Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me. No siree.
Author's Notes: Sorry it's taken awhile to get out. I've had some health crap slowing me down, but it's all good, and updates should come faster from now on. Thanks for everything!!
****
Your Wildest Dreams
by Kristen Elizabeth
****
Perhaps if it had been the first time she stared down the barrel of a gun, Relena might have panicked. But it wasn't, and all she did was lift her eyes to look at the gunmen's leader. She put two and two together quickly, and calmly asked him, "Are you part of the group who's trying to assassinate me?"
"Beauty *and* brains…always a good combination. Although…" He gestured to her dirty face and hair. "The beauty is questionable right now." The man crossed his arms. "Let's not prolong this, Foreign Minister."
She looked down at Heero. His skin was damp, but so suddenly pale. Blood soaked his uniform sleeve; he let it flow to get as much venom out as possible, she presumed. Still, she knew her stuff from those nature shows. A cobra bite could kill in a matter of hours. They locked stares, and it only took Relena a moment to decide what her next move would be. Heero needed help if he was going to live. Nothing else mattered.
"You've obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure my death," Relena began. "Another moment of your time isn't going to inconvenience you." She took Heero's hand. "I have one last request."
"You're wrong. We don't have time for this."
Relena's eyes narrowed. "Even the lowliest of prisoners is granted a final request."
The man sighed with much impatience. "What do you want? And make it quick."
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Heero's gun just behind his body where it had landed when the snake attacked him. She wasn't fool enough to think that she could reach it without being stopped, but even in his condition, he could. She just hoped that he'd know when to make his move, if she gave him the opportunity.
"This man is my bodyguard. He needs immediate medical attention." Relena paused for a moment. "I want you to take him to it."
Her captor began to laugh. "I hardly think you're in a good negotiating position."
"For whatever reason you want me dead, he has nothing to do with it." She smiled sadly. "He doesn't even like me very much."
Heero grimaced. "Relena…"
"All I ask is that you take him to the nearest hospital. After that…you can complete your mission."
"You really expect me to take this man to a hospital so he can live to tell the world that someone with my description murdered the Foreign Minister? I take back what I said about you having brains."
She bit her lip. "How much are you being paid for this?"
"How do you know I'm being paid?" The man smirked. "Maybe I just want you dead."
"How much?" When he didn't say anything, Relena pointed to her bag. "I have a hundred and fifty thousand credits in there, and I can write you an order for more. Would that be enough to ensure that you take my bodyguard to safety?"
The leader looked at his men. "Stand down for a moment." The weapons pointed at her lowered. "All right, Minister Peacecraft. I want to see these credits first before I agree to anything."
Relena nodded. "Of course. Just let me get my bag." She stood slowly and took her bag, opening it with careful motions. Her fingers searched around until she found her wallet. She pulled it out, showed it to the man, and reached back in for her orderbook. But instead of the leather book, her fingers closed around a cool, metal cylinder.
"Could you hold this?" she asked her captor, indicating the wallet in her hand. "I can't seem to find my orderbook."
He stepped forward, eager to relieve Relena of her thick wallet. When he was no more than a foot away from her, she whipped her arm out of her bag, armed with a travel-sized can of hairspray.
She aimed for the man's eyes and sprayed a healthy amount directly into them. He screamed, dropped her wallet and clutched his face.
"Heero!" Relena shouted, turning her head towards him.
Holding his injured arm against his body, he reached behind, grabbed his gun and threw it to her. Relena dropped her bag in order to catch the weapon before the guards had any time to react. Once it was in her hand, she jammed the end of it against the leader's forehead. He immediately froze, his eyes still screwed shut.
"Put your guns down!" she ordered his men. Five weapons dropped to the brown grass.
"Kick them away," Heero added. Relena swallowed; his voice was weaker than she'd ever heard it before.
She waited until the men had complied. "Now, here's what I *really* want. First of all, I assume you're traveling with some sort of first-aid kit. Yes or no. It's not a difficult question."
The leader forced his eyes open; they were swollen and a horrible shade of red. "Yes," he replied between gritted teeth.
"Does it contain any sort of anti-venom?" He nodded tightly. "All right." Relena let out a breath. "Get your men to get my bodyguard to your cars. I'll have more orders from there."
The leader jerked his head slightly, and two of the men approached Heero from either side and helped him to his feet. He let out a grunt of pain.
Keeping the gun pressed against the man's face, Relena followed the group of soldiers and Heero down a small hill and across a couple hundred feet to where their Jeeps rested. "Get the kit out; give him the injection."
"We have one vial," the man laughed despite the gun aimed at his forehead. "It won't be enough."
"It's something." Relena watched one of the men rip the packaging on a sterile hypodermic and stick the needle into a vial of clear serum. Heero had no reaction to the needle sliding into his arm; his eyes were on Relena, giving her a look she couldn't quite identify. It wasn't angry, but it wasn't grateful either. "All right." She thought fast. "We'll go in one car with you driving," she told the leader. "Everyone else…all the credits in that wallet are yours to split up if you drive in an opposite direction and don't look back."
The men exchanged looks. They were being paid peanuts to take the white man through the savanna, and the offer of a hundred and fifty thousand divided five ways was far more appealing.
"You bitch," the abandoned leader muttered as his men grabbed the money, tossed the wallet and climbed into one of the Jeeps. "You should have died in that crash."
"Probably," Relena agreed. She eased up a bit with the gun, but still kept it trained on him. "Help my bodyguard into the car."
When Heero was in the open-air backseat, the man looked at Relena. "And now?"
"You're going to drive us to that nearest hospital, of course." She gestured him into the driver's seat. "I haven't ever killed anyone, but if you've paid any attention to my recent politics, as you must have if you dislike them so much to kill me because of them, you know that I no longer support my completely pacifist ideals." She cocked the gun. "Do not do anything while you're driving that will turn me into a killer."
She took the passenger's seat next to their hostage and with one hand keeping the gun pointed at him, Relena looked back at Heero, as the man started the Jeep. "Please hold on, Heero."
He shook his head against the inside of the Jeep's door. "Why are you doing this…for me?"
"You've saved my life, more than once. If I am going to die today, the thing I want most of all is to know that I was able to save yours." The Jeep hit a bump in the rocky ground as it raced towards the mountains. "I love you, Heero."
Relena quickly faced forward and looked at the driver. "Where are we heading?"
His reply was short. "Victoria Falls."
****
"It doesn't make any sense."
Duo turned the buttery leather wallet over and over in his hands. "It's like a bad riddle, Quat-man. How did Relena Peacecraft's wallet end up empty and abandoned in the middle of Africa, a hundred feet away from her carry-on, an airline blanket, a garbage bag full of empty bottles, five semi-automatic weapons and one very dead snake?"
"Something happened here. Someone was hurt." A few feet away, next to a deep set of tire tracks, Trowa gingerly lifted a hypodermic needle from the tangled grass. "I don't think this was used for recreation."
Wufei looked around. "Whatever happened, it didn't happen long ago. An hour, maybe two."
One of the guides pointed to the fresh tracks. "They lead west. To the border."
"Going on the assumption that all this stuff is somehow connected…" Duo began. After a moment, he threw up his hands. "I have no idea anymore. Do we push on to Zimbabwe?"
"Relena is still alive." Quatre closed his eyes and turned his face up to the afternoon sun. "And Heero is with her." His brow crinkled. "But barely."
Duo blinked. "What does that mean?"
"He's dying."
A rare breeze swept over them, making Duo's messy braid dance along his back. Trowa glanced back towards the tree. "The snake?" he asked his lover.
"I can't be sure. It would seem likely." Quatre opened his eyes. "We have to catch up. Fast. Before we lose both of them."
****
His vision was starting to blur. He knew the reason for it; the toxins in the cobra's venom were attacking his neurotransmitters, preventing messages from being sent to his brain. It wouldn't be long before his respiratory went. The venom would paralyze his diaphragm and…
Heero blinked, trying to keep Relena in focus as the Jeep jolted over miles of African ground. It wouldn't do any good to think about what was happening in his body. What was going to happen was going to happen, maybe even in spite of all her efforts to save him. Her foolish, selfless efforts.
She should have left him behind to die, especially after everything he'd ever put her through. Years of rejection, hurtful words, giving her a little of what she wanted only to snatch it away from her without warning…why didn't she hate him?! Why did she still love him?!
Relena saw good in him when everyone else, himself included, saw emptiness. She saw a man worthy of her heart. Maybe she was blind, but he couldn't deny any longer that her heart was something he treasured having.
But he'd kept his own out of her reach for so long. And now, it was too late. It wouldn't be long before his heart stopped beating…and it really wouldn't be good enough for her. At least, he told himself, after his death, she would have to get on with her life. She wouldn't have a choice in the matter.
"I see it!" Relena cried out from the front seat, her voice nearly lost in the wind that whipped across them. "The city, Heero! Victoria Falls!" She looked back at him. "We're almost there!"
His chest felt so tight, but he managed to nod. "You'll be…all right. Relena."
She looked back at him, but all he saw was a blur of gold. "Heero?"
"I want…I need you to know." Heero took a breath before he couldn't anymore. "You have saved me…from myself." The pain in his chest tripled and he squeezed his eyes shut.
"Heero! Oh god!" Relena turned her body until she was sitting on her knees in the passenger's seat, hanging over the back of it to reach him. "Drive faster!" she screamed at her would-be assassin. Her attention returned to Heero. With her free hand, she grasped his. "Heero, please open your eyes." Tears wet her lips. "Please…fight it. If you can't do it alone, I'm here. Remember? What you told me that just a few days ago?"
He shook his head. "This might be…the end of the road, Relena."
"Don't you even think that, Heero Yuy!" She sniffed back her tears and looked at the man driving. "Are you going as fast as you can?"
The man stared at the city as they approached it. The landscape was different here, greener. They were approaching a major body of water, the falls for which the city was named. "He's going to die. What does it matter?"
"He is not going to die!" Relena looked back at Heero. "He's not going to die." Sobs welled up in her chest as she watched him struggle to breathe. "Please, Heero…you can't die…"
The slender hand holding the man at gunpoint faltered slightly, and it was just the opportunity he needed. At the very edge of the city they'd gone through so much to get to, the man slammed on the brakes, jolting Relena forward so hard, she dropped the gun.
He scooped it up, triumphant. "All of this could have been avoided, Minister, if you'd have just gone easily. It's not even so much your politics we give a damn about, but what you represent. An era better left forgotten. You are the living reminder of a monarchy system better off dead, and to put you in a position of even greater power is unthinkable. Now, here's how this is *really* going to play out. We're dumping the bodyguard."
"No!!"
"Oh, let it go. Look at him; he's as good as gone." Relena looked back at Heero. Sweat poured off his face; his eyes were rolled back in his head. The man stopped the car, got out and opened the back door. With one hand, he yanked Heero out and let him fall to the ground with a sickening thud. "He'll be dead before any animal gets hold of him. You can take some comfort in that."
Relena's hands were pressed against her mouth. "Please…if you'll just take him into the town…you can kill me. I won't care!"
The man laughed. "Negotiating until the very end. Admirable." He shook his head. "I can't risk anyone seeing you. The whole world thinks you died in a tragic plane crash. If anyone finds his body, no one will care how he died. But you…" He wagged the gun at her. "I'm going to get rid of you in such a way that there won't be enough of you left to identify." He pointed into the distance. "The rocks under the falls should take care of your body; if not, then the crocodiles." Climbing back into the car, he turned the ignition on. "Shall we, Minister Peacecraft?"
"Let me…" She swallowed. "Let me see him one last time."
"No, I don't think so. You told me yourself that he doesn't like you. Why would your face be the last one he ever wants to see?" He put the car into drive and they peeled away, leaving Heero behind in the dust.
****
To Be Continued
Author's Notes: Sorry it's taken awhile to get out. I've had some health crap slowing me down, but it's all good, and updates should come faster from now on. Thanks for everything!!
****
Your Wildest Dreams
by Kristen Elizabeth
****
Perhaps if it had been the first time she stared down the barrel of a gun, Relena might have panicked. But it wasn't, and all she did was lift her eyes to look at the gunmen's leader. She put two and two together quickly, and calmly asked him, "Are you part of the group who's trying to assassinate me?"
"Beauty *and* brains…always a good combination. Although…" He gestured to her dirty face and hair. "The beauty is questionable right now." The man crossed his arms. "Let's not prolong this, Foreign Minister."
She looked down at Heero. His skin was damp, but so suddenly pale. Blood soaked his uniform sleeve; he let it flow to get as much venom out as possible, she presumed. Still, she knew her stuff from those nature shows. A cobra bite could kill in a matter of hours. They locked stares, and it only took Relena a moment to decide what her next move would be. Heero needed help if he was going to live. Nothing else mattered.
"You've obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure my death," Relena began. "Another moment of your time isn't going to inconvenience you." She took Heero's hand. "I have one last request."
"You're wrong. We don't have time for this."
Relena's eyes narrowed. "Even the lowliest of prisoners is granted a final request."
The man sighed with much impatience. "What do you want? And make it quick."
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Heero's gun just behind his body where it had landed when the snake attacked him. She wasn't fool enough to think that she could reach it without being stopped, but even in his condition, he could. She just hoped that he'd know when to make his move, if she gave him the opportunity.
"This man is my bodyguard. He needs immediate medical attention." Relena paused for a moment. "I want you to take him to it."
Her captor began to laugh. "I hardly think you're in a good negotiating position."
"For whatever reason you want me dead, he has nothing to do with it." She smiled sadly. "He doesn't even like me very much."
Heero grimaced. "Relena…"
"All I ask is that you take him to the nearest hospital. After that…you can complete your mission."
"You really expect me to take this man to a hospital so he can live to tell the world that someone with my description murdered the Foreign Minister? I take back what I said about you having brains."
She bit her lip. "How much are you being paid for this?"
"How do you know I'm being paid?" The man smirked. "Maybe I just want you dead."
"How much?" When he didn't say anything, Relena pointed to her bag. "I have a hundred and fifty thousand credits in there, and I can write you an order for more. Would that be enough to ensure that you take my bodyguard to safety?"
The leader looked at his men. "Stand down for a moment." The weapons pointed at her lowered. "All right, Minister Peacecraft. I want to see these credits first before I agree to anything."
Relena nodded. "Of course. Just let me get my bag." She stood slowly and took her bag, opening it with careful motions. Her fingers searched around until she found her wallet. She pulled it out, showed it to the man, and reached back in for her orderbook. But instead of the leather book, her fingers closed around a cool, metal cylinder.
"Could you hold this?" she asked her captor, indicating the wallet in her hand. "I can't seem to find my orderbook."
He stepped forward, eager to relieve Relena of her thick wallet. When he was no more than a foot away from her, she whipped her arm out of her bag, armed with a travel-sized can of hairspray.
She aimed for the man's eyes and sprayed a healthy amount directly into them. He screamed, dropped her wallet and clutched his face.
"Heero!" Relena shouted, turning her head towards him.
Holding his injured arm against his body, he reached behind, grabbed his gun and threw it to her. Relena dropped her bag in order to catch the weapon before the guards had any time to react. Once it was in her hand, she jammed the end of it against the leader's forehead. He immediately froze, his eyes still screwed shut.
"Put your guns down!" she ordered his men. Five weapons dropped to the brown grass.
"Kick them away," Heero added. Relena swallowed; his voice was weaker than she'd ever heard it before.
She waited until the men had complied. "Now, here's what I *really* want. First of all, I assume you're traveling with some sort of first-aid kit. Yes or no. It's not a difficult question."
The leader forced his eyes open; they were swollen and a horrible shade of red. "Yes," he replied between gritted teeth.
"Does it contain any sort of anti-venom?" He nodded tightly. "All right." Relena let out a breath. "Get your men to get my bodyguard to your cars. I'll have more orders from there."
The leader jerked his head slightly, and two of the men approached Heero from either side and helped him to his feet. He let out a grunt of pain.
Keeping the gun pressed against the man's face, Relena followed the group of soldiers and Heero down a small hill and across a couple hundred feet to where their Jeeps rested. "Get the kit out; give him the injection."
"We have one vial," the man laughed despite the gun aimed at his forehead. "It won't be enough."
"It's something." Relena watched one of the men rip the packaging on a sterile hypodermic and stick the needle into a vial of clear serum. Heero had no reaction to the needle sliding into his arm; his eyes were on Relena, giving her a look she couldn't quite identify. It wasn't angry, but it wasn't grateful either. "All right." She thought fast. "We'll go in one car with you driving," she told the leader. "Everyone else…all the credits in that wallet are yours to split up if you drive in an opposite direction and don't look back."
The men exchanged looks. They were being paid peanuts to take the white man through the savanna, and the offer of a hundred and fifty thousand divided five ways was far more appealing.
"You bitch," the abandoned leader muttered as his men grabbed the money, tossed the wallet and climbed into one of the Jeeps. "You should have died in that crash."
"Probably," Relena agreed. She eased up a bit with the gun, but still kept it trained on him. "Help my bodyguard into the car."
When Heero was in the open-air backseat, the man looked at Relena. "And now?"
"You're going to drive us to that nearest hospital, of course." She gestured him into the driver's seat. "I haven't ever killed anyone, but if you've paid any attention to my recent politics, as you must have if you dislike them so much to kill me because of them, you know that I no longer support my completely pacifist ideals." She cocked the gun. "Do not do anything while you're driving that will turn me into a killer."
She took the passenger's seat next to their hostage and with one hand keeping the gun pointed at him, Relena looked back at Heero, as the man started the Jeep. "Please hold on, Heero."
He shook his head against the inside of the Jeep's door. "Why are you doing this…for me?"
"You've saved my life, more than once. If I am going to die today, the thing I want most of all is to know that I was able to save yours." The Jeep hit a bump in the rocky ground as it raced towards the mountains. "I love you, Heero."
Relena quickly faced forward and looked at the driver. "Where are we heading?"
His reply was short. "Victoria Falls."
****
"It doesn't make any sense."
Duo turned the buttery leather wallet over and over in his hands. "It's like a bad riddle, Quat-man. How did Relena Peacecraft's wallet end up empty and abandoned in the middle of Africa, a hundred feet away from her carry-on, an airline blanket, a garbage bag full of empty bottles, five semi-automatic weapons and one very dead snake?"
"Something happened here. Someone was hurt." A few feet away, next to a deep set of tire tracks, Trowa gingerly lifted a hypodermic needle from the tangled grass. "I don't think this was used for recreation."
Wufei looked around. "Whatever happened, it didn't happen long ago. An hour, maybe two."
One of the guides pointed to the fresh tracks. "They lead west. To the border."
"Going on the assumption that all this stuff is somehow connected…" Duo began. After a moment, he threw up his hands. "I have no idea anymore. Do we push on to Zimbabwe?"
"Relena is still alive." Quatre closed his eyes and turned his face up to the afternoon sun. "And Heero is with her." His brow crinkled. "But barely."
Duo blinked. "What does that mean?"
"He's dying."
A rare breeze swept over them, making Duo's messy braid dance along his back. Trowa glanced back towards the tree. "The snake?" he asked his lover.
"I can't be sure. It would seem likely." Quatre opened his eyes. "We have to catch up. Fast. Before we lose both of them."
****
His vision was starting to blur. He knew the reason for it; the toxins in the cobra's venom were attacking his neurotransmitters, preventing messages from being sent to his brain. It wouldn't be long before his respiratory went. The venom would paralyze his diaphragm and…
Heero blinked, trying to keep Relena in focus as the Jeep jolted over miles of African ground. It wouldn't do any good to think about what was happening in his body. What was going to happen was going to happen, maybe even in spite of all her efforts to save him. Her foolish, selfless efforts.
She should have left him behind to die, especially after everything he'd ever put her through. Years of rejection, hurtful words, giving her a little of what she wanted only to snatch it away from her without warning…why didn't she hate him?! Why did she still love him?!
Relena saw good in him when everyone else, himself included, saw emptiness. She saw a man worthy of her heart. Maybe she was blind, but he couldn't deny any longer that her heart was something he treasured having.
But he'd kept his own out of her reach for so long. And now, it was too late. It wouldn't be long before his heart stopped beating…and it really wouldn't be good enough for her. At least, he told himself, after his death, she would have to get on with her life. She wouldn't have a choice in the matter.
"I see it!" Relena cried out from the front seat, her voice nearly lost in the wind that whipped across them. "The city, Heero! Victoria Falls!" She looked back at him. "We're almost there!"
His chest felt so tight, but he managed to nod. "You'll be…all right. Relena."
She looked back at him, but all he saw was a blur of gold. "Heero?"
"I want…I need you to know." Heero took a breath before he couldn't anymore. "You have saved me…from myself." The pain in his chest tripled and he squeezed his eyes shut.
"Heero! Oh god!" Relena turned her body until she was sitting on her knees in the passenger's seat, hanging over the back of it to reach him. "Drive faster!" she screamed at her would-be assassin. Her attention returned to Heero. With her free hand, she grasped his. "Heero, please open your eyes." Tears wet her lips. "Please…fight it. If you can't do it alone, I'm here. Remember? What you told me that just a few days ago?"
He shook his head. "This might be…the end of the road, Relena."
"Don't you even think that, Heero Yuy!" She sniffed back her tears and looked at the man driving. "Are you going as fast as you can?"
The man stared at the city as they approached it. The landscape was different here, greener. They were approaching a major body of water, the falls for which the city was named. "He's going to die. What does it matter?"
"He is not going to die!" Relena looked back at Heero. "He's not going to die." Sobs welled up in her chest as she watched him struggle to breathe. "Please, Heero…you can't die…"
The slender hand holding the man at gunpoint faltered slightly, and it was just the opportunity he needed. At the very edge of the city they'd gone through so much to get to, the man slammed on the brakes, jolting Relena forward so hard, she dropped the gun.
He scooped it up, triumphant. "All of this could have been avoided, Minister, if you'd have just gone easily. It's not even so much your politics we give a damn about, but what you represent. An era better left forgotten. You are the living reminder of a monarchy system better off dead, and to put you in a position of even greater power is unthinkable. Now, here's how this is *really* going to play out. We're dumping the bodyguard."
"No!!"
"Oh, let it go. Look at him; he's as good as gone." Relena looked back at Heero. Sweat poured off his face; his eyes were rolled back in his head. The man stopped the car, got out and opened the back door. With one hand, he yanked Heero out and let him fall to the ground with a sickening thud. "He'll be dead before any animal gets hold of him. You can take some comfort in that."
Relena's hands were pressed against her mouth. "Please…if you'll just take him into the town…you can kill me. I won't care!"
The man laughed. "Negotiating until the very end. Admirable." He shook his head. "I can't risk anyone seeing you. The whole world thinks you died in a tragic plane crash. If anyone finds his body, no one will care how he died. But you…" He wagged the gun at her. "I'm going to get rid of you in such a way that there won't be enough of you left to identify." He pointed into the distance. "The rocks under the falls should take care of your body; if not, then the crocodiles." Climbing back into the car, he turned the ignition on. "Shall we, Minister Peacecraft?"
"Let me…" She swallowed. "Let me see him one last time."
"No, I don't think so. You told me yourself that he doesn't like you. Why would your face be the last one he ever wants to see?" He put the car into drive and they peeled away, leaving Heero behind in the dust.
****
To Be Continued