Fixing A Broken Heart

yue kato

1998

Part 4:

"If there's a way to infiltrate you

Sway your mind and complicate you

I'm gonna crash into your world

And that's no lie

Let your body move into the doorway

To the disco inside your head (Violet)

Wear a colour u want to cling to

The colour inside your head (Violet)"

----"Violet", Savage Garden

"Psst! Relena…" A loud whisper came from above her head. Other than a small jerk of her head, there were no signs that she had registered Duo's voice. She couldn't let her captors become suspicious.

"Listen carefully, Relena," Duo continued, his voice barely audible. She strained to catch every word over the accelerating pounding of her heart. "We're gonna scramble their audio and visual communications for about five minutes, in which time we'll drop down and knock out the guards outside the door – how many are there?" Two fingers fluttered. "Ok, you're gonna pretend to be me, so you have two minutes to change while we waste the guards, after which we get the hell outta here, got it?" A small inclination of the head. "Alright, here we go."

There were no dramatic blasts, but she knew the scrambler had did its mischief when her guard exclaimed, followed by her door being unlocked and opened to check on her. Which they never got to do as Heero landed on them and knocked them out with a blow to each of their heads. Duo followed through the hole in the ceiling a moment later – dressed in *white*! Relena thought inanely – with a duffel bag.

"Hurry up, Relena!" he urged, drawing the black overshirt and pants out of the bag and thrusting them into her hands, then pulling off the band around the end of his braid, allowing the hair to unfurl in a light brown curtain.

She gasped, noticing for the first time the altered shade. "Duo! Your hair…"

"You owe me big time for this, ojousan," he replied, gathering his long hair into a loose ponytail to avoid it getting in the way too much later on.

"One minute." Heero's flat warning spurred her into action.

She quickly changed, ignoring the embarrassment of having to do it under their watchful gaze. While she fumbled with the buttons on the shirt, Duo came behind her and swiftly got her hair into a thick loose braid.

"That'll have to do," he said ruefully as he jammed a black cap on her head. "You can't expect too much in thirty seconds." He glanced up at the stony-faced Heero by the doorway, and a look passed between the two of them. "Yep, the coast is clear for the time being," he added with a wink. "Just hang on, we'll be out of here in no time."

Grabbing her hand, he dragged her out of the room, both of them speeding after Heero along the maze of corridors that never seemed to end. Suddenly, Heero decelerated, and came to a stop at a junction, motioning with his head for the other two to stay behind him.

With another shock, she heard the click of a gun being cocked next to her ear. "Don't worry," Duo whispered. "We're nearing the exit. Just keep your head down. And hold this." Relena could only stare at the ugly metal thing that had just being placed in her trembling grip. "You don't have to shoot, and the safety ain't off. But it would look too weird if 'I' weren't carrying anything when 'you' are shooting like crazy, ne?" Duo continued in the midst of the exchange of gunfire.

"Shut up, Duo," came Heero's monotone as the gunfire ceased, their opponents temporarily out of action. They made their way towards the exit, and burst out into the night, dodging a searchlight as they did so.

"Ignore him," Duo said cheerfully, the excitement of a nearly-completed mission coursing through his veins. "He's always an asshole at times like these… Oh, shit!"

Relena could feel herself being pushed roughly toward Heero, who had stopped running and turned around at Duo's curse. The events that ensued seemed to come to her through a buffer. She was flying into Heero's open arms – granted that it was something she had always wanted to do – but it didn't seem to be the right place and time. Duo's shout to "get the hell out of here!" was followed by a series of shots and a muffled scream. Then she hit Heero's hard chest and the impact jolted her out of her daze.

Everything came to her with a clarity so intense it hurt. The glare of the searchlights upon all three of them, the burning crimson of Duo's blood staining the pure white of his shirt, the thundering that said their pursuers were getting closer by the second, Duo's voice screaming for them to "go! Don't you remember your mission, Heero? Get her out of here!! Hurry! They're coming!"

And she felt it – the hesitation in Heero as he stood immobile for a heartbeat, and saw – the distress that flickered in his eyes as he spun around, decision made, hauling her nearly off her feet as they dashed into the shadows. Leaving Duo lying in the dust to be finished off…

Her mind shrieked its denial as she glanced back over shoulder, in time to see Duo painfully staggering to his feet. The blood… She could see it dripping from his arm and back, dyeing a scarlet trail on his white outfit, soiling his hair, creating a dark puddle around his feet.

They rounded a corner, and he was lost from her view, but his maniacal laughter rang in her ears. "Come on, guys. I'm gonna kick your asses… ya can't kill Death…"

***

"…stop… Stop… Heero…" She tried to dig her heels into the ground to gain some friction, but it was like being dragged along by a speeding train. "Heero, listen to me… you have to stop," she gasped in between painful breaths. "We have to go back… Duo… he's hurt…" The mention of Duo seemed to just spur him on faster, and she flinched as small branches slapped against her face as they pushed through the undergrowth. "Heero…" she tried again, but the iron grip on her hand tightened until it threatened to crush her bones, and she swallowed any further arguments.

Finally, they broke into a small clearing, where a small jeep was illuminated by the stark moonlight. Heero let go of her immediately and shoved her towards the passenger side of the vehicle, while he himself jumped into the driver's seat, revving up the engine.

As she got in, nursing her swollen wrist, she opened her mouth once more, but no words could come out when Heero turned to glare at her. She gasped, shocked by the intensity in his eyes – in the time they had been together, she had never seen such emotion in them before. Such anger, hate, frustration… he really does care, she realised. But Heero's training was so engraved upon his nature that he simply could not stop to go back, even for his closest companion. Not until he could be sure she, Relena, was safe. The mission above all.

They remained silent for the rest of the trip.

***

"Heero, where do you think you're going? We still have to round up the kidnappers!" Noin's words were directed to thin air as Heero left a trail of dust in the wake of the jeep.

"Let him be, Noin," Relena spoke up from where she had just been dumped on the ground. Heero had barely stopped to let her out into Noin's waiting arms before spinning the vehicle around and taking off in the direction they had come from, tyres screeching. "Duo was shot while we were getting out," she explained, grasping Noin's hand to stand. "But we still left him there! And he was bleeding… oh god, Noin, there was so much blood… what if… what if he…"

Noin shook the trembling young woman hard to shake her out of her stupor. "Relena, snap out of it! Duo was a Gundam pilot, he went through worst things than this. Don't worry, he'll be fine," she said firmly. But a tiny bit of doubt wormed into her brain nonetheless – why did Heero seem so panicked (for Heero) if Duo could hold his own?

Even as she was leading Relena towards the hovercraft that would transport the Vice-Ambassador to her quarters, she was giving orders for the teams to move in faster.

End part 4