24 Aug 2000
Category: Angst/Romance
Pairings: (1x2)xR
Disclaimers: I don't own these delightful people (Sunrise and the
Sotsu Agency do, and Bandai has a license to pass them around), nor
do I intend to infringe upon the rights of their owners.
Rating: PG
Warnings: References to shounen-ai. And angst, and sap. Oh, the sap! My keyboard's getting all sticky!
Feedback: Always welcome!
<> denotes thoughts.
In the days, weeks, months that followed, Relena slowly made her way back to full strength. She was able to be an active part of policy decisions surprisingly soon, though the doctors would only let her work for a few hours a day. The rest of the time she spent in enforced idleness, when she wasn't in physical therapy or working with her psychologist.
The stubborn gaps in her memory remained, and so did the two former pilots. Duo hurled himself headfirst into charming her all over again, with amazing energy. Whenever she needed anything, he was at her elbow--she seemed bemused by all the attention, and her eyes would move from his anxious smile to Heero's more cautious face as if trying to figure out why they were still here. Really, she had assured them, she and Nina were doing fine--and Quatre checked in every few days, so she even had an ex-pilot on call.
So they must be here because they needed something. But what could it be? They were so clearly in love with one another that she didn't even entertain suspicions along that line, although sometimes she caught herself thinking wistful, tender things in the general direction of one or the other of them. Or both. It hurt her poor head too much to puzzle over it, so she gave up her mental excavations and settled into simple enjoyment of their company.
During his occasional visits, Quatre smiled to see her bent over a chessboard opposite Heero--she usually won, despite his tactical training. Duo would sit and watch them, just out of her line of vision, with far too many lifetimes' worth of haunted tension in his eyes. He usually went with her on the outdoor walks that were deemed essential to her recovery--"Do the lass a world of good," her doctor had whuffed, and so they went.
It almost won Nina over to see how careful he was with her, all his old energy modulated, not stifled, by the weight of this responsibility. And he did feel responsible, even though there was no shadow of reproach in her open face. If only he hadn't gone, he said to himself, over and over--but if he hadn't, they wouldn't all be together like this.
And Duo was slowly starting to believe that 'together' was a place they were going to be able to stay. First, they had to be friends--that already seemed to be working. Next, he had to stop dreading the possibility that she might eventually regain her lost memories. On his dark days, he found himself jumpy, tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop--for her to look up at him with sudden recollection and contempt. Every day that it didn't happen, he went to sleep feeling as if a train had just missed hitting him. Again. It was work, trusting in the solidity of the thing they were building, but he was determined to keep trying.
When her mind did gradually began to put itself back together, it happened subtly. She had always been able to remember the war--now, she could actually remember discrete events, times she had seen Heero and Duo before. A shooting star. A boy on the beach. Another one, shivering in the rain.
Those were waking memories; the more painful ones began to come back, too, but only in her dreams. She woke up screaming from nightmares in which a mobile suit tried to crush her with its shield, only to miss. A man sighting along a gun, while people fled screaming. But the worst was the pair of dreams that always hit her, one after the other--one figure walking away from her, down a long corridor, leaving her alone in a room whose floor suddenly dropped away to leave her floating in space. Then it would happen again; only this time, when the figure walked away, she was in a box whose sides constricted steadily until she was crushed. She could never see their faces.
One night, prowling the hallways as if Sank nationalists waited in constant ambush, Heero paused outside her door, halted by the sound of weeping. He pushed the door open, cautiously. "Relena. Are you all right?"
She struggled to sit up, face streaked with tears, and held her arms out to him. He came to her, gathered her close, and rocked her like a child in his arms. She let the tears pour down, burying her face in his shirt. "What was it? Do you hurt, somewhere?"
She shook her head. "A nightmare. The same one, over and over. Someone walks away, and I'm all alone. Then it happens again. I know, it's silly."
The hand on her hair paused, then resumed its gentle stroking. "Nightmares aren't silly. They're your mind working out how to deal with things."
"I wish my mind would figure this one out and leave me alone. Sometimes my brain is frighteningly inept."
He laughed, and she felt the sound like a purr against her cheek. "No, really," she said, lulled by the closeness. "It doesn't make sense. Why--" she suddenly put a finger on something that had been bothering her for a long time. "Why is it that I can remember some very bad things--I can even see my father dying in my arms--but I can't remember you and Duo? What's so terrible I can't even remember? What did I do?"
He went very still, inwardly very glad that it had been him, not Duo, wandering the hallways tonight--this would have been way too much for him, even now. "You didn't do anything, Relena. It wasn't like that. It was--complicated."
"That sounds suspiciously evasive, Heero." She sat up, watching him. "What happened?"
"Are you sure you want to talk about this?"
With a growing sense of fear, she drew away from him. "Tell me."
Very carefully, he began. "A long time ago. You--I think you loved me."
That didn't sound so terrible. "Then what?"
"I was an idiot."
"Still not terrible."
"Relena. I walked away."
Gradually, it sank in. Why she could never see their faces in her dreams--the missing connection dropped into place. "And the other one?"
"That happened later. You and Duo--he lived here, with you. I think you loved him, too. And then he came to find me. While I was being an idiot."
"This doesn't make any sense. The two of you--"
"Are together. Yes. But we were with you, too. Separately. Together, sort of. I said it was complicated."
Settling back against him, she thought about all of it for a long time. Very softly, she said, "I must have been very lonely, to wish all that away."
"I think so."
"I'm not lonely, now."
"Never again."
She thought some more. If they had been together once, did that mean they could be together again? "Heero."
"Hai?"
"Can we see if it still works?"
"What?" He wasn't even breathing.
"Us. Together."
Even in the dark, she could tell he was smiling. "Ryoukai."
End of Part 10.
Stay tuned for the postlude!
(:./lilias/complicated10)
