Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.
Author's Notes: Once more, I can't thank you enough for the support and interest. Enjoy!!!
****
Your Wildest Dreams
by Kristen Elizabeth
****
He emerged from the darkness without any struggle. One minute there was nothingness; the next, his eyes were open, his vision clear, the pain a faint, but still discernable memory.
Heero glanced down at his body. His dirty uniform was gone, and he'd been redressed in a thin cotton hospital gown. An IV ran into the back of his hand; thick bandages swaddled his arm where the snake had ripped out a chunk of him.
He wasn't hungry, thirsty, hot or uncomfortable. But all of a sudden, Heero Yuy was scared.
Like lightning, he bolted upright. "Relena!"
"What the fuck?!" Across the room, Duo awoke, wrestling with the magazine that he'd draped over his face as he slept. He jumped to his feet. "Dammit, Heero…you could give a guy some warning!!"
Heero grabbed the plastic IV tube. "Relena…"
"Don't you rip that thing out," Duo warned him. "They're still pumping anti-venom into you through it."
He let go of the tube, but transferred the full brunt of his disoriented and frantic state onto his friend. "What's going on? Where's Relena?"
Duo wanted to smirk, to gloat over that fact that he'd been right for years and that Heero truly did care about the Foreign Minister, but it was neither the time, nor the place. If Heero didn't get answers soon, he would likely do something drastic.
"You're in the Victoria Falls hospital; you've been out of it for about two days now. Do you remember anything before right now?"
Heero nodded. "Relena," he said again.
"Give me a second." Duo inhaled a huge breath. "It's taken about fifteen vials of the anti-venom stuff, but the doctors think you're gonna be just fine, although you'll probably feel kinda crappy for another couple of days."
With his uninjured arm, Heero grabbed the sleeve of Duo's black shirt. "Where is Relena?"
Duo hung his head for a second. "They said you could get in a wheelchair and move around. So maybe…maybe you should see for yourself."
Heero could feel his heart leap into his throat, and did his best to swallow it back down. "Is she…" He couldn't even say it. Couldn't even think it.
"She's alive, Heero," the other man said, uncharacteristically subdued. "But…well." He clapped a hand on Heero's shoulder. "You should just come see her."
****
Her room was private and heavily guarded. As Duo wheeled him closer, a humiliation in and of itself, Heero couldn't help but feel more than a little embarrassed in front of his fellow Preventers. But the men were professionals, and recognized his position, even in his current state. They saluted and waited for his return salute before opening the door of Relena's hospital room and allowing them to pass.
Her bed was equally guarded, not by military men, but by a small team of doctors and nurses. He could barely see her around them; they were poking at her, prodding her, checking the myriad of monitors to which she was connected. Heero's fingers dug into the arms of his chair when one nurse moved out of the way and he finally saw her.
She was a lifeless doll, a broken angel whose wings were almost beyond repair. As someone had done to him, she'd been cleaned up, but a sponge bath hadn't given her hair back its usual golden luster, nor had it brought color to her translucent skin. Her heart beat with marching band precision, but had it not been for those monitors, Heero wouldn't have even been sure that Duo wasn't lying, that she was still alive.
"She took a bullet in the shoulder," Duo said, answering the question he knew Heero wanted to ask, but was too floored to get out. "Also, she's severely dehydrated…but you were, too. Really, the bullet didn't hit anything major, and she should have woken up by…" He stopped.
Heero's voice was low and chilly. "Why hasn't she?"
"Don't know." Duo walked around to stand beside Heero. Together, they stared at the princess politician. "I'm not, like, a doctor or anything. Obviously. But I think…maybe she doesn't want to wake up." When Heero said nothing, Duo glanced at him. His eyes were tightly shut; his brow furred in what might have been identified as guilt on any other man's face. "What happened out there?"
"She loved me." Heero opened his eyes. "I let her down." Ignoring the IV stand he was still attached to, he pushed the wheels of his chair forward, heading for the bed. "And she thinks I'm dead."
"Hey, can you give him a moment with the patient?" Duo asked the doctors and nurses as he followed Heero, IV stand in hand as he walked. "He won't hurt her." He looked on as Heero watched Relena sleep. "You have my word."
They filed out somewhat reluctantly and Duo took a few steps back. "Um…I'll just be outside," he told Heero. He hesitated before adding, "Talk to her. They always say it helps…that she can hear it. I bet if she just heard your voice…" He coughed conspicuously. "So…yeah. Bye."
Heero heard the other man's words, and then heard the door close behind him, but his eyes never left Relena's face. The wound she'd received in the crash had finally been properly sutured, but it was the bandages wrapped around her bare, right shoulder that had his attention and worry.
He sniffed, a quick intake of breath, and examined her face more closely. The lips he had kissed for so long during that last night in the savanna were visibly dry, but nonetheless desirable. There was no smile there, however; if she was dreaming, it wasn't about anything pleasant. Duo had told him to talk to her, but since when did he start listening to the braided one? Heero rubbed the side of his hand over his mouth. Maybe, just maybe, this once…
"Relena." He wheeled as close as he could to her. "Relena, if you can understand this…I'm here. I'm not dead."
After a moment of silence, Heero pushed away from the bed with a sigh of self-disgust. Why would she come around just for him after the way he'd treated her? He glanced back at her, lying so pale and so still. She still held a presence over the room, as though she were standing up straight, wearing one of her formal, but flattering business suits, giving a rousing speech. How did she hold her power…over him, specifically?
He remembered. He remembered how she'd refused to leave him behind. How she'd risked everything to get him to safety. How well she'd handled his gun. If she could care about him after what he'd done to her, why was he still so reluctant to show her how much *he* cared? Could it be that for the first time in his life, Heero Yuy was playing the coward?
With determined motions, he moved back to her side and with clumsy hands, reached for hers. Her cool, slender fingers felt so fragile; he threaded his through hers for support. "Relena." A long pause followed this, as he struggled to put together the words. "Do you know why I threw you my gun instead of using it myself?" There was no answer, save for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. "I trust you. And I don't…I've never really trusted anyone before." Heero swallowed although his throat was dry. "I'm frightened, Relena, by what I feel for you. How deep you've gotten into me. Maybe I'm really scared of what might happen if I just let you in. Maybe I wouldn't be able to tell where I stopped and you began. And maybe I wouldn't even care."
On impulse, Heero raised her fingers to his lips, letting her feel the words, if she couldn't hear them. "You make me seriously consider what kind of person I could be. Not what kind of bodyguard or soldier, but what kind of man. And maybe the scariest thing of all is that it might be true…that I'm not the sort of man you deserve. I couldn't take that, Relena. Because I want to be good enough. I want to be the sort of man you can be proud to love." He closed his eyes. "Because I…I love you."
A moment passed. Heero opened his eyes slowly, some unidentified part of him expecting her to be awake, waiting for him to look at her. But her eyes were still closed, her breath was still shallow, and she showed no more signs of life than before.
His own eyes burned suddenly, stung by something hot and wet. He frowned and blinked several times to clear them, only to find that the moisture dripped down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth. He tasted salt when he licked his lips.
Heero released her fingers. Whatever was going on, he didn't like it. It was decidedly abnormal. He sniffed again, and found that the wetness was still seeping from somewhere deep within, and he couldn't seem to get it to stop. Utilizing the sleeve of his ridiculous hospital gown, he scrubbed at his face.
"You can cry…Heero."
Her voice was so faint that he almost wasn't sure he'd heard the words at all. Heero's arm dropped and he found himself staring into Relena's clear, blue eyes. She gave him the smallest of smiles, as bright as she could manage. "I won't…tell anyone."
"Relena…" Staunching his tears was forgotten. "How long have you been…"
"I heard it all." Her fingers felt for his and only when they were joined did she speak again, "I'll always…be proud to love you."
His back curved over; his forehead landed on the soft swell of her breast. "Don't ever stop," he said, his words muffled. "Don't let me do anything to make you stop."
Relena ran her IVed hand through his hair, playing with the short, but soft strands at the back of his neck as she whispered, "Couldn't happen."
"I might fuck up again," he warned her.
She wanted to laugh, but her shoulder throbbed too much to let her. "Duly noted. And already forgiven."
"You're really sure about this?" He lifted his head, and for the first time, she could see some of the insecure child he'd never been allowed to be. "About me?"
"I am." Her fingers grazed his still-stubbled chin. "For me…you're it."
Heero shook his head as he covered her hand with his and brought it over to his mouth. He pressed a hot kiss into her palm. "I'll never understand why you picked me. But I'm grateful for it." He looked at her straight on. "Damnit, Relena. I'm grateful for it."
"Come here." She urged him up out of his chair until his face hovered over hers. "Kiss me," she ordered. "And don't let it be a mistake."
He brushed a kiss onto her lips. "It never was." Heero let his mouth meet hers completely, kissing her with the reassurance that he'd always be able to.
And after crocodiles, lions, snakes and assassins, it wasn't nearly as scary as he'd once thought.
****
"I wouldn't go in there," Duo told Quatre as the blond man approached the guarded door with Trowa. The taller Preventer's left arm was in a sling from the struggle with Relena's would-be assassin, but he seemed none the worse for wear.
Quatre frowned. "Why not? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Duo cleared his throat. "Heero's in there."
"I see. It must be hard for him, seeing her lying there like that. So lifeless."
Duo scratched the back of his head. "I'm not so sure about that. In fact, I think he's having a pretty good time."
Quatre gave him a reprimanding look. "How can you say that, even about Heero? You know as well as we all do how much Heero truly cares about…"
"Little one." Trowa directed his lover's attention to the narrow, vertical window cut into Relena's door. "Look."
Inside the room, all three men could plainly see Heero and the Foreign Minister wrapped up in each other despite all the medical equipment they were both still hooked into; if the heat of the embrace was any indication, it wouldn't be long before both of them were fully recovered from their adventure.
Quatre watched Heero run a soft hand down Relena's cheek; his lips touched hers like a butterfly's wings. He blinked. "Oh my…"
"How long has she been awake?" Trowa asked.
"Awhile. I'm gonna alert a doctor soon," Duo replied. "I just wanted to give them a few minutes together." After another second of watching the couple, he snapped to attention. "All right, show's over."
Shaking his head as Trowa gently urged him away from the door, Quatre had to smile. "Never, ever in my wildest dreams…"
Duo nodded, unable to stem his own wide grin. "Quat-man, I second that."
****
To Be Continued
Author's Notes: Once more, I can't thank you enough for the support and interest. Enjoy!!!
****
Your Wildest Dreams
by Kristen Elizabeth
****
He emerged from the darkness without any struggle. One minute there was nothingness; the next, his eyes were open, his vision clear, the pain a faint, but still discernable memory.
Heero glanced down at his body. His dirty uniform was gone, and he'd been redressed in a thin cotton hospital gown. An IV ran into the back of his hand; thick bandages swaddled his arm where the snake had ripped out a chunk of him.
He wasn't hungry, thirsty, hot or uncomfortable. But all of a sudden, Heero Yuy was scared.
Like lightning, he bolted upright. "Relena!"
"What the fuck?!" Across the room, Duo awoke, wrestling with the magazine that he'd draped over his face as he slept. He jumped to his feet. "Dammit, Heero…you could give a guy some warning!!"
Heero grabbed the plastic IV tube. "Relena…"
"Don't you rip that thing out," Duo warned him. "They're still pumping anti-venom into you through it."
He let go of the tube, but transferred the full brunt of his disoriented and frantic state onto his friend. "What's going on? Where's Relena?"
Duo wanted to smirk, to gloat over that fact that he'd been right for years and that Heero truly did care about the Foreign Minister, but it was neither the time, nor the place. If Heero didn't get answers soon, he would likely do something drastic.
"You're in the Victoria Falls hospital; you've been out of it for about two days now. Do you remember anything before right now?"
Heero nodded. "Relena," he said again.
"Give me a second." Duo inhaled a huge breath. "It's taken about fifteen vials of the anti-venom stuff, but the doctors think you're gonna be just fine, although you'll probably feel kinda crappy for another couple of days."
With his uninjured arm, Heero grabbed the sleeve of Duo's black shirt. "Where is Relena?"
Duo hung his head for a second. "They said you could get in a wheelchair and move around. So maybe…maybe you should see for yourself."
Heero could feel his heart leap into his throat, and did his best to swallow it back down. "Is she…" He couldn't even say it. Couldn't even think it.
"She's alive, Heero," the other man said, uncharacteristically subdued. "But…well." He clapped a hand on Heero's shoulder. "You should just come see her."
****
Her room was private and heavily guarded. As Duo wheeled him closer, a humiliation in and of itself, Heero couldn't help but feel more than a little embarrassed in front of his fellow Preventers. But the men were professionals, and recognized his position, even in his current state. They saluted and waited for his return salute before opening the door of Relena's hospital room and allowing them to pass.
Her bed was equally guarded, not by military men, but by a small team of doctors and nurses. He could barely see her around them; they were poking at her, prodding her, checking the myriad of monitors to which she was connected. Heero's fingers dug into the arms of his chair when one nurse moved out of the way and he finally saw her.
She was a lifeless doll, a broken angel whose wings were almost beyond repair. As someone had done to him, she'd been cleaned up, but a sponge bath hadn't given her hair back its usual golden luster, nor had it brought color to her translucent skin. Her heart beat with marching band precision, but had it not been for those monitors, Heero wouldn't have even been sure that Duo wasn't lying, that she was still alive.
"She took a bullet in the shoulder," Duo said, answering the question he knew Heero wanted to ask, but was too floored to get out. "Also, she's severely dehydrated…but you were, too. Really, the bullet didn't hit anything major, and she should have woken up by…" He stopped.
Heero's voice was low and chilly. "Why hasn't she?"
"Don't know." Duo walked around to stand beside Heero. Together, they stared at the princess politician. "I'm not, like, a doctor or anything. Obviously. But I think…maybe she doesn't want to wake up." When Heero said nothing, Duo glanced at him. His eyes were tightly shut; his brow furred in what might have been identified as guilt on any other man's face. "What happened out there?"
"She loved me." Heero opened his eyes. "I let her down." Ignoring the IV stand he was still attached to, he pushed the wheels of his chair forward, heading for the bed. "And she thinks I'm dead."
"Hey, can you give him a moment with the patient?" Duo asked the doctors and nurses as he followed Heero, IV stand in hand as he walked. "He won't hurt her." He looked on as Heero watched Relena sleep. "You have my word."
They filed out somewhat reluctantly and Duo took a few steps back. "Um…I'll just be outside," he told Heero. He hesitated before adding, "Talk to her. They always say it helps…that she can hear it. I bet if she just heard your voice…" He coughed conspicuously. "So…yeah. Bye."
Heero heard the other man's words, and then heard the door close behind him, but his eyes never left Relena's face. The wound she'd received in the crash had finally been properly sutured, but it was the bandages wrapped around her bare, right shoulder that had his attention and worry.
He sniffed, a quick intake of breath, and examined her face more closely. The lips he had kissed for so long during that last night in the savanna were visibly dry, but nonetheless desirable. There was no smile there, however; if she was dreaming, it wasn't about anything pleasant. Duo had told him to talk to her, but since when did he start listening to the braided one? Heero rubbed the side of his hand over his mouth. Maybe, just maybe, this once…
"Relena." He wheeled as close as he could to her. "Relena, if you can understand this…I'm here. I'm not dead."
After a moment of silence, Heero pushed away from the bed with a sigh of self-disgust. Why would she come around just for him after the way he'd treated her? He glanced back at her, lying so pale and so still. She still held a presence over the room, as though she were standing up straight, wearing one of her formal, but flattering business suits, giving a rousing speech. How did she hold her power…over him, specifically?
He remembered. He remembered how she'd refused to leave him behind. How she'd risked everything to get him to safety. How well she'd handled his gun. If she could care about him after what he'd done to her, why was he still so reluctant to show her how much *he* cared? Could it be that for the first time in his life, Heero Yuy was playing the coward?
With determined motions, he moved back to her side and with clumsy hands, reached for hers. Her cool, slender fingers felt so fragile; he threaded his through hers for support. "Relena." A long pause followed this, as he struggled to put together the words. "Do you know why I threw you my gun instead of using it myself?" There was no answer, save for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. "I trust you. And I don't…I've never really trusted anyone before." Heero swallowed although his throat was dry. "I'm frightened, Relena, by what I feel for you. How deep you've gotten into me. Maybe I'm really scared of what might happen if I just let you in. Maybe I wouldn't be able to tell where I stopped and you began. And maybe I wouldn't even care."
On impulse, Heero raised her fingers to his lips, letting her feel the words, if she couldn't hear them. "You make me seriously consider what kind of person I could be. Not what kind of bodyguard or soldier, but what kind of man. And maybe the scariest thing of all is that it might be true…that I'm not the sort of man you deserve. I couldn't take that, Relena. Because I want to be good enough. I want to be the sort of man you can be proud to love." He closed his eyes. "Because I…I love you."
A moment passed. Heero opened his eyes slowly, some unidentified part of him expecting her to be awake, waiting for him to look at her. But her eyes were still closed, her breath was still shallow, and she showed no more signs of life than before.
His own eyes burned suddenly, stung by something hot and wet. He frowned and blinked several times to clear them, only to find that the moisture dripped down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth. He tasted salt when he licked his lips.
Heero released her fingers. Whatever was going on, he didn't like it. It was decidedly abnormal. He sniffed again, and found that the wetness was still seeping from somewhere deep within, and he couldn't seem to get it to stop. Utilizing the sleeve of his ridiculous hospital gown, he scrubbed at his face.
"You can cry…Heero."
Her voice was so faint that he almost wasn't sure he'd heard the words at all. Heero's arm dropped and he found himself staring into Relena's clear, blue eyes. She gave him the smallest of smiles, as bright as she could manage. "I won't…tell anyone."
"Relena…" Staunching his tears was forgotten. "How long have you been…"
"I heard it all." Her fingers felt for his and only when they were joined did she speak again, "I'll always…be proud to love you."
His back curved over; his forehead landed on the soft swell of her breast. "Don't ever stop," he said, his words muffled. "Don't let me do anything to make you stop."
Relena ran her IVed hand through his hair, playing with the short, but soft strands at the back of his neck as she whispered, "Couldn't happen."
"I might fuck up again," he warned her.
She wanted to laugh, but her shoulder throbbed too much to let her. "Duly noted. And already forgiven."
"You're really sure about this?" He lifted his head, and for the first time, she could see some of the insecure child he'd never been allowed to be. "About me?"
"I am." Her fingers grazed his still-stubbled chin. "For me…you're it."
Heero shook his head as he covered her hand with his and brought it over to his mouth. He pressed a hot kiss into her palm. "I'll never understand why you picked me. But I'm grateful for it." He looked at her straight on. "Damnit, Relena. I'm grateful for it."
"Come here." She urged him up out of his chair until his face hovered over hers. "Kiss me," she ordered. "And don't let it be a mistake."
He brushed a kiss onto her lips. "It never was." Heero let his mouth meet hers completely, kissing her with the reassurance that he'd always be able to.
And after crocodiles, lions, snakes and assassins, it wasn't nearly as scary as he'd once thought.
****
"I wouldn't go in there," Duo told Quatre as the blond man approached the guarded door with Trowa. The taller Preventer's left arm was in a sling from the struggle with Relena's would-be assassin, but he seemed none the worse for wear.
Quatre frowned. "Why not? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Duo cleared his throat. "Heero's in there."
"I see. It must be hard for him, seeing her lying there like that. So lifeless."
Duo scratched the back of his head. "I'm not so sure about that. In fact, I think he's having a pretty good time."
Quatre gave him a reprimanding look. "How can you say that, even about Heero? You know as well as we all do how much Heero truly cares about…"
"Little one." Trowa directed his lover's attention to the narrow, vertical window cut into Relena's door. "Look."
Inside the room, all three men could plainly see Heero and the Foreign Minister wrapped up in each other despite all the medical equipment they were both still hooked into; if the heat of the embrace was any indication, it wouldn't be long before both of them were fully recovered from their adventure.
Quatre watched Heero run a soft hand down Relena's cheek; his lips touched hers like a butterfly's wings. He blinked. "Oh my…"
"How long has she been awake?" Trowa asked.
"Awhile. I'm gonna alert a doctor soon," Duo replied. "I just wanted to give them a few minutes together." After another second of watching the couple, he snapped to attention. "All right, show's over."
Shaking his head as Trowa gently urged him away from the door, Quatre had to smile. "Never, ever in my wildest dreams…"
Duo nodded, unable to stem his own wide grin. "Quat-man, I second that."
****
To Be Continued