Title: Queen of the World

Author: Omnicat

Rating: M

Genre: Romance, Erotica, Drama

Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge: Up until episode 40, "A New Leader".

Warnings: Sex set in the canon timeline, so they're only fifteen years old here.

Pairings: Heero x Relena

Disclaimer: The author of this story is in no way associated with the owners/creators of Gundam Wing (i.e. Sunrise). This is a transformative work and not intended or used for profit. This story is entirely fictional and does not represent the author's personal opinions or feelings about any featured subject matter. If anything depicted in this story goes against local laws, do not copy those behaviours or actions, for your own sake and of those around you. Some dialogue transcribed from the English dub is quoted for artistic purposes.

Summary: After Heero decided to let Queen Relena live, before Zechs declared war on Earth as leader of the White Fang. He came to see her for one single reason. She made him stay for a thousand.

Author's Note: Written for the 2010 Church of Lemons, at the Love Reflection ML. My first proper lemon for my One True Pairing. Whoo! This is a story idea I'd been wanting to write for years, so I hope it works as well for all of you as it does for me!

II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II

"Every one of you is a world leader. But in order to continue to be the leaders of the world, Romefeller must undergo some changes, in the same way that our times are currently changing. Why is there always confrontation? It's natural that when more than one person is involved, the second person is a potential source of conflict. In order to eliminate this, we must become unified as one."

That's just idealism, Relena.

"I once again make a declaration. In order to eliminate boundaries and create one peaceful, consolidated nation, OZ, who holds the most power, must be the first to discard all of its weapons. When we talk about bringing the world together, we must not limit it to the Earth alone. It only takes two to start a conflict. Therefore we must become one with the space colonies. The Earth must look to co-exist with outer space, and outer space must do the same."

Earth and space co-exist?

"We must disarm OZ and appeal to the people in outer space. I ask each one of you as world leaders to accept these changes."

Queen of the World

Silence.

Nothing but silence. Silence in her head, and silence in the room around her. The stillness is almost palpable, as thick and heavy as the brocade curtains bundled up beside the windows, looming like predators over her only source of light. There is a cabinet and a set of deep plush seats around a neo-antique coffee table on one side of the room, mirrors and a dresser on the other, lush carpet stretching into every corner... and it all feels like it's a million miles away. Even the fibres of the carpet, wriggling between her toes with every step she takes in her stocking feet; even her very own feet feel like they belong to someone else. Her dress feels so foreign against her skin - clutching around her arms and waist and breasts and pulling down on her legs - that she feels like she is wearing the body of a stranger. In that wide, untouched, almost intangible room, there was only silence - and her, in the very centre of it, staring at nothing.

Silence had always been something she appreciated. Silence had been refuge, a dark place she could hide in in plain sight and tuck away everything that was too dangerous to show and say openly. Silence had been something she yearned for after those long, empty days when the chorus of "Miss Relena Miss Relena Miss Relena" seemed tireless and never-ending and she wanted to scream at the pointlessness of it all, scream until it drowned out all those well-meant, nagging voices. Silence had been the only bearable substitute for being heard by ears that actually listened, something she felt she would never have. Today, though, one cry of "Queen Relena!" had silenced the world itself, had allowed her to finally speak - and had granted power enough to frighten the voice that once wanted nothing but to scream until all those years of silence and poise and dignity and high birth burst apart and tore 'Miss Relena' to pieces.

Sank had done nothing to prepare her for today. After the long struggle uphill, being whisked away to such a sudden and dizzying peak only served to send her tumbling downhill face first on the other side of the rise. Right now, she cannot remember what it was that had given her the strength to open her heart to so many powerful strangers, and speak, and set her dreams into motion with the entire world as their vehicle. Silence had not returned until the need for her words had passed with the departure of the last listener. Now it was a wall, built maybe from the remains of the ones she had upheld before, maybe from the hasty departure of the maids that had come to pamper and spy on her the moment she made to retreat to her quarters, maybe from need alone. But it was a wall to keep things out, not to keep them in; it was a wall for her to cling to to try and stay upright, to keep out the stunning thunderclap of applause. To allow her to think - What am I doing? Dear world, what am I doing? - and listen for the one thing of importance left to her before the plans and reports and debates came rolling in.

The click of a gun cocking. The tread of stolen boots. The sigh of smoothly oiled hinges.

"Relena?"

Her breath escapes in an audible shudder.

She turns around. He is there, wearing someone else's uniform and closing the door soundlessly behind him. But there is no gun.

"Did you come to kill me, Heero?"

His expression is unreadable; he doesn't move. "No."

Confusion flits across her face like a startled bird. Her heartbeat seems to pause, and when she speaks her throat is tight and her voice trembles. "You think I'm doing the right thing?"

For a while he says nothing, merely looking at her. The silence he leaves fills her with dread like no silence ever has before, and yet she dreads his answer even more. She cannot take a no and allow him to take her away from here after everything she has set in motion today, but if he were to say yes... if he said yes...

"I think that if anyone should try, it's you."

She sucks in a breath. And another. Then another, and before she knows it she is crying. Not the type of crying that burns your eyes and purses you lips and drives you to the edge only to fade as quickly as it comes, but the type that takes away your breath and composure alike, the undignified, messy type that makes you want to hide just so you won't have to hold back. Relena hasn't allowed herself to cry like that in years, and now it feels like she cannot cry hard enough even just for the last eight months. She neither moves toward him for comfort nor try to hide, knowing both to be equally futile. Her knees do not buckle and her shoulders do not hunch; a mixture of tension and stubborn pride makes her trembling body rigid. She can only bow her head, close her eyes, and hope he will forgive her for her weakness.

Her heart misses a beat when she feels Heero's hands on her shoulders, and then around them, pulling her into an awkward embrace. Instinct has her pulling her arms up to her chest as a shield, but as Heero holds on tighter she forces herself to relax, and calm down, and sooner than expected she finds herself clinging to the jacket he wears while she hiccups her way back to calm. Reality comes crashing back into her from every direction, and he is realest, most solid of all.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she sobs, looking up. "I wanted you to kill me." Heero shakes his head, his expression fierce, but she doesn't think he understands. She cannot justify wishing that burden onto him, and for such a selfish reason, even for a moment. "I'm sorry. I just wanted a way out. I couldn't run away and abandon what I've started, but - Heero, I don't think I can do this. It's too much, I just can't take all of this."

"You can do it." Heero squeezes her shoulders hard enough to hurt. "I know you can."

Relena can't bear to look in his eyes, turns her face away; the mixture of understanding and trust he shows her makes her heart lurch painfully.

She knows he understands - after New Edwards, where he was burdened with unwittingly executing Treize Khushrenada's destruction of the best chance at peace they had had in years and likely would have for years to come, he understands so painfully well. Every battle fought from this point onward will be her responsibility, every death in her name. She is aiming for the impossible. Lowering the borders and declaring disarmament when discontentment among resisting and fallen nations on Earth is at its peak had been an act of desperation, a gamble of unprecedented proportions. It will not bring a swift and orderly progression to peace, she knows that perfectly well, but she is also agonizingly aware that nothing else will. If there is one thing she has learned since leaving the home she grew up in, it is that once war got into people's heads, it seemed to shut down any form of reasoning that would allow it to end with minimal casualties, in a spirit of mutual reconciliation, sanely. As long as she wears the crown of this sanitized dictatorship she will not stop trying to change that, but she knows she must prepare for the worst: if all else fails, the least she can do for the world is to ensure Romefeller will not emerge victorious from the next phase of bloodshed - and that the nations of the world will not turn on each other the moment their mutual enemy has been defeated.

The words escape before she can stop herself: "I wish my father was still here."

Feeling herself tear up again, she furiously wipes at her eyes. Stop it! You can't stay preoccupied by that. The world keeps moving, and if you don't keep up you'll end up just like him.

"He's gone, Relena." Heero echoes, his voice low, almost soft. "It's up to us now."

"It's just not fair."

She takes deep, steadying breaths, channelling that thought into something solid and useful, a path away from the tears. This, this gnawing, burning sense of wronged-ness, which overcomes her whenever she thinks of her father, or the mission Heero and the other gundam pilots have, or Quatre's father, or the missing Trowa, or OZ and Romefeller's outrageous arrogance, or a thousand other twisted things she picked up and stored away in her pocket of silence as a young girl and which make up her daily life now; this was what had led her to offer Heero her allegiance all the way back at St Gabriel's spring dance, what had sent her to the edge of the Earth and back and driven her to the Sank Kingdom with Noin. This was what had given her the strength to step onto the stage today and say what needed to be said, regardless of whether she had any clue how to go about it, or any chance at being supported.

And it bears repeating: "It isn't fair."

Heero's hands slip away, releasing her.

"That's not the point," he says, still not unkindly. "Something needs to be done and we are the only ones who can do it. It's that simple. Whether or not it's fair has nothing to do with it."

"But it does." Wiping her eyes one last time with the glove of her gown, Relena looks up at him with frustration strong in her veins. "Won't you see or can't you? We're doing the job our parents should have done, Heero, cleaning up the mess they made. This isn't fair to anyone - not to the soldiers who die for someone else's cause, not to the civilians whose lives are destroyed because of a war they never wanted, but not to me either, and least of all to you and the other pilots, getting sent down to Earth all alone to fight an enemy that already took so much from you."

"I chose to become a gundam pilot, Relena." he interjected. "I'd rather die fighting than live under -"

"You shouldn't have been forced to make such a decision in the first place!" she countered heatedly. "A choice you're forced to make isn't a choice at all, just -"

"Stop it!" he snaps suddenly. "Get a hold of yourself."

"My mind is as clear as it's ever been." She doesn't even bother taking a deep breath to illustrate. "I'm sorry you had to watch me break down like that, but I'm fine now. I'm better than fine. All I needed was a good cry to get it all out of my system."

They stare at each other, full of stubborn, aimless defiance, and Relena has the uncomfortable feeling that they're not having a real conversation. She's only venting what is on her mind to him, and he responds without stopping to think about what she's saying. When was the last time either of them had the opportunity to speak so carelessly, with no goal or purpose but to let someone they care about know how they feel? When will be the next?

For a moment Relena finds herself wondering what the point is - she has better things to do, if this was the Sank Kingdom she would already be up to her elbows in work, having worn off the shock and re-emerged from her little depression after a good, old-fashioned outburst. But then she wonders when she had gotten so old. Was that really Relena talking? The princess and representative of the Sank Kingdom, the Queen of the World - she would benefit from such thinking, from channelling all her energy and passions into the peace effort, but Relena... Not too long ago, her most pressing worries had been getting good grades, not doing anything that would reflect badly on her father, and the confusing blur between friend and sycophant, and as mind-numbing and soulless as her existence had been, the tightness around her eyes and the dried tears on her cheeks were the price she paid for how fast and how much things had changed.

I'm too young for this, she thinks. Surely if I had ten years of experience under my belt it wouldn't be this hard?

But she doesn't have those years, and Relena is not so broken down as to think she could live with herself if she ran away from the task she has taken up. Dwelling on it will do no good either. There are already so many things wrong with the world that she can't do anything about; her own situation is the least of her worries. She doesn't want to feel sorry for herself - especially not while there are so many other people who deserve it more.

Looking into his eyes as they stand there, still close enough to touch, her still eyes stinging and her face still swollen, Relena finds herself waiting for Heero to say what he had come to say, just like she had waited for him to arrive. He hadn't come to kill her; he hadn't asked her to change or dragged her off as she was - and if he had come for the sole purpose of congratulating her, she would eat her crown. Stillness returns to her tentatively, leaving her oddly light in the head - a slowly lessening ebb and flow of tension (making her eyes sting and wrinkle) and release (clearing her airways and undoing the knot in her stomach) that fills her like water as the silence stretches and Heero's eyes bore into hers with unreadable purpose.

Eventually the thought What are you waiting for? wins out, and she asks: "Why are you here, Heero?", after which there is only a snapshot of silent staring left.

"To do this." he answers, and goes from motionless to kissing her before she can -

Kissing her.

His hands are on her shoulders and his mouth is - his mouth...

"I'm not staying."

He's stopped.

"But I didn't want to leave without having done that."

Without having kissed her.

Something is touching her lips, and Relena realises it's her own fingers. She can't find a way to close her mouth. Heero is staring at her... and reminds her acutely of an owl. One with big, round, beady eyes and tufty, frowney eyebrows. Any moment now, he can cock his head some ninety degrees to see if her reaction makes more sense from that angle.

In a moment of absolute clarity, Relena knows that the news broadcasts she overheard on the day of her birthday party had been true after all; it had been an asteroid that came down, and on it had been the alien standing before her now. Funny how she had never realised, when her mother used to read the story to her as a child, that the little prince on his star was an alien.

The words blurted themselves out, she swears. "Was that the first time you ever kissed a girl? I never thought you could be so awkward."

The frowney, tufty eyebrows twitch; Relena imagines that owl-Heero's plumage puffs out in a huff. With an audible little 'poof!'.

Where in the world did that thought come from? becomes a distant memory as he moves in again. All that had really registered during the first kiss was that his aim was off, but now he holds her head with both hands and keeps shifting, as if he can't find a way to make his lips fit against hers.

It really had been his first kiss.

Realising that she is apparently the more knowledgeable and experienced of the two, Relena snaps out of her daze and sets out to make him fit. If he's going to prove he isn't awkward, he'll need some help.

Luckily, he catches on quickly. His body, or maybe hers, is like a magnet: first a tentative touch, then wandering hands clutching, and a needy embrace. Breath becomes scarce in between kisses, and the strength to stand seems to come only from each other's bodies. Heero's arms are tight around her one moment, his hands tracing erratically up and down her back the next. The OZ cap tumbles to the floor when Relena buries her hands in his hair.

So absorbed she is in coordinating her own limbs through the feeling of Heero's lips and hands and the sheer proximity of him, that at first she doesn't notice the slowly building pressure against her thigh, let alone recognize it. But then Heero's hands slip lower and she arches into the touch, pushing up on the balls of her bare feet, and Heero's whole body seems to hitch along with his breath. Realisation bursts through to the surface of her mind in an instance, filling her stomach with an explosion of butterflies in the same moment Heero shoves them apart.

"I'm not staying." he blurts out abruptly, breathlessly, and turns on his heel to one side, a hand covering his mouth, before turning to the other. There's a wild-eyed, disoriented look in his eyes and he doesn't seem to understand quite what his mouth is saying. "I'm leaving."

Relena drifts after him almost involuntarily, the abrupt weaning too much for her inflamed senses. Only when she catches his arm and their eyes meet does good sense regain control over either of them. Time seems to be measured in their tentative, slowly evening breaths.

Heero...

He has that look in his eyes again. That bare, vulnerable, stricken look from that night in the harbour, where a single raw and painful glimpse, little longer than a heartbeat, had erased all her suspicions.

Don't let him go like this, something inside her says urgently, just as it did then. He won't be the one getting out the big guns this time around. Don't let him back out of this.

If he leaves now, we might very well not live to see a reunion.

"It's okay. It's okay. Just this once." she whispers, taking his hand gently, and as she steps closer she places their entwined fingers on her waist. He keeps staring back at her a moment longer, his guard coming back up with every blink of his eyes, before he shakes his head and pulls his hand away.

"No, Relena. Save it for someone who'll still be here when -"

"You're going off to fight again and you think you'll finally die this time, right?" she interrupts. Heero meets her eyes, but neither confirms nor denies it. "Heero, please don't be reckless. Even if I never see you again, please don't die."

He doesn't say a word. His eyes turn away, then his body, and he stalks off, head held low. It's like he doesn't even care. Relena watches him go, thinking: This isn't right. You're so strong, so incredible. It shouldn't be this way.

"Heero," she calls after him. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. "I know I say this every time, but please, just this once, don't run away. Say goodbye properly. You may not... believe or care about it, but I - we - won't forget you just because you're no longer close by. If you died, you would not go unmourned. Your life isn't that cheap."

She can't say where that sudden turn of phrase had come from, but it causes him to whip around where nothing else has, looking at her like he's seen a ghost. Hope flares up in Relena's chest - and dies as quickly as it came when Heero's expression grows frighteningly cold.

"It's not me you'll remember in the end, Relena - it's who you wanted me to be. You're always seeing things that aren't there and keep acting like they're real until the world around you starts second-guessing itself and makes it real. God knows how you always make it work, but stop trying it on me. Save that trick for what you're doing to Romefeller."

The impassive tone of his voice nearly breaks her heart, and he hasn't even finished yet.

"I'm just a soldier who murders his way towards his goal," he goes on, never turning those dark shards of ice that have replaced his eyes away from her. "and I get things done this way. Trying to turn me into something else won't accomplish anything. You're wasting your time fussing over debris like me while this war is still being fought. You should focus on limiting the damage done while it's brought to an end and making sure the next generation doesn't end up like us."

Relena feels like she's been slapped in the face hearing those words; she can't bear to think how he must feel pronouncing them. When he turns his back to her and again reaches for the doorknob, she catches the hand he lifts - only for him to snatch it back roughly, throwing a hot glare over his shoulder in return.

Something inside of her snaps. Not even bothering to touch him again, she spits the words into the distance between them - where the spectres are.

"First you come all the way here for a kiss and now you're telling me this? I don't believe it. Since when are you such a coward?" Forget gentle and careful - if the game has to be foul, the kiddie gloves are off. "If you're really that desperate to get away from me, get out of my sight and don't show your face to me again until you've manned up enough to stop running away from every little bit of kindness I show you."

Their gazes are hard and unyielding against each other; Relena can tell Heero's emotions are a seething frenzy straining their stony surface, but he has too good a poker face to show what he's thinking.

He's not leaving yet, though.

Again she reaches for him. He lets her pull him around by the wrist until they are face to face; when she slips her hand into his, he doesn't respond either way. Letting the brunt of her hostility ebb away, Relena softens her expression.

"Maybe it's just a selfish indulgence to care about you as much as I do." she admits, because even to herself she cannot deny that trying to stop a war and lead nations is easier when she imagines all her effort is for the sake of only one person in need, instead of billions. "But what do you take me for, Heero? Do you think I would just discard everything that isn't perfect about the present for the sake of a better future? It doesn't work that way. I refuse to let it be that way. It's for people like you and the other gundam pilots - the people who had it so bad in the past that they're willing to give up their chances at seeing better days so others won't have to keep living in the bad ones - that this is most important. I refuse to look at you as nothing but a stepping stone toward the world I'm trying to build for you." She looks away from him, voice trembling with anger and hand slipping from his to clench into a fist. "This wretched war. It should never have been this way in the first place, but that only shows how important it is that we don't give up on the goal we're striving for."

"I would never give up on that goal." Heero says softly. His hair obscures his eyes almost completely. "But I don't care if I get there myself. I have no use for it. Everything but the soldier in me died years ago. This is the only way of life left for me, and I might as well die in a way that suits me."

"You mean you might as well end your life itself along with your career as a soldier?"

Heero's expression is guarded, while Relena's alternates between coaxing and reproaching.

"That's it? You're going to fight so hard and then just give up?"

His eyes narrow. "Give up?"

Suddenly Relena finds her back going thump against the wood of the door and Heero leans into her, his arms on either side of her head. A hot flash of fear courses through her, but then she sees the strange expression on his face, and... He's not threatening at all. He's...

"I'm giving up everything," he growls. He is so close it takes her breath away, but still she cannot quite pinpoint the look in his eyes. "I'm giving my life for peace, in every sense of the word. What more do you want from me?"

Wrong question.

Finally she understands, and Relena sees only one answer to what he did not ask: she leans into him, into his hostility and intimidation and hiding place, and wraps her arms around his back.

"Not from you - for you."

And wonder of wonders: he clutches back, and a moment later it is his body instead of his presence that pins her to the door. The angry tears that threaten to fall are hidden in his hair, and her voice betrays none of them. "I understand being willing to do anything, right down to dying, to bring this war to an end - I do. I feel the exact same way. But to throw away your life needlessly - to not live it to the fullest while you can..."

"In times like this, a soldier's only option is to live through battle." he murmurs.

That he comes with another rebuff even as he holds her so close is almost a surprise. But then again, Relena figures, it couldn't be easy to stop running all at once with a momentum like his. A faint smile comes over her face. So even he needed time to psyche himself up sometimes.

"Is that really all you are? Just a soldier, and nothing more? Heero, please don't laugh, but when I look at you I see so much more than that. You have so much potential, you could be anything you wanted. Anything at all."

Heero shakes his head, but she can feel his lack of conviction. "I told you. I don't think I have anything else in me anymore."

She tears from his arms to look him in the face and give him her best glare. "I won't accept that, and neither should you."

Slowly but surely, one corner of his mouth turns up.

"Roger that, your highness." For a moment, the smirk makes him look like the teenager he is. Then it fades, and he looks calm and sombre. "I'm not as noble as you make me out to be, Relena."

"And I'm not the simpering fool you like to pretend I am to further your own self-loathing."

"I don't. Even I can't pretend the sky is green."

His earnestness makes her insides feel like a bubble bath, hot, liquid and fizzy, even as the words fill her with sadness. "You said that if anyone could pull off what I just started, it's me. Do you really believe that?"

He takes a moment to think, but when he comes, his answer is honest. "Yeah. I can't imagine how you would... but yes."

"Well I believe in you too, so... even if it's just because I'm the one asking..."

She doesn't need to finish her sentence; his eyes close, he nods, his forehead comes to rest against hers.

"Now what?" he murmurs.

Her subconscious knows what. The idea crept into her head while she felt Heero's hard-on build against her thigh, almost unnoticed, and it hasn't let go of her - nor does she let go of it.

Sex.

"Finish what we started." she whispers.

Eyelids fluttering, he leans in and kisses her once, chastely and briefly, a demonstration more than anything else, before looking at her.

"Something like that?"

"Yeah," she breathes. "The world can fend for itself every once in a while. Be a little selfish sometimes."

One of his hands leaves her, and she hears the lock on the door click.

"Like that?" he asks in a low rumble.

"Yeah."

And then he kisses her in earnest. She can feel a purpose behind the press of his lips that makes her heart dance with relief, accomplishment, happiness - and longing. They're heading into uncharted territory, but part of her knows what is coming, and can't wait to get there. Her stomach is aflutter, and it doesn't take long for warmth to rise to other parts of her as well. Her body feels like a mood pendant she once had; wherever she and Heero touch she changes colour, warmer, darker and more sensitive the longer they linger. Relena likes to think she knows her body well and does not consider herself entirely sexually inexperienced, but she has never felt anything like this before.

While Heero's hands drift to the small of her back, Relena starts undoing the double row of buttons on his uniform. The deep blue cut of the coat looks good on him, but it really will have to go...

A treacherous vine of nervousness slithers around her spine when she realises what his hands are doing: looking for a way to get her dress off. It hadn't really gotten through to her until that moment. She fumbles, painfully catching a nail on one of the buttons. Heero looks up at her mumbled "ouch"; she bites her lip.

It's Heero, she reminds herself, thinking of all the times she's found herself in mortal danger with him. It's not the same - not by a long shot - but under these circumstances the memory of curtsying at gunpoint gives her such an incredible urge to grin that the sheer absurdity of her amusement is enough to help her cancel out the nerves.

If only just.

She shoots a glance at the clock. It'll be at least three hours before anyone will bother her, and she assumes that if Heero has a train or shuttle to catch, he would have said so by now. Plenty of time for whatever this ends up being - she hopes. (Sex ed failed to mention how much time things took once you got past first base.)

"The zipper's up here," she tells him, turning around and pointing between her shoulder blades.

"Relena." He doesn't touch her. Half wishing her hair was down so she could pull it out of the way and clench her fists in it, Relena looks over her shoulder, before his serious look makes her turn back completely. "Do you really... care for me this way? I don't want you doing this just because..."

Her gloved hands curl around empty air. She had been very careful not to ask herself that question. But when she looks into his eyes - oh, those dark, dark eyes - she realises the answer is obvious.

"Honestly?" She almost laughs. "I don't know. I care for you in a way I've never cared for anyone else before, but with our lives being what they are... I just can't say for sure. It's a lot of things, all smushed together. The only thing I'm sure of is that if I live and you die, or for some other reason we never see each other again, I don't want to regret not having made this - us - everything it possibly could be." she says, and does not ask him the same question.

She can tell from the smoothening of his brow that he understands.

"Are you sure? You've had a rough time."

"It's going to get rougher. I'm sure if you're sure."

He nods.

She takes his hand to lead him into the bedroom, and they lock this door behind them too. The light is dimmer here, the view outside on either side of the large four-poster bed obscured by gauze curtains. The illusion of safety brought by wood and lace is a welcome one as Heero helps unzip her dress. Maybe, hidden away like this, they can just be teenagers for a bit. Not a wanted terrorist and the Queen of the World, with too many enemies to acknowledge their age, but two fifteen-year-olds trying to grow up together.

Her dress doesn't come off as elegantly as she might have liked - with the tightness of the sleeves, bones in her bodice and hoops in her skirt, there is no smooth flow of glimmering white to embellish her baring her body to her lover's eyes for the first time - and it makes her smile wryly to note how persistent those little bits of ingrained romanticism are even now, when she's seen and lived the messy flipside of all her childhood fairytales. But she pushes the sadness down when she turns to face Heero. Her heart beats in her throat, her hands feel tremulous, but a merciful calm reigns in her head, and butterflies spring up in her stomach when his eyes roam up and down her body. The dress and lingerie they'd put her in make her feel like someone she is not, a doll, a puppet, and shedding them is like taking off a mask. She focuses on that thought. She is not afraid to be herself in front of Heero - never has been - and she does not lower her eyes while she undoes the clasp between her breasts and lets her bra fall to the ground.

Their eyes meet. Then Heero is undoing the last few buttons of his coat and zipping down the collared shirt underneath; his usual green tank top appears, only to disappear over his shoulder like everything else. Relena leaves her clothes where they fell, and Heero adds his to the pile as they move onto the bed.

There is something delightfully foreign about the feeling of smooth sheets against her bare skin, about the way the springy underground dips under a weight not her own. As she scoots back until her feet no longer dangle over the edge of the bed, Heero crawls after her, over her; she reclines further, until she is flat on her back. She can feel her nipples harden and a tickle just above her breastbone brings the sudden realisation that Romefeller's jewels are still in her hair and ears and around her neck. The thought is quickly dismissed: the diadem is too much trouble to remove without ruining her coiffe, which would arouse unwanted attention later on, and the other pieces will be fine - though she wouldn't care much if they aren't, either.

With Heero's hand on her cheek, she really does have better things to think about. Even at this point his expression is perfectly serious, but there is no trace of his usual severity. Looking focussed and sincere, he hovers over her, and Relena's desire has little trouble shoving her feverish self-consciousness aside to reach for his face and pull him down into a kiss. Gradually Heero lowers himself onto his elbows, resting his weight on her just the tiniest bit. Relena arches into him, threads her fingers through his hair, grips his shoulders. His body is warm and solid and smooth, and having him so close, skin to skin, is glorious.

I-oOo-I

"Thank you," she sighs eventually, resting her cheek on his shoulder. He 'hmm's something indistinct in response.

A slight chill settles on the plains of her skin not pressed against Heero's, but it doesn't bother her. The rise and fall of his chest, the faint press of his heartbeat beneath her palm, the hand on her hip, the lips and cheek resting against her forehead; Relena feels more comfortable and at ease than she has in months. It's almost as if, here in each other's arms, the rest of the world doesn't exist. She has blissfully little trouble pushing the uncanniness of such tranquillity aside, and it looks like Heero, for once, feels the same way; he is in no hurry to leave.

But in the end, they both know there is no more reason for him to stay, and every reason to leave. Slowly the tides of time fill them again, ready to draw them back into the maelstrom. There is a war being fought outside, and while the shelter of safety and intimacy - imagined or not, it made no difference - had temporarily brought the part of it that raged in their minds to a halt, the one outside will not end unless they return to the front lines.

Eventually, Heero slips away and sits on the edge of the bed to redress.

She knows the answer. It's not a question, but acknowledgement, almost acceptance. "You're leaving."

He nods, but the look he gives her over his shoulder is doubtful.

He would say he doesn't need acceptance; whether that's true or not, she only gives it for his sake. She rejects it for her own. They're doing everything wrong now - they have no other choice - and it's time to embrace her discontentment again.

Relena smiles. "I'll be fine. But I will miss you. Please don't forget that."

Their gazes remain locked for another long moment before he turns his back to her and zips up his shirt. She knows he understands, but she just wants him to acknowledge it. One last time, before he leaves. So she crawls over to him and wraps her arms around him from behind.

"I won't ask you to be careful when I can't promise the same myself, but..."

Before she can think of how to finish, he turns around and kisses her. She returns the kiss fiercely, feeding all of her desperation into it. She won't try to stop him, because it's too important that she doesn't, too important that she doesn't follow after him, too important that they don't put being reunited one day above their goal - but oh, how she will miss him.

His eyes burn in his calm face. "No matter what happens, I won't regret this."

"Me neither."

One last time she smiles at him, half grimly and half tenderly.

And then he is up and dressed, and leaving. He does not turn around again. He's made up his mind, and so has she.

"Goodbye, Relena."

"Goodbye." she says to the door he closed behind him.

Half an hour later, Queen Relena is at war.

II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II

PSAN: Hope you liked it! ^_^

The uncut version, which includes the actual lemon, can be found here: http:/ /anime2 .adultfanfiction. net/story. php?no=600023290