"Defying Gravity"

A Romance in Three Parts

Written By: Kaeru Shisho

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story.

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: AU, yaoi, some language

Pairings: 1x2x1, 3x4x3

Summary: A multi part story of romance starting with a turning point vacation, developing throughout a dangerous UC mission, and moving ahead through the unexpected challenges of a summer vacation.

"Part Three: It's Another Vacation"

Trowa found Jimmy in the kitchen of the beach house they were now sharing. He had finished his soda and made himself a peanut butter sandwich snack. His light hair already streaked by the sun hung in his eyes. Trowa wondered if he was growing it out to mimic his adoptive father's waist-length mane.

"Yo, dude," Trowa greeted him.

"Trowa!"

"Half for me?"

"Half?"

"Well, dinner's a whole hour away. I could use something and, well, I am bigger." Trowa looked at the boy with a serious expression.

"Hour?"

"Yep. Dining room's being setup already."

Jimmy ripped the sandwich approximately in half, held them up to see which was bigger then, with a moment's hesitation, gave Trowa the bigger half. "I like it here."

Trowa looked up from under his shock of bangs. "Sweet place for sure. Seen Mill's new place?"

Jimmy's eye's widened. "Have you?"

"No, is it being fixed up?"

"It's a CASTLE! It's huge! Did you know he's a bonafide prince?"

"He was once, but he gave that up. But, Milliardo's got a cool place, huh? Big?"

"Holy smoke! I mean a real castle with turrets and ramparts and his Jaguar."

"A jaguar, really?" Trowa looked surprised, although he knew the boy meant the car he'd ridden in before. "I fed one in the circus. Did I tell you that?"

"The circus? No!"

Trowa chewed on a bite and then told Jimmy about feeding the big cats—what they ate, how much, and that led to the acts he performed. He showed the boy a couple magic acts, nothing much, but it impressed Jimmy.

"I wish you were coming to live with us. There's plenty of room. I'd bet Mr. Peacecraft, er, Dad, would let you. He likes you, too."

"He does? Well, I'll come to visit, for sure. I got a place of my own, though, right now... staying with you and Milliardo sounds pretty good. Tell you what, I'll ask him."

(o)

Heero discovered that he had become as single-minded about Duo now as his pursuit of him had been a year ago. Just like his doggedly determined fighting in the war before that. When had sex been the focal point of his life, he wondered? The little voice in his head replied, "When I decided to chase after and win Duo's heart." He hadn't had that hunger before or for anyone else. Good thing Duo liked him, too, he thought, smiling. He married him and it would soon be formalized. Joined forever.

Heero wrapped Duo in his arms and draped a leg over him. He had seen to it that Duo had eaten and exercised, and now he needed sleep. He needed a healthy lifestyle, order, good habits, and stability. These would help his body heal faster, or so Heero had been told by the doctors. That was pretty much what the doctors had told them all. Caring for Duo was important; getting him well enough to return to work was his goal; Heero devoted himself to succeeding, although he wasn't sure he knew how.

He could make out the shape of the dresser and a chair in the darkening room. He counted Duo's heartbeats, felt the rise and fall of his chest, and willed himself not to budge, even if it meant he lost all feeling in his arms and legs. Heero couldn't sleep. Duo twisted around and opened his eyes. Apparently, Duo couldn't either.

"Where are we?" Duo asked.

"Beach. Your choice for our vacation."

"Ah, crazy nature."

Heero ran that through his translator and decided to wait for more data before analyzing what Duo meant. "Hn."

"Yeah, for a minute there I was back on L2."

"L2? No oceans there, Duo."

"The sound."

"It sounds like ocean waves on L2? Where?"

"Sorta. It reminds me of the environmental controls in sector 5 where the fans were out of adjustment. They would pivot back and forth and fluctuated on and off, creating sound interference waves which sounded like this, the waves."

He was still, listening to the roar undulating in volume as the swelling waves broke upon the sand, time after time after time, never stopping, pounding the shells and rocks into progressively smaller and smaller particles of sand, sucking them out to sea, and finally redistributing the little bits onto the beaches.

"Would you like to go watch the waves?" Heero asked. It would be better than imagining the process or counting mental grains until sleep overtook him, even in the dark.

"C'mon," Duo said as he bounded out of bed.

Just then, the house phone rang, which was unexpected. Only the Maguanacs, the guests in the houses, Quatre, and Commander Une had the house numbers. Duo was first to pick it up, but Heero was glued to his back, listening.

"Whatsup?"

"Duo?"

"Ah...yeah?"

"Duo Maxwell?"

"What? Who is this?" Duo's voice hardened. "Well, fuck you!"

Whoever had called hung up without identifying himself.

(o)

The tiles gleamed white, sheeted with light from the sun directly overhead. Quatre looked around him to find something to talk about, squinting. Nada and he were sitting in the garden to talk a bit, but he didn't know what to say. A thick silence surrounded them with the rising heat. Bowers of roses in bloom offered up a dense heavy fragrance in the sun.

Quatre's older sister had, in fact, planned to offer the Shaza family a proposal. Quatre met Mr. and Mrs. Shaza, who were as usual very polite and warm, but he found it weird and even unnerving when they spoke to Qadira about Nada and him as if they were not here. Quatre just sat and replied to their questions as if it were a job interview. Shortly thereafter, he and Nada were shooed out to the garden to talk alone for the first time in many years, which accounted for the conversational lull.

"You like roses very much, don't you?" he asked to initiate a dialog.

"Yes, the rose plants around you will blossom for many months. Most of them are red, my favorite," she replied.

"A red rose is a symbol of socialism or social democracy," he contributed.

"And love," she said, blushing. Then, the uncomfortable silence returned.

What should a gay man say when talking to a girl destined to be his future wife? Quatre wondered frantically. The situation was ridiculous. He thought about coming out to her. She would understand, surely, but she would also talk to his sisters and it was not what he wanted. Who would Qadira find next for him to marry?

"This is getting really awkward," Nada finally said in a voice higher than usual. "We have been friends for years and now we are talking like strangers. Okay, tell me a bit about your four years abroad. Your sisters told me that you don't have any girlfriends. It's very difficult to digest, you know, for a handsome man like you not to have a girlfriend by now."

Quatre laughed. That was the Nada he remembered: the one who took control of everything. She used to head all the projects they did together, and get him into trouble.

"I was a Gundam pilot, you know that! I was busy without time for any dating. And my Preventers job after that kept me busy, too. My best friends became the other pilots. Anyway, the few girls I met were too... frivolous for my taste. And you? How's your life?" Quatre said smiling now that he felt more at ease.

"Really good. I managed to convince my parents to allow me to study more. I really wanted to go off-colony, but my father wouldn't allow that, so I was admitted to a college here on L4 in philosophy," she said. "You could attend that college, too, and not have to go back Earthside."

"Possibly," he said, not having any carefully thought-out reason for not choosing a closer college that he could share with her. "You never fell for someone? Or someone never fell in love with you?" Quatre asked. He wanted to keep himself out of the conversation.

"No, no one fell in love with me," she said, but Quatre caught a trace of sadness in her eyes. "I guess I was not good enough for them."

"That's not possible! You are an amazing girl. They were idiots to lose you. Their bad luck!"

He meant to comfort her as he held her hand, but Nada blushed at the contact. Quatre smiled sadly. It was just a friendly gesture on his part; however, it seemed that Nada misunderstood him. His heart sank as he felt hers soar. He cringed inside as he imagined just how awful it was going to be later when he would have to explain why he couldn't go through with a sham marriage.

(o)

The next day started out bright and sunny, the anonymous phone call and Trowa's troubles forgotten, temporarily. "We've spent too long waffling around," Heero said to Duo while he was still in that blissful state between sleep and wakefulness and completely at his stronger lover's mercy. Usually Heero used that time to work on his sexual appetites, but knowing he had a deadline to meet motivated him to get moving. "Remember what we agreed to do this morning?"

"No. I couldn't have agreed to do anything in the morning. Mill told me not to. I think you're taking advantage of my shitty brain."

"You think I'm making this up?"

"You could be--"

"Duo, we must give notice to register our intention to make a civil partnership if we are going to go through with it before we go back to work. And Milliardo's entitled to his own opinion, but he's wrong about us. No more waiting. So, get up."

"Yes, honey," he said with a lopsided grin. "I love you when you are masterful."

"We have to wait fifteen days before we can actually do it as it is."

"If you say so, honey."

"We will do it today."

"Ummm," he said, snuggling up, all warm and compliant.

Heero put the next half an hour to good use before getting up and finding they had to rush so as to avoid being behind schedule.

(o)

"Mr. Rhatt" was the name imprinted on the registrar's lapel-tag. He was elderly, grey, and world-weary. His grey-brown hair and grey moustache matched his worn sweater-vest beneath his suit coat, which, Heero guessed, the man wore year-round, since it was summer now. He peered at the two young men through thick framed glasses without a twinkle in his rheumy-grey eyes. "Are you the prospective partners?" he croaked.

He probably didn't get much business down in his dark, little cubbyhole of an office, and, so, his was a rarely-used voice. Or he had a disease. Heero regarded him as he would any other lesser life form.

"Heero Yuy."

"Duo Maxwell, yeah."

"I'll need your ages, or rather your dates of birth, and your addresses or address, plus confirmation that you are currently Sanc city-state citizens, male, and have lived at your present address or addresses for at least seven days."

"We're hoping to move and get a place to ourselves," said Duo chattily, but Mr. Rhatt didn't seem prone to chat.

Heero wasn't sure whether he was a grumpy person or if he disapproved basically of civil partnerships between same sex couples. He did wonder why Duo had said what he had about moving, since they weren't planning to change residences at all. Then he had an idea.

"Put our house address there, not the cottage where we're vacationing," he reminded Duo, just in case his idea was correct.

"Oh! Okay."

Heero revealed the barest suggestion of relief by releasing his clenched fists. Maybe he should appease the gods, any gods; Duo's God would be a good idea. If they could just get through this without a hitch, he would find a way to reward Duo. Buy him a camera. And lunch. Celebrate. Take him to a chapel or something. What was taking so damn long? The form was only a single page.

"You can't register for fifteen days after this order is granted," Mr. Rhatt said with what seemed to be an air of triumph in his tone. Heero knew this information, of course, but supposed they had to tell everyone the same facts.

"He needn't have sounded so pleased about it," Duo whispered in Heero's ear.

Mr. Rhatt raised his eyebrows in question. He reminded Heero of a teacher in one of his schools who hated whispering children. He almost expected the man to demand that he "share" what Duo had said to the class, but he didn't.

"After that period of waiting, during which objections can be made -" he paused as if he expected to hear a spectral voice from one of the open bins of forms make such an objection. Heero waited for the man to finish up. He had other things on his schedule, waiting.

"No one cares," Duo said.

"Perhaps one of you is already married, or you are consanguineously related and don't know about it," Mr. Rhatt said, again with more pleasure than it deserved.

"No chance," Duo said. "We got different blood types. Mine's alien."

Mr. Rhatt didn't bother quarreling, which was the first thing he had done that impressed Heero as a sign of intelligence. After what seemed a long time, he finished. "You may register as civil partners in any approved place as long as there are at least two witnesses."

He filled in a new form and slid it across the counter in their direction. Both Duo and Heero made a grab at it. Duo got there first. Mr. Rhatt gave them his blessing in the form of another stricture: "You may not register in any place which is either designed for or is in use mainly or solely for religious purposes."

"Thank you," Heero said, and led Duo out by the elbow before he could start up a new conversation or get into an argument. Now to reward Duo.

Chapter10

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