Bffimagine: Well, I'm back. Begrudgingly, mind you, but back. Gomen ne... I did take a while -.-"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The next morning Duo woke to the sound of clanging metal. He rolled over to take a look at the clock: Four A.M.
Who would be up at this insane hour?
He reluctantly squirmed out from under the covers, knowing he would have been called for a mission with the next hour anyhow. Dressing quickly, he bounded down the steps.
Quatre and Trowa had fallen asleep together on the sofa, and Duo smiled secretly to himself.
'That might be me and Heero one day.'
Yawning without having a chance to stifle the noise, Duo slipped out the door.
"Well, it means Wufei is making all that noise. Probably polishing his gundam as always…" Duo sighed to himself and jogged down the hallway.
Sure enough, Wufei was in his gundam. But he wasn't making the noise; he was fast asleep in the cockpit of Nataku.
"But…"
Again the clanging noise resounded through the hangar.
'It can't be…' Duo thought in disbelief, 'But… I never checked if he was there…'
"Heero?" Duo called out tentatively.
"Yes?" Heero slid out from under his gundam's foot.
"You shouldn't be up!" Duo scolded in exasperation.
"A mission was called. I have to repair Wing so that it may be completed successfully."
Duo sighed again.
Gathering his thoughts, he checked over Heero's body.
All the bandages had been removed and Heero had obviously taken a shower and changed. The gash was still red and painfully raw, but the internal wounds had apparently healed.
"Right. Well, Heero, you know that could've killed an ordinary man. I'm surprised your healed in only… not even a day," Duo was seemingly explaining the situation to Heero as he squatted down beside the other pilot.
"Hn."
Heero resumed fixing the mechanics of his mobile suit.
Fidgeting, Duo watched Heero repair Wing.
Nervous silence followed, along with the clanging of metal against metal and the hiss of melting alloy.
"Don't you understand?" Duo finally blurted out. Heero eyed him quizzically.
"You could've… no… would've… you were SUPPOSED to die! A normal human would've! I was worried you wouldn't make it!" Duo was very irritated by now. Why was Heero so cold?
Normally stoic, Heero seemed greatly hurt but also touched by Duo's words.
"Many thanks for your concern, Duo." He stopped his work and got up. When Duo looked over Wing, it seemed even more magnificent than before.
"Maybe a NORMAL human knows what they're talking about when it comes to love and emotions. Obviously, I don't." Heero swept out of the room, leaving Duo stunned and quite shocked by the outburst.
'I… I didn't mean it like that…'
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
For the rest of the day, Heero seemed weak and in severe pain. Every few seconds or so, the icy teen's eyes squinted in confusion for no reason, and there was a definite, yet subtle sway in his steps.
"You should abort the mission," both Quatre and Trowa told him, "Your health will only decrease."
Even Wufei gave a shake of his head in disapproval.
"If you go for this particular mission, Yuy, you'll die. I'll go in your place; you stay here and recuperate." Wufei's offer was extremely generous considering his distant attitude.
Heero, still seeming really out of it, shook his head dizzily.
"I have to take this one, alone. I refuse to abort."
Duo, who had been quiet throughout the conversation, was staring at the floor.
'This is probably my fault… he thinks he isn't human now. Why is it that he's so unnaturally intelligent, but gets so confused over something like… mortality?
'Does he think the only way to find out if he's human is to kill himself? He's only fifteen. These thoughts shouldn't come to him until he turns nineteen; until he's my age. Or older, even.'
Heero nodded in turn at each of the other pilots, and left the room.
"DUO!" Quatre yelled as soon as they heard Wing take off.
"What?" Duo almost snapped at Quatre, but managed to catch himself just in time.
"Why didn't you try to stop him? You know he listens to you the most! Now he's off to kill himself!" Trowa jumped in now.
"What did you do, Maxwell? Yuy is so out of it I don't think he's even in there. It's just a shell. It's as if Yuy's on auto-pilot!" Wufei had taken a menacing step toward Duo.
"All we can do is watch now. We'd better hope Heero makes it out alive." Quatre sighed and opened Heero's laptop.
"What are you doing?" Trowa asked curiously, but also worriedly because if anything went wrong Heero would have Quatre's head.
"I want to see what this mission is all about," Quatre replied evenly, clicking around quickly.
"There it is," Wufei said, pointing at an icon on the screen.
As the document opened, Quatre's eyes widened.
"This mission is impossible," he breathed, "No one can possibly do that. This one's certain death; kamikaze if you will."
"Who was it sent by?" Duo asked quietly.
"Dr. J., probably." Trowa read through the document quickly.
"Unreal," Wufei muttered, "Relena would send a mission like this?"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Heero managed to get into the Peacecraft vicinity easily enough. It wasn't very helpful to know that Relena hadn't alerted any of her security Heero was to arrive.
As stealthily as possible, Heero maneuvered Wing into the building. He managed to find an area where he could leave Wing as he stole into the palace.
Slipping through crevices and small areas, Heero managed to get into Relena's personal quarters just as she asked in her message.
"Relena? Why did you ask me come here?" Heero groped around in the dark room, trying to move in further.
A crack was heard as a silenced gun was loaded. Heero's sharp senses kicked into gear as he dodged shot after shot.
"Heero!" Relena's muffled voice sounded into the room. Heero now knew exactly where she was, and also took that she was bound and gagged.
Darting over furniture, Heero ran through the darkness, his eyes now accustomed to the dark. He made his way to Relena in a matter of seconds, untied, ungagged, and released her from a guard's grip.
"Watch out Heero!"
Heero turned around just in time and managed to dodge a bullet heading for his heart, but he pulled away a second too late and caught the shot in the shoulder.
"I just hacked us into Relena's palace security cameras. If I'm right… Heero's in this room…" Wufei clicked around a little and then the screen showed Heero quickly releasing Relena and getting shot in the shoulder. The camera had something to the effect of night vision, so the rest of the pilots could see what was happening clearly.
"He isn't going to make it," Trowa commented, gesturing to the screen, "I don't think Heero can see how many there are. My estimate is around thirty-eight to forty-five."
"He can't dodge forever, either. If he tries to carry Relena out of the room that will slow him down even more." Duo had begun to worry terribly about Heero. If the Wing pilot died, he would be the one to blame.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Grimacing, Heero picked Relena up and dashed out of the room, slipping through bullets and crashing through the door. He ran as fast as he could toward Wing.
Jumping in, he pulled Relena into the cockpit along with him. He took off with haste, taking down several mobile suits that pursued them.
"How did you contact me if they were holding you hostage?" Heero asked flatly.
"I managed to steal and utilize on of their palm pilots. I emailed you before they took it away, but they didn't know I managed to send you a message."
"Why did they hold you hostage?"
Relena smirked evilly.
"Because I asked them to."
Heero stopped breathing in mid-gasp as Relena stabbed him through the lung. She pulled the blade out from between his ribs and stabbed him repeatedly in the abdomen. She stabbed him in the back, piercing his second lung, but just before he collapsed he saw a light…
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"Heero… WHAT THE HELL!" Duo had sent a message to Wing through Deathscythe. Trowa, Quatre and Wufei were in Sandrock, Heavyarms and Shenlong respectively, and the all saw the horrific homicide attempt made by the Peacecraft queen.
"Why, Relena?" Quatre almost sobbed.
Relena returned the message.
"If I can win Heero's heart, I'll just take it and then make the person who has it eat it raw."
Trowa and Wufei felt like throwing up, yet Duo actually did and Quatre was sobbing uncontrollably.
'She set this up… set it all up… the message…'
(Flashback)
The message on the screen wasn't overly lengthy, but was moderately long:
Heero,
This is Relena. I want you to come to my palace so you can do something for me. You'll have to get through quite a bite of security, since this came up with too short notice for me to call anything off.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
If you can make it as soon as possible that would be much of help.
Thanks,
Relena.
(End of flashback.)
'We should have realized… the message was way too long for her to have emailed it without the guard noticing… If she had used her own device they would've seen her typing, and if she was tied up and gagged like we saw Heero untying her… she wouldn't have been able to type anything at all. Why didn't Heero realize all this?'
A yelling match between Quatre and Relena brought Duo out of his thoughts.
"You took advantage of him! You knew he wouldn't realize the clues until afterwards because of the urgency in your message! You sent a pre-written document of details for him to read, and pretended as if it was on the palm pilot you stole! But you couldn't have stolen a palm pilot, they would've noticed! Heero was worried about you because you were his friend! You took advantage of all that!" Quatre was rambling on and on, screaming until his throat hurt.
"I don't care! Heero was supposed to love me, not someone else. Not… NOT DUO!" Relena was breaking into tears as well.
Duo glared at her in his screen.
"How would you know, anyway, Ms. Queen-of-the-World?" Duo spat at her, "It's not like you gave a damn about him up until now!"
"I have satellites watching each and every one of your moves. No matter what you do, I see what's happening."
"So you're not only a bitch, but you're a stalker too!" Duo had begun his own yelling match with Relena.
"You had no right," Trowa seethed, "Heero still cared about you. Wasn't that enough? He could've left you altogether, but he has a heart. A naïve one at that, since he actually believed you, but only because he's young. Duo was much kinder to him than you ever were, he tended to his wounds and took care of him when he was ill. We're his friends Relena, but unlike you none of us have tried to kill him."
"Yuy was very kind to you, Peacecraft. He didn't kill Zechs"—Wufei feigned a cough—"Because he knew it would make you sad. He could've taken that bastard down if it weren't for you."
"OZ… Mari Maiah, he could've killed them all. But he had a heart. He knew you didn't like killing, and neither did he, but you were the only thing stopping him from killing everything in sight. You were what triggered the nightmares Dr. J extracted from him, telling him emotions were useless. You made him confused, not knowing what was right or wrong. We had to teach him friendship. We had to teach him love." Duo had begun to sob.
"You caused him so much pain, you caused him all of this confusion! We had to save him, teach him to be human all over again. And a hell of a lot you did for him!" Trowa's mind snapped and he just lashed at Relena.
"He had that one nightmare… the one of the little girl and her dog… all because of you. You invoked those images with your big speeches of peace, and he didn't want to kill. But every word you said rang in his ears and made him cry every time his sword was stained with blood. That nightmare he had… a little girl gives him a flower. He is running with her dog and asks him innocent questions, like what's your name, where do you live… but he can't answer. He doesn't have a name of his own, he doesn't even have a home. So we made him a home. You just brushed him away, after all he did for you. Then the little girl goes home.
"Heero is sent on missions, and even though he doesn't want to kill, he goes because of all the painful memories of torture—Dr. J would punish him for nothing, even for success—and he doesn't want to be hurt anymore. We should've realized you hurt him more than that bastard…
"Eventually his dream did become worse. He was assigned to destroy the OZ building, and he did, blowing it up. But the little girl's home is not very far away, and falling mobile suits and debris destroy her home. All that was left of her smiling, sunny personality was a torn, bloody scrap of her once white dress, and her small dog lying dead in the rubble.
"I remember how Heero's tears looked on his face just before he plunged Wing into the water. He said, 'How many times must I kill that girl and her dog?' but I couldn't answer. The pain in his voice and eyes made it hurt just to look at him."
Wufei's long story made Trowa finally break and cry, but Relena laughed.
"Heero deserved it. He deserved it all!" Relena scooped up some of Heero's blood and held it up so the other pilots could see it clearly.
"See his blood? This is blood tinged with hatred. My hatred for him. He broke my heart and now I'll shred his!"
Duo shut off his communications screen and took a deep breath. He sent the other pilots a private message.
"I'm going out to get Heero. That bitch Relena is going down."
Deathscythe took off into space.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
bffimagine: Well, not much of a cliffie there. Relena haters unite!