The next two weeks passed in what became a regular routine for both Heero and Relena. Heero was assigned to two more missions, both of which dealt with the sernoplutonium in one way or another. Tavera apparently decided that his new favorite activity was boasting about "Jacks," because that was what he did, every single day. A small group of members of the gang grew to resent Heero, but of course he didn't care. He was too intent watching every move every member of the 'organization' made, especially Roberts - he just knew that one day, he would find Roberts at the bottom of all this illegal planning. There was something about the man that made Heero's skin crawl, something just not right.
Life masquerading in a criminal organization was uneasy at the best of times; Heero preferred to keep to himself, because sitting with the other men and hearing the subjects of their conversations shook him so badly inside that it nearly threatened the mask he wore in their presence. Slipping into a soldier mode was easy enough, but when your companions were discussing the most effective way to murder a child it was disturbing at best - and then add the fact that you indeed have a child, it proved to be an extremely unsettling situation for Heero. The men were all under the impression that he was a trained killing machine - which, Heero kept reminding himself to help keep up the façade, he had been. In fact, they assumed he had no heart at all, and Heero was perfectly happy with them thinking that about him.
The hours stretched into days, the days slowly into weeks; the nightly conversations with Relena, at a different vidcam each night - usually farther and farther away from headquarters - became the only thing Heero had to look forward to during the long hours. To see Amy's sweet face and hear her excited voice chattering on and on about her latest exploits with friends and the ever-present and cheerful Brad Wilshaw was refreshing enough to him, but to also watch Relena and talk with her about anything that was worrying or puzzling or just bugging him was the perfect tonic for his soul and mind. Living among dissolute, uncaring, callous people day in and day out was wearying on the mind, but seeing Relena nightly, if only through a screen, was enough to keep him going.
And he didn't realize how much seeing him was helping Relena. Her days were going much better, thanks to the constant help from Wilshaw, but life was hard - especially with the baby. She was just barely three months pregnant, due on the nineteenth of March. She wasn't far enough along to start getting really sick, but already she was feeling wearier each night. Brad had noticed, and had settled into the routine of directing the household help and getting Amy to and from her different activities during the day, leaving Relena time to both get work done and find some alone time - something she hadn't had since Amy had been kidnapped. Brad was an immense help, more than she could ever repay, but there was nothing in comparison to talking with her husband every night.
Until one day in mid-November, when Relena began to feel that something was going steadily wrong.
22 NOVEMBER 293 - SATURDAY
14:02 PM
Beep, beep, beep!
"Oh crap," Relena muttered around the pen in her teeth. Her hands were filled with papers and three more pens of different colors, and both Brad and Amy had left for Amy's soccer practice.
"Eliza?" she attempted to yell, calling for the woman that came over for three hours every afternoon. "Can you get that?"
There was a faint reply from downstairs, which Relena hoped was in the affirmative, and finally the incessant vidcam beeping stopped.
"It's Mr. Yuy, ma'am," came the call from downstairs.
Relena dropped the papers instantly. It was only two o'clock in the afternoon - normally Heero's calls were made late at night. She left the work where it was and hurried to the vidcam room.
"Heero," she said, smiling as she entered the room. "What's the occasion?"
He was sitting in a chair, holding a clipboard and writing something on a thick sheet of paper. "Hey, Re," he said detachedly, scribbling faster.
"H-hey," she said hesitantly. "Why - why are you calling so early?"
The writing stopped; Heero let out a long breath. "What," he said, suddenly snappish, "there's only a certain time I can call my wife?"
Surprised, Relena took a step back. "No - no," she said, "of course not, I - " She stopped, took a closer look. "What's wrong, Heero?"
"Nothing's wrong, Relena," he said, in a tolerant tone. "You always assume the worst." He glanced up, not meeting her eyes, and studied her. "I should be asking the question. What's wrong with you? You look terrible."
"Well, thanks," she said, startled and irritated. "I've only been working my butt off all day - "
"Oh, like I haven't?" he snapped back immediately. "Like I'm just sitting up here twiddling my thumbs? Like I don't have a ton of work to - "
"Sorry," she said quietly. He gave a frustrated sigh and went back to the clipboard.
Silence stretched, an uncomfortable one. Relena ventured, "What are you writing?"
Abruptly Heero threw down the pen and clipboard, causing her to jump. "What is this?" he cried. "I can't even write without you wanting to know every single detail!" He shook his head, standing up. "You know what, Relena, I can't take this right now. I have enough pressure without you bugging me."
Without another word, he switched off the vidcam.
In the hurt and shocked stillness that followed, Relena whispered, "I…love you too."
23 NOVEMBER 293 - SUNDAY
16:57 PM
Lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and carrots went flying into the salad bowl almost faster than Hilde could believe. Staring, the repetitive bang of the chopping knife in her ears, she took a concerned look at her best friend.
"Uh…Re?"
No response. The blond woman went on chopping as if her life depended on it.
Dorothy entered the kitchen, pulling her long hair up in a ponytail as she said, "Okay, what can I do to - "
She stopped as she realized that Hilde was staring at Relena, who was going at the salad like a woman possessed.
"Is…everything okay?"
Hilde dragged her eyes from Relena to Dorothy and raised an eyebrow. "You ever seen tomatoes die that fast?" she whispered.
Dorothy took another look at Relena, then, stunned, shook her head.
Hilde put down the grater and crossed to put her hand on Relena's arm. "Relena?"
Relena stopped chopping and went still, and for the first time, Hilde noticed the glisten in her friend's eyes. Drawing a breath, she turned Relena to face her and said, "Re, what's wrong?"
She shook her head, reluctant to answer. Hilde shook her gently and said, "Tell me," as Dorothy crossed the kitchen to put an arm around Relena anxiously.
"I just - " Relena's voice wavered uncertainly as she angrily brushed a hand across her eyes. "I'm so - "
"What?"
"Worried about Heero," came the words in an anxious rush.
Hilde attempted to hug her: "Of course you are, hon - "
"No," Relena said forcefully, pushing Hilde firmly away. "No, that's not what I mean. I mean, yes, I'm worried about him, but - oh, Hilde, yesterday he called on the vidcam and he was so - so worried, or rushed, or something, because he was so mean…but he's never mean to me, never, so something must be so wrong that he…" her voice trailed off, and Relena shook her head helplessly. Two tears leaked out from her eyes and trailed their way cautiously down her face. She gave a shuddering breath and sat down in the middle of the kitchen, trying not to let more tears fall.
"Wait," Hilde said. "Tell me exactly what happened." She knelt down on the floor with Dorothy, and they listened as Relena recounted her conversation with Heero.
As she finished, Dorothy gave a low whistle. "That doesn't sound like Heero at all."
Relena shook her head fiercely, closing her eyes tightly to prevent tears.
"But he is all alone in a criminal gang," Hilde said, eager to comfort Relena. "We don't know what that could be doing to him psychologically." She turned to Relena. "Are you sure it's not just - well, you know - emotional stuff from being…"
"Pregnant?" Relena finished for her, giving a sigh.
"Yeah."
She shrugged listlessly, her eyes roaming around the kitchen without seeing anything. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I'm just overreacting." She heaved another sigh and stood up, holding onto the counter for support. "That's probably it."
Hilde rose with her, reaching out a hand to wipe another tear from Relena's cheek. "And if that's not it, then he's just having a hard time out there. Just know that he's doing it for Amy's sake, and for yours, and this will all be over soon. Okay, Re? He loves you, you know that, right?"
She nodded.
"More than any of us really know, I think," Hilde continued softly. "He's Heero, for heaven's sake - he was the Perfect Soldier and now he's a - a daddy and a husband and your best friend. Don't worry."
Comforted, Relena nodded, a lot more strongly this time, and said with a wavering grin, "Hand me that salad, and I'll go start setting the table."
Dorothy obliged with a smile, and Relena left the kitchen. As soon as she was gone, however, both Hilde and Dorothy's faces turned to expressions of concern and worry.
"What do you think?" Hilde asked, her voice edged with unease.
"I don't know," Dorothy said quietly, staring after Relena, "but whatever's going on up there, we better hope its not threatening Heero."
"Why?"
"Do you have any idea of the effect it'll have on us down here if we lose him? He's the center of all of us, the - the pillar of strength."
Hilde nodded in agreement. Heero was definitely the leader of the group. "Not only that," she added, her voice lowering in worry, "if we lose him…we're going to lose Relena too."
24 NOVEMBER 293 - MONDAY15:33 PM
The next vidcam call from Heero came at about three thirty in the afternoon the next day. The minute the vidcam alarm went off, Relena felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, and knew immediately that Heero was on the other end. She looked up from where she was playing a children's board game with Amy at Brad, who was sitting nearby reading a newspaper. He nodded without Relena having to say anything, and went to answer the call.
Relena stared after him, feeling unexplainably uneasy.
"Mom?" Amy said, waving a die in her line of vision. "You have to move to the blue circle."
Distractedly Relena moved her game piece to the appointed spot, but five seconds later Amy was back waving the die again. "Mom?"
"Sorry, honey," Relena sighed. "I just better go see who's on the vidcam, that's all - some people from my work might be calling me - "
The blond head snapped up, looking at Relena intently. "Could it be Daddy?"
She had to smile. "I don't know, Amy, it might be him."
"Let's go see!" The little girl rose immediately and dashed into the hall. Relena suddenly felt nauseous. "Uh, Amy - " she hurried after her daughter. If Heero were in the same beyond-sour mood, he would hurt Amy terribly. He had never done it before, but then again he had never hurt Relena like he had two days ago, either…
It was Heero, all right. He was seated, fingers flying across the keyboard of a laptop. As Relena entered the vidcam room, he glanced up at his wife and daughter and then quickly looked back down again.
"Hi Daddy!" Amy cried, ecstatic to see him. She had climbed eagerly into the vidcam chair and was smiling up at her father.
He looked up, nodded, looked down again. Silently.
Relena felt a twinge of anger. "Heero - " she began.
"Look, Relena, I can't really talk for very long."
She closed her mouth, studying the figure on the screen. What in the world was wrong with him? Amy, sensing that something was not right, hesitantly began filling in the silence with a story of her own, something about how she and Brad had been playing some kind of tag earlier that day.
Relena was only half-listening to Amy, mostly studying Heero, her thoughts flying. Something was so wrong with him, and Duo and the others hadn't believed her.
She lifted Amy and sat down on the chair with the little girl in her lap.
"How've you been, Heero?" she began cautiously.
He didn't even glance at her; apparently he hadn't been paying attention to Amy either.
"Fine."
Amy was staring at her father in disbelief. Never before had he not paid attention to her stories.
"I had a doctor's appointment earlier today," Relena said quietly, her heart feeling as if it was slowly being squeezed to nothing.
He said nothing.
"Daddy?" Amy said. "I've been waiting all weekend to tell you about a movie Brad and Mommy went to see with me. It was really cool, there was planes and helicopters and this guy came jumping out of the air to save the lady - and she had really long hair, Daddy, and was really pretty, and I've been trying to grow my hair out like her but Mommy says we can't dye it brown - "
Heero suddenly gave a very frustrated sigh. "You know what, kid, I'm really tired, and really busy, and don't really care that you can't change your hair color, but I'm fighting for your safety up here so the least you can do is give me a little peace, huh?"
"But I was just - "
"Oh, for God's sake, shut up!"
Amy was slammed into silence. She glanced at Relena, then nervously at the doorway. Thankfully Brad had left before he had heard Heero speak.
Relena was glaring at her husband, even though she was near tears herself. She stood up abruptly, letting Amy slide to the floor. "You," she said furiously, trembling from head to toe, "how dare you speak to your daughter like that. I don't know what your problem is, Heero, but whatever it is you need to shape up and get it figured out, because you are hurting your family down here."
He gave another sigh. "Whatever, Relena."
The vidcam screen went blank.
In the ensuing silence, Amy's quavering voice said, "Did I say something wrong?"
Her heart ripping, Relena knelt to take her daughter in her arms. Heero would have never, in a million years, swore at his daughter and then told her to shut up. Never. "No, no, honey." She felt Amy's tears on her shoulder and one of her own slowly trickling down her cheek, and hugged her even tighter. "Daddy didn't mean what he said, sweetie, he's just…sick."
As Amy accepted the excuse, Relena found herself thinking, If only he were; then I would at least have some grasp on what in the world is going on.
24 NOVEMBER 293 - MONDAY14:36 PM
"Which floor, sir?"
Heero glanced up at the elevator-man, who was standing rigidly at attention near the button panel. A very well-dressed lady next to him was eyeing Heero up and down appreciatively, even though she was dressed in what was probably the most expensive suit available and he was in jeans and a jacket. Ignoring her, Heero said, "Twenty-three, please."
The lady studied him - very obviously - the entire elevator ride, until the bell dinged at floor twenty-three and Heero abruptly stepped off, glad to be rid of her.
He hated when ladies did that; he had almost forgotten how much it annoyed him, but due to the disguise, the absence of his wedding band, and Relena light-years away instead of at his elbow, it had been happening more and more lately. Trying to shrug it off, Heero made his way through the cubicles of the busy office building until he can face-to-face with a small one in the back, complete with personal vidcam screen.
The flow of human traffic was far away on the opposite side of the building. Quietly taking a seat, Heero logged out of the server and pulled up the most secure connection he could find. Lately, the vidcams through which he had been contacting Relena had been harder to find; there was a certain standard of security he was trying hard to uphold. There was no way he would ever attempt to contact Relena through a regular civilian public vidcam, which could be - and was - hacked into on a regular basis.
The sending digits were typed, and as soon as Heero pushed 'send' he began the stopwatch on his wrist. It would take a minimum of six minutes and forty-three seconds to hack into this connection, but Heero planned on keeping the conversation to a neat four minutes flat.
Relena answered on the third beep. She was standing in the vidcam room, wearing an elegant dinner dress, and was pinning her hair up as she spoke.
"Hey," was the extent of her greeting.
"Hi," Heero returned, startled by her brevity. "How was your day?"
He had spoken to her only last night, and the conversation had been a quick one minute two seconds - Amy and Brad had been waiting for her out in the limo; they were going to a movie. One of Relena's few moments to spend with her family, and Heero hadn't wanted to keep her. That's why he was especially looking forward to an extra - well, three minutes - to catch up on all he had missed.
Relena was studying her reflection in a picture frame on the wall, trying to twist her hair up to perfection without the use of hairspray. She seemed to be in a rush. "Fine," she said. "I have a meeting beginning in twenty minutes, and then we're going to dinner."
"This early?" Heero glanced at his watch: barely 2:30 PM. Her meeting couldn't last more than an hour and a half - meaning dinner would be at four.
She seemed startled for a brief moment, until she said, "Just an early dinner."
"Oh." Disappointed that she was leaving, Heero tried, "Is Amy there?"
"At a friend's house."
"I haven't seen her in three days," Heero murmured, feeling suddenly alone and left out.
Relena shot him a look. "Nothing I can do about that, Heero, and you know it." She stepped back from the picture frame, satisfied. "All right, now, I have to go. I assume everything's going well up there?" She didn't give him time to respond. "Then I'm off." She picked up her purse and looked at him expectantly.
Heero's brow furrowed in slight confusion. "Oh - okay. Have fun, Re, be careful. I love you."
"Yeah." The screen went blank.
Feeling that something was just the slightest bit amiss, Heero couldn't help glancing at his stopwatch.
Fifty-eight seconds.
25 NOVEMBER 293 - TUESDAY07:56 AM
"Try not to get yourself in trouble with squadron one's leader, huh, Jacks?"
Heero shot back calmly, "I'll just stay alive, Carrot Top, and carry out the mission solo while you girls run around screaming like last time."
Tank, a member of the squadron - a huge man of nearly three hundred pounds of muscle, and a rather amiable one that Heero actually liked - gave a rumbling laugh from deep in his cavernous chest. "Yeah, I woulda paid ta see that one."
Brian glared at the huge man. "Aw, shaddup, Tankers. At least I didn't - "
"I don't plan to get in trouble with Midas, thank you very much," Heero cut in abruptly. He stood up; he had finished setting up the comlink with squadron two. They were seated in a janitor's closet of L1's docking bay. The constant hum of ship's engines was all around them, along with the metallic whirring of the electronically locked doors and the low buzz of conversation. Like any other day, the bay was crowded, busy, and loud - Heero's favorite scenario to stage a covert operation.
The plan was different than the first mission, though their objective was the same; crates of sernoplutonium and austenarium. L3 had ordered helicopters to take the crates from the factory and then a few standard spaceships to transport it to the construction factories L3 was famous for. Heero knew those operations were perfectly legal; he seriously doubted this about Tavera's motives for the alloys.
The helicopters would be arriving in exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds. They had a minute and a half to make their way out of the docking bay to the helipads, where they would rendezvous with squadron one to retrieve the crates from the three transport helicopters. Once again, the squadrons were dressed in the inconspicuous attire of bay workers.
Heero didn't like the monotony of these missions; this was only his second, but already he could tell that the missions Tavera and Roberts planned all shared similarities than left an uncomfortable taste in Heero's mouth. The disguises, the alloy…everything went well, but it almost seemed that the two leaders were putting more of their time, effort, and brainpower into other…areas. Heero didn't know what, but he aimed to find out.
"Ready to go, Jacks?" Tank asked him, fingering the white pistol at his side. Security pistols were standard issue for dock workers - the bay saw a lot of weirdos coming in from the Earth and other colonies - but squadron two, in charge of firearms, had neatly added features to these pistols, increasing range, rounds, and adding almost invisible silencers.
Heero nodded, and they left, hiding their regular equipment and clothing in the closet.
They made their way quickly to the helipads outside. Twice, people just coming off their ships asked for directions, which Brian gave swiftly and amiably. They walked as if they belonged, and were just patrolling the corridors, but avoided authentic guards with care when possible.
Outside, the machine-generated sky was gray and appeared cloudy; artificial thunder rumbled in the distance. However, there wasn't a trace of the wet breeze one feels before a storm on Earth, none of the invisible electricity coursing through the air, none of the apprehension when a thunderhead finally appears. Heero felt an aching in his heart for the familiar smell of rain; though he had been born on this Colony, he had always loved Earth. Earth was where he had met Relena; Earth was home.
"Was wind planned?" Brian asked. For the convenience of Colony citizens who didn't enjoy weather other than the standard 78 degrees and blue skies, a detailed weather report was given every morning at eight on all communication links across the Colony. It gave the time of wind gusts scheduled and at what exact time the rain was going to fall. Heero hated it, hated the artificialness of everything.
"Yup, starting 'bout 8:01," Tank replied.
"Won't change anything, right?"
"They'll probably get pretty strong," Heero murmured, glancing regretfully at the false clouds above him. "But they won't last long, and won't disturb a helicopter flight too much."
As they came around the corner and into view of the helipads, Heero caught a glimpse of the other squadron heading to the same point. Immediately his gaze swung upward to spot three helicopters visible against the soft gray of the sky.
He sighed inwardly. The mission was going exactly as planned. In a way, Heero missed the riskier, more haphazard missions he had executed as a Gundam pilot - there, you had to be prepared for everything, because anything could happen at any time; there was no surety, anywhere. Heero didn't associate with any members of the gang besides Brian, because besides the fact that they were cold-blooded killers, they were all the hulking kind of men and women who had no idea how to carry out a real mission. They relied on force, on a kill-and-run philosophy. But in the Gundam world, when you were surrounded on all sides by enemies and you were half-dead yourself, there did not exist such a philosophy.
"First copter's flying awfully low," Brian murmured.
Heero glanced up and realized that Brian was right. All three helicopters were from Sparks and Sons, Inc., an alloy plant located across the Colony. Heero had been watching for their logo: two yellow S's separate by a lightning bolt on a gray field.
The copters coming in were Sparks and Sons; he thought he could make out the letters and lightning bolt on the back of the nearest copter. However, it was flying in very fast, and very low, almost on a collision course with the ground.
The other squadron had arrived; Heero noticed Midas glaring at him as a greeting and ignored it, focusing instead on the incoming helicopter.
"Hey, uh, Jacks? Why's it comin' in so fast?" Tank muttered, bewildered.
"Don't know," Heero said, almost to himself, narrowing his eyes as he stared.
"What are you talking about?" Midas growled. "Nothing's wrong with the way it's flying. Come on, boys," he called, "let's go meet it and haul some cargo."
"Don't," Heero said immediately. The copter wasn't close enough to notice any fine details yet, but his gut was telling him something was amiss. "You go out to that pad, you put yourself in danger."
The other men looked between Midas and Heero, clearly uneasy. Midas had been with them longer, yet Heero had proved himself a smart and formidable man to deal with. Plus, he had already bested Midas twice…
Midas, of course, hadn't hesitated. He walked briskly out to the helipad and stopped in the dead center of it to glare back at Heero, the wind whipping his hair angrily.
But Heero wasn't paying attention; his eyes were fastened on the nearest helicopter. It came closer and closer, and gradually Heero realized that something was nagging at him. Something was wrong, very wrong, with that helicopter…and the two behind it…
A man swore loudly to Heero's left, and then yelled, "The thing has no pilot!"
Heero's eyes shot to the cockpit, and his heart skipped a beat; the man was right - the front window of the helicopter was completely empty. The thing was on autopilot and autoland - no - wait - Heero looked closer.
The logo on the back of the helicopter was not two S's divided by lightning; it was a design he had never seen before, of yellow swirls surrounding a gray T. These were not the helicopters they were scheduled to meet, and they were not on autoland.
"Get back here!" Heero yelled at the top of his lungs to Midas. "Get off of that pad, it's going to crash!"
The men realized it just a moment after Heero did, but the wind had increased such that their voices were lost in it. Midas, yards away, could hardly hear the roar of the helicopter behind him, much less the voices of the men back near the building.
There was a subtle rumble of thunder, and the first few sprinklings of raindrops landed forcefully on the ground. Midas was still standing out there on that pad, and Heero looked up fearfully to see the helicopter.
It was five hundred yards away and closing fast. Heero stared at it, realized exactly where it was headed, and felt his stomach drop to his feet. His mind was telling him to look away, but his eyes were fastened on the scene in horror. He heard himself yell to Midas, felt rather than heard the wind whip away his words, and he raised his gaze from the lone man on the helipad to the copter. It was five hundred yards away, and Heero saw now that there was a pilot, propped up low against the right window, a stain smearing the glass.
It was the last thing he saw before the helicopter slammed into the helipad. Midas had, at the last minute, turned, seen what was happening, and attempted to run away. Of course he had been far, far too late.
The thing exploded, and Heero turned and ran in the nick of time. The other men had the same idea; Heero felt the blasting heat and suddenly realized that the whole thing - the serno, the austenarium, the missions - was a complete setup.