CHAPTER VI-Bird's Eye View

"What do you want to do, Sidra?" Relena asked her daughter carefully.

"Play with Heero, mommy. Can we go back?"

They were walking along a plaza, the appliance store left behind. A large train suspended on cables was making clicking sounds overhead as tourists were allowed a bird's eyes view of the colony. Sidra was talking as her head was pushed up, watching it with fascination.

It was that behavior that made Sidra's "Let's try that thing!" not entirely unexpected. Relena held Sidra's hand in hers and they went out in search of the train station.

They were both unaware of the fact that they were being followed.

Now, this person could very well have been an assassin or terrorist, for that sort of thing is not very uncommon in this sort of a novel, and if that were to be so, the following scenario would play out:

[[A light glimmers in the distance. We see a gun rise and the camera swerves to Relena, pale and stricken, as she tighten's her grip on Sidra's hand.]]

RELENA: Sidra! Get down!

[[Relena knocks over her daughter and covers her body with her own.]]

HEERO: Relena!!!

[[Heero appears from nowhere, flinging a knife into the assassin's head, and running to the arms of his love and his child.]]

HEERO: Relena....Sidra....

[[Relena looks up at him, starry-eyed]]

RELENA: Heero....

HEERO: I want to protect you forever. I thought I could bear living without you, but I can't. Let me stay by your side forever.

RELENA: Heero, I love you....

SIDRA: Wait a sec! Is Heero my daddy?

[[Relena turns to Sidra lovingly]]

RELENA: Of course he is, Sidra. Would you mind if we were to live together, as a family?

[[Sidra gets up and hugs Relena and Heero]]

SIDRA: Good! I love you both so much!!!

But that didn't happen, although it was one of many such scenarios that was playing out in Heero's head as he discreetly followed Relena and her daughter, finding himself unable to walk away.

Relena paid the correct fee and pulled Sidra up into the car. They would enter a tunnel and then emerge out above the splendor of the colony L1, free to admire its mechanical beauty.

She did not notice the familiar figure of the man who slipped to the back of the train, watching the lips of Relena and her daughter as they spoke....and worshipped every second of it.

They settled calmly into their seats, with Sidra pressing her face to the window, leaving a trail of steam from her breath. Her mother idly smoothed her hair, but it was of no use, of course. Heero knew that too well.

"Mommy?" Sidra said carefully, turning away from the view to look up at Relena's elegant profile.

"Yes, dear?"

There was a rattle and a clank, and the swinging car was plunged into the blackness of the tunnel, and Relena clutched her daughter's hand desperately.

"Relena? It's just a blackout." He held her close in her arms, and the slim teenager breathed in the scent of her lover with relief, "Are you afraid of the dark?"

"No," she whispered, holding him so tightly, he was having trouble breathing, "It's just I used to have this nightmare when I was little, of blackness and the smell of burning."

"There are drugs to suppress reoccurring dreams," he reminded her gently. In fact, the current Heero that was spying on the two most important people of his life, took many such drugs, and had discovered that they were, on occasion, very ineffective.

"No, I didn't want to stop having the dream," she told him, and he was shocked to realize that several tears were staining his shirt- her tears, "because there was always this burst of light, and a face was lit up from the flames. I think it was the face of my father from the Sanc Kingdom. You see, I used to long for and loathe the horrible nightmare, because I had no other memories of him."

Heero simply held her tighter.

"Mommy? Mommy? Are you listening to me, Mommy?"

"Sorry, Sidra," she said softly, fighting back the urge to cry- but from nostalgia or fear, she couldn't tell, "what were you saying?"

"I said, How do you know Uncle Heero?"

Relena blinked down at the child staring up at her innocently, "He's simply an old friend."

"How'd you meet?"

"During the war, dear." She said absently, "Look! See that building down there? That's where I'm having my conference."

Sidra was not so easily deferred, "Where?"

"On a beach...." she said vaguely.

"Oh." Sidra filed that piece of information under 'Boring Topics.' She smiled, "Why doesn't he visit us like Uncle Quatre or Auntie Sally or-"

Relena's face was uncompromising, "I haven't spoken to Heero in years, love. Why don't we talk about something else?"

"Did you know he cleaned his whole apartment for me?" she squealed, "He stayed with me when I had a bad dream, at my breakfast,-" she gave her mother a blackmailing look- "which even you wouldn't have, and played with me and-"

"Please, Sidra, let's talk about something else." Relena said coldly, and several rebellious tears slipped out of her eyes.

"Mommy?"

"I got something in my eye, Sidra." Relena took out a tissue to dab her eyes, ever mindful of her light make up.

Whatever Heero felt when he left Relena that fateful night increased threefold as the woman he loved tried to cope with what he had done to her, what he had down to them.

"Did you enjoy the ride, Sid?" Relena asked, "Did you like the festival we went to afterwards?"

Sidra smiled, arms full of stuffed animals. She had picked up her father's phenomenal hand-eye coordination from the gene pool, and had caused quite a fuss when she seemed to win even the most difficult games, "Very much- but I still missed Uncle Heero."

Relena looked upon her daughter sadly, brushing stray blond hairs from her eyes, which were identical to Sidra's.

They were walking alone on the street as the strolled back to Heero's home. It was very hard for Relena to leave her daughter for work, especially with someone she herself could not trust to be consistent with his affections.

One day, he'd get sick of Sidra as well, and abandon her like he abandoned me. She shouldn't have to feel unwanted. It's best to leave this short, perfect memory, instead of a lifetime of inconsistency and heartbreak, Relena decided mentally. She had to be strong for her daughter. She had to be strong for herself.

But when she saw Heero in the doorway, watching them, her heart betrayed he mind and skipped a beat, "Hello," she said calmly.

He nodded. There was something lonely about him, about the way he bent his head maybe, or how his eyes seemed to hold back terrible sadness with every last ounce of strength.

"Uncle Heero!" Sidra exclaimed, scattering her prizes to leap into his arms.

He held her, cradling her head so carefully with one hand, that Relena wanted to cry with love.

But she didn't love him. No, not anymore.

"Can you take care of her?" she asked him, "Just for a little while, of course."

"You already asked me that," he pointed out, stepping in and motioning with his head for her to follow, "and you know that the answer is yes. For as long as you want. Forever, even."

She took off her shoes and slammed the front door, "Forever? Yeah right- more like until you get sick of her," she hissed heartlessly, but pain had made her harsh, and Sidra's eyes were wide under her mass of tangle hair, confused and frightened at her mother's unnatural anger, "Like you got sick of me," she added in a heartbroken whisper.

Sidra lifted her head, and struggled out of Heero's grasp, "Uncle Heero?"

He looked at the floor, at the plant on the table nearby, anywhere but at those terribly trusting eyes, "Not 'uncle,' Sidra. Father."

"No," the little girl whispered, tears streaming down her face, "Why weren't you with us? Why didn't you stay with mommy? Why didn't you stay with me?"

There was a slight catch in his throat, but nothing else. He knew of strategy, he knew of war, but he knew nothing about humanity, or the need to express emotions, "I was afraid."

He looked up into Relena's eyes painfully, forcing himself to see the accusation and hurt that rested in them.

"I was afraid," he repeated.

Sidra turned on her mother, "And why didn't you tell me? All I ever wanted was a father and a mother! Didn't I have the right to know?"

"Sidra, you're just too young to understand-"

The little girl pushed past her mother and ran to the small bathroom, shoving the locking mechanism so it would work and flipping the seat down so she could cry.

((A/N: Ouch. Get your scorecards ready:

Sidra:1

Parents: -2

Guess who's winning?))