It's Fluff through and through but I needed a break. As always Gundam belongs to Gundam

What Is Real?

By Amber

They huddled on the shore clinging to each other drawing comfort from simply touching and holding one another. Making memories to hold at bay the loneliness and sorrow that being separated brings. The waves rolled rhythmically in providing them a temporary distraction to the growing misery. "It's time," he said. He pulled her to her feet they stood there facing one another silently saying their goodbyes. It was the roar from the vortex in the end that prompted her to risk a glance over her shoulder it drew steadily closer whimpering she jerked her eyes back to his. She wasn't sure she could do it, her eyes widened in misery no matter how many times they were pulled apart it never got any easier. Whispering his name her hands gripped his arms fiercely determined to hold on even though it was a useless battle.

He smiled watching his fingers slip through silken hair until his palm held her, his thumb stroking lightly over the softening curves of her forehead, temple then cheek. She turned to nestle her lips in the center of his palm, before she forced lids that felt weighted open to see eyes of purest blue once more. The roar grew louder, she flinched but their eyes never left one another as a single tear rolled down her cheek. He leaned in catching it with his lips before sliding over and covering her mouth with his own. The force was stronger now pulling at him; soon nothing would be able to hold him here not his fierce will or her eternal love. Then it was there the center of the storm and a silence so deep it seemed as if the edge of oblivion itself. He was going she could feel it, their eyes met and held as she strained to hold him there. " No! Heero! " She screamed as he slowly disappeared from her grasp.

He was gone a week. And for a week she sat on the shore her eyes focused on the horizon where the sea met the sky and she waited. With his return they rejoiced in their reunion brief as it was because once he returned she was pulled through the vortex. Sometimes they went together, but were separated for one reason or another in a rare event sometimes they had a happy ending, yet in the end it never lasted for very long. Whether it was here or there, time together was always so brief and measured. The hardest part came when he was with Duo or some other nameless, faceless girl. She knew he had no control over it but it didn't make the pain any less real. And knowing that the others were in the same situation they were offered no consolation for any of them. So they endured living moment-to-moment embracing every second of the time that they weren't needed and they celebrated their love to the fullest.

Relena walked along the beach, it had been a long separation this time first an extended kidnapping, then the beating and rape. She had one sweet taste of his lips before dying in his arms. The return trip was always harrowing coupled with the sad stories they always left her feeling disoriented and melancholy. Relena smiled sadly there were a lot of those she wasn't asking for a picket fence or a little white house with a canine. Would a happy ending be too much to ask for from the author occasionally? She stopped to sit on an outcropping of rock, drawing her legs up she leaned forward to rest her chin on her knee it was the waiting she decided that was the hardest. Without him there was no life whether it was in the writers world or here watching the setting sun turn the water to orange, red, gold she wondered how much longer before he came back to her.

A month had come and gone she had left several times herself yet she never saw Heero. It had never been this long before, she stood overlooking the bay where they walked. The wind was stronger up here louder it lifted her hair whipping it around her face and body in a frenzy. The cold wind pierced her clothes freezing her from within right to the depths her soul. She hugged her arms trying to hold on to the warmth of her last memories with him but it was becoming harder to fight back the despair.

When he finally found her his eyes made a slow perusal hungrily marking the changes the latest separation had wrought on her slender frame. " Relena he choked he couldn't keep the tears from his eyes or his voice. Relena gasped her smile grew until her whole face beamed her happiness. " Heero."

She launched herself into his arms. " I missed you so much." He caught her swinging her around in his arms before letting her slowly slide down the length of his body. She pulled back slightly to look at him her mouth trembled and suddenly his gaze was pinned there, without thought he tightened his hold upon her, drawing her in closer towards the aching planes of his body. She nuzzled her face into the curve of his throat inhaling deeply she drew in the fresh scent so uniquely his. She sighed, she felt complete again giving a tiny moan she trailed wet kisses up his taut throat before softly brushing her lips across his. She pulled back enough to rest her forehead on his.

" I missed you Heero. Will there ever be time enough for us? "

A smiled tugged at the corner of his mouth; he brushed the back of his fingers softly across her cheek. "It took a while, but this place is just ours and now we have all the time in the world." He cupped her face gently," no matter what they write, when it's all finished I will always come back to you."

I got this idea from my favorite book. I always felt when I was younger my favorite toys wait until I sleep or leave and then they come alive. So with GW universe I took it one step forward with the fondness the fans hold for various characters like the Velveteen Rabbit who knows what might be possible for them when they are not waiting for some author to use them in a story. I hope you found some enjoyment from the story.

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The Velveteen Rabbit

Margery Williams

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?"

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."