Notes: A Blind Item is a news story, typically in a gossip column, in which the details of the matter are reported without naming the identities of the people involved. I was already planning on having journalists in this story, so this prompt works.

Hereafter

Chapter 13

March Madness Prompt #3

Blind Item

Not much more than an hour had passed since the ESUN building had been brought down by fertilizer bombs delivered in the back of a pickup truck.

Heero didn't continue talking to the suspect. He left Adam Peters to Wufei, Duo, and Hilde, knowing his presence would be more of a hindrance than a help given how his emotions were spiking.

It didn't matter to him if the kid was lying through his teeth about not meaning it. It would be in the murder's best interest to lie. The truth was for local police to ferret out and the courts to prosecute. The evidence showed that the truck was registered to the fertilizer plant, so he wouldn't be getting away with anything. Heero had hung around long enough to learn that actual fertilizer had been on the schedule for delivery for use in landscaping the gardens and parks surrounding the building. That explained why no one had found it suspicious and why the Preventers hadn't gathered any intelligence about it in advance.

It wasn't some international conspiracy. Adam Peters was mostly likely an opportunist working alone. He worked at the plant and had been on a legitimate schedule to deliver goods and services here today. Whatever political ideologies had inspired him to do what he had done had probably been brewing in him silently for months or years before this opportunity arose. It was obviously somewhat premeditated, but the particulars of what made Peters a homicidal lunatic didn't interest Heero in the moment.

Even so, he couldn't help blaming himself. If he had joined the Preventers months ago, could he have stopped this? Should he have stopped it anyway? Instead of obsessing about seeing Relena as often as he could, about how to move their relationship forward, should he have been patrolling the grounds, questioning the staff? A few months ago, that was exactly what he would have been doing. Instead, he had chosen to put his energy into trying to have a relationship with Relena, to learn how to be a boyfriend.

And this was what came of that.

He stood alone, facing the demolished building, his back to the truck and the sidewalk and the secret place in the gardens where Relena had touched his chest with her fingers and told him with her eyes that she desired him, that she wanted to see where the night went…

The flash of a camera distracted him.

He turned to see a woman in a tweed jacket, blouse, and skirt. She had dark brown hair curled into ringlets around her head and she smiled at Heero as she lowered her phone. Behind her was a man holding a video camera with a microphone jutting out over the woman's head.

Journalists.

"Aren't you Heero Yuy?" she asked him. "Relena Peacecraft's boyfriend?"

Heero didn't know what to do. "Leave me alone."

"I'm a staff writer with One World Gazette," she said. "My name is Katie Kline. Can I ask you a few questions about what happened here today?"

"No," Heero said. He stamped off in the other direction, but the reporter followed, the hulking cameraman shuffling close behind her.

"Do you know if Relena Peacecraft is alive?" she asked him. "No one seems to know, or at least they won't tell me. Obviously, she is such an important person in the efforts to unite the Earth and the Colonies into one nation. The whole world is holding its collective—"

"I said to leave me alone!" he snapped. "I don't want to talk to you."

"You were a Gundam Pilot during the war, right? Are you a Preventer now? Love the jacket by the way. Do they know who did this? Do you have anything to say to the perpetrator, or to the world about this horrible crime?"

Feeling harried, Heero crossed the street again. Markers and tape had been strung up along the perimeter to keep bystanders out, but he ducked under them. No one stopped him. In the Preventer's jacket that Trowa had brought him, he looked like he belonged there.

To his annoyance, Katie followed him, waving the press pass that dangled around her neck at a man in a police hat who moved in to try and stop her.

"There's talk of this incident reigniting the war," Katie said. "Can you comment on how the Colonies will react if the perpetrator turns out to be an anti-Union sympathizer?"

Heero broke into a run. His boots churned up ash and kicked pieces of shattered cement in every direction as he fled. He had to keep his eyes partially on the ground to avoid stubbing his toe on the uneven path. With his knee still smarting where Duo had kicked him, it was a foolish thing to do. He nearly lost his footing twice in less than a hundred paces.

But the cameraman couldn't keep up and he and the reporter slowed as Heero sped up to lose them. Katie Kline reporter shouted at his back. "We'd like to do an exclusive on your relationship with Relena Peacecraft to represent the Colonies and the Earth!"

As soon as he could no longer see them, Heero tried to put the reporter out of his mind. He'd been asked questions like this before. He even recalled a blind item story in the One World Gazette that may have been written by a Katie Kline.

"Heero!"

He turned at the sound of Trowa's voice, shout at him from just to the west. He turned to see Trowa running in his direction, nimble feet easily avoiding debris. When Trowa was within easy talking distance, he stopped. His face was pale.

"They think they've found her," he said. "They've reached the area with all the representatives. Heero, I saw her. I saw her pulled her out from under a pile. She's…" He trailed off.

But Heero could read the answer in Trowa's expression.

"Dead," he said, his insides twisting.

And Trowa nodded.