilliant colours circling around her, making her one with celestial harmony. She was in an derelict cathedral stained with the unknown saints in stained glass watching over her. She was in a orgy of young bodies, moving, gyrating, like an ocean in which she was only an infinitesimally small. She was there and in so many places all at once.
There was but one god here, and it was the music, and she, like everyone else, obey its commands unquestioningly. She moved her feet to the rhythm of the bass that rumbled through the very foundations of the club. She swung her hips and threw her hands up in the air with complete abandon. She danced with Dorothy. She danced with a young black girl. She danced with a tall and handsome stranger. She danced with anyone and everyone that the current of bodies threw her way. No one knew who she was, no one freaked out at the sight of her. To them, she was just a beautiful girl who knew how to fucking move.
Is this what youth was? Is this what she had been missing?
It could've only been twenty minutes, it could've been two hours, but eventually Dorothy grabbed Relena by the hand and dragged her out from the mob of people on the dance floor and made their to the bar. Relena was still in shock and took a few minutes to regain her senses. She was covered in a thin layer of sweat, that actually made her silver sequin dress noticeably heavier than it was at the beginning of the night.
Once she had a moment to catch her breath, Relena turned around in her barstool and shouted to the bartender, "two vodka martinis please!"
"Damn girl, who knew you could move like that," Dorothy said as she fanned herself with her hand.
"Can I tell you a secret?" Relena asked giddily. They already had a quite a few drinks in them. "When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a ballerina."
"Wow… that's so… you" Dorothy replied.
"I know," Relena said sounding a little embarrassed. "Dance was my passion. I thought I was going to be a dancer before… well you know, all of this."
"Relena, darling. Destiny has far bigger plans for you," Dorothy said as she leaned over.
"What did you want to be?" Relena asked.
"Combat Commander of OZ Space Forces," Dorothy answered as she picked up and took a sip of the drink that the bartender had just dropped off for the both of them.
"Yep, that totally sounds like you," Relena said sounding both unsurprised and a little disappointed.
Relena pulled out her phone and checked her messages. Nothing. She had been calling and leaving messages for Heero periodically the whole day. Out of a respect for her privacy or perhaps out of a sense of guilt, Dorothy pretended not to notice when Relena checked her phone in the middle of their earlier conversations but seeing Relena's expression change from pure ecstasy to a harsh disappointment, she finally decided to ask:
"Anything?"
"Nope, every time we get close, every time…" Relena's voice trailed off. "Whatever, he's a coward."
"Relena, give him time," Dorothy said in an uncharacteristically consoling voice.
"I just don't understand, things were going great." Relena's voice grew more and more frustrated. "I thought… I thought I had gotten through to him, maybe my mother was right."
"I may have said something to him…" Dorothy said, this time sounding a little nervous.
"What are you talking about?" Relena asked.
"Clear!" Duo shouted.
They had fought their way up to hill, killed dozens upon dozens of virtual soldiers, and finally fought and captured the house. They had run out of ammunition with their result rifles half way up the hill and had to resort to their sidearms and their knives. They had each taken a few bullets which with their simulation suits underneath their clothing provided a comparable amount of pain stimulation to real gun shot wounds. They were absolutely exhausted.
"There's no-one in here," Duo said as he wandered through the largely empty safehouse, "maybe we were too loud."
A little confused himself, Heero inspected the house and looked for something, anything to give them a sense of what they were suppose to do. They had assumed that they were supposed to rescue a hostage and retrieve document or a hard drive but the house was completely empty except for a little radio.
"Hmmm," Heero let out.
He knelt down beside the little radio, inspected the device to make sure it wasn't booby trapped before turning it on.
"This is Heero Yuy, reporting in," Heero said into the microphone.
Static. There was nothing but static for a few moments.
"Confirmed, well done, proceed to extraction," a familiar voice came through the radio.
She was beyond furious. It made her want to scream. Relena felt the sudden urge to punch Dorothy in the face. But she couldn't do that. She was Relena Peacecraft. So instead she ran, she ran as fast as and as far as her heels would carry her. She made her way through the packed dance floor and through one of the side exits of the cathedral into a dark alley.
"Relena, wait!" Dorothy shouted breathlessly as she caught up to Relena.
"What is your fucking problem?!" Relena shouted venomously as she turned to face Dorothy.
"I didn't think he would just disappear on you like that," Dorothy tried to explain.
"Right, because all signs pointed to him sticking around when you put that kind of self-doubt in his head," Relena continued to shout.
"Okay, first of all, I didn't put self-doubt into his head," Dorothy lashed back. "I asked him a question, and sure I may have done it in my own prickly way, but it was an honest question, and second, why the fuck would I be responsible for what he does? He's grown ass man! He can make his own damn decisions! Heero running out on you, has nothing to do with me!"
"You just have an answer to everything don't you? Little miss clever, always one step ahead of everyone else." Relena calmed herself and stepped forward, intentionally invading Dorothy's space.
"What's the matter? Afraid of a little competition, princess?" Dorothy responded in kind.
Slap!
Relena's hand stung from the impact. She didn't realize what she was doing until it had already been done. Dorothy was in shock. She did not see that coming.
She recomposed herself and turned to look at Relena. "Well... so much for total pacifism."
"You can forget about Chief of Staff," Relena said curtly.
A silence fell between them again as both women stood absolutely still, breathing heavily, and staring at each other. Perhaps this was inevitable. Perhaps it was always going to come to this. Relena and Dorothy had always been different, in their politics, in their ideals, in their personalities, even in their self-presentation. And yet, despite all of that, they somehow managed to co-exist for years without this kind of altercation. Perhaps, it was long overdue.
"Do you want to know why I did this?" Dorothy finally asked, breaking the silence between them. "Because you two are easy. You're so fucking easy. Sure, the war was real, and it loomed large. It loomed large over all of us. And maybe it wasn't the right time. But you two used it as a screen, as an excuse for not acting on your emotions. Because you two were scared, scared of how each of you made the other feel. So yeah, I messed with him and I messed with you. But let's be one hundred percent crystal fucking clear, I didn't ruin whatever was happening between you two. That… that was there all along."
Just as she finished speaking, Dorothy vomited.
Heero and Duo left behind the site of their most vicious and grueling battle since the end of Mariemaia's rebellion and continued their march westward through the forest. After failing to find the asset, Heero managed to make radio contact with Commander Une. Duo was still confused about what had just happened. And Heero did nothing to explain it. He just picked up his stuff and moved towards extraction.
"What the hell was all of that?" Duo asked impatiently as he tried to keep pace with Heero.
"A test," Heero answered simply.
"A test, what kind of sick test was that?" Duo persisted.
"I suspect that Une doesn't trust us to not kill anyone on our mission so she set up a mock-battle to get it out of our systems beforehand," Heero answered.
"And you're just okay with that?" Duo asked incredulously.
Heero suddenly stopped and turned around to look at Duo.
"What do you think we are? Do you think we were just normal soldiers? That we fought for honour, glory, perhaps to defend our homelands?" Heero asked.
"I fought for the freedom of the L2 colonies," Duo answered defiantly.
"No, you fought because you were told to fight," Heero said. "You fought because you were a child and someone put a gun in your hands and told you to shoot."
"I made my choices," Duo shot back.
"Yes, but you could've abandoned Operation Meteor all together. Instead, you took Deathscythe to Earth and fought OZ anyways," Heero said. "You couldn't leave it behind then, what makes you think you can leave it behind now?"
"We're not defined by our past actions, Heero. We can choose our futures, we can be better men," Duo said.
"Yeah? Then why are you here?" Heero asked.
"I'm here because I want to help."
"That must be comforting, to be able to lie to yourself like that," Heero said.
"Fuck you, Heero!" Duo threw a punch that almost knocked Heero over.
Perhaps, he knew this was coming or perhaps this is was his natural reaction to getting hit but Heero immediately countered with a punch of his own, knocking Duo to the ground. Duo dropped his bag, got up and tackled Heero to the ground. Heero wrapped his legs around Duo's upper torso, trapped one of his hands and flipped Duo over onto his back and proceeded to rain punches down onto Duo's face, immediately breaking his nose.
Duo reached towards his own boot and pulled out his knife and stabbed Heero in the leg, forcing him to release Duo. Duo took a few tries to get up. He wiped the blood from his nose and readied his knife. Heero got up, leaning his weight onto his unwounded leg and pulled out his own knife.
"I should've killed you when I had that chance, killed Relena too!" Duo shouted with rage.
Duo charged forward, aiming his knife for Heero's throat. Heero parried and counter attacked and jammed his knife into Duo's shoulder, giving him a brief moment to knock Duo's weapon out of his hand. Heero then proceeded to throw a flurry of punches at Duo, knocking him back.
"You know how many times, I could've killed you?" Heero said as he threw a kick into Duo's knee, causing him to collapse to the ground?
"Yeah, then why didn't you?" Duo's voice began to tremble.
"Because you were too pathetic! You weren't worth my time!" Heero grabbed Duo by the braid and kneed him in the face, fracturing his orbital bone.
Duo dropped to the ground. He tried to crawl away but Heero pinned him down and got on top of him. He through a couple more punches before pulling the knife jammed in Duo's shoulder out and put the blade against Duo's throat. Duo made no attempt to resist.
"Hilde left me!" Duo whispered as his trachea pressed against the blade, causing it to draw blood. "She moved out. She said I was a fuck up and that I will always be a fuck up! The worst part is, she's right… so just fucking do it already will ya?"
Heero pressed the knife deeper, Duo's blood pooled against the blade and his neck. Heero wanted to, for both his and Duo's sake. It would've been so easy. To end it all right there, in the middle of an unknown forest, forgotten by the world. A fitting end for warriors. The promise of their mission that they had been denied. But the moment passed and Heero's senses returned to him. He remembered the stories from his support group. He remembered the lessons that he had learned from those who had also survived. He remembered Relena.
Heero dropped the knife.
He got off of Duo and held out his hand. Duo grabbed his hand and before Heero could pull him up, Duo dragged him down to the ground, mounted Heero and returned the favour by dropping several hard elbows into Heero's eye.
After he felt that they were even. Duo got up and staggered off to his backpack and clumsily hoisted it over his uninjured.
"That's me. That's why I'm here. What are you running from?" Duo asked breathlessly.
Relena held Dorothy's hair as the poor girl emptied her stomach of all of its contents. The smell of hot ice cream, lamb, and vodka stank up the alleyway beside the cathedral. It was putrid. But at this point, it didn't bother Relena in the least. The night had been one of revelations and desolations, about Heero and about herself, and a little bit of stray puke on her heels was the least of her concerns.
"I'm sorry," Dorothy said in a moment between dry heaving.
"It's okay," Relena said, having finally calmed down. "I think I needed to hear that."
"What? Oh no," Dorothy said breathlessly. "I'm not sorry about what I said earlier, you definitely needed to hear that, I'm sorry about being a sloppy drunk."
"Oh right, well… yeah... You are a sloppy drunk."
Heero and Duo limped their way to the extraction site where Une and Hope were waiting with the car. By the time they reached the car they could barely stand. They had torn the sleeves off of their fatigues to make temporary tourniquets for themselves to slow the bleeding from their self-inflicted knife wounds. But despite their physical damage, Une could immediately see a sense of relief in their eyes as they approached.
"Jesus, what the hell happened to you guys?" Hope asked.
"Exactly what you were hoping," Duo answered, still sounding rather pissed about the whole ordeal.
"How'd we do?" Heero asked.
"That depends," Une asked. "Do you feel you're ready?"
Heero nodded reluctantly.
"Are we good?" Une asked.
"Yeah… we're good."
Relena managed to get Dorothy back to Mareen's apartment in one piece. She dropped Dorothy's barely conscious body in one of the spare bedrooms, put a bottle of water on the nightstand, and put a trash bin beside the bed should Dorothy need it. Relena kicked off her heels in the middle of the hallway and sent them crashing against her mother's bedroom door by accident before she made her way into her own room. She collapsed onto her bed in a similar manner that Dorothy had just done. What a disaster of a night, she thought to herself.
Eventually she rolled herself over, intending on going into her bathroom to remove her makeup and get herself out of her dress, before she saw Mareen standing in her doorway.
"I'm not in the mood, mother," Relena said defensively.
"I didn't come to scold you," Mareen said as she entered Relena's room.
"I'm sure it looks like I'm just spinning out of control," Relena said with a noticeable slur.
"No, I trust you. I don't love that you slipped away from your security detail, but… I do trust you." Mareen took a seat at Relena's vanity. "You've always been a smart girl. You're allowed to be young. Despite what you think, I just want the best for you."
"And you don't think Heero is that."
"I don't know, but I do know there are other options, you are the most eligible girl in the world right now, every man wants you. Why him?" Mareen asked earnestly.
"I can't explain it, I wish I could. I really do, but I can't. I just feel like… if I don't take the chance now, I'll regret it for the rest of my life," Relena answered.
Mareen looked away and sighed.
"You said you trust me," Relena said softly.
"I do, my darling."
"Then trust me."
Heero examined himself in the bathroom mirror of the hotel where they returned to after training. There was dried blood everywhere. He tried his best to clean up most of it from his face, but some of the streaks remained. His left eye was bloodshot and the already beginning to swell. He had several bruises on his cheeks and on particularly dark on on his chin. The sharp pain in his leg where he had been stabbed was killing him. He tore a couple of muscles in his shoulder and his lower back. But all things considered, he was okay.
He limped his way out of the bathroom and into his bed. Duo had already fallen asleep in the next bed over. He was just about to turn off the light and finally get some sleep before he received a message on his phone.
Relena: Hi
Heero: Hey
Relena: Missed you today
Heero: Sorry, my phone was off
Relena: I figured
Heero: How was your day?
Relena: It was… interesting. How was yours?
Heero: Also interesting
Relena: Where are you?
Heero: Germany
Relena: What? Why?
Heero: Work stuff
Relena: I thought I was work stuff
Heero: Other work stuff
Relena: You're leaving again, aren't you?
Heero: Just temporarily
Relena: For how long?
Heero: Not sure, a week, maybe two? Although after today…
Relena: What happened today?
Heero: Long story
Relena: I missed you
Heero: I missed you too
Relena: Really?
Heero: Yeah
Just then Relena got a devious idea. She hadn't removed her makeup or even gotten out of her dress yet. She sprang out of bed, rushed into her bathroom, fluffed up her hair and snapped a quick selfie and sent it to Heero.
Heero: Wow, you look… hot
Relena: Awww, well aren't you sweet.
Heero: Hey, I want to show you something too.
Relena: Oooo okay
Heero looked over at Duo. He was fast asleep. Good, if Duo caught him sending a selfie, he would never live it down.
Sent.
Relena: WHAT THE FUCK?!