Heero had been watching Relena since the end of the war. That is, the actual destruction of the Gundams. He lived a secret life as a bodyguard, spying on her from the shadows when she gave speeches or went somewhere that he thought was dangerous. Given Relena’s job as vice foreign minister, Heero considered just about everywhere to be dangerous.

Relena had for the longest time had a habit of talking to herself. Unaware that Heero had followed her to the mall in a colony one day on a casual shopping trip, she once again found herself talking. The mannequin looked a lot like Heero to her with its blank expression and stiff pose. Heero did not find it funny that she called it, “Heero…” and stared dreamily into those cold, plastic blue eyes, but he knew that Relena missed him. “Relena,” Heero said, breaking through a crowd of people and walking up behind her.

Relena thought she was hearing things, and continued to stare into those plastic eyes. “Oh Heero…” she said.

“Relena, I’m right here,” came Heero’s calm, emotionless tone.

Relena set a slender hand over her heart and sighed. “I know…” she told the mannequin, “You will always be here…”

Annoyed, Heero set a hand on her shoulder and asked, “Are you feeling well, Relena?”

Relena felt his touch and glanced over his shoulder. She looked surprised, but she recognized those Prussian blue eyes and lack of a smile anywhere. “Heero!” she gasped, and dropped her purse in shock. She began to rub her hands together nervously. Relena wanted to wrap her arms around his body, again, and yet did understand a thing or two about personal boundaries, especially Heero’s. She did not want him to leave out of annoyance after just meeting him after three months of being alone. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said, trying to hold back her excitement.

“Yeah,” Heero said, and then squatted down to pick up her purse. He handed it to her and began to walk away with his hands in the pockets of his tight blue jeans. He sounded disappointed, perhaps because the girl he loved had been more emotional with a mannequin that looked nothing like him than she had with the real deal.

“Wait!” Relena gasped as she watched him walk away.

Obedient to her order, Heero stopped, but he did not turn to face her. Relena ran up to him and set a hand on his shoulder. “Oh Heero…” she said, “after all this time…”

“Relena, do you really think I look like that?” Heero asked.

“Like what?” Relena asked, not realizing that she had been speaking out loud to the mannequin, or that Heero had heard her.

“Like that plastic…thing,” Heero said.

Relena’s expression softened into a look of sadness. Heero was standing there, stiff. He had not even moved to take his hands out of his pockets. Yes, he did look like a mannequin. As though there were not a thousand or more other people in the mall, though there was, Relena wrapped her arms around his shoulders, hugging him from behind. “Oh Heero…” she sighed, holding him.

Heero’s tense muscles began to relax, and he took his hands out of his pockets. It didn’t last, and he pulled away and ran his fingers though his shaggy brown hair. “Did you want something?” he asked.

Relena wanted to stop her foot and shout, “Oh Heero, you’re so hopeless!” She did not. Instead she thought long and hard for some excuse to spend more time with Heero. Not knowing what to do yet, and wanting to at least make light conversation while sounding strictly business, Relena asked, “Heero, do you think you could get Hilde’s e-mail from Duo for me?”

Heero snorted. He was surprised that Relena actually believed that he had kept in contact with Duo. He hadn’t contacted any of the pilots in the past three months. He had been watching Relena enough though to know that she did not have Hilde’s e-mail or phone number since Hilde was away from home on a vacation. He also knew that there was no real reason for Relena to need to contact Hilde so urgently. Truth be told, he wanted to spend time with her too. “Roger that,” he said, “come with me.”

‘Strictly business,’ Relena thought, but she was delighted that Heero didn’t seem to have any contact information on him. She followed Heero all the way out of the mall, no longer desiring to shop anyway, and to his car. Heero had bought a dark green sports car. Relena was delighted as he opened the passenger side door for her, and she got in. Heero then got into the driver’s seat and put the key into the ignition. Knowing very well that Pagan was waiting in the limousine for her next to the food court, Relena pulled out her shiny pink cell phone and sent him a text message explaining the situation in as few words as possible, “riding w Heero,” as Heero drove out of the parking lot.

Being the gentleman that he was, Heero held open his apartment door for Relena. It was a one bedroom apartment with a bathroom, and a kitchen combined with a living room. The place was much smaller in comparison to the large suite where Relena stayed, but she realized that it was all Heero needed.

Relena blushed as Heero gently urged her into his bedroom. She looked around. The bed was a low lying bed with a green blanket and pillow, very simple compared to her own bed that had curtains and several soft pink pillows and quilts. Heero’s computer was right next to his bed. There was also a dresser, and no room for anything else. “Give me a few minutes,” Heero said as he sat down in his chair and turned on his computer. Relena nodded and sat down on his bed.

Relena grew bored as the messenger was downloading, and began to look around Heero’s room again. There wasn’t much to see, so she began to daydream as she gazed at Heero. Without really thinking about it, Relena picked up his pillow and held it close to her.

Heero glanced at Relena as the messenger software was downloading onto his computer. He noticed that she seemed to be in a trance, and was squeezing his pillow. Silently, he turned around in his chair casually to watch her. At first, Relena didn’t notice.

When Relena finally saw that Heero was staring at her, and realized what she was doing, she was incredibly embarrassed. Blushing, the young lady set the pillow back where she had found it and began to look around again. A quiet ‘ding’ let Heero know that the messenger had finished downloading, so he turned around and began to instant message with Duo.

“Duo, this is Heero,” Heero typed, single handedly.

There was brief pause, followed by an, “i know who else uses 01010101h ?”

“Duo you know Hilde’s e-mail?” Heero typed.

“duh” Duo responded, and then gave Heero the e-mail, “darkgirl02@googlewho.com” There was another pause, followed by a “is that all u wanted?”

“Yeah. Relena wants it,” Heero typed.

“is she there?” Duo asked.

“Yeah,” Heero responded, “How’s life treating you?”

“i thought ud never ask! its boring w out u, dude!” Duo responded, “what u been up 2?”

Heero actually typed “…”, wrote down Hilde’s e-mail, and logged off. He turned around to find Relena hugging his pillow again, and cleared his throat, “Mmhmm…”

Relena blushed and replaced his pillow. She glanced at Heero and asked, “Did you get it already?”

“Yeah,” Heero said, and handed the paper to her as she stood up. He stood as well.

“How’s Duo?” Relena asked.

“Bored,” Heero told her; at least he was honest.

Relena giggled and then said, “Oh.”

“Goodbye, Relena,” Heero said in about the same tone as he had when he tried to kill her about two years ago.

Relena, a little surprised, soon relaxed and nodded, saddened. She headed outside and stopped at the door, turning around, “Heero…I have a meeting with a local charity tomorrow…Will you come?”

“Is that a mission?” Heero asked.

“Um…yeah,” Relena said, nodding.

Heero nodded and said, “Mission accepted. What time?”

“Eight in the morning,” Relena told him.

Heero nodded again, and she left.

Relena was dressed in that same boring outfit that she had been wearing when Marimaia kidnapped her three months and a few days ago. It was a pair of pink slacks and a pink jacket over a dressy shirt. She had her hair tied back in a ponytail with a blue ribbon, and appeared ‘strictly business’ as she met Heero at his apartment. He was dressed in his green tank top with his blue jeans and matching denim jacket.

“Did you eat yet, Heero?” Relena asked. It was 5:30 in the morning, and she had been surprised that he was already dressed, since she had told him eight.

Heero would have been surprised to know that she was surprised. He preferred to be ready for anything, including an early wakeup call or an extra mission, and had actually been ready for two hours already. He shook his head, ‘no’.

“I was thinking maybe we could stop somewhere for breakfast,” Relena said, “Would that be okay, Heero? I’ll buy…”

“I’ll buy,” Heero said. Even though she had more money to spend than he did, he would feel awkward if she took him out to breakfast, “and we are taking my car.”

Relena blushed and nodded. She knew not everyone liked pink limos, and she also wanted to spend as much time alone with Heero as she could. She went down and, opening the door herself, got into his car. Heero smiled when she wasn’t looking and slipped into the driver’s seat. When they both were buckled in, he began to drive.

Heero took Relena to a restaurant that was known for their pancakes. He ordered coffee and pancakes and Relena ordered tea, but the same thing to eat as Heero did. As they waited, Heero just stared at Relena. A few times she thought of something to try to make conversation with him, but never brought herself to say anything.

Fifteen minutes passed in silence. Their drinks were brought to them, and Relena became obsessed with stirring sugar into her tea, perhaps for something to do. Heero watched her. After the tenth spoonful of sugar, he slowly reached out his hand and pulled the sugar bowl away from her, but still said nothing. Relena blushed and began to drink her tea as Heero stirred some sugar into his coffee, only one spoon full, and took a sip.

They received their pancakes. Again, Relena was distracted. She began to pour syrup onto them, and gazed at Heero at the same time. Heero watched as the syrup slid down her pancakes and onto the table. “Relena…” he said.

Relena snapped out of her trance and gazed down at the mess. She blushed and gasped, “Oh!” Taking a napkin, she began to mop up the syrup, but it was so sticky that some napkin got stuck to the table. The girl was so embarrassed that she just wanted to cry, but held back those tears. Out of the corner of her eye, Relena thought she saw Heero smile before he began to eat. He did. She blushed again and began to eat as well.

When breakfast was finished and they reached the meeting place they still had half an hour to spare before the others were to arrive. Heero turned on his radio to the news and they waited in the parking lot of the building, a town hall. Nothing particularly interesting was happening on the news. There was more mention of ‘peace talks’, but Relena already knew all about them, and Heero did as well. It was old news. They were also still talking about the war that had already ended.

Half an hour passed. Relena sighed and Heero turned off the radio. Still, nobody was there. Relena got out of the car and Heero, leaving his jacket in the car, followed her as they headed into the town hall. The place was empty. “Maybe they’re late,” Relena said as she looked around. Heero said nothing and simply stared at the back of her head.

As Relena was turning back around, her cell phone went off. Heero gave her hair a gentle tug. Relena blushed, surprised, and answered her cell phone. “Hello?” she said.

After listening to a brief conversation between two people on the other end of the phone line, Relena sighed and hung up. Heero put his hands back into his pockets. “They can’t make it, can they?” he asked.

Relena put her hands behind her back and sighed. “I’m sorry, Heero…I guess I dragged you out of bed for nothing,” she said.

Heero shook his head, “I would have been up anyway…” In truth, he would have followed her whether she wanted to or not, but he was curious as to why they couldn’t make it.

“They were held back at the other colony last night,” Relena said. There was no anger in her tone, though she would have been justifiably upset because they should have alerted her when they were held back, and not waited until right before the meeting…or at the time of the meeting, but she was happy that she had an excuse to spend time with Heero.

“We should go,” Heero said, “I’ll take you home, Relena.”

Relena nodded and reached for Heero’s hand. He did not pull away and willingly accepted her firm yet gentle grip. Together they walked back to his car…

Two weeks had gone by since Heero dropped Relena off at her place, and gave her his phone number. Relena had taken only one trip that Heero was concerned about, and that was to meet with a company to discuss a new line of History books that were to be released. They would mention the war, and Relena’s involvement in it. They wanted to interview Relena for some information, and in return offered to give her a free textbook. It was going to be a college level history. Concerned that someone might try to prevent the publishing of the book and hurt Relena in the process, Heero followed her.

What she said didn’t matter. Heero wasn’t listening. He was watching. It was no surprise to him when on a Wednesday afternoon, his phone rang and the caller ID was “Darlian, Relena.”

“Yeah?” Heero asked.

“Hi Heero, it’s me, Relena,” Relena said.

“I know,” Heero pointed out to her.

Relena, thankful that Heero couldn’t see her blush said, “I recently received a textbook that they are going to start giving to kids in college history classes…I thought you might want to take a look at it. They mention the Gundams.”

“Yeah?” Heero asked.

“You know all those secrets---“Relena began.

Heero was surprised. He hung up on her and quickly grabbed his jacket and ran to his car. He sped as fast as his car would go all the way to Relena’s place.

Pagan let Heero inside and said, “Miss Relena, you have a visitor.”

Relena was sitting at her desk in a comfortable chair, flipping through the section of the history book that was on the Gundams. She motioned Heero over. “Come, look at this!” she said. There was something in her voice that said that she was pleased.

“Your secrets managed to stay safe,” Relena giggled.

Heero continued to read the book. It was true. There was nothing there about his first fight with Milliardo. There was nothing about his past. All that it mentioned were things that any civilian paying close attention to the war already knew. Heero let out a sigh of relief.

“Did I have you worried?” Relena asked.

“Yeah…” Heero said…in that same emotionless tone.

“Oh Heero,” Relena giggled, and kissed his cheek as he was staring at a picture of a cancer suit in the book.

Heero blushed and reached his hand over her shoulders, pulling her close to him. “Thank you, Relena,” he said.

“Oh Heero…” Relena sighed and blushed, “I love you.”

Heero’s response was simple, “Yeah…”