Chapter 25: Back to Normal

A little over three months had passed since Heiran was captured and spring was once again in full swing in the Sanc Kingdom.

The three months saw many positive things happen for Relena and the survivors of the ESUN, once it was re-established with new members to replace those mercilessly killed by Heiran. Shortly after their return to the Earth, Heiran Yaturi was charged with what turned out to be a record number of charges, many of which that couldn't be defeated no matter how hard his team of lawyers tried, which resulted in him being sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail, and then some.

The three rookies who had survived had reached an agreement to testify against Heiran and were allowed to avoid jail time for their parts in his schemes. They went back to their respective countries and slipped back into normal society without any trouble.

Any rebellions or attempts to free Heiran were quickly squashed by the overwhelming majority who had come to see Heiran for what he really was: a terrorist who threatened the peace the ESUN had managed to maintain since the Eve Wars ended. However, only a month and a half into his sentence, Heiran turned up dead. Only a small effort was put forth by the prison staff to find out what had happened, and it was determined that his death would remain unsolved due to the lack of evidence and an ambiguous cause of death. Those who knew them suspected it was one of the Gundam pilots, but all of them had conveniently solid alibis that prevented them from being implicated.

Work on the new ESUN headquarters was going smoothly as the Sweepers and the workers employed by the Winner Corporation worked hard on making sure everything was sound.

The remains of Rashid's mobile suit had been recovered and buried in the Maganacs' homeland for his funeral, which everyone attended even if they should have been too busy to otherwise.

The Winner Corporation was successful in its bid to take over Heiran's company and it quickly went to work on destroying projects that were currently underway by the company due to supposedly shoddy workmanship and rebuilding them from the ground up.

The Peacemillion was left in the care of the Sweepers for a mobile base, which they used frequently due to all of the rebuilding projects they were supplying materials for.

The NJD cancellers on the Maganac suits and the Virgo II's were removed and destroyed, as were the Virgo II's. The Maganacs were allowed to keep their suits just in case, but they were to remain inactive unless requested by the ESUN.

Things were finally getting back to normal, even though the pilots had not been able to return to their homes until things had settled down.

Noin frowned at Relena in concern as the younger woman walked out of one meeting and was already preparing to go into her next one. "You should take a break. This isn't healthy."

Relena shook her head. "There are too many things that need to be taken care of, even if things have begun to settle down. I've done stints like this before, I'll be fine."

"What about Mariemaia? She can help you." Noin asked in concern, knowing that those stints she mentioned always left her in a bad way.

"I sent her back to her studies. She needs to catch up on what she missed since we went into hiding."

"Stubborn woman." Noin growled as she folded her arms and glared at the younger woman.

Relena smiled as she put a free hand on the Colonel's arm. "Don't worry, Noin, I'll take a break as soon as construction on headquarters is finished."

Noin rolled her eyes in disbelief: Relena had said that before when they were finding her a place to live until a new home could be built, but found excuses not to. "All right, you're getting off lucky this time because I've got some things to attend to myself, so I'll be back when you get out of this next meeting."

Relena nodded as she entered another office.

Noin sighed as she walked down the hallways, entering a part of the headquarters that was only partially completed. She slipped silently into a conference room that joined with another one and peeked through the sliding doors to see what was happening in the next room. She stifled a giggle at what she saw.

Heero was holding a cake above his head, trying to keep it out of Duo's reach.

"Hey c'mon, man! Can't I have just a little taste?" Duo pleaded.

"Come on Duo! Would you please stop it before Heero kills you with the thing?" Quatre asked as he tried half-heartedly to stop Duo.

"Hm. They did a really good job with it this time." Trowa said with an impressed tone as he finished licking his finger. Being taller than the others, he had an easy reach to taste the cake despite Heero's efforts.

"Trowa!" Heero and Duo yelled in annoyance as Trowa chuckled before setting down the plates he was carrying.

Wufei was idly eyeing the cake and fiddling with his knife.

"Not you too, Wufei!" Heero growled as he noticed.

Wufei shrugged and put the knife back in his pocket. "I was just considering whether to shut Duo up or not."

"Hey!"

Everyone fell silent and stared at the doorway as they heard Noin laughing hard.

Trowa and Wufei pulled open the doors as Heero set the cake on the table and grabbed Duo's hand as it went for the cake.

A yelp of pain from Duo made it clear that Heero was ensuring that Duo wouldn't try to slip out of his grip.

"So? What's happening?" Quatre asked once Noin stopped laughing.

She wiped tears away as she got herself under control. "Relena's being stubborn, as always. I'm going to have to cancel all of her appointments and bring her down here bodily."

The pilots shook their heads.

"Get her down here even if you have to handcuff her." Duo said in annoyance.

Noin smiled. "Don't worry, I've got a plan. You just keep them out of the cake, Heero."

Heero nodded and shot a deadly glare at Duo, who slipped behind Quatre as though believing that his fellow pilot would protect him once he was freed from Heero's grip.

Quatre merely shook his head in disbelief with Duo's behaviour.

Noin stuffed a hand in her mouth to stop herself from breaking out in laughter again. "I'd better get going. The meeting she's in won't be that long, and I have to cancel all of her appointments before she gets out."

The pilots nodded in understanding as she left.

Relena was the last person to leave the meeting, sighing in exhaustion as she secretly considered taking a break.

As she walked into her new office to exchange the folders from these past meetings for new ones for the upcoming meetings, the world went dark as somebody blindfolded her. Before she could get a scream of help out, a strip of cloth went into her mouth to silence her. She tried struggling against whoever it was, but the person was much stronger than her.

She felt herself being lead somewhere, but since the headquarters were still so new, she couldn't tell where she was going or even if anyone was around to help her, especially since most of the new staff that had been hired wouldn't be necessary until the construction was completed, leaving the new headquarters feeling practically empty.

Finally, she felt herself stop and heard a door open.

"Did you have to go that far?" A familiar voice asked in disbelief.

"I doubt she'd come any other way." Her captor said apologetically as the gag was removed.

"Noin? What is the meaning of this?" She asked in annoyance. "I don't have time for whatever…" She trailed off as Noin removed the blindfold and her eyes adjusted to reveal the five pilots standing around a table that was set up with food and the cake.

A small pile of presents sat in the corner of the room. "You were so busy we were afraid that you'd forget your own birthday. So the guys decided to take matters into their own hands." Noin explained as she rested her hands on Relena's shoulders. "By the way, I cancelled all of your appointments for the rest of the day, so please enjoy yourself." She said quickly as she patted the younger woman's shoulders.

Relena turned to yell at Noin for going behind her back, but Noin was already leaving, shutting the door in Relena's face.

"Judging by your reaction, you did forget today was your birthday." Trowa said in amusement.

Relena blushed as she turned to face the pilots.

Quatre shook his head as he herded her towards the head of the table.

"Why did you guys do this?" She asked uncertainly.

"Why not? We just recovered from a horrendous situation, so we had to do something to celebrate." Wufei said as he passed her the knife he had been toying with earlier.

"Jeeze… doesn't this ring of déjà vu?" Duo asked as she sat in embarrassment.

She couldn't help but smile and nod in agreement as she took the knife from Wufei. "You guys are always there for me in the aftermath of a bad situation… I must admit I feel a bit spoiled." She said with a hint of shame as the others began to sit.

"You're a fool." Heero snapped coldly as he sat on her left-hand side.

"Hey, that was a bit harsh." Duo said defensively as he sat on her right-hand side.

Heero rolled his eyes in annoyance with Duo. "It's the truth. She seems to keep forgetting what friends do for each other. Sometimes a reminder is needed."

Before Duo could speak, Relena burst out laughing, causing them to look at her in surprise. "I'm sorry… it's just… hearing that from Heero…" She shook her head as she tried to get herself under control.

Heero closed his eyes in annoyance as she finally stopped laughing.

"Thank you… all of you… I don't think I realized how much I needed this until now."

Quatre shook his head. "Maybe we should have Noin kidnap you more often."

Relena shot an indignant look at Quatre before Duo sighed as he stared longingly at the cake.

"Can you hurry up and cut it? I've been starving myself all day for this damn thing!"

Heero and Wufei were the only ones not laughing at Duo; even Duo rolled his eyes and joined in the laughter.

Finally, they settled down to enjoy Relena's birthday together, despite the occasional bickering between the pilots as they commented on something one of the others did.

The next day, Duo sighed as his watched turned over to 9 o'clock while they walked down one of the partially completed hallways, heading for a side exit in order to avoid being stopped by employees, most of whom were constantly thanking them for protecting Relena during Heiran's terrorizations.

"So we're leaving on the 10 o'clock shuttle, eh?" He asked the others, who nodded in confirmation. "Damn. We have such a good day yesterday and now we have to leave so suddenly…" He muttered sadly.

"…Without even saying goodbye to Relena." Quatre said as he shook his head.

"She's busy setting up the new arrangements for how the ESUN will be run." Heero said with a shrug.

"She's always busy whenever we leave. It's becoming quite a routine thing." Trowa admitted casually.

Wufei kept his silence as they continued towards the exit.

"Wait, please!" The pleading voice caused them to stop in surprise and turn around as Relena ran up to them, stopping just short of running into Heero. "Were you guys going to leave without saying good-bye?" She asked in irritation once she caught her breath.

"You were busy." Duo shrugged apologetically.

"You did the same thing to me after you had returned from that other universe. I had told you guys that I'm never too busy to see you off." She said sternly.

"Speaking of which… Somebody still owes me a meal."

Duo cringed at Heero's tone. "Sure, now you decide to capitalize on it… when I'm flat broke." He grumbled.

"I'm not… I'm just reminding you that you still owe me one."

Duo rolled his eyes in annoyance, but kept his silence.

The others couldn't help but laugh for a few moments.

"Well… I guess we'll see you the next time you need to come into space." Quatre said regretfully.

Relena shook her head. "I order none of you to be strangers. You will come and visit me whenever you have some free time, and I promise I will drop everything to see you."

"Are you sure you want to make such a promise?" Wufei asked wryly, causing her to blush in embarrassment.

"Well… I'll try to drop everything…" She mumbled as she looked down at the floor.

"Don't worry about it. Do what you can." Trowa said reassuringly.

Relena stood shifting nervously for a few moments before finally nodding at something she must have been arguing with herself about. "Oh… forget what they may think about it!" She snapped before hugging Wufei, catching all of them by surprise.

Wufei quickly returned her hug before pushing her away warily. She promptly moved on to hug the others, all of whom happily returned her hugs, except Heero who pushed her away just as quickly as Wufei had. Though completely different from the last time they had said goodbye, the other pilots knew that Heero was keeping things strained in order to avoid a repeat of what had happened earlier in the year.

"C'mon guys, we'll miss our shuttle." Quatre said worriedly as he checked his watch.

"Take care of yourselves. I swear I will drop my principles and kill you myself if I hear that anything bad has happened to you." Relena said sternly.

"Don't worry; I think it's safe to say that there won't be any trouble for a while." Duo said before throwing up his hands at the warning glare she gave him. "Fine, fine! We promise to take care of ourselves, right?"

The others nodded in agreement before turning to resume walking down the hallway.

"Oh! Wait!" Relena said suddenly.

Just as they glanced back to see what she wanted, a blinding flash greeted them.

She smirked at them as she waved a camera tauntingly at them. "There haven't been any pictures of you five together in all of the time that I've known you, so I decided to take one. I knew you wouldn't agree to one willingly so…"

Heero began towards her to take away the camera, but she simply smiled knowingly and ran down another hallway. Heero stopped and glared down the hallway she had run down before shaking his head and returning to the others.

"Jeeze, who would have thought she'd be capable of having such a dirty trick up her sleeves?" Duo asked incredulously.

"It doesn't matter; she'll probably keep the photo for herself anyways." Trowa said as he shook his head.

"Heero, the next time you visit, steal the camera and the photo and any backup copies she may have and destroy them." Wufei growled.

"Why?" Quatre asked curiously.

"The five of us in a picture together? People may accidentally think I'm friends with you four psychos."

The others rolled their eyes at Wufei as they caught sight of the time and ran from the building, not wanting to miss the shuttle that would take them back to their normal lives. For what they hoped would be for good this time…

Gundam Wing

"No Escape from War"

The End

Part 2 of 3

Author's Notes: It's done! I'll be taking a break before releasing the final part of the Gundam Trilogy. I'll start releasing on October 31st. Sorry about this guys!

The birthday scene was inspired by one image that can be found typically when you're searching for Gundam Wing images. And yes, I've worked that into the story too, if you couldn't guess from the dialogue. It probably happened in AC 197 after the Eve Wars.

Relena's comment about forgetting what the others would think is a callback to an earlier chapter when Heiran said that the older members of the ESUN's high ranking staff were looking at her relationship with the Gundam pilots as being more than simply "friends". Yes, despite the way she acted back then (fueled by rage and indignation), those words had been bothering her this entire time. Heiran was that kind of man. He could say something that would rile you up instantly, then slowly eat away at you once he's gone.

Yes, there are quite a few more callbacks from the previous story than there was in the rest of the story in this chapter. That was simply an accident in the writing process. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this final chapter!

To read the third and final part of the series, go here:
fanfiction . net /s/7510993/1/Free_Us_From_War