Disclaimer: You know, I think these things exist only to torture and annoy us. I do not bloody well own Gundam Wing or any of its characters, because if I did I would not be writing fanfiction and, hello? I would be freaking rich.

Seven Days

Maybe, I thought randomly, I should learn to keep my damn mouth shut.

It was annoying, too, how often I got captured. I wondered how many times Heero had gotten caught and scowled. That one time when I'd gotten him loose and then that other time at the Lunar base. Had there been any others? Pfft. Probably not. I, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to make it a habit. How... irritating.

Of course, having to move around and battle in a Gundam wasn't how I was initially trained. I was probably more suited to assassinations or thefts or something. I wondered how Heero had grown up, how Heero had been trained.

And then I told himself I needed to stop being such a pathetic romantic-wannabe and consider more carefully my situation.

I'd been holed up in this place for about a week. That day had been about as interesting as any of my other captures I'd endured; what was it about my little blow-up box that made it decide to go on the fritz constantly? I almost felt like testing the thing out before heading off, but... yeah. That would be stupid.

So after a full thrashing upon the wimps that had decided to keep a base out in an abandoned colony, I had found himself surrounded on all ends by a nice big freaking shitload of enemies. And after valiantly – oh yeah, I'd fought valiantly all right; I must've taken out almost half the fleet – I'd fallen, rather predictably, to sheer numbers. And then I'd been dragged in after having once again failed to properly blow myself up.

Fucking self-destruct mechanism.

So I'd been pulled out of my Gundam – I was proud of the fact that I'd at least not gone down without a fight; I must've killed at least a couple more people before finally falling to their numbers, as well, and I was led down to an interrogation room after being searched for weapons – of which I'd had plenty – and handcuffed to a chair. Not an altogether new experience, but an annoying one.

“Fuck,” I grumbled, and leaned my head back. The man had asked me so many goddamn clichéd questions, I just hadn't been able to contain himself. I'd said something stupid, something I couldn't completely recall, something about the military and its propensity for stupidity and my personal musings on how that could have possibly happened, and as a result I was given an interesting piece of torture. One that had almost made me laugh out loud.

Starvation.

It had almost made my side split to hold in my laughter. Of all the tortures in the universe to try, they had to give me one I'd lived with for years and years. It was so funny it was fucking pathetic.

So for the past week I'd been given nothing but old water and a cot and a pretty little hole in my tiny little cell and left to – God, it was hilarious – starve.

The only bad thing about it was that I was so damn bored.

I'd recognized every single stage in my little progression of torture; first came the feeling of hunger, a feeling so damn normal for me I'd hardly paid it the slightest attention. The guards outside my room had tried to goad me on by eating stuff just outside the door, but really? Try growing up in the streets near markets and delis and bakeries and see if you fall for that sort of shit.

Then there was the second stage, the one wear your body starts to shake? The pain of hunger is a constant rage in your gut, and your fingers start shaking. Also normal, this stage comes in around the second or third day without food. The idiots were still trying to food gag with me at that point.

Then comes the third stage around the fourth day or so, when the feeling of hunger wanes. The food thing was getting old by then, thank God; it was annoying, listening to their constant moaning. I'd been about ready to kick the cell door and tell them to shut the hell up by the fifth day, which had entered in the fourth stage.

The fourth stage was one you had to be wary of; it set up the next stages, which got progressively worse. In the fourth stage, the body starts feeling a little sluggish; almost a bit weak. This stage would continue on for a few days before hitting the fifth stage. By then, if you hadn't had any food, you were to the point where you had to do something drastic to fix the problem.

In the fifth stage, the body is not only weak and slow, but it's also uncoordinated and, eventually, after a couple more days, it will collapse. Not to say it'll die; oh ho, not so easily. But the muscles by then will have been sucked quite dry in place of the fat reserves one might have been surviving on before; one wouldn't be able to run well, if at all. The body's immune system would start dying off, which would cause one to get sick. Usually the illnesses will kill someone before the 'can-live-for-a-month-without-food' thing reaches its limit.

For now, I was still safely in the fourth stage.

I was kind of pissed about it, really; the soldiers were at that point in the war where they'd actually learned something, where they were smart enough to search my braid for shit, and they'd found my little stash of lockpicks. If I had even the smallest sharp thing, I'd be out of this damn room and hopefully down to the hangar before the losers realized I'd killed their stupid moaning guards.

Of course, with the injuries to Deathscythe, exactly how far would I get before they just hauled my ass in again?

I sighed. When I'd entered the war, I'd thought I'd escaped the death-by-starvation trick. It was irritatingly ironic to be proven wrong.

“Ah, well. At least I won't be talking any time soon.” They'd picked the dumbest fucking torture ever. They should read up on their Gundam pilots a bit more.

I entertained myself by bouncing on the bed a bit. I'd already done my daily exercises; it was a good idea to strengthen one's muscles every day, even if they would be gone soon; the stronger they were, the longer they would last. But exhausting them would be the same as letting them go completely unchecked, so I carefully only did a fair amount of aerobic exercise. That left me with hours with absolutely nothing to do. At least at the Lunar base I'd been able to tease the fuck out of Wufei and Heero.

Ah. That was something I'd done to relieve my boredom over the past few days – I'd thought about Heero.

I flopped back on the cot and huffed out a breath. Heero. Yeah. There was a healthy trip for my mind to take – to the ice-cold prince of Miss World Nation's little universe. Ugh.

And there my mind went, winding its way over to Relena. That girl was so freaking annoying. Like a fly in the room, one that never fucking left, even when you opened the window and tried to scare the fucker out. Nope. It would just buzz-buzz-buzz all over the room. And smack itself into the wall. And the light. And the ceiling. And you would just sit in that room with your nerves fraying fraying fraying, waiting for the stupid little thing to die.

Ah. But it was bad to want the Princess of Peace dead. Maybe maimed?

Or maybe just matured. Or something.

“Gundam bitch!” one of the guards called, banging on the door like I couldn't fucking hear him. “You ready to talk?”

“Nope!” I called cheerily, and stretched my hands over my head.

“Suit yourself,” the man said, the same as he said every damn day, and stomped away.

What time was it?

It was such a random thought I played with it for a few moments; down in the dungeon, the lights in the hallways were always on, peeking in from under the door. But there was no place for me to look out, and my room just had this one fluorescent light that was on the fritz. I stared at it. Was it daytime? Dawn? If the guard didn't come in every once in a while and ask whether I wanted to spill my deep, dark secrets, I wouldn't even know of the days that passed.

Ah, kind of depressing, actually. But it wasn't like that wasn't the norm in these sorts of places. I remembered when I'd been thrown into the cell with Heero and Wufei; the two had eventually broken down and asked me what day I'd been captured. It was always a bit disorienting, after all – not knowing.

Well, it didn't really matter what time it was – a new day had been signaled. I was cutting it towards the wire – soon I would get into the bad stage, the stage that proceeded the beginning of the end.

“Laaaaaame,” I whined, and turned onto my side. “I thought being suffocated was lame – I wanna die that way now... a skin-and-bones corpse is just so... so P.O.W! Argh, I wanted there to be flames involved in my death – something quick and flashy. Nothing this laaaame...”

<*>

Eleven Days

I could freaking feel my body leeching off itself.

Four more visits, and the man seemed a bit disgruntled by my persistence not to talk. He always hesitated outside the door before finally heading off down the hallway.

At least, I thought, there were no lice – or anything else – on the cot.

“Bored, bored, bored,” I mumbled, turning on the bed again. There really was nothing to do but sit and wait... wait... wait... for death. And think, but what was the fun in that? I'd already followed every tangent of thought I thought it was possible for me to make. And every single one ran to that freaking guy.

The invincible freak who could self-destruct and pop out a couple months later perfectly fine. The graceful moron who could leap off a fucking cliff and just come sailing through. The guy with eyes darker than the sky and deeper than the ocean and more mysterious than... agh, steal a quote from some old-ass song... than the dark side of the moon.

Shit.

Well, no point in tumbling over those ridiculous thoughts. Gonna be dead in no more than two more weeks. Nothing for it now.

I snorted. Nothing for it even if I was perfectly fine and healthy.

Not because of Relena. Pretty Pink Princess wasn't the one for Heero, no matter if they both thought she was. And they obviously did – it could make you sick watching them moon over each other – Relena, Relena, and then there was the patented, Heero, my precious prince, come save me from my own reckless naïvete once again!!! Well, that wasn't quite what she said, I was sure, but I'd bet I was only off by a couple of words. Tops.

Agh. Heero was a warrior, which was something that couldn't seem to wrap itself around Miss Frail's delicate little membrane. He killed people. She was an uber-pacifist, someone who probably thought cursing was unforgivable. And Relena was also uber-innocent, something that, maybe, attracted Heero to her in the first place. But the two could never mesh. Even I knew it, and I was hardly a psychiatrist.

But they had to be the ones to figure that out. Which might never happen.

If two completely incompatible people never learned they were incompatible and managed to live compatibly, did that mean that they really were, in fact, compatible?

I laid back and chewed on that one until I got a headache.

<*>

Fourteen Days

“Nope!” My usual call was a bit more tired than usual, and the man's hesitation had turned to outright waiting. Probably because two weeks had passed. Or at least I guessed it had been two weeks – the man had visited fourteen times, in any case.

It was almost nice. Not because I enjoyed having to tell the man to bugger off. Not because I got a short burst of pleasure at telling the man off – although there was that, too. Nope; it was simply because I was thrilled with the break in the monotony. It was really annoying, thinking about the one you'd admired for forever and realizing that the reason you didn't want him to be with someone else was because you wanted to be with him.

Yep. I'd managed to figure that part out. And all by myself. I should get a cookie for it. Or maybe a feast.

Ah, but I was on a diet. A strict no-food-ever diet.

Well it worked, dammit. Results were results, ne? Like anorexics.

Though they probably ate something. I was going a bit more strictly than them. But hey – I had help.

Well, whatever. That particular thread of thought had reached its dead end. So where did that put me? Why yes, that's right. Right back to him. It was really obnoxious, knowing now that I loved Heero Yuy.

What? Wanna know how I'd made the leap? Well, it went something like this:

I imagined the 'compatible' thing as far as I could, including the idea of Heero and Relena kissing. After a very short bout of laughter in which they squished their noses together, I imagined it working perfectly and felt a surge of utter rage.

Which of course got examined, since I had plenty of time. And I had realized that it wasn't just the kissing. Holding hands, talking with their foreheads touching... it all pissed me off. And when I dug a little deeper, I found that Relena getting kissed by random, made-up people didn't bother me... but switch her with Heero and it was a whole different story.

And then when I tentatively put myself in place of the random, made-up people... I felt very happy and wistful.

And that would be how I figured out I was in love with Heero Yuy. The end.

Well, at least it explained my obsession with those deep, dark blue eyes. Likening them to so many things poetically had been kind of scary. Like I'd been losing my masculinity or something. And if I lost my masculinity, that would mean Deathscythe would ditch me for a new, more manly pilot. Someone like Sally Po or something.

Ack. Maybe loving a man was too girly? Father Maxwell sure wouldn't approve.

I blinked up at the flickering fluorescent light for a couple minutes. Uh, and why had my mind slipped over to Father Maxwell? Since when did I care about that? I hadn't thought about the words of the Bible for years and years. And even back when I had, it was simply because I thought it was all a bunch of utter bullshit.

I got off the bed and randomly jumped up to touch the light up above me. At least I still had the strength to do that. It was getting harder and harder to do my little exercises. Soon I wouldn't be able to do them, and then eventually I wouldn't be able to stand at all. I would die like so many of my little rat friends had, unable to save themselves from their own hunger. The weaknesses of mortality.

You know, I would have rather died ignorant of my fallen emotions. If I had to deal with thinking of Heero in this new, much more awkward light, I really wished I could go back to being just the friend with a... well, with a sort of hero complex. Thinking the man freaking immortal, unstoppable, and wishing I could be like that.

Then again, if I had to find out before I died, it was probably best to figure it out now, when I wouldn't actually have to look at him again. If I had to listen to that Relena crap now that I knew my feelings so plainly, it would probably drive me crazy.

How long, I wondered, until I died? But that was a depressing thought, and the only one I didn't let myself linger on. I went back to Father Maxwell and what his opinion of me would be now, starting with my penchant for cursing and ending, hours later, with those men I killed before being thrown into this dinky little cell.

In the end, I was depressed, anyway.

<*>

Sixteen Days

“Hey, kid!”

It was an interesting switch from 'Gundam bitch,' but I wasn't in the mood to tease the fuck for it. “Nope,” I said, too loud to be a mutter but carrying the same almost-sulking edge.

“Fine, then. I'll leave.”

I shot up on the cot, my eyes wide. I would recognize that voice anywhere, especially since I'd been thinking about its owner so much the past couple weeks as to be a bit stalker-ish. “Hee... Oh-one?” I called, my voice filled with disbelief. This man had already bothered to save me once; what the hell was he doing saving me again? Was he as bored as I'd been the past few days? Did he just simply not have anything better to do?

“Unlock the door,” Heero ordered, and I got onto my own two feet despite the weakness of my limbs. I felt like some dog found on an Animal Cops show; all spiny with ribs poking out of the skin. My light had officially popped sometime yesterday (assuming, still, the days), so I was spared looking at my scrawny-ass self.

I closed my eyes as soon as I heard the lock click. When the door swung open and light poured in, making me scrunch my eyes even though they were closed, I was ready to adjust my vision slowly but surely. It did, however, make me miss the look on Mr. Perfect Yuy's face when he said, quite calmly, “fuck.”

Well, Relena's not gonna like that, young man.

A thunk, followed by a thump, let me know that Heero had knocked out our helpful third party, and I squinted my eyes open. It wasn't fair to see him in this new light with him outlined like a fucking god or something. Or maybe a devil? The light behind him threw his face into shadows and darkness, and with that hair of his wild as it was, he looked like some sort of demon.

“Can you move?” he asked me, dead serious.

“Of course. It's only the beginning of the fifth stage.”

He actually seemed confused for a second, but he just nodded and turned. “Then let's go.”

I'll spare the details, since they were uninteresting; Heero'd already planned an intricate little escape that led us down an older hall that had already been cleared – or at least I didn't see any bodies or anything – and slipped us out into the hangar, where Heero got into Wing – how had the man gotten through this place? – and proceeded to shoot the fuck out of anything that moved while I got my precious Deathscythe onto a transport.

I learned belatedly that smart-ass Heero had pretended to get caught so that he could get inside. I didn't ask where he'd hidden his gun. The thought had always disturbed me, just a little bit. I mean, the man had the safety on when he stored it... wherever... right?

Then we were on our way and my little prison was toast, huzzah huzzah, and I pulled out my rations from my handy dandy emergency kit and stared at them.

“Duo.”

Heero's voice, over the Gundam's communication link, brought me from my inner musings. The stupid fucks who had taken me prisoner no longer had a colony to work as their base – how many had they had up around here, dammit?

“Yeah?” I responded, realizing my response was a bit late.

“Is your emergency kit still there?”

Ah, great minds. “Yup.”

“Good. Then your rations...?”

“Uh-huh.” Because I'd gotten the chance to check myself over just before I booted up Deathscythe, and on his empty screens I saw exactly what I'd thought I'd been – a dog with his ribs showing.

Nothing too godly horrific; I'd seen kids with nothing more than their bones. I still had a tiny bit of muscle tone, enough to give my arms a wider radius than a fifty-cent piece, but that was about it for the positive commentary. My cheeks were unnaturally sunken in and my eyes looked like an owls, or more like that monkey's, that tiny one with huge, huge eyes that looked like they were about to pop right on out. My fingers looked like worms, and my ribs, when I'd finally pulled up my shirt and looked at them, were definitely countable. It was bad.

“Good,” Heero repeated.

“Can't eat 'em yet, though,” I quipped, and got a staticky kind of silence. Like something sticky was in the air.

“Why.” The word should have made it a question, but Heero's snappish tone made it more of a demanding statement. Kind of like he was saying prove it.

“Uh, because I'd throw up?” I told him. “And that would probably fuck with my console. Hey, where are we headed?”

“My hideout is a few colonies away. About two hours. You need to eat.”

“I thought so, too. For now, though, I'll stick to water.” And so I did, twisting off a lid as I spoke and taking a couple careful sips. “Slow and steady wins the race, ne, Heero?”

“Only if the rabbit's a lazy bastard.”

I blinked. Had that been a joke? From Heero Yuy? Maybe I'd fallen into the sixth stage without noticing. Maybe I'd become delusional.

“Status.”

“Uh, hungry?” I answered, shrugging even though I knew he couldn't see the gesture. There were some things you could hear, even when they were silent.

For instance, I could not only hear Heero's irritated sigh, but also the sound exasperation makes as it travels through the air. He was probably scowling. Maybe glaring.

See? It's kind of like talking on the phone and knowing your friend is rolling their eyes at you.

“Just stay awake until we get there.”

I had a couple smarmy little retorts to that, but I just swallowed them back and sighed. “Aye aye, mon capitan,” I muttered, and took another very small, very careful sip of water, letting the touch of it ease my throat.

<*>

“Ooooowww,” I moaned, clinging to the toilet like one would some porcelain god idol, worshiping its greatness and begging for its mercy.

“Why are you throwing up?” Heero demanded, hands on hips. If I hadn't been in such agony, I probably would've laughed at the sight. Come on, really? Showing off your physical prowess to a guy wallowing in despair on the edge of the john sounds kind of stupid, doesn't it?

“Not used to food,” I moaned. “I'll be okay now... I think.”

Heero was silent then, and I just pushed my sorry ass up from the toilet and flushed and cleaned my face in the sink.

We'd arrived at some apartment complex in some colony. I wasn't paying attention by that time; my eyes had begun fuzzing. I was definitely hitting the sixth stage.

“Okay, let's try again.” Heero reluctantly handed me the ration bar he'd been guarding, and I took, instead of the huge bite I'd snatched earlier, a couple tentative nibbles. After a minute of queasiness, my stomach decided to accept the bar, and I took another careful bite. “Thanks again for the save, buddy.”

Heero said nothing, only watched me eat. Like he would shoot the ration bar if I started turning green again.

“Well, I'll be getting on the mend now,” I murmured.

“I take it you've dealt with this before.”

It wasn't a question, so why was I answering? “Yup. I grew up with this. Don't know if I ever went this long, however. Sixteen days, I'd guess.”

“That matches the information I'd gathered.”

He'd gathered information? But of course he did, I chided myself. Heero never did anything unprepared. Except, I argued mentally, for that time he'd come to rescue me; it had seemed to almost be a spur of the moment thing. Maybe he'd figured it wasn't lucky to test the Gracious Lady twice.

I took my time chewing, letting my entire digestive tract get used to the taste, the saliva response, which almost seemed to hurt to have activated, and then my body actually clenched in a different pain, and I knew it was perfectly safe. It was the overwhelming pain that always accompanied the return of taste; after the pain of rejection, the body burns for the food, demanding more. I had to put the lid down on the toilet and sit, but then I was free to just savor.

Heero was silent as I ate.

Once the bar was gone – which I had stretched for a good fifteen minutes – I stood. “Any more that I can eat?”

Because if I could, I planned to eat until I couldn't anymore, until I'd eaten so much I felt sick again.

Heero, who had been wordlessly standing with his arms crossed, watching me like a hawk as I took bite after bite, wordlessly led me out to the kitchen – a path that cut into the bedroom, then out into the living room, then swerved right, into the kitchen. He opened a cupboard and produced nothing more than bars of rations. I almost snorted; he and I thought alike at least in this way.

I snatched another one and once again began nibbling, this time taking a seat on a chair. “So what've you been up to?” I asked.

He didn't sit; I could sear the man had some sort of issue with relaxing even a little bit. At least he leaned against the countertop this time before crossing those arms over that chest. I stared for a minute at his tanktop and tried to proportion just how small a percentage was actually left to my imagination as he decided whether to answer my question or not.

“Mostly I've been damaging Romefeller as much as possible.”

Meaning to say, of course, that he, just like myself, hadn't been getting any missions. And he, just like myself, refused to sit on his ass and wait for the colonies to figure out that they were all a bunch of morons.

But he, just like myself, hadn't been able to get much done before he, like myself, is only one man.

Ah, it's kind of depressing to learn that the infallible Heero Yuy was similar to me. But also... kind of nice, too. Like I didn't have to idolize. Like I could get away with secretly loving him.

Note the word “secretly.”

“Ah, same here, although obviously you've been able to do it with a bit more aplomb.” I shifted a bit; my pants had become loose, and though I'd borrowed a belt from Heero, it was still annoying. I really had to gain back some weight.

Heero just stared down at me again as I munched happily away. “Hey, Heero, my man. Why don't we team up?”

His face shifted interestingly.

“Not like permanently or anything. But we can sure do a helluva lot more to those bastards with two of us.”

He grunted.

Taking that for acceptance, I grinned. “Awesome! But of course I'm gonna have to do some serious recuperating first... so I'll meet you at some other time?”

He was silent as I stood, but he bounced back rather quickly. “You can stay here.”

Well now it was my turn to stop dead and make an interesting little face. But when I turned to gape stupidly at Heero, I found that his eyes were boring holes into the wall above the sink. “Uh... what?”

“Stay here,” he muttered. “No one else knows about this place, and I've been careful not to leave any trail. No one should know you're here. You can stay.”

Well fuck. Heero was being nice? Again? I thought back to when he said I could enter his school and take his name and shit and freaking flipped. The man was being nice again. Was he drugged or something?

This was the same bastard who had taken apart my precious Deathscythe... wasn't it?

“Uh, okay,” I said quietly, and I sat back down a little less steadily than I cared to admit. I had to catch myself on the table.

Heero stormed up to me and gently – gently? – lifted my body, placing me back on the chair.

His hands were cold.

“Are you all right?” he asked, and only when I nodded did he release me.

Holy shit. Cold hands, but they were strong and callused and... agh! I was getting horny just after feeling Heero's hands on me! No! I was turning into a pervert!

“A-Ah, thanks. Yeah.” I had kept a tight hold on my bar, now half-gone, and I bit off another piece more to give me a reason not to talk than for anything else. “Hey,” I said suddenly, “I'd heard you'd gone to the Sanc Kingdom. Is it true?”

He frowned. “Yes.”

Well, tight-lipped, are we? I grinned evilly. “So did you see Her Highness?”

“Yes.”

Ah, this must be about having been unable to protect the princess. I let the grin fall. “Uh, you know she'll be all right, right? They aren't gonna hurt her.”

“I know.”

Well shit, wasn't he just a barrel of laughs? Oi. This guy... “Man, you need to lighten up. You'll never catch the girl like that.” I waggled the tiny piece of bar in my hands, almost as if it were a finger I was shaking at him. “Bad. Bad Heero.”

For a split second, I though he looked amused. “'Catch' her?”

“Uh, yeah. It's slang, man. Haven't you heard slang?”

“If I hadn't, I would never know what you were saying,” he drawled, and I was so shocked that he'd made a second joke in one day that I gaped at him. Ah, he was definitely amused now – there was that superior smirk. I felt a tick start on my left brow. “And I have no intention of 'catching' her.”

Well that was such news I think I might have dropped the bar to the floor if I hadn't stuck it in my mouth just then. “Wha?” I managed to get out around the obstacle. I just ripped off another piece and carefully put the last bite on the table. Didn't want it falling. No sir. It was very, very important that the food not fall to the ground. Yup.

“So, uh, what's up with all the, uh...” How did one go about saying 'mooning' without actually saying mooning? I waved a thin arm in circles. “Uh, you know, the whole Relena thing?” I tried to mimic the way he said her name, all faraway and dreamy, and felt the loss of the smirk before I actually saw it. Uh-oh. I was now receiving the infamous Death Glare. Of doom.

“It's none of your business.”

But I was nothing if not persistent and I nagged him about it before finally grabbing the last of the ration bar and popping it in my mouth. Damn, but after weeks of no food, this shit was heaven.

“Well?” I demanded again. “What's it about? What? What? Maybe you are in love with her, and you just don't know it?”

He snorted. “Don't be ridiculous.”

Ridiculous, was it? “Then what?” I asked, leaning forward in the seat.

“Idiot.”

I bristled. Hey, dammit, it was a legitimate question!

“Do you really think someone like her would be able to handle someone like me?”

I had swallowed, thank God, so I was able to let my jaw drop without fearing something nasty. Had he just freaking said the exact same thing I'd been grumbling about for forever? He'd actually fucking known?

“It's obvious,” he scoffed, eyes searing into me. Apparently he'd figured out why I was gaping like a carp. “I've been a killer since before I remember. She lives in an idyllic world – one that will bring peace, yes, but one of childish ideals nonetheless. I want to protect her,” he said fiercely. These were words I recognized, words I'd heard him say several times before. It was odd to hear them in such new context. “But all I'll ever be able to do is stand in the shadows.”

And he was depressed about that.

“We're bringing her ideals to life,” I told him, wanting to make the darkness in those eyes fade away. “We're making it possible for the dreams of children to be brought to life. There's nothing wrong with staying in the shadows. We know them best; we can see what's hiding in them. We belong there. But she doesn't. And the world doesn't. It's why we're fighting, Heero – so that the shadows are merely shadows, and the light is bigger than the dark.”

It was fascinating to watch those eyes become light again. Interesting because, dammit, Heero was not only listening to me, but taking my words to heart.

And then he smiled. It was a tiny, almost non-existent smile, but it was a smile and it left me flat-footed. I think I started staring strangely again.

“And that's why,” he murmured, “I could only want to catch someone like you.”

My jaw hit the floor.

“Eat up,” he said and turned around to the cabinet, grabbing a third bar. I could fucking hear the smirk in his voice. “You need to get some muscle tone back if you're going to keep up with me.”

And as my mind processed the obvious sexual innuendo, the bar hit me square in the forehead.

I didn't know if I wanted to smile or punch him when he started laughing at me.