Authors Note: This fic is not part of the SQHFRGP continuality. Nor does my writing it indicate that I'm abandoning SQ. Indeed, SQ is my primary project, this was originally meant to be a little ficlet before it got away from me. Now it's the start of a new series. Go figure. I wanted to try my hand at writing a 'mission' fic, so here we go.

Timeline: Five years post war, no EW.

Pairings: 2x5

Warnings: Language

The politicians talk about cultural integration like it's already a reality. As if every colony is every other colony. They want to believe that, believe there's no difference between a guy from earth and a guy from L2, like me. But then, that's what they do, try to make everything uniform and neat. Even when they try to get specific, they don't see people, just categories.

They see me, and if they know what they're looking at, all they think is 'Gundam pilot'. As if I'm interchangeable with Quatre, Heero, Wufei, Trowa. As if we have anything in common besides a talent for mayhem. As if it made sense to ask me to sign up for their little police force and play the good soldier. And man, were they surprised when I walked away from that job. Couldn't take it, they wrap you up in red tape until you can hardly breathe.

Lie, there.

It wasn't the job. The rules weren't so bad. They were something to break when I needed the outlet. It was the others. It was looking at them and seeing everything that had happened. We'd made a peace and I wanted it. Wanted to think about anything but war.

Five years now I've been working for Howard and that's a sort of peace. You can forget in space. Nothing touches you unless you let it; no one can find you unless you tell them where to look. After so much time, I couldn't tell you what the others were up too. Probably couldn't even pick them out from a lineup.

Lie, there.

I see Heero, sometimes. He's on the news, standing at Relena's side. They look happy together. Or, she looks happy. He looks like Heero. Of course, the trashy news shows tell another story: he's soliciting prostitutes; she's having an affair with Dorothy. Quatre's on camera too. No scandals there. Just ribbon cuttings at hospitals for war orphans and the like. It's always something adorable and sad: blind horses, endangered butterflies, three legged kittens.

And that should have been as close as my old life ever came to touching me. It had been, until Une tracked me down. Now I'm sitting in a restaurant on one of the smaller colonies. I'm waiting for my contact and I'm thinking about cultural integration. Everyone around me is speaking Mandarin. The signs are written in it. And there isn't a blond or a red head in sight. I'm thinking the politicians ought to get out to the colonies more. Maybe they'd figure out why it's so difficult to apply one set of laws to all of them.

The waitress is just setting down my food when Wufei walks in. He's taller, a little broader, and he's let his hair grow. But I recognize him right off. Yeah, I said we're not the same, but you can't miss a Gundam pilot. He walks in and suddenly I'm smelling smoke. I'm tasting blood. I'm watching the sky burn. The sick part is how good it feels.

Fuck. I close my eyes and breathe until it passes. When I open them again, he's sitting across from me. I look at him and all I can feel is the tightness in my chest as the air gets thinner and thinner. Suffocation. What a stupid way to die.

"And then the others jump out and yell surprise?" I ask.

"Just me, Maxwell." His Mandarin is flawless, where mine is rough and forced, even to my own ears. From the looks of it, he's ready to settle in, but I'm already getting up. I didn't come for a reunion and there's gotta be somewhere else to eat. "Maxwell?"

"Listen," I say, as I shrug my jacket back on. "I don't do this sort of shit anymore. I came here as a favor. Une asked, and she saw us alright after the war. If you're here, I don't need to be. You can handle it."

I figure that should appeal to his arrogance. When I knew him, he liked to work alone, and I liked to let him. He always had this intensity that made getting too close seem like a bad idea. His control had always made me think of those really scary looking boxes they keep explosives in. Like there was something inside him that even he knew was dangerous.

He watches me go, doesn't reach out or say a word. He's so quiet about it I stop. I look at him and realize that I haven't been seeing him. I've been looking at memories. The Wufei of the here and now looks more tired than withdrawn. His expression is more appraising than it is disapproving.

"You've changed," I say, counting out a tip. I don't know. We almost died together once. I feel like he deserves a little small talk.

"You too." He reaches into his pocket, opens his hand to reveal a slim sleeve of metal about the size of a bullet. A data drive. "But not as much as you want to believe." He flicks the thing into the air, sending it toward my face in a tight little spiral. It's in my hand before I can think.

"I'm leaving," I tell him.

He relaxes, his posture easing so suddenly the change can only deliberate. "This is a nice restaurant. I would think they would have a lot of repeat business."

"Bye, Wufei."

He smiles for the first time. It's a thin, sharp expression like the edge of a blade. "Goodbye, Maxwell."

Outside the scent of flowers masks the more metallic smell of recycled colony air. It's set to spring here. Everything is blooming. I inhale as deeply as I can, telling myself the air isn't thinning. Dying in a locked room is different from dying at the controls of a Gundam. You can't fight air.

I wonder if he even remembers. Who does he see when he looks at me? 02 with his long braid and roman collar? I touch my hair, shorn to nothing now. I've shed that identity like an old skin. Kept the name and called that enough of a cross to bear. Five years makes Wufei and me strangers.

Lie, there.

The five of us have always been strangers. The politicians forget it. Even I forget it. But we weren't raised together on some secret base. We weren't a team. We certainly weren't friends. So Wufei tosses me a data drive and smiles like a knife. I don't owe him anything. All I need to do to get out of this is check out of my hotel, fly back to the ship, and forget that Une ever contacted me. All I need to do is drop the data drive, its cold weight still held in my fist. All I need to do is breathe and remember the air isn't thinning.

All I ever need to do is forget.

I toss the drive into the air. Catch it. Wonder if it's as easy to piss Wufei off as it used to be. I figure I'll be finding out, soon enough.