Disclaimer: not mine, not mine. Yeah yeahfine, be that way

After yanking close the drapes, Heero stepped warily away, leaning against the wall with quiet coldness that Releena knew so well. "Heero?" She asked hesitantly, holding out a hand but he merely looked at her, quirking a brow.

"Releena?" He had returned to his normal, cold façade of the Perfect Soldier, unemotional, cold. But he had come back, Releena thought hopefully. That had to count for something, some emotion that showed that he cared. But as she looked up at him, she found nothing except the quiet contemplation of a stranger.

"SoHeero, where have you been all these years?" She asked awkwardly, sitting down in one of the couches as she smoothed the light blue dress around her. Avoiding his eyes, she added, "I haven't seen you for a while."

"I went back to the colonies and became a citizen of L2, getting a job as a technician that oversees the dismantling of the Mobile Dolls." There was no emotion in his voice as he recited his list of endeavors, odd jobs, and regular activities. With the cold objectivity of a automaton, he calmly talked about everything and nothing that happened until finally, his voice dwindled to silence.

Releena had long since stopped listening, electing instead to watch his face closely. Her heart froze in numb pain as she saw no change in his expression, not an ounce of warmth. When she had first saw him, she had thought that he hadn't changed much, if only she had realized to what extent she had been right. He still didn't see her as a person, only a figurehead, a superior, if anything, that he had to listen to. Releena wondered with weary humor if he saw her just as a substitute for Dr. J, a person that gave him missions, gave him orders, someone to respect, but not to love.

She had once thought that if he had come back, she would be happy; she was learning how wrong she really was. If love, or even friendship only went one way, it was meaningless, only another area of vulnerability to be able to get hurt. "Releena?"

Releena snapped back to the present, startled to realize a single tear had traced it's way down her cheek to drop into the blue folds of her skirt. "Yes." She stood up quickly, walking away from him towards the door. "I apologize for taking your time Heero, butI have one more question." She felt his gaze on the back of her neck as she rested a hand against the door knob, feeling the cool metal chill her fingers like the block of ice that sat heavily on her chest. "Why did you come here?"

There was a pause as if Heero was debating on whether to tell her the whole truth, but he answered logically, "Dorothy Catalonia and Quatre arrived at the L2 colony a standard week ago. They said that I was needed here."

"Really?" Only her years as a diplomat allowed her to keep her control, "What did Dorothy say?"

"She said that I owed you a great deal and by coming here, I would be able to pay back a portion of my debt." A stab of agony pierced through Releena's breast, and she gasped, clutching her heart in pain. Tears congealed in her eyes, and she covered her mouth to hold back a sob. Of course. His damned responsibility. What else? What else had she expected? That he would come and tell her that he loved her? That he had actually come to care for her? She was such an idiot.

This was all a plot set up to get them in one place, she realized achingly. And while she knew her friends had done this in order make her feel better, all she felt was more pain, so much She turned towards him, eyes bright, but otherwise composed. Smiling graciously she nodded, "Of course Heero. I understand and thank you for your concern. But I am quite all right, so you needn't have come all this way just to see me." He looked at her in askance, his eyes asking a question that she could not answer. Nodding to him once more, she opened the doorsending five bodies sprawling into the room in a heap. Duo, Hilde, Dorothy, Quatre, and Sally all looked up at her with sheepish embarrassment. (Wufei, being the stickler that he was, had refused to join and Quatre hadn't wanted tobut you know Dorothy.)

Duo laughed nervously, trying to remove Hilde's elbow from his eye. "Oujisan! Hilde here lost her one of her contacts, so uhwe were just trying to find it!"

Dorothy sprang, or tried to spring to her feet, getting tangled in Quatre's legs and tripping to fall down the others again, "Really, Miss Releena. I can explain-"

"That's quite all right, Dorothy," Releena interrupted, keeping her smile stiffly on her face, "Heero and I are finished talking here. Now, if you would excuse me, I-I'm feeling a little tired, so I'm going to lay down for a while. Thank you all." Stepping over the mass of bodies, she walked to the end of the hall, but once she disappeared from their sight, she ran to her room, locking the door. With a sob, she threw herself on the bed to cry one last time over on blue eyed, brown-haired Japanese pilot.

hello angsty! *hee hee* Okay, so I'm not quite sure if this is classified as angsty, butoh well. And yes, I will accept flames just because I think that I should be fair and give people that absolutely hate my work a chance to express their disgust and annoyance. It's okay! It's constructive (sort ofheh heh.) to know that some people don't like what you're doing. Sor&r, constructive criticism, and flames accepted. (more of the former, less of the latter though please. Hey, I accept them, doesn't mean I like getting them.)