Chapter 8- "Broken Dreams and Broken Glass"

A/N: Thank you to everyone for supporting this fic, even though the updates have not been as constant as I would have liked. I have, however, already started the next chapter, and hope that the next update will be more prompt. Also, to anyone following the spread of GW fandom, Gundam Wing has just begun airing in Brazil three weeks ago on Cartoon Network, uncut and with the original opening and ending. Hopefully will be getting more fans coming in soon!

DEDICATION: This chapter is definitely dedicated to kmf-chan (kmitty!!!!) who not only betaed part of this chapter for me, but also has been getting on my case lately to update. By the way, it's also her birthday, so go read her spectacular fics, which are truly praiseworthy! (http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=91097)

mune no oku de furuete'ru

hikari to kage wo dakishimeta mama

sutekirenai yume wo oikakete

hokori   takaku ai wa yomigaeru

Embracing the light and shadows

that are trembling within my heart

Chasing the dream that I can't throw away

The proud love is resurrected.

She had fallen to the floor by the time Heero arrived, her screams reduced to heaving sobs of horror, fear, and revulsion. Trowa was crouched down beside the sobbing woman, wrapping his arms around Relena and muffling her cries into his chest.

They remained before the corpse of the girl, watching the pool of her blood spread on the cement floor as Relena tried to regain a sense of what happened.

Pain was all she felt.

She was sinking into despair and fear and anger...and thousands of other emotions her pounding heart couldn't summon the power to describe, but all seemed to be triggered when she stared into the dead, blank eyes of the unknown girl.

Heero was, as usual, the first to gather his wits, "We can't report this to the police, not without drawing attention to ourselves or Relena. If we bury her here, we'll attract the neighbor's attention--plus the fact that Ariel might be counting on us doing that and frame us for the crime."

Trowa rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension building up in his spine, "So, what do you propose, Heero? Leave her here to rot?"

Relena glanced at Heero sharply, her eyes a flashing blue, "You can't seriously mean that, Heero."

He shook his head and turned away, "Of course we can't leave her here. The only option I can see is that Trowa and I take to one of the service airlocks and eject her into space."

He said it so coldly, so monotonously, that Relena barely held in the urge to vomit, "Eject her into space? With no name? No remembrance? Not an ounce of damned sympathy?"

Heero disagreed Relena's outburst, "You're being irrational, Relena. She's dead. We're not. But if she stays here, we're practically signing our lives away. What do you think Ariel is going to do once she finds us?" His voice was harsh and cold, no longer the soft and loving tone he had used previously. Relena winced at it, "She's going to kill us, or she's going to stain your name by blaming the plot to kill President Wayridge on you!"

Relena shook her head and got up off of the cement, dusting off her knees with shaking hands, "Don't you think I know that, Heero? I'm not a foolish child, and I never said you would even have to be involved. I can say I blackmailed you into keeping me hidden, and then come out into the open--"

"Stop it!" Heero shouted suddenly. Heero Yuy had never lost his temper before. He grabbed Relena's arms in frustration, "Why do you always have to be the martyr?! Stop writing your life away for the 'good of others!' You're so damned afraid to live you're willing to do anything you can to escape from it! I was just like you during the war--so fucking afraid to live that I was will to throw my life away for nothing. You hear me? Nothing. God, Relena, I love you in more ways than I can ever bear to express, but you are way out of line. Don't you have any self-respect? You whored yourself for your people, and now you'd even give them your life?! They never did anything to deserve you, Relena. No one ever did! The girl is dead. She probably doesn't have any family either. Remember what you said in Brussels when the Barton Foundation attempted to take over? Ideals are all fucking good and well, but sometimes they have to be put aside for the greater cause. You have to live. You have to. Not for your people. Not even for yourself. But for me. Because you gave me your life when we fell in love and I gave you mine."

His eyes hardened. His grip loosened. He turned away, "Or maybe you took back your heart. Maybe you never had one. You've forgotten that you are a human being, Relena. I did that before. Through you, I regained my humanity, but these past few months, you've lost yours.

"My god, I love you so much it hurts sometimes. My heart goes numb with the pain of it, and I feel like I am drowning. I feel...I feel...so much that it hurts, and I can't even express it to you like a normal person would have done. Relena, every ounce of goodness I possessed was stamped out of me when I was revealed to be 'too sensitive' for Doctor J." His whole body was shaking with the depth of emotion he felt pounding through his veins, "But you brought it back, Relena. You brought it all back. Because you loved me.

"Don't be a fool and give away your whole life for one girl who is already dead."

Relena bit her lip but still stared at him stubbornly, "Heero, what else can I do? You're asking me to discard the love I feel for my people and become selfish, to have my love pinned to only a few people? You're telling me I shouldn't care for a person I don't personally know? Is this girl less important than I am? Just because everyone in the ESUN doesn't know who she is, does that make her not equal to me?"

"No," Heero turned back again and rested his hands on her shoulders, "She's not less important because she isn't famous. She's less important because she is not the woman I love."

Her soft eyes searched his dark blue ones intently, tears gathering slowly at their corners and spilling over onto her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Heero," she whispered softly, "You shouldn't have loved me. I shouldn't have loved you back. I have an ideal. I have a belief in my people."

"Then you are a hypocrite."

"What?"

"You say that some ideals can't be completely obtained. You agreed that one should fight for what he loves, but when the choice comes to you, you can't let your heart win just this once.

"You're a masochist. The pain and suffering, it makes you feel stronger. I know. I did the same damned thing. You'll sacrifice your life for a complete stranger, but not for your ideal, but because you like knowing that you can do that and survive the pains your labors cost you."

The words were meant to wound, and they did. A dark, thick silence swept across the room and settled there. Trowa stood apart from the two lovers, who were still joined by Heero's palms on her shoulders. The words remained floating in the air above their heads, and it became increasingly more difficult to breathe.

They stood on opposing sides for a war that waged in every person's heart. Where does one draw the line between personal needs and the needs of others? Which should win in the end? The dream or the person who founded it?

Heero lived by the mantra of following his own emotions, and Relena had pledged her soul for the good of others. It seemed to her that every time she tried to pull away from her job and concentrate on herself, the world crumpled into pieces that needed mending again. The death of the girl, a complete innocent, had brought Relena to a startling revelation.

She did not really exist.

Her own personal self and the dream others pictured her to be were one and the same.

Relena Peacecraft, the symbol of peace and harmony, overpowered Relena Darlian, the girl who simply wanted to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

She had felt her individuality being stamped into dust and swept away.

But Heero was holding her. Heero Yuy was trying to bring Relena Darlian back. He couldn't bear to let her die.

Because he gave his heart to Relena Darlian, not Relena Peacecraft.

Because he loved the woman beneath the symbol of peace.

And she both loathed and loved him for it.

But at the moment all three heads turned to a faint thumping sound from the inside of the house.

"What was that?" Relena asked softly.

"The front door," was Trowa's grim reply.

The high sweet sound of breaking glass followed.

"The window." Heero murmured.

Both fell silent at the sound of glass crunching under heavy combat boots.

"We have to get out of here." Heero hissed.

"What about the girl?" Relena said pointedly.

Heero glanced at the body and then back at the two who stood beside him, "We leave it. Trowa," he said suddenly, changing his tone into one of command and calm, "Go to the second drawer on my workbench. You'll find enough guns for all of us. There are some charges under them. Relena, I want you to take a gun and get by the garage window. I'm going to open the garage door and throw out some charges to distract them. You and Trowa will get into my car and plow through the police. We will all rendezvous in front of the Kanzaki house. It's one block down and another block to the right. We'll pick up Tyrone there and then proceed to another location."

Relena opened her mouth to say something but Heero pinned his fierce gaze on her, "There's no time to talk. Just act. Let's go."

With the plan set up, Heero leaned over and pressed the garage door opener.

The garage growled open, and Relena tightened her grip on the edge on the car seat as she watched the police officers in front of the house turn towards the young man standing before them, his hands full of explosives.

"Relena, get down below the dashboard," Trowa ordered quickly, and he himself slouched as much as he could, "Don't you dare move from there until I say so, or I die."

Relena obeyed quickly, folding her knees and ducking her head as low as it would go.

So Relena did not see Heero toss the charge at the police or lift up his gun to shoot with deadly precision the officers who poured out of the house to capture their charges.

But she could hear the screams, the shouts, the explosions, and the gunfire. She could feel the occasional thump of a policeman who tried to get in the way of the vehicle as it peeled down the driveway and into the street with Heero following behind on foot, blowing out the tires of police cars that attempted pursuit.

The Kanzaki house was dark and silent, which was odd considering most of the houses were lit and alert due to the sounds of the gunfight a mere block away. Heero arrived shortly after the car, chest heaving and eyes searching Relena for any sign of injury.

"I'm fine, Heero," she said, slightly annoyed with his constant concern, "But the Kanzaki's don't appear to be home. There's no car in the driveway and no response to the doorbell. You don't think that they--"

Heero's eyes grew colder and his frown deepened, "We spent all this time waiting, thinking we escaped her, when she used the lull to tighten the noose around our necks. We've got to get to Doctor J's old lab. If we lay low there--" At the wail of sirens down the street, all three lifted their heads and lapsed into a momentary silence, "We've got to go now. Now is not a time to think."

It was a time to survive.

They piled back into the nondescript gray car and drove off into the night, past the sleeping suburbs and silent night to the bright, noisy city center of L1, where no one really slept or woke, simply lived. Heero pulled up to a graffiti-marked gray building and motioned for his companions to get out. Both complied without hesitation, watching in awe as Heero approached the entrance to the edifice and punched a code into the keypad. He leaned in for the retina scan and when he pulled back, the door had opened.

"This was one of Doctor J's many labs in L1. I grew up here." Heero said by way of explanation, motioning for them to enter.

However, at that particular moment, the top floor windows blew out as an explosion rocked the building. Trowa yanked Heero and Relena back under the overhang above the entrance to save them from the falling pieces of glass. Several moments later, the following floor blew out the same way.

And then the next one. And the next one.

The three exchanged a mutual look before diving back out towards the car, the shattered glass falling like rain.

The glass was fracturing the light from the street, glittering like deadly stars. A big sheet of glass had cut through a car parked in the street, setting off its fire alarm. The blaring siren screamed in the ears of the girl and the Gundam pilots.

And then they were in the car and driving.

They sat together in the car, three lost souls in a night of darkness and pain, lucky to be alive.

But the nightmare was not over yet, and by the time it was, one of them would be dead.

A/N: Thanks for reading and (hopefully) reviewing this fic. The next chapter will be coming out soon...I swear!)