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Thank you to Lost-Remembrance for my first review! You'll see who is targeted. ;)

Delayed Realizations: Chapter 2

The view was absolutely gorgeous from this window. She often came to stand here to take her mind off of things, yet most of the time she stands here to think. Thinking about life, friends, family, her enormous responsibilities, but mostly she thought about him, the one and only Perfect Soldier.

"Arghhh!" Relena growled in frustration. 'Must my mind always wander back to him? How I wish I could walk with Heero in those gardens. Not as my bodyguard or protector, but as the man who loves me.'

Relena quickly turned away from the window. "He will never feel that way about me. I am only a mission to him, so get yourself together Relena, and put your mind to more important matters!"

She walked over to the desk piled with papers. "Yeah," she said with a sarcastic snicker, "more important, but boring as hell."

"But I have to do it." Finally, she sat down and dropped her head in her hands, and said with a whisper, "If I don't do it, ESUN will fall apart. I can't give up."

After a couple more minutes, she picked up her pen and started to fill out and sign the papers that she had been working on all morning and all day.

An hour later:

knock, knock

"Come in," replied Relena. She didn't even have to look up to know who it was. She could always sense his presence. Stupid intuition. It never fails, yet she kept her political face.

"Hello Heero. I suppose you are here to discuss the new security measures that will be taken, since there is a new threat on my life."

She continued to speak without ever raising her head to meet his gaze. "Before you inquire, yes, I do know about the Red Fang, and I do know about their activities. How I found out is my business, so don't ask. I am Vice Foreign Minister. I have my ways."

"Hn," was all that he said.

Relena finally raised her head to look at him. The mere sight of him always took her breath away. Those mysterious and captivating Prussian blue eyes. That messy brown hair that always fell into his face, and that lean muscular body. Gosh, how she loved him.

'Damn! Relena you have to stop!' she thought in frustration at her wandering thoughts.

"Sit down Heero. Go ahead and tell me what it's going to take to keep me and the delegation safe this time." 'Or how else I'm going to be kept prisoner,' she thought.

"First of all," he replied in his usual monotone voice, "you will be getting one more guard who will stay by your side at all times."

"Another guard!" she exclaimed. "I'm only one person. I don't need more guards along with you to constantly watch over me!"

Without any hitch or tone change in his voice he said something that just tore her heart in two.

"You must remember. You are the Vice Foreign Minister. It is our job to protect you from these threats at any time. It is my mission to keep you from being harmed."

She had to use every ounce of her strength to keep from crying. As he continued to inform her of the security measures, all she could think of was the heartbreak at his thought of her.

'There it is then. That is all I am to him. A mission, nothing more.'

After about an hour more of his explanation of how she was to be guarded, Heero left without a good-bye.

Relena went back to the window, this time with tears falling silently down her cheeks. She looked up at the night sky and decided to head on home.

"No use working now if I can't concentrate properly. All I want to do now is sleep."

She packed up all her papers and neatly placed them in her briefcase, determined to finish them in the morning before the Intercolonies Peace Meeting. With a sigh she called Pagan to bring the limo, and stepped out of the office. Little did she know that she was carefully being watched not by one, but two pairs of eyes. Both with very different intentions.

The next morning, Heero was concentrating solely on Relena's security for the meeting that was to take place in a few hours. After keeping watch on her after she left her office the previous night, he had a strange feeling that something was going to happen. So he was making sure that every bit of security was tight. Then, the last person he wanted to speak to came bursting in.

"Hey there buddy!" Duo exclaimed with his usual idiotic grin. Heero said nothing, and continued to scan over the plans of the building. 'Alright, two bodyguards will be in the room with Relena. I will be outside scanning the entire floor of the building, and the rest of the security team will be scanning the perimeter.' His thoughts were again interrupted by the loud-mouthed Maxwell.

"Well good morning to you to. Ah ha! I see that you are working hard on Relena's security plans. Making sure that the love of you life is nice and safe?"

"She is not the love of my life. I do not care for her. I only protect her. She is nothing to me. She is only a mission." Duo was shocked at the sincerity in his voice. 'Damn, I guess he doesn't.' he thought while sipping his coffee. 'Poor Relena. I was so sure that he loved her, but it seems like its only one-sided, or maybe he doesn't want to admit it to himself.' Duo shrugged. 'Oh well, I'm not going to pry. He's not in a good mood; well he's never in a good mood. I just don't want to be shot at....again.'

In a secluded area outside of the Conference Building:

"Is everything prepared? This has to go as smoothly as possible," stated the leader. (the leader of the Red Fang will be referred to as the leader until his name is revealed)

"Affirmative," replied the Red Fang soldier. "The mission will go as planned. We know every the position of every delegate, preventor, and bodyguard thanks to the information we received this morning. No one will know what hit 'em."

"Good," replied the leader, "make sure that it does. Over and out."

The Red Fang soldier put the comm away and looked out at his team. The team that will put an end to ESUN.

"Alright men! Remember the briefing. This mission is to be executed quickly and efficiently. Absolutely no mistakes are tolerated. The target is to be taken alive. Move out!"

In the Conference Building:

After working since dawn on the papers that she gave up on the night before, Relena found herself exhausted at the Intercolonies Peace Meeting.

'Goodness. I've been here for two hours, and nothing has been accomplished," thought Relena with a sigh as Senator Billings rambled on about how Colony V56-X3 was receiving more maintenance then Colony V65-F4.

"We are not being treated equally! How can we be equal if Colony V56-X3 is getting all the repairs while we wait?!"

Senator Myers, from Colony V56-X3, slammed his fist into the table. "We need these repairs more than your colony. Our colony is older than V65-F4 and requires more maintenance!"

Finally frustrated with all the meaningless yelling, Relena stood up gracefully silencing the yelling of the members of the delegation. They were all eager to hear her thoughts.

"Gentlemen, if we want peace between the colonies, we must first get along with each other here in this very room. This maintenance matter is just a simple thing. Why do we have to spend so much time arguing over this? Colony V65-F4 will get more maintenance workers." Senator Billings smirked in triumph, but it was soon erased by Relena's next remark. "Yet Colony V56-X3 will keep its number of workers, and that is all on that matter."

The delegation all murmured in agreement to the VFM's decision. Both Senator Billings and Myers seemed to be satiated at the moment.

Suddenly a violent explosion rocked the side of the building, blowing out the wall of the conference room. Smoke bellowed everywhere, and all she heard was the sound of yelling and gunshots. She couldn't see a thing. Relena stood up in an attempt to seek out her bodyguards and see exactly what was happening. She had to see if the delegation was still alive. The smoke cleared up a bit, and Relena finally saw the result of the gunshots and explosion. Most of the delegation were alive, but badly wounded as far as she could see. All of her bodyguards were dead. 'Where did the gunshots come from? Oh no...Heero!'

Just then the door burst in, and a bloody Heero ran in with a gun in hand. 'Was he wounded?' thought Relena.

"Heero," she whispered in relief. That relief quickly vanished when she saw the look of shock and horror that appeared on Heero's face. At that precise moment, she knew something terrible had happened. All she felt was numbness in her body. The numbness radiated from her stomach. She finally looked down at the source and touched her hand to it. When she pulled it away, all she saw was blood. Her blood, which was gushing from the gunshot wound in her abdomen.

All she could say was "Heero," as she gasped and began to collapse.

She saw Heero rush to her to catch her. 'Everything is going so slowly,' she thought as she fell. Her vision started to get fuzzy just as she felt arms catch her and pull her away from Heero towards the gaping hole in the side of the building. As she was being pulled away, she uttered the words that she had wanted to tell him for years, and then the world went black.

Heero rushed forward to catch her, but was too late as a Red Fang soldier snatched Relena and pulled her quickly to an awaiting helicopter that hovered just outside the gaping hole in the wall. As she was taken away, he heard her final words before she was taken to the helicopter.

"Heero. I love you."

Heero uttered no words as he was overcome with the unexpected surge of emotions that exploded at the sound of her words. All he could do was fall to his knees as he watched the escaping helicopter. Feeling helpless, all he thought was 'I failed her. I failed the one I love.' He then realized that his feelings came too late, so he screamed in agony.

"RELENA!!!!!!!!"