“Here, wrap this around you,” he says, voice gentle as he hands me the warm woolen blanket. In his other hand is balanced a small tray with tea settings on it.

    “I’m fine, really,” I protest, but take the blanket anyway. I was amazed that of all the places he could’ve taken me, he brought me here. He mentioned it, before I got onto his motorcycle, but I don’t think I really took him serious.

    Even though I know where his apartment is, I’d never been inside his building until today. He pulled into the garage and parked the motorcycle right next to his car. He tucked both our helmets onto the cycle on separate points and then took my hand to get my attention.

    He kept holding it until we reached the elevator. It was much lower tech than the one at work, the lighting was not nearly as white, the walls were all closed in. I can understand how people used to feel claustrophobic in them, when I ride in that elevator. He pressed the button for the fourteenth floor.

    His high rise, however, has a much more impressive view than mine does. And the elevator is faster than mine or the one at work, too. We didn’t say much of anything until he just handed me the blanket, and as soon as he saw that our coats and shoes were stowed away properly, he disappeared into the back of the apartment.

    I wasn’t quite bold enough to follow him, and so I stayed in the living room, looking over the design of it. On the wall opposite the large window his sword hangs, over a painting of bamboo and mountains. I recognize the work, but can’t quite recall the author’s name at the moment. Very stylized. There are folding screens in front of the doorways that have no doors, but the wood is cherry, and the screens aren’t made of rice paper. I chide myself, to think that I expected him to be rigidly and formally traditional.

    There is a long, low table, with pillows the right size to sit on set around it on the thin mat that covers the hardwood floor. My socks, in contrast to the immaculate cleanliness of the floor, looked almost ridiculous to me as I wandered around slowly. I was looking at the one photograph in the room when he came in with the tea and blanket.

    He moves over to the table and sets the tray down. “I made tea,” he announces, almost proudly, and motions for me to take a seat across from him on one of the other cushions. Happily, I notice he also has a comfortable looking couch across the room, as though there’s a somehow missing television hiding in the closed hutch desk across the room, or on a cart he wheels out on special occasions.

    I drape the blanket around me, so it covers my mostly bare legs and take a seat, my mind drawn back to the photograph. The young woman in the picture seemed hardly old enough to be in the outfit she was wearing, which, I’m pretty sure, was a traditional wedding costume from one or another of the areas up the Yang Tse. A… Qi Pao -1-, I believe it is called. Her headdress is ornate, and the veil covering her face is too thick to see anything but her wide, bright eyes.

    Her face is stern, there is no smile like a normal bride might wear, instead, she appears almost angry. Her mannerisms, very traditional in static, I can only guess, would be unorthodox in motion.

    “You seem distracted,” he says, setting a teacup before me, and then pouring his own. “What is it?”

    I point.

    He pauses in his pouring to follow my hand with his eyes, and then looks back at the occupation his hands are involved in. “Meiran.”

    The tone of his voice tells me that it’s better that I not press the matter. For the time being I guess that’s okay, he didn’t press me about my blunder of blurting out how I don’t normally get along so well with Chinese men, so I’ll leave this ‘Meiran’ topic alone.

    I wait for him to finish pouring his tea and then lift my own cup and carefully take a sip. For a long time I wasn’t much of a tea drinker, and then I went to visit my brother Lin. He and I have always gotten along rather well, probably because the two of us were generally ignored by our father, Lin because, as the oldest son, it was his duty to be as attentive and respectful as he was; I because as a daughter I was expected to be seen and not heard. He was always very big on tea, and taught me to appreciate it. Lin is older than I am, and he always made sure to take the time to do things like that.

    He lifts his cup and takes a drink without looking at me at all.

    I set my teacup down and look him in the eye, “Fei… I’m sorry.”

    He looks up at me. “What do you mean?”

    “I should probably go,” I say, and make a move to stand. It was wrong of me to come, I realize. I shouldn’t be here. Being alone is better than being in a room with someone who won’t look at you.

    He stands as well, “Why?”

    I move towards the door.

    “Is it about her?” his voice is sharp, and it stops me as I lay a hand on my jacket. “You can’t possibly know what happened with…”

    “No,” I reply, “I have no idea who she is, or what happened between the two of you.” I let my hand fall from the coat and turn my head to look over my shoulder at him, “But I’m not as stupid about Chinese culture as you might think, Wufei.” He winces. “And it suddenly begins to make sense, why you were able to be a Gundam pilot and risk your life all the time. That L5 colony… it was yours, wasn’t it? Your colony blew up and your clan died, didn’t they?” I'm stating the obvious, but it needs to be said.

    “That is not why I became a Gundam pilot.”

    “Then it must’ve been her,” I say, turning from him. The look on his face makes it hard to look him in the eye. He seems hurt by all that I’ve said, which means it must be true. I slip my jacket on and bend down to get my feet into my boots.

    “Each of us had a different reason for piloting a Gundam, Sally,” he says from close behind me. I didn’t hear him cross the room.

    “Then I’m sure your reason for being a Preventer must be just as good,” I stand up, and flip my hair over my shoulders, zipping my coat up, “but I don’t need this right now.”

    There is a low rumble from him, and in a moment I find myself roughly turned around, back pressed against the wall. His hands, strong and angry, are clamped on my upper arms and he is glaring angrily at me. “Your father is dying,” he says.

    I don’t respond to that statement, I can’t. It’s not true. It… “Let me go.”

    “Your father is dying, Sally,” he repeats it.

    “Let me go, Chang.” I stare angrily back into his eyes, feeling a burning coming from my chest. “I’m going to go home and go to bed.”

    “Your father is dying,” he says once again.

    I feel something inside start to crack as I look into his eyes, which seem to me to be very intently burning into mine. I open my mouth to speak, to lead my hands to shove him off of me, to do anything to get rid of the anger that is welling up inside me, but he does the most unexpected thing I can think of.

    He leans in and presses his lips to mine.

    For a moment, I struggle, unable to comprehend what is happening. It’s been a long time since I bothered to date a man that would kiss me, at all. All the dates my father set me up with were more interested in sizing me up for a wedding ring than any sort of personal relationship with me.

    But after a short moment of struggle, I give in, and kiss back. He leans into me for a moment, and then he lets go of my arms, planting them on the wall beside me, and pushes away. I open my eyes, and stare at him confusedly.

    “It’s not the end of the world,” he says gently, as though he didn’t just interrupt the conversation by kissing me. “Right?”

    I move so quickly that I’m not sure whether or not he even sees me narrow my eyes before I knee him in the groin and shove him away from me. He doubles over, but makes no noise, and I yank the door open and find my way out.

*

    The cab ride is long, and cold, and lonely, coming back to my apartment. The sky outside is still overcast, and looks to be threatening snow. But somehow, I don’t really mind. I’m still too… well I’m not angry that Wufei kissed me, I just wish he’d do it under different circumstances. When I used to spend more time talking to Duo, he mentioned once when Heero said something about ‘life affirming experiences’ and how much he hated them.

    I think I finally understand what he meant. At the time I thought, vaguely, that Heero used to hit him in order to wake him up, when he was feeling depressed or suicidal. The two of us were able to talk about that sort of thing, eventually.

    When I first met Duo, he didn’t like me. He thought that I was just another bad Alliance officer, and that I was trouble. He later remarked that he was almost completely wrong about me, withstanding the bit about me being trouble, but that was ok, and he didn’t mind.

    It ended up being a short-lived running gag aboard Peacemillion, one that only the two of us really cared about or really laughed at. Trowa always seemed disdainful of our jokes, Heero and Wufei did their best to ignore us for the most part, and Quatre was very distracted at the time. Not that anyone had much to say to him about being so distracted, given the circumstances.

    Looking back on it now, I guess everyone had their own way of dealing with the hardships of war. Duo and I… I guess we just looked for the person most similar to us, and clung to each other. There’s a faint smile on my face as I step out of the taxi in front of my building. I reach into my coat pocket to fish out my keys after paying the cab driver and feel a piece of paper.

    I pull it out.

    My grocery list.

    With a sigh, I make a turn and head down the street. I could get into another cab, but that’d be stupid, considering how close my car is and how close the grocery store is, so I decide to walk the three blocks to the store. I won’t have too much to bring back.

*

    When you’re out of sorts, the entire world is oppressive. Here I am, standing in the grocery store, trying to pick out a bunch of carrots, and I feel utterly sick to my stomach. The people around me are going about their own shopping, but I feel like I’m frozen, apart from them.

    I pick out some carrots and move on to bread. I glance at my watch. Two-fifteen p.m. Waiting to go home to an empty apartment, as usual. I wonder what exactly Wufei was after when he kissed me, idly, as I put a loaf of bread into my hand basket.

    Maybe I should get a cat.

    But if I have to go and be with my father after this mission…

    I’m always on missions, getting a cat would just mean I’d have to put it up somewhere while I was gone. That would be cruel to the cat, and I don’t think I could use an animal to make up for not having a social life. Maybe I should just get some friends instead. It wouldn’t be too hard, I guess.

    I head towards the check out.

    Now that Hilde’s working at headquarters, there’s got to be something the two of us can talk about. Or there’s Julia. I work with a million people, it seems, that I never speak to. I could pick someone out and become friends with them.

    “Fourteen twenty-four, Ma’am.”

    I blink and look at the cashier. I don’t look that old, do I? I glance down at myself, and remember that I’m still in uniform, and figure that that’s got to be the reason for it. I never get called anything but miss when I’m in street clothes. I guess the uniform adds both respectability and ten years. Same with the old military uniform I used to wear. After I quit the Alliance, I looked younger.

    Even to myself.

    But I also realized how young the Alliance had been accepting soldiers. I hand the cashier fifteen and get my change back, scooping up my bag and heading out of the store, into the street.

    I feel the chill first, and the dampness second. Apparently, it’s too warm for snow, so it decided to rain instead. I roll my eyes and turn my collar up. No help for it now, I’m not going to take a cab three blocks.

    It’s an odd hour of the afternoon, so the sidewalk is basically empty except for me and a few people rushing to cover. The rain is steady, but not torrential. It feels good on my cheeks, cool, like the wind, and I tighten my grip on the bag in my arms as I wait at a crosswalk.

    Two blocks left, and the traffic seems to be going a little faster. I’ll get my prescription filled tomorrow, so that I have it with me when I head out on my mission. At the other side of the crosswalk and down the block a ways, I see a familiar head of wild hair sticking, almost defiantly, out of a long trench coat.

    I freeze in my tracks, the rainwater in my hair trickling down the back of my neck and into my clothes. A car horn honks, and I hurry across the street. I knew he was in the city, I just had no idea I’d run into him.

    “Heero?” I say in a low voice as I reach the other side. He’s much closer now.

    He keeps walking, obviously not having heard me.

    He’s grown, taller, but not by much. He’s still only about five and a half feet tall, but the fall of the jacket tells me that he hasn’t changed in build, at the very least. I didn’t really expect him to get much taller, but I thought he’d at least get as tall as Wufei. I was obviously wrong.

    “Heero,” I say as he gets close enough to hear my quiet voice. I was wrong. He’s my height. He stops walking and turns his eyes towards me.

    Still the same clear, shocking blue that they always were. Quatre’s eyes were always innocent, even in his despair, but there was always something about Heero that said, in a clear voice, ‘I’m dangerous, and I know about the world.’ They used to say that they didn’t care what happened, as well… but while we were on Peacemillion, something in his eyes changed.

    Noin never really noticed it, though I’m sure Duo did. Except for Duo, the other pilots were too introverted at the time to notice one another’s behavior. I wonder why I’m thinking about Duo so much today. Heero was able to see, in his comrades, at least what needed to happen for them to work well with one another. It’s why he gave Quatre the Zero System for Sandrock Custom, and, again, why he punched Duo in the stomach and left him behind on X-18999. He’s never been one to talk much when actions could suffice.

    But now, there’s something in them that lets me know he’s lived in the last seven years. He’s not as isolated as he used to make himself. He still refuses to have anything to do with Relena, from what I hear, but he’s not been totally alone, I see. I can make out scars someone’s left him with, the kind on the heart, not the body, in his eyes as he looks at me.

    “Hello Sally,” he says, stopping and turning to look me over. His eyes, still, are calculating, scrutinizing. “What happened to you today?”

    The words that come tumbling from my mouth amaze me, again, “I don’t think you really want to know.”

    “Perhaps I do,” he counters, “Why else would I have asked?”

    “It’s raining outside. There’s got to be a better place for this conversation.”

    He nods, and starts walking again. He gets a few feet behind me and then turns back to say, “Aren’t you coming?”

    I turn and jog the few steps to catch up with him. At this point, I don’t care where he’s taking me. I’m just going to trust him and follow. I learned to trust Heero seven years ago, during the Eve Wars. If not because he was right, then because he at least always knew what to do, and where to go. You can trust Heero to be right on time.

*

    Wufei was lying when he said he had seen Heero and was in the neighborhood. By the time we get back to Heero’s apartment, we’re both soaked through our coats. My leg feels like what I can only imagine a badly cooked side of rib must feel like. Or would feel like, if it were still alive. Heero’s coat is sopping wet as well, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think the abominable and unbeatable ex-pilot is actually cold.

    As soon as we step in the door, he deposits the sopping coat and his shoes by the door. “Hang up your coat, I’ll find something dry for you to put on.”

    I can’t imagine what he has that would be the right size for me to wear… there’s a little difference between our builds, even though we’re just about the same height. Women have these things called breasts that are used to feed babies and attract potential mates that he doesn’t have. Unless of course he’s got some weird fetishes that I don’t know about.

    They do say it’s always the quiet ones.

    I take my boots off, for the second time today. This time, though, it feels a little more utilitarian. My boots are so wet that they squish and ooze when I take a step. Heero’s apartment is a far cry from what I expected, having been to Wufei’s. The rooms are the standard white color, but there are hangings and posters and blown up photographs all over it, so that it doesn’t look sparse, the way Wufei’s apartment does. There’s a large bookshelf that has smaller picture frames on it, and I wander over to look at them while I wait for Heero to come back.

    I’m barely across the room when Heero steps in from a doorway right next to it and offers me a small pile of folded material. “The bathroom is on the left there,” he motions me back. I nod, and step past him. He picks up a frame and moves past the bookcase with it. Obviously something he didn’t want me to see. His timing was too good for that.

    In the bathroom, with the door closed, I look over what he handed me, and blink.

    I’ve never worn a kimono before.

    I hear voices out in the other room, but I ignore them, trying to figure out how to put the stupid kimono on. It takes a couple minutes, but I finally figure out how to wrap the thing with some semblance of decency around me, and then I take my hair down and wrap the towel that was on the bottom of the pile around my head.

    I make it out to the front room, and find Heero standing and staring out the window on the eastern side of the apartment. Not that there’s any morning sunlight at… I check my watch, four-fifteen in the evening, but my imagination can make the jump.

    “Whose picture did you take down?” I ask, rubbing my hair with the towel.

    He’s still holding the frame.

    “Duo’s.”

    I blink. “Why?”

    “Long story. So, are you ready to tell me what happened to you today?”

    I blink again. Leave it to Heero… “If you’re sure you want to know,” I say, leaving off any other preamble before launching into my story.

    Somewhere in the middle of it we move to the couch. He’s not looking directly at me, but I can tell he’s listening intently. I stumble a little when I get to what Wufei did at his apartment, and then I, almost stupidly, find myself adding on what Duo said about ‘life affirming experiences’.

    “I’m surprised he remembered that.”

    “It was a while ago, I don’t know if he still does.”

    “If he remembered it then, I’m sure he remembers it now.”

    The frame with Duo’s picture in it is hidden away on the windowsill, but I can feel Heero’s fingers twitch. “Why do you say that?”

    “His memory is better than mine, when he decides to remember something.” He adds, in a softer voice that is reminiscent of his eyes, to me at least, “And he’s always chosen to remember me.”

    Something seems to click in my mind and I wonder what sort of a relationship Duo and Heero had. I’ve never been slow to pick up on other people’s relationships, even though I can’t seem to manage one on my own, but I was never sure about the two of them. Trowa and Quatre were fairly obvious. They’ve gone their separate ways now, and from the rumors I read in the gossip column of the paper this morning before work… even though it seems like a million years ago now… Quatre’s going to be married and start having his own children soon.

    ‘Winner family tradition’ and all that. It’s not entirely someone else’s idea, though. Quatre’s wanted to have a family of his own since his father died, from what I can tell. His mother died giving birth to him, so he missed out on a lot of the two-parent family that I had.

    I wonder how Trowa feels about it.

    I glance at my watch again. It’s nearly seven-thirty.

    I lean back on the couch and stare up at the ceiling. My leg feels a little tingly, I’ll have to be sure to keep it open to the air tonight, since I don’t plan on wearing skirts and robes during my trip to L2. “It’s getting late,” I comment.

    “It is,” he responds.

    “I should get home. I’ve got to go to work in the morning.”

    “So do I,” he responds, getting to his feet. “Let me go and get your clothes, they should be dry by now.

    Alone in the living room again, I stand up and wander over to the bookcase. The other photographs are ones I’ve seen before, in newspapers. A few of them are just that, newspaper clippings. They all involve the other pilots, but nothing of himself, except for one group picture with the other ex-pilots.

    It is of the five of them wearing their Preventers uniforms. They might not have stayed, but in order to appease the media, we had to make them look like they were part of the Preventers during the Mariemaia Incident.

    Wufei was a special case.

    He’s in the picture too, with his back to the other four, looking rather like he did in real life at the time. Angry and confused. Heero’s got a serious expression on his face, and his hand on Duo’s shoulder, while Duo is grinning like the madman that he claims to be. Quatre looks worried, and Trowa’s not even looking at the camera. It’s a great profile of his hair though.

    Heero’s hand falls on my shoulder. I start a little, not remembering him ever having been so quiet. Duo was always the quieter mover of the two of them, less flashy, unless someone was watching him. Heero hands me my clothes and motions me back towards the bathroom, buttoning up his shirt as he does so. “I’ll give you a ride to your building, but you’ll have to give me directions.”

    I go back and change, finding it much easier to get out of the get up than it was to get in. I take pains to fold it along the same lines it was folded before, so as to show Heero the respect in returning what I was leant the way it was given to me. It’s important, something I grew up with. Debts need to be paid back the proper way.

    Coming back out, I set the folded material and towel on the couch. Heero hands me my jacket and pulls on his trench coat. The fabric looks mostly dry, but from the slight change in expression on his face, I can tell the black coat isn’t nearly dry enough for his tastes. We head out, and he locks the door. The elevator here is fast, and the light is white. It smells sterile, a little devoid of scent, and it’s a little cold. I pull my jacket closer to me and zip it up.

    I can smell him on me. Despite the rain, and the distance, my damn jacket smells like tiger’s balm and… and something else.

    I glance over at Heero, and find that he is as lost in thought as I am. “What are you thinking about?”

    He doesn’t answer, and the elevator stops on the garage level. I follow him out, and to a sleek black car. Whatever it is Heero’s doing for a living now, he’s well off. He hits a button on his keychain and the doors unlock. He opens the door and starts the car, waiting for me to get in as well.

    I open the door and slide in carefully on the black leather seat.

    “What does it matter?” he asks, pulling out of his parking spot with a practiced ease that makes me wonder how long he’s been living in this apartment building.

    “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know, Heero.”

    “No one calls me that anymore,” he says, turning out onto the street. “Which way?”

    “Left here, I live on one hundred and third street.”

    “Nice neighborhood, Preventers can afford that area?”

    “You’re one to talk,” I shoot back. I fold my arms on my chest and look out the window. He continues driving until we get to the next street. “Right. Two blocks.”

    “Duo,” he says without preamble.

    It takes me a moment to realize that he’s answering my question, and the air in the car seems to be much heavier than it was before he said that. There’s no mistaking it, not now, something was… or is, for that matter, between Duo and Heero. Something more than both being pilots during the wars, or even good friends. Heero has the same tone in his voice, that dangerous and possessive tone, the same one that Trowa used when he made the joking admission to being involved with Jean. That doesn’t just come from being plutonic with one another.

    The car ride passes in silence, broken only by my directions from time to time. He pulls into the visitor parking in my building and says, “Now that you know where I live, don’t be a stranger.”

    I nod, a little dumbfounded. He may have lived a little in the past seven years, but he’s still as silent and unapproachable as ever. I get out of the car and he rolls down the window to say something else. “If you ever need my help, feel free to give me a call.”

    I blink, “Heero, I don’t have your…”

    He hands over a card with a number on it. “I know. Ja, Sally.”

    He pulls out at a patient pace, but I can tell his car gets good usage, the purring engine under the hood almost begs to be driven fast, and the wear and tear on the tires suggests that he’s a bit of a lead foot.

*

-1- Qi Pao is a northern Chinese wedding dress, usually bearing the embroidered design of a dragon and a phoenix. The cloth is usually red (satin, I believe), and the embroidery gold. Those colors have to do with the prosperity and success of the marriage.

I used a lot of sources to gather the information on traditional Chinese weddings. If you want them, email me.

***