AN: Thanks for all your support and encouragements. I'm sorry to say, though, that subsequent chapters will be posted at increasing intervals. I'm sorry to disappoint you all by making you wait longer, but we have arrived at significant phase in the story, and it is getting harder and harder to write. I will work hard, but I will need more time. Just thought I'd let you all know. Hope the coming chapters will be worth the wait though.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

When Heero vaulted off of Relena's bedroom balcony, he landed noiselessly in a crouching roll. Coming to a crouching stop, with one knee on the dewy grass and the other bent so that his foot was planted firmly on the ground, he whipped out his gun. Old habits keep you from dying, he thought, sensing that there was no other living creature stirring in the nighttime garden. Then he sprang up, much like a sprinter would as he takes off from the starting block, but still with all the grace and all the power of a wild animal on the hunt.

He reached the guests' wing of the mansion, which was located on the far side, in only one minute and eighteen seconds. His gaze climbed the wall, eyes narrowing dangerously as he sought out his window on the third floor. Target acquired, he tucked the gun in the back of his jeans' waistband and proceeded to scale the brick surface.

Exactly three minutes, or one hundred eighty seconds, after he bolted from Relena's room, he was standing in his own room, breathing hard, running his hand through his unruly brown hair. He waited a moment for his raging emotions to calm down. But instead of quieting into a haze that might at least let thoughts pass through, it did just the opposite; his physical inactivity only accentuated the sound of his rapid panting and the incessant pounding of his heart, which served to anger him all the more. In the swirling chaos of emotions that had commandeered his mind, only two words were clear. Mission FAILED.

He clenched his jaw, growled savagely, and did the only thing he could do; he punched the wall. His fist made a sound resembling a miniature but still violent explosion as it collided with the wall. When Perfect bones and muscles and skin met mortar and plaster, it was the former that split open but the latter that gave in.

Within a few short seconds, the other Gundam pilots had broken down the door. They stared wordlessly at the fist-shaped hole in the wall, complete with four smaller knuckle dents, and the cracked and crumbling plaster that fanned out from it in a two feet radius.

The tormented man rounded on his intruders, gun cocked and finger on the trigger. He swept the group with the sighter at the end of the barrel, pointing the death-bringing instrument at each of them in turn. Duo, Quatre, and Wufei yanked the girls behind their own bodies, shielding them from the unstable Gundam pilot as they pushed them out the door.

"Get out," the former pilot of Wing Zero rasped harshly in a voice that sounded like it belonged to a dead man. His fist was still clenched by his side, but it was openly dripping blood.

"Dude, what's your problem?" Duo voiced loudly. Only he and three other men in the world could stare down the barrel of Heero Yuy's gun. However, all he earned in the way of a reply was a cold, steely glare, the fixation of the gun at his head right in between his eyes, and the tightening of the finger on the trigger. Despite himself, he gulped.

"Heero, we need to talk to you about Relena," Quatre began with a different approach. He hoped that the mention of the Vice Foreign Minister would calm him down. He was sorely mistaken.

"Don't talk to me about her!" he spat, still keeping his gun, and his glare, on Duo.

"She's in danger." The blond Arab was brave and persistent. "That man, Dekedenz Cocytus, is not who he seems."

Heero scoffed bitterly. "What, you mean Relena's husband?" He turned to fix his piercing eyes on Quatre. The hand holding the gun had not moved. "He's everything she could ever want."

"She hasn't married him, Heero. In fact, she hasn't even accepted his proposal yet." Quatre was taking it slowly and carefully. He could clearly sense Heero's agitation regarding the subject. It was almost as if this was the thing that was bothering him so much. "And we cannot allow her to. He's the head of the faction that Une briefed us about. He's out to harm Relena."

Heero looked at him blankly, with nothing on his face except a look of detachment.

"You saw what happened tonight," Trowa joined in.

"You're talking about that marriage proposal? Yeah, I saw," he laughed mirthlessly. It was a chilling sound. "And you know what? She'll accept, too. I know she will." Then, in a softer, slower, and exponentially more dangerous whisper, "I've made it so."

"What do you mean by that, Yuy?" demanded Wufei, incensed by his lack of honor.

"What have you done to her? Where is she?" Trowa was still the most collected, most sensible one of them all. He asked the only question that mattered right then.

Heero chuckled darkly, as if at some private joke. "In her room." On her floor.

Trowa spun on his heel and dashed off to find Relena. Wufei, Quatre, and Duo, by some unspoken understanding, had remained to guard their unstable comrade.

-----

Urgent, heavy pounding on Relena's door. Feeling the severity of the situation, the former Heavyarms pilot, who had never yelled through a door before, found himself calling her name. There was no response from behind the door, and the acrobat's acute senses detected no movement in the room. There was a chill racing up his spine that told him something was wrong. He took two steps back and rammed his shoulder into the heavy oak door, which burst open with a snapping crunch.

The room was dark and empty. Both of the glass door leading to the balcony were wide open, the pallid gossamer curtains before them fluttered hauntingly in the breeze.

He was too late!

Trowa only stayed long enough to note the freezing temperature of the bedroom. The door had been open like that for a long time; Relena had been gone for a long time.

-----

When he returned to Heero's room, he was not really surprised to find three guns trained on Heero, safeties removed. He still hadn't lowered his yet. He could easily shoot one of them, and probably get two if he really wanted, but the third and remaining Gundam pilot would take him down.

"She's gone." Straight to the point.

"What!" all the Gundam pilots turned to him. Even Heero had given him his attention.

He didn't repeat himself, knowing they had all heard him clearly. "A long time ago."

This seemed to wake Heero up. He had a strange pained expression on his face, as if he were struggling with something deep within himself.

He got her. You caused this. Some Perfect Soldier you are; she gets to you and you give her up to the enemy. Worthless! His fists shook irrepressibly. He was torn between his mission as a soldier and a Preventer, which demanded he secure her safety; what he had just done to hurt her, which screamed at him to stay away from her forever; and his own convoluted feelings toward her, which thoroughly pummeled any ounce of conviction, one way or the other, that he had left in his consciousness. It was then that his subconsciousness rose up, the part of him that nothing could ever destroy; it was a part of him as surely as he drew breath, as he existed in this world, and it linked him to her. Fix it! GET HER BACK! He looked up to the other Gundam pilots. They had all turned their backs to him, poised to run out the door and to Relena's room, but they stopped to look at him. His eyes narrowed in determination. There was a new mission – a real mission, and failure was not an option. What were they all waiting for? Snapping out of the haze that held him for the past three years, he uncocked his gun and sprinted for Relena's room, the other four pilots falling in place close behind him.

Gundam pilot 01 was back.

AN: Thanks to all who read this and all who take the time to review this.