To Endure

"We're watching a live feed of the Toro Campana, Chief Financial Officer, of Lucio Internationale being escorted off a plane at Brussels Airport and placed into the Preventers custody. The shipping mogul was arrested at his penthouse in Buenos Aires, around 2pm yesterday…"

"Some good news at last," Hope said.

"Yeah, but we're in for a long fight," Une said coldly. "Just look at him. Look at that smile. He doesn't have a care in the world."

Hope focused in on the man on the TV screen. Une was right, for a man who had just been arrested for a war crime, he didn't seem the least bit worried. Still, she felt as though some weight had finally been lifted from her shoulders the moment she heard that the local police had arrested Toro Campana, the executive that had been corresponding with Rinus.

That was the direct result of the intel that she had gathered. That was her work, hers and Duos. And although she entirely let the situation get out of the control, she took solace in the fact that in the end, the intelligence that they had pulled off of the private network was useful enough to lead to an arrest.

She leaned against Une's desk, as both of them watched the news on the TV mounted on the far side of Une's office. It wasn't much to celebrate about and they both knew it but given the pressure they had both been under the last few days, this was a welcomed reprieve.

"What's next?" Hope asked.

"Well, we've got him," Une said as she let out a deep breath. "Stick him in a booth and see what he's made of."

"Do you think he'll crack?"

"Evaded conscription and remained in the private sector during the entirety of the war, even the worst parts of it. Made a fortune shipping munitions and supplies for Treize towards the end, for his contributions, he was granted a pardon for dodging the draft," Une said as she looked down her holographic display, summarizing the man's file. "I suspect he's the type that thinks he's the smartest man in the room. We'll see how he does when it's just two, my guess is that he'll crack like an egg."

Hope smiled. "Any word from Heero?"

"None."

Her smiled faded.

"I wouldn't worry too much about him," Une said in a matter-of-fact voice. "The man is resourceful. He'll turn up sooner or later."

"That's what Duo said too," Hope said, unable to hide the guilt in her voice.

"He's an idiot," Une said. "But he's right about this. Don't blame yourself. Heero's always done what he thought was right. It's what made him different than OZ, it's what made him capable of fighting us as effectively as he did."

A silence fell upon them. Une only half believed what she was saying and Hope could pick up on that. Still, she didn't want to contradict her commanding officer so she said nothing.

"Besides, I've got enough to worry about without trying to track down the invisible man," Une said trying to lift their moods. "The ESUN Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee has opened an inquiry into this whole operation and are dragging me into testify."

"I'm sorry," Hope said meekly as she averted her gaze.

"There's no rooms for sorries in this business, my girl," Une said. "You have to learn quickly."

"Right," Hope said as she tightened up her posture. "So shall I prep for the interrogation?"

Une put down her pen and let out a remorseful sigh. For the first time during their whole conversation she looked up at the girl leaning against her desk. She was a good girl, she meant well, and she had potential. Une could see it, clear as day.

It broke her heart to say, "Hope, you know that's not possible."

The young girl, held back her tears with every ounce of resolve she could muster, "I know… I just thought…"

Duo heard the door open behind him.

"Hey, are you guys watching this?" Duo asked. "Makes me sick. Look at that guy's shiteating grin. Just give me five minutes in the booth without his lawyer. I'll make him sing like a bird."

Hope didn't respond. He only heard the faint sound of sniffles. Duo turned to look at Hope and found her looking distressed. Her head hung low, as her hair partially obscured the look of anguish upon her face. He took his feet off of the glass coffee table in front of him, got up, and immediately went to Hope.

"I've been sidelined," Hope said through her tears.

"What?!" Duo exclaimed. "It wasn't your fault. Heero and I, we're fucking stupid. We took things too far, we always do. It was our fault, not yours. Just let me talk to Une, I'll straighten this out."

Duo began towards the door into Une's office but Hope caught him by the arm. He looked at her, she didn't look back at him.

"That's not the reason," Hope whispered. "You know the reason…"

Duo just stared at the girl. He had never seen her so dejected before. He had only known her for a few weeks but even in that brief amount of time, he knew that she was not a fragile girl. Her youth and professionalism was a shield that served her well in her job and amongst people in general, but she was hiding something. He had read the files on that computer. He knew. She was probably hoping that Une wouldn't notice. But obviously Une did.

"I'm sorry," Duo said as he slowly turned to face her.

Without a single word, Hope wrapped her arms around him.

He returned her hug.

"What are you wearing?" Wufei asked emphatically.

He stared at Sally blankly as he tried to process his girlfriend's unusual attire. The image was a little fussy given that he was communicating with her via a satellite connection in the middle of the Atlantic. But even then he could tell that the beige blazer and pencil skirt with her hair in a high ponytail. Her usual Preventers jacket was nowhere in sight and she seemed a couple inches taller than usual.

"What? You don't like it?" Sally asked.

"No, its fine," Wufei said. "It's just odd seeing you all… Relena-like."

She finally sat down in front of her laptop after having bounced around her room for a bit gathering together her gun, her work files, and a pair of gold earrings.

"Une's bringing me in to interview that Lucio CFO," Sally explained.

"Why? Don't think have people for that kind of thing?" Wufei asked.

"Something happened in Brussels, it's not worth going into right now," Sally answered. "Plus, after the media firestorm over the last week, she's playing this one close to the chest."

"If she's gonna get all paranoid again, she should bring back the glasses and the cinnamon buns," Wufei said with a sharp laugh.

"Hey, laugh it up now, sailor," Sally interjected. "You were one of only a few in that mission briefing. Sooner or later, you're gonna get dragged into this too."

"What? I'm not doing enough?" Wufei asked as he moved aside to show Sally his little cabin.

The room was a cramped space with nothing more than a single cot, a night table, a small desk, and a single murky porthole. He had been assigned the the UESS Jameson, an old frigate that the had been tasked to follow the trail of the Mercurius. Wufei had been onboard as the Preventers liaison and had been acting as both mission advisor and point of contact between Une and senior crew of the ship.

"How's that going?" Sally asked.

"It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack, we've been following the trail of Titanium and Gundanium for a few days now, nothing big so far," Wufei said. "Realistically, I don't think we're going to find anything."

"Well, don't give up," Sally said sympathetically. "I'll let you know if something comes out during the interviews."

"You mean interrogations," Wufei said.

"Shush…" Sally said with a devious grin. "You keep talking like that, you're gonna be the one locked up in a room."

"You think you can break me?"

Even through the less than ideal satellite connection, their eyes locked and an subtle but unmistakable passion erupted between them. For a moment neither of them spoke but knew perfectly well what the other was thinking.

"I miss you," Sally whispered.

"I miss you too," Wufei said. "How much time until your flight?"

She thought about it for a minute, "I can spare ten minutes."

"Ten is plenty," Wufei said as he jumped out of his chair and hurried across the room to lock his door.

Sally, kicked off her shoes, took off her blazer, and began to unbutton her dress shirt.

Une took off her jacket and dropped it onto the couch in her home office. She opted to remain in the dark for a few moments of precious silence before she made her way over to her desk and turned on her little desk lamp. The warm glow bathed the room in a dim orange glow, a far cry from the sterile fluorescent lighting of her office at work.

Sitting on a silver platter on her window sill was a bottle of bourbon and a couple of crystal tumblers. She rarely drank bourbon, preferring wine most nights. But the last few days have been particularly tough.

She poured herself half a glass.

It was only going to get worse. In addition to the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee inquest, she had been summoned to meet with POTESUN privately before her testimony.

The President had publicly distanced himself from the Preventers in the aftermath of Meriemaia's rebellion, which came as an unexpected boom to Une. It had granted her far more autonomy. But it also meant that no one was covering her ass this time around.

She couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. During the war, buildings were demolished by the dozens each day, mobile suit battles were a mundane occurrence, no one batted an eye. Now, every big shot in the world was coming down on her demanding answers to hastily thought up and ill considered questions. She had no patience for the games of politics, perhaps that's why she thrived during the war. Politics took a backseat to the universal ideological questions being fought over.

A beeping sound coming from her home computer snapped her out of her daze.

She answered the call. It was Noin.

"You've seen better days," Noin said.

Her voice was tinny and the image was fuzzy due to the long distance nature of their communication. The satellites that allowed Earth to Mars real-time communication only worked during specific intervals and certain times a year and even at their best, the quality left something to be desired.

"What I wouldn't give for one red alert and a battalion of Leos," Une said as she took a sip of her bourbon.

"Heard about the arrest, congratulations," Noin said.

"Thanks, I'll take my victories where I can get them," Une replied. "How's Mars?"

"Oh you know, sparse, dusty… red."

"And Zechs?"

"What can I say? He's Zechs. At least he's free here," Noin said with a deflated smile. "Work keeps him busy."

"Yeah well… What else is there?" Une asked rhetorically as she stared at her glass as she swished around the liquid inside.

"If you need help, just ask," Noin said.

"No, no, you just got there," Une said as she dismissed the idea of Noin coming back. "I can handle this."

"Anything is preferable to the war, right?"

"Or nothing is," Une said with an absent sigh.

"Don't let Relena hear you say that."

"Relena…" Une said with exasperation. "She's another one I could do without."

"What is it this time?" Noin said as she leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest.

"What do you mean this time?" Une asked.

"When it comes to Relena, you always have something to complain about."

"This is different," Une said calmly. "She ambushed me in my office."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," Une said as she took another big gulp. "Pranced in through the front doors, charmed her way past my secretary I'm sure, and ambushed me in my office."

"Pretty sure she didn't prance," Noin said while trying to keep a straight face.

"Who the fuck does she think she is?" Une hissed. "Coming into my office like she owns the place."

"What'd she want?" Noin asked.

"I don't know, some bullshit about where Heero was," Une answered absently.

"Oh yeah, I heard about that," Noin said softly with a hint of a smile.

"Word travels fast," Une said as she drank again.

"When it comes to Relena," Noin said. "Her business is the world's business."

"Yeah well, her business is intruding on my operation," Une said bitterly.

"Katerina… be nice, she's just worried about him," Noin said in a stern voice.

Une contemptuously rolled her eyes. "She's not a kid anymore, Noin. You don't have to baby her."

"Sorry, old habits," Noin remarked. "Where is Heero then?"

"Hell if I know," Une said. "This is the problem with guerrillas, no discipline, no respect for the chain of command."

"You didn't really think you were gonna turn them into good little soldiers did you?" Noin asked. "They didn't send an army after all. They sent five Gundams, that's it. Five."

"Well just two of them have caused me enough headaches."

"They got you your arrest, and from what it sounds like, Heero managed to take out a whole slew of illegal mobile suits," Noin said.

"Why are you making excuses for them?"

"Well…when you're not involved directly, it's pretty amusing what they get up to," Noin said.

Une sighed deeply. "So this is what normalcy is, is it?"

"I know you hate all this spy shit," Noin said with a hint of genuine compassion. "It's not exactly how Treize ran things."

"I'm fine with the spy shit," Une said curtly. "It's the bureaucrats that get to me."

"Are you in trouble?" Noin pouted.

Une nodded as she put the glass against her forehead and closed her eyes.

"Are you sure you don't need help?" Noin asked, sounding more concerned now.

"Just tell me how you got through the disciplinary hearings when Wufei stomped you at Lake Victoria," Une said.

"First, ouch! And second, I'm not sure if that's going to be any help here. OZ was a boys club and Zechs pulled rank on the tribunal on my behalf. I got off on the slap on the wrist," Noin replied. "I don't know... You're just going to have to charm them, I guess."

Une took another sip of the bourbon and held the glass up to her face. She looked at her reflection in the murky amber liquid and smiled. Could she again wear that face?

"Lady Une… I haven't been her in a while."

Duo pulled into the driveway of a large villa similar in size to the one where they had stayed in Portugal just a week prior. He brought the car to a stop just outside the front door. He let out a whistle as he marveled at the large flat rectangular structure in front of him. It was dark out but even still, Duo could make out the fine stonework of the outer walls of the building. Long thin rectangular windows lined length of structure at equal distances with spotlights illuminating the space in between with only a single door halfway along its length interrupted its repetition.

"Damn! You live here?" Duo said with wide-eyed amazement as he marveled at the austere stone slab to his left.

"Yeah," Hope said despondently, utterly unaware or uninterested in Duo's awe.

Hope wore her Preventers jacket unzipped with her tie loosened. She never did that. Everytime Duo had ever seen her in uniform, she was wore it with the utmost pride and tidiness. But it had been a long day and though she had finally calmed down, Hope was utterly exhausted. Duo felt pity for the girl, she had risen too far too fast and wasn't ready when it came time to make the tough calls. It wasn't her fault, being a Preventer was an easy job after the Barton Insurrection. Duo and the guys had made sure of that.

"I didn't know you had money. Why you getting so stressed about this crappy government job, then?" Duo asked as he turned to look at Hope in the passenger's seat.

"Money doesn't buy happiness, Duo," Hope said as she turned to look at him with a melancholy smile.

"Oh yeah, working for Une is the highest form of enlightenment," Duo said sarcastically as he leaned back into his seat.

"She's a legend, Duo," Hope said softly yet earnestly.

"She's not that great," Duo said with a shrug.

"You don't get it, Duo," Hope said. "You've already won your renown. You're a legend too. Even if they don't know your name. Everyone knows the Deathscythe."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be, kid," Duo said in a serious voice.

"I know," Hope said. "War is terrible. I saw the suffering, I saw the death. I see the way men lose their souls. It happened to my brother."

Duo could only offer a sympathetic smile. She had been avoiding the subject all day. He wasn't going to force her to say it. But this was the inevitable end of what was started when Duo had discovered the name of Tristan de Vries on the laptop. Hope couldn't lead the case anymore, she couldn't even work it. That coupled with the debacle in Buenos Aires meant that she was going to be benched for a long time. It wasn't death but it was pretty close for a girl like her.

"It's not your fault," Duo reassured her. "You know that right?"

"Doesn't really matter now, does it?" Hope said staring at Duo.

He averted his gaze. He had been stupid, he had been selfish. To him, this was all a game. His great battles were behind him, his great victories were a thing of the past. This was a victory lap. It meant nothing to him but everything to her. She wanted to be a warrior and this was the best time in history to be one, to actually have something worth defending.

Hope stared at him from her seat. There was a natural distance between them yet somehow he felt a thousand miles away. She noted the way his braid rested on his shoulder for a bit before snaking down his back. She noted his eyes, obscured by the shadow of the night. She had read his profile, studied his bio, but only then did she begin to see the infinite depths he kept hidden away.

"Thanks for driving me home," Hope said as she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Good night, Duo."

She got out of the car, circled around the front of the car, and went inside her house.

Those days were the hardest. After the initial shock had worn off and the full force of events had finally settled in, she felt herself completely adrift in a sea of unfamiliar emotions. It was a pain so alien, so unknown that she had trouble finding a way to orient herself. If the death of her father was that which forced her to grow up in an instant, the ambiguous loss of Heero is what revealed to her how fragile and emotionally immature she still truly was.

She couldn't help the swarm of emotions that roiled inside of her, torturing her. That torment that made her mood swing between righteous anger and desperate sorrow. At one moment she was crying bitterly, begging and praying for Heero's return, the next she was cursing his name, for ever entering into her life, and causing her to feel so deeply.

Her townhouse in which she secluded herself became an asylum, knowing full well that she could not be trusted in public. She was the Vice-Foreign Minister of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation, she was the last Peacecraft, she was the avatar of peace. She had so much put upon her, and she carried it all with grace and majesty. Only then did she realize how much she had been carrying, how torturous her public persona was, how impossible that weight of expectation.

She threw things. She broke things. She cleaned it up. She slept, she woke up, she threw up. The minutes felt like hours, and the hours turn into eternities. Days went by in a blur. Morning to midday, midday to night. She wanted it to stop, she wanted so desperately to find relief. Yet there was none. She had been caught so off guard by this sudden loss. During the war, she prepared herself for loss, she was ready, at any moment to lose everything because for a time, that's what was at stake. But this was their peace, that she and Heero had created together. This was their inheritance, how was this fair?

She wasn't being rational. She knew it. She knew that her worry was overblown. She knew that Heero had survived far worse. She had seen him do it. But somehow this felt different. Somehow, the mere act of approaching what had been unsaid and unfinished for years, as if tempting fate, had caused his disappearance.

It wasn't her fault. Nothing she had done caused this accident to happen. The situation was beyond her control, and yet she couldn't help but feel responsible. She had offended the god, Irony. She was the girl with everything, every privilege, every luxury, every opportunity. But, she surmised, her fate was to be alone in this world, set apart so that she could watch over the world it's newfound peace. That love was a distraction, a gift given to those whose lives weren't as grand as hers.

She deemed herself greedy, she thought she could have it all. Now the cruel god was teaching her a lesson.

She could have everything, but not him.

So she endured her punishment.

But there was something in her, something that she didn't recognize although she had been told countless times before, by many people in life, not least of them, Heero, something special, something resilient. In the bleakest hours of the war, when all were in the grip of the most total and unceasing misery, she alone carried the torch of hope. So that in time she became hope personified. In after the seemingly endless days of agony and despair, she found in herself what others had been telling her all along.

The Valknut, Preventers Headquarters

November 22nd, AC 198

It wasn't the smile that bothered her. She had seen that smile on countless men before, some of them truly capable, most of them just grifters, all of them far too arrogant for their own good. It was the eyes, those green eyes, that admitted to the lies as he spewed them. Sally could've sworn that he had looked at her on several occasions through the one way mirror.

Toro Campana had been in holed up in a small windowless room in the basement of The Valknut for nearly two weeks. He has tenacity, I'll give him that, Sally thought. And in that time, he and his lawyers had been tactfully negotiating with the Preventers general counsel and an ESUN assistant advocate general to work out a deal. But progress had been slow and both Campana and his lawyer had reneged on their agreement just as they were finalizing the process.

Sally had been supervising the negotiations the whole time.

"How are we doing?" Une said as she walked in the back door.

"Same as before," Sally said with a sigh of frustration.

Une walked up to the mirror and looked at Campana. "He's tougher than he looks."

"He's only tough because of his bodyguard," Sally remarked. "Give me five minutes without the lawyer, we'll see how tough he is then."

"Let me just go dust off your old Alliance uniform," Une joked.

"You should've let me in there the first day," Sally said. "Playing softball was a mistake. We needed to strike the fear of God into him. Now he's gotten comfortable. He'll just drag this out and string the lawyers along for months."

"No," Une said. "We need more leverage, there's still a lot of data to comb through thanks to Heero. We'll get something."

"And if we don't?" Sally looked over at Une.

There was a moment of silence.

"Then you can bash his brains in."

She developed a routine. Everyday Relena would wake up, get dressed, do her makeup, eat breakfast and head out the door before 7am. She would go to Koekelberg Basilica, light a candle and say a prayer for Heero. She was sure he wasn't dead and that he would return, as he always did, either that or she was denial, but she chose to believe it was the former and not the latter. She had never been religious and she wasn't any more sure about God than she was before this, but she needed something, anything, more powerful than herself to take care of Heero in the meantime. She chose God to do that.

She would then go to the gym and she took it far more seriously than she ever did before. Half an hour on the treadmill, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Weights on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And yoga after class if she could spare the time. It kept her mind busy, and it made her feel close to Heero. And while she was sure that he would look at what she was doing and wouldn't even consider it a warmup, she wanted to share in that physical discipline with him. If when he returned, she promised that she would make him share apart of his physical training with her.

She went to class, she focused, and with some difficulty, she caught up. She stayed behind for office hours and apologized to her professors for missing so many lectures. She explained in the vaguest terms that she was going through some trying times. Some of them accepted her apologies and sent her on her way. Others, Professor Scharenberg among them, noticed the absence of Heero in their classes and sympathized with her. They didn't say it, she didn't say it, it didn't need to be said.

She rejoined her social circle. She ate lunch with her friends, she hung out with them, even Tanya, who felt Heero's absence the most after Relena. And in a strange way, they bonded over it. They saw movies, studied together, they went out dancing, and on occasion, they even managed to get her to laugh. They made her feel better, they made her feel loved. They let her know that she wasn't alone. And to thank them, she opened up Peacecraft Palace, and they had a sleepover as she had promised at the beginning of the school year. They slept in the Great Hall, underneath the domed stained glass skylight.

She began to expand her routine. She began to work again. She showed up for department meetings, and caught up on the developing events. She met with the British delegation and made progress. And despite Egert's advice, she listened to all sides and acted as an effective mediator rather than just trying to further the interests of Brussels. She attended charity galas and was welcomed as an honoured guest. She donated lavishly and received the affection and admiration of all. She attended work functions, even the dumb team building events, although she wouldn't participate in the games of laser tag or paintball as a matter of principle. She immersed herself in the Terraformation Project once again, meeting more regularly with Felicity Bogue, the program director. She presented Dorothy's idea of opening up the project to the private sector, and after a few tries, Felicity was beginning to come around to the idea.

But at night, she went home. She dropped her bag on the floor and kicked off her shoes. She went upstairs and got undressed. And she cried in the shower. She got in bed and cried herself to sleep. Everynight.

His lungs forced out water as his shot eyes open. For a moment there was nothing, he felt nothing, he was at peace. Then came the pain in waves. First it was the sharp pain in his chest as his body rejected the water with violent coughs. Then came the stinging pain in his leg that immediately brought back the image of that bastard with the braid. Then came the rest the all encompassing pain of being hit with a blunt force. It wasn't the first time. But it had been quite a while.

Heero closed his eyes and tried to stabilize his breathing. When the pain lessened, he opened his eyes and looked around. It was overcast and dark. He lifted his head and looked around. He was on a beach. But this time, there was no Relena.