(((AN: Now the plan was not to do any of these as strictly following one another, but this could be considered both on its own or perhaps as a continuation of the last part. You’ll see what I mean. I have to stick to my plan after all. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to make it a bit shorter than usual too, since I don’t seem to sustain writing in 1^st person very well. I’m just learning, over here.)))

I think I’m being used. I don’t just think, I know I’m being used. From the way they looked at one another this morning I’m reasonably sure something happened yesterday. It’s only logical. Yuy is her personal bodyguard, not I, yet here I am on special detail. There is no point in asking questions, I’m not that curious and I’m sure they won’t be answered. To some extent it would be nice to know why exactly Relena looks ready to kill today. I assume it has something to do with her diplomatic trip being cancelled. The broken pen holder I found slumped and somewhat shattered below a dent in the wall told me to be wary of her, even as the prospect of her being even mildly threatening is ludicrous.

All morning I was effectively avoiding her, simply performing the usual security checks, but part way through I felt like I was being shadowed. With little else to occupy him, I didn’t begrudge him the habit even as I was annoyed that he couldn’t trust me enough to do the job we all had adequate training for. When I was nearly finished the uneasy feeling of being followed vanished and didn’t reoccur for some time.

Of course Relena would want to leave the office for lunch. She looked at me with those tired blue eyes of hers, pressing at her temples as if to relieve the pain in her head. I know I’m not a weak person, and I know that there is some sort of unresolved – something – between her and Yuy, but I know I have no defenses able to resist her when she requests anything. Even when her lips are set into a thin lined smile. Even as the anger gives an edge to the tone of her words and sharpens her delivery.

“Please, Trowa, I just want to get out of the office for a moment or two.” I watched a healthy portion of that golden hair of hers fall forward into her face. She looked at me, head slightly tilted, and I knew that I had already lost this battle. My quick, dismissive nod prevented me from smiling at how I knew Yuy was going to react to this.

We didn’t go far away, just a few blocks from the building she practically called home. It was her decision, and I followed the sign out protocol before she came downstairs. Of course the person I encountered was Yuy. He asked me a few questions but nothing specific. I could tell by the glazed way in which he conducted the formal questions that he had other things on his mind. Or maybe it was the way he kept running his hand through his hair, an unconscious nervous gesture he had taken up in the past year or so. Whatever had happened between was honestly agitating the most impersonal and unemotional person I had ever met. Even though it was unwise, I decided to poke at Yuy who was in such a raw state.

“There is a café at a diagonal from the restaurant.” The smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. These two were so predictable. He scowled and I departed without saying any more.

Relena looked very decidedly cheerful as I escorted her out of the building. She had her politician attitude on and I wasn’t sure what could possibly be going on behind the barricade of that amiable grin. It was as bad as Yuy’s customary neutrality. Both of them were too skilled at retreating from their immediate surroundings. Of course, it is easy for me to criticize when I do the very same thing. So long as it doesn’t interfere with work I don’t understand why they don’t come to some sort of arrangement. Not that I would offer that opinion openly, but I have heard other people talk about it in low conversations among themselves.

If only those two knew how much office gossip was centered around their torrid non-affair.

“What would you like to eat?” My attention focused in again on my immediate present. The ambling thoughts that had floated through my consciousness as I made sure things were decently safe were banished.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat something, Trowa. I don’t want to be the only one having food.” Then she brought out that devastating weapon of hers again. “Please?”

“Very well.” I inclined my head, acknowledging defeat.

It was relieving to me that she did not try to continue any sort of conversation. Maybe she wanted silence, but I had a feeling it had far more to do with simply being very observant about people’s behavioral patterns. I always knew she was instinctually canny about people, but just as her skills seemed to desert her when forced to interact with Yuy so to Yuy seemed to lose caution when he had to face her. Speaking of the man, my eyes flickered over the person who had been standing by a camera shop across the street for quite some time. I would know that hair anywhere, even though he had changed his clothes.

I don’t think what happened was inevitable, so much as it was unpredictable. From the time Relena started crying into her salad I counted exactly three seconds as events unfolded. They were very busy seconds, of course:

First Second: Yuy notices.

Second Second: Yuy runs across the street. (Accompanied by honks from cars that nearly killed him.)

Third Second: Yuy bursts into the restaurant, gun trained at my head and runs over to the table.

I would have been more concerned for Relena, but at the moment I was attempting to gauge whether the gun was being pointed at me in earnest and how I should react to it. Yuy looked at me, metallic and cold as the gun I faced, and demanded.

“What did you do to her?”

I didn’t even attempt to answer such a stupid question, there were far more important things, like cocking my own gun silently into my cloth napkin.

“Go away Heero!” Relena didn’t even look up as she said it. There was little force but a lot of conviction in her statement.

Blind fury lit his features with lightening quickness before he composed himself again. For the first time in my association with this man I feared him. Everything inside of the restaurant had paused, like some sick waxwork exhibit and just as eerie. A child asked a question a table away and was quickly hushed by a frightened parent. Someone else tried to stifle a cough. I had had enough of this.

“Be reasonable Yuy. Look around.” I tried to bring him back into reality.

He shook his head as if to clear it and his eyes flickered back and forth, taking in the various elements of the scene he had created. Sweat seemed to form on his brow.

“False alarm. Go back to your business.” His gun was re-holstered and I did the same with mine, glad that he had calmed down enough to pretend to act civilized. “You.” I didn’t like the tone he took with Relena but I could do little to challenge him without making this even more of a public relations nightmare than it already was. “Come with me.”

“No.” She sounded childish, but I could understand her hesitation.

Yuy didn’t wait any longer, he simply picked her up. Following many great peaceful protesters before her, she went limp in an attempt to use passive resistance. In effect she looked like a dead body slung over his shoulder, still the focus of the nominally functioning restaurant. Once he had stormed a little way towards the back, trying to manage the body of the Vice Foreign Minister, I began to follow. There was no need to worry about the check. I’m sure Relena would make proper amends to them later anyway, but just to be sure I left a couple dollars I had in a pocket and hoped it would at least cover the salad.

With a bang, the door to the men’s room hit the wall behind it and Yuy marched in as several men ran out hurriedly buttoning their suit pants. I guarded the outside, preventing anyone else from entering or listening and settled down to wait. The faint sniffles from Relena ceased after I heard someone blow their nose.

“You’re such an ass, Heero.” Her voice was thick from crying and echoed in the room.

“I’m doing my job.”

“Yes, heaven forbid you let go of anything for even a moment.” Her sarcasm was almost tangible.

“You don’t understand . . .”

“No, I don’t. Why don’t you enlighten me?” There was a long pause after that. “I thought as much.”

I thought to myself that it was an unfair question to ask. To people like Heero or I, life was the job. It wasn’t about intensity or devotion, it was simply the way we framed our reality. Even that didn’t eclipse many of our motivations, but it did color many of them. She was a smart woman, after this many years I thought maybe she would understand that. However, this involved Yuy. If it were about me, somehow I felt it would be much clearer to her.

There was the sound of clicking heels approaching me, but they stopped short of the door and I heard water begin to run. After a moment the water was shut off and the clicks carried her a short distance. Four strides was all it took for her to reach her destination. I almost wish I could have seen the expressions on their faces. In my own mind I had a stony frown on hers and with Yuy the usual neutral base expression.

“Why would you do something so rash, Heero?”

“Today was. . .”

“I’m not talking about today.”

There was another pregnant silence.

Relena’s breathy sigh echoed loudly. “You must know how rejected I felt.”

“I don’t think this is the time. . .”

“Why not?” Her quiet tone rose a bit, now aggravated. “When will it be the time? A week from now in my office? A year from now at a conference? Tell me.”

“Calm down, Relena.”

“I AM calm.” She sniffed again. Oh no, the tears must be starting again. I felt uncomfortable, and I wasn’t even near her. “You have no idea how confused I am.”

Her sniffles became muffled. Then they ceased. After another pause I heard a groan. My carefully controlled diffidence strained against the temptation to open the door. There was a murmur and a number of clicks in rapid succession.

“What do you want Heero?” Her breathing was loud, more like panting, as if she were winded. “Can you tell me that?”

There was another period of silence, Heero’s specialty.

“I see.”

I moved away from the door quickly to prevent being hit by it. Relena emerged looking serene. Nodding to me imperiously, she let go of the door and walked towards the table where she had abandoned her purse. As the door swung shut I caught a glimpse of Yuy. He was looking at Relena’s retreating form, sadness in his eyes.

Relena’s own look: eyes half lidded, corners of the lips drawn down (and suspiciously puffy as well), plus the stiffness of her walk all clued me into how she must feel similarly to the melancholy man in the bathroom.

They were both fools, so far as I was concerned.