HEERO
She looked at me, happiness in her eyes, though her haircut and new sense of strength pierced through me.
I stared at Relena; something had changed from within her, something had grown and altered inside of her very being that she didn't seem like the Relena I knew.
We were at the hangar. Mireka and Quatre were typing certain things on the computer, probably trying to figure out the technology. Trowa and Wufei were with them.
And Duo was conveniently hanging around Relena and I.
"Relena, that was extremely stupid of you," I uttered softly, cold and sharp as a kitchen knife. "Going out and agreeing to become a spy for Trowa. I thought you had more sense."
"Heero, I am not a child," she said, seeming afraid, yet at the same time she had an annoyed defiance that rang out with her voice. "I did it to save you."
"To save me? I didn't need any saving. I was perfectly fine."
"Hey, uh, she saved my life," Duo added in a little nervously. I cut him a freezing glare, and he stepped back and away.
"You could've gotten killed!" I raged, deciding whether or not I should shake her shoulders.
Better not. I wanted to avoid touching her at all costs at a moment like this.
And even as I was ragging her about it, a part of me, an inner side of me that hardly ever came out beamed at her.
I'm impressed, that part thought. And proud that she would do that for me.
"Heero, I might have gotten killed," she said with a new kind of urge, "but I would gladly have died. For you."
Don't say that, my mind screamed. Don't say that to me! There's still a chance that you might...as long as I'm alive.
I shook my head in disbelief. "Are you really that dense? Couldn't you see that it wouldn't have been the same way if the roles were reversed?"
"I'm not so sure of that," Duo muttered, but my ears wouldn't hear them anymore. My hear was beating too loudly in my ears for me to focus on anything but Relena.
I don't want you to get too close! I yelled at her from within. I don't want you to because if you do, you'll become a target. And if you die...
I continued to stare at her grimly, but inside, I was aching.
If you die...I would die.
RELENA
I listened to him as he hurled those brutal, harsh words at me.
Dense. Stupid. The roles reversed.
Didn't he care about me? Didn't he love me enough to accept my love for him? I trembled with the fact that he didn't care. That he didn't love me, not at all. He would not have saved me if my life had depended on it.
What a cruel joke this was.
Heero, I love you, I thought miserably as I stared at his cold, angry features. I felt the tears sting, but not here. Not in front of everybody, not in front of him.
Oh, why couldn't I be as strong as Mireka?
I turned on my heel and ran for the door.
It was chilly outside, now that the adrenaline after the battle had worn off.
He was holding something back. Trying to tell me, through his eyes, that...
What? I wondered as the tears fell form my lashes. They felt so weak, so undermining to me. That he didn't love me?
My heart ached, my soul throbbed, my very body shivered, but this time, I wasn't so sure if it was because of the cold.
I could see Duo now, comical, comedian Duo, pointing at the door and then crossing his arms. He would say, "Now, go and apologize, mister," and Heero would come out...
But that only happened in fairy tales.
The hero wounds the girl, and he asks for forgiveness, begging for her hand in marriage soon after that.
My life was not a fairy tale. And my hero...or should I say, my Heero, would not do that.
Why must our relationship be so complicated? Why must it be such a maze to Heero's heart? I could wander forever in this heartless labyrinth only to die before finding my destination.
I clutched my hands to my chest and leaned back against the wall.
My love...how I ache for you to be with me, I cried. The tears wouldn't stop, they just kept coming, just kept sliding down my cheeks
But my knight in shining armor would not come. He would not be riding a silver white horse as pale as the orb of the moon. He would not take me in his arms and engulf me in passionate kisses. He would not whisk me away to some distant land, worlds away.
And I would never, in any means, reach the center of the labyrinth.