Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Denial ❯ Finally Waking ( Chapter 6 )

This story is for Dancin-Leprechaun, one of my best friends and one of the most incredible people I know, she's never seen an episode of GW, poor thing, but has diligently ploughed her way through basically everything that I've ever written and helped me whenever she can, she's the one who puts up with me when I go into a funk or become convinced I have no talent and lets me bounce as many ideas off her as I can. Thanks Vicky, this story's for you, I hope you enjoy it.

AN This is Heero's POV, just after Relena turns to look at him and Zechs, enjoy it, the plot of this was come up with on a bus, again, I really seem to do all of my thinking on a bus or a 3am. Enjoy, please R&R.

Denial Part 6

Finally Waking

Heero's POV

'Did she see us?' the thought flashes through my mind again and again, it seems to be stuck on repeat, I can see the same notion and it's consequences playing out in Zechs' mind too and I'm partly relieved to realise that I'm not the only one on the verge of panicking.

What if she had? I'm vaguely ashamed to realise that I would feel relief over any other emotion, relief that it was over, relief that I didn't have to lie any more, relief that I could finally be with Zechs. Then I look at my baby, the little human being lying in my lover's arms, something so unbelievably perfect… even though she's half mine and I realise, selfishly, that I can never give her up.

She can't have seen, can she? She's smiling, watching me with love in her eyes. Slowly she tilts her face and I realise, in abject horror, that she wants a kiss. A split-second later I replay that thought. Horror? I had never reviewed kissing my wife as being such a distasteful pastime, I would rather have been kissing someone else yes, or even not kissing at all but horror had never come into it.

Slowly I realise that kissing her would completely butcher and taint the one that Zechs and I just shared. Two actions, so similar and yet with a world separating them.

She's still waiting, watching me expectantly and I lean in, hesitantly. Beside me I feel Zechs turn away, to give us a semblance of privacy? Or because he simply cannot watch? At the last second I turn away and she pulls back, an unreadable expression on her face.

I shouldn't be doing this here, I shouldn't be doing this now but out of nowhere a thousand different emotions are flying through my head, regret, disbelief, sorrow, relief, joy, panic… I don't know where they've all come from and I can't even begin to make sense of them all, only one sentence is clear out of the chaos, 'I can't do this anymore.'

"Do what?"

Abruptly I realise that I've said that out loud, Relena is watching me with a faint expression of hurt on her face and Zechs has turned back round. He's staring at me, an odd mixture of terror, hope, anticipation and disbelief in his eyes.

"I…" I search my mind for the appropriate response and I can't find the words, I was never good at this at the best of times, Relena's still watching me, the hurt remains on her face but there's another emotion in her eyes, something I can't identify at the minute.

Desperately I turn to my lover who sends all his love and trust in one glance, 'do what you think, I'll understand either way, I'll love you either way.' That more than anything else decides me.

"I can't do this anymore Relena. I can't live a lie any longer, I'm so sorry I never meant for this to happen and, despite that, I can't even say I regret it because what I have was worth every second, It wasn't supposed to work out this way but it has and I'm sorry but I can't do this to either of you anymore.

I'm so sorry. I love my daughter, I've loved her ever since you told me about her and I can't bring her back to a house that's filled with so many lies. I'm not in love with you anymore Relena, I'm not sure I ever was, I do love you but I can never be who you need me to be."

It's like I'm watching myself, in my mind I've told her one hundred times but I never thought I'd actually do it and I'm not thinking either, I'm just talking. The carefully worded speeches that I've planned have been forgotten about and I'm just talking, apologising from the thing that got me into this mess in the first place, my heart.

She's staring at me but she doesn't speak, she doesn't even look surprised, just waits in a kind of horrified stupefaction for my next words, Zechs is staring too. I've never told him how close I came to telling her, just before I found out that she was pregnant, I never told him about all the times after when I thought about it, for him this has come completely out of the blue and he looks thunderstruck.

"I'm in love with someone else Relena. At first I thought this was lust or desire or… something but then I came to realise that almost every thing I did was aimed at seeing him, hearing him laugh, making him smile. That he was the first thing I thought about when I woke up and the last thing I though about when I went to sleep. I can't pretend anymore Relena, I don't want to hurt you and I am so sorry but I don't deserve you…"

"Who?" She croaks the word out and I jump, not having expecting this. I can't say the words, they'd have sounded wrong in the white hospital room. In answer I place my hand over her brother's while he alternates between watching me and watching her.

Pain flashes across her features and then it gradually begins to be replaced by a vague approval. Absently she shakes her head and then turns to her brother, "do you love him?"

The question catches us both by surprise as Zechs gapes at her for a few seconds, struggling to find the words before settling for the simplest answer but somehow managing to convey a million responses in it, "Yes."

"I just…" She doesn't appear to be completely certain what she's trying to say and I watch her anxiously, worriedly. I didn't expect this reaction, I expected disbelief, anger, hurt… "I just needed to see, I needed to know, if you really did… If you loved him more that you did me. I needed to see if you'd deny him again just to protect a sham marriage. I needed to see if you loved him enough…"

Her head's bowed and Zechs and I exchange worried glances just before she looks up again, her eyes are shining with unshed tears but there's something else there as well, acceptance. "I love you both," she continues and she catches us by surprise again and it hits me that she knew, I don't know how long for but she knew, maybe not everything, maybe not of every meeting and every stolen kiss but…

Persisting, despite the hitch in her voice, Relena carries on speaking, "and if you love and need each other that much then I can't stand in your way, I won't deny you this chance, I can't deny you this. I just want you to be happy."

She finishes with a whisper before holding her hands out expectantly, she wants her baby, I feel another stab of panic run through me as Zechs pulls his hand out from under mine and careful hands her to her mother. Relena can't take my baby from me, she wouldn't do that, would she?

Almost if she can read my mind and after this long I wouldn't be surprised if she could my wife reassures me quietly. "I have no intention of taking her away Heero, I don't know how this is going to work but she's still your daughter. I knew you didn't love me and that's not your fault," smiling humourlessly suddenly she allows a small piece of her anger and hurt to show through, "as much as I might want to blame you. I know I can't force you to love me if you don't but I had to check first, I had to check that it wasn't just a lack of options or the absence of common sense. I had to know what you were willing to risk for him."

She looks down at the babe that is somehow managing to sleep through this life-changing scene, shouldn't she be awake, this affects her too, it somehow seems wrong that so many people should be so unaware of these life-altering events that are occurring in the private suite at the end of the Preventer hospital wing corridor. I'm so filled with the relief that I'm not going to lose her that I don't even really consider this. It still feels though, like people will know, they'll know something is going on, this will make the front page of every newspaper on planet and off and will probably sell more papers than when they were reporting on our wedding. Lives are changing, paths set in stone are being remade and no one knows.

Relena lies back on the pillows, her eyes close and I'm struck by how young she really is, barely nineteen years old. Meeting me threw away any semblance of a childhood she may still have had and loving someone who was incapable of loving her back meant that the last hope that everything would work out in the end, the last childish fantasy she might have hung onto has been cruelly shattered. God I'm sorry Relena.

"How long have you…?" Zechs hesitates, wondering how to finish the sentence but wanting to know too. He's come to the same conclusion I did, she knew.

"How long have I suspected, how long have I known or how long have I understood properly?" Not waiting for a reply she sweeps on quickly, as though worried that if she doesn't say it then she never will, "I've suspected for about a year now, before I found out that I was pregnant, all I had to base it on were suspicions and the looks you two kept giving each other. I've known for a month now but I only really accepted it just there now, the last shred of hope that I may have been imagining it or that I may have mistaken it was swept away when you told me how you felt."

"I'm…"

"Don't apologise, you're in love, I hear that people in love do notoriously stupid things." She laughs bitterly before sighing. "I'm sorry I never noticed. I should have seen it, I should have said something. I obviously couldn't leave it up to you could I? I should have told you but then again I doubt you'd have believed me. I meant what I said before, I love you both so much and I'm glad that you told me rather than letting me ask, I'm glad you're happy, you deserve it."

She means it, I can see it in her eyes she means every word she's saying. I'm struck by the horrible thought that this may be a dream, nothing like this happens in real life does it? Not to us anyway.

This is too real to be a dream though, I can hear sounds in the background, sounds that I never noticed before but am now latching onto just so I can believe that this is real, that this isn't going to go away when I open my eyes, that I wont wake up beside my heavily pregnant wife while my lover risks his life on, yet another, dangerous mission.

This is real.

Somehow while I've been lost in my thoughts Zechs' hand has found mine and he's stroking it gently. I cast a worried look at Relena and I see her smiling, looking tired but peaceful. She's clearly nearly asleep. I carefully remove the baby from her arms and as such I'm just close enough to hear her last murmur before she falls into slumber.

"I love you."

End Part 6

AN Much longer than the rest but I just couldn't stop typing once I started, please tell me what you think. Do you think it needs another couple of parts, maybe another POV and then a rounding off chapter, or two. OK I admit it, I don't want to let go of this story. Seriously though, tell me what you think.