Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Eternal Promises ❯ Part 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer : I've never claimed to own Gundam Wing, or it's affiliated characters, so you can't sue me for that. I'm mearly borrowing them for my entertainment, and shall return them upon compleation of this fic, . . . perhaps ^_^. I do however stake claim to all original characters I happen to throw in here, and to this particular story.

Eternal Promises

By Eden

Part 2

Just one more adjustment, there! Everything should work right now.

Heero could feel the fresh air being blown out of a vent as he packed up his equipment. It had been two months since he had come to the Mars colony. He had no real reason to go to Mars, except that he had been everywhere else.

He walked out of the environmental room, his equipment suitcase swinging from his hand. He had only taken a couple of steps down the hallway when a voice called out behind him.

"Heero,"

He turned to look back sown the hallway. A man, with long platinum blond hair came striding up to him.

"How did repairs on the ventilation system go?" He asked.

Heero closed his eyes in a slow blink. "Fine, the problem was just in the configurations of the system, but once I recalibrated it everything started to work right."

The blond hared man nodded his head, "Good. We were having a heck of a time with it before, and you come in and fix it in three hours."

"It's no big deal." Heero wanted to leave. The more he stood hear with this man the more he felt like he was going to break into what he thought would be meaningful conversation.

The older man narrowed his eyes a little before speaking again. "Noin tells me you haven't been sleeping at night, that you get up and go back to work."

Heero glared at the man. "I wasn't aware that you were the type to keep tabs on a person, Zecks."

"Neither of us are." He answered, "But she's worried about you working yourself too hard. You've done so much to help us since you've been hear that she really doesn't want anything to happen to you." Zecks crossed his arms across his chest.

"Well tell her not to worry. I just can't sleep at night so I work. There's no use laying around doing nothing when there's work that needs to get done."

Zecks lowered his eyes "Do you have nightmares?" He asked. His voice was low.

Heero didn't say anything. He had never been big on confiding in anyone. He had never had any problems before that had required it. Of course, even now it didn't seem like it was necessary for him to say anything, Zecks seemed to have his problems pegged.

When he didn't answer, Zecks must've realized that he was right.

"Don't shut yourself away from people Heero, they will only get worse."

Turning away abruptly he spoke to Zecks. "No one asked either of you to worry about me. I can take care of myself, I always have."

From behind he heard Zecks responding. "No matter what you think, there are people who care what happens to you."

Heero didn't respond he just kept walking down the hallway.

"Oh, and another thing before you go. Noin wanted to invite you to dinner tonight. She said to come around six o'clock. Are you going to come?"

Stopping and turning back around, Heero looked at the man, his arms still crossed across his chest, waiting for his answer.

"Tell her that I'll come." He had continued walking down the hallway, away from Zecks.

When he turned a corner, and was out of sight of Zecks, he leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes. Maybe Zecks and Noin were right. He was working a lot lately and hadn't been getting much sleep. A person couldn't do what he had been doing forever.

Not forever, he thought contradicting himself. Just until he couldn't survive without sleeping anymore, and could sleep a whole night without waking up.

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and got off of the wall. It was time for him to go back to work. He still had a lot of things to get done before tonight.

Heero kept himself so busy for the rest of the day that he nearly lost track of time. About an hour and a half before he was supposed to go for dinner with Zecks and Noin, he went back to his room so that he would have time to change and take a shower.

Tiredly, he took off his overalls, standard issue for anyone working maintenance on the Mars colony, and turned on the shower.

As he let the water come down warm against his face, he thought about what Zecks had said earlier. He had said that people cared about what happened to him.

Heero ran his hands back through his hair, smoothing the wet hair against his head. What people? Who really cared about what happened to him now? The other Gundam pilots? They cared about an old comrade, someone who had fought beside them during the war. Other soldiers? They cared about the boy who had had exceptional fighting abilities, and as they would care about anyone who ended up being a war hero. The colonies? They didn't care about war heroes or Gundams anymore now that the wars were finally over. Zecks and Noin? He scoffed at the thought. The only reason that they cared about him was because they didn't want to be the one's who sat by and did nothing if something were to actually happen to him.

Soap bubbles clung to his hair as he washed away any physical remnants of the day. He had long ago come to the conclusion that there was no permanent place in the peace-filled world for a soldier who had only known fighting.

It was true, wasn't it? When he had been no more than ten years old Odin Lowe had taken him, trained him to use a gun, and then took him out when he had been required to go on missions. When you have blood on your hands at that young an age you're damned for life.

Heero had resolved himself to this fact a long time ago, some time after the Mariemaia crises. He had decided to go to school like others his age, but after the first year, had realized how pointless it was.

He would never be a normal person who could go about life not caring about what was going on to keep them ignorant of world problems. He would always be looking around for suspicious things or people, and would never be able to allow himself a real life.

Wretchedly, Heero thought, he would always be alone.

It had been that way ever since Odin had been killed. He had survived on his own, moving from colony to colony until doctor J had recruited him to train for operation meteor.

Doctor J, no matter what anyone had thought had been nothing more than an instructor and employer. Never had they shared any kind feelings, except for respect and understanding.

Respect of each other's skills, and understanding of what was required out of both of them for the operation to work.

Everyone had believed that the weapons that had been sent to Earth had been the Gundams, with superior technology and strength. This was true to a point, but as Doctor J had told Heero not long before he left on his mission, the suit was merely to means to complete the mission. He himself was the real weapon.

He himself, Heero Yuy, who had been trained since as far back as he could remember to be nothing less than the perfect soldier.

Yes, he thought as he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, that was what he was. The only problem that now remained was what to do with the perfect soldier after the war is over and there are no more battles to be fought.

The towel was rough against his skin as he rubbed to get the last traces of moisture from his body. As Heero recalled it, there had been only one person who had been interested in him for anything other than his fighting ability - no. Don't think about her now.

His hands came down flat against the counter, holding him up as he glanced at his blurry reflection in the condensation-covered mirror. It was too late. Once the images of her started, he couldn't stop himself from seeing her.

As his eyes closed, the image of her that he most remembered came into his head. It was a picture of her so very long ago, at the beginning of the war, after her father had been assinated. She had come to his room at the private school they both attended, and even though Heero had pulled a gun on her, as well as threatened to kill her numerous times before, she stood there in his doorway and curtsied.

She wasn't afraid of him shooting her. She knew that he wouldn't do it right before leaving the school. She knew about the missions, but the thing that came as the most shock was that she had met Doctor J, and he had told her about his whole mission.

There she stood in front of him, her hands gracefully holding out the skirt of her school uniform, her ankle crossed behind her foot, and her head down with her eyes closed. She had made herself look as though she was allowing him to take her life into her hands.

She had looked so beautiful then, with her honey colored hair streaming off her shoulders, and her skin, even more golden in the light.

Heero had stood there for what seemed like an eternity, staring at her with his hand still pointing the gun towards her. Suddenly, as if the gun was too heavy to hold up any longer, his arm dropped.

That was all that it had taken to break the spell. The honey colored head rose, and the ankles uncrossed. Then when those violet eyes looked up at him, and had told him he might as well enjoy the party, he was lost again.

He had found himself following her downstairs to the main dancing hall, and then was surprised when he found himself holding her in his arms as they spun around the room. It was such an odd thing for him, a Gundam pilot and a trained assassin, to be doing. It felt like a dream, to have her pale, slender fingers resting in his hard and calloused hand.

The moment itself seemed to last an eternity, until it was unceremoniously shattered by the sound of approaching mobile suit carriers.

Heero had rushed out to the zero-one just as the carriers had begun to release their cargos of Aries mobile suits. While he had been confused as to the reason they would attack a school, he just figured that they found where he was hiding.

Of course, once he started attacking the Aries suits, he saw how wrong he was. They were more surprised to see him then he was to see them. They were attaching for some other reason, but what could OZ want with a school?

It didn't take him long to figure out what they were after.

She had come running outside like all of the other students, only instead of screaming and running away from the fighting and explosions, she just stood there as he fought.

After slicing another Aries suit in half with his beam saber, he found himself looking down at her, standing by the school. Her honey colored hair blew out behind her head.

"Relena,"

It was perfect. He could kill her now, finish her off and then leave this place without a glance back. She was just standing there, watching him, and as he watched, she said his name.

"Heero,"

Just then from behind him another Aries suit came and began to shoot at his back. One of the shots missed and hit the school building. The stone wall began to fall down towards where Relena was standing. Her hands came up to cover her head. Before he knew what he was doing, Heero had begun to lung forward, his shield arm reaching in front of him.

His eyes closed as he braced himself for the impact of the suit falling to its knees, and for the building to stop falling.

Slowly, once the shock of the explosions and the falling had shaken the suit, he opened his eyes and looked out his view screen. As the dust cleared, he saw her there sprawled out on the ground underneath his shield arm. He had saved her.

What had he been thinking? He would've been better off if she died, wouldn't he?

Just then, as if to bring him out of his daze, the Aries suit that had shot at him before now came back up behind him again. This time it was closer, and the shots from it's beam cannon shook the zero-one. Heero barely noticed.

A couple more shots, and he could hear Relena calling up to him again.

"Heero! Is that you?"

What was wrong with him? He couldn't kill her. What was wrong with him!

With all the frustration he felt with himself, Heero had turned his suit around, again bringing up the shield arm. This time though he swung it around and jabbed it right into the Aries cockpit, destroying the enemy suit.

He didn't do anything for a long moment. All he did was stand there in his Gundam and stair across the fields of trees. Finally, when he did move to pick up his discarded beam cannon, he looked over and heard Relena calling up to him again.

"That's you in there, isn't it? Answer me!"

He couldn't bring himself to look at her image on his view screen.

"Tell me why you rescued me!"

He didn't know why he had saved her, the girl knew too much about him.

"You didn't kill me! You said you were gonna. Answer me, Heero!"

When he began to walk towards her, she gasped. Each step he took brought him closer to her, until finally he was standing right in front of him, but she just stood there.

Even when he brought his shield arm up, and rammed it into the rubble just beside her, Relena did not move. She just stood there, staring up at him with those eyes. Those violet eyes of hers had pierced his soul while they had been dancing, and while she spoke to him.

"I know how you feel, because I'm on your side now."

As he sat there staring down into those violet eyes staring up at the mobile suit, he searched himself for a reason why he couldn't kill her.

He had figured it out though in those last few minutes before he'd flown off, leaving her behind at the St. Gabriel Instute, but he hadn't been able to express it in anyway to himself until months later.

She was like him, and not because she was a trained assassin like he was, no. It was more like an inner feeling that he had about her. That she was the light while he was the dark.

Later on he saw how true this was, as she became the leader of the Sanc Kingdome, and then Queen of the world. Even when her position was being undermined, and those in control only had dark intentions of controlling the world and the colonies; Relena still somehow found a way to rally the people to her. She produced the same reaction in the people that the presents of the Gundams could.

Her ideals for peace, no matter how unrealistic, appealed to the people's wishes. That's what made her the perfect person to serve as the bridge between Earth and the colonies, and to make everyone happy.

Heero sat down on his bed and pulled on his socks. He had tried for so long to block out the memories of Relena, to try and get through a day without her face popping into his mind. He couldn't believe that with one sentence from Zecks, he had managed to break down all the walls around those memories that he'd worked so hard to create.

Suddenly frustrated, he lowered his forehead into his hands. He couldn't believe that he was feeling like this! The reason why he had avoided Earth, and the other pilots for all this time was because of this. They all reminded him of Relena.

He avoided the thought of Relena because he was too unsure about the way he felt towards her, too confused about his feelings.

Reaching for the shirt that hung on his closet, he scowled. Maybe it had been a mistake to come here. Somehow he had let his guard down, and come to the Mars colony even though he had known in his mind that Zecks and Noin would both be hear. They had been hear since the end of the Mariemaia crisis, and would probably stay until they both missed Earth too much.

The reason why it had been a mistake to come to Mars and see Zecks and Noin wasn't because there was any standing rivalry between Zecks and himself. Rather it was the opposite. Zecks and Heero had one thing in common that had kept them on speaking terms while thy still fought against each other.

They were both fighting to protect Relena.

Heero inspected himself in the mirror. His shirt and pants were neat and pressed, and his dark brown hair was just as unruly as ever, despite just being washed. All in all he looked good enough to go to Zecks and Noin's place for dinner.

As he walked towards their place, he thought. He hadn't accepted the invitation for dinner because of obligation or because he needed to be around people. The only reason why he was going was because Noin always had a way of knowing the new cases that the Preventers were working on, and could tell him about any new threats by rebellious groups.

During the last half a year, Heero had begun to feel uneasy about the peace that had spread across space and the Earth. Almost as if a tension had been growing somewhere.

Taking a deep breath, Heero rang the door chime. A pleasant sounding female voice came from the speaker near the door.

"Come on in, Heero."

He pressed the door button, and the door slid open with a little hiss. As he stepped inside he observed the warm colored paint of the walls, and the pleasant smells wafting through the air.

Noin was just putting a bowl of steaming vegetables on the table. She looked the same as she had during the war, the same lean build, the same dark violet eyes and soft smile. The only thing that had changed about her was that she had let her platinum black hair grow until it now curled at her shoulders.

She turned around as the door closed. "Your just in time, Heero. Here, why don't you put out the forks and knives." She handed him a handful of cutlery

He accepted it, and began to lay it down beside the plates. "Thanks for inviting me to dinner."

Noin had gone back into the kitchen and was scooping mashed potatoes into another bowl. "It's not necessary to thank me, Heero. It's our pleasure to have you over." She came back to the table and placed to bowl down. "Besides," She added teasingly, "You look like you could use a good meal." She poked him in the ribs.

Heero gave the woman a small smile, "So I was right. The invitation was concocted to get me to come over so that you could look out for me."

She didn't say anything, but her silence was enough for Heero to know that he was right on the mark.

"So you've been keeping tabs on me then. Why?" He bent his head down a little and stared at the table.

When she came back towards him a moment later he expected an apology, and then an explanation, but he received neither. Instead, what ended up happening was nothing he's expected.

The warm had come down to rest on his shoulder first, and then Lucrezia bent her head closer to Heero's.

"Who needs to keep tabs on you? The whole maintenance staff knows what you've been doing. Actually, they're the ones who approached me and told me, because they figured since I knew you I might be able to help."

Heero had never known Miss Noin all that well, even during the war, everything had been business. Of course, when he'd come to mars, he had spent more time with both Zecks and Noin, and had actually gotten to know both of them better.

Actually, up until a couple of weeks ago, he'd say that they could even be considered friends. If it wasn't for those damnable dreams he kept having, no. Best not to think of that now.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Noin still looking at him. Maybe she was expecting something from him, a reaction maybe?

A sigh escaped from him. Being here with Noin was enough to make him feel sorry for the things that he'd thought about her and Zecks earlier. The look on her face told him that she really was worried about him, and it pained him that he wasn't gong to tell her what the problem was.

"So," Noin asked, prompting him after his long silence. "Why don't you let me help you, Heero? Sometimes it can help if you have someone to talk to."

He shook his head. No, he wasn't ready to have any confidences about this right now. Maybe after he figured out a few things for himself he'd tell her, but not yet.

She nodded. "If you change your mind, you know where to find me." She gave his shoulder a little squeeze, and then smiled. "Zecks should be hear soon, and I'm not even finished putting the food on the table!"

Dropping her hand she went back into the kitchen, leaving Heero gripping the back of a chair, thinking about the dreams.

He didn't want to. They kept him from sleeping at night, and make him tense and irritable. Fortunately, he felt saved from himself when he heard the door slide open, and Noin calling a greeting.

"I'm in the kitchen! Dinner's ready, I just have to-" she broke off suddenly.

A male voice came from the kitchen. "Where's Heero? Is he here yet?"

There was something wrong with the way Zecks was talking. His voice seemed clipped, the words didn't sound right.

Noin had already noticed this in the kitchen, and was trying her best to find out what had happened. "He's by the table, but Zecks, what's going on?"

Before she had gotten an answer out of him, he strode out of the kitchen, towards the table where Heero was standing.

There was something in his face that told Heero whatever it was, the news wasn't gong to be good. Zecks had his jaw set tightly, his nail blue eyes had darkened and narrowed to the way that Heero remembered from the days of the war. Not good, defiantly not good.

"Heero," Zecks started, "Noin, something's happened. Relena was kidnapped from the Peacecraft mansion. It happened last night sometime, and it was after she had gone upstairs to go to sleep. They don't know who did it yet and what they want."

Shock, complete and utter shock went through Heero's body as Zecks word sunk in. Relena.

The images of her that he remembered came back to him for the second time that day.

"But how?" Noin had recovered from the shock and was now trying to get any more information that she could out of Zecks.

"They don't know that yet either. Whoever it was came quickly and quietly at night while everyone was sleeping. Somehow, they managed to get by the night guards on duty and didn't even leave a trace of where they went. The only reason they found out that she was taken overnight was because she didn't come downstairs in the morning so someone went up to check on her. The room was found empty, and everything was undisturbed." Zecks spoke in hard and unforgiving tones.

"The press has already gotten wind of it, and now the kidnapping is all over the vid-screens. That's how I found out about it. What are you doing?"

While Zecks had been talking Heero had left the table and had gone toward their computer, and flicked the switch to turn it on. "If there's any new information, or anything the press doesn't know, the Preventers would know."

"You're going into their system to check their files?" Noin followed him, "Are you sure you can-"

"I'm in." He hadn't thought about what he was going to do once he found out what information the Preventers had about Relena, but he did know that he wanted to know the whole story.

It only took a moment for Heero to find the information, and to scan it over. The reporters had known most of the information already, and that made him mad. How did anyone expect to get Relena back alive when they were publishing the details of her kidnapping?

The only new information he had found so far was that there had been a note in her room giving a time that they would be contacted. It seemed that they would be contacted late tomorrow night.

Both Zecks and Noin were reading over his shoulders. Without speaking to either of them, he stood up and walked toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Zecks had his arms crossed over his chest.

Without turning around Heero spoke, the old tone came back to his voice. "To the Earth."

"I'm coming with you." It wasn't a question.

"Fine, you can probably get a ship easer then I can anyways." He didn't ask, but he did turn around to face the other man. "Can you be ready in an hour?"

Zecks nodded stiffly.

"I'll meet you at the docking bay in an hour then." Heero turned to walk out the door.

He made it back to his room without thinking much. Even once he got there he got busy packing up some clothes into a duffle bag. As he got his things together the only thing he could let himself think about was getting to Earth. Once he got there things would come together like they always had.

Suddenly he stopped.

He had opened his nightstand drawer to get the gun that he always kept by him while he slept. His hand hovered over it for a moment before actually reaching down and grasping it.

The metal was cold in his hand. For a split second Heero could remember the first time he'd ever held a gun, when Odin had taught him how to use it, to fire it. Then there had only been one use for a gun, to kill people.

Slowly he turned it over in his hand, watching as the light flashed off of the barrel. That had been a long time ago, before the war. By the end of that war, he had learned that there was another use for a gun, to protect people.

He hadn't had to use one since the war, and had only kept one around by force of habit. He honestly hadn't figured he'd need to use one again.

His hand clutched more tightly around it, and then released.

"Relena," Heero spoke aloud her name for the first time in two years. He had thought that not thinking about her, and not being around her would make him forget. But he hadn't. He still needed to protect her, no matter what that meant for him.

"I'm coming, Relena."