Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Gundam Wing or any of its characters. But, if any one knows of a real-life Heero Yuy, PLEASE let me know!!! I'm still lookin'.

AN: Umhope you like!!!

Part Five

"Why did you bring me here?" Heero asked the Seeker as he looked out into the foggy whiteness surrounding them. It was as though he were in a cloud. Everything was hazy and sparkling.

"To see if you are the One," the Seeker answered.

"So you're testing me, aren't you?" Heero asked.

"In a way. I'm watching and waiting."

"For what? That gate to open? Oh yeah, I forgot, I'm supposed to be the key to humanity's ascension into the Beyond," he spat sarcastically.

"When you leave them all behind, you will open a pathway to greatness."

"What do you mean, 'leave them all behind'?" Heero asked suspiciously.

"The One must sacrifice himself so that the gate may be opened," the Seeker told him.

"But what about Relena? I can't just leave her behind. I think I...I love her." Heero said.

"That girl unlocked emotions that had once been lost," the Seeker sneered. "She was the first person to teach you about love and hope, and knowing nothing of emotion, you learned from observation. But do you really love her, or are you just trying to mirror her love for you?"

"I don't know..." Heero started to wonder, but then grew cold. "You're playing games with me. I've been toyed with too much not to realize you're toying with me now."

"You're a smart man, Heero, and I'll not insult your intelligence any further by trying to make this easier for you. The One who goes into the Beyond must leave everyone and everything behind. He must be willing to give up his position on earth and must not regret leaving. The One has always known he was meant for a greater purpose, searching for something more to life. I am convinced you are the One, Heero. I'm just trying to make you see it for yourself."

Heero thought about this for a long time.

"You know, you almost had me convinced that I was the One," Heero told the Seeker after much contemplation. "But now...now I see that I am not. I've never been searching for something beyond this life. I've always been trying to find my place in it. I realized that when I met Relena." He paused for a moment of reflection. "I just want to be a human being. Just like a human, I still have much to learn."

"If that is how you feel, so be it. If you are the One, we will find out soon enough. And if you aren't...we have already gone too far to turn back now. Only Death's cold hands can touch you if you do not pass into the Beyond," the Seeker told him.

Heero stood silent, then spoke slowly, realizing what was happening. "All of this time that you were testing me, I was dying, wasn't I? You were killing me. I'm still dying. But now I understand. It's the death of the One that will open the gate to the Beyond, am I right? The final test is my death."

"Your view of death is highly misjudged," was all the Seeker replied.

"I am right. And now you're saying that I will die, even if I'm not the One?" Heero tried to confirm.

The Seeker gave him a slight, solemn nod.

In a low, controlled tone, Heero whispered, "Take me back."

"I do not think that would be wise, the transformation could take place any--"

"Take me BACK," Heero growled. "If I should die, it's not going to be in this dream world. I want to see Earth. I want to see Earth one last time."

"As you wish," whispered the Seeker as the dream began to fade.

Heero awoke to find himself in his room at the Peacecraft Palace. He felt weak and tired, yet somehow calm. Outside, it was still dark, yet morning's sunlit blush began to creep out from behind the hills. A soft rain looked as though it was slowly fading as the pitter-patters against the window began to gently grow still. Relena was asleep in the chair next to his bed; her arm was stretched upon the bed, her hand resting lightly next to his. Heero watched her sadly. The entire room was silent, except for her even breaths. Inand out. Inand out. Heero listened in wonder. He carefully took her hand and pressed it to his face, kissing her fingertips lightly. The innocence in her every breath left him spellbound. Heero spoke in a murmur to Relena's sleeping form. "You're the only one I ever loved. You were the only one who dared to show such a creature of darkness how to love. I thank you from the bottom of my soul, or whatever is left of it." Little stabs of pain were now clutching Heero's heart as he noticed his breaths growing shorter. "Goodbye...Relena."

Heero quietly slipped out of bed and snuck out the Palace, dragging his aching body blindly into a forest.

After hours of wandering Heero fell to his knees, not fully knowing where he was, or where he had been. As he sank low to the ground, a rust-colored, dewy leaf fell from somewhere above him and landed on his cheek. It left a tear-like trail as it slipped off his delicate face and descended to its final resting-place in the cemetery of dead leaves and branches covering the forest floor.

Heero was in a wooded grove. High, arching trees formed a hidden cove all around him. Sunlight tumbled in through the gaps of the treetops and gently filled the ground with a dimpled glow. It was late autumn now, and the leaves were burning bright in reds and golds. Heero lay down on his stomach in the lush grass of the grove and took in the scent of the rich brown earth.

He had left her. He had left Relena....again. And Heero felt an eerie chill growing inside of him. It was the haunting feeling of a heavy heart that knows it's slowly dying.

Heero didn't want Relena to hurt anymore; he didn't want her to see him like this- dying like this. He did not want her to feel the pain of the growing coldness that had been engulfing his entire body. But here, close to the soil, breathing in the grassy dampness of the rugged clay and dirt and rock, Heero welcomed a warmth that had managed to overcome the shadowy cold locked inside of him. He closed his eyes and let the Earth hold him like a little lost child. But that's what he was, wasn't he? A child always searching for love and comfort, yet wearing the solid mask of a warrior. A warrior knowing of nothing but missions and what he must do to complete them. Yes, he was still a child, hidden inside the Perfect Soldier, for he had never experienced those bright years of youthof ice cream and kickball and laughter. No, he never knew of those. He never even had a mother, a real mother to hold him and love him. So in that moment of light and dark, as he held the Earth and the Earth held him, Heero realized something. The Earth was his mother now. He had finally found her. And now that he had found her, he could die here by her side and fall into the great plan of things like every other creature.

In one empty moment, Heero felt his tense body curl when no breath cameand then release. No gate was opened, yet a transformation did occur.

Mother Earth looked down upon her child and wept for the pale face that she cradled in her warm embrace. She healed Heero's wounds with her undying love. She nourished his soul with the spirit of the forest. She gave him her strength in the power of the wind, which stripped the flaming leaves from their ancient branches and sent them spiraling in intricate circles downward to the ground. The Earth gave the boy new life with her sacred, silent blessing. From her gifts and precious prayers, Heero was reborn, and he stayed there in her arms as the dying leaves fell from the trees and gave their lives to him.

A quiet figure watched the suffering boy slowly die in the dappled forest. And without surprise, the figure watched as Heero was miraculously healed. The Seeker knew then that Heero was not the One it was looking for. It was clear that the strangely beautiful boy was something else entirely. An angel, perhaps? NoHeero was now a human being, entirely mortal, made of living flesh and blood. Although his spirit was still uniquely strong and his purity unscathed, the divine strain of immortality that had run throughout his very essence was now gone. Somehow, Heero had been granted a new life of his own, as the oppressive genes that had predestined the boy to be a killing machine were completely erased from his being.

Part Six

The sun had finally peeked its golden head over the horizon as Relena sat stupefied in a blurry confusion. "How could you have let him disappear?" she scolded herself, looking at the empty bed next to her. Pulling on a cloak she flew out of the mansion. Heero couldn't have gone that far on foot and in his sickly condition in the hour she had been asleep, could he?

Walking to the edge of her grounds, Relena headed towards the nearby woods, which would have been the best place to hide if someone wanted to run away and disappear. She saw footprints lightly embedded in a woodland path, which was slightly muddy from the morning's gentle rain. The cool, damp forest seemed to call to the girl and urge her to continue her quest to find Heero.

She found him some time later in a secluded grove, lying on the ground, in front of the base of an ancient oak. Fallen leaves surrounded him, and Relena rushed over to Heero, thinking he was dead.

Relief washed over her as she heard his soft, yet strong breaths. In...and out. In...and out. Relena couldn't believe she had never listened to him breathe before. He was so pure, so gentle in his unassuming beauty. As much as she wanted to sit there and listen to him breathe forever, Relena found herself whispering for him to wake up. She needed to be sure that he was okay.

"Heero? Heero?" the princess called to him.

"Hmmm?" Heero let out a soft groan, and opened his eyes to a completely different world.

"You came for me?" he asked her tenderly, as he sat up to face her.

Relena only nodded.

Heero looked at his surrounds, vaguely remembering what had happened. He knew that he was supposed to be dead, but this did not look like any Hell to him.

"Am I in Heaven?" he asked the princess, with such an innocent sincerity that at first she thought he was joking. She giggled, but then realized her soldier was being quite serious.

"No..." she answered cautiously, "not that I know of. You're still here on earth."

"Still on earth?" he thought in amazed. Something had happened. He had been spared.

"I'm just glad you're all right," Relena interrupted his thoughts. "You had me so worried. How do you manage to always run off like that? Luckily for me you were sick, or I don't think I could have ever caught up with you. By the way, you look better, much better in fact. How do you feel?"

"Feel?" Heero repeated.

He looked to his heart for the answer and found that he could finally see what had been hidden in darkness. A feeling washed over him, and for the first time, there was nothing holding him back from expressing himself.

"Right now, I just have this urge to..." He looked at her, eyes twinkling.

"To what?" Relena asked.

"To do this!" Heero said as he pounced on her, causing them both to fall back in a pillow of leaves. His lips claimed hers playfully as he gently pinned her to the ground.

After a few moments, they broke the kiss in the sea of leaves to come up for air.

"Heero...Yuy," Relena said between breaths. "Where did that come from?"

"Don't you see?" he said with more expression in his eyes and voice than Relena had ever noticed before.

"I'm truly alive. I'm free. I'm not some scientific plaything anymore. I'm just a man."

Relena looked at him. He was talking nonsense. Maybe he was still sick. "Are you sure you're feeling okay, Heero?" she asked him suspiciously.

"I'm feeling--I'm feeling...wonderful. I'm feeling! Is this how it's supposed to be? I never knew happiness could feel this good. I can feel so many things now. And, I can finally love." He looked at her through caring eyes, a true smile appearing on his lips. "I know now what love is, Relena, I finally understand. You taught me about love, you gave me your love, and I tried and tried, but I never had anything to give back to you. That's because I was empty. I couldn't give you anything, because I didn't have anything to give. But now...now I do."

Relena was completely confused as Heero was now hugging her. What in the world had happened to the Perfect Soldier she thought she knew?

"Oh God..." he whispered sadly as he held the princess in his arms.

"What?" Relena asked him in a worried voice as she pulled out of the hug to face him.

"I was just thinking...about my past...I've killed so many people," Heero said in a small, astonished tone, as if he had realized it for the very first time.

"But you saved the lives of so many more," Relena told him gently. She bit her lip as Heero stared into the ground in a trance. What else was there to say to him?

"These new emotions, feelings....they effect my soul ten hundred times more than what I am used to experiencing," Heero quietly explained to her, breaking the silence. "Even though my feelings were repressed, I've always known they were in me somewhere. I could still feel some things, although never without restraint. I never thought of my enemies as people, they were just obstacles to overcome. Everything was a mission..." he looked away from Relena in shame, "....including you."

He continued, "Believe me, you were always special. Mid-way through the One Year War, I was convinced you were someone worth protecting, so I viewed you as a mission. At first, your safety was my mission, and I protected you with my life. But then, you cared for me and tried to teach me of love and peace and everything that had purposely been left out of my being. You were the one who caused what little emotion I still possessed to surface. Lord, how you confused me, tortured me, even. You brought out feelings that had lurked in the depths of my soul, programmed never to see the light of day. You became my world, and I wasn't so lonely anymore. It was then that I viewed your happiness as my mission. But one day, gathering what I knew from some distant instinct too pure to ever be repressed, I discovered that I loved you, although I knew I could never feel true love, or express the deep feelings I had for you, buried somewhere in the lost shadows of my heart."

Heero looked up at her. His eyes were glazed, full of quivering, clear tears that had yet to run down his face.

"Everything's different now. I can finally feel with the intensity that a human being was meant to possess. And even with all of the joy that comes from being with you right now, I can still feel the guilt of my blood-stained past, to which I am no longer immune."

Tears were now falling silently from Heero's electric eyes, yet his face was calm and he did not make a sound. Relena moved to wipe the tears away, but he caught her hand with his.

"No. Let them fall," he told her, barely above a whisper, "they've been waiting for so long."

The two sat kneeling in front of each other for a long, long time, the deep blue of Heero's eyes blazing into Relena's memory forever.

"Heero...." Relena whispered, breaking the silence, "what happened to cause such a change in you?"

"A dream," he replied softly, "only a dream."

Epilogue

When Heero arrived back at the palace later that day, he searched everywhere for the gemstone from Europa, wondering what had happened to the Seeker, but the talisman was gone. From that day on, the Higher Being no longer haunted Heero's dreams.

Everyone didn't notice Heero's transformation right away, but slowly his voice lost its monotony, though it still held its deep, musty appeal. Although his experience as a soldier had not been erased from his memory, and the strength of his body seemed as though he were still superhuman, Heero now seemed a little less invincible. He began to laugh and hug and joke more openly. He felt more comfortable in social settings. None of the others quite knew what had happened to Heero, but branded the cause of his changed emotions a result of Relena's endless efforts to break through his defenses.

"Relena somehow always gets what she wants," Duo would often joke to the new couple, and cause them both to blush. "But then again, so does Heero."

Heero and Relena had decided to have another go at a relationship, and so far things were working out beautifully. Their friends would often let out an exasperated sigh and shout "Finally!" whenever they saw the happy pair together.

Relena was always interested in what had happened to Heero during his illness, and she would often ask him to tell her his stories, about the creature from the far-off place, and how Heero had learned about his past. Although Heero explained to Relena what had happened between himself and the Seeker many times, he always told her that the whole experience had been one long, terrible dream, and that it took such a dream to finally bring out his emotions. He, however, knew better than that. The young man was positive that the events that had occurred as a result of the talisman were all very real. But somehow, Heero thought that the information he had learned from the Seeker must be kept secret, and he kept it as such. So, to Relena, the Beyond was just some fantastic place that only existed in dreams.

A voice echoed in silence throughout the vastness of the universe, a mute whisper whisking past stars and planets. "So he was not the One?"

A similar call carried its message mournfully, mixing with moon dust, "No."

"You wanted him to be the One."

"Yes."

"It was not time, your hopes were too high. They are not ready yet."

"But soo...nsoon, they will be ready. The One will come and join our kinds together, two as one, into the Beyond."

"Patience, patience, all in good time..." a stoic wisdom filled the expanse of outer space.

"I will be watching, I'm always watching. I'll seek out the One, I'll find them."

"Of course, of course, you are the Seeker."

"I'll wait for the final transformation, I'll wait for the Onea...lways remember, I'm still searching..."

The Seeker looked down upon the earth, which remained unchanged, all of humanity still wandering unaware. And the universe grew hushed, the unspoken voices fell away, yet the constant cycle of energy kept flowing, flowing

A.N. Wow! Another one finished. This story was really different for me. I left it very vague in some parts so you, as the readers, could experience your own introspection. I hope I didn't confuse anyone too much, I just wanted to make ya think. Basically, this story was written to answer why Heero was so cold and unfeeling. I took it to the extreme by saying he literally couldn't feel like the rest of us because of genetic engineering. The fantasy/sci-fi stuff was just really fun to do. I hope you enjoyed it. I've gotta take a break right now to go to a soccer tourney and work on a Catherine x Quatre fic, so I don't think you'll be seeing any HY x RP fics from me anytime soon. But, I'd still love to hear what you all thought of this fic. Pretty please!!!!!

BIG THANK YOU's to everyone who has been kind enough to review this fic, especially my good friend, Lady Perina (Queen of the Peas)! YAY!!!! Luv ya!

Bye! ^_~