FALLEN ANGEL
Chapter Three

"So, this is a gundam, huh?"

Zeches Marquis, otherwise known as the Lightning Count, craned his neck as far as it would go to see the towering head of the white gundam.  A shaft of sunlight through one of the base windows caught the bright yellow V over the suit's "eyes," making it flash a brilliant gold.

The suit was impressive, he could say that much.  Far sleeker and stronger than the base Leo's; he wondered what it would be like to pilot one.

"Sir!"  His thoughts were abruptly interrupted, as one of his captains raced up to him.  His face was flushed, and he gave a hurried salute, which Zeches returned.

"What is it, captain?"

The captain swallowed hard as he faced that expressionless mask the count always wore, wishing he could see the look on his face.  "Sir," he began, sweating only a little.  "The squad we sent out in response to the rumors of a Gundam Pilot have called in, sir."

Zeches raised an eyebrow, though it was hidden underneath his mask.  "Your point, captain?"

The captain sighed unhappily.  "It was a 'survivor' that made the call, sir.  For backup. Just before his link was terminated.  There have been no more calls for the past fifteen minutes, sir."

For a moment, Zeches said nothing.  "Well," he mused suddenly, and his voice was ice cold.  "It appears that the rumors were correct."

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Relena groaned.

'What happened?' she thought, struggling to open her eyes.  Everything blurred and went out of focus, and a nauseating wave of dizziness made her close them and try again.  'The attack,' her woozy mind remembered suddenly.  'And, that mobil suit nearly crushing me.  I guess....I'm still alive...?'

Opening her eyes, she gasped, and her mind was suddenly perfectly clear.

A body lay over her own, supporting itself on hands and knees, it's breathing labored and strained.  Above them, surrounding them, was a broken wall of solid rock.  Relena could smell the musty, damp odor of earth and stone, and fought down her panic.  She had been buried underneath how many tons of rock and concrete, along with this stranger...

...No, it wasn't a stranger.  When she opened her eyes, he raised his taut face to hers, and her heart nearly stopped beating.

"Heero?"

His face was lined with sweat, and his jaw was clenched tightly as he fought to hold back that crushing force pressing against his shoulders.  She could see the muscles in his arms and chest straining with the effort; any tiny slip on his part and they both would be dead.  Relena knew that what she was seeing wasn't possible; no man, no matter how strong, could do what Heero was doing right now.  But, by the faint silver light emitting from his wings.....

Wings?

Relena began to tremble.  She couldn't stop.  She gazed past the broad shoulders,  to the brilliant white wings sweeping from his back and drooping down to either side of her.  Despite the situation, she could help but reach out a shaking hand to touch them, if only to reassure herself that they weren't an illusion.

They were real.  Real, and soft and warm.

"I'm hallucinating," she whispered.  Her frightened eyes met Heero's, who held her gaze even though he was starting to weaken with the effort of holding back that terrible weight.  "No, I'm not hallucinating, am I Heero?"  The blue-green eyes suddenly filled with tears, but she remained calm.  

"No, I'm dead.  I must be dead.  Heero, are you the Angel of Death?"

Heero closed his eyes.  Somewhere, up in the heavens, God was probably laughing His head off at the irony.  Not to mention Trowa, if he was still around.  "Baka," he gritted out, glaring down at her.  "I'm trying to keep you ALIVE."

'He really is an angel,'  Relena thought in awe.  'God, he's beautiful.'

Then, the reality of their situation hit her like a slap in the face, and she quickly sought Heero's eyes.  "Heero," she whispered frantically, willing her heart to be still as those gorgeous blue eyes opened and his face was a mere breath from her own.

"Nani?" Heero rasped.

"You can't keep this up forever."

The boy-angel looked down at her, his cobalt eyes slightly confused.  "What...what are you talking about?" he snapped, or tried to snap, as his voice was failing along with his strength.  Angelic powers aside, Relena was right; he couldn't keep this up much longer.

"I'm...."  Relena licked her lips and took a deep, shuddering breath.  "I'm not afraid to die."  Inwardly, she was thinking, 'Seeing you...I feel like my life is complete.....that I don't have to do anything more.  If I die now, I won't have any regrets.'

"Shut up," Heero told her roughly.  The rocks above him suddenly shifted, and he held back a groan beneath tight lips.    "You're not going to die," he whispered when he had breath enough to speak again.  "No more needless deaths, because of me."  The angel's eyes had clouded over, and suddenly seemed to be focused on something a thousand miles away.  "No more," he whispered raggedly.  "No more.  Never again."

"Heero...."

"Yo, Heero!" came a new voice, seemingly from a great distance away.  "Wing-boy, you baka!  Where are you?  Talk to me!"

Heero, she could see, was far too exhausted to manage a shout, so she did it for him.  "Here!" she yelled as loud as she could.  "We're right here!  Please hurry and get us out; Heero's hurt!"

There was a muffled curse, and then, miraculously, there was the sound of frantic digging from right above.  

"Hold on, Heero," she told him, as Heero winced and grimaced with every rock that shifted weight as the ones on top were pulled away.  "Hang on.  We're almost out.  Just a few more seconds."   He clung to her voice like a lifeline, and when the last few rocks were hauled off his shuddering back, it was all he could do from collapsing on top of her.

Strong hands dragged him away from the rubble, and there was a familiar, condescending snicker right in his ear.

"Heero no baka.  That's not the most comfortable place to make out with a girl."

"Duo!"  Heero yanked himself away from the other boy with a snarl and nearly fell as his drained body gave out on him.  The violet eyed teen shook his head with a smirk, then reached down and helped Relena to her feet.

"You okay?"  His face was the picture of concern, and he gave her a charming, guiless smile.  Relena tried to smile back, but had a gut feeling that she really didn't like him.  Something about his eyes....

"Yes, thank you.  I'm fine."  She knew she should be grateful to him.  After all, the braided boy did save their lives.  But, she couldn't help thinking that he had also been the one to CAUSE all the trouble, and for that, she couldn't quite forgive him.  He simply grinned at her, unfazed by her aloof manner, and turned his attention back to Heero.  

"Whoa, buddy, you look like hell."

"You should know," Heero wanted to say, but Relena walked up to him at that moment and he fell silent.  

"Are you all right?" she asked, her voice little above a whisper.  His wings had disappeared, and he was covered with grime and sweat, but he was still the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.

"I'm fine," he answered brusquely.  And then, almost as an afterthough: "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Yo, Wing-boy!" Duo called, cutting off her reply.  "We need to get going!  The fleshies are comin', and we need to be out of here before we're seen!"

Relena blinked at Heero.  "Fleshies?"

"Slang for mortals," he told her softly, reminding her yet again of what he was.  Her heart did an odd little flip as he turned to Duo, glaring icicles at the other boy, who simply smirked in reply.

"Oh, don't give me that righteous glare," Duo said, crossing his arms over his chest.  "She already knows what we are.  You already knew you were gonna reveal yourself as soon as you made the decision to save her life."  Duo snorted and shook his head, a little disgust creeping into his devil-may-care attitude.  "If you were smart, Wing-boy, you should've let her die.  Then, we wouldn't be in this mess, and her life wouldn't be in danger right now."

Relena glanced at Heero, but he was doing his best not to look at her.  "You leave her out of this," he said coldly.

"Hey, man, it's not me."  Duo smiled an innocent smile and waved his hands towards the sky.  "These things are governent by powers beyond our control.  Keep messing around with Destiny, Wing-boy, and you might lose a lot more than your self-respect."

"Shut up, Duo."  

Duo shrugged.  "Have it your way, then.  I'm blowin' this dump.  Wanna catch a ride?"

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Gee, that's too bad."  Duo's smug grin was back.  "Since I happen to know the location of a certain white gundam.  Ack!  Back off, Wing-boy!"  For Heero was striding towards him with a dangerous gleam in his eyes, and Duo retreated a few steps before holding his ground.  "Look baka, if you wanna see your precious 01, you're gonna have to come with me.  It's in a military compound not far from here, so  busting it out ain't gonna be a walk in the park.  That's what I came here for; to help you get it back.  It's gonna take the both of us to pull this off, and you need my help on this one, like it or not."

Heero glared at him, then shrugged in defeat.  "Fine," he said tonelessly.  "But as soon as I recover my mobile suit, all bets are off."

"Wouldn't have it any other way."  Duo leered and sprinted back to his gundam, leaving Heero alone with Relena.  Feeling uncomfortable, he was about to walk away, when her soft voice made him pause.

"I'm never going to see you again, am I?"

It wasn't a question, just a simple statement of fact.  And something about her quiet, sorrowful acceptence made the angel turn, when he usually would've walked away.

"Relena..."  Warm, blue-green eyes met his cold blue ones, and he resisted the urge to sigh.  She was far too innocent, to be involved with him, or his secret war.  Duo was right.  It would've been better if they had never met.

Heero forced his voice to be cold.  "Forget you ever saw me," he told her...

...And was gone.  Vanished, in the blink of an eye.  Relena could only stare at the place he had been standing moments before.  She heard the roar of the black gundam as it rose into the heavens and blasted away into the night, and gazed at the sky until it was out of veiw.

Not long after, the police and the press arrived on the scene, throwing everything into chaos again.  The wounded were carried off in howling ambulances, and witnesses were rounded up and questioned by both the police and the news reporters.  Relena, as the foreign minister's daughter, was interregated the most.  She bore the constant hounding with the ease of familiarity, but said not a word about a dark haired gundam pilot, or the braided stranger he left with.  

At one point, during a brief lull in the interrogation, Relena's gaze drifted up to the stars.  A slight smile crossed her lips, but her eyes were distant and sad.

"It would be best if you forgot about him, Relena."

She jumped at the sudden voice, and spun around.

"You!" she whispered, recognizing the tall young man she had seen a moment before the tower collapsed on her.  "You're one of them, aren't you?  Are you a friend of Heero's?"

Vaguely, she realized that no one seemed to notice the sudden arrival of the young man.  In fact, it was as if the two of them were invisible to everyone around them.

"I'm an aquaintence of Heero's," the tall stranger went on, his emerald green eyes boring into her.  "And I'm here to give you a warning.  Erase Heero Yuy from your mind.  Convince yourself he doesn't exist.  I've seen what you intend to do, and I'm telling you now to forget it.  You'll be sparing yourself a lot of agony if you heed my advice."

"Who are you?" Relena whispered.

The boy only smiled.  "You don't want to know," he replied, and disappeared, as suddenly as Heero.  Relena jumped and rubbed at her eyes, blinking at the now empty pavement.   As if someone had pressed the "pause" button, the world abruptly came back to life, and a crowd of late reporters surrounded the young woman, chattering incesently and shoving mics in her face.  Luckily, her father showed up to rescue her, and, ignoring the reporters trailing him for answers now, hustled his daughter into the car and drove her home.  

A long time later, after telling her parents exactly what happened and reassuring them a few dozen times that she wasn't hurt, an exsausted Relena staggered into her room.  After changing into her nightgown, she crossed the room to her bed, but paused at the window, gazing once more at the stars.

"I won't forget you," she whispered, staring up at the heavens.  "And no matter what comes of it, I pray that we will meet again, Heero Yuy."

Relena Dorlian drifted off to sleep, unmindful that she had been heard, unaware of how soon she would see her guardian angel once again.

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