Progress: 9 of 14
General Notes: It's been a while, I know…I'm lazy, what can I say. It's the holidays, the time of the year where I spend my entire life on the couch and only move when the need arises (which is very infrequently). Anywho, glad you people are enjoying this story! If you have the time, please give some of my other stories a go as well :D, and as always, please read, enjoy and review!
Music: Battle Theme – FFX; Calm Lands – FFX; Chocobo Theme – FFX; Tidus' Theme – FFX (guess what game I was playing while writing this…); Points of Authority – Linkin Park; the Rock Show – Blink 182; Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy – somebody famous; Allegro – Bond; Salva Nos II – Noir OST II; Soredemo – Full Moon wo Sagashite OST; Eternal Snow – Changin' my life; Myself – Meroko version – Full Moon wo Sagashite OST; Now we are Free – Gladiator OST

Covetousness

Chapter Nine: Meeting II

Heero regained consciousness, although it was not the sort of slip back to reality he would have enjoyed. For a moment, all he felt was a great sense of numbness and confusion. His eyes opened, and he saw a confusing image of white stone, shattered glass and a great deal of red substance. It was at that moment that he realized he was at the Peacecraft Estate, and that he was lying on the floor of the stone pavilion. A jolt of pain ran through his body, jolting him into sitting up quickly. This turned out to be a bad choice, because the next moment, he was engulfed by a terrible pain which shot from his left leg. It was enough to make him scream, but he did not. Instead, he pulled his leg closer to himself and inspected it carefully. There were large chunks of glass sticking out of it, and a weak flow of blood. Luckily, the wound seemed to have mostly clotted, which was probably the reason why he had not died from blood loss, although he had no idea how long he had been unconscious.

Carefully, he removed the glass pieces as best as he could, but still managed to split the clot and cause a fresh flow of blood to spill. Mouth fixed in a firm line, Heero ripped apart the section of his pants that was already ripped, and tied it tightly around his leg. He would need to visit a first-aid kit soon, that or a doctor. However, the status as a fugitive eliminated the doctor option. Despite that, Heero decided that he should probably visit a hospital anyway, if not for his wounded leg but for the comatose Relena Peacecraft.

Heero scrambled up quickly, wondering for a moment whether he should clean the mess he had created. In his sudden fall out of consciousness, he had taken down one of the class chairs with his leg, smashing the chair and impaling his leg with numerous shards of broken glass. A quick glance at the sky told him that he should probably hurry, for darkness was fast approaching, suggesting that he had been out for at least a good five hours. Squaring his shoulders, Heero limped steadily away, making sure to stay in the shadows. He knew that he was definitely quite a sight in his present state, with ripped up jeans and blood dripping down his legs, which was all the more reason to keep out of sight.

Heero slipped out of the front gate just as he had come in, making sure to leave his hiding spot behind the wall only when he had ensured that there was nobody near by. Heero limped for a good part, thinking it unsafe to get on a cab until he moved ever so slightly further. When he had made it about three blocks down the road, he finally decided it time to hail a taxi. The car came almost immediately, and he entered with the Central Hospital as his destination. He was quite sure that the newspaper he was reading earlier had mentioned something about Relena being held at that particular hospital. The taxi driver nodded and started driving, speaking only once throughout the entire trip to ask Heero where he had cut himself so badly. The blue-eyed man did not answer, and the driver did not ask again.

They reached the hospital in twenty minutes, which was good considering the heavy gridlock the streets were set in. Heero noted dully that rush hour was definitely a good time to set a police chase as long as one had control of the lights, and did a double take a second later when he realized what he was thinking about. He paid the taxi driver the fare, taking a moment to moan quietly in his head that he was pretty much out of cash. With a sigh, he proceeded to the emergency ward, checking in the wound on his leg as an accident from tripping over the coffee table and smashing the glass. He used the name Odin Lowe, although he could not understand why save that it sounded familiar. The nurse nodded, and told him to rest in the waiting room for the meantime. Heero nodded his thanks before turning around and entering the waiting room, making sure to hide in the corner which granted him maximum visibility of the room, exits and in the only surveillance camera's blind spot: directly beneath it.

He did not have to wait long, for his name was called in almost immediately. He entered quickly, limping behind the doctor as best as he could while still dodging his face out of view of the various cameras. The doctor took him into a small room, whereby he went about taking apart Heero's makeshift bandage, examining the wound, washing it, removing the glass pieces that Heero could not remove himself and bandaging it. The whole process took a surprisingly short amount of time, and Heero soon found himself leaving with a document to pay at the front desk. He would not be paying anything for a while, he noted wryly as he left, still limping as he dodged around the cameras in search of Relena Peacecraft.

He made his way through the hospital, going only by feeling. He finally stopped when he came across a small reception on the second floor. Eyes fixed on the woman sitting behind the desk, Heero pressed himself tight against a nearby wall, carefully out of sight of all the nearby cameras. He waited for a while, hoping that he would not have to create his own diversion. Thankfully, the woman rose not much later, apparently needing to use the bathroom. Heero allowed himself a small smile for the luck before slinking across the corridor, carefully avoiding the various busy patients and nurses nearby to place himself behind the desk. He then let his fingers do the work, checking up the patients' records for a Peacecraft, Relena. His search returned almost immediately, with her room on the sixth floor in room 6239. That done, Heero quickly closed his prompt and dashed off, getting into the elevator before the door closed. The nurse that was currently playing as the only other elevator passenger gave him a look, but Heero ignored her as he jabbed the number six. The nurse got off on the fifth level, leaving Heero a moment of peace before he slipped out of the elevator on the next floor.

The sixth floor was apparently a floor completely dedicated to inpatients, which was unusual, considering that the inpatient's building was across the courtyard in the south wing. Nonetheless, the blue-eyed man strode quickly across the floor, searching for room number 6239. He expected high security around the area, but was disappointed with the empty chair and a metallic keypad on the wall. Taking a quick glance up and down the hall, Heero made his way towards the door, right hand ghosting over the keypad once before remembering its purpose and punching in a series of numbers. There was a positive beep from the keypad, a flash of green and the words "authorized entry" flashed across the small LCD screen, followed by the sound of locks being released. Heero pulled down on the handle and slipped in, closing the door softly behind him.

The room was of a moderate size, and decorated all in white. There was a single white bed in the center, surrounded by a empty bedside table, and stacks of machinery. Various IV drips hung off metal stands, a heart monitor stood hear the bedside table with a cord attached to Relena's finger, a respirator stood on the other side of the bed where the other bedside table should have been, attached to Relena through a thick tube and mask which covered half her face, and various other devices stood around, providing the comatose woman with the only things that kept her body functioning.

Heero expected himself to feel surprise, or anger, or anything really. Instead, all he saw was a woman in deep coma, her cheeks pale and her chest only heaving because of the mask attached to her face. This woman was not alive, and Heero almost felt sad seeing the display: a pathetic attempt at keeping a person alive after they had long since died. The Peacecraft Assassination had been years ago, so this woman had been kept alive for years? Heero moved forward slowly, taking hold of one of her hands lukewarm hands. A vision flashed across his mind: him, holding this very hand, pressing the back to his lips in a formal greeting. Relena smiled back at him, blue eyes showing surprise, and she said something, her voice cheerful. And then it was gone, and Heero found himself standing next to a long-since dead woman with her hand clutched firmly in his.

That was when the first wave of emotion hit him, a wave of such sadness and self-disgust that he almost felt nauseous. Somewhere within him, something screamed that it was his fault Relena now lay on that pale bed with her mind gone and her body still chained to the human plane. He did not know why it was his fault, save that it simply was. He did something which caused her death, her and the boy Xander. He should be dead, not them. They had done nothing wrong, save knowing him and…and possibly loving him? The word love was foreign to his mind, a word he could not comprehend and threw the careful algorithm of his thinking askew. But even so, Relena had given it to him, her and Xander. He could remember nothing else, but that was enough. He had been loved, and they were punished for it.

Heero did not cry. He did not need his memories to know that. But at that moment, as he stood at Relena's bedside, he felt the closest thing to crying as he ever had.

'Damn this guy marries well.' Duo found himself saying as he leaned back into his chair. Wufei nodded next to him, handing over one of the plastic bags of food while he was at it. 'Relena fucking Peacecraft eh? Well I'll be damned!'

'Don't swear Maxwell.' Wufei reprimanded, reaching into his plastic bag to fish out a paper box of food.

'You weren't so damn bent on not swearing a moment ago, Mr. Eloquent.' Duo smirked as he pulled out his own share of late lunch, early dinner. 'But wow!'

'Yes Maxwell.' Wufei grumbled dully, opening his box and sampling a bit of the contents with the disposable chopsticks they came with. 'Takeout will never match the real thing.'

'Wuffers.' Duo gave him a dry look. 'If takeout did match the real thing, then it would cost four times as much and take half an hour to cook. Seriously! Even I know that.'

'And we all know how rare it is for you to know something.' Wufei shot back. 'So, apart from Yuy's fantastically famous wife, you find anything else?'

'Not much really.' Duo sighed. 'The schooling under here is the same as it was on the file you swiped, with the only difference being that he went to university and got himself a masters in I.T. and law…talk about eclectic.'

'It's not really that bad.' Wufei took another few mouthfuls of his food, chewed and swallowed before speaking again. 'My fiancé has a masters in aerospace science and law, and now she works as a neurosurgeon.'

'She does have a medical degree as well right?' Duo asked hesitantly. 'Because it definitely doesn't make me feel any better knowing that there are doctors out there perform brain surgery without a license.'

'Obviously she has a license.' Wufei gave Duo a look which indicated clearly that he did not like Duo accusing his future wife of medical work without a license. 'It's just that it was not her initial choice.'

'What did she want to be?' Duo asked dully, scrolling down the page. 'A ATC (1)?'

'Actually, I think she wanted to mechanic.' Wufei paused for a moment, his gaze locked on Duo. 'She wanted to fix cars.'

Duo was silent for a moment, staring at Wufei with a sense of incredulity. The other man continued his meal, completely unperturbed. When the braided-man finally recovered his senses, he was still staring at Wufei.

'She wants to mess around with cars, so she studies aerospace and law?' Duo's face was almost comical. 'What did she want to do? Put jet engines in cars and then prove with the law book she so aptly memorized that it is perfectly legal?'

'I don't know.' Wufei sighed. 'Her goal as a child was actually to become a famous writer. Our entire study room is dedicated to her books, most of which she wrote as a recreational thing. She is pretty damn famous though. We did some calculations a while ago and figured that we could both pretty much retire when we turn thirty and have enough cash in our combined account to go for a tour around the world and finally settle down in a mansion in Venice, and support two children, both of whom will own Ferraris as their first cars.'

'Damn.' Duo gave Wufei an evil glare. 'Wish I was your kids.'

'Right.' Wufei finished off his meal with a smirk. 'So, can we go off the topic of my fiancé and me and back onto Heero Yuy?'

'Huh? Oh, right.' Duo swallowed the rest of his food in a hurry. 'Well, I decided that Heero would probably figure out his wife is Peacecraft at some point, and hence go for a stroll at home. So I'll just hook up their home security to my computer, as well as find out which room belongs to Peacecraft at the hospital and link the security of that place here as well.'

'You think that will work?' Wufei asked dubiously. Duo gave him a dry look.

'You keep your eyes on your billionaire future wife and I'll keep my eyes on the computers okay?' Duo dumped his finished dinner on the desk, and leaned forward to begin work once again. Wufei made a impatient noise before leaning across and grabbing Duo's rubbish, shoving it quickly back into the plastic bag and discarding it all in the trashcan under the desk. Duo smirked as he continued his work, locating the Peacecraft Estate security system easily and breaking his way through it. He soon had full access of the system and was just about to congratulate himself when he noticed something unusual written by the status of the gate.

'Hey Wuffers?'

'Wufei.' Wufei responded automatically, eyes trained on some documents in his hands. 'What?'

'The Peacecraft Estate is pretty much off limits right?'

'Yes. Why?'

'Because I have the front gate clocked at two openings during the past twenty four hours, and the front door opened once with the code for a Mr. H. Yuy.'

'What?' Duo watched Wufei discard his documents immediately, his eyes trained on the screen. 'You mean he's already been there?'

'So it seems Fei.' Duo sighed. 'Damn, there is just something about me and being slow today.'

'How about Peacecraft's room at the hospital?'

'Hang on, give me a second.' Duo minimized the first window to open another one, this time hooking onto Relena Peacecraft's room at the Central Hospital. Once there, he opened up the room's daily schedule as well as the access times. 'No, all seems normal here.'

'So, he hasn't been there yet.' Wufei was already on his feet. 'Move your ass Maxwell, we have a fugitive to catch.'

Wufei Chang had a nice car, Duo decided as he watched the Chinese driver plow recklessly through the roads, he just was not that nice of a driver. Wufei owned a black BMW Kompressor, with a sleek coat and not one dent on the outside and classy leather interior. Unfortunately, one would not get that impression from the man's driving, which was not even close to road-safe standards. But he was a cop, which gave him a excuse, sort of. Not that Duo minded. He loved going fast, and only never did in recent times because his present job did not offer the added benefits of running twenty miles an hour above standard speed and getting away with it. Despite that, Duo was still stunned to find himself walking into the hospital ten minutes later (a record for rush hour, although probably because Wufei was driving on the pedestrian street for the most part) without a coffee table leg shoved into his chest. They definitely plowed through enough outdoor café customers for the chances of such a feet to increase dramatically in probability from something along the lines of one in three thousand road trips to one in three.

They located the elevator immediately, hopping on and jabbing the number six. A little girl with her mother shared the elevator with them, and she contended herself with playing with the end of Duo's braid. Duo hated people touching his hair, but the sight of the little girl fawning over his was enough to clear away any aggression he might have felt. The mother smiled gladly, murmuring a thanks to Duo when they got off on the third floor. The braided-man found himself waving back to them as they left, only dropping his hand when the door finally closed.

They got off on the sixth level with their aim set on room 6239. When they got there, the found themselves faced with an empty chair and a keypad on the side of the door. Duo gave Wufei the code quickly while he found his PDA and connected it to the metallic object, feeling surprise when he discovered that the door had opened during the last ten minutes while they were on the road. He told Wufei as much, and the Asian man nodded, finally pushing open the door and withdrawing his gun. Duo found his own gun quickly, feeling himself sink almost disgustingly easily into his old combat-wary position. With that settled, they both entered.

The room was empty, save for Relena Peacecraft, who lay like the almost dead woman she was in bed, breathing heavily into the respirator (or rather the respirator forcing her to breath as heavily as she could). Wufei entered first, checking under the bed and behind the various instruments that surrounded the former foreign minister. Duo felt his hackles rise as he entered, knowing that Heero Yuy was still in here. A quick check up indicated that there was no ventilation shaft, and the windows were sealed, the lack of handles implying that it was not made to be opened. With a sense of trepidation, he turned around, sensing before he even turned that Heero was standing there. He felt a rough push against his chest, knocking him backwards and drawing Wufei's attention before the door was wrenched open and Heero dashed off down the corridor.

Duo sprang up immediately, following the man down the corridor with his gun drawn. Heero was off to a good start in running, but Duo could see from the mass of white bandages around his left leg that he was injured. How he got injured was beyond Duo, but the other man was definitely hurt and it was retarding his getaway badly. Duo raised his gun and fired, sending the bullet into the man's right arm. Heero's movements slowed for a moment before resuming their original pace, almost as if the shot had never gone through. He slipped quickly into the emergency stairwell, just as Duo sent another two shots flying, both missing and hitting the opposite wall. He sped up himself, dashing into the stairwell and springing down the stairs, jumping several stairs at once to capture his quarry. Heero was but two flights ahead of him, a sum he was quickly catching up on. When the blue-eyed man was only a flight away, Duo fired yet again, his bullets finding home this time in Heero's right leg. He stumbled at this, tripping over the stairs and rolling down an entire flight before landing awkwardly on the bottom. Duo dashed the last two flights, finally stopping before Heero, gun pointing lethally at the other man's chest.

Heero sat up slowly, barely letting out a groan of pain. His right arm and leg were both bleeding, and the fall seemed to have ripped open the wound on the left leg, because the white bandage was becoming increasingly soaked in red. Duo approached slowly, gun trained on Heero's chest even as the man moved. When the Japanese man looked up, Duo was surprised to see the look of acceptance there. Heero knew he was going to die, and faced it boldly, his Prussian-blue eyes piercing Duo's and demanding that he pull the trigger. So this was the moment of truth, Duo decided. Heero Yuy does not get the end of his countdown, and would die here on the emergency fire-escape of the Central Hospital by his hands. His right hand tightened around the gun, Heero's chest firmly in the line of fire.

He could not pull the trigger.

Heero Yuy stared at him expectantly, almost irritably, as if daring Duo to make him sit there waiting for a death which would not come. Duo's mind shouted for him to pull the trigger, but his fingers would not move, almost as if they were frozen to the gun. So the two of them remained in that position: Heero crouched awkwardly against a wall, clutching his wounded arm, legs bleeding and eyes fixed on Duo and his gun; while Duo stood barely four feet away, gun poise and ready to be fired. Finally sensing that Duo was not going to shoot, Heero forced himself to stand up shakily, his legs giving way under him in his first two attempts, until Duo finally ran over and helped him upright, supporting Heero's weight with his body. Heero's muscles tensed, and Duo knew that had Heero been in better condition, the braided man would have just had his neck broken.

'Why are you doing this?' Heero's voice was little more than a whisper. 'Did you not say you would kill me the next time you saw me?'

'Yea.' Duo sighed, 'I guess I did.'

'So, where is that final shot?' Heero asked, his voice humorless. Still, Duo laughed lightly, helping the man down another flight of stairs.

'I don't know.'

They were silent for a moment, save for both of their panting as they made their way down to the ground floor. When they finally stopped at the door, Heero spoke up once more.

'Your name is Duo Maxwell right?' He asked, and continued after seeing Duo nod. 'I think you've been playing two roles at once. But in the end, whose side are you really on?'

'My side.' Duo answered truthfully.

'And your side benefits with my being alive?' Heero asked with a quirked eyebrow.

'I just can't bear with taking a life anymore.' Duo looked sad. 'That should not be my choice.'

'Life is cheap, especially mine.' Heero growled. 'Make up your mind Maxwell, or you won't gain anything from this save a great deal of pain.'

'I didn't sign up to this to gain anything.' Duo spat back angrily. 'I didn't want to sign up to it at all!'

'Life isn't fair, but that's what makes it enjoyable, right?' Heero smirked wryly. Duo nodded, feeling his gaze slip away from Heero's face, unable to look at those blue eyes any longer. Several floors above, he heard the sound of Wufei's shouting, coupled with hasty footsteps. Reluctantly, he let his eyes lock with Heero's once again. 'Your partner is coming.'

'Thank you Mr. Obvious.' Duo muttered back. 'Well, start running, Heero Yuy.'

'Should I expect death the next time I see you?' Heero asked calmly, holding Duo's gaze with his own. The violet-eyed man found himself unable to look away, even though he wanted to so badly.

'Yes.' He answered firmly. They were both silent for a moment, the only extra sound being Wufei's rapid dash down the stairs. Then, Heero leaned forward and placed a quick kiss on Duo's lips, catching the braided man completely off guard. Still smirking, he turned and pushed open the door, slipping out into the back alley of the hospital. Regaining his senses in the last minute, Duo raised his gun and fired another two shots, both of which were so completely off target that the Japanese man did not even bother to increase the speed of his hobbling. Duo took another shot, just as Heero cleared round the corner and slipped into the car park beside the hospital. The gunshot echoed around the courtyard, amplified several times louder. Wufei finally slipped down the last flight of stairs, his gun gripped tightly in his hand.

'What happened?' He asked, staring out at the empty alleyway outside.

'He escaped.' Duo answered obviously, eyes still fixed on the corner where he had last seen Heero.

'How?' Wufei asked, gaze swerving between Duo and the alleyway. 'Wasn't he injured?'

'Yea.'

'And he still escaped?'

'Yea.'

'How?'

'The guy is full of surprises.' Duo murmured, unconsciously replacing the safety on his gun and tucking it back into its hoister. Wufei continued staring at him incredulously, even as he exited the hospital and began making his way towards the Chinese man's car. Wufei soon followed, but he was ranting under his breath about weird Americans whose never-ending energy supplies always died in the last minute, strange Japanese fugitives who could talk their way out of execution and the injustice of it all. Duo was hardly paying any attention to Wufei's speech, although he would have been glad had he been listening, for it was obvious that even though they had only just started working together, Wufei enjoyed their teamwork on a certain level and would not be getting Duo in trouble by writing anything compromising on a report, even if it meant bending a few rules surrounding the word "truth".

Even as he sank into bed that night, eyes still wide open and staring at the ceiling in the darkness, with but the still switched on computer adding to light and background noise, all he could think about was Heero's words and that confusing kiss.

Endnotes:

(1) ATC is the abbreviation for Air Traffic Control, a job which lands anyone doing it a extremely high probability of nervous breakdown, divorce, violence, depression and suicide. But they are paid damn well (think of Pushing Tin if I'm still not ringing any bells).

That was…random. I suppose I deserve that, since I'm writing at 2 AM in the morning, in my bed, with a massive coat pulled over me so that I don't make my cold worse (yes, I've still got the damn cold). Okay…some weirdness in this chapter… I got a bit carried away with Wufei's fiancé and her diverse and somewhat random nature. The aerospace-law combined degree is something my Chirish friend wants to get into, the automotive engineering is something my Greek friend wants to get into, and the surgeon part is what Overlord's father does (I'm not sure he does neurosurgery though). The car with a jet engine which can surpass all land-speed records and probably turn a person into a singularity (the mysteries surrounding the last dude who broke the land-speed record and vanished off the face of the earth) is something Chirish and I have discussed many times during our physics classes when we should have been focusing on Larry speeding down a frictionless ice surface on his skateboard made snowboard. And yea, writing as a hobby is something that half the people I know does, especially myself during exam period (bad habit, I know). But, long chapter! Well, for me with this story anyway. I put a bit too much stuff in this chapter, and didn't get to fill in the bit I wanted to about "Duo's last line" as mentioned previously in the previous endnote thing. Ah well, I'll put it in next time I suppose.

Um…yea, well, at least I finally put in a bit of that 1x2 goodness, albeit it was random and short and…yea…never mind.

Assassin