A/N: Oh. My. Goodness. Well, the good news is, the story is done! Finished, finito! Only a few chapters left, which I'll be posting as I'm done proofing them over the course of the next 10-12 days or so. Enjoy!
-picimadar
When You Run Among Shadows
Chapter 19: Backfired
December 27, A.C. 197, Brussels
"Tell me what's happening!" a female voice shouted, and Heero tried desperately to open his eyes. Relena…
"Not now, Relena! Get back and out of the way before we just run you down ourselves. He didn't do this to let you die here! Get in the car, now!" Sally Po pushed her way along, her voice throbbing through his brain, too loud, too close.
"I'm coming over there whether you like it or not! You have no right to keep me away!" Had he been fully conscious, Heero may have laughed. After all that had happened, after the horror of being trapped in the bunker with Barton and his cronies, Relena still wanted to sacrifice and stay by his side. Sally sighed, frustrated, turning her attention as she ran alongside the stretcher from the young woman back to him. He felt her warm hands on his neck and realized that he was freezing cold.
"He's losing blood, I think it's internal. He's o negative, get some now and have it ready for transfusion in the ambulance. Heero, can you hear me?" He turned his eyes to her slightly, and she smiled. "Good. Stay conscious until we get you in the transport, alright? Can you do that? Okay. I'm going to give you some medication; do you have any allergies? Of course not." Heero knew why she was unsurprised; the 'perfect soldier' had to be easy to maintain. He had been chosen for more than convenience or intelligence; he had been chosen because he had no allergies or intolerances, no mental weaknesses, no physical infirmities. "Push the morphine, now!" Sally shouted again, and Heero realized he had let his eyes drift nearly closed.
"Relena…" he said out loud, and Sally shushed him, almost motherly.
"She's fine. She's fine, Heero, you saved her. You saved all of us. Now stay with me, you'll see her once we get to the hospital, apparently." Heero couldn't understand why Sally was so irritated by the girl's presence. So what if she wants to see me? Heero was lifted and slid into the ambulance, the doors slamming by his feet just as it lurched away. "You're doing great. We'll be there in less than five minutes. You should thank yourself for the favor… nothing like a Gundam to clear out traffic. Whoa, whoa, stay down!" She shoved her hands against his chest, pushing him back onto the gurney. "It's practically ashes, Heero. They're taking care of it. Relax, relax."
By the time they had reached the hospital, Heero could barely stay awake, the pain in his chest and back overwhelming him, the medications flowing through his veins making his eyelids feel as though they weighed as much as bricks. "It's okay, Heero. Sleep. We're going to put you under, I think you need surgery. Sleep. When you wake up, she'll still be here."
Even before he woke, Heero Yuy knew, deep in his mind, even in his dreams, that something was horribly wrong. Why did I dream about that? He asked himself, searching his semi-conscious mind, trolling his memories carefully. "When you wake up, she'll still be here." The memory echoed behind his eyes, and Heero quickly realized the relevance. Sitting up, he threw back the covers and saw the empty bed, morning light seemingly pressing against the curtains, the rest of his home completely silent. He didn't bother calling her name or even searching the house; he knew she was gone. Standing up and leaving the bed, he looked around his room briefly before stepping into the shower, letting the hot water run over his body. Her shampoo and body wash was still there, and the smell of her skin lingered maddeningly on his own. Grabbing a cloth, Heero lathered and washed angrily, hurt and betrayal leeching into his every thought. You're an idiot, Heero. An idiot! Now you're both dead, and it's entirely your own fault.
Heero put off shaving, pulling on a clean set of clothes, opening the drawer and seeing all of Relena's temporarily wardrobe still neatly folded in the top of the dresser. He sighed, picked up his wallet, keys and telephone, and headed quickly to work. If they find her, I'll be the third to know. Opening his car door, Heero found one of Relena's old sweaters, her empty coffee cup from a few nights previous still in the cup holder, pink lipstick smeared on the rim. It seemed to taunt him, reminding him of how only a few hours before she had been safe and warm in his bed, and had chosen, knowing all the dangers, to run away from him. Now you know how it feels, some inner voice said, and it drove Heero over the edge. Grabbing the cup, he rolled down the far window and pitched it out furiously, watching it bounce along the road for a brief second before he sped off toward work.
"Goddammit, this is bullshit!" Pulling into the lot near the towering office building, Heero barely even looked at the gate guard before pulling into a space, throwing the car into park and taking the keys out of the ignition. "Get it together," he said just as he noticed a bright white piece of paper in the empty holder. Must have forgotten this before, he mentally muttered, grabbing the sheet and his suitcase out of the front seat, stepping out, slamming the door, and continuing across the lot.
"Hey, Caden!" Neil shouted, clearly having arrived just before him. "So we gotta meet with Lavie right away. Hey! Are you listening to me or what?" Heero continued walking, his partner's perpetually cheerful demeanor grating on his nerves. "Dude, wait!" Heero turned, his nearly patented glare painted on his face. "I gotta talk to you… something happened last night and I know you'll hear me out. There's no one else I can… I just need you to hear me out." Heero looked at the young man for a moment, his glare falling at the coincidence in timing. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, another voice interrupted him.
"My boys! About time you got here! No lollygagging, we've got big plans for today!" Lawrence Lavie himself exited his own car, putting an arm around each young man and guiding them into the building. "You simply won't believe what's happened. Such luck!" Both became increasingly uneasy, both fretting about the whereabouts and wellbeing of the same woman. "Come on, come on. We've much to discuss." Entering the elevator, Heero apologized, stepping out of the way of a young redhead who smiled at him shyly before staring at the floor. "Good morning, Stephanie. I trust you had a restful weekend?"
"Absolutely, sir! And Mr. Creed was incredibly helpful. He's waiting downstairs for you." She bowed slightly before darting foreward and clicking one of the floor buttons labeled B2. Heero looked out of the corner of his eyes to Neil, who was visibly sweating now, his hands twisted around each other as he turned to look at his friend. The door opened, and Neil exited just behind Heero, both following after Lavie.
"Man, I'm so fucking sorry," he whispered, and Heero turned to him.
"For what? You didn't do anything."
"Relena's at my fucking house!" Neil looked back up at Lavie and his companion carefully, hoping their footsteps drowned out his speech. "She just showed up, and… fuck. He's going to think you helped me. Heero, I'm so sorry…"
"What did you call me?" Heero asked, his voice suddenly echoing as they entered a chamber carefully.
"Only by your real name, Mr. Yuy," Lavie said, gesturing to a chair. "I suggest you take a seat. Chances are you will be here for some time." Heero looked over his shoulder but could see no immediate escape, save for the elevator in the distance. Comply, his instincts told him, and he sat carefully in the chair, facing his accuser. "Don't be afraid, young man. I know who you are. In fact, I have known since I hired you. I really wish you'd been more forthcoming with me, it could have saved us so much time!" Lavie snapped a hand and waved his fingers toward himself, and another young man moved out of the shadows, placing another chair down nervously. "What I'm a tad miffed about, my boy, is that you didn't tell me you so intimately knew our own little prisoner."
Heero sat, impassively, unsure of what to say. "No sense denying it young man. You knew our intentions for the young Minister, yet you still complied with our plans. That's quite the betrayal for someone you had such an intimate relationship with. What made you want to leave that?" Heero swallowed, but said nothing. "I need to know the truth, Mr. Yuy. You are one of my favorites and truly indispensible. Your knowledge of the Preventer organization as well as the defense mechanisms of the Earth and other colonies means I can't afford to kill you, unfortunately." Lavie stood, approaching Neil.
"You, on the other hand, are quite the enigma, aren't you? There's even less information on you than on a Gundam pilot, for goodness' sake! The only thing I could find was that you moved here shortly after your parents deaths and stayed even after the war. This has been your home for some time, and yet we know nothing about you. Why did you join this cause? You would have been free to leave."
"I was free to leave, but I wanted to stay. I don't believe it's right to force anyone to change their identities or their jobs or their lives just because the 'higher power' thinks that war is some disgusting excuse for a purpose. War is completely natural; there will always be conflict because someone always has to be in control. Until you eliminate the aristocracy's perpetual need to control us mere soldiers and 'commoners', there will always be those who will fight back." Lavie clapped his hands, as though he had made the pretty speech come forth himself.
"Excellent words, young man. Is this also your belief, Heero?"
"Not particularly," he answered honestly, leaning back slightly in his chair, examining the overly nervous and still silent young man, the woman next to him holding the file folder to her chest, smiling.
"Then why come here? As a Gundam pilot, one would think it would be your purpose to be welcomed here, to live your life in safety, without having to hide. Why hide your identity?"
Heero looked away, remembering the few days before he had finally left Earth for this colony. "I committed a crime. I betrayed the only friends I had, and I hurt… I hurt someone I cared about. I just couldn't stay there, anymore. I was never supposed to live beyond the war. They should have lived their lives without me, happy and safe, and all I seemed ever to bring was more pain and regrets. Leaving freed them from that."
"So you wanted to protect your little Princess from the blood on your hands, hmm?" Lavie sat back down, taking the folder from Stephanie carefully. "She was quite infatuated with you, you know. I have here some transcripts from her therapy sessions. Apparently someone talked her into meeting with a therapist, although that 'professional' turned out to be a friend of hers. Regardless, one thing has become quite clear: these people are not only looking for Relena Darlian, they are looking for you as well." He opened the file, flipping through a few pages. "Apparently when you left Relena suffered from pretty troubling psychological episodes. I suppose we have you to thank for that! We had been hoping that killing her mother would set her off, but it appears she was well on her way because of your little stunt."
"What are you talking about?" Heero asked, nausea forcing bile up his throat.
"Well, her death was framed as an accident, of course, and within months the little Minister had managed to hospitalize herself twice for what was recorded as "accidental injury". Personally, I've never seen anyone accidentally slit open vital arteries twice, but I suppose it's possible." Lavie let the gravity of his statement sink in. "Now. We have this tiny, sick, mentally unstable young woman running around our colony unsupervised. Think of the trouble she could get into, the pain she could cause others or herself if we don't find her… I know that isn't what you want. Heero, if you know where she is, you must tell me. It's completely imperative."
Heero looked at Neil briefly before mustering his courage and making his response. "Are you going to drop this colony?" he asked, and Lavie looked at him, briefly shocked, before laughing.
"Of course not! Who gave you that idea? No, no, Heero. I've shown you the blueprints, albeit briefly, but I figured you'd have locked those away up in that miraculous brain of yours by now," he demonstrated, tapping a temple with one finger. "No, I've got something much better planned for the Earth. Z78 is a compound invented by my scientists here. We plan to use vessels on this colony to transport it to Earth and infect the people there."
"Infect them with what?" Neil interjected, cringing for speaking out of turn.
"It is a simple virus, nothing deadly or even dangerous. It actually only affects women and the ovum, should they be outside the body, making them inviable."
"You're ensuring that they can't reproduce," Heero surmised.
"Precisely. The people on Earth have grown complacent during this time of peace, especially the governmental workers. Indoctrinating children is one of the best ways to keep foul ideas like religion and pacifism growing and expanding, and we plan to simply eliminate that possibility altogether."
"What about the people living there who aren't pacifists? You can't sterilize billions of people simply because you disagree with the majority opinion."
Lavie stood, buttoned his suit and continued out of the large, empty space, the others following him slowly. "We plan to announce our intentions very soon, gentlemen. We have prepared this colony for a massive influx of people, as I'm sure you've noticed from the construction. We will simply offer them a choice: allow our way of life, accept it, and live happily among us. The other option is simply to continue their lives on the Earth and let their ideas die with them, or their currently existing children's. The results are, unfortunately far less instantaneous than death, but I believe that life can be preserved in this case." Entering the elevator, Lavie called them over. "Don't dally, we have work to do." Reaching the eighth floor, Lavie ushered the two men out. "I'm sure you two have much to discuss. I want a rough plan of infiltration for our closest neighboring colonies drawn up by tonight. Expect to work overtime."
"But sir!" Neil called, approaching the elevator opening. "What about Relena Darlian?"
Lavie smiled an identical grin to the woman next to him; feral and menacing. "Don't worry about Relena, boys. We'll deal with her." The door chimed and closed quickly, leaving the two standing in the corridor. They stood there for a while before Heero abruptly turned and walked down the hall a while before finding an empty room. Stepping inside, he turned to see if Neil was following him and instead was met with a fist to the face.
Losing his balance temporarily, Heero threw his hands up, preparing for a continued attack, but Neil simply closed the door and stood near the entrance. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You! Jesus Christ… this is not happening. You are not going anywhere near her again, you got me?" Neil raised his hand to hit Heero again, and to his surprise the famed Gundam pilot actually flinched away, frustrating Neil further. "What is wrong with you?" he shouted, shoving the other man away and beginning to pace the room. "I can't believe this. You are Heero Yuy?"
Heero simply nodded, and Neil narrowed his eyes at him. "Why didn't you just tell us? You could have fuckin' told me! Man, I trusted you. If you so much as breathe a word of this, I'll… fuck!"
"Calm down, I'm not going to tell anyone," Heero affirmed, sitting down at one of the few chairs littered around the nearly empty conference room. "So she's alright, then?" Neil was shaken by his interest, realizing he was the one who had coached Relena back from the broken and starved prisoner he had convinced to escape into the strong, driven and completely pissed off woman living in his house.
"She looks good," he said, rolling his eyes at himself. "I mean healthy. She looks fine, but she's mad as a wet cat. I don't know what in the fuck you did, but she knows way too much. More than even we do, I think." He sat down near his partner, resting his elbow on the table and his head in his hand.
"I'm not surprised. It's her job to be on top of this stuff."
"I'm pretty sure 'get kidnapped by your ex-boyfriend's new cult clan and kick some ass' wasn't in the job description," Neil replied wryly.
"I wasn't her boyfriend," Heero said compulsively, and Neil rolled his eyes again.
"She loved you, you slept with her, you lived with her. Close enough, I'd say. Man, what the fuck did you do? Why not just turn her in? Now I have to figure out what the hell to do… God." Taking out his phone, Neil flipped through a few emails restlessly, typing out a few of his own, tilting his phone purposefully away from Heero's line of sight.
"What are you going to do with her?" Heero asked, realizing Neil knew more about his history than the other man was letting on.
"I don't fucking know! She pulled a gun on me last night! I'm not doing anything with her but leaving her the hell alone. What were you going to do?"
Heero closed his eyes. "I have no idea. Other people are here, looking for her. They know she's alive and they know I'm here… it's only a matter of time before more come. It was either let her go and hope that my old colleagues had some mercy, or turn her in and hope that Lavie didn't murder me with his bare hands."
"Fuck," Neil said, summing up the situation neatly. "I'm in the same damn boat. But how do you know Middie?" he asked, cocking his head slightly.
"Middie?" Heero asked, but his question went unanswered as his phone rang. "Yes? Mhm. Fine." Hanging up, he stood. "They want us outside, I guess." Neil looked at him before patting him on the back.
"Sorry about hitting you. There's just… a lot more history with Relena and I than you know." Heero accepted the apology with a terse nod before they both left, walking down the corridor and taking the elevator to the ground floor. Upon arrival, they saw groups of Lavie's closest workers, standing as though they had been waiting for them.
"I guess the question is," Neil said, pausing at the end of the small crowd, "who are you fighting for, Lavie, or Relena?"
Without turning, Heero said, quietly, "I don't know." As soon as the sound left his mouth, he heard the safety click, Neil's gun resting against the back of his head.
"Sorry, pal. Wrong answer." Neil stepped forward, but not before a gasp was heard as another click sounded.
"As awesome as it would be for you to blow his damn brains out, I'm afraid I can't let you do that," a woman said, and Neil turned quickly, taking in a shock of blond hair, eyes he knew to be grey obscured by a large pair of aviator sunglasses, her white teeth showing as she smiled.
"Middie?" Neil practically shouted. "What in the fuck is happening here?"
"Good to see you too, sweetheart! Now, as great as this reunion is, we're leaving before we all get murdered, mmmkay?" Turning slightly while keeping her gun trained on him, Middie looked over the group of people closest to her. "You," she said, pointing the gun at Heero's temple, "are coming with me, and trust me, you aren't going to like it. Your choice, fucker: start walking or start dying."
