Disclaimer: I am a normal teenager, nothing I own is a world-wide success, Gundam Wing is, guess that means it’s not mine, huh? And I am proud to say that I have made exactly $0.00 off of this fic. I don’t make money from GW, I spend money on GW, just last Tuesday I bought and GW CD (Operation 4) and almost bought a Sandrock model, but my sister talked me out of. (For the record, Quatre is my favorite G-Boy.)

Author Notes: I have no idea if Relena knows Heero’s real name, so as far as this fic goes, she doesn’t. I can’t think of anyone who would bother telling her in the series away.

In the Nic of Time-Chapter Ten

Year-AC 198

“He’s going to miss my birthday, isn’t he?” Relena asked Hilde, sighing.

Hilde turned to her friend and grinned. “Has he ever?”

Relena scowled, “Only every single year I’ve known him.”

“Well, he’s probably busy, the Preventers thing takes up a lot of Duo’s time, too,” Hilde said, trying to cheer up Relena.

“Quatre’s barely around, too.” Dorothy piped up.

Relena rolled her eyes, “Hilde, you and Duo went to the movies three nights in a row--”

Hilde blushed. “We never did see the end of that movie...”

“--and Dorothy, you and Quatre see each other at least every other day. And Sally,” she called to the other woman, “don’t even say anything, I know you and Wufei went out last night.” Wisely, Sally decided not to comment. “I haven’t seen Heero in months,” Relena pouted.

And before you ask who my dad is, his name is Odin Lowe Jr.

Relena swallowed hard at the memory. She snapped out of her reverie as Hilde shook her.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing, just a party, for you. You ought to go, don’t you think?” Hilde asked.

**********************

The party wasn’t all bad. There were a few high points, seeing Hilde trying to get Duo away from the buffet to dance was entertaining. Seeing Quatre and Dorothy together was interesting for lack of a better word. If you looked at them one minute, they appeared to be disagreeing about something, (the word ‘argue’ just didn’t fit Quatre), and the next they would be holding hands or dancing. Catherine introduced everyone to Trowa’s girlfriend, she seemed nice, but Relena couldn’t remember her name, so they didn’t talk much. Sally was having a blast and Wufei looked like he would rather be anywhere else. Her brother and Lucratsia came, but they hadn’t brought her nephew with them. Little Nuef wasn’t even walking yet, he was far too young for a ‘grown up’ party.

The party wasn’t all bad, but Relena didn’t notice, she was too depressed. Heero didn’t come. After the guests left, Relena went for a walk, and not paying attention to were she was going she happened across the dock were she and her lover had first met Duo, on the night of her fifteenth birthday. He hadn’t gone to that party either.

She sat down on the wood, drawing her knees up to her chest and propped her head on them.

“I love you, Heero, where ever you are,” she whispered. Eventually, she stood up and dragged herself home. When she arrived, she dragged herself to her room, and just before she collapsed on her bed, she noticed something sitting on it.

A brown teddy bear, in a seating position, with a bow around it’s next and a little black velvet box on it’s lap. Half of a folded up note stuck out of the box and she picked it up and pulled the note out.

Happy Birthday, Love Heero. She read, and saw something else written on the button of the note. P.S. Please? Confused, she picked up the bear and remembered the black box. She opened the box and inside was a diamond ring, an engagement ring. She took it out and turned it over in her hands.

Another hand covered Relena’s and pried the ring out of her hand, and then slipped it on her left ring finger. Relena gasped and raised her eyes to look into his. “You missed the party,” she whispered, it wasn’t what she had wanted to say, but it was all she could manage to utter.

“I know,” he said.

“Everyone else was there,” she said trying not to let her voice waver.

Heero snorted. “I don’t care about everyone else, I care about you.” Loosely he placed his arms around her waist, but then thought better of it and pulled her against him, possessive of his princess. He looked at her and lightly touched his lips to hers. He pressed harder, kissing her slowly, and she responded by deepening the kiss.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Heero said after their lips parted. Relena was silent. Heero pulled away just enough so that he could see her eyes. They were clouded with doubt. “Relena,” he whispered, “what’s wrong?” Relena stepped closer to him, and pressed her cheek and against his chest.

“I love you, Heero,” she whispered to him

“Ai shiteru, koishii,” he responded.

Relena looked up at him, confused. “What does that mean?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” he shrugged, “just that I love you.”

“That why you couldn’t kill me?” she responded.

“Oh, I’m still going to kill you,” he said, dead serious. “I’m going to take your heart and keep it for myself, and we all know hearts are vital organs, so you’ll die without it...” his voice trailed off.

“Why, Heero Yuy, was that a joke?” Relena asked with raised eyebrows.

“No, I’m completely serious, that’s been my plan from day one, all that gun-pointed-at-your-head stuff was just to show that I meant it.” In spite of Heero’s sincerity in the statement, Relena chuckled and moved her head to his shoulder.

“Heero?” she spoke after a few moments.

“Hm?”

“What’s your real name?”

“None of your business, I don’t use it.”

“Why won’t you tell me?” she asked, pushing his spikes of hair away from his eyes so that she could see them better.

“Are you just going to keep annoying me until you find out?” he asked, pushing her hands away.

She nodded as his hair fell back in place, putting his eyes in shadows.

He muttered something, but Relena couldn’t quite hear it.

“What?” she asked.

Heero cleared his throat. “It’s Odin,” he managed to say, with much difficulty. He hated thinking that far back, he much preferred to leave the past behind him. “Odin Lowe, Jr.”

Relena stared at him, feeling a little light headed.

“Koishii?” Heero asked, catching Relena as she fainted.

**********************

Year-AC 200

A young woman with long blond hair stared at the rows of babies in the hospital nursery with her hands and nose pressed to the glass.

“Aw, come on, man! It’s a tradition!”

She turned at the familiar sound of a ‘family friend’s’ voice.

“No, Duo, I don’t smoke,” another voice responded.

Hearing this second voice, the woman almost cried. Almost. Over the years, her predicament had gotten easier to handle, and she found herself not missing home as much as one would think. She had just enough familiarity in her life to keep her from going insane and just enough major differences so that every morning when she awoke, she wouldn’t think for a few moments of going down stairs to see her parents, before remembering they just weren’t there. In the beginning, she had made that mistake, wondering what her mother and father would be ‘discussing’ that morning, or if Trente would want to go the movies with her and Wing, before remembering they were all lost to her, never to be found.

“Third one from the left, last row,” Quatre pointed out to Duo with pride. “That’s my daughter.”

“Little me,” Kitty whispered to herself, looking at the baby. In the background, she could hear Duo trying to convince Quatre to have a cigar. Softly, she chuckled, causing Duo and Quatre to turn in her direction.

Quatre squinted, trying to get a good look without staring. “Kitty?” Duo bluntly stared in her direction.

“Hi, Kitty!” he called. Kitty paled, swallowed hard and turned to look at them.

“Duo?” she asked, faking shock. “Oh, it is you, who else would have a braid that long and still call themselves ‘male.’”

“Very funny,” Duo said. “Hey! Did you see Quatre’s kid?”

Kitty nodded, “I saw the name on the bassinet and thought to myself ‘That can’t be the same Winner family,’ but guess it much be.” Kitty had never been more happy with her abilities to lie convincingly in her life. “What’s her name?” Kitty asked, pretending not know already.

“Katrina,” Quatre answered.

Kitty smiled, “That’s a pretty name.”

“What brings you to a hospital, you’re not sick, are you?” Quatre asked.

“No,” Kitty said, thinking fast she added, “a co-worker of mine got appendicitis and I was elected to bring him the group get well card. I was just leaving and decided to take a peek at the babies, they’re all so cute. So,” Kitty said trying to make conversation, “how is everyone?”

“Well, Dorothy’s still here after having the baby,” Quatre said, “every Magnanoc got her a bouquet of roses.”

Kitty blinked, thinking that was a little strange, even for her father’s fanclub/ self-imposed slaves. “That was nice of them,” she ventured.

“Nuef Peacecraft is almost three now, you and the other him were friends, weren’t you?” Quatre said. Kitty nodded. “Heero and Relena are expecting, only a month or so to go before their child is born. Trowa is a father, too.” He continued.

“So am I!” Duo shouted happily. “Only when my kid was born, I had a cigar like you’re supposed to, but Quatre won’t.”

“What’s ‘your kid’s’ name?” Kitty asked. It better be Vingt. It’ll be weird if soon-to-be Wing-chan doesn’t call him ‘Vinnie.’

“Vingt,” Duo answered, “it was Hilde’s idea. I wanted to name him Trio, but since Hilde went threw labor and all, everyone said she ought to have the final vote if we couldn’t agree.” Kitty smiled.

“Well, I gotta go, maybe I’ll see you around.” With that Kitty left, knowing she wouldn’t be able to hold her tears back anymore. I want to go home, but there’s no more home to go to.

**********************

“Heero, we need to talk about baby names,” Relena said as the due date grew closer.

Heero looked at his wife. Didn’t having their daughter come to them from 18 years in the future make baby names a moot point? After he expressed this idea, Relena said that Wing might of had an older brother or something, this could very well not be her.

“In that case, I want to name the baby after my Gundam,” Heero said.

Relena blinked. “You want to name our child after a piece of metal?!?!”

“First of all, I had been in flying my Gundam before I crashed onto the beach that we met on, second, I’ve saved your life with both my original and my current Gundam, and third it’s not a peice of metal, it’s a very complicated piece of machinery made out of an alloy.”

“Okaaaay,” Relena said, thinking not for the first time that her koishii, as Heero put it, wasn’t quite sane. “What are your Gundams called?”

“The one I have now is ‘Wing Zero,’ which you should know by now, and my original one was ‘Wing Gundam.’”

Relena smiled and rubbed the bulge on her stomach.

**********************

Author Notes: ^_^ Almost done! (And if anyone is wondering what happened to ye olde terrorists, Jerry blew up with Vinnie, and the two that were arrested are still in jail.