(((AN: Still working within Relena’s POV, I’ll keep the 1^st person style for the moment. It doesn’t seem to suit me, but I need to try it. She wasn’t sounding like I wanted her to, for one thing, in the last one. Of course I also wrote that when drunk. . . hm. Gave me some inspiration.)))

I had managed to ditch Heero for one glorious day of freedom from my responsibilities. Sometimes it was easy for me to forget that other people my age were just starting their first jobs out of college, or starting a family, or just making their way in the world in general when I had been leading it since before high school ended. That isn’t entirely correct, since I was and am more of a figurehead than anything. Governments are not run by one person alone, as dictatorships are not in fashion these days. Even a sweet voiced dictator, like I could have been, is not what the world needs now that we have relative stability. Maybe at one time my life was filled with jobs that were needful for the basic maintenance of the newly constructed status quo, but I feel more superfluous as of late.

Not dead wood, but not so very important as I once was. This is a very good thing for the world.

And depressing for me.

Not even the world seems to need me now. I looked around at what I’d constructed for other people with my life and I can’t help but wonder what was left for myself. I had family; I had friends, but somehow I still had this emptiness within me. It’s as if I didn’t have an identity. Maybe that’s too extreme, but I stand by the statement.

The restlessness over this issue was making me lose sleep. I decided that it would be a nice thing to do for myself to take a little break. I informed all the most important people of my intentions and they were all in favor for giving me some time off. That’s why I found myself in a sleepy little town next to vaguely icy coastal waters. I didn’t even know where I was. You don’t need to name a location to find yourself there. I trusted Millardo to make arrangements, and to respect my wish not to be followed by a veritable army of security. He agreed on the condition that I kept a phone and one security person with me at all times. I requested Trowa.

There were several reasons for my choice, the first being that he didn’t talk much and the second being that he was much easier to convince to leave me to my own devices. Trowa would give me the privacy I had long been seeking to sort some things out. Some of those things had to do with a certain Japanese ex-Gundam pilot.

Oh yes, when I said I informed all the most important people of my whereabouts I neglected to mention that one of them in fact was left out of the loop. He went by the name of Heero Yuy, and he was away on Preventor business in one of the colonies. I made everyone swear a solemn oath not to tell him where I was going. He would only bring complications with him by his presence alone. I didn’t need that kind of angst to cloud my thinking.

The morning I set off for these gray, rainy shores, I felt reasonably confident. I would take this week and pull myself together. I would try to remember what it was like to be Relena. Not even Relena Darlian or the even more idealized figure of Relena Peacecraft but just Relena. I could feel the way my heart sped up in anticipation. The time alone was giving me a heady sense of freedom. Even if nothing came of this mentally or spiritually, I was bound and determined to enjoy my holiday.

“We’ll be there soon.” Trowa had entered the cabin almost soundlessly to inform me, and retreated back into the cockpit with the same regard for my peace on this flight. I wondered if maybe my own crisis was childish and self absorbed compared to what he or Heero had to face, with their dehumanizing and programmed pasts. Even their names were fake. At least I could be reasonably sure of my very name, but then again ‘Peacecraft’ had been a surprise addition so late in life that I couldn’t recognize it as my own true name. Then again, truth is so relative, maybe too relative. It would be nice to have some concrete truths.

Wasn’t peace my concrete truth? The only thing I had always believed in and relied on to define myself? No, I refuse to think I had founded my personality on such a shaky foundation of my own stubbornness and the ideals of a father I never really knew.

Maybe I would have come to some sort of conclusion, but most likely I simply would have passed the time moping and crossing back and forth between self pity and self hate. When I wasn’t thinking of myself I was thinking of Heero. Perhaps that’s how he was called, like a foul incantation summoning a demon. He resembled a demon when he burst into the little local bar that night: wild, alarmed, and very very angry. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Trowa move to intercept, but I made eye contact with him and gave a small shake of my head. He faded into the shadows again.

Heero was standing behind me, I could feel the cold radiating off him, and as I looked down a puddle formed at his feet from the runoff of his raincoat. My beer had suddenly become intensely interesting, and I focus on it as if nothing else existed – as if everyone else in the bar was not staring at us. All 11 of them. The bartender coughed and low conversation resumed, but Heero continued to stand there. Surprisingly, he was the first to speak.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I felt defensive and childish, but I thought I had a good enough answer.

“I thought I would be back before you returned.”

“What if something happened to you?” He remained standing, as if asserting a superior moral position to go along with his aggressive physical one.

“Do you not trust Trowa?” My tone was icy. I didn’t need Heero’s permission for everything, and it wasn’t as if I had acted stupidly or hastily.

“Of course I realize he is capable.” He almost collapsed into the stool next to me. “Damn it all Relena, do you have any idea how it felt to come back and find you missing with no one willing to explain where or why?” I smiled, trying to picture Heero intimidating my brother into releasing my location. I was more interested in how exasperated and perhaps how relieved the normally stoic soldier sounded. The opportunistic bartender set a beer in front of each of us.

“What did they tell you?” I didn’t give them any specific instructions, I was honestly curious.

“They said you’d taken some ‘personal time’. I almost killed Duo when he was the fourth person to say those exact words to me.” He swept back his wet hair from his face with one hand and only managed to give it an even more strangely wind-tossed look. The personal tone exited his voice sharply. “I won’t allow a breach like this again.”

That made me rather irate. “It isn’t for you to decide.” I finally worked up the guts to meet his eyes and it was like my ire had been sucked into a vacuum. There was nothing there, no hurt, no anger, no emotion. He gave away nothing and for once I felt actually physically hurt by his refusal to give me anything. I usually rated annoyance, at least on the surface, but now he wouldn’t even offer me that.

He walked out of the bar and I didn’t stop him. Hell, I didn’t even look back.

The bartender came to take away his untouched drink and I stopped him. Pulling the beer closer to me, I choked down my own half finished one before starting it. More would follow if I had anything to say about it.

*

*

*

I assume Trowa brought me home. I don’t remember too clearly. I think I said things, mostly drunken babble interspersed with ‘Yuy’ and ‘bastard’, but I trusted Trowa to conveniently forget most of it. I do remember him asking me several times if I was ok, and then in response to my protests he must have retreated to his room on the opposite side of the large house my brother had rented.

Some scraps of the evening are pleasant enough to recall, like watching TV on my bed, falling over, belatedly noticing I had fallen over and then righting myself only to repeat my amazing lack of ability to sit up. That ate up most of the buzz. Then the shaking hit, and, inevitably, the vomiting. Thank god I had enough presence of mind to make it to the bathroom. Things spun in an unpleasant mockery of reality, as if someone had just put me into a surrealist painting and then spun me around.

I think I started to cry.

Gentle hands, cold but firm, pulled back my hair and helped me right myself from my half collapsed position next to the porcelain god. I felt so much shame for anyone to see me like that even as I was relieved that someone was with me. Both facts just made me cry harder.

“There isn’t anything. I’m not anything. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” My words were slightly slurred and my mouth tasted bitter. I tried to stand up, and with help I managed to do so. After rinsing out my mouth, I looked into the mirror. My glance ran over my messy hair, bloodshot eyes, and cracked lips to meet a steady Prussian gaze that held mine with rare compassion.

This was worse than I could have hoped for.

“Go away,” I cried harder and covered my face with my hands as wave after wave of shame took me. “Don’t look at me, just go away.” He let go of me as if to comply with my request, but my shaky legs had been relying on his support and he was forced to catch me before I hit my head against any number of protruding surfaces in the bathroom.

I splashed some water on my face and brushed my teeth very carefully, using Heero as my support. He helped me stumble over to the bed and lie down. As he walked away I grabbed at his hand.

“Don’t go.” I pleaded, still a little drunk and unsure. “Please.” His eyes closed in some undecipherable burst of emotion and then opened to meet my own.

“Hn.” He sat next to me on the bed and we sat there awkwardly.

I’ll forever blame the alcohol for what I said next.

“I think secretly, I was hoping you’d come find me. I spent years looking for you. It’s only fair.” I laughed at my own lame joke, while not really finding it funny.

He looked at me quizzically, and I brushed some hair out of his face, enjoying the faint stubble as my clumsy fingertips scraped down his face. When he caught my hand my breath caught, and with unrelenting force he pulled me towards him. My head rested against his chest, his arms around my body, and though still dizzy I felt finally comfortable enough to relax and find some sleep.

The next morning I awoke alone but covered in blankets. I pieced together what happened slowly in my mind and smiled to myself over the strange display of affection he had shown me. At the same time his absence gave me a deep sadness and the feeling of absence. That was Heero for you, always leaving me incomplete. My hangover quickly dispelled any other semblance of coherent thought.

I saw a glass of water, some aspirin, and a note next to my bed as I clutched at my head. I took the aspirin and tried to focus on the note.

‘No matter where you run, I’ll come for you.’

H.Y.

To others it might have sounded menacing, but I knew the spirit and context in which he had meant that short sentence. Hangover or no, today was a good day.