(Duo's POV)
Our balcony looks out over New Tokyo. Two hundred stories high, far above thin smog layers and morning mist, the only noise I can hear is the sound of the wind. I feel safe here, in a way I can't on the ground. Zechs laughs at me for that sense of security on this high-tech pinnacle. He says it's because I trust technology more than nature.
I suppose that he is right. His sister told me that our relationship was unnatural, the day I married Milliardo Peacecraft. She smiled when she said it, but her teeth gleamed like knives. I felt a coldness I never feel in space at the helm of my ship.
Relena usually poses in front of natural monuments, greenery, or animals when taking press pictures. She likes to include the children in the vids, though Heero always seems just outside the frame. He smiles more now. It doesn't look comfortable.
We don't see them often. Zechs says that he wants to keep me all to himself when I'm not flying the shuttle. His eyes are loving when he says it, but I don't think he knows how sad he looks whenever he talks about his family or old friends. None of them come around anymore.
Most of the people we used to know are either dead or far distant. Sometimes I think that the person I used to be is dead, as well. Or at least far away. I remember everything, but I can't access the feelings that used to be attached to the events.
I loved Heero, once, or thought I did. I followed him around after the gundams were destroyed, until Relena caught up with us and he decided what we felt for each other was a part of the war he should leave behind. I was still a fighter, and I laughed and moved on as if I didn't die inside. I know it hurt like hell but I can't remember the feeling.
I went to their wedding, and Heero and Relena looked beautiful together. She wore pink and he wore blue that matched his eyes.
None of it seemed real to me, not the waltz music or the roses or the hideously expensive suit Relena bought for me as best man. When Zechs Merquise asked me to dance I laughed and agreed.
I had a rose in my lapel, red instead of the pink one Relena had placed there. Small rebellions mean so much to me. Zechs stared at it quite a bit while we danced and charmed each other. The look in his eye was pale and still. It seemed a lot more real than anything else, so I asked him what roses meant to him.
He never answered me, but somehow the question bound us together that night. He asked me about Heero, and I let my laugh be bitter. I asked him about the Zero system, and he let his face stop smiling. We left at the same time, in the same car. I was sober as a judge, and so was he.
I think what we made was love that night, new as we were to each other. It seemed unlikely that he would be any good in bed, with all the rest he had to offer. I was wrong. I stayed the next morning when he asked me if I would.
I still don't know how it happened so fast, or what he sees in me. When I bought the shuttle he became remote for a month, and I smiled and laughed too much while I worried. He held me tightly the night before I left on my first trip, and I spent the entire week behind the helm trying to decide if I was about to be dumped for something natural again.
When I got back, there was a ring and a proposal that answered the question. I gave him back the shirt I had stolen because it smelled like him, and we both laughed. He said that he was afraid I'd leave him and not return. I told him I'd sooner cut off my hair, and spent the rest of the night on my back.
We've been happy, since. Or at least I have been. I smile less, but I dance more. I thought he was happy too.
There was a news bulletin about an old friend of his, last night.
It seems Treize Kushrenada is not dead, but has been in hiding during a long and painful recovery. Wufei, Trowa, and Quatre all came here this morning, Wufei and Trowa in their Preventer uniforms and Quatre with his beautifully genuine smile. They left an hour ago, and I am smiling too. I gave them tea, but kept the thing that would have helped them in their search.
I woke up alone today, but there was a red rose on my pillow.