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Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.

Author's Notes:  Sorry for the delay.  Life got crazy.  Thank you for all the reviews, and I promise more sooner!!!

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Your Wildest Dreams
by Kristen Elizabeth

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They walked for hours, and had Heero not been there with her, Relena would have given up early into the trek. The savanna was beautiful, but in a desolate, inhospitable way. It was never far from her mind, the thought that people died here every day.

The first signs of life, other than the crocodiles, came an hour into their journey when they spotted a herd of sleek gazelles grazing on the sparse patches of grass. Relena pointed them out as such, and blushed when Heero gave her the "you know too much useless information look." Was it her fault that she spent so much time at home watching nature shows? If he thought she was an info geek, perhaps he could take her out to dinner sometime. In a non-bodyguard capacity.

Silence enveloped them again, and Relena found herself seriously regretting her choice in clothes. The formal blouse and business suit she'd worn for the speech had become almost thermal, trapping the heat and holding it against her skin. Heero seemed fine in his uniform although he shed the jacket at the same time they had slathered every exposed inch of their skin with sunscreen. She could see white streaks on the back of his neck where he hadn't managed to rub in all of the cream. Perhaps when they stopped to reapply, she should offer to help him.

Of course, that might send him over the edge. If he couldn't stand talking to her, she doubted he'd be able to deal with her hands on his neck, massaging in sunscreen. He'd touched her twice since the crash, once to wipe blood off her face, and once to save her from a man-eating crocodile. Not exactly the stuff of a girl's dreams.

Just when Relena thought she couldn't go another step, Heero pointed to a scraggly tree several yards ahead of them that offered the most shade they'd seen so far. "We'll stop there and wait out the heat of the day."

Sinking down onto the hard earth wasn't exactly like sliding into a hot bubble bath, but it certainly felt wonderful. She sighed and leaned against the tree trunk. "At the risk of sounding like a wimp, my feet are killing me."

Heero snorted, looking at her Prada loafers. "Not really ideal footwear for Africa."

"I'm sorry. The next time I'm planning my outfit for the day, I will certainly remember to take into account that my plane might go down in the middle of nowhere, and I'll have to hike hundreds of miles."

"Talking dehydrates you faster." He reached into the bag of supplies and handed her a bottle of water. "Drink half of this."

Relena took the bottle with a puzzled frown. "Shouldn't we ration it?"

"People have been found dead with full bottles of water. Rationing accomplishes nothing." He took a bottle for himself and settled back to drink.

"Does the same theory apply to the food?"

"Take what you want."

She took the bag and rummaged through its contents. "Peanuts, crackers, and chocolates."

"Were you hoping for a four-course meal?"

Ignoring him, Relena took a packet of peanuts. "Are you going to eat?"

He took a long sip of water. "Later."

"You probably should now. We've both lost a lot of fluids in a very short time, and your body needs the salt to…"

"I said 'later'."

Biting the inside of her cheek, Relena ripped open the peanuts and dug in. Honey-roasted. There were worse things to have for lunch, she decided. After a moment of silent chewing, she looked around at their surroundings. "If you factor out the dangers of being stranded here, it's really quite spectacular." Heero said nothing. She swallowed and looked back at him. "I don't think I told you…thank you for saving my life back there."

"I'm your bodyguard. I get paid to guard your body."

"Of course." Suddenly, her appetite was gone. She put the little bag back into the bigger bag, took a sip of water, and began undoing the cuff buttons of her blouse.

Heero sat up. "Don't do that."

She started rolling the sleeves up. "I'll put lotion on, don't worry. And I think you can bear the hideous sight of my arms. Unless you'd like to carry me when I faint from the heat."

"Malaria." He grabbed her arm and yanked the newly rolled sleeve down to cover her exposed flesh. "The less the mosquitoes have to bite, the better. Unless *you'd* like kidney failure and dementia."

A long minute passed. Birds could be heard from somewhere off in the distance. "Look, Heero. While I appreciate that you are just doing your job, could you possibly consider for one moment that I'm very tired, very hot and very scared. I'm trying my best, and I don't think it's too much for me to ask that you try to bear this in mind."

He kicked back another long drink of water. Some of the liquid escaped his mouth and slipped down his throat in shiny little rivers. Wiping his chin with the back of his hand, he gave her a cool look. "Should I not warn you when you're about to do something wrong?"

"Never mind. Just…forget I said anything." She stood up and walked around to the other side of the slender tree, out of his eyesight.

Heero shook his head. What the hell did she want from him? He was just as tired and just as hot as she was, only he wasn't letting his fear turn him into a babbling idiot. They weren't on some fantasy safari, and maybe he couldn't see the beauty of the landscape, considering that most of his energy was going into getting them across it intact.

"Oh my god!!"

He shot to his feet. "Relena, what's wrong?!"

"Shh! Come here." Her head appeared around the tree trunk. "Quietly." Heero frowned. "Please?"

Unable to say no to her, he moved around to her side of the tree. She took his arm instantly and pointed with her free hand. "Look."

No more than an hundred feet away, a giraffe and her offspring were feeding from the tall bushes. The youngster stood only as high as its mother's front quarters, a perfect miniature copy.

"I never thought I'd see one so close, let alone two!" Relena whispered. "Aren't they amazing?"

He knew she wanted him to agree with her, and it would have been so easy. But he just couldn't, because in the very back of his mind he could only think one thing.

If the prey was around, the predator couldn't be too far away.

****

With a steady hand, Quatre Winner signed a check, promising well over a hundred thousand credits to a safari company that would provide them with a prop jet, as well as a native guide, skilled in tracking and rescue missions. The money was nothing; quite frankly it wouldn't even put a minor dent in his finances. And even if it had, it would have been worth the expense to find Heero and Relena and the crew of their downed plane.

Currently, he was waiting at the gate of the Johannesburg Spaceport for Duo Maxwell's shuttle to arrive from L2, having only just arrived in South Africa from L4 himself. Their braided friend had grabbed the first flight he could and now, less than twenty-four hours from the time their friends had gone missing, they were about to become a team once more. If only the circumstances hadn't been so dire.

Trowa Barton approached the row of chairs with two cups of coffee in his hand. "You look like you could use this."

It wasn't the most flattering thing the taller man had said to him in their years together, but Quatre took the coffee without complaint. "Where is Wufei?"

"He had a phone call to make."

Quatre nodded and sipped. "Awful stuff."

"We're not likely to get much better in the jungle," Trowa reminded him.

"True." He forced down another swallow. "Tell me something. Do you feel that they're still alive?"

His lover lifted one muscled shoulder. "You're the feeler, Little One. Not me."

"I feel that they are." Quatre closed his eyes. "I have to believe that I'm right."

"Hey!!" an unmistakable voice shouted over the din of the spaceport. Both men looked towards the gate just in time to see Duo Maxwell saunter out from it, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and his braid flying. They stood up as he jogged over to them. "Fancy meeting you two here." As he shook hands with Trowa, Duo winced. "Careful, man! I'm still recovering from that 'small, painless' series of shots they gave me before they'd let me get on the shuttle."

Quatre patted his own forearm where he'd just as recently been vaccinated for yellow fever, hepatitis, rabies and typhoid, diseases that still ran rampant in the country, despite modern medicine. At least the vaccinations took effect immediately, or else they wouldn't have been allowed to make the rescue trip at all. "We're ready to go first thing tomorrow morning," he told Duo. "The jet and guide are waiting for us, loaded up with supplies. We'll spend most of tomorrow in the air, flying over Botswana."

Duo shook his head, thoroughly satisfied with himself for regulating the task of organization and planning to Quatre. "The quicker we can get out there and find them…" He didn't need to finish the sentence. Everyone was all too aware of what might happen to their friends if they weren't found soon. "Has there been any news?"

"Nothing," Trowa replied. "But at least they haven't found a wrecked plane."

"No news is good news," Chang Wufei said, approaching them, his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his black pants. Duo held up his hand, looking an awful lot like he was about to slap his back. "Don't even think about it, Maxwell."

Duo lowered his hand. "So…where's our hotel?"

****

When the sun began to drop out of the sky and dusk settled over the savanna, Heero began looking for a large tree with branches sturdy enough to hold both of them. He hadn't told Relena yet, but they would be spending the night above the ground, and he hoped that once she heard that lions were, for the most part, nocturnal predators, she wouldn't put up too much of a fuss.

Instantly, he felt something almost akin to guilt. Relena hadn't done anything except make a few innocent errors, and he'd been treating her as though she were an infant all day. The truth was, all it took was one mistake out here, and you wouldn't live to make another. He had to take charge, whether she liked it or not. After all, he didn't figure she could think of him as any more of an asshole than she already did.

As best he could figure it, they'd traveled only twelve or thirteen miles so far, with no signs of life other than antelope, gazelles, and Relena's giraffes. They hadn't even seen tire tracks. And no plans had flown overhead. It was an eerie thing, feeling like the rest of the world had disappeared, and only he and Relena were left.

Eerie, but not unappealing.

He spotted the perfect tree just as the round bottom of the sun touched the western horizon. Relena was lagging behind him; he turned to see her. "Can you make it another few yards?"

"We're stopping for the night already?"

"The last thing we want to do is walk around after dark." He pointed to the tree. "Your hotel for the night, Minister."

Heero was getting punchy. This was not a good sign. Relena straightened her shoulders. "You think I've never roughed it
before?"

"I think that sleeping in a tent in the backyard of your family's five-acre mansion isn't 'roughing it.'"

Relena's paced picked up as her anger grew. "Are there any more insults you care to toss my way? The day is drawing to a close, and I wouldn't want you to miss your quota." Apparently, she didn't want him to answer, and he wisely kept his mouth shut.

When they reached the base of the tree, Heero quickly assessed the best side to scale it. "I'll help you up," he offered. It wasn't exactly an apology, but what did she expect from him? He was doing the best he could.

"I don't want to seem like I'm questioning Heero Yuy, Great African Bushman, but aren't there things that can get to us in the trees?" She swallowed. "Like snakes?"

"Most African snakes are ground snakes: adders, mambas…cobras. Like that one over there."

Relena screamed and grabbed the lowest branch of the tree. With a boost from Heero, she pulled herself up onto it. "Oh my god, Heero, hurry up!!"

"I was kidding."

She stared down at him. "Just what the hell is wrong with you?!"

"I had to get you up the tree somehow." He followed her up with the bag of supplies. "Keep going; we'll want to be as far off the ground as possible."

Relena shook her head as she climbed, her tangled hair brushing over her shoulders. "If this is how you joke…don't bother. Please. I'd rather just talk to myself."

When they were far enough up, Heero signaled to her to stop. She straddled a thick branch just a few inches higher than his own, her carry-on slung over her chest. "Try to get as comfortable as possible. You don't roll over in your sleep, do you?"

She blinked. "I don't know. I don't think so."

"Your boyfriends have never told you if you do?"

It took her a long time to reply, and when she did, her voice was deadly quiet. "If you paid as much attention to me as you do to my safety, Heero, you'd know that I've never been in that kind of a relationship."

He shifted on his branch. Her innocence hadn't escaped his notice; in fact, it was fairly prominent on his unspoken list of reasons to stay away from her. With a sigh, he reached into the supply bag. "Here. Take the blanket; it'll get cold soon. And your water."

Relena snatched them out of his hands. "Won't you be cold? Oh, that's right. Your blood already is."

With a packet of peanuts in one hand and a can of pineapple juice in the other, Heero settled in for the night. Dusk transitioned rapidly into darkness, and before too long, he couldn't even see Relena anymore. Somehow, it made it easier to talk to her…without the distraction of her button nose, or the fullness of her bottom lip, or the way her forehead crinkled when she was thinking something over. He took a deep breath.

"I think the jet was sabotaged." He could hear her gasp. "It was in pristine condition. Fresh out of the factory. Nothing should have gone wrong with it." Heero shook his head. "The whole thing was just a little too convenient."

"You mean…" There was a tremble in her voice. "Because of where we went down?" He nodded, even though she couldn't see it. "Heero, who would want to…to kill me?"

He took a sip of juice. "Trust me when I say that once we get back to civilization, I'm going to find out."

Something in his tone warmed the very center of her stomach. Biting her lip to hide her smile, even though he couldn't see it, Relena began unfolding the blanket, careful to keep her balance on the branch as she did so. It was best to keep busy, she figured, than dwell on the fact that someone had tried to murder her.

She stopped suddenly upon hearing something from the ground below. "Heero?"

"I hear it, too," he said. The heavy pad of footsteps on hard dirt…a low growl. Heero reached into his bag and pulled out one flashlight. Flipping it on, he trained the beam of light down to investigate.

Their eyes glowed just like the crocodiles, but the two lionesses passing by their tree didn't seem bothered by their presence. And as Heero moved the light on, he could see why. An antelope was engaged in some nighttime grazing in the grasses nearby. The cover of night was perfect for the huntresses. Heero quickly flipped the flashlight off. Nature was going to take its course, but he and Relena didn't need to see it.

"Take my hand," he told her, groping around until he felt her slender fingers.

"What? Why?"

"Shh." Heero entwined their fingers. "If we can't see each other, we're going to have to feel each other."

Relena looked down. His hand was warm and calloused, and hers fit into it perfectly. Were it not for the sounds of the antelope bounding away with the lionesses hot on its tail, it might have been possible for her to imagine that the situation was much more romantic.

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To Be Continued