Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Heero and Relena ❯ Relena's 16th Birthday ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, or anything associated with it. I do, however, own this story! Course, I would still like to get my hands on those last seven DVDs of the series, just to see the original Japanese edit, though I guess in the meantime I can suffer with having the whole Cartoon Network series on tape. =)

A/N: Yeah! The server is back up! I can finally update!!! =)

(Per my friends' guidance, I have reloaded this chapter to fix some errors I made the first time around. I hope this is easier to follow than it was before, especially for those who have no previous Gundam knowledge.)

Rating: I rate this chapter "R" for the locker room scene. I'm probably overrating it, but better safe than, you know. =)

Heero & Relena

Relena's 16th Birthday

(A/N: This chapter occurs the same day of the Prologue…April AC 196.)

She stared out at the stars as the luxury space shuttle streaked her toward the colony. She recalled the last time she had stared out at the stars with wonder and innocence, and sighed. That time was not so long ago, but it felt lifetimes ancient. She was sad to note how a person's innocence could be completely stripped from them in less than a year. She was not the same person she was a year ago. That sweet, naïve child died the day her father was assassinated. No, that child had to suffer many faces before becoming the woman she was now, soon to be an official woman with the celebration of her sixteenth birthday on Colony L2. The unknown Princess, turned war fugitive, returned to recognized Princess, then graduating to Queen of the World before settling down to simply the Earth Sphere's Vice Foreign Minister, reflected on the past tumultuous year. She still determinedly believed all of her sacrifices were justified in this hard-won peace, but no matter how many excuses she came up with, she could not ignore the stab of pain from the empty hole in her heart.

That empty hole which contained a sculpted physique hardened with years of battle and injuries, topped off with soft, chocolate-colored hair as wild as the personality contained within the body. But it was his eyes that her mind always ended up focusing on. Those deep Prussian blue eyes that Relena Peacecraft drowned in every time…

(A/N: Same day, later on...)

Heero Yuy watched her from behind the curtain wall backstage, out of sight to everyone. Agents were everywhere, but they wouldn't bother the greatly-feared teenager. As soon as Noin had noticed him in the building, she had issued strict orders to all guards and soldiers alike that he was to be left completely alone with access to all areas. Noin, for her part, had only made eye contact with him as acknowledgement, before leaving him alone.

Relena was talking about bringing the school system on the colony up to par with the other system colonies. She was still breathtaking to listen to. He became so enrapt, he forgot to listen to the rest of her speech. His keen eyes noticed the slim curves and more rounded figure of a woman, no longer the mere annoying girl from one year ago… his one and only failed assassination victim, ever. He thought she looked slightly less energized than she used to be, but he knew that was to be attributed to the harsh schedule the position of Vice Foreign Minister suffered her. Relena, however, did not look like she was suffering at all, at least, not anymore. This thought caused a warm, slightly constricted feeling within his chest, and he just as quickly pushed away the brief feeling of happiness for another person. He was only a soldier, no, he couldn't even be considered at that level. No, he was nothing but an organic robot that had been programmed to excel at war and death since his birth, and nothing else.

Once again, his thoughts went into confusion as his emotions battled his logic, emotions that had been almost successfully wiped out of him over one year ago. She had changed all of that. As annoying as Relena was, Heero still remembered that day on the beach, not so long ago, when he had awoken in shock and failure, knowing that someone on Earth had already seen his face… the face of death. Once upon a time, back during the war, there had been a saying amongst all of the armies: To look upon either a Gundam, or its pilot, was to sign your instant death.

Yet when he had looked on her, he struggled to swallow the large lump that had caught in his throat, even as he quickly got up to poorly attempt masking his identity. She was beautiful. Her honey-blonde hair swayed gently in the ocean's breeze as she stood up to face him, still holding his helmet. It was her eyes that held him the most, deep-green eyes hinting a sparkle of blue, which showed no fear of him in the least…

During the luncheon that inevitably followed the political speech, Noin whispered into Heero's ear that Relena was about to be called back to Earth for an emergency meeting. In other words, she knew he was waiting to see Relena in private, and let him know if he had a backup plan, now was the time to act. Heero knew, as well as Noin, that once Relena hears of the emergency meeting, she would immediately figure out that introducing her Terraformation Project would solve the emergency. In addition, it would solve her problem of how to initially bring up the Project to the Earth Sphere delegates, without another debate about budget. Heero immediately left the building and hopped into his car. With a quick look down at his passenger seat, he headed toward the spaceport.

He actually didn't have a backup plan, the only emergency in his mind being the strange disappearance of army supplies and weapons that he had been working on tracing. When he arrived at the spaceport, he quickly slipped inside, undetected, and surveyed Relena's shuttle being prepared for its one-day early launch. The shuttle was well guarded, and he saw that all he had to do was kill two strategically-placed guards to gain access. Therein lies his problem. He no longer killed…

***flashback***

"No."

"Relena…"

"NO!"

"Damnit, Relena, we don't have time for this!" yelled an exasperated Heero.

"Then I guess I have plenty of time to just sit here and wait to die!" yelled back an equally-heated Relena, who then proceeded to carryout her threat, and sat down on the bench. Heero glared at her. She glared back. One minute passed, then two… finally, right when she was about to give in, Heero relented.

"Fine, if it makes you put on your suit so that you get the hell off this ship before I destroy it, FINE!" With that protest, he quickly tore open the White Fang button-down shirt he had stolen earlier, and threw it to the ground of the locker room as he also plopped down onto the bench. Relena noticed he was wearing his customary forest green tank top, which meant he was also probably wearing his black spandex biker shorts under the uniform pants. Heero took a chance to wince in pain after he had turned away from Relena's line of sight. Relena quickly took her chance and stood up behind Heero.

"This will only take a moment," she said as she gently pulled loose the knotted-white bandana tied around Heero's neck. She then deftly wrapped it around the bleeding wound on his right arm, which he had sustained just minutes earlier saving her life, again. Relena tied the knot, and took a breath. Heero hadn't dashed off as she thought he would once she was done. She gently put her hands on his shoulders, rubbing them lightly. Heero immediately tensed up and tried to get up, but she gently pushed him back down again. For some reason, he seemed weakened by her touch. Relena felt a warm feeling build in the pit of her stomach. She had never felt this sensation before when it hit her what it was. Then, the irony of the situation hit her full blast.

<<<We're about to enter the biggest battle human kind has even known… we'll both probably die… and here I am becoming sexually aroused for the first time in my life!!!>>> thought Relena.

Heero was faring no better than Relena, as she increased her rubs to massages. <<<This has got to stop!>>> Heero thought, as he quickly stood up and turned around to face her. Without missing a beat, he grabbed her by the shoulders and gritted out, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!!!" before pulling her close for a wildly out-of-control kiss.

She melted in his harsh embrace as he moved his arms to encircle her, pulling her closer. Relena surprised herself by putting her arms around him, deepening the embrace. As Heero relaxed by her return of affection, the kiss quickly changed from wild passion to deeper and more loving. Heero finally snapped out of his emotion and gently moved to pull away, only to be pulled back by Relena into another kiss. Both stubborn-willed youths allowed themselves to completely drop everything that both of them were, and enjoyed just one blissful minute of pretending there was no war, no Gundams, no politics, just them and nothing else.

Relena slowly pulled out of the kiss, smiling up at him. "We'll have more time for *this* after this battle, if you come back to me alive…" she said, "but be careful, Heero, people might start to believe you really *do* have emotions!" She winked at him. Heero was clearly surprised by her audacity, then he sighed. <<<There isn't another woman alive who would've said that to me without fear of my killing them.>>> he thought, as he pushed a stray hair away from her eyes. He allowed himself just a moment longer to swim in her deep-green eyes, then pulled out of the embrace.

He turned away from her, opening a locker to find them a couple of spacesuits…

***end flashback***

Heero turned to his right, and saw a technician walking into a storage room. Well, if he couldn't get his chance to finally see Relena in private, he'd at least leave her his gift. He already knew where her favorite seat was on the shuttle. Besides, it has been four very-long months since the war ended. Would she still want him, or had she just been reacting from the heat of the battle? He didn't know. He had never been rejected by anyone in his life. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't care. He tried to imagine his life without hers, and found none. He shook his head, violently shoving the useless thoughts away. After all, it was SHE who had pursued HIM during the entire war!!! He had refused to even acknowledge her until he had found himself a refugee in the Sanc Kingdom, under her rule, before it was destroyed for the second time. He never wanted to feel, much less to have a relationship of any kind with any one at all. He had just wanted to end the war, then go off somewhere in space to self-destruct himself and his Gundam mobile-suit, called Wing Gundam.

Even Wing Gundam had survived to see the last battle, only to be destroyed in it. Why did he survive, again?

He sighed as he realized he was becoming used to giving into this weakness for Relena. Then again, he had eliminated all of his enemies, so there was no one left alive to use Relena's life as leverage against him. "Whatever," he muttered to himself, stopping the flow of conflicting thoughts. Heero put his plan into action.

She sighed once again, staring out at the stars, but this time it was not a tired sigh. She held the teddy bear securely to her chest, as if afraid someone would try to take it away from her in the next instant. Relena read, again, the card she had torn in half, and smiled. She all but had to hold back the laughter upon remembering the look on Heero's face when she had torn the card. <<<What goes around truly does come around.>>> she thought happily. She had to hold the laughter back again as she had mouthed to him, "Next time, hand it to me in person!" through the shuttle's small window. The look of surprise on his face clearly showed that after four long months of his disappearance after the final battle, he had thought she would be angry with him and had been ready to accept her rejection. She had beamed at him, surprising them both by causing him to slightly smile up back at her. He then turned back around to continue walking away from the shuttle. The hole in her heart still ached, but she fell soundly asleep, the smile still etched on her features.

SO! How'd you like that chapter? Just click the cute little button on the bottom left-hand corner to let me know! I'd like at least another 5 reviews before I put out Chapter 3. I really, really hope that's not asking too much for a first fiction. =)

My very special thanks to my very-first reviewers:

Tomorrow, Thuy, Wildfire, Numena, LadySaturn (who's nice compliment got wiped out when FF.net fixed their new server this weekend =(( ), and Richard White! =)

Gypsy sun, it's only Chapter One! As soon as you read Chapter 2, I sincerely hope your questions are answered, but not completely. Otherwise, my story would only be 2 chapters long!