I do not own Gundam Wing.  This fan fiction has no commercial value and I am not making any kind of profit or income off of this.  

 

AN:  This is the second of two chapters regarding Heero and Relena’s past.  This will hopefully answer many questions, and resolve much confusion.

Chapter 10 will pick up where chapter 7 left off.

 

Chapter 9

Ten years ago…

 

School started back after the winter holidays that Wednesday, and being on probation meant not skipping class.  Sally picked him up early that morning.  Heero was beginning to hate her.

She dropped him off at the front of the school with a cheerful, “Have a good day,” as he exited the car.

He glared at her from underneath his bangs, and then walked off towards the main building.  A few moments later, he felt a hand on his shoulder and stopped.

“Hey buddy!” A familiar voice greeted him.

Heero turned around and glared at Duo. The happy-go-lucky boy with long chestnut hair quickly took his hand off Heero’s prized black leather jacket.

“I know I know.  Don’t touch the leather.  Sorry, man I forgot.”  He rolled his violet eyes behind his friend’s back. 

That jacket was the only thing Heero had that was truly his.  He had earned enough money last summer mowing lawns with Duo to buy it. 

The more cheerful boy felt truly sorry for his friend.  Heero practically had to sleep with it on for fear Odin would take it from him and hock it for drugs.

“What do you want, Duo?”  He growled.

“Geez, is that how you greet all your friends?” he asked as he fell into step with Heero.

There was no response. 

He frowned –Yuy was always antisocial.  He tried again. “What do you say we blow this Popsicle stand and grab some breakfast? I’m starving!”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?  You’ve never needed to go to class to pass…”

“I’m on probation.”

“Ass!  Good motivation for going to class, though.  What’d they get you on?”

“Joyriding.”

Duo stopped in mid stride. “Joyriding isn’t a crime.”

Heero smirked and tilted his head.  “It is when it’s not your car.”

Duo laughed.  They kept walking until they arrived at the locker the two boys shared.  Duo turned the combination lock and opened it. He peered in at the shelf of textbooks.

“What’s your first class?” he asked.

“Calculus.”

“Ugh, you’re killing me!  I’m still suffering through Algebra.  You know a guy as smart as you…you should go to college.  Seriously.” He handed the heavy textbook to his friend.

“Hn…” 

Duo pulled the book for his first class, and threw it in his backpack.  The bright sound of musical laughter floated down the virtually empty hallway.  Duo turned, and saw a beautiful blond girl with clear blue eyes walking towards them.  She was engaged in conversation with someone and hadn’t seen him stop and stare. Not dropping his gaze, Duo closed the locker door and elbowed his friend in the stomach.  “Get a load of her!”

Heero followed Duo’s eyes, and inwardly cringed.  “Relena,” he said, just barely above a whisper.

She looked away from her friend and met Duo’s eyes briefly.  She had long coal black lashes that enhanced the blue of her sapphire orbs.  Duo was instantly smitten.   Her gaze continued to travel passed Duo to something just behind him.  Heero.  He looked at her and their eyes locked.  She blinked, appearing surprised, but only momentarily.  She smiled, turned and said something to her friend, then made her way towards him. 

Heero’s heart practically stopped beating in his chest.  He couldn’t believe she wasn’t avoiding him. 

“Hello, again,” she said softly.

He nodded at her.

Duo spoke up, “Hi!  Haven’t seen you around before.”

A small smile curved her lips.  No, he hadn’t seen her before.  “I just transferred in.”

Her father was the US ambassador to the United Kingdom, so she was constantly being shuffled from school-to-school – at home and abroad.   With her adoptive parent being a staunch proponent of a private school education, this recent transfer to a local public school was due to the fact that Ambassador Darlian hadn’t approved of her last ‘boyfriend’, and sought to separate the two.

Relena had assured her father that Quatre Winner had just been a friend, but to no avail.  He was the son of one of the Ambassador’s political rivals, and therefore off limits.  The other private school in town wouldn’t accept a mid-year transfer, so here she was, talking to a strange boy with long brown hair and smiling violet eyes, and being glared at by a brooding juvenile delinquent. 

“What’s your name?” The strange boy asked her.

“Relena Darlian,” she said and held out her hand.

Duo flirtatiously bowed and kissed it.  “Very pleased to meet you.  I’m Duo Maxwell.”

Grinning, Relena mock-curtsied in return and quipped, “You’re too kind, good sir.”

The warning bell rang, interrupting their good time.  Duo groaned.  “Gotta go.  Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“Maybe,” she said to his retreating back.  She turned and ran right back into Heero.

“Oh!”

He glared down at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping her gaze to the floor.

He grabbed her elbow and pulled her along the hallway and out the door.  Once outside, he glowered at her.  “You’re playing with fire, here, little girl,” he said in a low voice filled with menace, and then watched her carefully as he tried to gauge her reaction.  Perhaps she hadn’t seen his face in that convenience store; maybe she wasn’t a threat to him at all.

Her eyes widened at the words.  “I wouldn’t, I won’t….”she stuttered, glancing up from the ground.

His gaze was intense.  Relena felt his eyes burning through her, melting her soul into a puddle of wax in her shoes.  It was unsettling, and she felt her cheeks blaze under his scrutiny.  The urge to hold him drifted through her thoughts, forcing her to look away.

“Heero.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “I won’t say anything.  I promise.  I just couldn’t…” Her sentence trailed off as she glanced up and took in the cold expression on his face.  “I guess you wouldn’t understand.”

No, he couldn’t understand.  All he knew was that she had recognized him; she knew his secret.  “What I understand is that I’m not going to prison,” he growled at her.

She nodded, still unable to meet those impenetrable eyes.

“I will kill you,” he said and walked away.

 

 

            Relena entered the classroom a few minutes after the last bell.  “Calculus, bleh!  What a way to start the day,” she thought wryly.  The teacher glared at her for being tardy, and she flushed with embarrassment.  She quickly took the only seat left in the room.  Right next to…  She felt a sudden urge to run away. 

            Heero smirked as she quickly exited the room as soon as class was over.  “Good, at least now she’s afraid of me.”  He was surprised that his heart somehow felt heavier.

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

            Several nights later, Heero lay on his bed, too troubled to sleep.  The nightmares were getting worse instead of better.  He killed her every night, those light blue eyes asking the question, “Why?” as her blood poured out of her body, darkening the skin on his hands and the ground around his feet.  And then he would wake up in a cold sweat with his heart pounding in his ears.  He made his way to the bathroom and washed his hands again.

            Odin was awake, shooting up…again.  It was his drug habit that kept the two desperately short of funds every month when the rent came due.  He hated having to drag Heero into his life of crime – he never wanted to make him into something he despised.  And he could tell from the haunted look in his brother’s eyes and the light under the door during the dark hours of morning that Heero was cracking up, too.  Odin escaped the only way he knew how.  The heroin would take effect in a second…

            Heero walked out into the kitchen, and glared down at his older brother.  That was the stuff that destroyed their mother.  “He’s such a coward,” he thought in disgust. The pain was eating him alive inside, but there was no escape for Heero.  He didn’t deserve it.  He had taken a life, and his shattered soul was all that was left.  He pulled on his jacket and went out into the night.

 

            Relena arrived unusually early to her Calculus class.  The classroom lights hadn’t even been turned on.  She flipped the switch and almost screamed when she saw him sitting there, staring straight ahead at nothing.  “Heero?” She called out in a whisper. 

            “Relena….” He blinked and squinted at the light suddenly flooding his senses.  Her brightness was too much for him.

            “Are you all right?  What were you doing here in the dark?”

            “I belong in the dark.”

            She cocked her head to one side, not sure of what to make of him.  He wouldn’t look at her.

            A sad smile crossed her face.  “Heero, I’m not afraid of you.”

            He glanced up sharply and glared at her.  His tortured eyes were marred with dark circles that spoke of too many restless nights.  He mumbled something unintelligible.

            She moved down the aisle of desks to sit next to him.  “I didn’t hear you,” she said and placed a hand on his arm.

            He wrenched his arm from her grip and shot out of his chair.  “You should be!” He took a step back, towards the door.  “Don’t you know what I am?”

            She stood and reached her hand out. “No,” she said softly.  “Tell me…”

“I’m a killer!  I murdered that man….” He turned his back to the look in Relena’s eyes – wanting to run away from her, her forgiveness, her light.  He didn’t deserve it; he didn’t deserve to live when he had taken a life – a life that didn’t belong to him, a life worth so much more than his own. He took another step towards the door.

            “Don’t go,” she murmured.

            He turned when he reached the hallway, and steeled himself to meet her eyes.  “I kill you in my dreams.”

            She nodded.  “Mine, too.”

            He vanished out the door.

 

            Duo was standing at his locker, talking to a pretty brunette, when he saw Heero walking quickly through the crowded hallway towards the outside door.

            “He looks like hell,” Duo thought, taking in his friend’s disheveled appearance as he shoved people out of his way.

            “Excuse me Hilde, I’m sorry, but I have to go,” he said hastily, not wanting to lose Heero in the crowd.

            “Okay, well, you have my number.  Call me,” she said with a smile.

            He turned and grinned at her.  “Tonight, I promise,” he said as he disappeared down the hallway.

            “Heero!  Wait up, buddy!”

 

            He caught up to him outside on the soaked school lawn.  The bitter winter rain pelted the two friends, it’s chill sinking into their bones.

“Talk to me,” Duo said in a concerned voice.

            He was greeted by silence. 

            “What’s wrong?”

            “Nothing,” Heero finally replied, turning away from him. 

            He frowned. “Then where are you going?  You can’t skip….”

            “What does it matter?  Nothing matters anymore…” His voice trailed off as he stared up at the sky.

            “Are you on something?”

            Heero laughed.  It was a hollow, cynical laugh that made Duo’s whole body shiver. 

            “No, I’m not on anything.”

            “Is it Odin?  He’s using again, isn’t he?”

            Silence.  Then finally, “Does he ever stop?”

            Duo shook his head.  “Heero, don’t – you can’t live like that.  You can stay with me.  Don’t just throw your life away, man.  Even Odin wouldn’t want you to.  He always wanted you to have better than what he had.”

            Heero continued to let the rain assail the exposed flesh of his face, by now it was numb – he was numb, he didn’t want to feel anymore.  “I can’t leave him alone, Duo.  He’ll die.”

            “He’s killing you.”

            His head snapped down to level a glare at his friend.  “No.  I’m already dead,” he said with a fierce look in his eye.

            Duo didn’t know what to say.  Heero started to turn away from him again, when suddenly he stopped and just stared at something beyond Duo’s vision.  He looked over his shoulder and saw Relena standing there, just outside the door.  The rain was coming down in torrents, and a cold wind blew, stirring a few strands of her now wet hair, but she stood still.  Her eyes saw only Heero. 

            Heero unconsciously took a step towards her. “Relena,” he choked out.

            She left the safety of the doorway, and sploshed the short distance across the lawn, unmindful of the chilling rain.  She stopped a couple of feet away, unsure of whether he would allow her to touch him….

 

            They stood there in the rain, within arms reach, but not touching.  Neither one said a word, afraid of breaking the deafening silence surrounding them.   She finally reached out a tentative hand to brush from his eyes a stray strand of hair darkened almost black with rain.  He wasn’t sure if the tremor coursing through his body was caused by her touch or the bitterly cold winter weather.

He grabbed her wrist almost violently, startling her, and pulled her to him. He bent his head towards hers… “Can you save me?” He asked, looking deep into her eyes.

            “No,” she breathed and felt her heart crash through her chest and land on the floor.  “I…I can love you, but I can’t save you,” she said and let her hand fall down the side of his face in a gentle caress.  “Only you can do that.” 

He closed his eyes as her words swept over him, threatening to take him out into an unknown sea. 

            When they opened again, she could see the churning anguish inside.  “I don’t…know…how,” he breathed and claimed her lips in a desperate kiss.  Relena stiffened at first with the sudden intimacy, but returned the kiss as his arms went around her back and crushed her body to his.  Her hands moved up to the back of his neck and tangled in wet locks of chocolate brown. 

            It felt like he was drowning, and fighting for air.  Relena never imagined anything like it – all at once so violent in his devastating need for her.

            The kiss finally ended, but they didn’t break apart.  With their foreheads still touching, he asked her in a whisper, “Why?”

She turned a slight smile up at him.  “Because I saw your eyes…You looked like you wished you could have taken that man’s place – to have died instead of him.”

He closed his eyes and murmured.  “I did, I still do….”

“I don’t believe that,” she said softly, her right hand coming to rest gently on his cheek.  “You’re stronger than that… I have faith in you.”

Those usually cold blue eyes opened once again, revealing the swirling depths to his inner turmoil.  “I don’t deserve…” He breathed shakily, still trembling slightly from the winter’s icy grasp.

“I love you, Heero. I think I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you.”

            Choking back foreign emotions, he buried his face in her hair as his arms tightened around her slender waist. He clung to her delicate form like a child being separated from his mother – afraid for all the world of letting go.