4 April 2001
Pairing: 1+2+R
Rating: R
Category: Drama
Warnings: Violence, occasional bad language, hetero-ai, shounen-ai, sap, cute fluffy kittens.
Disclaimer: The boys and the girl belong to Sunrise, the Sotsu Agency, and Bandai, and I intend only to increase their happy happy revenues by creating this derivative work.
/ denotes thoughts
(continued from Part 1)
When the heavy door clanged shut behind Radu, Relena counted silently to twenty, waiting until footsteps no longer echoed in the hallway outside. Then she dove for the door, fumbling to get the nail file out of her sleeve.
The lock was especially large, and so was its keyhole--the file should fit. Wiping her clammy hands on her skirt, Relena slipped the nail file gingerly into the key slot, and began to try to visualize what the tumblers inside might look like. As if in answer, a memory took shape in her mind:
//Sitting outside her own office door with a bobby pin, a ballpoint pen, and a set of actual lockpicks, Duo had been trying to teach her how to pick locks. When she looked at him dubiously, he had done it once to demonstrate. "Just listen to it. Think about where the tumblers must be, and push them out of the way. It's what a key does, and you can do it with any of these, um, 'tools.'" When the door swung obediently open after only a few seconds, he had grinned at her. "Here, you try--this'll come in handy someday, you'll see."//
Now she swiped angrily at the tears that persisted in sliding down her face, trying to concentrate on the sounds inside the door. Every click, every thunk was a good sign, at least as far as she could tell. The file slipped farther into the locking mechanism, carefully easing its components out of the way. This might be about to work--then, of course, she'd need to come up with a plan to get out of this building and back up to the sky. But that could wait. First, this damn damn damn lock....
There was a metallic snap, and Relena looked down dumbly at the sliver of metal in her hand. The tip had broken off, leaving her with a tool too wide to work back into the narrowest parts of the lock. And when she kicked the door, out of sheer frustration, she heard the snapped-off bit of metal fall down through the lock compartment with a series of apologetic clinks.
Relena sank back onto her knees, resisting the urge to begin sobbing uncontrollably. She'd pushed too hard, or twisted when she should have slid it straight--but however it had happened, she was now without even a rudimentary lockpick. And her only weapon, modest as it might be, was now literally pointless. Unless the cinder-block wall might provide a surface abrasive enough to sharpen it again--? She gathered herself up, literally and figuratively, and went off in search of a rough spot on the wall.
By late afternoon on that third day, the rescue plan was almost ready.
Preventer communications experts had traced the transmissions at last, allowing them to narrow their search to a relatively small area in the mountains. But the big break had come when a Sibiu foot soldier had turned himself over to the Walachian government. Explaining that his leader had become dangerously unstable, nurturing wild fantasies of leading a global takeover from his perch in the Carpathians, the Sibiu source said he'd had no choice but to flee the compound--in the hopes, he said, that his information might make some amends for the suffering he'd helped to bring upon the Ministry families.
His information was immensely valuable: he knew where the compound was, and had drawn a passable map. And he knew how many people were still in Radu's service, though he conceded that more had probably deserted since he fled.
There was no time to make it to Bucuresti to question the informant directly. But they were able to pass along at least one important query, and get an answer: the Minister was alive, he said. He hadn't been among those responsible for guarding her, but he had seen her through an open door as he was going about his assigned tasks in the compound. She looked well, he reported, though she had seemed tired and pale.
"She's always pale," Sally observed as the call ended. "A little red meat in her diet wouldn't kill her."
"Nothing with a face," Duo said absently, still looking at the vidphone. "She won't eat anything that ever had a face."
Around him, the core planning team stretched, stood, rubbed weary eyes--all the while considering how to apply this new information to their evolving plan.
Pausing by the water cooler, Sally asked, "Even sunflowers?"
Duo shook his head. "No eyes. No parents. And anyway, it's a plant--all seeds. She's okay with seeds." He took the cup of water Sally handed him, turning it thoughtfully around and around on the table in front of him.
"I don't care what she says, fish do have faces," Une announced with a decisive air, dropping back into her seat.
Apparently the authority on this issue, Duo shook his head again. "Sideways faces don't count either. Anyway, do you really want to talk more things off her plate?" He closed his eyes, wishing with all his heart that Relena's picky eating were his only concern. It was funny, almost--he had thought he was holding it together pretty well today, but this oddly relevant conversation was making him want to scream. Or punch a wall. Something.
Keeping a close eye on Duo from across the table, Heero cleared his throat pointedly. "We should get back to the planning." Under the table, he stretched one leg until he could nudge Duo's foot in reassurance, and relaxed a little at the answering pressure.
Une sighed, rubbing her forehead, then straightened up briskly as an aide came in with the recently-transmitted maps. "Now. Here's where you're headed." She pointed to a valley in the southern mountains. "These hills are full of limestone caves--ancient ones, discovered before the Romans came. Some of them are still in use, and some of them--" reaching over to the computer beside her, Une keyed up the image of a busy warehouse within a cavern. "--have been built up for use as storage facilities. That's where she is, right here." She drew a star on the map, marking the base of one hill along the edge of the valley.
Leaning over the table, Heero nodded thoughtfully. "We can get a helicopter pretty close--put it down there," he indicated a clearing just on the other side of the hill, "and come down the hillside above them."
"Without anyone seeing us?" Duo leaned over the table from the other side. "Do we know where their sentries are?"
"Supposed to be here and here," Une pointed out their usual placement. "But from what this soldier was able to tell us, the whole organization's coming apart. You'll have to be ready for them to be either bristling with paranoid security or totally unprepared."
"Let's hope we get Door Number Two, eh?" Duo grinned.
"Aa," Heero agreed. "Unprepared would be good. Disorganized is fine. As long as we get there before the Sibiu fall all the way apart--we don't want them getting desperate and deciding to take her out on their way down."
The room's hopeful mood chilled a bit at his words, but they knew he was right. Everyone began to hurry just a bit faster; final preparations and transport arrangements were concluded with all possible speed. They would take one of the Ministry's passenger jets as far as Vratsa, the town just on the Bulgarian side of the Danube where the rest of the hostages were awaiting pickup. This would give the Minister's jet an innocuous reason for being in the area, while also keeping the rescue operation's base well away from Sibiu territory. As Une had pointed out, there was no way to know how far into the Walachian countryside Radu's sphere of influence extended--and it would be devastating to come so far only to be betrayed by a watchful farmer on a market cart. Once they had handed over the jet, Duo and Heero would enter Walachia using the stealthiest helicopter in the Preventer airfleet.
The mood in headquarters grew solemn as the two collected weapons, donned gear, and got ready to leave; the Preventers would be on standby just on the other side of the Bulgarian border, but would hope not to have to intervene. Even Minsk saluted as Heero and Duo left the complex to head for the airfield.
They settled into the cockpit of the sleek aircraft, adjusting safety harnesses and sliding on headsets in an edgy silence that was all too familiar from the wars. Heero spoke without looking directly at Duo, keeping his voice innocently even. "Why don't you pilot, at least to Bulgaria? I can take over when we switch to the helicopter, if you want."
Duo wasn't fooled. "Keep me busy and I won't freak out on you, huh?" His rueful voice had a manic edge. "You're probably right. And anyway, I can fly rings around you any day." He reached for the controls while Heero spoke to the air traffic controllers, and they were off.
The flight to Vratsa was uneventful; having firmly turned down the offer of a fighter escort, they were only an innocuous small passenger craft following the usual flight path south over the lumpy midsection of Europe.
Though his hands never faltered on the controls, Duo got visibly more tense as they crossed over the Carpathians. Heero even heard him murmuring a threatening little mantra, willing the Sibiu to think nothing of the sleek silver shape arrowing across the evening sky over their heads: "Nothing to see here, nothing to see here--go about your business, you little bastards. Shinigami'll be down in just another minute...."
It wasn't exactly a soothing sound, especially given the unsettling gleam in the dark-blue eyes; but Heero knew Duo's pre-battle rituals well, and recognized this as the middle stage of his psychological preparation. In another time, another place, Duo might have been applying war paint--here and now, he was performing an only slightly different invocation. Heero turned away, indulging in the extreme narrowing of focus that was his own version of the same ritual.
The local Preventer unit was waiting for them on the ground in Bulgaria, offering food and additional weaponry before the shorter flight into Walachia. The two rescuers paused only long enough to bolt protein bars and drink some water before taking possession of the helicopter and heading north.
This leg of the trip was especially tense, since they didn't know for sure exactly how advanced the Sibiu's radar capabilities might be. Their informant had been strictly an interior tech guy, not very well-informed about antennas and receivers. Luck seemed to be on their side, though, and the nearly-silent 'copter landed without incident in the assigned clearing. Shouldering their gear, they began the climb over the hill to the base.
Following Heero up the steep slope, Duo muttered something about Japanese mountain goats; Heero threw him a smirk over one shoulder. "Thought you were in shape."
Duo glared at him. "I am. It's just hard to be stealthy when I'm trying to hurry up a sheer cliff face."
"We'll appreciate it on the way back, when it's all downhill."
"Yeah, yeah." Realizing they were about to top the rise, and would soon be within range of the Sibiu base, Duo abruptly muted his grumbling. They slipped down through the trees in complete silence, coming at last to the edge of the base itself.
The second part of the plan was simple, and depended for its success on diversionary tactics rather than absolute stealth: after setting charges throughout the motor pool, they would set off the bombs and wait for the Sibiu to come boiling out of their anthill to check on the damage. While everyone was milling around, distracted, it would be relatively easy to slip past and into the caves. Then they'd be counting on the informant's map to lead them through the maze of tunnels to the rooms they were using as holding cells. To increase confusion within the base even further, Duo had added an element to the plan: on their way through the outer caverns, he'd cut the power supply, plunging the bunker into darkness.
Both phases worked like a charm; when the garages burst into angry orange flame, a little flock of shouting Sibiu came jogging out of the main tunnel to investigate. The smoke was heavy, and they were looking for someone running away from the compound, not toward it--so no one even noticed two dark-clad figures darting into the main entrance.
Once inside, they paused to orient themselves before splitting up for the next phase of the plan. Two main corridors led into the mountainside, with a web of hallways and rooms spread between them; beneath that first network of small chambers was a lower level, made up of much larger rooms. Originally built for storage, most of these spaces were now barracks and briefing rooms for the Sibiu. And one of them was a cell.
Their informant hadn't been sure exactly which wing held the makeshift cell, though he knew it was on the lower level. So they would each take a hallway, following the squared-off loops around to where the corridors met at the back of the complex. The dual advantages of darkness and surprise would make it possible for them to navigate with a minimum of bloodshed--it should help, anyway.
About to head off down his assigned hallway, Heero turned back; his voice was pitched low, and just loud enough to carry. "Duo."
"Yeah?" Duo looked back over his shoulder, his face an indistinct light patch amid the blackness of the passageway.
"Back in one piece, or else."
That familiar lethal grin was an even whiter flash against his pale face. "You too. Or else."
Radu, Captain of the Sibiu, future High King Under the Mountain of All Walachia, was highly displeased. In fact, he was cursing under his breath as he wrapped a bandage around and around his hand.
Sweet, they were supposed to be. Sugary and pink and sweet. Who would have thought that princesses could move that fast, or that they might have access to implements sharp enough to inflict puncture wounds? It was a deep one, too, and didn't seem inclined to stop bleeding.
The little bitch had stabbed him right through the hand. God alone knew where she had gotten the knife, or whatever the hell it had been--his men had confiscated all the pampered ladies' purses, including her own, so it must have been in her pocket all along.
Radu had merely gone to impress upon her the gravity of her situation one last time--the ESUN had been singularly uncooperative, and she was about to become an example. An especially bloody example. If what's-her-name--Lady Une of the Earthsphere United Nation--wanted to play hardball, she'd find herself awash in blood, all right. Radu had expected tears from the forlorn little sacrificial lamb--or perhaps dignified silence, if she fancied herself a martyr.
But when Radu arrived at the door of the holding room, the little princess had attacked him like a wildcat, slashing at him with some sharpened bit of metal while she tried to scramble past him into the hallway. It had taken at least five blows to her head and throat before he had succeeded in knocking her away, too. He shook his head. Things never would have gotten so far out of hand if his army hadn't dwindled so rapidly of late. With only a skeleton staff, it was really no wonder--but he certainly should be able to keep control over one half-starved hostage. One pitiful little girl.
At least things couldn't possibly get worse, he reflected, somewhat cheered by the prospect of going down into the caverns and using the World Nation's surprisingly vicious little Foreign Minister for target practice. Things were definitely going to start looking up.
And then the lights went out.
Relena was huddled next to the drinking-water bucket, trying to cup enough water in her palm to actually moisten her dry mouth. Her head was still woozy from Radu's blows, but she was at least able to focus her eyes normally. Nothing seemed to be broken, as far as she could tell. And she was alive, at least, though she had no idea how long that would last; Radu had been promising swift and murderous retribution when he stormed away in search of bandages. If she had outlived her usefulness as a hostage, she might well be only hours away from death, if that.
Her hands were shaking too badly to convey much water, even if there had been more than a few drops in the bottom of the bucket. She was so thirsty, though, that she kept trying anyway. Thirsty, and tired, and feeling every bruise, every complaining joint. It was worse than when she'd first learned to ride, and had been falling off onto cobblestones and into hedgerows every time her mother's sorrel broke into a trot. The memory of those sunny afternoons brought a horrible loneliness, almost enough to make her cry. /I want to go home. Oh, Mother, I want to come home./ Wrapping both arms around herself, Relena rocked in silent anguish.
And then she thought of Jeoffrey, curled up in his sunbeam. And of blue eyes smiling, and of strong hands holding hers. /Oh, please hurry. I can't--/ Holding on to the edge of the bucket for support, she let herself weep--but they felt almost like tears of relief now, sustaining her rather than sapping her strength. /I can. Because I'm not alone, not even here./
She rubbed at her eyes, straightened her dust-smeared blouse, and took a deep breath. /In any case, I will not die clutching a bucket. I will not./
Relena had just regained her feet, and was looking around for something else to use as a weapon, when a dull rumble shook the entire structure and bits of the ceiling began to rain down on all sides. Stumbling a little, not yet sure whether that muffled boom had been a good sign or a bad one, she concentrated on listening for sounds of a reaction from the corridor. The shouts and running footsteps seemed to be headed away from her door, not toward it--something had happened to draw the Sibiu's attention aboveground. It could mean--no. She wouldn't hope for miracles, not yet. Not on so little evidence. But anything short of Radu showing up with an execution squad had to be a good thing, surely?
And then the lights went out.
The large room hadn't been all that brightly lit before, but the sudden darkness was oppressive. Finding herself stranded in the middle of the room, Relena made her way cautiously toward the wall. Now it was dusty and dark--hard to breathe, and impossible to see.
Arms extended blindly in front of her, Relena inched closer to the wall--and breathed a silent prayer of thanks when her fingertips brushed against masonry at last. She flattened herself against the wall to wait--for what? She hardly dared hope, but couldn't help the little surge of joy that welled up inside at the thought that they might be here, finally. After all, that rumble had sounded an awful lot like explosives.... /Blowing things up again, Duo?/ She smiled into the darkness, and prepared herself to wait and see.
She didn't wait long.
Only minutes later, Radu strode into the room. The door shuddered against its frame before falling open, unnoticed, behind him. He swung the narrow beam of his flashlight from side to side, trying to catch any sign of movement in the echoing darkness: nothing. He cursed under his breath; where could she have gone?
In the doorway behind him, the distant emergency lights caught a spiralling cloud of dust in their strobing flashes--it hung there only for a moment, as if something had moved into the room too swiftly to be perceived. Then the dust fell again, whispering against the broken tiles.
Unheeding, Radu moved confidently into the room, whistling as one might call a dog. "Here, little princess...you can't hide in here, you know. Come here, like a good girl, and maybe I'll bring you with me instead of leaving you under the rubble."
A sliding sound from the other side of the room drew his attention and his light--he turned just in time to see a portion of the cinder-block wall detach itself from the cavern's underlying stone, crashing to the ground. Not much time. He cursed again, drawing his gun. "Or maybe I'll just put you out of your misery and leave you here anyway, mm? Let's go, let's go--I'll make it quick and painless, if you just tell me where the hell you are...."
Another sliding sound, and a quick gasp: Radu whirled again, his flashlight dancing wildly across the rubble on the floor. When he caught movement in its beam, Radu halted triumphantly--only to stare in disbelief.
It wasn't the Minister. It was someone else entirely--a masculine figure, standing in the abrupt illumination as calmly as if waiting for a bus. Steel-blue eyes gazed steadily at Radu over a leveled pistol, tracking him as though the flashlight's glare were no hindrance at all to the gunman's aim. Radu wavered, stammering incoherently. "I know you. You're--you're the one from the war--with the gundam, you--" He swallowed convulsively. "Where is she?"
From somewhere outside the circle of light, Relena's voice was exhaustedly sorrowful--as if she knew how this must end, and had already begun to mourn the necessity of his death. "I warned you to let me go, Radu. I tried to tell you. But you wouldn't listen."
Radu's eyes darted in her direction, staring wildly into the darkness; it was hard to pinpoint her location with the light behind him, even harder to hear her movements with the alarms going off outside. And he was afraid to take his attention away from the silent man with the pistol, whose aim had yet to waver. While Radu's mind raced in increasingly panicky circles, Relena spoke again from somewhere else in the room. "If you put down the gun, we can try to get you help--don't make them kill you, Radu. I promised them they wouldn't have to--"
When had she moved? If she got away, it would all be over--his kingdom, the glory.... He took desperate aim in the direction of her voice, but then a dark shape moved in the doorway behind him, blocking the flickering light from the hall. Suddenly surrounded, Radu panicked and tried to run, not even considering that there was no way out except past that menacing shadow.
But he didn't have time to be disappointed at his own mistake. Two silenced pistols spoke with a decisive 'thonk'--Radu went down with a gurgling cry, landing on the floor in a scrabbling heap before going very still.
Relena's breath caught in an agonized sob, and she sagged toward the floor with both hands over her mouth. Heero was beside her a moment later, finding her easily even in the dark. He tucked his pistol into the back of his waistband before running thorough, surprisingly gentle hands over her arms, her neck, her legs. Checking for broken bones, she realized, and let him turn her face toward the hallway's light to check her pupils for signs of a concussion. When he let go of her chin, she dropped her head against his shoulder, unable to look over to where Duo knelt beside Radu's unmoving corpse.
Finally, she heard his voice. "He's dead. And this place has just about had it. We need to get out of here."
Heero looked up. "How was the south corridor?"
"Six. Seven, maybe. No big deal."
"Clear enough to bring her out that way?"
"Yeah. I think the rest of them were running for it." Another set of gentle hands smoothed over her hair, and then Duo spoke over her head to Heero. "Is she okay? Can she--do you want to carry her, or should I?"
She swallowed, insisting, "I can walk."
"She probably can," Heero confirmed. "But we can go faster if one of us carries her. I'll take point for now, and we can switch if we need to."
The plan apparently established, Duo slid an arm under her knees and another around her shoulders. "Come on, love. We need to go."
As he stood up, she whispered fiercely into his shirt. "I'm sorry. I didn't want you to have to do that, not ever again."
Duo stroked her hair. "Shhh. Believe me, Lena, I've never been so glad to know what I know--to be able to be lethal, if I have to. If it means you're alive, I can handle him being dead."
Coming back to them, Heero touched her cheek in understanding and reassurance. "It was that man's choice, his responsibility. His sickness, maybe. Not yours." The ceiling groaned ominously overhead, and Heero glanced quickly up at it. "Philosophy can wait. We're out of here."
Afterwards, Relena had only a jumbled recollection of the actual escape. She remembered the sound of their voices, exchanging terse directives and affirmatives over her head. She remembered speed, the cinder-blocks of the corridor walls blurring into a continuous grey expanse as they ran past. The tunnels seemed interminable, hazy with smoke and dust and lit by the nightmarish flashing of the emergency lights. At the higher levels, there were security alarms shrieking into the deserted halls--the last few members of the Sibiu seemed to value discretion over valor, and had made their escape long before the two armed figures climbed up from the depths with their precious cargo.
And then, suddenly, there was daylight on her face--and pine trees against a blue sky, and birdsong. And a long downhill trot through those trees, with a clearing and a sleek black helicopter at its end. She blinked at it owlishly. "More experimental aircraft?"
Duo laughed, his voice roughened by smoke, and perhaps other things as well. "Don't worry. Heero'll be flying it--and I hid the self-destruct mechanism."
She wanted to laugh at that--even Heero had cracked a smile, so it must have been as funny as it seemed--but she was so tired. Her vision kept blurring, and she allowed herself to be buckled into a very high-tech seat without argument. It was the most comfortable chair she had ever had the privilege to meet, she decided--and that conclusion was her last conscious thought before she fell asleep at last, lulled even by the rhythmic whapping of the propellers and the muted roar of the engines.
The sun was high in the sky by the time the helicopter touched down in Vratsa. Manned by a Preventer flight crew, the Minister's jet had headed back to Sank the day before, carrying most of the original hostages. Those who remained had only just been cleared for travel; a slightly larger commercial passenger craft had been appropriated to transport them home--and to carry the Minister herself, should the rescue be successful. Though the airline's regular flight attendants would be making the trip with them (following an extensive security check, of course), the Preventers would be piloting and guarding this flight themselves. They were taking no chances this time.
A medic squad stood ready on the runway as well, and they hurried to check Relena over as soon as she was lifted gently from the helicopter. Aside from shock, contusions, and mild dehydration, she was reasonably intact--certainly able to travel, if she wanted to head back to Sank immediately--?
She did.
Despite Relena's insistence that she was perfectly capable of making it on her own, Heero didn't release her until they were on the plane; then he passed her to Duo only long enough to get settled in the row of seats before gathering her back up. She sighed in resignation, but was too exhausted to do more than swat at him weakly before nestling close. "Home," she murmured.
"Soon," Heero assured her.
"Wasn't what she meant, I think," Duo countered, waving his hand to indicate all three of them. " This is home. Right?"
She nodded sleepily. "Home."
Duo ruffled her hair gently, then grinned up at Heero. "The big surprise? Or should we wait till we get back?"
Heero shook his head. "I've waited this long--I'm not waiting any more."
"Okay, then. Might as well take advantage of her weakened state, I guess." Duo dug around in his deep side pocket until he came up with a rectangular velvet box--battered, now that it had seen its share of the fighting, but still managing to hold its shape. He held up the box triumphantly. "Still got 'em."
Relena wasn't quite sure what to make of his prize until he opened the box to show three rings, each one an interweaving of three narrower bands--not soldered together, but able to move within one another while remaining interlocked.
She touched the nearest one almost reverently. "They're beautiful."
Duo tilted his head, smiling. "Will you?"
"Will I--?" She was exhausted--that had to be it. Because it almost sounded like he was asking her to--
"Marry us, Relena." Heero's voice was steady, as usual, but his eyes held a question. "Right here, right now."
Duo continued before she could gather her wits enough to answer. "We were waiting to ask you, when we got that call, and then--"
"Oh." She put both hands over her mouth; tears began to push their way down her face. "Oh, my."
Heero reached out to brush them away, a gesture that almost broke her heart with its familiarity. Like an echo, except that the words were so different: "Say yes?"
She nodded wordlessly, the lump in her throat making it impossible to speak.
Taking the box, Heero paused. "If you want, we could wait till we can do this in a church. With flowers."
The earnestness of that offer of flowers surely would have convinced her--if she had needed any more convincing. Relena smiled, shaking her head. "It wouldn't make it any more official. Or any more real. Anyway--'Right here, right now,' you said. I believe I'll hold you to that."
"All right. If you're sure." He slid one of the rings very solemnly onto her finger, and then another onto Duo's, pausing again to consider his words. "Because you weren't afraid to know me, even when I was afraid to know myself. Because you made me want to live, and then showed me how."
For a moment, Relena wished she'd had time to think over these vows, as they must have--but the right words came to her readily, with all the warm certainty of truth. "Because you saw who I could be, and then helped me get there. Because I want to be where you are, always." She reached out for Duo's hand so they could slide the remaining ring onto Heero's finger together.
Duo finished the circle, looking intently from one of them to the other: "Because you see the light in me. Because you are my home." And then, smiling slightly as he looked down at the plait lying across his shoulder, "And because three strands woven together make something stronger than one could ever be on its own."
Relena took both their hands in hers. "Forever and ever."
"Itsumo."
"World without end, baby."
That made her laugh and cry all at the same time. But it was all right, because they were laughing and crying too--and a world without end suddenly seemed like a very wonderful place to be.
The flight attendant stole softly down the aisle past rows of sleeping children and their exhausted parents, footfalls muffled by the carpet and her own crepe-soled shoes. She paused when she neared the back of the aircraft, one hand going to her throat as a broad smile spread across her face.
Somehow, the three of them had managed to fit into about a seat and a half. The armrest was folded up to connect the aisle seat to the one next to it, and Duo was huddled close against Heero's side with his head resting low on the short-haired man's shoulder. Relena was mostly in Heero's lap, with her head tucked against his other shoulder--but her bent legs lay across Duo's, and one small hand maintained a tight grip on the combined folds of both their shirts. A grey airline blanket had been tucked snugly around her until only the top of her head and that one hand were showing, and Duo's encircling arm held the woolly cover securely around her knees.
Heero opened his eyes briefly as the attendant approached, and lifted the edge of the blanket to show that the safety belt was indeed fastened over both of them. The attendant nodded her thanks, then gestured to ask if they needed anything else. He turned carefully to glance at the sleeping face against his other shoulder, then shook his head.
She smiled, then whispered, "We'll be arriving in about three hours--I'll check back." A slight tip of the head was her answer, and she tiptoed back toward the front of the aircraft.
Duo stirred, one long-fingered hand questing over the blanket until he found Relena's knee; the contact seemed to ease whatever dreaming anxiety had disturbed his uneasy rest, and Duo settled back down into the curve of Heero's arm with a contented sigh. The triple ring on his finger gleamed dully in the low light, drawing Heero's attention, and he tipped his wrist against Duo's shoulder until he could see the matching circlet on his own hand.
The idea of matching, of belonging, was still too new to be quite believable. Heero hadn't doubted that this mission would be successful, that they would be able to bring her home--doubt would have been as fatal as fear. But now, exhausted and safe, with their warmth cradled close against his heart, Heero allowed himself to savor the sharp bite of risk, and the sweetness of the reward. /This is what it's all been for,/ he thought. /And always will be./ Relaxing back against the headrest, he tightened his grip on the familiar forms in his arms. His eyes closed at last--only to rest, not to sleep. Not with so much to watch over.
-End-
Random notes: I've gone with the geographical/cultural assumption that Sank is a northern European nation, which (when combined with my own flighty imagination) places the Sank Kingdom (and Relena's home base as Foreign Minister) roughly in the vicinity of Schleswig-Holstein. The Carpathian Mountains lie across the northern part of an area really called Walachia, which is part of present-day Romania (and is bounded on the south by the Danube). I airlifted the limestone caves from the nearby Apuseni Mountains, for convenience's sake--though the Transylvanian Alps may in fact have caves of their own. Sibiu is the name of a town in Romania, just to the north of the mountains. (All these place names are coming straight from the pages of my National Geographic atlas, and have been double-checked with various online maps of Romania--so if you find yourself wanting to quibble, feel free to take it up with them!)
Jeoffrey is my cat Eddie, making his third fanfic appearance! <Eddie bows, then promptly falls asleep> And he's named Jeoffrey for reasons that will make sense only to nerds of the same genre as myself, so I'll just leave everyone else to wonder. ^_~
And I know that Relena's prayer is psalm abuse, in addition to being a well-worn Duo-ism (I believe I have a slightly different version of the same verse on a wallpaper from Katsu no Miko's, in fact)--but I've had that line stuck in my head since October, and I had to use it! ^_^;;
Finally, I really thought I'd swiped my wedding rings directly from a lovely sci-fi trilogy called The Roads of Heaven (by Melissa Scott), which features a compellingly understated 3-person marriage--but as it turns out, they're not at all alike. But you should read Scott's novels anyway! <poke, poke> Go on, git!
(:./lilias/fnevil2)
