Chapter Text
Chapter 3
Santa walked to the back of his Enchanted cave to remove the wretched, smelly, and urine-stained costume; his dutiful Elf followed, though Duo remained surprisingly silent. Heero pulled the red jacket off his shoulders.
'Did she mean me? Or was it 'him' she's so concerned about?'
His eyes flickered over to Duo, who had just managed to get his hair loose from all the bobby pins that kept it up inside the pointy hat.
'He'll know what happened. I'll have to ask him, later.'
Heero felt his chest tighten as the memory of her…
A tall, dark-haired man sat across from her at a table. Just the two of them having dinner. His eyebrows pinched, rippling his forehead. Whatever he had to say was serious...
And she. She was nodding, twisting the napkin in front of her, her eyes darting around the restaurant.
She had told Heero she had a meeting come up. Not a...Not a-
'A date.'
His hands balled into fists, and he had to shake the image from his mind.
'I'll ask Duo much later.' Heero pressed his eyes closed and shook his head.
"Rough day, huh?" The former elf slapped Heero on the back between his shoulder blades. The Preventer glared at his partner as Duo slung a bag over his shoulder, falling into step with his partner as they exited the mall.
"And we still have forty some odd Christmas lists to go through and find out if one of them is the one we're looking for."
Heero kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. "Can't be. Unless it came from Relena."
"Guess you're right. But we should still check, shouldn't we?" Duo's cheerful tone sounded strangely forced.
Heero shrugged it off. "Hn."
A hand dropped on his shoulder and halted his step. "How was it?" Duo asked.
Heero stopped, but refused to turn around. "What?"
"Seeing her again?"
Heero shrugged his friend's hand off his shoulder.
"Don't try to pretend like you don't still care. I could see the way you were looking at her."
The former Santa finally turned around. "Maxwell, I had a beard over half my face, white hair covering my forehead and glued to my eyebrows, and store-bought mag glasses obstructing my vision. I couldn't have been looking at her in any way that you could tell from five feet away."
"Call it intuition."
Heero turned away. "We're not discussing this."
"She still cares about you."
Heero shut his eyes. "Maxwell," he said in the 'I'm warning you' tone.
"She never got over you."
He whirled around on his friend. "She has a funny way of showing it!" Despite himself, his voice cracked. He dropped his duffel bag to the ground so he could shut Duo's mouth with his fist. Maxwell must have seen the look in his eye, because he backed up a step. Heero advanced.
Duo took another step back, then stopped. He dropped his bag to the ground and stood up straight and still. "That guy wasn't who you thought he was."
Heero bent his knees to take a fighting position, then stopped. "What?"
"I'm actually surprised you hadn't guessed what went on today."
The former Santa's fists fell back to his sides and he stood up. "Relena's the informant."
"I can't tell you everything you want to know. I don't even know all of it myself." Duo stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket and stared at his shoes. "I do know that as the Foreign Minister, she knew who all the 'players' were in the Scholtzberg case, and agreed to give Preventer the benefit of her knowledge." Maxwell glanced up and looked Heero straight in the eye.
"Why they didn't tell you, I can only guess. But you weren't always rational when it came to Relena. You followed your emotions with her, until you were afraid of getting hurt."
Heero suddenly found his own shoes interesting. "I never said I was afraid…"
"You were afraid." Maxwell's voice grew louder, accusatory. "You are still afraid. Why, I can't possibly imagine." His voice grew closer, and it was Heero's turn to step back, away from what his friend was saying…
"I kept thinking you'd rise to the occasion, that you'd fight for her and in the process realize there was nothing going on - at least nothing romantic. But instead, you ran away."
Heero's head shot up. "I didn't run!" He paused and lowered his voice. "I left."
"You left because you didn't want to get hurt."
Heero frowned. "You're damned right. There's no reason she should love me, and I couldn't live with her pity." He leaned down and picked up his bag. He didn't have time to stand out here and argue-
"There's no reason why those kids today should have told you the wishes of their hearts, either."
Heero pulled his duffel bag up over his shoulder and turned to go. "That's right. They're only going to get hurt when Santa doesn't bring them their gifts. And how can he bring them a new mother or…or…trips to Earth to find their parents?" Anger swept over him, hot and raging. He dropped his bag again as he reeled around.
"Their parents are dead!" His left arm pointed at the offending mall. "And this stupid myth about Santa Claus will only bring them more pain because they can't put the past behind them and move on."
"Like you can?"
Heero opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out. He crossed his arms over his much leaner chest.
Duo took another step closer. "You don't know why she would love you because you can't lay the past to rest yourself. You can't understand why these kids will open their hearts to you when they're only going to get hurt." His tone softened a bit, or at least no longer sounded angry.
"But that's why they need people like Relena in their lives. So they don't end up - no offense here, buddy, like you. Afraid to tell the people you care about how you really feel."
Heero scowled at the ground. "You could have told me."
"I couldn't tell you. It was classified information; in fact, I wasn't supposed to bring you along today." Duo patted him on the shoulder and kept walking.
Heero turned to glare at his friend.
Duo paused and looked back. "The elf was supposed to get the list. I just made a slight modification. But I think it was worth it, don't you?" He lifted up his right hand to wave at the former Wing Zero pilot as he walked away.
Heero tore through his apartment, throwing his bag with the Santa suit on his bed before firing up his laptop from its suspend mode. His fingers flew over the keys, entering codes, and bypassing security locks with practiced ease.
"Scholtzberg case, Scholtzberg... Encypted. Crap. Wait, here it is."
"Warning: IP trace in progress." A red, blinking box blared on screen.
"Shit." Heero found and killed the process on the node. If Preventer found him in these files, he was going to be answering to a very cranky Administrator.
There were tons of documents, reports, and affidavits. Pictures, testimony, video files… He wanted to go...to clear this up tonight. But, the Preventer knew he couldn't get through all of this in an hour or two. He slumped into his chair and pulled up a likely report, looking for information…
'What was it, Relena... What was going on?'
Relena took the earrings out of her ears and sunk down onto the bed. Her feet hurt, her head hurt, and her heart never could get used to the pain. Every year, she'd hear similar stories from kids on different colonies, or on Earth. It didn't matter where they lived, their scars were the same. She needed a hot bath, but couldn't summon enough energy to move.
She felt the ache start to numb...
RING! RING! Relena squinted at her watch through the darkness. Had she really been asleep that long?
RING! RING! Her hand fumbled over the surface of the nightstand to find the phone.
"Relena." A familiar voice grunted through the earpiece.
"Who…Wufei?"
"There's a shuttle waiting to launch as soon as you can get there." His voice sounded steady, practiced. Even. "We have a hacker. It could be nothing, we just don't want to take chances."
"But-"
"Go." He said in a louder tone, then the line went dead.
She tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. She stumbled out of her bed, feeling like she was tipping over to one side. The Foreign Minister almost fell before she righted herself and felt both feet solidly planted beneath her. She opened the door and strained to see her guards through her limited vision. "We have to go." Her voice sounded hoarse. The one to her right nodded, and quickly moved to her side. She leaned on him a bit and they led her out of the hotel, into the waiting limo, and to the Preventer shuttleport.
It was chilly when she got out to board the shuttle, the faux winter air slapped her face, and woke her up a bit. She realized she hadn't put on her shoes, and felt a little silly, but climbed the steps and entered the cabin. She buckled herself into her chair and remembered having the thought that she would be home in time for Christmas with Pagan, after all.
And then she was out.
Heero felt like his eyelids each weighed a hundred pounds. He tried to raise his head, but his neck protested lifting his head plus two hundred pounds of eyelids. He glared at the time stamp on the monitor that read nine-thirty in the morning.
"Shit."
He had overslept. The Preventer groaned and stretched his cramped muscles. He needed a shower, and a shave, at the very least.
And then he was going to go see Relena.
The hot water on his skin felt good, relief pounded into his body with its spray. The information he had gleaned from those reports proved Duo was correct. The Preventer whom Heero had thought caught Relena's interest back when they were dating was an undercover agent, asking her to get them information on Scholtzberg's committee dealings.
A married undercover agent.
He hopped out of the shower, toweled dry, and pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He glanced at his image in the mirror long enough to check he hadn't missed a spot when he shaved, and curse at his reflection for being an idiot.
"You are an emotional moron. You'd better hope she's...forgiving."
He flipped on the television while he finished dressing, wanting to hear the latest news.
"…Minister is back on Earth today to spend the holiday with her extended family."
Heero paused in the middle of brushing his teeth just in time to see Relena's picture in front of her estate.
Her estate on Earth.
"Dammit!" How was he supposed to get a shuttle flight to Earth three days before Christmas? It wasn't going to happen. Flights were booked solid, and he didn't have the kind of cash to buy a last minute fare.
"How could she leave? Why did she leave?" He ran both hands through his hair.
"I can hop one of the Preventer's freighters - if there's something scheduled to leave in the next day. Or two. Shit shit shit. If only I hadn't fallen asleep."
He slung the chair back and plopped down in front of the machine. He had to find a way to get to Earth.
The sooner the better.
Relena tossed about in the bed. She didn't know why she couldn't sleep. She felt like she was still a child on Christmas Eve - even though there would be no presents under the tree aside from the ones she'd already placed there the night before.
She closed her eyes and tried to fall back asleep. There was no reason a grown woman without children should be awake at four in the morning on Christmas Day. In fact, she usually slept in a bit….
Her eyes snapped open sometime later. "Was that a noise?" She strained to hear if it would repeat itself. But the house was silent. She closed her eyes and must have slipped back asleep again. Waiting for Christmas morning to arrive….
An hour later
It was still too early. She just couldn't sleep. And lying in bed was making it worse. Five thirty was insane, but she could at least make herself some tea and toast. Her stomach rumbled beneath her nightgown as she stood up and pulled a robe on over it so she could go downstairs. She slipped silently through the darkened halls, but didn't want to trip down the actual steps. She flipped on the light and started to descend, but stopped after just a few steps.
At the bottom of the stairs, in the last bit of the light from the upstairs hall, stood a worn and haggard looking Santa Claus. Five o'clock shadow peppered his face, instead of a beard, and it looked like he had soot on his red jacket and pants. His hat was missing, or at least it fell off when he stood up, revealing the familiar shock of chestnut hair.
"Heero?"
He stared up at her from below, looking like hell, but she knew she didn't look much better. It took an extra second to command her feet once she registered that he was really here. She practically flew down the steps only to have doubt creep in as she set foot in the living room. Why was he here?
"Relena…." His hands started up from his sides, like he might accept a hug...then stopped.
"What are you doing here?"
His eyes were red - probably from lack of sleep, and the expression on his face… She glanced down and noted that this exhausted Santa had managed to bring along his sack of toys.
"You're a mess."
He let out a short breath and nodded. "I wanted to see you when you were still on L2. But I just missed-"
"You wanted…to see me?"
"You left to go back to Earth, and with only three days until Christmas, I couldn't get a flight. I couldn't get a Preventer shuttle either. I had to ride freight. It took two days. I've never seen a slower vehicle in my life."
"But…" She caught her breath. He was here. To see her. Was she still asleep? Was this a dream?
"Why are you here?"
"I brought them." He waved at the bag of things at his feet. "Everything I could remember. The bat, the glove, Kelly's dance shoes." He ran a hand through his hair as he stared down at Santa's sack. "I can't bring Kerridan a mother or Jason a father," He looked up at her, his eyes flickering in the light.
"B-but I could...take the time to teach him to play baseball so he can get on a team."
He frowned and met her gaze. "They shouldn't…" He swallowed and shook his head. "No one should end up like me."
She frowned and pressed the fingers of her left hand against her temple. "What are you talking abou-" She looked at the sack of toys. Kerridan. Jason. Her mouth went dry and she stared at him. "You were there."
His hands clenched and unclenched. He nodded, slowly, his eyes met and held her gaze.
"You…" Relena's heart leapt into her throat. "You played Santa for all those kids? But…But why? How?"
He frowned, but didn't look very angry. His shoulders sagged and he looked away. "It's a rather long, complicated story that will involve the deaths of two Preventer agents, may they rest in peace, but the short and the long of it is-" He took a deep breath and moved closer. "Because I was meant to be."
He was...so close, she could reach out and touch him. And she wanted to...to make sure he was really here, and not some exhaustion-induced hallucination. Her hand reached out... She felt the soft velvet of Santa's sleeve; Relena moved her fingers up to his elbow.
"You're real." She looked up at him; dark blue eyes stared back.
"Yeah," he breathed. There was something there, in his eyes, something more than the obvious lack of sleep.
She managed a small smile. "You heard my wish."
He shifted closer. "You never told me before."
"I did." She shook her head and tried to blink back the tears that were forming in her eyes. It wouldn't do to cry. "You just never listened."
"I was…afraid, before." He took a deep breath. "But I'll listen, now." He looked so earnest, so vulnerable. Like the wrong words would absolutely crush him.
"I…" She took a step forward and moved her arm up to his shoulder. He, or maybe it was she, was shaking. "I love you."
She felt the warmth of his hand...slip between the robe and her nightgown. It settled on her waist. "Still?" Heero asked in a whisper.
Relena nodded and lost the battle with her tears.
He pulled her against him; he smelled of aftershave and stale cigarettes, but she didn't care. She hugged him back and buried her face in his red Santa coat. He rested his head on her shoulder; his voice was low and husky when he spoke in her ear:
"Then let me stay with you."