Damion faced his parents wearily, unsure what they wanted to hear from him and unsure what he wanted to ask.

"I wish we could provide a better welcome," his mother said sadly. "But some things must come first.  The situation is precarious."

Damion raised his head, lifting his chin and meeting his father's eyes.  "You've summoned me here," he said gravely.  "There's rebellion in the streets, and you sit here in this room with guards on the doors and do nothing."  He was not accusing, but he could feel the tension in the room, the peculiar sensation running beneath his skin, and the way the eyes of his father bored into him.  "You want me to handle this, don't you?  Why?"

"Because you are the heart of the problem," his father said tersely. "Have you not yet guessed the situation?"

"I have done everything you have asked," Damion said between clenched teeth.  "I went to Cinq.  I stood before the dignitaries.  I have been working day and night with the Preventors, explaining to them everything they need to know about Taravren, about its people, its practices.  I have been deciphering intel, contacting undercover agents, sifting through piles of information about this rebellion, uncovering leads, and acting upon them."

"And?" his father prompted.

"The names of the international backers have been uncovered and compromised.  The arms dealers have been taken out of the game, arrested.  I learned that the turmoil in the city was still active, but aside from knowing it had to be someone in the Royal Council, err... the Senate, keeping things boiling, I did not know who to blame.  And there has been little news from you.   I assumed I was kept out of the city for my own safety, because I was a target."

"Yes," his father replied.  "You were and are the target.  But if you want to succeed me and save this country, you must think clearer and quicker," he said.

Damion scrubbed a hand through his hair. "A few days would have been enough to give the Preventors the intel they needed and the rest I could have done from home, yet I was not called back.  It has to be more than keeping me safe.  I was just as endangered, if not more, on my own in Cinq."

"You had other reasons for remaining," his mother said, and he heard a bite in her voice that he had not expected.

Damion blinked, frowing.  "What do you mean?"

"Relena Darilan, of course," his mother said.  "It is not news."

"I know," he said, confused and a little irritated.  What were they accusing him of?  They sounded so...reproachful.  "What of it?  You said I should socialize, meet people."  His mother and father exchanged a look.  He felt under attack. "For God's sake, mother, you implied I should start looking for a wife the day before I left!"

"I thought your decision on such a course of action would be wiser," she said softly.

It was like a blow to the head.  Damion stared at her, not entirely comprehending.  "Farnworth said you were angry," he breathed, trembling with sudden anger.  "But you do disapprove, don't you?  How could you?"  His voice rose until he was nearly shouting.  "What did you want?  And why should I care how you feel about it, about her?  I didn't know you would be so shallow that you would deny me love in exchange for political games!"

"Damion," his mother said softly, "we love you and desire your happiness above all politics, but..."

"Not in matters of love?" he said harshly, and wished he had not.  His father's eyes were like steel.  Damion should not have spoken to his mother this way.  He should certainly not have raised his voice.  He looked down, angry at himself for what he said and equally angry for being ashamed to say it.  He couldn't believe this!  Was love a dead concept for them?  Did they expect him to believe it too?

"It's not that," his mother said sadly.

"You are not thinking foresightedly," his father informed him as his mother fell silent.  Damion flinched under that stern tone.  He was too old to be lectured, but nothing in his being gave him the strength to rebel against this man, his father and also a king.  "Relena Darilan is an unsuitable match for you," Jacob Ravineere said simply, but sternly.  "You should know that."

That did it.  Damion's head snapped up. He could feel his own eyes burning.  "Unsuitable match?"  he said harsly, angrily.  "What kind of archaic talk is this?  What do you care as long as I like her and she likes me?  It's not even as if she were poor and stupid, but why should that matter anyway?  What do you want?  Relena's a princess!  She used to be Queen of the World.  What is unsuitable about her?  How can you say that?"

His father shook his head.  "You misunderstand.  It is not her rank I am concerned with.  She was a princess and a queen, but she has forsaken those titles with her name.  They are irrelavent.  I would rather you had chosen the poor girl you suggested, though that would be hard on you.  But Relena Darilan?  She is an international and space colonial delegate.  She is a celebrity."

An inkling of comprehension tickled his mind.  Damion's mouth went dry.  He knew that, but surely love...

"Damion," his mother said soothingly, but forcefully, "what were you going to do with her?"

"I don't know," he said hoarsely.  "I love her.  Isn't that enough?"

"Not for a prince," his father said.  "And she will not understand.  When you take my place you will be a king in the eyes of these people.  Taravren is old and rich in history and culture.  Internationally we may accept being united as one World Nation, but this is still very much a monarchy.  As long as it is ruled justly, it will remain so and be better for it.  You know that perfectly well.  When you take a wife, she will sit beside you as a Queen and the wellfare of this nation, this province, and you personally must come first in all her thoughts.  Do you think Relena could fulfill that role?"

He didn't answer.

"Then what?  You just wanted to have a good time, take advantage of each other?  You are a prince, Damion.  You know who she is."

"No," he gasped out, and felt cold and hot at the same time.  "It is not like that!"

"Then you are considering marrying her somewhere down the line?" his father pressed.

He shifted.  "I don't know," he said at last.  "I just liked her and I wanted to..."

"To fall in love?" his mother said quietly.  There was sympathy in her face.  He could see the care and concern and love for him in her eyes, but determination too.  "Damion, you should know better."

He gasped, feeling weak, felt tears swell up in his eyes, but above all he was angry and confused.  "I don't deserve to fall in love?" he said plainly.  "That is it, isn't it?  If it is not politically convenient I might as well forget it?  I must put Taravren before my own personal desires, act like a prince before a man?"

"Yes," his father said.

Damion felt like he had been shot.  The mostly-healed wound in his side ached dully.  There were tears on his cheeks.  "And you?" he demanded of his father.  "You loved my mother, didn't you?  When you married her?"

Silence.

"Father?"  Damion whispered breathlessly.  Fear wormed in his gut.

Damion's father spoke slowly.  "No," he said.  Damion almost fell over, even as his father continued.   "I courted her for other reasons, liked her well enough, and grew to love her." His mother seemed entirely unaffected by this confession.  But then, of course, she must have known.  And it did not bother her.

"No," Damion breathed.  His bones felt like they were shattering.  "No.  Oh, God!"  He could see himself, choosing a girl from a room full of them, courting her, marrying her, conceiving children, all in a fanfare of blandness and duty and friendship.  "You would be less disapproving if I had sought a relationship only for physical satisfaction, wouldn't you?" he choked.  "And then married any girl with aristocratic upbringing and Taravren ties?"

"No to the first," his father said.  "But yes to the second.  I am proud of you and the way you have treated Relena.  I just wish she were someone else.  I don't want you to follow my path.  I married in a different time, Damion.  The world was different then.  Taravren was different.  And I was lucky.   I wanted you, in this time, to fall in love and be blessed with that, but I wanted you to be careful about it.    Of all the women in the world, Relena is the most impossible to keep in your situation.  I doubt not your judgement of her character, or that she is a wonderful and respectable person, but she is still a political celebrity.  You are a prince.  That gives you something in common, but it does not make you a good match.  She belongs too much to everybody.  You are confined to this one place."

He felt numb, dry and dead.  Those were all true things, but...  Was he being too idealistic?   "What would you have me do then?" he said darkly and dangerously.

"You love her?" his mother asked.

"Yes," he replied, tears choked in his throat as he lifted his head.

"Love can make the impossible possible," his mother said.  "I love your father.  I knew I wanted to marry him the moment he laid eyes on me.  It just took me awhile to get him to see it, and longer to share the feeling."  She smiled fondly.  "You have perhaps made a careless choice," she continued.  "But if your love is real and she loves you deeply enough, it could work.  True love in these times for people like us is a rare thing, for anybody, but if you have found it and you believe in it, I would not dissuade you."

He swallowed, feeling hope at last, salve over a wound.  He closed his eyes, the tears drying.  This was intolerable.  He would certainly not be dissuaded by these exaggerated fears!  He loved Relena.  That was all that mattered.

"But have a care, Damion," his mother added. "Your father is right.  She is of a different world, and may not understand.  She would have to give up her career to be your wife, to live with you in this place," she looked around the hall, "and be content.  It is much compensation, but for someone like her, it is a great loss too, and not an easy thing.  And if it is not to be," and here her voice went a little chill, "you must forsake love and be a prince before a man."

He swallowed again, but determination grew.  He could see Relena, her face, her smile, the feel of her hands.  He could be happy with her.  He could live out his life with her...couldn't he?  "I need time to think," he said hoarsely.  Or marry someone else, simply because he had to.  Did love not exist in this world at all?  Was it an imagined dream in his head, a fruitless ideal?  He felt sick to his stomach.

 Did she love him?  Perhaps his parents were right and love was not meant for him, for princes and people of his sort, maybe not any sort.  Maybe only blind fools ever really fell in love.  Perhaps he was doomed to be alone in the better interest of others, as all people eventually were, and love was merely a mirage used to distort the thoughts of idiots into believing in something wonderful and profound, even if it was a lie.

He wanted to cry.

"Or marry Clara," his father said gruffly.  "And be a prince now."

Damion's head snapped up like a rocket.  "What?  Clara?  What does she have to do with this?"

"Everything," his father said.  "Her price for saving this city is an engagement ring."

Damion stared at him.  "I...I don't understand you."

But he did.  He knew exactly what his father meant.  The blows just kept on coming.

Clara Veron was behind the rebellion?  He had grown up with Clara.  He remembered her as being haughty and overly determined as a child, and completely infatuated with him.  She used to follow him around wherever he went and was always trying to get him to do silly things for her.  Then he was sent away to live with another family and so was she.  He returned first.  When she came back, she had matured into a stunningly beautiful woman, with all the grace and charm of any princess, but she also returned spiteful and manipulative.  He'd disliked her for years.  And she knew it.  She still followed him around, only now trying to manipulate him, seduce him, to coerce him into...something.  A rose with many thorns.  That's what he had told Manny.  She started a rebellion to get him to marry her?  That's what this was about?  People might be dying in the streets!  How could she be so bent on trying to marry a man, even a prince, who did not love her?   But if love didn't really exist, what did it matter?  She clearly understood his father more than he did.  It was ambition that she knew.   She knew how to play the game, and now she was playing him.

"I can't believe this," he said. "Do you seriously expect me to give in to her demands and marry her?  I won't!"

His father's eyes did not change.  "I think it has progressed beyond any easy resolution.  You can not agree to such terms and save face, but the city must be saved."

"What am I supposed to do?" Damion demanded.  "Why won't you help me?"  It was not like his father to be this hard, this forceful.

"We can not," his mother said, and he was startled to see tears in her eyes.  "Clara has lost control.  She is clever but she is young.  She has had considerable backing from outside and in, but not all of her followers are as loyal as she believes.    You have dealt with most of those, but some remain, and we know that many of our own staff has turned, though not who specifically.   Clara has spread gold like water and can not contain her own manipulations.  The mob outside is not of Clara's doing.  It was supposed to be faked, but now it is real.  The palace will soon be overrun, and there are weapons of war in the city.  People have been personally appointed to rile up the people, to put weapons into their hands.  There will be madness and much suffering before this is over, and we will be lucky if the palace is not overrun and we are all killed."

"Our protection is guaranteed," Jacob said.  "Your mother and I, because we are well known and my term will not last forever as it would have had I still been king, but we could not bargain your life.  If Clara can not coerce you into marriage, she may try to have you killed.  With the people maddened as they are, she will be able to claim your place when my term ends.  But we know that guards in the palace who have given their alligience to Clara have been ordered to shoot either your mother or myself on site should be leave this room.  You are allowed freedom only to bargain, but even should you come to an aggreement with Miss Veron, others may still decided your life is not worth keeping.  Be careful."

Damion could not comprehend this situation. Clara had grown ruthless.   "Then stay here!" he cried.  "Please! But again I ask you, what can I do?"

"We don't know," his mother said, and a tear rolled down her cheek.  "But be careful, my baby.  I don't want to see you hurt.  I will die if anything happens to you."

Damion froze.  Suddenly he knew exactly where Clara would have gone. This was not over yet.  He turned toward the door, pieces of a plan forming in his mind.  "Don't worry, mother,"  he muttered, "I have an excellent bodyguard."

"Damion, what are you going to do?" his father demanded as he put a hand on the door.

"I'll show you that I can be a prince," he said calmly to his father and mother both.  "I have been selfish and foolish, but I know who and what I am, and I will prove it to you."

The doors swung in on his heels as he strode from the throne room and into the growing chaos outside.  The guards at the door leaped out of his way as he came through like fire in a brush field.  He spared them not a glance. It didn't matter if they were loyal to his family or Clara; he paid them no mind.  Whether they liked it or not, he was prince here.

He made for the dining room, where he was sure Farnworth would have taken Clara.   Most of the guards he had left were gone.  He could hear shouting outside, and the sound of shots being fired.   It made him angrier.

"Stand aside," he commanded coldly, and stared them right in the eyes.

He recognized some of their faces, people he had known since his childhood.  They stared at him and at one another, and he was certain by their hesitation that he was no longer their master.  They had sold out to Clara, or whoever supported her. Yet slowly they stepped aside and flung open the door.  There was a new sort of respect in their eyes.

"Clara!"  Damion shouted as he strode in, and his voice boomed, echoing around the walls with a feel like thunder.  The doors remained open.  A row of guards stood before him, and there were those he had left behind, all loyal to Clara, but his eyes blazed, and they parted when he neared, murmuring amongst themselves.

And she was there.  Lovely as a dark rose, slender and supple, clothed in velvet.  Her eyes shined as she turned her head to look at him, and a small secret smile danced upon her lips.  "Damion," she murmured.  "I am so glad that you could join us.  Heero Yuy and I were just discussing you."  She looked at Heero.  "Take Relena Darilan and leave Damion with me," she commanded in a chill voice.

Time seemed to slow.

Damion glanced at Heero, standing between him and Clara.  He had a gun in his hand, lowered to his side, like part of his body.   Glints of gold flickered in his eyes from the light in the room as they stared at one another.   Damion had been told that the eyes were the like windows to the soul, and perhaps for the first time, for an instant, he saw Heero Yuy.  What he saw there, in layers of complication, shocked him to his core, though it didn't show in his face.

For a flash, a heartbeat, he saw himself in Heero's eyes, reflected in their depths, shining through.  He saw an uncanny strength in him, and a presence of control and determination of a prince from any throne!    But there the resemblance ended.  Coldness enveloped Heero, a stilling frost like winter without spring, and deep within, hurt and self-resentment.  He looked into Heero's eyes and saw pain.  He saw the soul of a soldier, a weapon, and a deadly one.  A weapon that hated itself for being a weapon.  He saw the heart of a sword.  Heero feared nothing, could do anything, because he didn't care enough about himself to worry about himself.  He was a tool, a gamepiece, dependable, reliable, undefeatable, and nothing more.

And then, for the briefest glimmer of an instant, Damion thought he saw something else.  Heero's head turned ever so slowly, his gaze sweeping the room, and as his sight brushed across Relena, standing with a peculiar calm on her face, something seemed to click.  His expression shifted.  Kindness, concern, love welled up in the deepest corner of his eyes, a completeness and understanding entirely foreign to anything Damion had ever known.  But those feelings hit that endless winter on  the surface, that frozen lake of numbness, and died, swept away as if they didn't exist at all.

But Damion was sure he had seen it, and was utterly bewildered.  He glanced at Relena's face, into her eyes as she watched Heero's decision breathlessly.  Something had passed between them.  He could see in her eyes that she already knew exactly what decision Heero would make.

"I'm sorry," Heero said darkly, and Damion swallowed.  Heero's eyes swung to Clara.  "But I just can't do that."

Clara snarled, but in an instant her calm returned.  "I find some compensation in the knowledge that Dorothy was wrong," she said.  "Guards, seize him."

Heero grappled with five guards as they came at him, and his eyes flashed dangerously, but they were many, expecting retaliation and soon overwhelmed him.  Heero's gun dropped to the tiles and slid across the floor as he was kneed in the stomach and then kicked to the ground.  One of the guards drew a knife and Heero stifled a cry.  On his knees on the floor, he was kept still with the boot of one guard on his back, hands held behind him.  But he lifted his head and glared at Clara with a look like death.

Relena looked stricken.

Clara was unperturbed.

"What are you doing, Clara?" Damion said harshly in low, weary tones.  "This is insane!"

"I know," she said, folding her hands in front of her.  "But there seemed to be no other way to get your attention."

"You have it now," he said through clenched teeth.  "What do you want?"

"You know perfectly well," she replied.  "I want what I was promised.  A marriage.  I want to be Queen of Taravren as is my right.  I want to be your wife."

"Clara, that's silly," he said.  "You can not have my love that way."

"Who said anything about love?" she replied casually, but her expression looked grieved.  "I gave up on that long ago.  It does not really exist.  There is only lust.  Lust for power, lust for money, and the animal lust of desire." Her eyes smouldered when she looked at him, and a smile played on her lips.  "These can be satisfied.  Love?  Love is a black pit of emptiness," she said bitterly.  "Always yearning and never fulfilled.  Perhaps it is pleasant enough at first, in the way daydreams are pleasant, but it dies quickly and is left hollow.  It is you I want now," she said sadly.  "Not your love.  I will take what I can get.  You know your choices are no better."

He felt sick again.  "Clara," he said angrily.  "Don't do this.  Not this way.  You know I can not agree."

"No, Damion," she said, and walked toward him until she stood right before his face, looking up into his eyes through black eyelashes.  "I'm sure you will.  Even now you know that it must be so."

"You've changed," he said with regret.  "When we were kids I disliked you in my pride and immaturity, but now I see you are truly hateful.  What made you change this way?"

"Life," she said without sorrow.  "I have come to see life as it truly is, devoid of all its colored wrappings.  That is all."

Abruptly, Farnworth strode in through the door with another guard, his weathered face blank of emotion, eyes glittering.  The other guard stayed a step behind, saluting smartly.  Every head turned.

"Farnworth," Clara said,  "Glad to see you.  How goes the rebellion?"

Damion's head whipped around to her and back to Farnworth, the relief he felt turning into horror.  "No," he whispered, speechless.  "Farnworth?"  But the question was not necessary.  He had been betrayed by the captain of the guards and had not known it.  No wonder so many in the palace had turned!

"Not well, your grace," Farnworth said to Clara wryly.  "The Gundams are in the city."

"Gundams!"  Clara gasped.  Damion turned to look at Heero, but Heero was watching Farnworth attentively, like a wolf, and his expression did not change.

"Your scheme is falling apart," Farnworth continued, removing his gloves.  "You have lost your leverage against Damion."  He looked up.  "I'm sorry, prince," he said simply.  "But it is in her grace's and my best interest to destroy you now."  And he drew a gun from his coat.

Relena gasped.  "You mustn't do this!"

"No, Farnworth!"  Clara seethed, fists clenching.  "This is not what I want!"

Farnworth paid her no mind.

"Master Damion!"  Manny cried, sprinting toward him.

Damion couldn't tear his eyes away from the gun leveled at his chest.  "Stay back, Manny!" he cried.  Terrese echoed his shout with a hollow cry of fear.

Out of the corner of his eye, Damion caught sight of the guard holding Heero to the ground topple suddenly.  The two guards by the door abruptly raised their hands in defense.  Out of the madness, Heero rose to his feet like a slender blade.  The other three guards went down to quick and accurately aimed blows, a knife falling from one of the guard's hands with a clatter.  Alone, Heero raised a hand and caught a gun out of midair.  It was tossed to him by the guard behind Farnworth.

Two shots were fired, seemingly simultaneously.  Damion closed his eyes and gasped, but no bullet penetrated his chest.  Even so, he could smell blood in the air.  He opened his eyes to see Farnworth crumple, his face unrecognizeable and streaming with blood.  Heero stood off to the side, four guards laying unconscious about his feet, one arm outstretched and a gun in his hand.  As Farnworth toppled, the guard who had entered with him became visible, but he was no longer saluting.  Damion gasped.  It was the stranger from before, the gundam pilot who had come to him at the gates!

"Trowa!"  Relena cried in surprise.  "Damion, Heero, are you all right?"

Heero pressed a hand to his side.  "Eye for an eye," he muttered, but straightened and nodded wearily.

Damion didn't answer.  Farnworth's gun was smoking.  The shot had missed him...  It was then that he noticed that Clara was leaning limply against his shoulder.  He had caught her in the confusion.  No, she had stepped in front of him!  He stared down at her and choked back a cry.  Blood ran over his hands, pouring from a gaping wound in her chest, warm, black-red and sticky.  Her limbs were lifeless and limp like jelly, her face pale and beaded with sweat, but she was still alive.

"Clara!" he cried as she wilted in his grasp, he legs giving way.  He knelt with her, holding her body, supporting her.  "Clara," he called again, softly, urgently.  She took a bullet for him...  "Speak!  Please."

Sweat covered her face.  Blood flecked her lips, but she smiled at him, a thin, weak smile.  "I'm sorry," she said, and coughed.  The blood pouring from her chest was soaking into her dress, blending with the color, staining his hands.  "It wasn't meant to end like this."

"Clara," he whispered, feeling numb.  He could see images of her in his head.  Clara at age three in a puffy dress, stumbling after him, pouring him lemonade she made herself, forgetting the sugar.  Clara with a tiara on her head, laughing and twirling in circles.  Clara in her mother's lap, sleeping like a baby, sucking her thumb.  Clara learning to read with him, sitting beside him in classes.  Clara, kissing him on the cheek at an adult party and him yelling at her for being gross.  Clara yelling at him, demanding the impossible, stalking him around the palace, always there.  She was always an annoyance, but she had been very much alive.  Clara, returning at age seventeen, darkly beautiful, trying to seduce him, taunting him with hidden jibes, retaliating in spite, but still alive.  He could feel her life seeping through his fingers, the blood sticking to his hands.  He couldn't stop it!

"I lied," she choked, struggling.  "I always loved you. You have every reason to hate me, but I couldn't bear to see you slip away.  I thought maybe in time... I'm so sorry."

Tears formed in his eyes as he hovered over her.  She stared up into his face, into his eyes.  "I'm sorry too," he whispered.  She smiled slightly, but her eyes looked distant.  "Clara?" he shouted.  Waves of sorrow poured over his head.  Ragged sobs tore from his throat. "Clara!!"  She shuddered, her body spasming.  Spittle mixed with blood flecked her lips, her chin.  Her eyes were glassy.  And then she went limp.  He shook her, breathing hard, tears on his cheeks.  He felt like he was breaking apart.  "NO!" he cried, hugging her close to him.  She was still warm...

"She's dead," Heero's voice came softly from behind him.  "I'm sorry."

Damion smoothed back Clara's hair from her face and rested her gently on the ground with trembling hands.  He closed her eyelids and sat up on his knees, unable to look away.  She was dead.  "Maybe if I had done something," he whispered to no one in particular.  "If I had been nicer to her..."

Relena knelt by his side, wrapping her arms around his neck.  He hadn't heard or seen her approach, but he barely had the strength to grasp her arm.  "It's not your fault," Relena murmured into his shoulder.  "It's not."

He nodded and wrenched his gaze away.  He must save grieving for later.   He stood, blotting out the vision of Clara's still body on the ground, pulling Relena up with him.  She let go and stepped back.  He noticed that she avoided Heero's eyes, and he hers.  Of course.  The last time they had been so close, she proclaimed her hate for him.  Damion vanquished all such thoughts from his head.  He needed to save his city, and repair what damage he could before it was too late.

"My Lord Prince," one of the guards Trowa had compromised said hoarsely. Damion turned to him.  "My Lord, I just thought you might want to know that more of the garrison is loyal to you and your family than has been behaved. Farnworth was powerfully influential amoung us, but most want nothing more than peace for the city and you in assurance of your claim."

Damion stared at him with eyes like a raging storm.

"He's telling the truth," Trowa said in clear and concise tones.  "I have been talking to them all morning."

"That gundams are in the city," Damion said softly.  "This is your doing, Heero Yuy?"

"The gundams are a symbol of peacekeeping now," Relena said.  "They will quell this rebellion if anything can."

"Yes," Trowa said.  "Not many can stand against us.  And we are not aiming to kill."

Damion nodded.  "I need to get to the main gates," he said.  "Watch out for Relena, Manny."

"I will, sir," Manny said.

"What are you doing here?" Heero asked Trowa.

"Looking for you," the other Gundam Pilot replied, his arms crossed.  "You were late.  It's not like you."

Heero snorted.  "I need to get Zero.  Could you escort Damion to the gates for me?"

Trowa nodded.

"Heero!"  Relena cried.  "You're injured."

"I'm fine," he said, not looking at her.  "Stay here and stay safe."  Damion frowned.  Heero was certainly not fine.  He had grappled seriously with those guards, and one of them carried a knife.  He thought he saw blood seeping out of Heero's side.   Eye for an eye...  He stared in amazement.  The man acted as if he were completely whole.

A disgusted look contorted Relena's features.  "Why must you always fight?"  she demanded.  "You might kill yourself!  You're bleeding, Heero!"  She stepped toward him, reaching out with one hand, concern plastering her face.

"I'm fine," he snarled.  "Don't touch me!"  He moved back away from her reach.  Emotion swirled in his eyes, but beneath the coldness and the frost, they were hard to separate.  But Damion could see that he was literally begging her not to get so close. Relena stopped, looking hurt and confused and then shocked.  Heero turned away.  "I'll meet you on the airfield, Trowa," he said hoarsely.

"Maybe you shouldn't fight this time, Heero," Trowa said.  "You're seriously injured.  Relena's right.  You might kill yourself."

"I don't care," Heero said in a haunted tone.  "I said I was fine."  And he walked out of the room.

Relena bit her lip, staring after him.

"It's all right," Damion said comfortingly.  "I'm sure he'll be fine."  He believed it, if Heero was careful.  If he was not careful...

Relena smiled at him, but the worry did not abate.  "Be careful yourself," she whispered.

"I will," he said reassuringly.  He waved an arm at the guardsmen.   They fell in behind him as he strode out the door.  Trowa walked along by his side, watching everythings, a bland deadness in his eyes.

It wasn't over yet.

Yeah, sorry this took so long, but a lot of stuff happened and even I couldn't sort it out when I was trying to write it.  When things get this complicated, even I get confused.  I'm sure something doesn't make sense, but I hope you've enjoyed it.  I guestimate three more chapters left and I would really  like to hear from everybody reading this.  Fanfiction.net yielded 37 responses in the first day, which blew my mind, but I'm addicted to feedback and it helps me write faster, so bring it on!  If you leave your email I'll probably reply.

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