Heero's POV

~~~~~~

A.C. 198

2:45 am
We've been talking for five minutes. I haven't heard a word she's said.

This happens to me everyday, has been happening for the last two years, since the last time I saw her, although today it has been especially bad. I don't know why.

I can't focus.

She notices this, too, after a while.

2:49 am
"Heero, what's wrong? You haven't been yourself at all today..." She laughs softly. "Not that you are usually so talkative. But I just feel like today you are especially closed down... As if you are a world away."

She doesn't know how right she is. Where I am, I'm fifteen years old again, getting ready for an assasination mission.

My target is Hilde Schbeiker.

I don't know yet that I am about to make the best and worst decision of my life.

2:51 am
I shift the cordless phone to my other ear and push myself up to a sitting position on the small bed in the far left corner of my studio apartment, next to the window. Outside, the skyline of the new Earth Sphere United Nation capital glitters against the clear blue-black sky. I gaze out at it, twirling my gun absently around my finger.

On the other end, she sighs. Almost impatiently. I clear my throat.

"It's late," I finally answer her. She sighs again.

"You're right," she replies. If she senses the obvious infallibility of my excuse, she doesn't show it. I know she does, though- She knows me almost as well as Hilde did.

"I shouldn't have called you so late," she continues. "We both have much to do tomorrow... Today. It's just that this meeting with the L-5 sector representative is very important. There are still problems over there, and I wanted to make sure you debriefed the rest of the protection squad on where they are supposed to be. So no one gets hurt..." She takes a deep breath.

"Not that I do not trust you, Heero," she says quickly. I can almost see her beautiful face coloring with embarassment, her hand rising to her hair to tuck an imaginary loose strand behind her ear. She does that when she is nervous. "I am sure you have already gone over the blueprints of the conference arena I had Lady Une fax you with them..."

I let her talk.

Relena.

Vice Foreign Minister Darlian. My boss.

I have to smile at that.

Where I am now, at age fifteen, I know I would have never thought that someday I would be working for Relena. She is dead to me at age fifteen, because I plan on killing her. But like Hilde, she lives now. Because I have feelings for her.

I gaze out at the skyline again. I can see the bridge that runs over the bay from here- The bridge that leads to the civilian sector of the capital, the one that is not occupied by government housing and Relena's private estate. The civilian sector where my co-worker Duo Maxwell lives with his girlfriend of three years.

Hilde Schbeiker.

I close my eyes and concentrate on Relena's voice, although I don't hear any of the words she is saying. My focus is gone.

Relena Darlian... The princess. /My/ princess.

We shared much in the past, even after I met Hilde. After I fell in love with an OZ soldier. I suppose somehow even then, where I am right now in my mind, I knew that Relena and I were destined to be together in some way, in a way that Hilde and I were not, even though I know she loves me as much as I love her.

The princess and the soldier... I suppose it was romantic, in a way. Definitely different than what I felt, what I /feel/, for Hilde. With Relena, I know I must protect her. I have to. She has always given off that feeling anyway, even before she became Vice Foreign Minister. She fell in love with me too quickly, or rather, she fell in love with the danger that came with loving a Gundam pilot. She had to be protected and I had to do it. And even though I still find it hard to admit, I /want/ to protect her. I feel for her.

But with Hilde, there wasn't any need or want to protect her. Not even after I decided not to go through with her assassination, even after I left her an open target to any of the other Gundam pilots, should Dr. J have decided to pass the mission along to any of them. I knew she could take care of herself, and she had let me know that from the moment I captured her. Right before I let myself lose control and drown in her impossibly blue eyes, her soft, inviting body...

With Hilde, I don't feel. I love.

I was sixteen the last time I saw her. Sixteen and scared of feeling something I had never thought myself capable of feeling, not even with Relena. Even now, though I have slept with Relena many times and have been close to feeling more for her than what a soldier should feel for his princess, that urge to protect, I never feel that same love I feel for Hilde. It scares me still, like it did then. So I ran away.

I'm still running.

3:01 am
Relena is still talking about tomorrow's continuing peace conference with the L-5 representative. I'm still not listening, still walking through the past in my mind.

I let her talk.

Someone knocks at my door.

3:03 am
Relena asks me another question. I don't hear her. The knocking continues, harder. I push my gun into the back waistband of my Preventer uniform pants. I still haven't changed out of my clothes.

"Heero?" Relena asks more insistently. "Are you still there?"

"Wait a minute. I have to get my door."

"Who could be coming to see you at this hour? I hope it isn't anyone dangerous... Heero, talk to me..."

I've been expecting this. I probably should have been expecting it sooner. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner.

3:04 am

I open my door.

She's standing there, leaning against the frame. Her skin and hair are damp, glowing, as if she has just finished a shower. Or having sex. Her impossibly blue eyes meet mine as she tilts her head back slightly to look up at me; I've grown and she's still so short. A small smile curves her deep red lips.

"Hey."

3:06 am
I finally let her in after gazing at her for a long moment. I am silent as she steps over the threshold and into my circle of emptiness, lonliness. Even Relena has never been inside my apartment. Again, I am not surprised that she is the first to invade my privacy, that she is the first I allow.

Hilde Schbeiker.

I continue to gaze at her as she goes over to the couch in the corner diagonally opposite to my rumpled bed and stands before it uncomfortably, as if debating whether or not to sit down. She is the same to me, yet different.

I can see Duo Maxwell in her, on her. She is still his, after all.

But she is also still gorgeous. Relena is beautiful, but Hilde is gorgeous. Time hasn't changed that at all about her, I notice as I let my eyes travel up and down her, slowly. I want to remember the way she looks in this moment forever, as I have with every other moment we have shared in the past.

She stands awkwardly by the couch, but tries to convey the sense that she is confident, that she knows what she's doing: Shoulders thrust back proudly, the tilt of her chin almost defiant. Her hands are shoved into the tiny pockets of her jeans, though, and I can see the nervousness in her eyes, in the way she catches her bottom lip between her teeth from time to time, waiting for me to invite her to sit down.

My eyes move down over her face, still beautiful and pale, flawless like ivory, her perfect features accentuated with dark makeup, down her body. She is still small and slender, but I notice that her curves have filled out nicely; her clothes conform to her shape perfectly now. She is wearing a pair of dark, faded blue jeans, the waistband cut off and frayed, riding extremely low on her hips, the buttons securing them running all the way down to her crotch. I can tell from the smoothness of the jeans against her body and the impossibly exposed skin of her lower midriff that she's naked underneath. The tight, short black tank top clinging to her nicely developed upper body shows the same thing; I move quickly over the exposed inner curves of her breasts, peeking precariously over the deep V-neck of her tank top. My eyes return to her face.

Hilde gazes back at me, her own eyes travelling over my body, taking in the Preventer uniform, my wild, messy hair, and the obvious tenseness of my muscles under my white T-shirt. My pants are extremely tight.

Relena is still on the phone.

3:18 am
"Heero? Heero, answer me!" Her voice is desperate, growing louder with apprehension. Hilde breaks her gaze to stare down at the phone in my hand, her brows furrowing in concern. I know she recognizes Relena's voice.

"You're busy-"

I cut her off with a dismissing wave of my hand and shake my head. "Sit down," I finally tell her. She gives me another concerned look before obeying, taking a seat delicately on the edge of the couch.

"Heero!"

I bring the phone back up to my ear.

"Gomen nasai, I had to get the door." Baka.

"God, I was so worried!" She curses to herself and I allow myself to smile a little. Cursing has never fitted her very well. She laughs then, nervously.

"I know it's stupid of me to have been worried," she says. "But I know it is so late, and with the L-5 representative in the capital, who knows who could have followed him here and found out where you or any of us are!" She sighs. "I suppose I am just nervous about tomorrow."

Hilde watches me under lowered lids, her blue gaze partially hidden beneath her long eyelashes. She twirls a long strand of blue-black hair that has fallen loose from her twist around one finger, waiting. So she had let it grow back. It had been so short when I last saw her; now it is almost the length it had been when I first met her.

"You'll be fine tomorrow," I finally reply. Hilde raises her eyes entirely now and smiles at me. "I know you will."

"Thank you, Heero... I can try." She is silent for a moment.

"Heero... Who was at your door?"

3:22 am
Hilde lowers her eyes again; I know she can hear Relena. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her legs spread apart, displaying deeply shadowed cleavage to me. Not on purpose; she's still so careless. Her focus is on her fingernails now.

I look away quickly. This isn't the time. I don't think Hilde is here for sex. I don't know why she is here.

But maybe I do. That's why I've been expecting her.

Relena asks again.

"Heero? Who was it?"

Hilde raises her eyes again slowly; her blue gaze is desperate. Her long bangs, tucked so carefully behind her ear, fall forward into her eyes, over the side of her face. Her sensuous bottom lip catches in her teeth once more.

3:23 am
She can't wait any longer.

It's already been two years.

"I'll talk to you later, Relena."

Beep. I toss the useless phone onto the small table beside the front door and turn back to Hilde, crossing my arms over the front of my chest. I close my eyes.

I'm ready.

3:25 am
I hear Hilde stand up and open my eyes, slowly. Her brows are furrowed again, worried. She nods to the discarded phone.

"Relena-"

I cut her off once again. "She'll be ok."

Hilde shakes her head. I know what she is thinking. "No," she says. "If you were busy with her, I understand. I can come back another time-"

This time I approach her, dropping my arms from my chest to my sides. I pull the gun from the waistband of my pants and grab Hilde with my free hand, making her gasp in surprise and almost fear. I turn her around so her back is to me and push her up against the wall. I jam my gun into her lower back.

Like the first time we met.

I'm right back where I started.

3:27 am
"Why are you here?"

I push the gun into her harder. I have to know if I'm right.

Hilde is silent for a long moment, possibly thinking. I start to wonder if she even knows why she is here. Maybe she felt the pull I always feel, the crawling that has stayed under my skin since the first time I touched her, intensifying each time I made love to her.

But she has someone else now.

Realization hits me and I draw the gun away slightly, my jaw tightening. I loosen my grip on her shoulder and move my lips down to her hair, just barely brushing her. My gaze travels down; I can see a tatoo on her back now, drawn into the soft curve of her waist leading down to her left hip. A black rose on a thorned vine laced with blood.

Duo.

3:29 am
I finally ask her.

"Hilde, did something happen with Duo?" My jaw tightens even more, almost painfully. I don't want to think about it.

"Hilde?" I reach my free hand up and grasp her hair, pulling her towards me. I close my eyes and bury my face in the silky blue-black strands, inhaling the sweet scent of her shampoo. "Did something happen?"

I feel her body slacken against mine, leaning into the wall. Her shoulders begin to tremble; she is holding back sobs. I tighten my hold on her hair.

Damn him.

I push the gun back into her, hard. Demanding. She finally shakes her head.

No.

I relax slightly.

"No," she says, her voice soft, almost dreamy. "Duo hasn't done anything. He has only been absolutely wonderful to me." She turns around then, surprising me by slipping under my grip to face me. She has always been clever that way, though.

I gaze down at her, moving my hand with the gun up to her exposed abdomen and pushing it slightly into the soft skin there. Hilde takes a deep breath; she is turned on. Her hand covers mine over the gun.

"Duo has been wonderful," she repeats, her eyes fixed on mine. "And he asked me to marry him." She pauses, waiting for my reaction. I give her none.

"But I can't," Hilde finally continues. "I can't, Heero. Not when every day I have spent with him has been spent pretending that he's you, or that every night I can't sleep, wondering where you are, what you are thinking. How can I live like that? How can I make /Duo/ live like that?" Her eyes are desperate again, imploring me as she gazes up at me.

"I need you, Heero."

I stare at her for a long moment. Her hand on mine pushes the barrel of the gun lower, over the buttons of her jeans leading down to her crotch. The unusually blue eyes stay on mine. She begins to ride the gun. I let her.

3:33 am
I finally push her down off the barrel of the gun.

"You don't know what you're talking about." She gazes up at me, hurt, confused. We are fifteen again, yet we are not. I don't know if I can let her go that easily again.

"I thought we had already decided that the last time would be the end of it."

She lowers her eyes, her cheeks coloring slightly in embarassment. "I know, but-" I silence her with a finger to her lips.

"We can never be together, Hilde. I let you live so that you could find your own way, make your own life. I wasn't supposed to live, but I did, and now I have my own responsibilites, as do you. You chose Duo; I chose the Preventers. My life is as dangerous as it was before; I can't risk you dying. You are better off with Duo."

Hilde shakes her head. Her eyes are shiny with tears when she raises them to me again and her body trembles beneath my hands. "But what about Relena? I don't understand how you can be with her when you run the risk of losing her everyday... If that is the only thing that keeps us from being together, why does it work for her?" Her voice raises; I can tell she's getting angry.

She doesn't understand.

I grip her shoulder tightly now and bend down to face her evenly, bringing my face inches from hers. "Relena is my job, Hilde," I say slowly, fighting to keep my voice even. She doesn't understand at all. "She knows the risk she runs. It is her decision. And if she dies..." I pause, unable to say the words. I don't want to think about it, though it is the truth.

But I have to make her understand.

"If she dies," I repeat. "There will always be another Vice Foreign Minister. But if you die, Hilde..."

I don't say anything else.

She understands now.

3:38 am
"I'm strong." Her voice is clear as she says this, the tears gone from her eyes. "I don't care what happens." I reach up to stop her but she pulls my hand back down. I don't fight her.

"And I know exactly what I'm talking about," she continues. "I used to be a soldier, too; I'm not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of living, Heero, especially if I have to live a lie." She reaches up now to touch my face, caressing my cheek lightly with her fingertips. Our faces are still inches from each other; I haven't moved since I told her the truth about Relena.

I don't love her.

3:40 am
Hilde continues to caress my face, her other hand still closed tightly over mine, holding the gun. She moves it away. I let her.

"I don't want to pretend anymore, Heero," she says softly. She works my fingers off the handle of the gun, making me drop it. "I always wanted you, and when you showed me that you wanted me, too, I knew I couldn't let that go. But you made me, first when we were fifteen, then when we were sixteen. And I did, I pretended for you. But I'm not a kid anymore, Heero, and I'm not letting you make me do it this time."

Hilde's hand on my face moves down to my chest, then lower, trailing down over the material of my shirt to the waistband of my pants. She begins to pull the shirt out and pulls up the hem, exposing my bare skin. Her fingers dance over the ridges of muscle, all the way back up to my chest to caress my pecs.

She finds the scar. Her touch leaves it burning with fire.

She has branded me once again.

The incredible blue eyes meet mine over the front of my shirt, and her hands pull the rest of the material up and over my head. I am bare-chested now. I watch her close her eyes and bend her head to kiss my scar. She licks it instead, slowly, seductively.

I knew I should have killed her long ago.

3:43 am
Hilde leads my hand that had been holding the gun back towards her abdomen, sliding my fingers down the smooth, soft skin to the buttons of her jeans. I let her lead me further down, caressing her hot center through the rough material. She is already warm and wet, her body preparing itself for me. My own sex strains against the front of my pants, painfully.

She looks up at me once more. She rises up on her tiptoes to face me evenly. My hand follows her, continues to stroke her, probing her clothed sex with two fingers. She groans against my cheek and moves her mouth to my ear.

"Tell me you don't feel anything, Heero," she whispers. "Tell me that you've been able to live your life these past two years without ever thinking about me, about what it would have been like to stay with me." She grinds her hips into my fingers and I push them up into her wetness, rubbing the material against her clitoris under the jeans. She cries out softly.

"Tell me that the last time we were together was just a mistake- Another moment that we faked it, that we faked loving each other." She moves her hands up my chest to wrap her arms around my neck, pulling me closer, tighter. Our skin begins to stick to each other. Sweaty. I'm made of steel. Aching. Her lips brush my cheek.

"Tell me you want to keep pretending... Heero," she says, drawing out my name to the same rhythm as her hips riding my hand. "Tell me we're pretending now."

3:45 am
I turn my head quickly, catching Hilde by surprise, and kiss her. Her sensuous, dark red lips, her tongue tangling with mine, is the softest feeling in the world.

I push my lower body into her, make her feel my hardness. My hands slide up from her center to grasp her curvaceous hips; our bare abdomens grind into each other, wildly. We continue to kiss slowly, languidly, our tongues meshing and moving together.

Time stops.

I can pretend I don't have to be at the L-5 conference at 7:00 in the morning.

I can pretend she's not Duo's.

I can pretend for another five minutes.

3:50 am
My hands move down from her hips and around to cup her beautiful heart-shaped ass, lifting her up against the wall. Her long legs wrap around my own hips, instinctively. We continue to kiss and fuck, still clothed.

My focus is back.

3:51 am
In one smooth motion, I slide the tank top up and off Hilde's body, exposing her perfect breasts. The lush pink nipples brush against my chest as we kiss, hardening against me. She rubs the full, soft orbs into me. I move a hand up to cup one, squeezing it gently. She groans softly against my mouth.

Hilde breaks our kiss finally as I caress her breast, and gazes down at me, her long bangs falling into her face. I brush them back behind her ear and nod.

3:52 am
I lift her easily and carry her over to my bed, tossing her down onto the rumpled sheets. She smiles up at me, amused and almost fearful at the same time. Like the first time we met.

She pulls off her own jeans while I unbuckle my belt and divest myself of my uniform pants. The blue eyes, made even bluer under the heavy black kohl lining and shadowing them, watch me, anticipating, as I crawl slowly onto the bed, parting her legs easily with one hand.

I wet one finger in my mouth and touch the glistening pink sensitivity between her legs, vulnerable and aching. The blue eyes close and she throws her head back, crying my name softly as I trace her slit with the wet finger. She strains towards me. I want her, too.

It's been too long.

3:53 am
I position myself above her, bracing myself with my palms flat on the bed, and slowly lower myself into her waiting embrace. Hilde's arms wrap around my neck once more, pulling me down to kiss me, and I feel the smoothness of her legs entwine around my hips.

I push down, violently now. She screams in both pleasure and pain. I know I'm larger than what she remembers and her channel is tight, almost virgin to me. I cover her mouth in kisses as I push farther inside, pulling away to groan my own pleasure only when I feel her relax.

We begin to fuck.

3:54 am
I stop pretending now.

I feel nothing but Hilde Schbeiker: Her softness, her wetness, her entire body, real and tangible to me for the first time in two years. Not another fantasy.

We gaze at each other as if seeing one another for the first time. She is even more beautiful in her passion: Body arched, breasts thrust forward, screams and cries of ecstasy escaping her pretty, open mouth. I can see in her eyes that she feels the same for me, watching as I thrust into her with wide blue eyes, my face hardened in concentration, sweat running in rivulets down my forehead, making my bangs stick to my face.

Never once has Hilde stopped looking at me as if I were her god, her dream.
Never once has she faked it.

Never once have /I/ faked it.

Any of it.

3:55 am
Our bodies are those of adults, matured and experienced, but we fuck like children: Wildly, carelessly, without regard for the lives we've chosen, the responsibilities we must live with.

Relena and Duo.

Hilde matches me thrust for thrust, her body rising to meet my hips as I drive into her. I take her deeper and deeper, until the tears streaming down her flushed cheeks are no longer from pleasure but from pain, until she can't take any more of my cock. She is relentless as I am, though, slamming her body up into my cock over and over despite the pain.

Relena and Duo.

The cordless phone on the table beside the front door begins to ring, as if voicing my thoughts. As if reminding us of our responsibilities.

But we are children again, fifteen, and none of it matters.

I don't know if it ever will again.

3:56 am
Hilde's inner muscles tighten around me, squeezing and pulling me down into the abyss of oblivion. Her black-shadowed eyelids snap open suddenly and she gazes at me through tear-filled cerulean orbs for a moment, on the verge of tumbling over the edge.

I gaze back at her, feeling my own sex swell with the coming release. A scream escapes her parted lips.

"Heero!"

I close my eyes and grunt loudly, a tortured scream behind clenched teeth. My arms wrap around her slender body, pulling her up close to me. We shudder together.

The phone continues to ring. Incessantly.

It ends with letting go.

3:58 am
We ignore the ringing. I begin to pull out, but Hilde pushes me back, keeping me inside her. I am still hard. Turned on. She rolls over, pushing me down onto the bed, switching places.

I watch, a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth, as she reaches up and pulls the clip from her hair, shaking out the long, straight blue-black strands. The damp tangles fall to her shoulders, curling slightly with the wetness. I reach up to run my fingers through them, smoothing her beautiful hair.

Hilde smiles and shifts her hips to straddle me comfortably. She takes both of my hands, laces her fingers through mine, and places them over her breasts. I keep my eyes fixed on hers as she begins a slow, seductive dance above me, raising and lowering herself onto my cock in a languid rhythm.

The red lips move, as slow as her fucking.

"Aishiteru, Heero."

I nod. Once.

She understands.

The phone finally stops ringing.

4:35 am
I look over at the digital clock on the table beside my bed. I have roughly two and half hours until I am expected at the conference. I know Relena will have much to say to me about hanging up on her. I wonder if she was the one who tried to call earlier.

Maybe Duo has finally figured it out. I doubt Hilde has told him. I hold her sweaty body, covered only in a thin white sheet, closer to me. She leans into me, buries her face against my chest.

It doesn't matter.

But it does.

4:37 am
I finally lift her face to mine.

"You have to go back, Hilde."

Her gaze is hurt, confused again. She shakes her head. "No," she says. "I can't go back, Heero. How can you even say that? I thought we had stopped doing this."

I caress her cheek tenderly. I know she understands me, but still we pretend. I shake my head now.

"You owe Duo an explanation. At least that much."

Hilde looks away, her face softening at the mention of her lover's name. I know that she still loves him, in some way. The way I feel for Relena still, I suppose. Not the same as what we have for each other, but a feeling nonetheless.

I owe her an explanation as well.

I move my hand down to stroke the sexy tatoo on her back. Duo's tatoo. She feels this and closes her eyes. A moan escapes her lips. I know she is remembering him. I tilt her face back up to mine.

"Aishiteru matusdai, Hilde."

I will love her forever.

She nods slowly; I knew she understood.

We kiss.

4:40 am
Hilde finally untangles her limbs from mine and walks slowly to the bathroom to wash up before pulling her clothes back on. I put my uniform back on; the conference is only hours away now. I know I won't get any sleep anyway.

4:42 am
I walk her to the door, open it. She steps through. Her hand grabs mine suddenly and she stops, turns back around. We kiss once more, slowly, lovingly.

"Wait for me," she says. It isn't a question.

"Hai."

4:43 am
She turns back and goes back down the hallway, towards the elevator. I watch her.

4:44 am
I wait until she steps through the metal doors, watch as they close behind her and lead her back down, before I go back inside my apartment. I go over to the window, gaze down.

A gorgeous, dark-clad female body walks out of the front doors, down the concrete walkway, head down, long black hair blowing in the slight breeze, and gets into a black sedan parked at the curb. A braided man waits inside, his face hardened, the violet eyes sad. She gets inside.

I watch Hilde Schbeiker walk out of my life again for the third time.

4:45 am
I walk back to my bed and sit on the edge. Run a hand over the sheets, still damp and smelling of our sex. It took us five minutes to say good-bye, I think ironically.

Only not good-bye. I know she will be back this time.

But we're not children anymore. We have to face reality this time.

We're finally finished pretending.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

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