"Here," Damion said, flinging open the stable doors.   Most of the horses were wild-eyed, reering in their stalls and stamping the floors as Damion and Trowa burst in.  The commotion outside has upset them and the grooms had fled, but Damion paid them no mind.  Trowa followed him in as he went straight for the back of the stable and pulled open the gates to StormDark, his private horse, and Manny's gelding Challenger.  Both were calm and attentive in happy recognition as he came near, but there was no time for greetings.

"Which one should I ride?"  Trowa asked as Damion murmured gentle words and fiddled with the latches on the gate.

"Doesn't matter," he replied. "The one on your left is pretty gentle."

"I like this one," Trowa said, approaching the stall of one of newer stallions.  "What's his name?"

"Red Jasper," Damion said with a note of warning, half turning.  "He's a handful and we don't have time for saddles.  Can you ride bareback?"

"Sure," Trowa said quietly, stroking the horse's muzzle and looking into its eyes.  "I work with lions at a circus, but we have horses too."  He opened the gate to Red Jasper's stall and guided the horse out into the open.  "What's your horse's name?"

"StormDark."

"Odd name. Shouldn't it be dark storm?"

Damion smiled.  "It's the color," he said.  "This horse was a gift.  We didn't have a name for it at first so the grooms started referring to him by how he looked.  'He's storm dark,' they would say.  The name stuck.  Can you hand me that bridle over there for Challenger?"

"I can do it.  You get the horses outside," Trowa said.  He left Red Jasper unattended, grabbed a bridle from the wall and began fitting it over Challenger's head.  Red Jasper waited patiently as Damion had never seen him do, even looking attentive.

Damion didn't even blink.  Nothing about these pilots was going to susprise him anymore.  There was not a moment to waste wondering about it.  "All right, then," he said through gritted teeth, flinging open the gate and coaxing StormDark out of the stall.  The horse followed his hand, its gray, nearly black coat glistening in the sunlight that poured in from the doors.  Damion grabbed a leading rope hanging from the wall behind him and clipped it to Challenger's bridle.  Grasping the lead rope just under the horse's chin and getting a grip on StormDark's mane with the other hand, he walked both horses outside, standing between them.  Trowa followed.  Just before the gate, Damion caught sight of his quarterstaff leaning the against the wall.  He let go of StormDark, letting him trot a few paces ahead into the open, and snagged the weapon, rolling it into his hands with the tips of his fingers and whirling it up under his arm.  Once outside, he whistled once and waited as StormDark's ears pricked forward and he responded.  When the horse came to his side, Damion grabbed a fistful of his mane and vaulted easily into the saddle, still holding the lead rope to Manny's horse.

"Is Relena going to ride that one?"  Trowa asked, already on Red Jasper's back and guiding the animal like a man who had been riding all his life.  The only think between him and the horse's bare back was a vaulting blanket.  He nodded toward Challenger.

"No.  Manny will," Damion responded, turning StormDark back toward the gates with the pressure from his knees.  "I don't know if Relena can ride bareback, so she can ride behind me."

"Then let me lead the other horse," Trowa said, and Damion tossed him the rope without further questions.  Damion rotated the quarterstaff until he had it fairly secure in front of him and urged StormDark forward into a light trot and then a canter, steadily picking up speed.  Trowa thundered after them.

As they drew closer, Damion caught sounds of commotion at the gates, like fighting.  Seething inwardly, he leaned forward and pushed StormDark on faster.  StormDark responded with little encouragement.
 
 

Relena took deep breaths to calm herself, but her stomach quivered with untameable anxiety however she breathed.  Her vision blurred if she was not careful, and the ache in her heart jostled tears to her eyes against the will of her mind.  She paced about the court before the gates, breathing on her hands and biting her fingers.

Terrese stood off to one side, watching Relena with brows lowered in worry, but all her comforts were to no avail and she had ceased trying.  Manny stood beside her, talking in soft, reassuring tones.  Duo and Wufei remained in their gundams, but Relena could feel their eyes on her.  She wondered if they were merely concerned or if they watched her because they wanted her to be strong, to pull herself and the world together, but she could not, not without Heero.  She was afraid.

The soldiers had mostly dispersed at Oswold's orders, save some few who lingered as Damion and Trowa left.  And these watched her intently.  It was only when she managed to glance briefly up from her troubles that she noticed they were fingering weapons.

She gasped in alarm, but before she could react, one of the guards seized her by the arm and pulled her close, a knife whipping out from under his coat with the other hand. "For the death of Clara!" he hissed into her ear, and obviously knew he would die as well, but not until she was dead, for the gundams, as large as they were, could not be so accurate as to kill one without destroying both.

"Whoa!"  Duo said in surprise, and Deathscythe jerked, its scythe spinning into a grip in both hands.  Its eyes glowed balefully, a hellish glare of terror, but the guard's hand was steady and there was nothing a gundam could do in this case except threaten total destruction.  But the guard who held her was prepared to die.

"No!" Relena cried, struggling.  "I can't die yet!  Heero!"  Tears streamed from her eyes and she jerked spasmodically, her hands clawing for release, pushing and tugging at the arm squeezing her chest beneath her breasts.  She did not cry Heero's name for him to rescue her, but for his sake.  If she was killed now, Heero would die too, if he was not already dead.  If he was alive, if he had lived to return to her, and found her dead...  she remembered the love in his eyes, the melting, sweeping, agonizing emotion...  "No,"  she gasped, pleading, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Please!  Oh, God. Heero!"

Suddenly, the grip on her was loosened and she pulled free, darting out into the open.  She turned just in time to see Manny slug the guard across the face with force to crack stone, his features contorted in rage.  The guard crumpled at his feet, nose a broken, bloody mess.  Manny shook his hand and cracked his knuckles, bouncing a little and breathing steadily.  The knife clattered to the ground.

A peculiar sound came from the Deathscythe.  Laughter.  "That's a whole lot funnier when it happens to someone else," Duo chuckled.

"Yeah, really," Wufei echoed soberly from Altron.  He aimed his dragon at the other guards who had remained, staring with slack jaws at the man unconscious on the ground.  They swallowed and dropped their weapons, raising their hands to the sky.  "You guys need to learn a thing or two about honor,"  Wufei said.

"You'll never get through the city!"  one of them spat.

Relena was hardly listening.  Heero.  There was no time to spare, but waiting for Damion, there must be something she could do.  With tears drying on her cheeks, she hurriedly removed her coat, a horribly expensive thing, and tore it with her hands into strips of cloth.  She spotted a water fosset by the wall and ran to it, her hands shaking as she soaked the remainder of her coat in cool, clean water, letting it run over her hands as well.  Her skin was hot with inner fire, but she trembled like she was freezing cold.

The thundering of hooves alerted her to Damion's return and she turned and stood, pushing strands of hair out of her face.  "Damion!" she cried, wrapping the wet coat around her waist, heedless of the damp, and shoving the dry strips into her pocket.

His horse appeared from around the corner, moving at a dead run in her direction.  Stumbling, Relena ran forward to meet it.  The horse hardly slowed as Damion approached, but he reached down with one arm and Relena grabbed it as he flew past, gripping his forearm.  His hand closed just below her elbow and he swung her up and around, despositing her deftly behind him without losing a step.  Relena wrapped her arms around his waist in terror as they flew through the gates and into the city.  Damion rode like he had been born on horseback and Relena could do nothing but hold on and think that each gallop, each building that flew past in a blur, brought her one step closer to Heero.  He had to be alive!  If he was not...

She looked back over her shoulder to see Trowa and Manny riding behind them.  Terrese was clutching Manny from behind, her face burried in his back in fear, but she must have wanted to come.  Gundam Deathscythe turned from the palace and began following them in slow, moving steps, careful not the crush anything important beneath its feet.  Gundam Altron remained behind, guarding the guards.

"He said we'd never make it through the city!"  Relena said loudly.  The wind swallowed the volume of her words, but Damion heard them.

"That's why I wanted horses. We'll go straight through the city, but not through the main streets, except where it can't be helped."

Relena nodded and pressed her cheek against Damion's shoulder to feel more secure.  Be alive, Heero.  She also didn't want anyone to see her cry.

The horses flew ahead of the gundam, smaller as they were, leaping over debris, pounding across pavement and over bridges.  Whenever Damion's horse jumped, Relena gasped, clutching Damion tighter, but they always landed flawlessly, and Damion never moved or turned his head.  They took back alleyways too small for even cars to get through, leaped fences and paid no heed at all to the clamouring of civillians or rebellion soldiers in the city.  Once, Relena thought she heard the shot of a gun fired at them as they passed through a main street, but if so it missed them, flying like the wind as they were, and Damion ignored it.

Abruptly, they burst through a group of buildings and Relena could see Gundam Sandrock rising into the sky, and just behind it, Wing Zero, collapsed on the ground like a man sitting.  It did not move, and she could not see into the cockpit, but she squirmed against Damion, demanding to be let off.   There were three armed men swarming between them and the Wing Zero, darting in and out under Sandrock's legs as Quatre aimed blows at them. Several others had already been taken out by the gundam pilot.

"They're trying to get to Heero!" Relena cried.  "Stop!"  she cried at them, futiley she knew.  "Leave him alone!"

Damion plunged forward and a quarterstaff appeared in his hand, held locked against his forearm and extended like a bar.  Relena gasped as Damion practically ran over one of the men in the street.  The staff hit him in the head and he went down like a ton of bricks.  Within twelve feet of Wing Zero, Damion leaned back and relaxed his horse into a stop. "Hurry," he said.   Relena swung her leg behind her and slid off on her hip.  Damion dismounted behind her.  Relena took two steps toward the Wing Zero before her way was blocked by a man with a gun in his hand and an evil leer on his face.

Damion leaped in front of her or she would not have even slowed.  His quarterstaff blurred and the gun flew out of the man's hand in an instant, sliding on the pavement.  The guard shouted, clutching a broken wrist, but before he could move, the other end of Damion's quarterstaff knocked his legs out from under him.  The man made to rise, but it was too late.  He slumped unconscious as the quarterstaff turned again, thudding into his temple in a controlled manner.

Manny and Trowa came up behind.  Manny halted his mount and dismounted, helping a shaky Terrese to the ground, but Trowa went forward.  Releasing his horse's mane, he swung his feet up behind him and rose to stand on the horse's back, covered only with a thick blanket.  Standing with legs slightly bent, he rode toward the last enemy, who stood with his mouth agape, gun forgotten in his hand.  Suddenly, Trowa jumped and flipped.  His booted feet hit the soldier in the face with a well-aimed kick and they both toppled.  Trowa grabbed the man's gun, turned it backward, and slugged him across the head with the handle.

Relena's way to Heero was clear, but she had moved even before the last guard was down.  Heedless, she ran to the Wing Zero and clambered up and over it to the cockpit.  It was opaque, dull green, like a gate of stone.  She screamed, the sound startling her, and pounded furiously on the glass-like material, crying and calling out. "Heero!"  she gasped.  "Heero, can you hear me?  Please answer.  It's Relena.  Speak to me, Heero!"

But no sound returned her cries, not even the movement of life.

"He hasn't responded for some time, Miss Relena," Quatre's voice came from the Sandrock, and there were tears in his voice.  "I've been trying."

"Can you see him?"  Relena gasped, tears on her cheeks as she looked up at the other gundam.  "Quatre?"

"No.  There's nothing but static from his channel."

She clawed at the door, looking for a latch, an opening.  "How do I open it?" she sobbed.  Her fingers stung.  "Heero!"  She pounded with one fist on the door and collapsed in a heap of tears.  "Why do you have to be so dedicated?" she cried, and slapped furiously on the cockpit. "If you wanted to live, you would!  Why do you want to die?  Isn't it possible we are both just a little too dedicated?"  She sobbed, her shoulder's shaking.  Her fingers attempted to clutch the smooth glass.  She couldn't see through her tears.  "I don't want you to die, Heero.  I don't want you to die!"

And then, faintly, "I'm not dead...Relena."

She froze, fingers lingering on the glass, tears stilled in her eyes.  "Heero," she whispered.  "Tell me you're not dying."

"Relena..."

Her name, spoken with such tenderness, but also with foreboding.  "Open the door, Heero," she murmured.  "Please, I beg you."  He hesitated.  "Please," she repeated.  She moved her hand away and stepped back as the cockpit opened, rising slowly.  As soon as it was open enough, she ducked under it and leaned inside.

Heero lay in the pilot's seat like one sick, his arms and legs loose, his head crooked slightly back.  Every bit of exposed skin was coated with a sheen of glistening sweat and his eyes had a glassy look.   Old and new blood streamed down his side from a clotted wound, soaking his clothes around his chest and down his hip.  He looked at her and smiled weakly, his brow creased in pain.

Relena swallowed, trembling now with his hurt and love.  His eyes closed as she reached for him and winced in pain as she lifted his shirt away from his wound, peeling away some of the caked blood with it.  She untied her coat, still soaking with water, from around her waist and dabbed at the blood, wiping away the excess and cleaning out the slash in his side.  He tensed, muffling a cry as fresh blood began to well up from the wound, but she kissed his hand to ease him and took the strips of her coat from her pocket.  She wadded some of them up into a bandage and pressed it tightly against his side.  He breathed heavily, but the hand that she had kissed moved to cover hers, holding the bandage in place for her.  She smiled wanly and began to wind strips of cloth around his waist, tying them tightly.  After she had done this several times, she took Heero's arms and wrapped them around her neck.  "You're going to be okay, Heero," she whispered coaxingly.  "Come on."  He fell forward as she pulled him out of the Wing Zero's cockpit, and as she stumbled backwards from his weight, they both half crashed to the ground below.

Relena sat up, wiping hair away from her eyes.  Heero groaned, but he sat up too, right hand pressed tightly to his left side.  As he looked up their eyes met within inches of the other's face, and every thought and movement in Relena's head froze as she found herself suddenly drowning, her hands usless and forgotten in her lap.  This close, she could see oceans of love in Heero's eyes, and the ice that had frozen them thawed, melting like snow in a warm spring rainstrom.  She stared, locked in a sea of enchantment, frozen stiff as Heero's left hand wandered up to her face, tracing her jaw as if touching some delicate piece of artwork.  The kindness in his expression was so real, so beautiful, so surreal, she was not sure she was really seeing it.  Her breath caught in her throat and she reached up to wipe the sweat from his face, until she forgot was she was doing and merely carassed his cheeks with her thumbs and fingers, lost in his eyes.  He stopped holding his wound, took both her hands in his and brought them down with a soft smile, but their gaze did not diesngage until he suddenly cried out in pain, doubling over into her lap.

"Heero!" she cried, falling over him, concern and worry bringing tears to her eyes as she tried to get a look at his face.  He was still clasping one of her hands and she could feel the strength in his grip.

Suddenly she was surrounded by people.  Quatre, Trowa and Duo were among them as Heero was suddenly borne up and out of her reach by soldiers and taken to an arriving ambulance.  Relena sat numbly in the street, her legs sprawled about her, staring after him.  She rose unsteadily and began walking as the company remaining followed the ambulance to the hospital.

But Damion was gone.

Damion watched in dark quiet as Relena half disappeared into the Wing Zero and moments later pulled a sorely wounded and weak Heero from the cockpit.  He wasn't sure what it was he felt, but something stirred deep within him, heavy with sorrow, magnifying when Heero touched Relena's face.  They stared at one another in absolute silence.   They were like people suddenly renewed by drinking in the other's presence, people who were before dying of thirst.  The looks that passed between them as they breathed were identical, and unmistakeable.

Damion's heart plummeted into blackness.

"My Lord," Manny murmured soberly at his side.

Damion closed his eyes with effort and turned away from the scene and toward his best friend and loyal servant.  He was breathing much too hard, and could not calm himself.  Nor could he bring himself to speak.  He was losing her.

"Sir," Manny said in slow, careful tones, glancing at Heero and Relena and swinging his eyes back again to Damion.  "You love her..."

"Not like that," Damion said harshly, and clenched his eyes shut to stop the flow of sudden hot and furious tears.  "Nor she to me."

Manny swallowed, looking disconcerted and at a loss for words.  "Damion," he began.

"Leave me be!" Damion cried deeply in his torment, and turning, raced back to StormDark.  He swung himself onto the horse's back and whirled his startled mount around, breaking for the palace.

"Damion!" Manny called after him, but to no avail.  Damion could hear no voices except his father's, and see no visions except that which had just witnessed, that, and Clara's blood staining his fingers.

"And if it is not to be, you must forsake love and be a prince before a man."

It seemed his inkling had proven correct.  He was not meant to love in this life.  It had caused nothing but pain.  At least the battle was over and the city had been saved.

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