Notes: Once again, here's the track list to refresh your memory... I added one last track to the fanmix that I felt aptly described 1 & R's relationship. Also, a bit of 4xD here, and offspring.

Ready, Aim, Fire - Imagine Dragons
Dreamer - Uh Huh Her
All I Need - Mat Kearney
Wings - Birdy
I'm There Too - Michelle Featherstone
Gravity - Sara Bareilles
Radioactive - Imagine Dragons
Make You Feel My Love - Emmet Cahill
The Light - Sara Bareilles
No, I Don't Remember - Anna Ternheim
A Story of Us - Chris Lind
Explosions - Ellie Goulding
Never Let Me Go - Florence + The Machine
Strange Birds - Birdy

Wings

As he was conditioned to do so, Heero never stopped scanning the area for anything amiss. All threats to security had to be contained and if there was anything he learned from his years in service, first as a soldier and then as both a bodyguard and a Preventer agent, the risks were much greater in crowded places.

Especially crowded dance floors.

"Would you just relax for one minute?" Relena chided him softly as they moved in time to the violin strains. Heero grunted when she lightly pinched his arm, causing him to avert his gaze back to her slightly irritated one.

"Old habits die hard," he muttered with a shrug. "Can't be too careful."

His grip tightened around her waist to pull her close before a more inebriated couple nearly collided with them. Heero almost sent a death glare their way, but decided against it when he saw Relena's eyes narrowing.

"Heero." The warning in her voice was clear and she pinched his arm again. "I have not had a single threat on my life in ages and this party is a lot more intimate than the ones I used to attend. I'm ordering you to enjoy the damn festivities."

His raised eyebrow illustrated just how surprised he was that she had it in her to cuss at him. "Swearing does not become a lady, Miss Darlian. Your mother would be very disappointed in you."

"Oh, so now we're doing that thing with the guilt and invoking my mother?"

"You forced my hand. I had to bring in the big guns."

"That's cheating."

Heero smirked. "Nope. Just politics."

He barely avoided the heel of her shoe treading on his foot as he steered her back towards their table for a breather, where Quatre and Dorothy Winner were already seated and enjoying the champagne.

"I noticed Heero had his 'Don't mind me, I'm just scanning the area for potential threats' face on again," Quatre teased as his wife snickered into her napkin.

"He just doesn't know when to quit," Relena sighed and reached for her glass of champagne. "And I'm not even the center of attention this time around."

They followed her gaze to where a young man had several guests congregating around him, enraptured by the way he handled the conversation as he steered it from the usual banalities into topics of relevance. His unkempt chestnut hair that could never be tamed by any comb immediately gave away his paternity and the extraordinary blue of his eyes revealed who his mother was.

Daniel Aiden Yuy, their firstborn, had just been appointed Deputy Ambassador of the Sanq Kingdom to the ESUN and was the man of the hour. He caught his parents' eyes and grinned, signalling that he would join them in a minute.

"Is it just me or is Daniel looking more and more like his father these days?" Dorothy's musings elicited a laugh from Relena.

"When he's cranky, he grunts like his father," she confirmed, even as Heero rolled his eyes.

Despite the physical resemblance to Heero, their son did not possess much of the stoicism of his father. Like his mother, Daniel was a born diplomat. After Relena left the world of politics, he resolved to enter public service in order to continue her legacy — something that Heero had always secretly hoped one of his children would do to ensure that peace would not become some long-forgotten dream again.

Daniel's birth had definitely been eventful, and despite Heero's feverish preparations for it, he'd still been caught unaware by the miracle that was his son.

Besides, it wasn't every day that you were celebrating your wedding anniversary and your wife plunges the entire restaurant into chaos with her very loud announcement that she was about to have her baby right there.

Later on while he cradled his newborn son in his arms, Heero would recount to his very amused friends that 1) he had never seen so much blood in his life, 2) Relena was cruel enough to describe how much pain she was in and blame him for it, 3) he would never look at melons the same way again (because of #2), and 4) they hadn't even gotten around to ordering dessert.

"Sorry, what?" Wufei frowned in confusion. "Melons?"

Duo was laughing. "It always starts with the melon. I've heard this way too many times."

Of course Duo Maxwell would be the one who understood the melon metaphor better than anyone. He'd been happily expanding his family until he and Hilde were now expecting their seventh child. The doctors had practically BEGGED them not to have any more children or it would put a strain on his poor wife.

"I told Relena that the pain would be over soon and she began screaming about how I knew nothing about pain," Heero narrated as he looked down at the baby swaddled against his chest in order to hide his embarrassment. "She suggested that if I wanted to know how much pain she was in, I should imagine what it's like to have a melon going through my face."

"Ouch," said Trowa. Which was pretty much what summed it all up succinctly. Heero was suddenly glad that he had left out the part where Relena had screamed for someone to fetch her a melon for her husband.

Unfortunately, Quatre had been unable to make it to the hospital because he was stuck in a conference on L4, but he had confirmed that Dorothy had also given him the same description about pain and melons.

"Welcome to the club, Heero," the Arab had said before terminating the connection. Heero had not missed the warmth of Quatre's smile and the hidden implication of his words. He was glad that his comrade had finally found his place in the world they had fought to save.

"Does it feel strange to you sometimes?"

Dorothy's question quickly brought Heero back to reality. Beside him, Relena tilted her head, looking curious.

"Does what feel strange?" she asked.

"That we would all have lived this long to have children and watch them grow up." As mischievous as Dorothy usually was, her face was solemn as she fiddled with her champagne glass.

There was that familiar feeling of uneasiness again, starting with a prickle along his arms and neck. Eventually, a heaviness settled in his chest that made it hard to breathe. No, Heero Yuy had never thought he would live to see this day. He had never thought of a life past sixteen and had always expected to die fighting.

He'd always believed his life to be disposable and he had even said so on more than one occasion. But every encounter he had during the war slowly chipped away the walls around his heart. Just when he thought that the last of his humanity could not be salvaged, he had met four other boys his age, each with their own unique struggles but bound together by the same mission to achieve peace.

It had taken years of arduous training to win the battle, but even more than that, it had taken one girl's unwavering faith in a war orphan for him to look up from the darkness and seek the light at the end of the tunnel.

Very slowly, Heero took his humanity back. But his heart, he gave to Relena Darlian.

The woman who had been by his side for most of his life — and had seen him at his best and at his worst — casually reached for his hand and squeezed it.

"I still think of that," she answered quietly. If there was anything Relena never stopped thinking about, it was how lucky she was to be alive and she would not conceal the truth of her own nightmares from anyone. "The war forced us all to grow up. It took something from us, but we endured. We've all come to this point because we remember what we lost and we strive every single day to ensure that our children will never have to suffer as we had."

Long before marriage had even crossed their minds and they were still mapping out their individual lives, Heero could never help but be amazed at how Relena always knew exactly what to say. Then again, that was why she was the politician and he was the soldier. Her weapons of choice were her words and ideals to complement his choice of heavy artillery and survival instincts.

Just before the mood could get any more somber, Daniel made his way over to join them, eliciting the most radiant of smiles on Relena's face and a feeling of immense pride within Heero's chest.

"Daniel!" Relena was immediately pulled into a hug by their son, who also indulged her with a loving peck on the cheek. "I'm glad you weren't too busy for this party!"

Their son laughed. "Well, I can't exactly refuse my own mother, can I?" Then he embraced Heero. "Hey, Dad. Scared any of Mom's admirers away yet?"

"I tried to do a perimeter sweep first, but your mother threatened me with couch duty."

"We both know that conversation never took place, Heero. Stop lying to our son," Relena retorted quickly as her son gave her another hug while the Winner couple laughed.

Daniel grinned brightly and then took a step back to give his mother a teasing appraisal. "You know, Mom, you ought to show up to these parties in a sack of potatoes at least once. It can be really weird when your friends tell you how hot they think your mother is."

"They said that?" Heero wasn't the least bit amused at this piece of information.

Daniel was looking at his Uncle Quatre, explaining his predicament with a wry smile, "Back when I was in the dorms, I had some friends who had posters of Mom on their walls so beer pong parties were always rather awkward. And sometimes, there were classmates who'd just ambush me and say they thought Mom was hot."

Definitely not amused. Heero made a mental note to investigate on these so-called friends of his son's.

Catching the grim look on his father's face, Daniel shook his head. "Dad, you really don't need to go defcon one on the whole thing. Besides, it's your fault for marrying Mom and you've been dealing with her admirers—"

"Stalkers," Heero corrected automatically.

"They were all SUITORS," Relena insisted. "You, on the other hand, were definitely a stalker."

"Yeah, and remind me how you two became so involved again?" Dorothy gave them a sidelong glance even as Relena blushed.

"Right, because nothing says 'I love you' like nearly obliterating the mansion where your girlfriend is being held captive by a deranged terrorist," agreed Daniel, who had seated himself in the empty chair beside his mother. "Thankfully, Dad has impeccable aim or else my sister and I wouldn't have been born."

That double entendre did not escape their attention and it immediately had them all laughing hysterically, especially at the look of shock on Heero's face.

"Your Uncle Duo has been a very bad influence on you," Heero muttered.

His son flashed him an unrepentant grin that was both endearing and irritating.

As the laughter subsided, Quatre quickly scanned the ballroom and then turned back to the Yuy family. "I haven't seen Aoi anywhere. Will she be late?"

Relena shook her head. "She's off on assignment again. Malawi."

"Another Pulitzer for her, no doubt. Your little journalist really does enjoy her overseas trips." The remark from Dorothy had little bite in it. She had very good reason to be proud of her goddaughter.

'She also enjoys scaring me half to death with worry,' Heero mentally added. Daniel, he wasn't too worried about. The boy had graduated with honors from the Sanq Military Academy and the Preventer agents assigned to him were people Heero had trained, after all. And if anything, his son had proven to be quite the marksman and martial artist himself. Wufei was pretty damn pleased.

Their daughter, on the other hand...

Why on Earth did she have a complete lack of self-preservation?

Looking at his dinner companions, Heero then realized that question was absolutely pointless, especially since they all defied death too many times to count. Genetics and the influence of their friends were the only plausible explanations for why his daughter wasn't the least bit hesitant to put herself in harm's way.

He'd been slightly more prepared for Aoi's birth and thankfully, the only drama was getting Relena to the hospital from their house at three o'clock in the morning. Heero had never broken so many traffic regulations in his life, even when he was a teenaged enemy of the state. By the time they skidded to a stop in front of the hospital, he'd managed to throw off highway patrol — which included a couple of helicopters.

Barreling through the doors, he'd all but wheezed out that his wife was having a baby while gesticulating frantically in the air. When he'd finally gotten the words out, the nurse gave him an odd look.

"Sir...Where's your wife?"

Heero Yuy swore viciously as he spun on his heel and raced back to the car. Minutes later, he returned to the lobby, carrying a groaning Foreign Minister Darlian in his arms.

Later on, as Relena was heaving their daughter out, she announced to everyone present that she married the most negligent man in the universe.

"HE FORGOT ME IN THE CAR, THE BASTARD!"

Then she crushed his hand for good measure as Aoi finally made her arrival.

He thought that the euphoria of holding his second child wouldn't be the same as when Daniel was born. Daniel had taught him all he was meant to be and for that alone, Heero knew that he would always have a special bond with his son.

But his daughter — squalling at the top of her tiny lungs and looking exactly like her mother — brought a different kind of joy to his life.

With Daniel, Heero had been both hesitant and curious — fearing the worst because he did not have a past that his child could be proud of, but feeling exalted for having been entrusted with such a precious gift. The first few months were torturous because the nightmares he had after the war of killing Relena were replaced with nightmares of him killing his son, and he had never felt so out of depth in his life.

It was during this period of his marriage that he drew his strength from Relena once more, even as she juggled both politics and being a new mother. Only when Daniel had looked at him and called him "Daddy" for the first time did the worst of Heero's nightmares finally retreat into the deepest recesses of his mind. When his son clambered up his lap and threw his little arms around his neck, Heero knew then what being truly invincible felt like.

Aoi's birth had only reinforced that Heero had truly surpassed his own expectations. It was as if the last pieces of the puzzle had finally come together. He was exactly where he belonged and he had people to love. Where he had once felt his life was meant to be discarded was now replaced with the certainty that he was going to live for this tiny, helpless person that had his and Relena's imprints.

Heero had taken one look at Relena who lay in bed, sweaty and exhausted. The skin below her eyes was purple, her overall complexion wan, and her lower lip crusted with dried blood from when she had bit it in pain. She had gone through hell, but Heero swore he had never seen such a beautiful sight as he did right in that moment.

He leaned over and kissed his wife. "It's a beautiful little girl. Congratulations, Foreign Minister Darlian," he whispered against her lips.

Relena chuckled tiredly. "Call me Mrs. Yuy."

"You look like you're a million miles away," Relena remarked, her voice low in Heero's ear as she rested her head on his shoulder. "Are you worried about Aoi?"

"No, just...thinking."

"I'm going to be very disappointed if it isn't about me."

He pressed his lips to her hair, letting the kiss linger as his arm tightened around her shoulders. "It's always been about you."

Wisps of silver glinted in the light, subtly tangled with honey-gold tresses that still fascinated him decades later. Relena had always been pretty, but as the years passed, the girlish innocence of her features became more elegant and refined. By the time she announced her official retirement from the political arena, she was well into her fifties but looked like she was still in her mid-forties. He'd barely noticed his own body's aging, so captivated was he by Relena's transformation from girlhood to motherhood — where she glowed.

In the past, he had doubted his own ability to love and thought at first that whatever he felt around Relena was purely biological due to limited exposure to the fairer sex. But somewhere along the way, it had ceased to become about the physical need for her and more about the solace she offered him.

And so, one seemingly ordinary evening after watching her plow through a mountain of paperwork, Heero asked Relena to spend the rest of her life with him as he was already prepared to do the same for her. She agreed, but the agreement didn't come without stipulations (Relena was pragmatic in that sense, and he appreciated her all the more for it), and it took some time for them to adjust to being lovers as opposed to bodyguard and politician. Both of them were extremely reserved people for different reasons, yet once they acknowledged their long-harbored affection for each other, the world around them changed.

Heero noticed the gentle smile on Quatre's face, quickly following his comrade's gaze towards the dance floor. Daniel had somehow persuaded Dorothy to dance with him, claiming that he needed to impress his future mother-in-law with his quickstep. Dorothy couldn't help but laugh at his antics and said that Quatre was the overprotective parent he needed to impress.

As they whirled by their table, Daniel looked over his shoulder at Quatre and grinned. "Don't worry, Uncle Quatre. I'm prepared to indulge Yasharah for the rest of my life!"

Quatre blinked in confusion but then a look of horror quickly took residence on his face. "What? No! That's the last thing you should do! She's exactly like her mother!" he called out to them, causing his wife to blow him a playful kiss.

Heero chose that particular moment to close his eyes, letting the sound of his wife's laughter and the image of his son at his happiest wash over him.

Because after twenty-eight years of marriage, with all the tumultuous fights and tears, making up, first birthdays, first days at school, first loves, and ultimately seeing his children forge their own lives, Heero Yuy knew for certain that he was happy.

A part of Heero would always feel that with everything Relena had done for humanity, it was only fair that he shouldn't be selfish around her. Whatever she needed him to be or do, he would see through with absolute devotion.

But tonight, he needed her to fulfill this one request of his. Just as she did last year and all the years prior. It was the only time Heero Yuy ever asked Relena Darlian to indulge him.

"I thought dance floors were a security hazard?" Relena had her arms folded across her chest as she playfully glared at him. "What happened to wanting all threats on my safety neutralized?"

Heero smiled back. "I secured the perimeter. We should be fine for tonight."

This was their usual banter ever since he made it a point to uphold his funny little tradition. She was still confused as to why he would ask her to dance on this one particular night every year. As far as Relena could remember, there was nothing really significant about the date itself. Even during the war, it was sometimes hard to tell what day it was when you were busy trying to stay alive and save the world.

But Heero seemed to know something and year after year, when she asked him to spill, he would always give the same answer.

Still, nothing wrong with trying.

"What is so special about tonight, anyway?" Relena wanted to know. "How long has it been since we started this—this—"

"Ritual?" her husband supplied.

She rolled her eyes. "Heero, come on. You're going to have to tell me some time."

He shrugged and pointed the small remote control he was holding at the mini-speakers tucked away in a corner of the ballroom. As the opening bars of the waltz began to play, he turned back to Relena and held out his hand. "It's not my fault if you can't figure it out."

Grumbling under her breath at how unfair and childish he was, Relena begrudgingly took his hand, still blissfully unaware of her husband's reasons for asking her to dance with him on the same night every year. She would complain about how there was no need for the secrecy, but he knew that she would always dance with him anyway.

As he held her and felt the tension drain from her spine, Heero closed his eyes and smiled, losing himself to his memories of one fateful evening when his entire life had changed.

Even in her school uniform, she stands out in the crowd.

She radiates an inner light that he is inexplicably drawn to, no matter how hard he tries to resist.

Very softly, she reassures him that she is fighting on his side and part of him wonders why and what he did to deserve her support.

But much later, in the confines of Wing, he remembers that night when she smiled at him and how she shone brighter than any star he'd ever seen.

All his life, Heero Yuy would remember that night. Not for the battles he had to fight, not for his mission, but for how one girl's smile had slowly freed his soul.