I do not own Gundam Wing.  This fan fiction has no commercial value and I am not making any kind of profit or income off of this.  

 

Chapter 4

 

            A few hours later, he locked Relena in her room with the promise to return soon. To say she didn’t like it was an understatement. She responded by beating on the door and yelling at the top of her lungs. Heero was taken aback a bit by her outburst.

            “Stop that,” he ordered through the door.

            “Let me out!”

            “I will be back in a couple of hours. Just stay there, and we can do anything you want when I get back,” he said, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. It was risky, what he was doing, not only because he was disobeying orders, but also because he was visiting a cop – in plain sight.

            No one in the organization knew about his friendship with Duo Maxwell. And he intended to keep it that way.  They had known each other for practically a lifetime. Briefly, he thought back to second grade when they had been caught feeding the class hamster to a snake the visiting zookeeper had brought along for show.  They were given detention for a week, and had been friends ever since.

In Heero’s present situation, it was a risky acquaintance to keep, but had come in handy many times over the last three years. Not only for his job, but it also helped him stay sane. He couldn’t just stay here; he had to know if he was all right. Some things were just too important…

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

            Duo lay in the small hospital bed under florescent lights glaring down harshly in a colorless room that smelled strongly of disinfectant. His skin appeared almost translucent it was so pale. He wore an oxygen mask over his face; the hideous tubes ran seemingly everywhere.

His wife Hilde stood just outside the room.  She was a slight woman physically, with short dark hair and light blue eyes.  She stood straight and still, staring at the window that looked in on the intensive care unit where her husband of six years lay, fighting for his life.  Lost in thought, her eyes not really seeing through the tears that blurred her vision, she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned around to see…

 “Heero!” she exclaimed, and threw herself into his arms.  She was no longer able to keep from crying as she sobbed uncontrollably, her fists clenching his shirt in her grief.

            “Shhhh…Hilde, he’s going to be all right,” he said in his best attempt at a soothing voice. It still came across gruffly, but he wrapped his arms around her and held her while she cried.

            She pulled away and nodded, but tears still coursed down her cheeks.

            “What happened?” he asked.

            She looked down at her hands.  “There was a drug bust last night. Supposed to be routine… you know the drill,” she gulped for air to continue.  “But Barton’s group didn’t want to go down without a fight, and opened fire. Several officers were wounded; four were killed. Including Duo’s partner….” She buried her face in her hands as she broke down sobbing again.

            Heero heard the words, but it was like his brain didn’t comprehend them. He closed his eyes to let it all sink in. He was suddenly glad Duo never told Hilde about his job.

            “Why don’t you sit down for a moment? I want to go talk to his doctor.”

            She nodded, and he left the waiting area. After a few minutes of searching for the man, he found out from the attending physician that Duo’s prognosis was fairly positive, the bullet having narrowly missed the main artery in his left leg. However, it was still ‘touch-and-go’ since he hadn’t woken up after the surgery. The longer he stayed in a coma, the worse his chances were of coming out of it. Heero nodded, and thanked the doctor before making his way back to Hilde.

            He stopped at the window, and looked in on his friend. The sight that greeted him was one that he wouldn’t forget. He went pale with anger, clenching his fists, and closing his eyes. “I promise, Duo, I’ll avenge you. I’ll take the whole damn organization down, I swear!” He didn’t speak the oath out loud, but he always kept his word.

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

            Relena dressed in her black jeans, tennis shoes, and a long sleeved black t-shirt that she tucked in tightly. She tied her hair up in a ponytail and threw her backpack over her shoulders. After much internal debate, she had finally decided to try to escape. It was risky; she was locked in from the outside, the only way out being from her second story window.

            She raised the blinds and then the window itself. After removing the screen, she leaned out and surveyed the situation. There wasn’t much of the roof underneath her window; it was a straight drop to the ground below. “Damn!” She cursed under her breath.  She supposed Heero had done this on purpose. She looked to her right; there was another ledge, possibly close enough that she could reach out with her hand and grab onto it. If she was able to inch far enough over, she might be able to drop down to the roof from there. She decided to give it a shot.

            Relena turned around, going feet first out of her window. Her hands and arms were strong from all the time she spent at the gym. She gradually lowered herself, until her hands were supporting all of her weight. She moved slowly over to the side of the ledge.

            The rough brick edges were biting into her tender skin. She wished for gloves as she attempted to shift her weight to her right hand, in order to grab the other ledge. She reached her left hand out, and came up just short of her goal. “Damn!” Relena cursed as she stretched her arm out once again. The tip of her middle finger was touching it, she was that close. She almost lost her grip with her right hand, and had to work quickly to right herself. Relena didn’t like the feeling of nausea caused by swinging precariously approximately twenty-five feet in the air.  She decided this probably wasn’t a good idea.

            Before all her strength had left, she hoisted herself back into her room. “Time for plan B,” she thought as she collapsed against the wall, trying to catch her breath from the recent effort. After a few minutes, she removed her backpack from her shoulders and set to work tying her bed sheets together. She moved the bed as close to the window as she could, then tied one end of her ‘rope’ to the bedpost, and threw the rest out of the window. It went about half way down the side of the house. “Good enough,” she thought, and climbed out her window a second time.

            When she reached the end of the sheet, she took a deep breath and let go, dropping to the ground about ten feet below. She landed, and made her way around to the front of the house. She heard the front door slam, and gasped while quickly ducking behind some tall bushes located on the right side of the lawn. “I took too long!” Relena panicked.

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

            Heero arrived back at the house, and went inside. Immediately, he sensed something was wrong. It was too quiet. He ran up the stairs, gun drawn, and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He unlocked it, and tried to open it, but something was wedged against it. He backed up a couple of steps and then threw his shoulder into it. The door finally gave way. He surveyed the room quickly, noting the bed sheets trailing out the window. He frowned in disapproval.

            Heero made his way across the room, and noticed that the temperature hadn’t dropped much, considering how cool it was outside. “She couldn’t have gotten far,” he mused. He went back down the stairs, and out the front door, slamming it in frustration. He walked around the side of the house, and heard a slight rustling noise coming from a cluster of bushes.

            She heard the safety being disengaged from a gun, and knew it was over.

“Relena, come out, now.”  Heero’s voice commanded.

            There was no reply.

            “You don’t want me to come in there after you,” he warned, cocking the gun.

A phantom memory settled  in her mind like a dawning mist.

Heero glared  down at her.  She remembered being afraid of the total lack of emotion in those cold midnight blue eyes.

“You’re playing with fire…”

There was another rustling noise as she emerged from the bushes, her hands over her head in a gesture of surrender.

            “Why don’t you go ahead and do it now?  You’ll save us both a lot of trouble,” she said in a low voice laced with fury.

She remembered his promise that day:

            “I’ll kill you.”

She continued forward, still speaking.  “Trowa will forgive you, just tell him I was trying to escape….”

            “Get back in the house,” he said, cutting her off.

            She met his gaze defiantly. “I won’t give up,” she said, the determination showing in her eyes.

            “Get in the house, Relena,” he said quietly, motioning with the gun.

            She dropped her arms, and turned in the direction he pointed. She started walking slowly towards the front of the house. As she turned the corner, she was out of his sight for a split second, and took off for the street.

            His first instinct was to shoot, but thought better of it, and put the gun away in his holster. Instead, he took off after her. She ran as fast as she could down the driveway. The iron gates used to limit entry into the estate were closed. Without hesitation, she leapt onto them, trying to pull herself up. He closed the gap, and grabbed her leg before she could swing all the way over. She kicked at his hand, perched precariously on top of the gate – one leg on the side of freedom, one struggling to free itself from her captor.

            Heero hung on, but couldn’t figure out how to pull her down without hurting her. The next thing he knew, he was holding her sneaker, and she had dropped down on the other side of the fence. Their eyes met for a moment, and he glared at her. She took off again, and he moved over to the guard station, pressing the button to open the gate. He ran after her.

            Relena couldn’t run as fast with only one shoe on, but she would lose her lead if she stopped to throw the other one off. He was already gaining on her too quickly. The country road was gravelly and uneven, and she almost turned her ankle several times.  

She suddenly realized that there was nowhere for her to run.  They were surrounded by countryside, and the only highway was miles away!  Relena was about to give up her flight when her bare foot stepped on a piece of glass lying amidst the pieces of rock and blacktop. She cried out as it sliced through her delicate flesh and lodged in the ball of her foot. Heero heard her cry, and saw her stumble. He reached her just in time to grab her and keep her from falling forward onto the ground.

            Once he had righted her, she sat down near the side of the road, and pulled her foot up to look at the damage. The piece of glass had turned a dark red color, from blood oozing out of the wound. Heero bent down to take a look, and frowned.

            “Can you walk?” He asked in annoyance.

            Relena shook her head, tears still falling from her eyes.

            He sighed inwardly as he leaned over and scooped her up into his arms, carrying her all the way back to the house. He had to shift her weight a bit to open the front door, and then brought her inside to the master bathroom. Heero set her on top of the long marble countertop, and tended to her wound.

            He gently wiped away the blood with a damp, warm washcloth. He then found some tweezers to remove the rather large piece of glass from her foot. She whimpered softly as it slid out, tearing more of her flesh, and causing fresh blood to escape. He pressed a cotton ball with peroxide to the gash to disinfect it, and then wrapped gauze around her foot. Tape fastened it in place.

            With that done, Heero picked her up from the counter and brought her into the bedroom.  He sat her down on the bed. Relena looked up at him questioningly.

            “I’ll have to go put the sheets back on your bed before you can get in it,” he said dryly.

            Relena nodded and looked down at her hands.  “Why are you being nice to me? Aren’t you angry I tried to escape?”

            Heero crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “Yes, and no.”

            She looked at him quizzically. “What?”

            “I understand why…but I asked you to stay here,” he said in a low voice. He was staring at the ground, not looking at her.

            Again, he was plagued with unwanted memories…

They were in that homeless shelter. God, he hated that place. After he had filled all the plates, he stood in the corner, quietly observing. He found his gaze time and time again drifting back to Relena.  He didn’t know quite what to make of her, really…

“But could she ease the pain in my own heart?”

            “And is that a reasonable request, for me to wait here for my execution?” She asked, her voice quavering with emotion.

            “I asked you to,” he repeated in a monotone.

            Her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, as in a favor? So, are we supposed to be friends?” She sounded angry.

            Heero didn’t respond.  He kept his gaze trained on the floor.

            “Am I supposed to feel something for the man that is going to kill me?”

            His eyes met hers, taking in the furious determination flashing in their depths. He felt pain searing his chest, and knew that he had lost the battle for his heart. But she was rejecting him. Hurt and anger rose within him, and he stormed out of the room. Relena watched him go in silence.