Chapter 1
"Heero, WATCH OUT!" Relena shrieked and raised both arms to brace for impact. Heero's foot slammed on the brakes, stopping the car a millisecond before it bumped into the vehicle ahead. Hardly a life-threatening collision, considering they were creeping along the highway at a snail's pace. The two bumpers would have exchanged a gentle kiss and nothing more. Heero turned to face the passenger seat, glaring at her.
"Seriously?!" He snapped, blue eyes seething; "Relena – what the hell?!"
Feeling foolish, she smiled in apology. "Sorry," she mumbled, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, "It looked like you were daydreaming."
Heero scoffed and turned to face the wheel again. He glowered at the column of vehicles stretching along the highway.
"Do you see any reason to keep alert?" he groused, clutching the steering wheel tightly.
Relena heaved a sigh, shaking her head. "Well, what do you expect, on Labor Day? Everyone in New York City and their brother are headed to the Hamptons this weekend."
She turned to look out at miles upon miles of traffic. The Long Island Expressway heading east was completely jammed and they had been stuck in this mess for over three hours. It was a real shame too, because they were only a few lousy miles away from their exit, having already covered most of their journey from NYC to Montauk. Nothing ruined holiday plans like being stuck in traffic, but as New Yorkers, they pretty much had no choice. The city suffered the worst backups in the nation this weekend. They were both very high-strung, after spending over three hours on the road and getting nowhere.
"We would have beat traffic if you had woken up on time," she crossed her arms, scowling out the window.
"Then why didn't you wake me?" Heero grumbled – hardly a trait she associated with him, but the twenty-six-year-old man sitting next to her was nothing like the sixteen-year-old boy she always compared him to. He began tapping his fingers restlessly on the steering wheel, glaring disdainfully at the traffic jam ahead. If there was one thing he hated, it was being all geared up for action, yet remaining completely inert.
"I tried! Nothing worked!" Relena exclaimed. "You were obviously exhausted, so I let you sleep in."
"Of course I'm exhausted;" – he sighed in annoyance – "Baker has been working me like a damn dog."
"Be grateful you still have a job," she uttered sarcastically, a useless attempt to beat him in his own game. Heero shot her such a nasty look that she immediately regretted it. There was no room for her sarcasm in the car.
She sighed, shoulders slumping tiredly, weary of the fight. "Sorry," she mumbled, glancing down at her lap; "that was a cheap shot."
Heero drew his mouth back in a snarl, scowling out the windshield. She should have known better than to rub salt into open wounds. He had only recently returned to his position at Preventer's NYC Cyber Intelligence Unit, after twelve weeks away on medical leave. His job performance had been declining, before he had finally checked himself into rehab, but since he got help before his employer took any disciplinary action, they couldn't fire him for poor performance. He had been back at the office for three months now, during which his boss has been working him into the ground. Heero had to prove his worth again. The stress was getting to him, and drinking it away was no longer an option.
Nowadays, he was constantly fatigued and cranky. She tried to be sympathetic, but sometimes her patience wore thin. He had a unique knack for getting under her skin. Most of the time she felt like she was walking on eggshells around him. His difficult nature was certainly a challenge, one she was still figuring out how to handle, little by little. He'd get mad at silly little things, like how she had stacked the dishwasher, or misplaced the remote. But she had never seen him so restless before. His fingers tapped ceaselessly on the wheel.
"I'm just saying, that's all the more reason to get away this weekend," she tried to lighten the mood with a bit of humor, offering a truce with a soft smile. "Isn't that what Labor Day is all about?"
He ceased tapping, but his grip on the wheel tightened. He glared at the car ahead, the one he had nearly bumped into a minute ago, and said nothing.
Relena observed him, chewing on her bottom lip, hands in her lap. She rubbed them together, fingers interlaced. She didn't know him to get this agitated, but then again – what did she know? In a way, she'd only known him for about six months.
Their chance-encounter on Valentine's Day had changed a lot about the way she now perceived him[1]. Their disastrous date had left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. Heero had arrived completely drunk and the evening had only spiraled down from there. Seeing him in his absolute disgrace had shattered every childish notion she had once held of him. Heero was not the same person she had known ten years prior; perhaps he never was the person she had fallen for in her youth. She had to learn to love him all over again, maybe even falling in love for real, and for the first time. It was hard, and Heero certainly wasn't making it any easier.
Maybe his leg is bothering him, she suddenly realized, and her eyes darted down to his thighs. Her cramped muscles were bothering her too, after sitting in the car for so many hours. If she was feeling the strain, then Heero must be feeling it tenfold. Maybe that was why he was so cranky.
Her eyes traveled down Heero's legs. He was wearing a pair of plain blue jeans, even in the insufferable heat (she had wisely opted for a sundress). She knew he wore long pants even in summer, because of what he wished to conceal. Her gaze focused on his left kneecap, noting how the blue denim loosened just a few inches below the joint, where his flesh ended and the prosthetic limb began. She hurried to look away before he caught her staring.
Heero was very sensitive about his missing leg. It was a mark of shame – evidence of his imperfection. Sex, for one, had been a big deal. It had taken him close to two months before he was willing to take his pants off in front of her. At first, he had let her go down on him, but never let his pants drop below the knee. Intercourse was out of the question, unless she was willing to do it standing up, or have him enter her from behind.
Body image was an extremely sensitive issue with Heero, one to be avoided at all costs. She struggled to find ways to express how he shouldn't have to aim for the nearly inhuman standards he used to uphold in his adolescent years. She could understand equating a muscular, capable body with strength and competence, but it would be terribly vain of him to try to live up to the image of a teenage MS pilot, much like she would never dream of likening to that horribly graceful image forced upon her as "Queen of the World". Things had changed. They had changed, maturing beyond those compulsory titles.
She wanted to convey that to him, somehow. Physically, as well as emotionally. Couldn't he see that she wanted him close? She wanted to sleep with him pressed against her, looking into his eyes. She wanted something more intimate than the sex he'd been willing to give, but Heero refused to let her any closer than they had already become.
Under any other circumstances, she would have tried to loosen him up with a few drinks, but since Heero was a recovering alcoholic, that was definitely out of the question. She had to find another way to help him overcome his insecurity, and she had done it by getting over hers.
Not many knew this about her, because she had never dared sharing this particular flaw before, but she was very self-conscious about her breasts. Even though it was barely noticeable, she knew that they were asymmetric in shape and size and she really hated them. She never let any of her previous lovers see her without a bra, sticking to sexy lingerie instead of sleeping with them in the nude. With Heero, however, she had let go of her inhibitions, exposing her shame in hope it would encourage him to do the same.
They had been lying in bed one night, fully clothed. She had climbed on top of him, straddling his hips, and slowly begun taking her clothes off until she had been topless. She had been able to tell that he noticed. She felt the urge to hunch her shoulders forward in an attempt to hide from him, but forced herself to keep still. His eyes studied her chest for a moment, before shifting slowly to meet her anxious face.
Heero didn't say anything, even when she reached to unbutton his pants. He held her gaze firmly as she peeled his pants down, carefully, stopping just below the knee. She looked up, seeking his approval. His blue eyes glimmered in the dark, watching her tensely. Maintaining eye contact, she proceeded to pull his pants down gently, until she exposed his prosthetic left leg. He closed his eyes then, turning his head aside, ashamed. She hesitated, thinking perhaps it was too soon, but it was also too late to back down.
She looked.
It wasn't really that bad. Sad, but not shocking or hideous. It was a below-the-knee amputation, the residual leg ending a few inches below the kneecap, where a tight-fitting prosthetic began. It was a plain apparatus: a knee cuff and belt attaching it to the body, a prosthetic sock over the stump, and an artificial foot with realistic-looking skin – none of the high-tech cybernetics available nowadays. Heero was against getting a cybernetic limb, and she had a feeling that it had something to do with Dr. J's prostheses. She had only met Heero's CLO[2] superior once, but it had been more than enough to leave a lasting impression. She understood why Heero refused to be anything like him.
She had caressed his artificial limb, familiarizing herself with this new and painful part of him.
Heero had reached blindly for a pillow and thrown it over his face. He had arched his back off the bed stiffly as she ran her fingers over his prosthetic leg, studying it quietly. It didn't take anything away from his appeal, only added a new layer to his alluring complexity.
Now, Relena looked up, studying Heero's tense features as he stared intently out the windshield. He was gritting his teeth at the long line of unmoving vehicles in front of them, and she fought back a little smile. She adored his looks, even with that typical hard scowl carved into his perfectly chiseled face.
She would have liked to believe that there were no more secrets between them after that night, but that simply wasn't true. She had barely even scratched the surface of it. There were many secrets, many hurts, behind his harsh demeanor. Most of the time, Heero seemed cool and collected, like he had it all together, but in moments like this, when he was obviously seething inside, she was reminded that it was nothing more than a carefully-crafted masquerade.
It was like looking at a sunset over the ocean. The surface was calm and beautiful, painted by the enthralling light of a golden sun, but underneath darkness ruled the wild currents. She wanted to explore those depths, but she was aware that she might never be allowed to delve too deep. Everything about him was on a need-to-know basis. She didn't even know his real name, or how he had lost his leg; only that it happened while he was on assignment five years ago. In fact, they'd been going out for half a year and she couldn't claim to know him much better than she had back then, during the war.
Why was he so tranquil and soft on some days, but agitated and bitter on others? How come he could be making these adorable little jokes at his own expense one evening and a night later his endearing self-humor would turn into bitter sarcasm? What made him fall silent all of a sudden and sink into dark brooding? What lifted his spirit when he was feeling down? And how could she tell if his apparent good mood was genuine? How could she know what kind of issues to avoid and what were safe to bring up?
Heero had opened up to her to some degree, but not enough to form a truly intimate bond. More often than not, she felt that she was only reacting to him, instead of simply being with him. She didn't understand enough about him to just be. Heero always kept her guessing.
What happened to the sixteen-year-old boy who had left the Brussels warzone swearing he would never kill again? What brought him back into the battlefield? He obviously didn't want to stay with Preventer. She had picked up on that on their very first date. He was with the Agency because it was familiar, convenient. It was something he knew how to do. What had changed his careful optimism into bitterness and fatigue?
She didn't know. She didn't know anything, and not for the lack of trying.
He'd jolt awake in the middle of the night, springing up to a sitting position, and the whole bed would shake. She'd crack one eye open, watching him in the dark, letting him think she was still asleep. He'd sit there a moment, panting quietly. She'd watch him run a shaky hand through his hair and turn to look down at where she lay by his side. She'd hurry to close her eyes again, breathing heavily to fake slumber, feeling his eyes on her for a long moment. Then, he'd lie back down, resting stiffly on his back. She'd dare a peek, eyes open just a tiny slit, and find him gazing up at the ceiling, wide awake. Some nights, she'd muster the nerve to reach for his hand, lying limply between them.
'Do you want to talk about it?' she'd ask.
'Go back to sleep,' he'd reply gruffly, pulling his hand away.
Heero was good at hiding himself in broad daylight. There were days when she almost forgot about his dark depths, bewitched by his sunset beauty. But at night, they'd lie awake and she'd tremble at the thought of what lay hidden in the deep: the horrors he had been exposed to since early childhood; the torture he had endured; the pain he had both been subjected to, and inflicted upon others. The guilt, the shame. The unbearable amount of self-loathing and remorse. A relentless heartache that had manifested into an actual ailment over the years.
Ever the cynic, Heero said that he had a bad heart. He meant it metaphorically, mostly, hinting at the guilt that weighed on him. However, his heart had also suffered real physical damage, having survived what some had considered inhumanly possible. The stunts he had pulled in his zeal had taken a toll over the years, manifesting in various cardiac and gastrointestinal conditions. Nothing serious, thankfully, and all perfectly manageable using preventive measures, but he was still in the high-risk groups for developing much graver medical conditions as he grew older.
His excessive drinking during the five years since he had lost his leg had only worsened some of the symptoms. He took medication regularly and on most days he was feeling fine. Since he had returned to work, however, Heero seemed to be constantly exhausted, which was why she had offered they should get away for the weekend. That, and the fact that today marked two hundred days of sobriety for Heero, and according to her book – a reason to celebrate.
It was also why they had found themselves stuck on a highway to hell. They were supposed to be out the door by 5 a.m., alas she hadn't been able to get Heero to wake up. He must have suffered another sleepless night, so she'd let him sleep in and waited for him to arouse on his own.
They'd ended up leaving NYC along with the rest of the city, and, after crawling along the interstate for over three hours, Heero only seemed the worse for wear. He was barely paying attention to the road anymore. The line was moving along slowly, but he was just staring dully out the windshield.
The car behind them honked furiously.
"Heero!" Relena exclaimed and he jolted back to life, hissing something nasty under his breath.
"I swear, sometimes you're trying to give me a heart attack..." he muttered as he moved their SUV a few lousy feet forward, closing the gap between them and the car ahead.
"I was trying to keep us from getting rear-ended!" She snapped, flailing her arms angrily. "If you're so tired, you should just let me drive."
"This does not constitute as driving," he replied snippily; "This is..." He frowned, searching for words, "This is... This is standing still!"
He switched off the AC, whirling the dial abruptly.
Relena scoffed. Words weren't his strong suit.
"Forget it," she grumbled, switching the AC back on. "God forbid you'd let me drive."
Heero tsked in annoyance, and reached to close it again.
She flipped it back on, sending him a spiteful glare.
"Stop it," he snapped, flicking the switch off. "It's too cold."
"You're always too cold!" she exploded, turning it back on. "It's like a hundred degrees out there!"
"And sub-zero in here," he grumbled, killing off the AC while sending her a piercing side-glance, daring her to turn it back on again.
"Fine," she grunted, and opened her window instead. "Whatever. I don't want to fight anymore." She glared at the dense line of pine trees at the side of the road. "We're only bickering because we're nervous about today."
Heero snorted dismissively. "When have you ever known me to be nervous?"
She turned to him, sneering. "Aren't you the one who told me I shouldn't assume to know anything about you?"
"I said it when I was drunk."
"You mean a drunk." She smirked triumphantly. Yes, it was mean, but so was Heero. She was sick of taking it lying down.
Heero stilled, processing. He turned to face the road, gnashing his teeth at the traffic jam ahead, nostrils flaring. The car just got smaller, verging on claustrophobic.
She had crossed a line, and now he was going into "battle-mode". His arms gripped the wheel tightly, muscles flexing readily under taut skin. He could smack her down in a fraction of a second. Not that he would ever do such a thing, but his power unnerved her. She should have kept her mouth shut.
"Real mature, Relena," he growled, voice low and strained; "I'm sure your mother will be proud."
She winced at his comeback and turned away again. He sure knew which buttons to push and when. Bringing her mother into this – today of all days – well, that was low, even for Heero. She decided to ignore him, as bluntly as she possibly could, and kept facing the passenger side window. This section of the highway passed through the Long Island Pine Barrens. The dense greenery was a refreshing change from the drab highway scenery they'd been driving through for most part of the day. Maybe if she looked hard enough between the trees, she would spot a deer or something. Anything to avoid sniping at each other.
Long minutes passed in tense silence. She began considering whether or not she should offer another truce and pacify Heero somehow. She was surprised when he beat her to it:
"You nervous?" he asked quietly, which meant that he had simmered down. He was trying to start over after having snapped at her one time too many. She was used to it.
Relena held back a weary sigh. Sometimes, she was so tired of forgiving...
"Is it that obvious?" she turned to face him, offering half a smile from the corner of her lip.
"You've been on my case all morning."
She laughed cynically. Wasn't it the other way around? Better to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"As you know," she muttered tensely, "it's not every day that I bring my boyfriend to meet my mother." She turned to look at him intently, trying to coax an honest answer out of him by the sheer brute force of her compelling gaze. "Don't tell me you're not nervous about meeting my family."
Heero didn't tear his eyes off the road, but his lips did twist into a subtle smirk. "I've already met your family," he reminded her, "and if your brother is any indication, I think I know what I'm getting myself into."
This time her smile was genuine. Heero could be so perfectly charming when he wanted to. She appreciated his attempt to deflect the tension back to harmless banter.
"In other words," she quipped, "you picked one hell of a year to quit drinking."
He actually chuckled at her joke, more of a snort really, but still. Maybe today wasn't going to be such a total disaster after all.
Relena sunk back into the passenger seat. She could feel the tension leaving her body and only then realized that she'd been tense the whole ride. She laid her arm on the door and leaned against the windowsill for a minute or so.
"At least Zechs knows all about you..." she mumbled thoughtfully after a while; "But with mother..." She released another weary sigh. "There's too much baggage. She never once accompanied my father up there. Space... unnerves her. And she never forgave it for what happened to dad. I can't talk to her about back then. If she asks about you... I wouldn't even know where to begin."
"Start at the end and go back only as far as she's willing to go," Heero offered, and she turned to him, quirking an eyebrow at his surprising insight. He shrugged his shoulders. "That's what I do, anyway."
"Yeah?" she smiled uneasily, "And how far back do you usually get to go?"
His face seemed to harden at her question. The walls were going back up.
The traffic moved along a few inches. Heero let their SUV glide forward a bit, keeping his eyes on the road.
"...not far," he then muttered quietly, sighing.
His words triggered a familiar pain in her chest, the kind of angst she felt when he finally exposed some of those well-hidden layers lurking in the deep. She regarded him quietly for a moment, frowning thoughtfully as she studied his sealed expression.
"And with me?" she worked up the courage to ask, letting the question out carefully.
Heero kept his focus solely on the road. Traffic was picking up a little and he moved the car another couple of feet.
"We'll see," he said.
Relena knew better than to push the issue. This was not the time or place to be having this conversation. She turned her attention back to the pines, searching for a distraction. They could both use some quiet time with their thoughts.
Her mother came to mind. They had gotten very close since the war ended. Her mother was the only person who had still seen her as the child that she was at the tender age of sixteen. She had insisted on taking her away from the political spotlight and helped get her life back on track. Relena returned to school, then university, achieving some semblance of normalcy after the chaos of war. Her mother had saved her from becoming something she wasn't sure she wanted to become. She allowed her to take her time, to grow and mature enough to face this world; a world still struggling with the aftermath of devastating war.
There was much to be done. Ten years after the AC 195 armistice and the full terms of peace between Earth and the Colonies were still being negotiated. Earth's disarmament was taking far longer than expected and there would be no permanent peace treaty without full disarmament. It seemed that every other day, some kind of secret weapons stash was uncovered in one allegedly- abandoned military post or another. She was fairly certain Heero had lost his leg hunting down one of these many bases in the Middle East.
Total pacifism was still just a pair of pretty words. The same problems would always be there, so she could bide her time preparing for tomorrow. She would step back into the spotlight once she was ready to face those problems head-on.
At any rate, earlier that year, she had left her mother and her home in Europe to complete her studies here in the US. She had won a prestigious internship at the United Nations Headquarters – all expenses paid for an entire semester. She never planned to stay longer, but that soon changed after she had bumped into Heero that Valentine's Day. She still planned to complete her Master's from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva before returning to politics, but she had decided to write her thesis in New York, so that she could be with Heero. After running into him on Valentine's, she wasn't going to take any chances and let him disappear again. Fate had brought them back together for a reason, of that she was certain. Heero himself had admitted that if not for meeting her again, he never would have realized that he had hit rock bottom. He never would have fought his addiction if not for her.
She told her mother she had found a Professor at NYU who was willing to guide her through her thesis, so she was staying for another year at least. She didn't dare tell her about Heero at first, but her mother soon figured out that the real reason behind her stay in New York was because of 'some young gentleman'. The problem was that Heero wasn't just any "gentleman". He was a missing link from her past and she couldn't possibly share that fact with her mother. Not yet, at least.
For the past ten years, her mother had done everything in her power to help Relena distance herself from the role she had played in the war. Relena didn't resent her for that; in fact, she was grateful. Her mother had spared her from the tragic fate most early-stardom children experienced after their loss of fame. She had enlisted the aid of many professionals, from private tutors to help her catch up with lost curriculum and prepare for academic studies, to a personal coacher to help her realize if she truly wanted to follow in her father's footsteps into politics, and also a therapist to help her build the necessary resilience to the traumas she had experienced. How could she ever explain running back into the arms of someone who was the trigger, if not the very embodiment, of this trauma?
Her mother felt that she needed to protect her from the past. She didn't take too kindly to her leaving for the US, even more so to her decision to prolong her stay. Relena understood her mother's reluctance to let go. She had made this mistake once before, during the war, allowing her only child to run away and head straight into the eye of a terrible storm. A lot had changed since then. They had worked to better their relationship. Her mother hadn't given birth to her, but she was the only mother she had ever known. Relena didn't consider herself an adopted child; she was a Darlian – if not from cradle, then to the grave.
She had planned to introduce Heero to her mother on her own terms, preferably sometime next century. Her mother was a distinguished European socialite who hung in the most exclusive social circles. First impressions were everything. If she were to introduce her history with Heero before her mother actually met him, it would be disastrous. And it was no good telling her mother that Heero was an old flame either. Even explaining how he had played a leading role in the final act of the war, essentially saving the planet wouldn't help. No matter how she might present it, Heero was something from her past, and as such – unacceptable.
And then her mother suddenly got it into her head that it would be a good idea to surprise her with a sudden visit this Labor Day Weekend, flying over without warning and inviting them to her Hamptons beach house. She had sprung the whole thing on Relena less than a week ago, after she had already made plans to spend the weekend with Heero. Instead, her mother had invited them over for the long weekend. A recipe for disaster, that much was certain. Heero wasn't really the kind of guy a girl would take home to her mother. She really wanted him to make a good first impression (especially in the face of definite disapproval), but she would never dream of asking him to go out of his way to impress the woman. As if their relationship wasn't strained enough!
A few minutes of agonizingly slow driving passed in tense silence. Nothing had changed on the road when she looked ahead of the car again.
"What you wouldn't give for a Gundam right now, huh?" she joked, struggling to ease the tension. Heero was still staring fixedly at the road, but she could see his lips twitch a little as he fought back a smile.
"I'd settle for a motorcycle," he returned the jest.
"No way!" She argued, adding a playful lilt to her voice. "We'd be there in no time if we were airborne."
He scoffed, a crude, bitter sound. "My flying days are over," he muttered, no more amusement in his voice. His Prussian blue eyes seemed darker as he kept his focus on the road ahead. Tired, he shifted in his seat, adjusting his left leg. It really has been bothering him, Relena realized, and berated herself for not suggesting a pit stop a few miles back. He never would have asked for a break. She should have given him a graceful way out.
She cast her eyes down. It dawned on her how difficult it must have been for him to lose his leg, which had forced him to give up all that he had ever known. From a warrior capable of spreading his wings and soaring, he had turned into a mere mortal, condemned to live his life on the ground with the rest of them. Heero was grounded and tainted by humanity. There was no more thrill in his life, and no more greatness.
She often felt the same way. Her life had peaked at merely fifteen years old and everything that came after that was just a terribly drawn-out postlude. She had chosen this, telling herself that she was preparing for the second act – her return to politics to change the world once more. Some days, this promise felt more like a lie, but on most days it was what kept her going. She didn't know what else to do with her life. And if she was feeling so lost and burnt-out, what about Heero? Just like the Long Island Expressway, his life had come to a complete standstill.
"You must get bored," she murmured, staring at her lap and fidgeting with her fingers. Heero didn't say anything to confirm or deny her assumption, which was nothing new. His silence usually implied his agreement.
"I mean, you used to pilot these massive mobile suits and now..." She turned to face him with a helpless smile; it almost felt like she was apologizing. "And now you're stuck in traffic with your girlfriend on the way to meet her mother."
Her words must have struck a responsive chord with Heero, for he finally turned to face her fully, frowning. Relena couldn't tell whether he was expressing confusion, or critique. She chuckled nervously, looking up to meet his intense blue eyes.
"It's just that..." She hesitated a second, before continuing. "Life turned out to be so... ordinary... didn't it?"
Heero regarded her quietly for a moment, the frown still on his face. He then turned to face the windshield again, gazing up at the blue skies with a stoic expression.
"Yes. It did."
Relena wanted to ask if it was good or bad, but she knew she wouldn't get an answer. Heero was on full lockdown. She couldn't seem to say anything right today. He was way too tense. Her guess was that this was simply him being nervous about meeting her mother. It was yet another exercise in banality, and as such it didn't bode too well for him. To him, the most benign things in life would pose the greatest challenge. Even something as trivial as getting a haircut or going to the dentist would require days of mental prep and cause him great stress. 'I don't like it,' he had snapped when she approached him about it once. 'That chair creeps me out.'
It was hard for him to let his guard down completely, put himself in the hands of a stranger and trust said stranger with sharp instruments. On his bad days, he would even storm out of the place before the dental treatment/haircut was done. She could handle cutting his hair for him when his unruly bangs got completely out of control, but she couldn't do anything about his teeth. Heero had suffered a lot of dental damage during the war and had to visit the dentist regularly.
She decided that they'd had enough talking. Nothing good was ever going to come out of it. There was only so much she could ask of him before he would shut her out. Taking him to meet her mother was already asking for too much, too soon. Heero, of course, never backed down from a challenge, which was all the more reason why she was always careful about what she asked of him. She was always afraid of doing something that would trigger his drinking problem, even though he's been abstaining from alcohol since February. It was just that, without liquor as an outlet, he didn't really know how to cope most of the time.
She had learned to accept the snippy bickering as part of the package. It was an outlet, and the lesser evil. Most of the time she tried to stir the banter into a more playful direction. Usually, he got the message and played along, adding a little dark humor into the situation to defuse the tension. They'd never really had a big fight, which perhaps wasn't such a good sign. Couples should fight and then kiss and makeup. If she was too afraid to provoke him into a real confrontation, then something was wrong with what they had.
Sometimes, it felt like she was spending most of her time and energy trying to pacify him, or keeping him pacified. This was not the kind of peacekeeper she had envisioned she'd become. But she loved him. She truly did. She loved the good, and the bad. The bad made his good all that more precious. True, sometimes it was more like gentling a wild animal than getting intimate with your lover, but she loved that proud feeling she got when he finally let her in. She believed that they could make it work. They just needed more time. A whole lot more time, before going to her mother's beach house for the weekend!
"Are you?" Heero suddenly asked and Relena's already frayed nerves sizzled. Would it kill him to form a complete coherent sentence?
She sighed internally before turning back to face the driver's side.
"Am I what?" she asked as patiently as she could. How much longer until they got there?!
"...bored," he whispered.
Oops.
She turned to look out the window, hiding her shame. She'd hate to make him feel as though he wasn't enough, but he deserved nothing short of her complete honesty.
"More like exhausted..." she sighed, "But I guess you can call it that," she added, shrugging. She glance up, seeking his eyes behind the messy locks of hair falling over his forehead.
"You're not the only one trying to adjust," she said and turned back to look out the window.
Heero didn't say anything in response. She could feel his eyes on the back of her head, but she couldn't muster the strength to face him. She had a sinking feeling that she should have lied, and she didn't want to see the look on his face that would confirm it. Instead, she leaned out the window, resting both arms on the windowsill. She inhaled the hot air, filling her lungs with the musky scent of pines; a refreshing change from the musty AC air mixed with lemon-scented air freshener she'd been breathing for hours. She reached to push her sunglasses down off the top of her head and inhaled another lungful of forest air, counting treetops.
And then, suddenly, they were moving. Not just crawling along the expressway, but really moving! Heero had kicked the car into gear, stepped on the gas and just veered off the road – speeding down the right-hand shoulder so fast her sunshades nearly flipped off her face.
"Heero!" She cried out and hurried to lean back into the car, whirling around to face him. Her hair billowed up in the wind gushing in. "What the hell are you doing!?" she shouted over the roar, pushing long locks of hair out of her face. She slammed her finger on the button to raise the window back up.
Heero just drove. They were speeding past many weary drivers still waiting on the road. Some of them honked angrily, waving their hands and most likely cursing them for daring to pull such a nasty stunt.
"Heero, we shouldn't––" she wanted to berate him, but then he turned to her with such a glitter in his eyes that she couldn't utter another sound. She hadn't seen this light shine in who knows how long.
"You said you were bored," he reminded her, smirking.
"But this is––!"
"Hang on!" he called and then turned the car sharply off the asphalt and onto a narrow dirt road leading into the thick pine-barrens. The car bucked, making Relena's teeth chatter. She clung to her seat, gaping at Heero in disbelief.
"Is this a shortcut?" she asked and he shook his head, that mischievous hint-of-a-smile still hovering over his lips.
"More like a detour."
"A detour where?" she turned to look out the windshield, frowning at the thick pinewoods streaking past them in a blur of green and brown. The rutted service road seemed better suited for a jeep or a small ATV. Surely, their rented SUV wasn't designed for off-road driving.
"Wow!" She exclaimed when they sped through a pothole that had her jumping an inch high in her seat. The car jolted loudly on impact, and something below made an alarming rattling noise. There went their deposit!
"Heero," she began, "Would you at least tell me where––"
"It's a surprise," he cut into her words, but none of his previous irritation was evident in his voice. He seemed to finally be enjoying himself, so who was she to rain on his parade?
The heck with it, she decided and leaned into her seat. "All right," she said, affecting satisfaction, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Surprise me, then."
"Roger that," Heero acknowledged and threw her a look, that playful glint still twinkling in his eyes. He shifted his gaze down, gesturing at her feet, as he added "But you're going to have to change your shoes."
She laughed. The phrase had become something of a running joke between them after their Valentine's date, and his way of telling her that she should brace herself for what was to come.
He drove further into the woods, their car bobbing and weaving its way through the rough terrain. There was nothing out there but acres upon acres of wood. The busy highway seemed a world away. They were deep into the Barrens now, surrounded by wilderness. The navigation app was useless under the dense cover of the trees, as was GPS reception. Heero had turned on a compass app instead. He seemed to know exactly where he was going.
But what could he possibly want to show her out here? Perhaps a secret cabin in the woods? He knew about a billion and one of such remote places all around the world; safe houses he had used during the war. He liked these out-of-the-way hellholes. He took her to a hunting cabin up in the Catskills once, miles away from any sign of civilization. He hadn't planned to make a romantic getaway or anything – this was Heero, after all – although that weekend was probably the best sex they'd ever had (a much-welcomed improvement, considering they were still trying to get the hang of each other in bed). Romance aside, Heero had just wanted to rough it now and then and get away from the city. They did a lot of hiking, which was nice. She bet he would rather go up there again this weekend, instead of going to her mother's...
Hiking was a bit more difficult for Heero, as an amputee, but he had managed surprisingly well; except for the fact that his residual leg tended to shrink a lot for some reason. They had to make many stops so he could change his prosthetic socks; otherwise, he would get stuck bottoming out in his socket, which was painful. Downhill tracks were especially rough, because his foot was fixed at somewhat of a 90-degree angle and whenever he tried to go downhill on uneven- terrain, his foot tended to throw his knee into flexion, which made his footing very unstable. He had made a few embarrassing drops along the way, cursing like she had never heard him curse before. She was just glad he let her be there to catch him when he fell.
Relena was torn away from her reflections when Heero suddenly stopped the car in the middle of nowhere.
"We're here?" she marveled. There was nothing but trees all around.
"Almost," he said and unfastened his seatbelt. He stepped out of the car and wriggled his left leg a bit, grimacing. Relena also winced, feeling for him.
Heero stretched his arms up, and folded them one by one behind his head. Relena observed him, eyeing the pale patch of skin where his dark-grey T-shirt rode up to expose his flat abdomen. His physique might not be as muscular as it had been back in the day, but his figure was still toned, just a tad on the scrawny side. He exercised regularly now, working hard to regain muscle mass. She hoped he wasn't aiming for the impossible, trying to recapture the perfect build he once had. Sure, she had pined over him in her teens partly due to his incredible body, but she had done a lot of growing up since then. This was real life now. Real love and real compromise. Heero was imperfect in every way, and she loved him for it. He might seem like a broken toy soldier to some, but he was her broken toy soldier – too precious to be tossed away.
He caught her staring, sending her a sharp side-glance as he lowered his arms slowly. He tugged his T-shirt back down.
"Oh, come on," she teased, "I was enjoying the view."
He scoffed, circling the vehicle to get to the front of the car. She watched his stiff walk through the windshield.
"We'll have to walk the rest of the way," he said as he popped open the hood and secured it upright, obscuring her view.
Relena realized that he wasn't kidding when he'd said she should change her shoes. She was wearing a pair of white sandals to match her white sundress. Thankfully, she always packed for anything.
"Is everything alright?" she asked and finally stepped out of the car.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered from under the hood. She could hear him tinkering with something, before adding an impatient "Shoes."
She took a whiff of his scent as he circled the car again, walking past her briskly – a heady blend of deodorant, with a touch of sweat, mixed with the earthy fragrance of fresh pines. She was addicted to the very smell of him. Smiling to herself, Relena turned around just as Heero opened the trunk. He leaned in and began rummaging inside.
She joined him, and rested her hand on his shoulder. Heero shrugged it off, busy.
Opening the small gym bag he had packed for the weekend, he emptied it out on the trunk floor: a change of clothes, a bathroom utility bag, and his prescription bottles. She was curious, but she knew better than to ask him questions while his mind was focused on a task. She'd find out soon enough.
She reached to open her own bag and retrieved a pair of sneakers, white socks already tucked inside.
Heero snatched a set of jumper cables and threw them into the small gym bag. As she changed her shoes, Heero slung the bag over his shoulder and then reached to take a small tool kit and a pair of thick work gloves. He made his way around the car again – tool kit in hand. Something was wrong with the car!
She hurried to change her shoes and went to join him by the open hood. He already had the gloves on and was using a wrench to loosen the nut on the negative terminal of their car battery. It looked like he was going to disconnect it. Did they have a spare battery or something? She was confused.
"Heero?"
"Get some water," he said and moved to disconnect the positive terminal. Suppressing a sigh, Relena simply nodded and went to fetch some from the small cooler they kept in the backseat. She returned just as he removed the car battery.
"Heero," she tried again, "why are you taking the car apart?"
"We're going to need it," he replied and placed the car battery in his gym bag, along with the jumper cables.
"Please tell me we'll be back for the car," she begged him. It was a rental, for god's sake.
"We'll be back for the car," Heero droned and zipped the bag shut. Relena just hoped his idea of a detour was better than his idea of a joke.
He turned to her, using the back of his hand to wipe the sweat away from under his nose. She smiled softly when he smeared a streak of grease on his cheek in the process. She had the urge to clean the smudge off with some spit on her finger, but Heero absolutely hated it when she mothered him. And anyway, it was cute.
"Ready?" he asked, all business-like.
"Lead the way," she told him, smiling widely.
Heero nodded and secured the bag across his shoulder. Turning off the road, he guided her into the woods. She tried to enjoy the scenery while they walked, knowing any attempt at conversation would be useless. Heero was in full "mission mode" – not to be disturbed.
They hiked through the pinewoods for at least another mile or so. The landscape lost its appeal soon enough. It was mostly green pine needles above and dry brown pine needles below, a few pinecones here and there, and not much else. Relena sipped water from the bottle every once in a while, instead of trying to engage Heero in conversation. They walked side by side, keeping a comfortable distance from each other. They weren't really the lovey-dovey type (although, if he ever did want to hold hands, she would be happy to). Heero had innate aversion to touch, but they also knew how to show affection when the time felt right, more often than not, in the sanctuary of her small Queens apartment.
He came over often. They probably never would have gotten so close if he hadn't been on leave for three months. She liked to think that she had played a strong supporting role in his rehabilitation. Unfortunately, now that Heero was back to work, it was getting harder and harder to find the time. His boss demanded that he'd work long hours, and assigned him to most of the dirty work. He had a lot to prove.
They barely saw each other anymore. She was also very busy with her MA studies at NYU and her intern-job at the UN. These days, it felt like they were mostly "ticking boxes together": 'hello', 'how was your day?', 'what should we have for dinner?' and then straight to bed, falling into an exhausted slumber even before their heads hit the pillow. She often felt as though they were chasing their own tail in an exhausting daily race getting them nowhere. One way she had found to help them keep sane, and simultaneously reconnect, was by following a tip she had encountered in some shameful magazine, about a twenty-second full-body hug. Every evening, when they met after work and/or school, they hugged for a full twenty seconds. Heero thought it was stupid, but then she backed it up with some science, telling him that when people hug for twenty seconds or more, it triggers a release of oxytocin in the brain, which allows them to feel relaxed and loved, forming a positive connection with each other.
Heero had treated the "ceremonial hug nonsense" (as he described it) with great sarcasm at first, only doing it because she had insisted. However, since they'd been sticking with the silly ritual for a few months now, she assumed he found it just as nourishing as she did. Pressed body-to-body, she could feel his heartbeat and sense the calm coming over him as the seconds ticked by idly. Sometimes, he'd melt against her, resting his head on her shoulder and allow another twenty seconds to go by in perfect silence. On days when they didn't get to meet or hug, she actually craved their embarrassing little habit. Looking at him walk by her side, Relena wondered if he did too.
Heero was using his phone to navigate with the compass app. He was leading them to a certain set of coordinates, but she had no idea where. She followed him silently, looking around for anything that might hint at their destination. Every tree looked exactly like the other. It was easy to get lost out here. If Heero's phone were to give out for some reason, there was a very slim chance they would be able to navigate their way out of the Barrens. There wasn't even a decent clearing where one could see the stars to navigate, and moonlight wouldn't reach under the pines.
"Ever heard of Hansel and Gretel?" she asked, just to break the silence for a bit.
"No," Heero replied briskly, looking at his phone as he navigated through the tall trees. "Friends of yours?"
She resisted the urge to laugh. "More like childhood friends," she replied, smirking.
"Hn," he uttered – clearly not getting it. She rolled her eyes behind his back. He didn't even care to ask. Such was Heero when he was busy doing just about anything.
Finally, they arrived at a forest clearing surrounding a long and narrow pond, no bigger than two Olympic swimming pools. It was stunning, the water a glittering-blue and the trees a lovely lush-green, but Heero didn't dwell long enough to enjoy the view. He looked at his phone again, surveyed the area a moment, and then led her around the small lake.
"Do you like fishing?" she made another attempt at conversation.
"Not really," he said, walking a step ahead of her.
"Hunting?"
"No."
And that was it.
They walked around the oval shaped pond, until they reached the narrowest point. There was a small hill sticking out of the landscape a few feet from the shore. Greenery covered the bell-shaped mound. Heero's stride hastened as he headed towards it. She followed, picking up her pace as well. She studied the unusual hill as they approached. It stood out unnaturally in the otherwise flat surrounding. Its symmetric shape suggested it was manmade.
Her suspicions were confirmed when they reached the small hill. It was a bit bigger than an average toolshed, but not large enough to contain much of anything. Heero reached to clear some of the shrubs away at the side facing the lake. He dug both hands into the dirt, shoveling it away, until he unearthed a metal door – built vertically into the side of the hill facing the lake.
Relena stood a few feet behind him while he worked. She watched, awed, as Heero opened a small metal box to the side of the dirty door, revealing a digital keypad and a retina scanner. He leaned his face in, and, just like that, the door unlocked with a hiss of air pressure releasing.
"Oh, wow," she uttered under her breath, taking a step back. With life being so ordinary now, she had almost forgotten that her boyfriend used to be James Bond material. With a history of being both a militia pilot for the CLO and a Preventer CTU operative[3], it shouldn't be surprising that Heero could pull off this kind of secret- agent extravaganza.
"What is this place?" she asked, stepping closer carefully.
Heero didn't turn to face her and was already walking through the open door. "A secret hideout."
Relena clenched her fists, trying to contain the irritation. He usually never stated the obvious, but he was being purposely annoying, letting her know he didn't appreciate the interrogation. Trust was crucial to Heero, and a real deal breaker if mishandled. He resented any hinting towards her mistrusting him in any way. She was expected to follow him blindly, trusting that he knew what he was doing. No questions asked.
They stepped into the long and narrow structure embedded into the hill, Relena following a step behind Heero. The floor was slanted into a moderate slope leading underground. A bunker, maybe?
It was dark, but just enough sunlight poured in through the open doors to help her see the way down the metal catwalk. The air was stale, but not moldy. The inside seemed to have been perfectly preserved by the air- pressure lock. The corridor was wide enough to fit two or three people and rose a few feet above them.
She wondered how long this place had been left sealed underground. In addition, how did Heero know about its existence out here, deep in the Barrens? He could have learned about it through his work with Preventer, but then again – that eye scanner accepted his retina scan. Did this place belong to the Preventers? Why weren't there any guards posted here? There was a heavily guarded airbase on the other side of the Barrens. It used to be an OZ base during the war, but now Preventer was using it, along with the US Air Force. So why hide a bunker a few miles away from a military base? Surely, whatever was in there could be kept inside the base, no?
Daylight became scarce the lower they descended into the underground tunnel. Heero turned on the LED flashlight on his phone to light the way. Relena observed his firm backside while he walked, eyeing the heavy gym bag he carried over his shoulder, where he had placed the jumper cables and car battery. She wondered if he was expecting to find a vehicle inside. Back in the car, Heero did say that he'd be grateful for a motorcycle. One could definitely fit in here. Maybe they would need to change the battery because it had been sitting here for so long?
A few moments later, they reached the end of the incline, where the narrow passageway widened a couple of feet on each side, enough to accommodate something large and leave enough room to circle around it. The small LED light on Heero's phone was barely enough to illuminate the room (hangar?). He used it to search along the concrete walls, until he found a metal box with a switch inside. He flipped it on, and strong yellow lights sparked to life above them. Two out of three lamps flickered for a moment before dying out, but one remained operational, shedding enough dim light to expose the large, oval-shaped, blue... something ... at the center of a long narrow hall.
At a first glance, Relena could have sworn she was looking at a gigantic blue jellybean. But at a closer inspection, she noted that there was something inside the slightly transparent blue crust. It was some kind of... She leaned in closer, squinting, then pulled back in surprise. It was a jet ski. A sleek, space-age-looking kind of seed-shaped water-scooter-ish craft, encrusted inside a huge blue jellybean. Seriously.
"Heero...?" she hesitated to ask, but it was about time he'd give her some answers. "What on Earth is this... thing?"
"Our new ride," he said and placed his gym bag on the cement floor. He knelt next to it and opened the zipper. "Courtesy of the CLO." He smirked slyly while taking the car battery out of the bag. He placed it next to the giant blue "jelly bean", and reached for the jumper cables next.
"You mean this thing has been sitting here for the last decade?"
"Longer, I'd imagine," Heero replied simply, unwinding the bundle of jumper cables, "But it can't be that long, since the lock accepted my retina scan. Means I was already in the system."
"Which would make it... how long, exactly?" she asked warily, standing a few feet away.
He paused for a second, thinking, before he resumed setting up the jumper cables. He connected one of the alligator clips to the battery's negative terminal. "Around eighteen years," he stated quietly, head bowed low to focus on his work.
That would put him at about eight years old when he had first joined the Colony militia, Relena deduced. She always assumed he had started at an early age, considering he was an MS pilot by the time he was fifteen, but she had no idea he had enlisted when he was just a little boy. She hoped maybe one day he'd share how that came to be. Meanwhile, she'd have to settle for scraps of information handed to her randomly.
Choosing not to pry any further, or else he might bolt, Relena allowed him to work in peace. She watched as he rose to his feet and turned to face the blue-crust-thingy encasing the craft. He jammed both opposite ends of the jumper wires forcefully into the translucent blue crust. It caved much like a jelly bean would, the alligator clips sinking into the malleable surface.
"Step back," he warned and picked up the last remaining end of the jumper cable, preparing to connect it to the battery's positive port. He waited until Relena moved to stand against the wall, and then closed the electric circuit.
There was a loud crackling noise and a flashing spark of electricity as a small electric charge was emptied into the blue jelly-like crust. At first, nothing happened, but then after a second or so, the surface fractured all over and began to disintegrate, crumbling in small pieces to the floor. Relena watched, stupefied.
Now unveiled, she could better see the perfectly- preserved white craft (she assumed that's what the blue crust was for). It really did resemble a long jet ski. It also had a pointed bow and a canopy over a stick controller, like a fighter jet, and a single engine at the back. What must have been its port and starboard were wider than that of a normal water scooter, more like narrow wings. She had never seen anything quite like it before. Then again, no one had seen a Gundam before the CLO sent those menacing machines down to raise havoc on Earth...
Heero stepped towards the strange-looking craft. He ran his hand over its smooth white surface, almost like a gentle caress. His features softened with a wistful expression, one she had never seen before. He was beautiful; a fallen angel who had just found his wings again.
"What is... this thing?" Relena uttered in awe, moving closer to join him.
"A PSC," he replied and dusted blue crystal-like crumbs off the wings. "Personal Space Craft. Used for re-entry."
"A spaceship?!" She gasped.
"No," Heero corrected, his words clipped and emphasized as he repeated his explanation: "a PSC. Dropped from orbit. For re-entry." He turned to face the craft fully, placing both hands on the wing so he could leverage himself up towards the cockpit. "It can't leave the atmosphere," he explained, grunting when he pushed himself up, "Operatives used it to touch-down undetected," he continued when finally standing on the narrow wing, rubbing his hands together to dust off the crystalized crumbs. "It doesn't register on radar, so they could use it for short flights when necessary."
Relena looked up to face him. "So, it's an aircraft."
"More or less," he dismissed her assessment with a wave of his hand and turned to open the canopy. "It has limited flight capabilities, but enough to navigate through the atmosphere."
She smiled slyly, crossing her arms over her chest while looking up at Heero standing on the wing. "And it can take us to Montauk in like... what? Five minutes?"
"Ten," he smiled, practically beaming; "Fifteen tops." She had never seen his face so radiant before. He was loving this, and she was loving him for it. It was wonderful to finally see him happy.
"Well worth the detour, then!" She laughed and tried to climb up on the wing. Heero reached his hand down to help her, pulling her up. There wasn't much room on the small wing, so they had to stand really close, pressed together chest-to-chest with their noses nearly bumping.
Time for a twenty-second hug, she decided and wrapped her arms around his torso, pulling him even closer. He realized what she was doing and encircled her waist in his arms, leaning into her. She closed her eyes, inhaling him deeply.
"I thought it was your job to locate and report these kind of places," she whispered in his ear. Some of their most intimate conversations were done this way; the oxytocin at work, most likely.
"It is," he confirmed, moving his head back a little so he could look at her. She smiled in affection when her eyes fell on the streak of grease on his cheek.
"And you didn't report this one out of –" she smeared some spit on her finger and cleaned away the grease "– spite?"
He wrinkled his nose at her intrusive touch. "Sentimental value," he muttered, wiping her saliva off his cheek.
She chuckled quietly, a sound somewhere between amusement and nervousness. She didn't know if he was merely joking, or if there was some dark story behind his meager words. With Heero, it was impossible to tell. She knew better than to ask, though. If he had wanted to, he would have elaborated his reasons.
A few more seconds passed before Heero broke away from the hug. He carried on business-as-usual, as he always did after their ritual hug (it still embarrassed him), and turned to climb into the open cockpit. The small craft contained a single chair, a dashboard full of instruments, and a center control stick between the leg space, equipped with a number of electrical control switches within easy finger reach. He settled into the pilot's seat, sliding his legs into place on both sides of the center stick controller.
He ran his hands over the bulky control column, as if appreciating a fine work of art.
"This is one of the last strongholds," he murmured and turned his head up to face her, a sorrowful glimmer in his eyes. "There aren't many of these places left on Earth." He reached his hand out, inviting her in. "This one happens to be close by... so I kept it."
She stood there a moment, gazing at his outstretched hand. She was touched that he chose to share his reasons with her, and she wanted to respond properly.
"Preventer is erasing your past," she let out sadly, a heavy feeling settling onto her heart. She never thought about it this way before, always being an avid supporter of Earth's disarmament, but all these secret weapon stashes the CLO had left behind, they were all a link to Heero's past. He had been raised by the militia to fight for their cause – to liberate the Colonies – and now Preventer was hunting down and destroying every physical trace of his legacy. The Gundams were gone, Mobile Suit production had all but been banned on Earth and in Space, so what did he have left? He had no family, no roots to connect him to his past. He had nothing but years of indoctrination drilled into his head – training he was expected to discard in his adult life.
Everything Heero had known, everything he had done, was gone. His entire way of life had been forsaken in peacetime, leaving him with nothing to hang onto in his new struggle to adjust. Disillusioned, it was no wonder he had succumbed to alcoholism. Liquor, however destructive, had been something to hold onto, even if it was just an illusion of comfort. She hoped he considered her a better and more supportive alternative.
"It must make you feel so... obsolete," she offered her insight, hesitant as she spoke the words in a quiet tone. Heero retracted his offered hand and turned to face the dashboard again. He shrugged, heaving a sigh.
"I guess," he mumbled, toying with the pilot stick, "It's like... like they're erasing my life's work, or something."
She nodded in understanding. "So, you kept a few... trinkets."
He smiled faintly, nodding his head in confirmation. "More like," he added as an afterthought, his fingers hovering gently over the controls, "deleted them from every database out there."
"Heero," she berated softly and he looked up, a somewhat guilty-looking smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
"Nothing dangerous," he assured her weakly; he sounded tired. And when she didn't look convinced, he added, more confidently, "Really."
Relena dropped the admonishing act, replacing it with an affectionate smile. "Well, as long as you're not hiding some nuclear missile silo somewhere... I guess I can let it slide."
"Or, I can silence you for knowing too much," he joked, deadpan, and offered her his hand again to help her into the cockpit.
She snorted, dismissing his empty threat. "Where did I hear that one before?" she rolled her eyes and reached to take his hand. He actually chuckled this time and pulled her towards him when she climbed into the cockpit. She enjoyed this carefree side of him.
She had to sit in his lap, because there was not enough room to accommodate two passengers. It was kind of... sexy. Feeling the heat of his groin against her bottom, his firm torso pressed against her backside and his arms wrapped around her as he fastened the safety harness around them... She was beginning to feel a little excited.
"Ready?" His breath brushed against her ear when he spoke, and she shivered.
"Ready as I'll ever be..."
"You'll have to be my co-pilot," he said, his arms circling her body to reach the controls.
"What?!" She exclaimed, panicking slightly; "No! I don't even––"
"Relax," he told her, flipping a few switches here and there; "I'll be doing most of the work. You just..." – he tapped on his left thigh – "help me out a little. My foot slips..."
"Oh," she let out, feeling foolish. After moving her feet around a little, she discovered four pedals below the dashboard – which was one more than a manual transmission car. Despite being a left leg below-knee amputee, Heero could drive a stick, but he still preferred driving an automatic. He couldn't feel his leg while driving a manual transmission and sometimes his prosthetic foot slipped off the clutch to press on the brakes. Three pedals was doable, with practice, but four could get tricky.
She turned to look over her shoulders, meeting his eyes. "You take the right, I take the left?"
He nodded his head to confirm. "Press when I tell you to," he instructed while adjusting the controls, pressing buttons and flipping all sorts of switches. "One is for the pedal on the left and Two is for the one to its right."
"Aye, captain," she acknowledged in a mock-official tone, smiling as she turned to face the front again. She placed her feet into position, one on each pedal.
Dear Lord. As if it wasn't bad enough that they will be showing up a few hours late to her mother's, how could she ever explain showing up in this thing?!
[1] See my profule for the prequel.
[2] CLO: Colony Liberation Organization
[3] CTU: Counter-terrorist Unit