Title: Moonbeams
Author: Psyche ( psyche @ happyfangirl.org )
Competing in: Best One-shot
Warnings: Angst; sap; OOC to a greater or lesser extent, as you may find it; self-indulgence on the part of the author; complete lack of realism; low-flying imagery.
Word count: 4,118
Disclaimer: Hn.
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Notes: There's a bit about chess that probably requires some explanation. I tried to keep it simple, but, uh, I'm bad at that sort of thing. ^^; (You'll probably want to skip these until you reach the relevant parts of the fic.)
[1] 'friendlies' -- Friendly games of chess, as opposed to very serious games. Basically, if you lose a friendly, well, it was just a friendly -- doesn't matter too much. That's the idea, anyway. ^_~
[2] 'open up files and swap off... strong pawn structure' -- Basically, Heero likes to create spaces and get lots of pieces off the board, keeping those of his which remain in good positions. Then (in theory) he can just grind his opponent down. Relena, on the other hand, likes to keep lots of pieces on the board so that she has more chances at pulling off snazzy combinations. ...Does that make any sense whatsoever? ^^;;;
[3] 'noted down the position on the back of his scoresheet' -- You write the moves of a chess game down on a scoresheet, so as to be able to look through it at a later date (to work out where you could have done better, and so on). Most scoresheets have little boards (uh, pictures of boards, if you see what I mean) on the back, which can be used to note down specific positions.
Anything else you feel needs explaining? Ask! ^_^
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Moonbeams
The fire died reluctantly, flaring up one last time in a mass of billowing redorange flames and furious pale blue centre, before sinking away to leave nothing but smoke and charcoal. It had done its job of heating the cabin well, and Relena felt warm, right to her heart, as she wandered about in white cotton underwear, munching on toast and marmalade, and looking for some clean winter clothes. Evening was approaching -- what light there had been was fast fading -- but she had only just awoken. Three months' worth of fatigue had finally caught up with her the previous night, and she had slept for over half a day. Now she felt almost alive.
She tugged on a pair of dark, translucent tights, and pulled a thick cotton top over her head, then fastened a heavy, richly-coloured skirt around her slender waist (whence it fell to her ankles), and slipped into a matching jacket, which she buttoned up to the hollow of her throat. Warm socks, gloves, scarf and a hooded deep-red cape soon followed, and then she was stepping into a pair of smart brown boots, then out the front door, ice-skates held in one hand by the laces, and into the cold and the snow, still toasty warm on the inside, thanks to her (somewhat old-fashioned) outfit.
Relena had always felt a special affection for the winter. She liked the way the sun was pale and bright, and the trees formed silhouettes against the sky; and she liked the late mornings and early evenings, when it seemed that the world was tucked safely away in its own little black silk pocket. And she liked hard, cold ice, and harsh winds that brought blood to her cheeks; she liked to be reminded that she was vital, and real.
The path she was following came abruptly to a halt, and there it was, just as she had been told it would be: a vast, shimmering, frozen-over lake. Relena wiped the snow off an old wooden bench, sat herself down (dampening the outer layer of her clothing in the process), and began unlacing her boots, and then shoving her feet into her skates, before standing, with a wobble, and then pushing off onto the ice.
*sshhhhhscrapessssss*
It had been a good while since she had done this. The last time had been nearly eight years ago, when her father -- not King Peacecraft, but her actual father; the man who had brought her up, and cared for her -- was still alive. He had taken her off to a lake much like this one, and they had danced as the sun began to set, much as it was setting now: a warm pinkish glow in the corner of the sky. Relena smiled at the memory, and then slipped, and landed on her bum. She sighed and laughed, then picked herself up and continued to skate, her mind still full with the memory of childhood.
The sunlight crept gradually out of the sky, and the stars and the moon took its place, somewhat obscured by cloud, but still visible, at least for the most part. And, even when it was completely covered, you knew the moon was there; unlike during the day, when it was possible to sometimes forget that it existed at all.
About three quarters of an hour later, Relena stopped skating, and returned to the bench, to sit for a while. Her body began to relax, the tension draining out of her muscles, and she breathed, deeply. Then, she realised that someone was watching her.
"Heero."
"Relena..." He moved out from between the trees and into her view. She sighed, and tried not to smile.
"You have work for another two days yet. You didn't think I couldn't manage alone, did you?"
"I..."
"Worry too much," she interjected. "I'm going back to the cabin. You should probably come with. Jeans and a T-shirt aren't particularly good clothes for winter weather."
"I'm fine."
"Maybe."
Heero looked about him warily, then stepped over to Relena, who was now struggling to remove her ice skates without taking her hands out of her gloves. He knelt down in the snow, and began untying them for her. Relena opened her mouth to protest, but all words left her as Heero carefully removed the skates, and guided her feet back into her boots. Just as he was about to stand, she finally found her voice.
"Thank-you."
Heero gave her an odd look, then nodded, and stood himself up again. Relena followed suit, and they set off walking, side by side.
"I could have got my boots back on myself, you know," she said, pretending to look him in the eyes, but actually focussed on the twinkles of snow slowly turning to water in his glossy brown hair.
His eyebrow twitched. "Maybe."
Relena smiled, a warm honey smile that was soft and sweet and melting all at once, and took his arm. "I'm such a fool sometimes... We both are." She shook her head, and ran a hand along the bark of a tree, wiping away the snow and letting it drop softly to the ground. "Come one, here's the cabin. Let's get you warmed up and out of those clothes."
Heero watched as she undid the several locks on the door, then he stepped up and followed her inside. She disappeared up the stairs for a few minutes, he assumed to fetch him something to wear, and he used the time to get the fire going. When she descended, the cabin was just starting to heat up. He shivered noticeably, only just realising how cold he had been before, and accepted without thinking the soft mound she thrust at him, before allowing himself to be bustled into the downstairs bathroom to shower and change.
The mound, he quickly discovered, consisted entirely of clothing: dark grey jogger bottoms, a white tee, a sweater in the same colour as the trousers, some thick woollen socks, and underwear from the last time he had stayed with her. He was not surprised; she had developed the habit of bringing clothes for him wherever she went, just in case he decided to make an appearance. She knew he never brought much for himself -- a change of undergarments at best -- and once with her, he always found reasons to stay, at least for a night.
It had started seventeen months ago. There had been a dispute involving plans to close down munitions factories in Former Europe. Relena had gone to Paris to meet with the parties concerned, and to make clear that the ESUN government was actively working towards a solution. It had been a dangerous decision. Those about to be made redundant were protesting in the streets. More seriously, many people of great influence and wealth stood to lose money, and therefore could be presumed to have been unhappy with this latest step on the road to peace. There were fears of an attempt on Relena's life. So Heero had been watching her.
While speaking with a trade union representative, Relena had turned her head and seen him. Heero had since decided that her uncanny ability to sense his presence was at least in part his own doing -- that he was unconsciously giving himself away to her -- but at the time, he was still enough surprised at being noticed by her for it to unsettle him. Or perhaps that, too, was simply the effect of her proximity. In any case, she had seen him, and smiled, and once her companion had left her, she had gone to Heero and invited him out for coffee. He had accepted, telling himself that he could protect her better when she was near to him, and then wondering why he felt the need for an excuse; and she had taken him to a small cafe in one of the quieter parts of the town.
They had talked about past times, laughing over old mistakes, and carefully dancing around more sensitive subjects; unwilling to break the sense of comfort they found with one another. She had asked him what he had been doing with himself since their last encounter, and he had told her of travelling, and of all the small pleasures of simply experiencing the world, and the way those pleasures could mount up to form an overflowing sort of joy; and then she had brushed her hand across his, and they had been silent for a while.
She had tired, eyelids drooping to half-shut, and he had taken her back to her hotel room; a creamy-coloured box without an item out of place, like a carefully preserved collector's piece. And there, finally, everything had shattered, and he had found himself holding her in his arms -- or perhaps she had held him, or they had held one another, -- suddenly needing the touch of another's skin above all else.
That had started it. They had never had sex, had only kissed once, but they would cling to each other, when it was dark, and they were alone, and all the rest of the world was painfully cold. They would hold each other through the night, and find warmth. And the following morning he would leave, only to return, a month or a week or a day later, needing to feel her again.
It had become an accepted part of their lives.
Heero had taken a job with the Preventers, not as a full agent, but as part of their security team; putting his skills as a hacker to good use by finding weaknesses in the network, and suggesting possible solutions. It kept him busy, and the frequency of his meetings with Relena had dropped slightly, but only slightly. They had never stopped -- Heero could not foresee their ever stopping. It would be like trying to live without water: all dryness and dust and searing pain.
He washed and dried himself quickly, before dressing and stepping out into the main room of the cabin, where Relena was waiting. She had stripped down to her sweater and underwear, no longer needing thick layers of winter clothing thanks to the warmth of the fire, and she carried a fresh towel under one arm, obviously intending to take a shower herself, now that he had done. There was food on the table -- she appeared to have thrown some vegetables in the microwave while he was busy -- and she motioned for him to help himself, before stepping into the bathroom and locking the door behind her.
He sat, and listened to her movements as she undressed herself, and then to the sound of the spray pulsing against the shower walls and floor -- like ten thousand people whispering. Listened to the water flowing through the pipes in the walls, and listened as it stopped, whispers changing to frantic babbling as the last drops were sucked down the drain.
A few moments later, the door opened again. Relena emerged, clad only in a towel, and grabbed a forkful of potato and carrots, pausing briefly to chew, swallow, and frown at Heero's empty plate, before continuing upstairs to change.
Heero considered the food before him. It had been, he decided, far too long since his last meal. He served himself, and began to eat, quietly.
The room was very quiet, now. Apart from the low roaring of the fire, and the humming of the fridge, there was little to detract from the stillness that hung like a blanket over everything, seeming to muffle the world. Every clink of Heero's fork against his plate felt out of place, like fresh blood spattered across old grey concrete.
The radio came on, suddenly, slamming the atmosphere into something old and almost familiar with its semi-human noise. A dramatisation of a book that had hit the bestseller list several months ago. Relena was back, now dressed in T-shirt and a pair of trousers much like his own. He turned to her, and she shrugged, her gaze lifting up and away from him, toward the ceiling.
"It fills the silence," she said.
He understood.
They ate together without speaking; he tired and letting the look and the touch and the sound of the day soak into his skin; she restless, and ready to be outside again. The curtains were not yet drawn, and she found herself staring at the nighttime world, wanting to open the window and breathe all its cold darkness in. But she couldn't -- she couldn't move, couldn't force herself to go any further from the fire than she already was. It held her.
"Relena..."
She jerked out of her seat, eyes washed over with panic, and flushed under Heero's steady gaze.
"Your food will go cold," he said, indicating her half-full plate.
She took a bite, and grimaced. "It already is." She ate a few more mouthfuls, not bothering to sit back down again, and then pushed her plate away with a sigh. "I can't eat this."
Heero stood. "I'll reheat it." He began to move toward her, but she waved for him to stop.
"It's fine -- my fault if it isn't, anyway: I shouldn't have let my mind wander. I'm fine. Just not very hungry...
"I ate earlier, you know," she added, noticing that he was now completely still.
After a moment's hesitation, he nodded sharply, and began clearing the dirty things away. She joined him at the sink, and they did the washing up together. The radio drama began to draw to an end as they finished, causing a frown to cross Relena's features. "I meant to listen to at least some of that," she explained, switching the radio off as she did, before the daily roundup of Sphere-wide news could begin. "It's nice to know something about what everyone else is reading, even if you don't have the time to do so yourself."
"It deals with the search for self." Heero said, guiding Relena to the sofa to sit. "The only remarkable feature is that the protagonist is female."
"You've read it?" she asked, then touched a hand to her forehead and laughed. "Wait, no, you obviously have. And I suppose you disliked it -- you're quite harsh."
"I read it last week. I liked it."
"Just didn't think it was anything special; I see. But I'll have to leave forming my own opinion until I've read it myself -- assuming I ever do, that is."
"It had one remarkable feature," he pointed out.
"So you said, but one is not many."
"Most books have none."
"I disagree," she returned, "A book may have few, if any, surface differences to set it apart from the rest, but that's not what makes it unique. It's the little things; the emotions; the thoughts; the images -- those are what make something special!"
Relena's eyes were shining, and her breath was quick. She loved debate as much as ever, Heero observed. He was glad of it; it would have been hard to see her fall into habits of compromise and indifference as a result of her job. Such things might have saved her a little pain, but pain was what made people feel in the first place. Pain kept you alive, because it told you that something was wrong. Heero wanted Relena to stay alive. Her vitality; her reality kept life in focus.
"You are right," he said, after some thought, "but most people know only one way of expressing themselves. Most people aren't special."
"And you are?" was her somewhat flippant response.
"No. You are."
Relena turned away from him, and presently left the sofa altogether, moving to stand in front of the fire. He followed her, and laid his hand lightly on her elbow -- imitating a gesture he had seen her use, perhaps a thousand times.
"You're my strength," she said, softly, her gaze fixed upon the flames.
Heero moved his hand from her elbow to hold her upper arm, taking care not to squeeze hard enough to hurt her, while still applying enough pressure to silently convey his acknowledgement of her words. Standing there, touching her, felt... nice. It shouldn't have -- they were really too close to the fire, and fast becoming uncomfortably warm -- but somehow, it did.
Over the course of their friendship, Heero had grown used to these moments. They were always surprising, always familiar, they never made sense -- and, he enjoyed them.
Relena shifted slightly, and rubbed at her temples, causing Heero to release her arm from his grip. Looking up at him with an expression he could not place, she said, "You should go."
"Why?"
"Because... If you stay until morning you'll be late for work -- you mustn't --you can come up here again when you've more free time. I'll be fine on my own, and we'll be together again in a few days, and then we'll have so much longer -- there's really no *reason* to trouble ourselves trying to steal a few extra hours *now*."
Heero frowned. "I'll take tomorrow off."
"No, Heero... You don't understand. You mustn't miss work because of *me*. It's not -- there's no need."
She was right -- he didn't understand. But, neither did he know how to ask her for an explanation. Glancing at the clock to check his estimate of the time, he said, "I'll leave early in the morning." It was the obvious solution.
She studied his face, earnestly. "Will you -- promise me you will; promise me you won't make yourself late on my account! I know it seems silly... but it's important to me."
He nodded, not breaking eye contact.
Relena smiled and looked relieved. "Now..." Her eyes darted about the room, as if seeking something, and eventually came to rest upon a chess set and board on the lowest shelf of the bookcase. "What do you say to a couple of friendlies to tire me out before bed?" [1]
"Sure." He unrolled the board on the table, and they began setting out the pieces together. "White or black?"
"Um... I'll take black for the first game, and be white for the second -- if we have time for a second, that is." She took her seat on the black side of the board as she spoke, and he set himself down opposite her.
The game began. They were about evenly matched, although their styles were very different: Relena tended to be an aggressive player, preferring to keep as many pieces on the board as she could, without allowing the position to become completely blocked, while Heero liked to open up files and swap off, maintaining a strong pawn structure to give himself enough of an advantage in the endgame (provided his opponent made a few mistakes) for an easy win. [2] Each had a decent idea of what to expect from the other, but neither had yet become so predictable as to make their games dull.
After an hour, they were still playing. In spite of the fact that Relena persisted in calling their games 'friendlies', she always played to win, and Heero, after he had learnt that she could tell when he was not trying, never put in any less effort than she. However, once the second hour of play had come and gone, he began to think that they should stop. If he was to keep his promise, he would have to leave her in five hours' time, and although it would be no great strain for him to go without, he wanted to get in at least some rest -- rest with *her* -- before then. Relena had a nice attack on his kingside going, and at first it seemed to Heero that the best course of action would be to resign; but the game was by no means lost, and, after further thought he decided it were better that he simply suggest an adjournment. He did so, giving the late hour as his reason, and hoping she would understand.
She blinked at him, as if to say, 'has so much time passed already?' and then found herself swallowing a yawn. Her fatigue, it seemed, had not been completely dissipated by her long sleep, and she had been very active since awaking. Relena yawned again. Yes, she was definitely tired.
Taking advantage of this display of weakness, Heero quickly noted down the position on the back of his scoresheet, and began tidying the pieces away. [3] Once he had returned the set to its proper place, he looked up to find Relena already making her way up the stairs. For a second, she looked back at him, before turning the corner and disappearing from view. He put out the fire, then went after her, and into the bedroom, where she was brushing her teeth at a small basin. There was a mirror set into the tiled section of wall in front of her, and he watched her reflection until she turned around. She suddenly looked very melancholy, and Heero stepped forward to take her in his arms, but she misread him.
"Oh, right, toothbrush," she said, kneeling down to rummage around in her toiletry bag for a while, before handing him a fresh one. "Sorry..." Their hands touched, and she pulled away slowly, then clambered across the bed to her suitcase, to find her pyjamas.
Relena changed in the adjoining room -- a small study, empty but for a wooden desk and ugly yellow chair at one end, -- folding her clothes to form a tidy pile on the floor. Tomorrow, she would throw them onto a heap of other dirty things awaiting a wash, but for now, it was nice to be neat.
When she returned to the bedroom, Heero was standing before the dresser in a pair of shorts, examining a few items of jewellery she had unpacked upon her arrival. She stepped up behind him, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You haven't worn these in a while," he said.
"No..." They just felt too heavy against her skin. "They just don't go with any of my outfits."
Heero's expression stilled. "You bring them with you."
"That's because I'm sentimental." She smiled apologetically and shrugged a shoulder. "I can't bring myself to leave them behind, in spite of the fact that I know I won't wear them.
"This one," she ran a finger around the edge of an old opal ring, "belonged to the Peacecrafts. One of the few surviving pieces from their collection. Noin gave it to me shortly after we met. I suppose she got it from Milliardo. I wore it when I surrendered Sanc to Romefellar..."
Heero twisted slightly to see her face, and listened as she went on to tell the history of a pair of earrings that had been her grandmother's; of a gold necklace she had received from her father, on the night of her fifteenth birthday; of a brooch she had been given by her mother, following Relena's reclaiming the name Darlian; and the decisions and losses she associated with each item. There was nothing new in the account -- Relena had gone over the same stories with Heero many times -- but there was something comforting in it. He would ask her for a little piece of her past, and she would share it with him, unquestioningly.
When she was done, he told her about his childhood under first Odin Lowe and then Doctor J, and about killing, and mistakes that cost far too much. This, too, they had done before. And in this, too, he found comfort. She listened to him, and forgave -- didn't even think of forgiveness. She knew him. There was something freeing in that.
It was all part of a ritual they had built up together, upon which they could fall back when there was nothing else. If they could come to terms with their pasts, then surely the future, the present, the recent past -- surely all those things would cease to be such a strain.
At some point, Heero slipped an arm round Relena's waist, pulling her back to lean against his chest. His words drifted away, and the room became quiet. She leant back further, and he felt her soft brown hair on his face, her scent in his lungs. The light switch was only a couple of metres away; he flicked it off as they moved to the bed. In the darkness, she curled into him, and he curled around her.
They slept.
The following morning, Relena awoke to find a cold spot next to her. Heero had kept his promise.
Fin.
