Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Eternal Promises ❯ Part 3 ( Chapter 3 )

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 3

About eighteen hours later Heero stepped off of the shuttle on the Earth with Zecks and Noin. He hadn't been surprised that they had both come with him, Relena meant a great deal to them as well.

Without taking the time to look around, he began walking towards the front of the building. They had contacted Sally Po and the Preventers when they left for Earth to tell them that they were coming. They had gotten an update about the situation, and were told that there would be a car waiting for them to take them directly to the Peacecraft mansion.

If things were the same now as they had been then, then it didn't look good. Heero only hoped that the other Gundam pilots had heard about this situation as well, because if anything really needed to get done he wanted to know he could trust the people he was working with.

Once in the car, Noin and Zecks tried to think about who would have the most to gain by kidnapping Relena, and also of who would have the means to pull it off so skillfully. Heero didn't participate in the conversation. All he could do was stair out the window blankly.

He had spent quite a bit of time on Earth in the past and had always found the sunshine to be a good thing for lifting he spirits, but on this particular day it didn't. The sight of the sun shinning and glinting off of every car or tree they drove by only made him more determined to get this over with.

Once they pulled up to the large Peacecraft mansion Heero felt his throat tighten. He had an image of Relena coming down the stairs towards him.

No. He pushed the image from his mind as soon as it came. He had to focus all his efforts on getting her back, not on his memories of her. Narrowing his eyes and squaring his shoulders he walked in the front door.

He was in for another small shock as he stepped inside. It may have been three years, but this place hadn't changed. The marble floors, the ornate furniture and hangings were all the same as they had been three years ago. The only thing that was out of the ordinary was that the whole front room had been made into a makeshift base of operations.

As he was turning to walk towards a table surrounded by men, he was stopped by the sight of a familiar black head he saw out of the corner of his eye.

"Wufei."

He was leaning up against a wall, with his head bent down and his arms crossed across his chest. He was dressed in the Preventers uniform of a dark green jacket, tan shirt and dark green dress pants. As Heero watched, the young man lifted his head just enough so that he could confirm the body with the voice that had spoken, and then lowered it again.

"I knew that it would only be a matter of time before you showed up here. Where did you find Zecks and Noin?"

The Chinese pilot was exactly the way that Heero had remembered him, blunt and to the point. The only thing that had seemed to change was that he seemed calmer somehow.

"I was staying with them, and they were the ones who found out about Relena, so we all came together." Heero looked around the room for a moment, and then turned again to Wufei. "Where are we going to be contacted by the kidnappers? Is there something set up yet?"

"Strait to the point, hum? Yes, we have everything set up. It's in Relena's room, like the note said to do. That's where everyone is waiting right now." Wufei got off of the wall. "It's this way." He started to walk towards the stairway.

Heero stood there for a moment, and watched him go. He knew the way to Relena's room without following. He had studied the floor plan for this building, and had gone through it himself room by room.

As a matter of fact, while he was on his expedition during the day when everyone was out in the city, he had gone into her room and found her lying on her bed. It had been such and unexpected sight that he had almost slammed the door shut and left the room. Something made him stand there in the doorway and listen. The longer he stood there, the more positive he was that she was sleeping.

Being as quiet as he could, he had taken a step inside the room, and then closed the door part way behind him. He looked over towards the bed, the slender figure there had not moved.

Slowly he moved closer to the bed and let his eyes move over Relena's sleeping figure. She was wearing her now standard uniform of a long white skirt and pink blazer. Her honey colored hair had been pushed back behind her head, and streamed across the pillow.

Her head was turned, with her cheek resting one the pillow, towards the balcony, and her violet eyes were closed tightly.

To see her like this, the monarch of the Sanc Kingdom; the girl who had made a point of making herself known to him at every turn; so still and peaceful looking, was strange. Of all the people he had met in his life, she was always interesting to watch. Maybe it was because she wasn't very good at hiding her feelings, and that you could always tell what she was thinking by looking at her face.

He had gone to stand so that he could look at her face. He paid close attention to her smooth skin, straight eyebrows, and soft lips. And as he watched, those lips turned to a small frown, and her hands come up to wrap around her body as though she was cold.

He was concerned that she might wake up. She worked so hard as it was that she should sleep as much as she could when she got the chance. He looked around for a moment and then saw a blanket that was folded at the foot of the bed.

Carefully, he took the blanket out from under Relena's feet and pulled it up around her shoulders.

As he stepped back from the bed to watch, he saw her expression harden for a moment, and then soften into a blissful smile.

Slowly he had nodded his head. She was going to stay asleep. So being satisfied with this fact he decided to leave.

Just as he was taking his first step away from where he had been standing, he heard Relena's voice as she sighed.

"Heero,"

Surprised at what he heard, wondering if perhaps she had woken up after all, he turned around and looked back at the bed.

The violet eyes were still closed, she hadn't moved. She had spoken in her sleep. A sigh escaped his lips. Being caught in her room while she was sleeping had not been part of his plan.

Heero clenched his fist tightly. He would find her and bring her back. He wasn't going to let anyone get away with kidnapping Relena, someone who had never hurt anyone in her life.

He was thinking about what he would like to do when he found out who had taken Relena when he suddenly felt a hand come down gently on his shoulder. That brought him back from his thoughts, and into the present.

Slowly Heero turned around and looked at Miss Noin. She gave him a small smile of encouragement, and then motioned towards the stairs with her other hand.

"We should probably go up now."

Standing beside her, Zecks nodded.

Heero looked up the staircase. Wufei had already disappeared at the top. They were both right. With a sigh he began to mount the stairs.

By the time he walked through the door to Relena's bedroom, he was back to normal. His mind was back on the matter at hand without thinking about all of the bad memories he had.

As he looked around the room, he nodded with approval. All the Gundam pilots were there. Duo, Quatre, Trowa and of course Wufei. He was the last one to arrive, along with Zecks and Noin.

Duo came up beside him and slapped him on the back. "Well pallie, I knew you'd come, but what took you so long?" He had a large grin on his face as he looked over at him.

It wasn't surprising that he hadn't changed all that much. Duo still had his long chestnut hair, which was of course tied up in its trademark braid. His cobalt eyes moved around the room devilishly, and that look was accompanied by his ever-present rakish grin. He had long ago lost his priest like clothes for a sportier leather jacket and black pants, but he would never loose his devil may care attitude.

He had always been the one who lightened any situation while Heero and the other pilots were more apt to stay somber and focused.

"I came as quickly as I could." Heero answered lowering his eyes.

"Noin, it's been a long time." A voice came from behind them in the doorway.

Heero and the others turned to see Noin and Sally Po hugging each other in greeting. The two women who had worked together for so long had separated two years ago when Noin had left earth and the Preventers to go away with Zecks.

"Sally, it's been too long."

"I'm glad tat I get to see everyone here together," Sally had let go of Noin, and had taken a step away from her and looked around at all of the faces around the room, acknowledging each in turn. "I just wish that we were seeing each other under better circumstances."

She let out a sigh, and ten continued on.

"As you all know, Relena was abducted two nights ago. The person who cleans her room confirmed that she had been wearing a pair of pajamas and a robe at the time, and that she had either been taken while she was on the balcony, or the assailant just came in through the balcony door." Sally was quickly running through the facts that they had gathered so far about what happened.

Quatre cleared his throat and spoke up. "Do we know yet who it was that kidnapped Miss Relena, or for what reason?"

Heero lifted his gaze to look at the Arabian pilot. He wasn't surprised that he had asked such a question. Despite his almost noble up bringing and the almost innocent look of his face, he was a cunning strategist. It was fortunate for them that he hadn't lost that skill; it would probably be helpful later.

"We've been monitoring communication channels for any type of general announcement to rebel organization members. So far since there hasn't been any communication to any large group of people, we have to assume that whoever pulled this off was either a select group with a specific purpose in mind, or a large and highly organized group who again would have specific reasons for abducting Relena." Wufei paused for a moment before continuing. "In any case it wasn't any of the more well known groups form earth or the colonies."

"Unfortunately we haven't been able to pinpoint a specific group who would've wanted to do this, so we've been forced to wait for them to contact us." Sally sighed, obviously frustrated with the way that things seemed to be happening. She was more used to being able to control a situation like this, or at least be able to tell who the enemy was. Everything was different this time though.

Trowa was standing strait, his arms crossed over his chest decisively. "So we wait for the kidnappers to moke their move." He tilted his head to the side; and Heero caught the glint of one brilliant green eye from behind his long brown bangs.

"I don't know about you guys, but I hate waiting." Duo spoke again, flipping his braid over his shoulder.

Sally checked her watch, and then looked at the glowing digital numbers of the alarm clock on the nightstand beside Relena's large bed. "Well I don't think that we have much longer to wait. They should be trying to contact us soon." She walked over to the small laptop computer sitting on Relena's desk and turned on the screen.

Zecks had been shifting from foot to foot nervously almost, although no one else had noticed. Now he moved form his position that he had taken by the doorway, and went over towards sally as she leaned over the keyboard. "So do you have anything set up to trace where the call comes from?"

Not moving from her position above the keyboard, she nodded. "We did set something up for that, but we don't know how well it will work."

"What do you mean?" Nail blue eyes narrowed into slits.

"Well, as far as we can till from the little bit of information we do have, the people who took Relena seem like they must be fairly technologically inclined. Because of that we set up a simple IP address trace that just simply traces the location of the signal by the computer that they're accessing. They'll probably be on alert for any advanced form of a trace, but chances are that they'll be unprepared for something as basic as what we've got." Sally's mouth was set in a hard line.

"If they're that technologically advanced it won't matter what king of trace you try, it won't work."

Seven pairs of eyes turned to look as Heero finally spoke. They all know how good he was at hacking into computer systems, and that his computer knowledge was unmatched within the group.

Sally straitened, "And why won't it work, Heero?"

"Mainly because they'll probably re-route the signal and send it through other locations and computers, scrambling the initial location."

"Well, what should we do?"

Heero came over to take over Sally's position in front of the screen. In a moment his fingers were flying across the keyboard, the screen showed the complicated program he was inputting, apparently from memory. When he finally pressed the enter button and stood back, Sally asked what he had done.

"I've changed the programming to search the transmission for the address it was sent from rather than trying to back track where it comes from. Every price of information sent has an address attached to it that the person sending it may or may not be aware of. This is the best way to find out where they are without them knowing what we're doing, because we won't be sending out any transmissions of our own to alert them." Heero stopped talking long enough to narrow intensely blue eyes. "Of course theirs no guarantees this will work either."

"Is there anything else that we can do now?" Noin held her arms stiffly at her sides.

"No," Sally shook her head slowly, looking around the room at the somber individuals. "Now we wait."

Everyone in the room was silent. They were all lost in private thought. Even duo had taken to un-characteristic quiet, and didn't seem to be making any moves to say anything. It was obvious that they all had the same things on their minds, and that talking about it wasn't necessary.

Heero looked around from one former Gundam pilot to the next, regretting for the first time that he hadn't made any effort to contact or keep in touch with any of them after the Mariemaia Crises. These people standing with him in this room were probably the only people who had ever actually tried to understand him. They were the only people who could've really understood the things that he was feeling while he had fought in the war not so long ago.

He did the same things over and over again. He alienated the people who came the closest to knowing him, Zecks and Noin, the other Gundam pilots, Relena, . . .

Just as he let his mind begin to wander he was interrupted by the sound of the laptop's speakers crackling to life.

Everyone raised their heads and looked towards the screen expectantly.

It took a moment, but a picture formed and soon all of them could see a familiar golden head of hair, and partially covered violet eyes.

Heero widened his eyes a bit in surprise, and then they returned to normal as his gaze locked with the one coming from the screen.

"Relena."