Chapter 29

Xx/xx/A.C. 201

I can't believe I'm finally home; everything seems so surreal. Pagan hasn't changed a bit, but he did finally replace the pink limousine with a black one (he claims it was for professional purposes, but I have it on good authority that the transmission practically dropped out of the car). He worries about me every time I walk out the door, but I think he knows that everything is going to be okay from now on, especially considering the detail they have on me when I work now.

Terraforming talks are going well, but I think Milliardo is manipulating things from behind the scenes. Every time I walk into a conference room, the committee members look alarmed. Then again, that could just be Heero. He's been following me everywhere lately, and the media has started to label him as my bodyguard despite the plethora of men-in-black that insist on escorting me all of the ten feet it takes to walk from the car to the front door. I'm waiting to wake up one of these days to find that he's somehow reassigned all of them to different details so they don't get in his way.

Speaking of the devil, he's sticking around this time. Sometimes I think I catch him patrolling outside my bedroom window, and although that may or may not be the truth (may is more likely), I sometimes wish that he would just-

"Hey!" Relena found herself squealing as her laptop was abruptly stolen from beneath her fingers, leaning back over the couch arm until she was able to see Duo walking away with the small black box in his hands. "Give that back!" She practically fell off the couch in her haste to follow him, grappling at him from both sides as he held the computer up and out of reach, grinning dangerously.

"What is it that you wish, Princess? That's a dangerous sentence, you know; wishes get women in trouble. You should ask Hilde, she'll tell you all about wishing for tall-dark-and-handsome and getting me, though I'm personally biased on the matter and think she's got it all wron-Whoops! Almost dropped it there, sorry, sorry! But really, you should-OW! OW! OW! Okay, okay, I give!" They had slowly been dancing towards the kitchen of the rustic cabin where she had chosen to stay for her summer vacation, but a firm tug on his braid sent the jovial pilot cringing apologetically, the laptop instantly lowered to eye-level, which she freely took advantage of. Inwardly, Relena thanked Hilde for providing her with Duo's 'CEASE AND DESIST button'. "No fair, Princess! You cheat!" Like the man he was, Duo pouted.

Stealing the laptop back into her own arms, the newly reinstated Vice Foreign Minister jealously hugged the console to her chest and did her best to scowl at her braided friend where he stood rubbing his scalp. "Reading a girl's diary is off-limits, Maxwell," she told him in her very best Wufei impression, backing away cautiously in case he decided to pounce when she turned around. "A girl's thoughts are private, and I can wish anything about Heero Yuy I damn well want to without yo…u…" It was only a fleeting acknowledgement that she had hit something solid.

Duo's smirk was teeth-grindingly triumphant. "What was that, Princess?"

"Duo…" The warning rumbled up from the chest at her back, smooth and low, but with a silky quality Relena had come to associate with Heero's silent-but-deadly side. The cheeky American had the decency to look chastised.

"Duo Maxwell! You'd better not be teasing Miss Relena again!" The call came fainter than it might once have, but there was no mistaking the woman behind it, and before Relena could blink Duo had retreated with a sheepish grin into the hall. She could hear Hilde's voice carry back to the kitchen as the small German rightfully chewed her boyfriend out.

"You should lock the door if you don't want him doing that."

"I like sitting on the sofa," she argued, closing the laptop and placing it upon the countertop. When she turned to face him, he had yet to move from where he had entered behind her, watching her with those Prussian eyes and a closed expression. She had discovered over the months since her rescue that he chose when he wanted to reveal his thoughts to her, and though it was frustrating when he shut her out, she was also flattered that he thought she knew him well enough to warrant such a distinction. Now, it was simply the question of what exactly he did not want her to see. "You've been scarce the past few days. Are you working on something?"

"Hn."

"Anything you want to tell me about?"

"…Not yet." There was something in the way he said it that made her heart quicken. His face remained impassive, but something had changed between one question and the next. Involuntarily, she stepped towards him, head leaning subtly to the side and a smile slowly blossoming on her lips. Truly, she was learning awful habits from Duo.

"Will I like it?"

"Yes." No hesitation, no doubt. If she loved him for nothing else, that would be enough.

"How long will I have to wait?" She had been raised to a rich family, and before she had met Heero she had been a spoiled child, but she felt that haughtiness rise in her chest as though the past six years had never happened.

"Until it's ready."

She huffed, short and dramatic, and was rewarded by seeing one edge of his mouth twitch upwards. Her own smile began to transform as she drew steadily closer. "You're impossible."

"Funny, everyone else says I'm Perfect."

She laughed before she could stop herself, too stunned by his teasing to restrain the impulse. Allowing herself to tumble against him so that her cheek rested against his shoulder, Relena wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tightly, rewarded once again when she felt steady hands come to rest at her hips. It had been a game of sorts between them, a way to thresh out the boundaries and test the people they had become in the time they had been apart. She would goad him, and he would rise to the challenge, but the terms of their game changed day-by-day. Many times the banter was gentle, soothing: a reassurance that they would not wake from a dream to find the world cold and lonely; but, then there were nights like these when they were introduced to facets of each other that were both new and fascinating, where voices rang loud and large, and she felt as though the childhood that they had lost was somehow being repaid in leaps of time.

Fear clenched her heart without warning, the sensation causing her arms to clutch tighter around him. Joy was so easily wiped away…

Even at the depths of her agony within Osiris, Relena had never considered herself a desperate woman—damaged, perhaps; scarred, certainly, but never desperate. She had lived through an era of endless wars and had survived Hell to come out the other side, but she had done so always with some measure of control. Now, with peace and happiness so clear upon the horizon, she felt her chest constrict in terror at the thought that one simple act could tear apart the fragile bonds that allowed her to hold an elusive, suicidal, nameless former Gundam pilot in her arms as surely as though he were hers to keep.

It was madness.

"Relena." His fingers were warm as they glided over her cheek and through her hair, the other hand drawing her gently to arms-length so that he could look her in the eye. His arms felt firm beneath her palms, as unwavering as the Prussian-blue eyes that gazed at her. "I'll protect you."

"Promise?" The selfishness welled in her, her altruistic tendencies berating her for acting so outrageously, but for once she allowed herself the satisfaction of coveting something: Heero.

"Hn."

They lingered that way, his hands settled on the curve of her shoulders and hers on his forearms. Her eyes wandered from his face and down the length of his arms, settling on his fingers before crawling back up to his chest. Tentatively, her own hand grazed over his right shoulder.

"How has your arm been?"

He hesitated, considering the appendage in question, and stepped away from her to flex the offending hand. "The muscle still spasms on occasion, but all other motor functions have returned to normal. The spasms will eventually subside with time and use." Watching him, Relena could picture the scars beneath his shirt: one truth even his incredible body could not disguise. She had seen it accidentally a week ago when he had been swimming, the shoulder a mass of twisted tissue that seemed out of place amidst otherwise flawless skin. He had paused, returning her gaze unwaveringly, then moved on as though she had not been staring. Despite both surgeries, the scars had remained: forever reminders to her of the trouble she had caused him.

"I'm glad that it's healing so well." She was ashamed to admit that that fact alone eased her guilt, if only a little. She forced a smile, then turned back to the countertop to rearrange the papers sitting beside her laptop, trying not to look back at him and think of the past three years.

Duo had told her in bits and pieces about the half-life Heero had lived… She wondered if there was ever anything good she had given him in their time knowing each other; had yet to fathom why he was still there, beside her, strong and unflappable, when she felt so weak and powerless next to him. His presence alone-or the thought that he was alive somewhere out in the world, always fighting for what he believed in-had been the driving force in her life since she was sixteen, but Relena still did not understand what it was that brought him back to her time and again.

"You didn't do this, Relena." The words made her flinch. He was far too good at reading her. "You did nothing but what was necessary to end a war. Treize did the same; the problem was how his actions were interpreted. People cannot mistake a woman who advocates peace, but Treize played a game that few people even have the capacity to understand. These were the consequences." He did not try to turn her to face him but she could feel the warmth of him at her back, the breath tickling across her neck. She knew he was right. Knew, but still felt the guilt eat at her.

"Cronis can't have been the only one to feel that way. Are there others who think that I've taken something from them?"

"Most likely," he said, honest as always. She accepted his words, closed her eyes, and sighed.

"The only thing I can do is move forward, isn't it?"

"Hn."

She leaned backward and he was there, solid and warm. She sighed again, this time in relief. Whatever they faced in the future, she was assured he would not be far. "Stay near me?"

"…Hn."

Author Note: I know it ends abruptly, but honestly I've had about 9/10ths of this chapter written for the past year and unfortunately I'm having trouble writing anything further. So, I capped the scene and this is the product. I hope everyone enjoyed IYE, but it will stay this way for the forseeable future. Thank you to everyone who followed me all the way through!

-Sar