Break of Day [One shot in brief segments]

[Gundam Girl]

Author?s Notes: Segment headings are lyrics from Norah Jones?s ?Don?t Know Why.? This fic was written using a prompt from the Black Rose: ?swept away.?

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or 1xR and am making no profit from this fan fiction.

Break of Day

By Nessie

1. Empty As A Drum

He stands on a beach, white and uneven, frigid with icy rain driven into the sand by the November storm. Winter is imminent. He estimates that later tonight the rain will turn to snow, gradually unfrozen by the salty tide. Being Heero Yuy, it is likely that he is right.

This is not the beach she found him on. The smell is different, the air unwelcoming. If the people in this town knew him to be a Gundam pilot (former, he reminds himself harshly), he might have been asked to leave. Only in her city would he be given a warm reception. The air there is comforting.

But Heero will not go there, and he keeps himself from it because that is his punishment. Asceticism is the only thing that makes him feel better. She would be horrified, he is sure, if she knew that he stood on the open, vacant shore, his clothes heavy with rain, his limbs shivering with cold.

The sea churns with the approaching storm, lashes at his feet. He turns to go because if the waterline gets any higher, it will damage the tires of his car, and Heero still cares more for machinery than he does for himself.

He cannot understand that by maintaining distance, he punishes her as well.

2. Down The Road

Heero has been sleeping in the car, not because he can?t afford a room (his missions for Preventer, however few and far between, are dangerous enough that they are worth a few hundred thousand dollars each) but because he has mindlessly driven to New Port City and has to reflect on how the goddamn hell that happened.

He fights acknowledging that he wants to be here because that would mean there?s a crack in his will, and his will is what got him through the war ? through his life.

Lightning streaks the square of sky he sees through his driver?s side window. Night on Earth is a time he prefers simply because he is more familiar with the endless canopy of stars. No rain yet. Heero feels a little bit like that; dry, dark, with the occasional sting of electricity throughout the whole of him. He doesn?t know what causes that sting, and even if someone tried to tell him, he probably wouldn?t listen.

He wakes at a particularly loud thunderclap, unaware that he had drifted off. His brain muddled, he gets out of the car and lets himself be stirred into full alert by the breeze, heady with a scent of ozone. And he walks, because it?s true; the air is far more pleasant here. He doesn?t feel loathed, whether or not there are people around. He simply feels watched. But it?s well past one in the morning and only a few people roam the urban streets, silhouettes shot against brick walls and dark windows by the headlights of passing vehicles.

They make the city seem haunted. He wouldn?t be surprised if Relena knew he was here. He knows she is.

The sky gets a little darker. This close to her and she?s still out of sight. Maybe he doesn?t prefer the night.


3. Heart Is Drenched

Heero can?t remember the name of that beach. Somehow it never seemed to matter what it was called, only what occurred there, and what he does recall is the cool brush of her fingertips as she removed his space helmet, the sweet scent of a perfume she had been too young to wear, and the gentle tones of a girl yet unaware of how a world can fall into turmoil.

Five years later, he has never found the exact shade of blue that was her eyes when he saw her for the first time.

He walks all the way there, not mindful of his feet because the path is as imprinted on his memory as the operation of Wing. It is a forgotten plot of land, overgrown with weeds, and mist from the ocean coils around his knees as he steps through a part in the bent chain-link fence. The world is a dismal grey now, the color heralding a brisk morning. Heero stuffs his hands in his pockets, noting the practicality of buying a jacket soon.

All practicality flees his mind, however, when he sees in his periphery a familiar mane of honey hair flying in the wind. He sees her go tense a split-second before she looks, and Heero feels caught in her gaze like a herring caught in a net.

But then she smiles, and Heero feels free again, more free than he ever feels when he can?t see her.

4. ?Til I Saw The Sun

Despite all she has seen in her life of two decades, the young politician doesn?t deprive him of her smile they way he has tried deprive himself. She looks?happy, but not at all surprised. Heero has never thought much about why she is rarely surprised by him. He is not the kind of man who expects things from life, but Relena seems always prepared for him, expecting his arrival as one would expect the sunrise.

He wants to ask what she is doing here, all alone in the cold, when it may still rain, where it isn?t safe. But Heero knows Relena would only ask him the same, and he isn?t yet prepared to answer such questions. He thinks instead to tell he?s glad to see her, but all he can manage in the end is her name.

?Relena.? There is an unwinding feeling in his body, as though his nerves have been waiting for him to utter those syllables since the last time he left this country.

She seems to comprehend the meaning in his voice, even without the words ? that is her ability, understanding ? and Relena begins the trek over rocky sand in the dim light to reach him. He stays where he is, knowing she will only run if he tries to go, and he would rather endure her kindness than see her hurt herself out of carelessness for him.

By the time she is no more than a foot in front of him, his pulse is thrumming so hard he can barely hear her speak. ?Heero.?

Her hand is rising even as he reaches out and pulls her to him. Her warmth ? unexpected in this chill ? instantly permeates his skin and makes him tighten his grip so as not to lose it. Lose her.

Her hand goes to his shoulder, and that single motion speaks the phrase he had not even hoped to hear: I forgive you.

Their punishment is swept away.

And the morning light shatters the dark.

The End

[Aristale Wolf]

AAAAAAAWWWWW!!!!!!! This so sad but then it's really sweet. I always have had a soft spot for this kind of story. *sniff* It's beautiful... Hope to read more like it..

[Gundam Girl]

Thanks, dear!

[darky]

Beautiful. I just love your stories and the way you write. This story in particular was a little sad at the beginning, but the ending was beautiful. I loved it so much.


Darky