Title: Flotsam
Author: Natea
Pairing: Heero/Duo, Heero and Relena friendship
Warning: Fluff, Nice Relena
Rating: PG
Word count: 1491.

Written for GW500's prompt, comb.

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"Do you know what time it is?"

There was some sort of unspoken rule that Heero vaguely remembered which suggested that he should have been the one to ask that question. He was, after all, the callee, not the caller. He rubbed his eyes to clear the sandpaper texture from the surface and glanced over at his clock on the wall above the mound of papers that was usually his desk. The hands made no sense though and he gave up on the struggle to huff out a suitably annoyed, "Here or there?"

Duo sighed. "I was gonna apologize for calling so late but no need obviously. Matter of national importance Heero. Get your things together, your leave's cancelled. We have a kidnap situation."

Heero was packed and waiting within ten minutes.

--

Two hours later they were cutting through the Mediterranean waves on a small, but highly powered motor boat. The tang of the sea in the air as it beat against Heero's cheeks and left tasty streaks of salt against his lips was invigorating and the pair of sunglasses he'd borrowed from Duo kept the sun from being too overpowering.

They'd posed as tourists in the small seaside town they'd hired the boat from and there'd been no time or privacy for Heero to ask Duo what was going on. No news reports had broken regarding Relena Peacecraft's abduction and people seemed fairly comfortable. Certainly not worrying about the possibility of a colony dropping on them from the sky or anything similar.

He cast a glance up regardless, just to check. Nope, nothing but unbroken blue above. The small curl of worry in his gut stretched out a little and wrapped a tendril around his heart.

Duo seemed unusually taciturn for once and Heero's attempts at conversation had fallen flat so far. Nevertheless, he firmly believed in the never say die, just do it if you're going to do it, approach to life and ventured forth valiantly once more.

Duo didn't reply to his comments about the kidnapping, his questions about Relena's safety, his worry over the welfare of the ESUN and its peace. In fact the only thing Duo seemed to take note of was the surprised little sound he made when the dolphin popped up on their port side and tagged along with them for a while.

Something was off.

And, glancing at his partner, staring straight ahead through the choppy waves at the purple blue smudge on the horizon, Heero knew he'd have gotten no answers back in that village if they'd been the only two people in the universe.

Which, right at that second, they were.

--

The smudge became a blob, the blob became land, the land opened out into a bay, and it was into this that Duo directed the boat with casual ease. He blipped the engine twice before letting it die off into nothing and they slid to a gentle rocking halt centimetres away from the wharf.

Finally! He might get some answers. Heero had opened his mouth to ask just what the hell was going on, when the figure appeared, strolling casually down the weather-beaten pier, dressed in a moderately demure swimming costume and a beach hat with a brim as large as a small UFO that was bobbing up and down with every step.

"Heero." She smiled, just a little too widely to be innocent. "You've come to rescue me."

He shot a glance at Duo, who was looking decidedly smug, and changed his mind. The hat was as large as Duo's ego. "Relena."

She smiled and held out her hand and Heero was surprised to see a credit note between her fingers, which Duo snatched up with an even wider smirk. He was forced to amend, Duo's ego was larger.

"Within three hours, Duo. I'm impressed."

"It was nothing. In fact, it was pathetically easy."

"Do I want to know how?"

"I think those sordid little details would be best coming from Heero."

"Sordid little details?" Heero scowled to hide the little wreath of confusion that had settled over his shoulders. "I think those are more along the lines of what I should be hearing."

Relena just smiled at him indulgently, like a mother who says she believes you when you insist you didn't eat the chocolate, honest!, and then snaps the picture of your gooey little face to show to your beau eighteen years down the line. "All in good time, Heero. First I'll be requiring any communication devices you have with you: phones, laptop, radio. If you'd just unpack them and stow them in the boat then we can get on with things."

He grumbled a little, more out of a desire to show protest rather than any real thoughts of not complying. When he'd finished he turned around and scowled again as Duo locked the small cupboard door. "Now what?"

"Now?" Relena looked far too cheerful. "Now we kidnap you, Silly, what else?"

Duo dropping a baseball cap on his head was really the icing on the cake.

--

All in all, Heero had to admit it had been a good day. Oh he'd been mad at first but when Duo had threatened to pack up and ship off with Relena and leave him behind for two weeks, two weeks of his official leave no less, no one's gonna even know you're missing, Bud, he'd soon come around. They'd relaxed in the sun, gone exploring in the sand dunes, fished a little off the pier, although nothing had been biting except for the crab that got Duo's toe and hung on for dear life and some showboating to impress the crabbettes, Duo said.

As a suitable punishment he'd called it Cancer and carted it around for a couple of hours in a small bucket of seawater before it had made a desperate bid for freedom and scuttled off down the beach to, no doubt, tell its friends it had been abducted by aliens.

In the afternoon they'd barbequed some food - not crab - and played two on one volleyball, which Heero was not proud to admit he'd won easily at. Not proud at all.

As the sun dipped down low enough to touch the horizon, Heero felt a warm lethargy stealing over himself that had very little to do with being tired. Tired had been that morning, a whole world away now, when he'd been trying to make it through the files he'd taken home and get a head start on his work for the next quarter. He sighed and reached up to scratch at his collar bone idly, feeling the slip of sun block as it mixed with the grit of the sand. Next to him, Relena sat, watching the sun slide into its reflection in the sea.

"Are you mad at us?" she asked.

"Hn?" He was too comfortable to really feel much of anything right now but she seemed to be serious about it.

"You work too hard sometimes, Heero. And take it from one who knows, it's not always a good thing."

Hefting himself up onto the support of an elbow, Heero reached out to cover her hand with his. "You're a good friend, Relena."

"I'm glad." She turned to him and smiled. "He's something more though, isn't he."

He followed the path of her nod down to where Duo was pottering about at the edge of the waves, stopping every now and again to poke at something with a stick or bend down to pick some little trinket up and slip it into his pocket.

"Yeah. He is."

"You're happy?"

"Yes."

"Good." She smiled again and gave him a little push. "Go spend some time with him then, Fool. Don't be sitting here talking to me all night."

He chuckled, but stood up obediently and gave her a small bow before trotting off at something a little more than a walk and a little less than a jog down to Duo's side.

She smiled as Duo's arm slid around Heero's waist and they stilled, looking out to sea. Her own gaze dropped down to the assortment of bits and pieces that Duo had been dutifully bringing back from the tide mark on his beach combing efforts. Nothing of much value: a nice looking shell, an odd bit of wood, a piece of smoothed down glass.

The last one she picked up and held in her hand until it was warm.

Flotsam.

The value was in its meaning to its owner, she guessed.

She thought back to the day she'd found something washed up. Something that had thought it was worthless but which had turned out to be oh so valuable to her.

She looked again at the two figures down by the sea, standing so close that their shadows created a two headed monster, stretching out long and black behind them.

Invaluable to her perhaps.

Priceless to others.

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End

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