Disclaimer: Guess what! Gundam Wing is NOT mine!!!

Author Notes: Gasp, I finished it! (I honestly thought when I began writing that I wouldn’t.)

In the Nic of Time-Epilogue

Year-After Colony (A.C.) 205

Relena Dorlian Peacecraft Yuy smiled at her husband, masking her slight frustration with Heero. It was slight because he was being so sweet, very rare, so Relena didn’t have the heart to be very upset with him. She was leaving for a diplomatic meeting back on Earth. She would only be gone for about three days, perhaps four if things didn’t go smoothly, and Heero insisted he come with her. However, Relena had other plans for Heero, namely their five-year-old daughter. Heero barely acknowledged the girl’s existence, and Relena felt that it would be good for all concerned if Heero stayed on the colony, for father/daughter bonding. Heero would have preferred to have Milliardo and Lucrazia or Duo and Hilde baby-sit, (not that he was particularly fond of either couple, but it was better than having his politician wife away from the protection of the Ultimate Soldier. He knew there was a good chance of attempted assassinations.)

Relena awkwardly lifted the little girl into Heero’s arms. Their daughter wrapped her arms around her father’s neck.

“Tousan, stay with me. Please?”

Relena shot Heero a glare. Between Relena and the child in his arms, Heero knew he didn’t have much of a chance. His Ultimate Soldier training never took love and a five-year-old’s puppy-dog eyes into account.

“Fine,” he grumbled, irritated.

“Yatta!” the young one shouted.

Relena gave both her husband and her daughter a good-bye kiss on the cheek.

“Heero, be sane,” she instructed, “Wing-chan,”

“Yes, Mama?”

“Be a good girl.”

“Okay, Mama.”

Relena gave Heero a slight push and he grudgingly walked inside the house with Wing, while Relena got into the limo and was driven to another part of the colony where the space port was.

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As far as Wing was concerned, the rest of day went fine. Her father sent her out play and when she came back in for dinner, he didn’t make her eat her vegetables. It never occurred to her that he sent her outside so that she won’t bother him, and that he just didn’t care if she ate vegetables or not. Wing did notice, however, that she was sent to bed half an hour early for no particular reason. She made up for that when she got up in the middle of the night for a cup of water. As she sneaked to the kitchen, she noticed her father intently watching the television, not something he did often, as far as she knew.

“Whatcha doing, Tousan?” Wing asked forgetting that technically, she wasn’t allowed up that late.

“Watching the news.” Heero answered.

“Why?” Wing asked, climbing into Heero’s lap, so that she could watch, too. He reached down and pulled her up to make the climb easier, much to Wing’s delight, as she hadn’t expected him to do that.

“It’s just something adults do,” he answered.

“Did something bad happen?” Wing asked.

“Not yet,” Heero asked.

“Do you think something’s gonna happen?”

“Yes, I think something might happen to your mother.” Heero answered truthfully.

“Why?” asked the confused five-year-old.

“Your mother says a lot of things other people don’t agree with, so they want to get rid of her.”

Wing was silent, not understanding what her father told her. He never used language on her level. She remained on his lap until she fell asleep, at which time Heero studied the girl. She had his dark, unruly hair, but her mother’s blue eyes. She disliked being by herself and had a tendency to cling to others. Usually her mother, but sometimes, like now, she choose him, and other times, when they were with the Maxwells, for instance she cling to Duo’s son Vingt. This was indeed the sad-eyed girl who had come to them years ago, he hoped this time she wouldn’t be quite so sad. Later, when the danger of non-existence had become nothing to worry about, Trowa had explained everything he knew about the time-displaced. 205 had been the year marked for Relena’s death. So far so good.

Cradling Wing in his arms, Heero carried her to her room and put her to bed. As he headed back to the living room he passed his and Relena’s room. He went inside and looked at one of the shelves. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Ten teddies sat on the shelf, keeping the room cheery. A teddy bear for each birthday, 16th with the ripped card, 17th with a folded card, 18th holding a little black box, and none of them ever given to her in person. He hoped he would still have a chance to give her more. It was a tradition for them. The first because he felt he owed her something, the second so that she knew he loved her, the third to propose, the rest a tradition.

Heero returned to the living room and watched Relena’s meeting, and suddenly he began to find his worry humorous.

“And to think, I thought I’d be better off with her dead,” he said to himself with a chuckle.

Fin.

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Okay, time to explain what the hell happened with time. ^_^ There are two particular ‘Time Paradoxes’ (yes, I’m using the Jackal’s terminology) that I am familiar with that you might not be. One being what any DragonBall Z fan would be familiar with. Mirai no Trunks went back in time trying to change the future, but instead created an alternate universe with a different future and his world remained the same. That instance had two timelines sprouting from one another. That is not the case with ‘In the Nic of Time.’ The other one is the type of situation Marvel Comics used with their ‘Age of Apocalypse’ story line a few years ago. First we have the time-displaced person. In this fic it was Wing, Vingt, Kitty and Nuef, Marvel Comics had Bishop. Like Wing and co., Bishop stopped his future from happening, it was wiped out of existence, but he was time-displaced and retained memories of it, existing almost outside of time. In the AOA storyline, another character, Legion, goes back in time, changes even farther in the past creating a new present. Bishop, being from the future is unaffected by the new present and still retains memories of his world, both of them. Being time-displaced, Wing and co. knew of a future that never will happen.

Here’s where I took some liberties. Wing and co. lived for 2 days in the past before any major changes occurred, (i.e. Trowa finding out) so, the future they knew lasted 2 extra days, time enough for their parents to worry. They came March 15, the past changed considerably on March 17, they left on January 7, that future became ‘undone’ if you will January 9. The new time-line replaced the old, (much like AOA replaced the mainstream Marvel time-line) rather than creating a new one.

In short, this fic didn’t work like DBZ if that’s how you thought it would.