All Standard Disclaimers Apply. I do not own the Gundam Wing Boys or the show, although, I *do* have some pretty nifty merchandise! All the boys belong to their creators and all the companies who own a slice of the Gundam Wing Pie... pie... *Mmmm*

A Soldier's Love
Written by: Pingo

Email: Pingochan@aol.com

A GW/Yaoi/Shonen-ai Fanfic

Rated PG-13 for language, lime and boy/boy love. No Lemon, you hentais! Sorry...

Author's Note: First off, I'd like to thank everyone who has sent me reviews so far! Thank you! And special thanks to Wildfire's Flame for wanting to archive it on her site! If this seems a bit OOC to anyone, I write the way I see them... and for me characters are never what they seem!

Chapter 5:

As the waiter sat down their plates in front of them, Wufei listened intently as Quatre told him about his last visit at one of his sisters' houses. *How does he keep track of them all? Much less all of his brother- in-laws, nieces, and nephews... But then,* Wufei realized, *that's the kind of guy Quatre is.* As he sat there watching the small blonde, he began to see him in a new light.

Even as Quatre laughed about something his niece had done, Wufei could see the sadness in the other boy's eyes, sadness and pain he hadn't seen since the end of the war several years ago. At the beginning of the meal, Wufei had tried to bring up Trowa, thinking it would be good for Quatre to talk about. The boy had looked down in to his glass of water and quickly changed the subject. Wufei had let it go, figuring, there was plenty of time to talk about it later, after Quatre had had time to get used to it. Treize had died more than 2 years ago, and Wufei still found it hard to talk about his dead lover.

Wufei tried not to think about him, but occasionally he would find himself saring at a sunset, or a red rose in full bloom, and it would all come rushing back in a wave of memories, drowning the Chinese pilot. Then, there was Nataku, his dead wife. His true love. *Not even twenty,* the Chinese boy thought, bitterly, *and, already, I have a trail of dead loves behind me.* As he thought about Treize and Nataku, Wufei realized the blonde Arabian had asked him a question.

"Huh?" the chinese boy asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Are you okay?" the blonde asked, again.

~*~*~

Quatre leaned across the table, studying the face of his raven-haired friend.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Wufei asked, looking away.

Quatre didn't have to ask what the other boy was thinking. he could see it in his ebony eyes. "You're thinking about them aren't you? It's okay, you can talk to me about it."

"No, I shouldn't bother you with my problems," Wufei told him, scooping up some rice with two chopsticks and dropping it into his mouth.

"If you ever need to talk about it," Quatre said, seriously, "you can trust me."

"I know," Wufei sighed, laying his chopsticks aside. "It's just hard for me, ya know?" The boy took a sip of his tea, then sighed again. "After Nataku died, I thought I would never love again..."

Quatre listened patiently, as Wufei related to the boy how he had fallen in love with the enemy. As Quatre listened Wufei seemed to open up, recalling tiny details that seemed long forgotten. Before long, the concentration turned back to Nataku, and both boys' plates had gone cold and uneaten.

~*~*~

Duo looked up from the spilled batter and watched Heero, who was on hands and knees helping clean the mess off the tiled kitchen floor. Sunlight was spilling in the open window, and as Heero's hair caught the sunbeams, a halo seemed to glow above his head. Duo smiled softly. My angel, he thought.

Duo went back to scraping the batter off of the floor and dropping it back into the bowl. Maybe I should let Heero cook lunch alone... Duo thought, as his stomach grumbled.

"How about you wash the bowl, and I'll make lunch?" Heero suggested, as he wiped the last of the batter from the floor and dropped the rag he had been using into the bowl.

"Sure," Duo agreed, anxious to eat. He climbed to his feet and carried the bowl to the kitchen sink. After about a minute, Duo had finished washing it, and had nothing left to do, but watch the Japanese boy cook. He watched as Heero chopped and cut, boiled and fried, mixed and stirred, hyponotized by his every movement. When Heero was almost finished, Duo went to the dining room and set the table, even going so far as to light candles. They did have the house to themselves, after all. After dimming the lights, Duo went back to the kitchen to see how lunch was coming.

~*~*~

As Trowa made his way back to the hotel where he was staying, he kept picturing Quatre and Wufei laughing as they climbed in to the limo. I never should have left him! the Heavyarms pilot thought. Then another voice spoke up inside him. Atleast he's not still hurting himself. Trowa had to agree with that. For all that Quatre had going for him, he had incredibly low self-esteem.

Trowa still remembered, quite vividly, the day he had discovered what Quatre was doing to himself. They had been on a mission together when Trowa had walked in to the bedroom and caught Quatre changing shirts. His eyes had immediately landed on the scars on the blonde's arms. Long, angry lines of red, running down the underside of his forearms. Quatre had tried to pass them off as scratches he got while on a mission. But, the scars were too planned out, too methodical. They were all roughly the same length and about a centimeter of smooth flesh lay between each mark. After Trowa had pointed this out, Quatre had tried to shrug it off, acting like it was nothing, and the cuts weren't important.

"You did this to yourself, Quatre!" Trowa had shouted, grabbing the boy's arm and studying it more closely. "Why?"

The boy had broke then, tears falling from his aqua eyes. He had told the older boy everything, about being gay, about being artificially created, about his father's displeasure at his becoming a Gundam pilot, about being tired of pretending everything was okay, when nothing was.

Trowa had been surprised by the emotional outburst. Of all the boys, Quatre had seemed the most in touch with his emotions, especially next to Heero, Wufei and himself, who rarely let on as to their emotions. He had soon found out, Quatre was nothing like he seemed...

Trowa looked up suddenly, realizing he had reached his destination. As he went in to the hotel, he wondered, What am I supposed to do now?

~*~*~

Heero stared across the table as Duo talked, his eyes glittering in the candle light. How did I not know? the Japanese boy though, eyeing the American boy. Their relationship had started out as one of necessity. Both had needed to prove to themselves they could and be loved. Duo, who had been raped and beaten as a child on the streets, and he, who had been raised a machine trained to kill.

I guess we proved we could, Heero thought, with a smirk. For the first time in his life, Heero began to feel truly happy. He had finally found the peace and love he had fought so hard for. He only hoped everyone else, could find the peace and happiness he had found.



Author's Note: So, what'd you think? Please Review and tell me what you think should happen next. I have no idea where all of this is going. I'm just writing whatever comes to mind... I don't even know how long this story will be when I'm done! I guess we'll just wait and see... I'll probably keep writing until everyone one is all nice and happy... hopefully. I have a huge drama fixation, so who knows? This may end any number of ways.

So far this fic is about 15 pages... probably the longest thing I've ever written and stuck with! Yay for me!

Ja Ne!

Chapter 6