All disclaimers apply.

"One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Midii

He looks up.

There. That's it. Those are the eyes.

Sometimes--not often, but just enough--he'll fall into some kind of deep thought process; I can feel him drifting away. And then, for a split second, he'll look at me with these eyes like green glass, frozen and emotionless and utterly cruel. It does more than give me chills. It truly frightens me.

You see, it isn't so much that there is something horrible in his eyes. It's the fact that there isn't anything there. Nothing at all. No life, no emotion. No soul. Just--destruction. Like staring into a black hole and praying to God you don't get sucked in. Those kind of eyes.

I know he isn't directing that gaze at me. He isn't even seeing me. It's something else, something that happened a long time ago. But when that dead look comes into his eyes, I have to wonder: Was it something that was done to him, or was it something he did himself?

I don't know. I don't know as much about him as I'd like to. There is a lot--too much--that know one knows. There's a lot that not even he knows. This man isn't just an soldier. He's a survivor. He's a killer.

And so am I, I admit. I kill. One might say I'm worse than he is; I kill for money, not justice. I've been through horrible things, and I've done horrible things. There were times I couldn't even face myself in the mirror, or even look someone in the eye, I was so ashamed.

I'm not ashamed anymore. I do what I must. But whenever I worked up the courage to look at myself in that glass, I never saw what I see in his gaze. Never. Hatred, coldness, rage, pain, something, anything, if any of those things were there, I wouldn't fear for him so.

But there's nothing there. Nothing.

The look passes as startlingly as it came, and puzzlement replaces the emptiness. "Something wrong?" he asks.

I shake my head, looking back at my cup of coffee. "Nothing," I lie.

Maybe he doesn't even realize what comes over his face when he's remembering whatever it is he's remembering. If he did, he'd hide it better from me. That's what he usually does when it comes to his past: Hide it from me. Or rather, he doesn't hide so much as never volunteer answers. I never ask. He pretends everything is fine and expects me not to wonder.

I suppose I'm not much better. But then, I've never worn those eyes.

I've lost all interest in my coffee, and I just stir it around, letting it get cold.

It isn't only now that I'm seeing this. When we were children and I was with him for a short time, he had that look, then, too. It was like he wore this mask that never changed expression. A mask, as I said to him, that never cried.

And yet I think, that was then, and this is now. He's a different man, one with a family, a life, people who love him. Me. But all of that time that's gone unaccounted . . . what happened to him? I want to know.

Because it hurts me so badly when that look comes into his eyes and a part of his soul seems . . . gone.

You'd believe that after all we'd been through together, the life-and-death situations that keep coming despite our best efforts to keep normal lives, the issues we work through every time our pasts come back to destroy us, all that we had to overcome just to get to this point, where we trust each other, love each other, he would tell me certain things.

But he doesn't tell me anything. Ever.

It wouldn't bother me if I just knew he was okay. And he's not. He hasn't been for a long time.

And I don't know what I can do about it.

Relena

He stays with me tonight. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. There are things he has to do to make sure we can have any type of peace; violent things. I try not to think too hard about it.

We don't do anything except sleep. He's strange about that. Sex, I mean. Sometimes it seems as if it's just good enough to be beside me; there are nights when I'll come to bed alone, and wake up at around one or two in the morning, and he's there, asleep in the armchair by the window, or on the other side of the mattress. Like it's fine just to watch over me, and making love is just an extra that, if he had to, he could do without.

Not to say he doesn't enjoy being with me that way. But it's okay if we don't.

I've got a rare guy, I know. One of the things I love about him.

As usual, near the end of the night, at around four, I wake up and I can't go back to sleep. So I turn to watch him sleep.

He's a light sleeper. No suprise there. While I look at him, even with his eyes closed, his breathing regular, and his body relaxed, I can tell that if I so much as get up to get a drink of water, he'll know. He'll be awake in a second. And even when he realizes that nothing's out of the ordinary, he won't go back to sleep until I come back.

It might seem overprotective, but trust me, he isn't intrusive with his watchfulness. He's just . . . aware. All the time. Aware. It isn't without reason. Things have happened. I've been kidnapped more than once. He knows before anyone else does.

I'm not utterly defenseless, though. He teaches me how to fight, just in case it isn't a hostage situation and it's life and death. I can load and fire guns with accuracy, both standard nine-millimeters and rifles. I know basic self-defense moves. But most of all, he teaches me never to just wait to be rescued, to do something, anything. Make sure that whenever he gets there, I'm not dead on the floor.

That scares him, I think. Not getting to me in time should I need him.

Some people say that even when the toughest of men sleep, they still look like little boys. He doesn't. He looks like a predator at rest. Even in the most peaceful of situations, he looks and feels dangerous.

I remember, one night, I was watching a snowfall through the sliding glass doors to the balcony beside my bedroom. He came up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, kissed the side of my neck. I raised my eyes to meet his in the glass. There was love there, yes, but there was also this kind of fierceness, this deadliness that proclaimed to the world that he would do anything to protect that which he loved.

Do you know what it's like to have someone who would, quite literally and without a moment's hesitation, kill for you? I know my parents would have done it, especially my father . . . but here's this man who has done so much damage and so much good in his life alone, and he would die for me. Me. Some nothing girl who grew up not understanding what it was to fight and die.

It sends a thrill through me, seeing that darkness in him, knowing that as truly deadly as he is, he loves me and would never hurt me. I see that darkness, but I know how kind he is, and I love him even more. He's shown me how to defend what you cherish with your life.

But it also scares me, as well. I know that one day, despite our best efforts, one of us might die. It would be an incredibly painful loss for me, but with the help of family and friends, I think I'd survive.

I don't know about him, though. What would happen to all that darkness in him if anything should ever happen to me? What would he do?

I fear I already know.

I've been watching him too long. He's stirring.

Quickly, I close my eyes and turn back over, steadying my breathing as if I had never woken up.

A few seconds later, I feel him sit up. He's watching me; I can tell.

He reaches over and brushes a lock of hair from my cheek. It takes everything in my power not to shiver at his touch.

Then he breathes a sigh and lies back down. But this time, he wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on the top of my head, and slowly drifts off to sleep.

I wait until he's breathing deeply again before I turn in his arms and curl up against him. All of this power--lithe muscle and savage strength and blinding reflexes . . . and yet so warm, so gentle. It makes me feel safe. As if nothing could hurt me.

I wish that were true.

Hilde

I love hearing him play the guitar. It's one of the hobbies he's taken up in between working, spending time with me, hanging out with the guys, and the occasional mission to protect the World Nation's peace. One hobby used to be heavy dating and clubbing. He doesn't do the latter much anymore, and the former not at all, since we got together. There's nothing much I can do to stop him from flirting--that's just part of his playful personality--but he always comes home with me.

He has true talent when it comes to doing things with his hands. Engineering, computer work, rebuilding an ancient Harley in our garage, picking locks, whatever, he can do it. It's no surprise that he's so good at the guitar. He and the guys are considering starting a band.

The music he plays, both the riffs he copies and the random notes he creates himself, is intense and electrifying, full of energy and wildness.

But the true genius lies in the personal things. Sometimes, I hear him playing at night, just strumming away randomly, and something comes out of that seemingly pointless music. Something deep and turmoiled and just throbbing with repressed emotion. Like he's crying through the chords.

He seems so carefree. I mean, he's always cheerful, looking for the laughs in life. Even when he's serious or angry, you only have to wait to see that lopsided smile come out again. Sometimes it's grim, dangerous, manic, skeptical, mocking, any number of negative things, but it's always there.

That's how he protects himself. His smile. I've walked into a room enough times, seen the coldly thoughtful look on his face right before it turns into a brilliant grin for my benefit, to believe that it's a type of shield for him. As long as he smiles, he can get through anything.

I ask him about that sometimes. Like, "What are you so happy about?" And he just replies, "Just glad to be alive, babe."

I want to believe him. I do. But I hear his music and I know, just know, that there's something else there.

It isn't as if I don't know things about his life. I know about the Maxwell Tragedy, how hard it was growing up on the streets, things like that. Of course, I know about the war.

He never explains the nightmares to me, though. He has them a couple of times every week. Bad ones, too; more than once he woke up in a cold sweat. Each time, he went into the basement, hooked up his guitar to his amp, and started playing beautiful music. Sad music.

Never admits it when I confront him. Acts as if everything's just fine, and it isn't.

I mean, I understand nightmares. I have them, too. You survive a war, bad dreams are a penalty. But I'll wake up when he does, ask, "What's wrong?" and for a brief moment in time, in the darkness, he'll look at me with his beautiful violet-streaked blue eyes . . . and I see fear. Stark terror.

Then it's gone, he'll shake his head and smile slightly, making some excuse.

But I know what I see. And I wonder what put it there . . . and why it's getting worse

Noin

I never knew it was possible to know and understand everything about someone, every secret they've ever kept, every nuance in their thoughts and behavior, every change in their emotions, and still not know anything at all, until I met him.

I can strip everything about him bare, bring it all down to its simplest componants, and yet there's something I can't even begin to touch. It's right there in front of me, like the stars, but God help me if I could ever reach it.

Perhaps it's the same with everyone who falls in love. No matter how long you're with this person, no matter how deep your relationship goes, there's always something you'll never quite understand about them. Mostly because you can't live their lives. You can't crawl inside their skin and truly understand all they feel and want and believe. You only know what you see, what you hear, what you feel.

And I'll never be him. I'm not trying to be. I wouldn't dare.

But it's frustrating to be so close and yet so far. I don't know if I'd prefer it if we didn't communicate so well, so effortlessly, so I wouldn't know him well enough to sense this difference between us. I don't know if I would be happier if I could spend the rest of my life working on what I could understand about him, instead of painfully aware of that one thing I'll never comprehend.

I connect with him on most every level imaginable. It's hard not to, when I have to trust him utterly with everything, my life, the lives of others. I do that without hesitation. There was a time when I couldn't, when he couldn't. But we're past that.

Even more than that, I trust him with my heart, and he does the same. I trust him to know me, all there is to know and more. I hope he does the same.

But I suppose it goes both ways. I mean, as open as I try to be, there are parts of me he'll never get, either.

He always tell me he doesn't know why I love him. I always reply that I don't know why he finds it so hard to believe.

And then he'll look away, off into the distance, and I know that's something else I'll never understand about him.

There are times, usually right after a particularly rough, life-and-death type of mission, or even right after we've been intimate, I'll catch him looking at me with this vague, thoughtful, analytical glint in his ice-blue eyes. As if he's trying to unlock the secrets of my soul.

I used to find it unnerving. Sometimes I still do. It's strange to be so close one moment, in a fight or making love, and then I look at him and it's like, for a moment, he's a stranger. Like I don't know him and he doesn't know me and it's just pointless to try to get beyond that.

I won't stop trying, though. I may never get inside his skin and know him through and through, but having him here and knowing I still have time to learn is enough.

It's going to have to be enough.

Sally

He never says it. Not in my presence, anyway. Those three little words that every woman--supposedly--wants to hear.

Whenever I'm inclined to say it to him, he just either glances at me vaguely, or grunts wordlessly. Not very tender, and not even remotely romantic. That's just the way he is, though. Ever since we'd began our relationship, in no form or manner has he uttered the phrase, "I love you."

But he doesn't need to. I can tell. And it isn't wishful thinking, either. I haven't tried wishful thinking about a man since I was seventeen and some moron cheated and broke my heart--after which I broke his arm. No, this is plain, practical observation. He loves me.

How do I know? I learned long ago to stop listening to what he says, and start paying attention to what he means to say. With him, the two can be very different things, especially when it comes to his emotions.

Everytime I'm wounded, he insists on tending to me before he takes care of his own wounds, whether I'm worse or not. Whenever I complain of a headache, he calls me names in Cantonese, then procedes to make a special tea that's good for pain. The rare, very rare times a gruesome mission leaves me so upset I cry, he holds me without remark. And twice, when I'd landed myself in the medical ward with terrible injuries, he was there every day and night, watching over me.

Perhaps he's not always there when I want him; sometimes never. But he's always, without fail, there when I need him.

So, yeah, I know. If he never says it a day in his life, I know. If he calls me melodramatic and sappy and makes vague insults if I accuse him of love, I know. And even if he pisses me off or stresses me out to the point where I could kill him, I know.

It isn't easy, though. I suppose that can only be expected from someone like him. He's difficult and judgemental and not just a little arrogant . . . but I accept all of that. Not because I'm so blinded by unmitigated affection, but because I can see how much of it is real and how much is an act. He may fool everyone else, but he'll never fool me.

That makes him nervous. He likes to believe he's got it all under control, and I find it amusing to show him that he doesn't. It isn't funny to him. The fact that I see through him so well is dismaying enough without me laughing about it.

But neither one of us is ever very senstitive towards the other. It's like we're challenging each other, trying to see which one will be the first to give in.

Everything's a challenge to him. And God forbid he turns out to be anything else other than the best.

All sarcasm aside . . . I don't know how much I like that. What's he trying to prove? And to whom is he trying to prove it? I want to believe he's just like that, but I sense there's something more. Mostly because sometimes he'll look at me with those onyx-dark eyes of his, and it's almost as if he's seeing someone else in my place.

That bothers me more than I want to admit. I already said I know he loves me. But what I'm worried about is what he loves about me--the person I am or the person of which I remind him?

I can't ask him about it; he won't answer. It isn't good enough for me, to be the replacement of whatever he lost. And if that turns out to be the reason we're together, then trust me, that will also be the reason behind our break-up.

I guess that's why I get on him so much, and why I love making him mad or frustrated or confused about me. I want to show him that whatever he feels, he feels it for me, not anyone else, not some ghost. And I would much rather have him hating me . . . than loving whomever he wishes me to be.

When a woman says she knows she is loved by the man she loves, you expect it to be as simple as that.

I've learned that it never is.

Dorothy

The light compliments the dark, and vice versa. The two remain equals in all things, all the time. A balance must be maintained in order for there to be harmony. When that balance is broken, when either side gains too much power -

- chaos ensues.

That's what it is like for him.

He used to be the perfectly kind sort of individual you'd never expect to become a soldier; soldiers are made in tragedy. That's where they get their determination, the hard will for vengeance or righteousness, whichever they choose.

But he didn't have the tragedy. Only the determination.

His father died, and he had his tragedy. And so he sought vengeance.

The same happened to me, I suppose. I was once kind, or so he tells me. Until my own father died, and I realized that kindness has no place in war. That in order for kindness to exist, war had to end, and I would bring about that end however I could.

I embraced my darkness wholeheartedly. He, however, was pulled into a void that he couldn't escape, even if he wanted to. It took the near-death of his best friend by his own hand in order to save him.

And now, today, he is much graver than he used to be. He carries the guilt of what he did, of what he now knows he is capable of doing. There is nothing more jarring than discovering your own darkness, and how deep it reaches. This I know personally.

He is fierce about keeping his balance, now that he understands his duality. He will fight, and kill if he must, but always as justly and fairly as possible.

But there is always that deadly blackness inside of him, waiting for the pain and betrayal it needs to emerge and conquer the light.

I watch him sometimes, his sweet smile, giving nature, his aquamarine eyes honest and gentle, and I marvel at how well he hides his deadly side. Always, he never fails to reprimand me on my less scrupulous methods of handling people. I do listen, because I respect anyone who knows what it's like to kill and resists the urge to give in to it.

I know I'm not a killer. At least, not with my own hands.

And yes, I admit, I love basking in his light. It's real and it's hard-won, the only kind of thing worth having.

However, there are other times. Times when, say, a terrorist group destroys a civilian area out of spite for that nation.

Whenever that happens, the brightness in his blue eyes darkens. The color becomes molten, a mixture of sadness, bewilderment, and a sort of rage. I say "sort of" because that rage is level, calculated, touched with hatred. And I can almost literally see his fight with himself to restrain the need to avenge the innocent.

No one would fault him. Least of all myself, his lover. But the problem with vengeance is that sometimes other innocents get hurt in the process. As he learned the hard way.

So he fights the rage back down. And I watch, calmly coming up with my own plan for vengeance against those who infuriated him so.

You see, as long as I am the dark one, as long as I am the one who needs to be restrained, he forgets about himself. Whatever my kindness, I've made peace with my rage. He doesn't know how, and I can't teach him. He'll have to learn on his own.

For now, I'll be his darkness, his rage. It is much easier to control others than it is to control yourself.

Why? You don't have to justify or scrutinize what others do. But you can spend forever judging your own sins.

So difficult, it is. Being kind.

Lady Une

I remember the very moment he looked at me. I never have and never will believe in love at first sight, but whatever it was that was born in me when I met his gaze that first time, it was powerful, and it was real.

Pale blue. That was the first thing I noticed about his eyes; they were the color of blue ice. Scintillating and at the same time, languid. Confident and thoughtful.

He was an up-and-coming marvel at seventeen, a captain at a military academy. I was only twelve, but even then I knew what it was like to fight, even to kill. I was skilled in those arts, and others as well, more skilled than even those around me. He noticed my prowess, and in only a short while, noticed me as well.

It's hard, still, thinking of his death. He died with the same honor and brilliance with which he'd lived, a magnificent death . . . but still, he's dead. And I've nothing left but the memories, the ghosts of a past that was turbulent but full of life, as much as anyone could ask for.

He gave me everything: An identity, a purpose, beliefs that actually meant something. Love. For that, I owed him a debt that could easily have been paid in blood.

But he never asked that of me. From the moment we began to grow closer, he told me that I would outlive him. He said he knew that men like him never lived very long; not because death sought him out, but because he was one who, once he had accomplished what he wanted, had to allow himself to step aside. And, wonder that he was, he could never simply fade into the shadows. He had to have his final blaze of glory.

He did that at the end of the war. He realized that there were others worthy of the fight, worthy of the victory. His time had passed, though so quickly.

The worst thing in the world is understanding why someone you love has to die, that there isn't anything you can or should do to stop it. But I understood him, more than anyone else, I imagine. I knew the day would come when I would lose him to his own unconquerable flame.

That was why I was content to assist him however I could. I would help bring him his victory. A soul as beautiful as his deserved it.

But it almost destroyed me when he finally died. I was a shell deprived of the light of its soul, and I believe I wouldn't have cared if I'd followed him in death.

And yet, I survived. I lived to be what I am today, a leader, to continue his beliefs, his dream. When the world was deprived of him, someone had to live who remembered his vision. As he said so often, the world is only as beautiul as its vision for the future, and the leaders who craft that vision.

I will continue to live for that vision. I will give that vision to others, especially to his daughter.

At times, that young girl will look at me with his eyes, and I know that he is not truly gone. He lives on me and those whose lives he touched. Whatever pain I feel, I must live on through it. Though at times I wonder: Am I only an extension of him? Can I live loving only an echo of a greatness I lost to war? I know I will never love anyone else.

He called me his Lady, his only one. I think I can live knowing I loved, and was loved, even for so short awhile. It isn't the length of time, but the quality of the love. I loved with all I was, as I do now.

As they say, the brightest flame burns out before all others. That is the price you pay to be the best, the most beautiful.

And my love, he was the brightest of them all.

end