Gundam Wing/AC 1. Chapter 1

**Edge of the Chase**

Chapter 1:

* * *

_Well, she's not bleeding on the ballroom floor  
Just for the attention._

Time to Dance - Panic! at the Disco

* * *

It was a sharp edge she walked, between the woman the universe saw her as and the woman she wanted to be. She was a contradiction, straddling a killing blade. She was a pacifist who looked down the barrel of both sides of a gun and knew which end she would rather be on. She was in love with a man who had killed his share of innocents, including his own soul. She advocated total pacifism, but when she saw Heero masterly controlling a weapon of any kind – a gun aimed at her heart, a sword against a friend, or a buster rifle meant to kill her only brother – she admittedly got a little wet. Relena stared moodily across the length of the dance floor, taking in the object of both her affections and inconsistencies. He was ten years older, a full decade of physical and emotional change for the both of them, and she was no closer to either forgetting about him or convincing him to take her.

Heero was sitting at the bar, swirling a glass of clear liquid between his long fingers. She was convinced he was staring back at her, his emotions concealed behind shaggy bangs and cold, distant eyes. He drank down his drink in one smooth gulp, exposing the strong lines of his neck as he tilted his head back. He subtly motioned to the bartender to refill his glass, eyes moving away from her in order to rove around the clean lines, white décor, and light hardwood floor of the ballroom. He picked up his newly-filled glass of what appeared to be vodka, or at least vodka and tonic. Relena knew, without even needing to check, that it was likely only tonic. Heero could blend into a room, becoming a harmless part of the atmosphere, and more often than not he used a simple prop like a glass of alcohol to assist him. It was unlikely that he was really getting drunk, as he never consumed alcohol. Even when he was off duty, he was constantly watchful and weary.

Relena's eyes flicked away from him for a second, taking in the rest of the room and the people in it. Friends of hers, peers, and a few political enemies were mingling, swirling around the dance floor, or joining Heero in an attempt to make it all blur away. They were at one of the numerous charity events hosted monthly within her circle – all glamorous parties, balls, luncheons, and other social affairs she was expected to attend. This time was different, however. They were there on a mission. It was another reason why Heero couldn't be drinking real alcohol, and why the martini in her hand was a virgin.

She stood, noticing that both their host and wife were finally together in the room. Relena circled the space, moving away from the bar at first. She was slightly surprised to see Quatre positioned next to the main stairwell, at least three of his beautifully dressed sisters flanking his side, and immediately knew his presence wasn't a mere coincidence. Heero was covering all his bases again. She gave him a slight nod, not knowing if she was supposed to ignore the fact he was there, or act normally. He smiled back at her. She continued walking, making a mental catalogue of everyone in attendance. Une expected her to cross reference the faces she saw tonight with recorded voices of members of a right wing political party planning a coup against the current government. The Preventor intel stated that there was a planned meeting between high officials tonight.

Relena still couldn't figure out exactly what her part to play in all this was. Sure, she worked with some of these people on a regular basis, but what they were orchestrating was well known to be against her ideals. If she tried to infer herself into their circles, it would obviously be a setup. Sure, she had gotten Heero into the party, but she was very familiar with some of Heero's less than legal skills, and he would have had an easier time gaining entry without an invitee at his side. Relena didn't think she knew anything which could help. Even her assignment from Une was moot, as the Preventors had easy access to technology which could identify a voice print within seconds.

She was seriously at a loss. If she didn't know any better, she would say Heero just wanted her around for what was shaping up to be one of his easier, and maybe slightly boring, missions. She knew, however, that Heero would much rather stab out his own eyes than put her in the most infinitesimal amount of danger. That was her exact process of thought to reach the conclusion that something else was up that she didn't know about - either Une had outranked Heero, Heero was keeping the true mission to himself and not filling her in, or it was something she wouldn't like. Maybe all of the above.

Relena nodded to the ambassador of some-place-or-other, giving her brief politian smile. She rounded the corner of the deep mahogany bar, walking up behind Heero. She knew by the seemingly relaxed set to his tensed shoulders that he was fully aware that she was behind him.

"Dance with me?" She asked, brushing a hand along the muscles of his upper back and feeling his strength beneath her fingertips. He didn't flinch at her touch, or acknowledge her in any way. Her voice lilted with a teasing quality, as if she knew their one dance had been enough, but she was asking anyway.

"I dislike repeating myself," he told her. She managed to move close enough between him and the occupant of the next stool to watch him swirl the clear liquid around in his glass. She was pressed close to him, her breasts against his shoulder, and hip to thigh, trying invade more of his personal space than that of the stranger beside him.

"It is only repetition in similar circumstances," Relena pointed out, leaning against him so she could whisper into his ear. "We didn't start off in your bedroom this time." When she straightened, there was a slight kiss of color on the shell of his ear from where her pinkish gloss had touched skin.

Heero turned his head, glaring. For an alarming second, Relena thought it was directed at her. It wasn't. It was directed at the man behind her who was coming perilously close to deliberately brushing his arm against her bottom. The man whimpered in distress, even though Heero had barely moved compared to some of the threats he had issued over the years. One of the better ones was when he tasered an old man because he had grabbed her arm to look at the time. The barstool neighbor decided he wasn't drunk enough to challenge the silent threat directed at him, and scrambled off the seat. Relena waited a second for politeness sake, and then sat on the recently vacated stool.

"You're very good at that," she told him, setting the martini she had been carrying around as her own prop down on the bar. Relena lowered her voice flirtatiously, "you're very good at a lot of things."

"Hn," Heero grunted. His eyes appeared to be looking at nothing, still not paying attention to her, but she knew that he could follow ever minute movement she made out of the corner of his eye, just like she knew he was likely waiting for a silent cue known only by him for the next step of the game.

"Why am I here?" Relena asked him, finally breaking down and vocalizing the question which had been bothering her all night.

"Is this one of those existentialism questions?" Heero asked, one of his lips quirking up at his idea of a joke.

"Heero!" Relena huffed, only mildly annoyed. "I know I'm not here as backup."

He paused, not answering her for a moment. "Window dressing," he said shortly.

"Window dressing?" Relena questioned, one of her eyebrows winging up beneath her light brown hair.

"Lobby art," Heero clarified.

"I know what you meant," she told him, somewhat crossly. "So I'm here to look pretty?"

"What else?" He asked.

The professional in her bristled at his comment, outraged that he would say such a thing. To her. Of course, the feminine, womanly part of her, which seemed to be taking a backseat in this instant, was secretly pleased by his roundabout compliment. "If you only wanted that, you could have hired a professional or made Duo dress in drag again. Why am _I _here?"

"Leave it alone," he replied somewhat harshly. "You'll know soon enough."

She wasn't sure she liked the sound of that.

"For that," she told him, trying to look as stern as she could, "you owe me a dance."

Instead of arguing with his, he put down his shot-glass and offered a hand. She grasped it, barely concealing pleased surprise. Heero led her out to the dance floor with a surprising amount of finesse stemming from his lack of hesitation and self-assurance. As he stood, straight and tall, posture perfect for a waltz, it was easy to confuse him for someone who had spent his entire life sequestered to the more elite circles like she had. With one hand still clasped in his, Relena gently placed her other hand on his shoulder, stepping into him.

"I always wondered where you learned to dance," she remarked casually as they began to move around the floor. Her silver dress swayed gently around her calves and she could hear the swoosh of her hair in her ears.

Instead of answering her prompting question, he replied with one of his own: "I always wondered where you learned to shoot."

Relena laughed carefully, the chime even and not quite real. "Information trade?" She would tell him if he truly wanted to know, as it was impossible for her to keep secrets from Heero.

He shrugged, as if it didn't really matter. She supposed he wasn't cursed with her sense of curiosity. She felt silent, letting him lead her around the outer perimeter of the dance floor. He never ventured into the middle, always making sure there was an escape-route ready if need be. She admired the way he managed it so effortlessly, that unless one knew him, they would never recognize the patterns. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed their host make his way to a podium situated directly across from the main stairwell. From a life of experience, she knew this signified a pause in dancing and the commencement of anywhere from a minute to an hour of boring speeches.

"Five minutes, minimum," Heero said just before swinging her into a twirl. As her body spun, her mind tried to grasp what he had just said to her. "Keep their attention, Relena. No eyes can wander at crucial moments."

"No," she exclaimed, finally catching on. Her eyes narrowed dangerously at him, and she seriously considered purposely grinding her heel into his foot. "I'm not prepared."

"Five minutes," he reminded her, letting go of her hand and blending back in with the other guests. Relena stood alone. She took a fortifying breath, straightening her shoulders so that her posture was rigid.

"Miss Peacecraft has offered to say a few words this evening," the host explained from his position on the make-shift stage.

Her peers were clapping politely, some whispering amidst themselves. It was a rare occasion for her to speak at anything but political events, and rarer still for her to have anything to do with events hosted by opposing political fractions. She walked towards the podium, her strides confident but unhurried. So far, all attention was drawn to her, not only by those personally aware of her habits, but also by those who saw her as a beautiful face with a decent body. She reached the stage, standing behind the pulpit-like stand to begin her speech, only she really didn't have anything to say. Sure, she could easily win a debate she had not preparation for through wit and charm, but pulling a speech out of thin air without a focal topic? Not as easy. She nodded to their host, one Mr. Ronald Wattmeter, and took control. He returned to the floor, and became one of the hundreds of faces staring at her expectantly.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I fell in love?" She asked, and the room was hers for the taking.

She could see Heero watching her from a few feet in front of the stairs, and she smiled because she had managed to divert even his eyes towards her. He nodded briefly, then hurried up the steps. She could see why this was necessary, as she had a perfect view of the grand staircase as well as several rooms in the upper hallway. Heero slipped into one of these, unnoticed by everyone but her.

"The night was calm and quiet, much like this one, and the scent of rain from earlier in the day was still hanging in the air like a rich perfume. The party was much like this one, in fact, and I had skipped out on the festivities to enjoy the air outside. I couldn't get enough of how brightly the stars twinkled, or the strange haze surrounding the moon. From where I was sitting beside a fountain, I could barely hear the tinkling of laughter and glasses over the rush of water. Suddenly, this guy wades across the fountain and disrupts my thoughts by sitting beside me. He looked to be older than me, certainly more suave and sophisticated, and just the thought that he was sitting beside me made my heart patter quickly. I probably started to blush as well, so it was a good job the only illumination were some strategically placed patio lights. I smiled at him.

He smiled back and said 'look at the fishies I caught,' and then tried to put one in my hair.

I pushed him in the water, and went crying to my mom. I was about six, and he must have been eight." Relena stopped her tale, squinting into the crowd with one hand above her eyes to ward off the overhead lights. "Chad, I know I saw you earlier. Don't think I've forgotten about that."

Focus turned away from her and to a young man trying to look inconspicuous in the center of the room. Immediately, Relena realized her mistake. Half of the guests were now in the position to see Heero if he emerged from the room at this moment.

"Now," Relena continued. "I would like to thank Mr. Wattmeter and his wife for such a lovely party. I would also like to wish them a happy anniversary." At the frown on her host's face, Relena immediately realized her mistake. "But if I did that, it would mean I'm at the wrong party."

A few of the guests tittered, others looked confused. A few where whispering again, probably passing on gossip about scandal and speculating on how much she had to drink. Relena wondered how much time she had left. She had been speaking as slowly as she dared, hoping to pass time between sentences so she could say less in more time. Heero still wasn't back, and she could feel a cold sweat drip down her back. She didn't know how much longer she could be interesting.

"My shrink told me that I needed to get over my fear of saying something stupid or superfluous during a speech." Relena held her arms out wide, hoping talk of her personal psychiatrist would keep people interested in her for a few more moments. There was nothing like good scandal to keep the members of this circle eyeing someone like a vulture. "Of course, she also told me to get over my modesty I should walk around naked. Since you won't see me doing that any time soon." She could hear someone sigh loudly in the crowd. "Yes, a disappointment, I'm sure. Since I wasn't willing to listen to her about the nudity, I compromised with this little speech."

Heero finally slipped out of the room. Relena suddenly yearned for a chance to do the actual information retrieval instead of just being a decoy. A sigh of relief went through her that she could finally wrap up, and get away from the piercing stare of all these people. "So once again I would like to thank our host and hostess, especially for agreeing to give me the chance for a little self-therapy. As for the other suggestion my therapist made, well if you look really carefully you might be able to see a flash of ankle as I get off the stage." She winked, and then left. Once she was out of the spotlight, she didn't know what to do with herself. She wanted to go find Heero, but instinct told her that right after he finished a little break and enter job might not be the proper time to walk up to him. She also wanted leave. Now that she had finished making a fool of herself, she knew that the more brazen of the gossips were likely to come over and talk with her, trying to judge for themselves just how intoxicated she really was. Relena seriously wouldn't be surprised if there was a nice article about her in some tabloid rag.

Who actually did approach her did come as a surprise.

"I had forgotten about that, you know." A voice said behind her left shoulder. Relena twirled around, momentarily blinded by the glare of tiny Christmas-like lights stringing from the ceiling.

"Chad!" Relena exclaimed, putting a hand to her chest in shock. "You snuck up on me there."

"If I had realized you love me, I would have done this a long time ago."

"What?" Relena asked nervously, half wondering what he was talking about and half incredulous at his words. She fidgeted with the skirt of her gown beneath her fingers, trying her best to keep her face neutral. "You know that was just an anecdotal tale, right? It was just meant to be entertaining and amusing."

"Miss Dorlian, please. I noticed the rapture on your face as you spoke." Chad then snatched her hand and raised it to his lips in what was probably supposed to be a charming gesture. Relena clenched her other hand into a fist so tightly she could feel the crescents of her fingernails digging sharply into her palm. He grabbed her wrist, causing her to relax her hand and watch him wearily. "You're so enchanting."

"Relena, dearest!" A willowy brunette exclaimed as she sidled up beside the two of them. "Your speech was divine. A breath of fresh air from you for once. Seriously my dear, if only more of you politians worked on wooing a crowd through humour and sweet charm instead of promises the world might be a better place. And speaking of fresh air, lets take a walk on the promenade and enjoy some of the fresh oxygen imported in from the lunar factories." The lady grabbed Relena's arm, pulling her hand away from Chad's. "You must tell me where you got your gown. I absolutely need a nightgown made out of that material. It's so divine."

"Your dress is very becoming on you too, Helen," Relena replied with a laugh. "I didn't think you had the bubbly socialite in you, but I guess I was wrong."

The cheery-friendliness on Helen's face washed away once they were out of sight from most of the crowd and she sighed as if dropping the façade loosened the stays binding her from breathing. "I've never been able to figure out how you us apart." Helen slouched against the shimmering wall, crossing her arms over her chest modestly. "I can barely tell sometimes," she commented, referring to all the Winner sisters.

"The three sets of twins are the hardest," Relena confided. "But when you need to learn and permanently remember the names of about a hundred people in one meeting or risk insulting a political group you are trying to woo as an ally, you tend to pick up tricks."

"Speaking of tricks," Helen confided, glancing surreptitiously around the ballroom for eyes watching the two lovely ladies conferring behind a set of potted cherry trees in a hidden corner. Deciding that this was the safest they were going to be in a room full of eyes, Helen pulled a small disc out of her decollage. "Tada."

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Relena asked, wearily taking the disc. Body adhesive on the back stuck to the tips of her fingers and Relena peeled it off with a gentle ripping noise. "I assume this has something to do with Heero."

"He didn't tell you?" Helen asked as Relena stuck the disc under her left breast. If Heero wanted it so badly, he could go get it himself.

"No," Relena replied, equally as surprised and suspicious. It wasn't like Heero to let a civilian go into a mission blind. She bet he had gone over the situation at least three times with Helen, drilling ever movement and potential threat into her head until she'd be hearing his voice berating her in her dreams for months. Heero was being careless, and it worried her.

"You were decoy," Helen explained. "He stole the disc and left a fake, deliberately setting off the silent alarm in the middle of your speech. He expects them to find the switch soon, and you'll be the only one they don't suspect."

"Does he realize what this will do to my career if I'm caught," Relena hissed.

"Do you realize what will happen to it if he didn't steal the info on that disc?" Helen watched Relena's eyes narrow as her hand unconsciously patted the hidden chip. "You don't know that either, do you."

"Where is he? I'm going to kill him myself, pacifism be damned."

"He left already," Helen chuckled.

Relena closed her eyes, wishing he hadn't pulled her into this the way he had. She would go through with the plan, whatever it was, but without more information she could honestly say that he was the only one she would do this for. A part of her wondered if he was aware of that, and was using it to his own advantage. She'd like to think that he would never go that far, but the truth was that he would do anything to protect her and the ideal peace she was representing, even if that meant using her as a pawn. It was just the type of convoluted reasoning she associated with Heero. "At least," Relena said slowly, trying to think of one positive thing to say so she could leave the meeting in the concealed alcove with more than the feeling of dread curling in her stomach, "he was thoughtful enough to provide a way for me to carry it out."

"Uhm… no. That was me." Helen said sheepishly. "I think he intended for you to put it in your bra or stick it in your purse."

"What bra?" Relena questioned, mocking Heero's knowledge of women in evening gowns. It made her feel a little better.

"Exactly," Helen chuckled, slipping Relena's arm through hers and walking back out into the room, her smile still affixed on her face. "And then I said to my dearest brother 'but you know I don't like curry'."

Relena laughed politely. "Give him my regards, won't you? I really must go ask Harold how his wife is doing after the surgery." Relena turned her back on Helen, hoping the fact she was seething at Heero was not obvious on her face. Not only would these vultures notice if a single muscle was frowning, but it would give her unpleasant wrinkles. She smiled a greeting to a fellow Politian, politely remarking on the lovely ring his new fiancé was toting on her finger like a stone albatross. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see and almost count the extra guards quickly filing into the ballroom. Despite the tuxedos they all wore to blend in, there was something about the way they held themselves, straight and alert, that spoke to the fact they were on the job. Relena was pleased with her ability to spot the difference, just as she was proud of the fact that Heero had stopped being so obvious a long time ago.

The angry energy flowing through her blood towards him quickly turned to an adrenaline buzz at the challenge. The part of her which lived for the thrill and would have made her a brilliant lawyer or intelligence agent if her life had turned different, that zing of self-assurance and intelligence which made her a relentless politician coursed through her blood and she almost smiled as the realization reached her. She could do this. She wanted and needed to succeed at getting the disc out the door, even with the extra guard and the probable detection equipment they were setting up.

Relena always exceeded under pressure.

And Heero, damn him, was probably counting on it.

* * *

Chapter 1 to my NaNoWriMo novel. It's coming good, I'm pleased to say. Unfortunately, from here on in, I have a feeling the quality of writing might go down. The whole tag-line of NaNo is "quantity not quality" after all.

Oh, and please tell me what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

**Edge of the Chase**

Chapter 2

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_I hold my breath as this life starts to take its toll  
I hide behind a smile as this perfect plan unfolds  
But oh, God, I feel I've been lied to  
Lost all faith in the things I have achieved_

-Away From Me; Evanescence

* * *

Relena sipped her drink as she lounged against the bar, surveying the room with perceivable disinterest. Heero had left her in an awkward position, as she had arrived with a date and leaving without one would be obvious and rise questions. The glass in her hand was filled with another nonalcoholic drink, a virgin baybreeze this time, and when she looked at the room through the liquid and ice, everything was a cranberry pink. Relena, however, could see through the myth of the rose coloured glasses and discern the dangers to her person throughout the ballroom. As far as she could tell, her only backup was a playboy billionaire who might or might not blow his cover in her defense and his posse of slightly intoxicated sisters. When she had first entered the room hours ago, she was able to count a total of three guards hired by the host secretly keeping watch over the room. She didn't know how Heero was able to sneak up that flight of stairs without any of them seeing him, but she assumed that something happened, likely a planned distraction, elsewhere to draw their attention.

Now, there were three covering the main entrance alone. She could spot another two men, looking stoic and out of place in their tuxedos watching the balcony doors carefully. She knew that the hallway to the washroom was being watched, as was the main staircase, the kitchen entrance and any other perceivable way in and out of the room. What really worried her were the ones she couldn't see, who were good enough to blend in so that her mostly untrained eye couldn't pick them out from the guests. They would be the ones like Heero, who could be watching you from two feet away and you would never notice. Relena was familiar with the thoroughness of her host, and knew for a fact that he wouldn't just rely on obvious guards. Already, he had risked insulting his guests by upping the security, and a murmur was going through the crowd as people noticed. The disc must be worth far more than she realized, if Wattmeter was willing to be shunned by society for the brief chance of retrieving it.

The feeling of the tape binding the sharp plastic beneath her breast was suddenly obvious to her nerves and she had to fight the urge to rub it to make sure it wasn't showing through her fitted gown. Her confidence that she could get out those doors undetected suddenly shattered, causing her to hide behind the drink in her hand. It was slowly becoming apparent that it wasn't just her job and reputation on the line here, but also her life. She couldn't understand how Heero could put her into a situation like this, it was what confused her the most.

She scowled at her drink, forgetting for a second that she was being watched at all times.

"Such a beautiful face shouldn't look so unhappy," Chad remarked as he slid into the seat next to her. Relena had to school her features into a congenial façade – it was far easier than she liked to admit, as it was an effort she had to make every day. When had she become so discontented with her life?

"It's the drink," she replied pleasantly. "It isn't getting me drunk enough, by far."

"I know the feeling. These social events can be so tedious, can't they."

Relena wished that was her only problem. "It isn't only that," she confided. "I made a fool of myself in front of all these people, and you know how vicious they can get. My shrink insisted it would make me feel better, but it makes me want to crawl into a hole and die."

"I enjoyed it, personally. It isn't every day you have beautiful princesses declaring their love for you."

Relena glared at him over her glass. Calling him obtuse was being kind. Didn't he realize that once tonight was over, rumours of their engagement would be circling through less reputable magazines as it was. Of course, here she was looking a gift horse in the mouth. "Would you care to dance with me, Chad?"

"Of course!" He stood at attention, lieutenant to her general, and offered his hand. Relena gracefully took it, standing up in a swirl of silk and dignity. She left the baybreeze at the bar, along with what she hoped to be her fears.

Chad stood awkwardly on the dance floor, his limbs not exuding the careless ease of someone comfortable with what they were doing. His moves were mechanical, and he didn't deviate from the tri-step of the waltz as seen depicted in books. When Relena stepped backwards, he extended a little too much force on her upper limbs, knocking her off kilter. As they circle-triangulated around the ballroom, she was paying more attention to keeping her footing than she was the pleased smiles of the matriarchs as she waltzed by.

By the end of the dance, she was gritting her teeth and promising herself that she'd never make personal public speeches again. She was also going to track down Heero and shove the disc up his rectum. See how he liked that! Relena closed her eyes on the final turn, starting to feel nauseated through a combination of the dancing and what she was going to have to do next. It tore her at her heart and made her stomach heave to think she was going to have to sacrifice all her morals and upstanding virtue just because of this stupid situation. She knew what everyone would say, as she couldn't stress enough how vicious the gossip in the elite circle of politicians could be. Putting on her best false smile, she looked him right in the eye and turned her head coquettishly. "Would you take me home?"

His eyes widened, incorrectly assuming the same thing every guy does with a sentence like that. "Are you serious?" he asked, amazed. He looked left and right, either to see if anyone had heard her to validate that his fantasy was actually real or to try to find a buddy to brag to before he left. "Wow, they sure are wrong about you."

Relena clenched, her fingernails going into the palm of her hand and her back going up. How. Dare. He. Eugh, if she hadn't disliked the guy already, she would hate him now. Outwards, she smiled again and slipped her hand through his arm, directing him towards the door. Sometimes she thought she should give up politics and go into acting. Nothing would change, certainly, except that the outcome wouldn't be a matter of life, death, war, peace, or democracy. The phony smile pasted on her face stayed there as she nodded her farewells to the host and hostess and ignored the hushed words of gossip as they raised around her like a tidal-wave. She was tired of the glitterati.

Chad got her through the door with nothing more than a brief consideration from the guard. Relena felt a sense of relief run through her. Not only had she successfully completed her assignment, but now she could get rid of the pompous fool at her side. She turned to him, ready to dole out a well aimed, but cleverly disguised insult as well as her good-nights.

"I think you're beautiful," he told her.

Well, that took the wind out of her sails for a moment. No girl could possibly kick someone down a second after they paid a wonderful compliment. It was best to wait two or three. "Well, I think you're…"

"Miss Relena, a word." Wattmeter interrupted her, which was probably for the best, she mused, turning to see him approaching with three of his muscle-men guards flanking behind. Oh oh, her brain said. Run. For a split instant her eyes widened in fear and she felt a cold sweat break out along her forehead. There wasn't anything she could do about her initial physical reaction, but she quickly pulled herself together to show that Emmy-winning calm exterior.

"Oh, Wattmeter. I'm glad you stopped me. I wanted to thank you for your hospitality and tell you that the party was divine as always." She grinned charmingly, swaying sideways and blinking wildly as she stumbled over her heels. "Whoops," she said, glancing at the ground for something she could have tripped over, but finding nothing of course.

"You seem to be a bit tipsy." He said flatly.

"Noooooo." Relena told him. "My drinks were all non-alcoholic."

"I'll just be leaving," Chad muttered, sidling off like someone experiencing great guilt or discomfort. Neither Wattmeter nor Relena paid him much attention.

"Where is it, princess?"

"You know I've renounced my right to carry that title." Relena said sharply.

"Who said I was using it in honorific terms? I want that disc."

"What disc?" she asked, feeling the plastic burn into her skin, an albatross on fire, and she was sure the whole world could see the beacon of its light.

"The one you stole from me!" Wattmeter's rage drew the attention of a group of people leaving the party, and they all turned to stare at the spectacle of the innocuous pacifist being accused of theft by one of the politicians openly against her policies. For some of them, his accusation was impossible and foolish, but others could see the possibilities. If someone had stolen from Wattmeter, the one it would best serve would be the woman who always seemed beyond reproach.

"Don't be foolish," Relena replied harshly. It was no longer just a battle of wills and lies between herself and a rival, but now there was a crowd of people who would be judging the two of them and drawing their own conclusions. It hardly mattered what the outcome was now, she could see her political and personal future in ruins after tonight. The girl who was slightly amused by the intrigue of the evening who was present earlier was now far gone, and she cursed the day she had ever met Heero Yuy. "You know I didn't steal anything."

"Do I?" His eyebrow rose and lips quirked in a sneer that was anything but amused. "Let me tell you what I do know. I know you set off alarms when you walked through the doors, so you have a piece of advanced nano technology somewhere on your body, and it isn't a cell phone. I also know you have the most to gain with the information on that disc and I want it back."

"I wonder," Relena mused, "what could possibly be on that disc that you would risk confronting me for. If I think on it, it makes me curious to consider that I would go to such great lengths to obtain it." Her threat was silent, almost inconceivably so. Try me, she was daring. If you make a scene, I'll tell the world what it is you are trying to hide. It didn't matter that she didn't know what it was yet. The truth was there were a few accurate guesses she could make, and a good number of on-going investigations she was privy to that he was likely included in.

"That isn't the point. My scanners don't lie, Miss Peacecraft." He deflected, bring the focus back on her. The ball of accusations was being lobbed across the court, and one of these times one of them was going to miss the hit. Relena wasn't confident it would be her who walked away from this with dignity intact, but she did know that it was necessary that she did. She couldn't possibly explain away the disc on her body, and maybe it would have been wiser to stick it in her purse. In that case, she could use deniability and just claim that someone had planted it, because there was no easier place to secretly place something on a woman without her knowledge.

Relena shrugged, not trying to argue that the sensitive equipment was wrong. "Take it up with my security detail. I'm not quite sure of the technology involved, but I did give them permission this week to try out a new tracking system they have been working on." With that cleverly disguised lie, she turned her back on Wattmeter, the armed guards at his back, and the growing crowd of peers in order to walk towards her limousine. Gone was the socialite pretending to be drunk, a myth to placate those around her into acquiesce, just as the woman-child who adopted her life to fit in with a perceived standard created by parents long since dead had disappeared to reveal the woman beneath. She was the girl who went for revenge with a gun pressed against the side of her leg, the power of it cold and exhilarating but not enough to distract her from reality.

She was never merely what people saw on the outside.

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©RelenaFanel.November11.2006

Review, please.


	3. Chapter 3

**Edge of the Chase**

Chapter 3

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Relena's steps were quick and sure as she walked across the loose gravel in front of Wattmeter's house. She knew all eyes were on her, but that wasn't such a strange thing in her life and line of work. She was also aware of the danger in turning her back on these people, just as she hoped it would make her innocence more believable. If she was able to take the whole encounter as something which wasn't a big deal, then it was more likely that she didn't realize what was really at stake. The truth of the matter was that she was frightened, knowing it was entirely probable that she had just angered the host for the evening beyond reconciliation.

"Stop right there, you whore." Wattmeter raged. The throngs of people went silent, momentarily shocked, and then broke out into muted chatter. She didn't stop for his command, as that didn't mean much to her. It was the language he used, the insult to her character that made her halt in her tracks, hovering between the necessity to keep moving and her need to defend herself. Relena's back straightened, and she inhaled in an attempt to bolster her courage. She didn't want to turn around and face him again, wondering if that could be seen as a weakness on her part, but it was equally as frightening to keep her back turned on a man who had an arsenal of armed guards at his disposal.

She must have waited a moment too long to decide, because she could hear the familiar sound of the safety on a gun being removed. She knew that sound, had been next to it and in front of it in the past. The certainty in this case that she would be shot was greater than all the times with Heero combined, and she could barely hear someone scream in shock, millions of miles away, nor even think over the pounding roar of her heart in her ears.

"Slowly turn around. Herman will search you."

She could feel the man's presence at her back as she tried to loosen her tense muscles, coaxing them into turning her body to face Wattmeter. She was ready for the flight part of the adrenaline rush going through her skull like the tide rushing into a cave, but was being forced into the fight component of the flight or fight reaction. Relena turned stiffly, the world spinning faster than she was moving. She could see the crowd of people watching the spectacle, her eyes immediately finding Quatre's worried gaze amid the familiar strangers. She didn't take it as a good sign that his body looked as on edge as hers did and one of his sisters had a restraining hand on his shoulder. He winced at her, and she knew that help was not likely to be found in his direction. Great, so much for backup.

"Lets get one thing straight." Relena's voice was authoritative, even though she could feel her legs shaking and threatening to collapse beneath her. "No one is going to touch me."

"Do it!" Wattmeter ordered. Even though it was dark outside, she could see his furious red face with bulging eyes by the illumination of the tiny overhead Christmas lights. The appearance of his ugly angry face didn't make her feel any better. He'd shoot her in front of all these people. Relena had no doubt about that now. There was something deeper going on than she realized, and it was unlikely that her knight in shining armour was going to arrive any time soon.

"You're making a mistake," Relena said calmly, handing her glittery silver purse over to the giant waiting to search her for the disc. In her hand it was a clutch, but in his it looked like a tiny change purse. He fumbled with the latch for a moment before handing it back to her, abashed.

"Would you open it?" Compared to his size, his voice almost sounded soprano. The word 'eunuch' echoed through Relena's mind before she could stop it, and she almost burst out laughing.

"Sure," she replied, taking the purse back and unclasping the top. She was trying to keep her voice light and carefree, but she felt like the words were strangling in her throat. With every second that passed, she was more and more sure that she'd be found with the disc.

Herman took the purse back and dumped the contents on the graveled drive. Out fell her compact, several tubes of lipstick, a tampon, keys, some cash, her credit card, and a condom. The guard crouched. She had almost expected some of his clothing to rip as he squatted, but it must have been made of sturdier material than she thought. He pawed through her stuff with no regard to her privacy and somewhere along the way one of her lipsticks and the condom disappeared. Relena really didn't want to know if he was going to use both of them at the same time.

"It's not in here," Herman reported.

Ha, Relena thought. She could have hidden it in the lining and gotten away with it. It wasn't exactly a victory to realize that, as it wasn't actually there.

"You fool!" Wattmeter criticized his lackey, standing where he was like a mafia king who wasn't willing to get his hands dirty. "Women are crafty things. Check for hidden pockets, rip out the lining and then scan it."

"Why can't I just scan it first?" Herman asked petulantly, his question perfectly valid.

"Because she could have some kind of dampening device that would cloak it."

Right, Relena scorned. If she had that they wouldn't have caught her in the first place. That gave her a pause. What if they actually hadn't picked up anything on those sensors? It stood to reason that if they knew she had it, they would be able to roughly locate the disc on her body through similar means. It was all just a ruse, she realized, disgusted with herself for walking right into it.

"I've had enough of this." Her tone was firm as she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving her scattered belongings lying on the ground. Herman was welcome to the rest of it as well. It wasn't like they were going to open-fire on her in front of all these witnesses. No one was that stupid.

"Stop!" Her accuser screamed behind her. Relena didn't pay him any heed, continuing down the driveway towards where her limo was parked. She could hear the sound of a vehicle engine turning over and she hoped it was her driver preparing for a quick get-away. Her high-heels crunched dangerously over the loose gravel. No matter what you see on television, running naturally in four-inch heels was a myth. Walking in them was a sheer miracle of acrobatics and she had been on her feet all evening. Despite that, Relena defied the high probability she would faceplant and scuttled for all she was worth, leaving her dignity behind her.

"Shoot her!" Wattmeter screamed, obviously too far into his rage to realize the implications of what he was saying. Though he was openly ordering the murder of one of the universe's most important politicians and would be dealt with accordingly by the law, that wouldn't make her any less dead if one of the bullets happened to hit. There was a moment of hesitation behind her and later when she thought back on the whole debacle, she'd realize the armed guards didn't know whether to listen to their boss or risk their job. Either way, their futures were uncertain from this point on.

A gunshot echoed through the front lawn. A few feet from her left, gravel sprayed as the bullet hit the ground. A few shards of rock flicked into her skin. Relena yelped, a very feminine scream of shock emerging from her lips as she dove behind a nearby vehicle. Where was her limo? She had just efficiently trapped herself, caged in better than Wattmeter ever could have hoped for. She could either go back out into the open, skulk between the cars, her every footstep obvious on the tiny rocks below her feet, or she could try to hack her way through the thick bush fence between the drive and the rest of the estate. She didn't think the last option was penetrable, and she could vaguely remember a conversation months ago where many of the older politicians were charmed and amused by Yuy Security's new electric fence which ran underground or through brush and only targeted DNA.

Damn Heero, this was all his fault. She didn't know what he was doing right now, but she was going to give him a piece of her mind, and maybe fists, the next time she saw him. Usually, he would have arrived with a cavalry, weapons blaring, if she so much as dropped a vase. Here she was, in actual life-threatening peril, and he was no where to be seen. Relena leaned back against the car she had landed beside, her breath was coming in ragged sobs and she slapped her hand over her mouth to try to control the sound. Her heartbeat felt like it was going so quickly it would start pumping air instead of blood.

"Relena? Where are you? I can see you, you know."

Even though it was completely stupid, she panicked for a second and believed him. She was about to shift, to move closer to the fence so she would be more out of sight, and then she realized he wouldn't be asking where she was if he could actually see her. The growing hysteria she was feeling wanted to shout 'if you can see me, then where am I?' and she almost giggled at the thought.

Hell. This was bad.

Her chest was heaving, her dress was slicked to her skin from nervous sweat, and she couldn't sense the disc anymore. Relena felt for it, not finding it anywhere on her body, and realized it must have fallen off during her ungraceful jaunt across the driveway. Oh God, she thought, here I am about to die for that stupid thing and I honestly don't have it on me. At least they'd figure that out when they searched her still-warm dead body for it, then probably gutted her to make sure she hadn't swallowed it.

Then Heero was going to kill her for losing it in the first place.

Quickly, Relena edged closer towards where Wattmeter was searching for her. She tried her best not to make any noise, but the loose gravel beneath her body naturally shifted with the slightest movement. Carefully, she glanced around the corner of the car she was hiding in front of, looking back towards the house. She almost jerked her head away, leading Wattmeter to her with the sudden movement. He was about two cars away and rapidly gaining on her hiding place. She could see the disc almost next to his foot, the plastics and metal gleaming in the strung lights. Either her angle was a better vantage point to see it, or he was blind to everything but finding her.

The good news, if there could be anything optimistic in this whole thing, was that he was the only one conducting the search. His hand was clasped dangerously around a gun, knuckles incredibly white in the dark, but he didn't have any of his hired security by his side. Relena sat back against the car, her back pressed against the cool metal. There had to be some way for her to reclaim that disc. Unfortunately, the only way she could think of was one of her stupidest ideas yet.

"There you are," Wattmeter crowed beside her ear. Relena jumped, shrieking like a girl again. He grabbed her by her trademark blond hair with his wide, strong, workman-like hands, forcefully hauling her out from between the two cars. Relena went passively, the fight gone from her. He was hurting her, and she felt on fire from her scalp to her toes. Her fancy silk dress ripped fragilely on the ground, doing nothing to protect her body from the sharp rocks. In the falsified light, she could see the blackened wet stain already soaked through the skirt of her dress from when the bullet sent rock fragments into her skin. She hadn't realized she had been bleeding, but it didn't matter as much anymore.

"Get up," he screamed at her, yanking her upright with her hair once her legs cleared the cars. She could feel the spittle flying from his rage lightly spray her face, and she winced. When she got to her feet, her legs wobbled and threatened to give out on her. Relena was stronger than that, steadying herself despite the blood trickling down her cut leg and the tears streaming down her face. She stood with dignity, her head held high and defiant like the queen she was.

He dragged her towards the house. Two steps, then three, and all the while Relena let him herd her like a sheep. Suddenly, she just stopped moving. The engine she had heard starting what seemed like eons ago was still running, and she realized it was Wattmeter's get-away vehicle where she had been hoping for help. An eerie silence descended over her mind. "I'm not going to let you do this to me anymore," she told him calmly, turning around to face him. Her eyes were a steely blue, like the ocean before a storm. "You can't force me to do anything!" She yelled at him, her words getting shriller as she went, provoking him. It took some will-power on her part, but when she raised her hand to smack him, her palm was open in a slap instead of a punch. Before her strike even came close to hitting him, Wattmeter grabbed her arm and yanked her off balance. As she was teetering, he violently pushed her to the ground, looming over her prone figure.

Relena sobbed loudly, turning over so she laid on her stomach. Her hand clasped around the disc, and she hid her triumphant smile with her hair. She didn't know what she was going to do now, but at least it was back in her possession. She let the adhesive stick to her palm, clasping her fingers around it in protection. The disc was smaller than she remembered it being, the importance everyone was attributing to it adding to the perception of its size. In reality, it was only about the size of her thumb-nail, and she knew that as a last resort she probably could swallow it and hope the enzymes in her stomach didn't destroy the information on it. For the first time she realized that the crowd of people was missing, and wondered if the absent guards were doing crowd control somewhere.

Wattmeter's shockingly large hand closed around her shoulder, and Relena winced. Her leg was bleeding, almost numb with pain. Her head hurt, body ached. She was alone in this, and had never actually had to defend herself in real life though she had been given the training for a situation just like this one. She could probably take Wattmeter on, maybe even win, if he didn't have that gun clasped in his other hand. She didn't really see how she had any other choice. She had survived the sacking of the Sanc kingdom along with the murder of her parents; she had survived coup d'états; she had survived Heero Yuy; there was no way some little chickenshit like Wattmeter was going to bring her down.

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©RelenaFanel.Nov17.2006

So. My NaNoWriMo novel? Not going so well. What do you guys think about this chapter?


	4. Chapter 4

Edge of the Chase

Chapter 4

Relena could feel Wattmeter's hand as it approached her shoulder, as if the air it was displacing with the downward movement was great enough to warn her of the descent. Still, she couldn't help but jerk when he touched her bare skin, his sweaty palm damp and hot on her shoulder. Relena was sure that if she had eaten anything in the past three hours it would be threatening to come up. As it was, the two drinks she had partially consumed sat heavily in her stomach. His fist tightened as though he was going to force her to turn over, then he stood up, letting go of her altogether. The movement was sudden, and Relena tensed, confused and worried that maybe something worse was coming.

"Touch her again, and I will shoot," Heero said, his voice empty of all emotion and quiet, knowing he didn't need to raise the volume to get his point across. Heero at his coldest, when he was like this, was the most menacing person she had ever met. Relena's pulse jumped as she calmed. Wattmeter beside her was less of a threat with each passing second. She turned her head towards him, not surprised to see a gun pointed at them. His feet were braced and he was still clad in his tuxedo. His bow-tie was gone, collar open in disarray so she could see his neck. He looked rumbled in that sexy way men can get when they take great care to look casual in formal wear. A woman would just look like a slouch if she tried anything like that. Heero's fashion wasn't what drew the eye however, it was the ice glinting in his eyes and the firm set of his jaw as he stared down Wattmeter. "Drop the gun," he ordered Wattmeter.

The metal clanged beside her head, and Relena was sure Wattmeter had hoped it would either hit her or accidentally blow her head off. He had pretty terrible aim, Relena noticed. She reached out, hand curling around the weapon. It felt foreign in her hand, but she knew enough to make sure the safety was on before she moved with it, and she it across the dirt so that it was next to her head. The palms of both her hands were braced on the ground, one cupped over the weapon, so if she had to get up quickly, or roll with it aimed, she could.

"Back up," Heero commanded and was obeyed. She watched from the corner of her eye, her stomach still pressed into the ground, as Wattmeter glanced wildly around for someone to come to his aid and then took a step backwards. Relena felt a sense of relief go through her body like a calming elixir, not feeling as threatened now that her attacker was not close enough to do any physical damage without seriously inflicting Heero's wrath.

Relena rolled so she was on her back, her injured leg stiff as she tried to get it under her in order to stand up. She didn't know how she ever doubted that he would be there for her. Heero could never let her down, it was in his wiring to serve and protect. Despite her relief at being rescued, she knew that this added danger. It was much easier to shoot a man armed with a gun than it was to target a helpless woman, and this would bring the guards back into the mix. She and Heero had to get out of there, and soon. Relena knelt in the harsh gravel, her knees screaming at her from the abuse. As quickly as she could, she stumbled to her feet, disgusted with how ungraceful her movements were. The heels didn't help her regain balance and she almost toppled over again. Arms outstretched at her sides for stability, she hurried towards Heero, making sure to keep out of the line of the gun the best she could.

"Get on the front and put the helmet on," he told her, not taking his eye off Wattmeter. Relena stared at him, not comprehending exactly what he wanted her to do until she saw the motorcycle parked behind him. The helmet was on the seat and she grabbed it, yanking it over her hair and making sure it was snug under her chin. Her head felt heavy, hearing muted, but if she was going to be riding on a motorcycle, she needed the protection. She flipped up the visor so she could interact better with her rescuer, knowing that Heero didn't like to repeat his orders. With complete disregard for her image, she hiked her skirt up and straddled the vehicle, scooting as close to the handle-bar as she possibly could.

"I'm on," she told Heero, knowing instinctively that he could probably tell by the sounds of her movements, but informing him anyway since his back was turned to her. He started to back up towards her, keeping his gun trained on his target. Heero's training taught him to never take anything for granted. Sure, she now had the gun, but that didn't mean the opponent wasn't armed in some other way. The only thing keeping Wattmeter from moving, or even calling for help, was Heero's reputation for being relentless. It was well acknowledged that he was a force to be reckoned with, but most rumors of his cold-blooded nature were assumed to be embellished for the story's sake among the polite society who were disinclined to believe that violence even existed in the world.

Wattmeter was starting to realize that Heero was far more dangerous than even the idle chitchat presumed.

Heero finally reached the point where one more step would knock him into the motorcycle and he paused. Relena was impressed with his talent, as always. She looked at the gun gently clasped in her fingers, then back at Heero, wondering if she should try to cover him. No. She would not raise a weapon against an unarmed man, even if it was in self defense. Not even for him. Making any further decisions of what actions she should take was unnecessary as Heero swiftly turned around and jumped on the bike behind her. His arms reached around her, grasping the handle bars, and she could see him quickly flick his wrist as he turned the motor on.

Relena flicked the visor down on her helmet and lifted her feet onto the brace on the bike, letting Heero balance it as he took off. The feeling of his solid body at her back and arms curved around her waist gave her an odd sense of security despite the exhilarating danger of driving with no protection but a helmet. If they crashed, her body was going to be horribly torn up, as silk didn't even protect her from the cold. The helmet kept her sharp mind and pretty face as safe as possible and as far as Relena was concerned, those were the most important. Of course, there was no chance that they'd be in an accident, not with Heero driving. Even though it was more difficult for him to be handling the bike from behind her, she knew the way he thought enough not to question it. He was making sure his body was an extra shield for her, in case Wattmeter and co. opened fire. It was touching, just as the vibrations running between her thighs and Heero firmly curved against her back warmed her in ways that had nothing to do with the chill against her skin.

The bike picked up speed as they hurtled down the long driveway in front of the Wattmeter estate. The loose gravel caused their traction to be unreliable, the rocks spraying in their wake like waves. Relena hugged the front of the bike, doing her best to keep out of Heero's way and let him steer the damn thing. Her grip wasn't as tight as she wished with the gun in one hand, but she was able to get balanced so any sudden movements on her part wouldn't set the bike off-course.

She only hoped Heero could see well enough over her head.

The end of the driveway neared, just as Relena saw the headlights to other cars turn on back at the house. The brief flare of illumination was subtle, but she had been waiting for some sign that Wattmeter was going to give chase. Heero might be threatening one on one, but she hadn't believed for one second that this was the end of everything. She did trust Heero's insanely adept skills at every he did, but there were too many variables for him to have absolute control.

Heero slowed the bike down, and Relena had a moment of panic, wondering if he was going to stop. He leaned into a curve, directing the motorcycle from the graveled driveway and onto the paved highway before speeding up again. Relena wondered if he would have taken the corner without reducing speed if they hadn't been changing the consistency of surface they were traveling on. She didn't think she really wanted to know. Heero was one of those reckless motorcycle drivers who you didn't notice doing anything risky because he handled the bike as if it were an extension of himself. She'd always appreciated the view nicely tucked into the back of her limousine. Riding up front, however, was a whole different sensation and her heart felt like it was lodged chokingly in her throat the entire time.

If the bike even wobbled the littlest bit, she swore she was going to throw up. Her image of being cool and collect in all situations would go flying down the highway, probably smearing over Heero in the process. It would be worse than the time he had found her crying and challenged her strength and efficiency. Tears he could probably forgive, even if he did put them down to some sort of feminine dilemma she couldn't control. In fact, she thought that might have the first time he had been shaken by her enough to realize she was more than just a person, but also someone of the opposite sex. Throwing up on him? Yeah, no good could come of that, ever.

The headlights of the cars in pursuit of them gleamed on the road in front of her. Even though Relena couldn't turn her head to look behind her, she could tell that with every moment they were creeping a little closer. The road before them showed a crescent of the head beams, and slowly that edge was getting further and further in front of them. She knew that Heero took far more risks on a motorcycle simply driving to work than he was now. Was that because she was with him? Probably. She didn't even know if he was consciously going slower, or if protecting her was so ingrained in his head that he didn't even realize.

By now she could hear the purr of the engine powering the car behind them. Heero tensed, if it was possible for him to get even more on edge, and picked up speed. It was a little too late for him to make that attempt now, though she was positive that on his own he would be able to pull some miraculous trick out of thin air and disappear at great risk to his own life – like driving over a cliff, or jumping onto the back of a truck going in the opposite direction.

She really was holding him back, wasn't she? She could only hope that she only did that in extreme situations such as this and not in every day life. She really didn't want to face the fact that maybe he could be so much more than he was now, and that maybe he wanted to fly on his own without her, but his loyalty was standing in the way. Maybe he knew it, maybe he wasn't aware of it like so much she thought his brain kept from him and protected him from. His overwhelming lust for her, being an example. In the middle of a highway chase, wearing little more than a fashionable negligee masquerading as a dress, was not the time to think of thing like that – the fact that she might be oppressing him or his so-secret-he-doesn't-even-know want for her body.

There was a strange pinging noise she couldn't quite identify, but knew she recognized from somewhere. Heero's body pressed against hers didn't react, though she felt like she should be ducking and running for cover. Relena then realized the puzzling sound was the sound of bullets narrowly missing them. The were going to die, splat on the highway like raccoons with their entrails oozing out and crows plucking at their vacant eyeballs. Oh God.

"Drive." Heero yelled at her, voicing the first reaction from him that she could discern since they started this ride-o-joy.

"What?" She yelled back, disbelief at what she thought she heard. He wouldn't really be asking – well, demanding – what she thought, would he? He took his hands off the handbar of the bike, and her mind went into overdrive as she panicked and grabbed the handles where his hands had been controlling their drive. Sneaky bastard. It had been a dangerous ploy, but it had worked. She barely even noticed that as his hands pulled away and hers rushed forward, he had somehow managed to pull the gun out of her grasp. His efficiency – yeah, it was a common thing for her to think of, but really, the man never ceased to amaze her with what she could only classify as super-powers.

Once upon a time, Duo had spent a fun-filled afternoon teaching her how to drive on of these contraptions around the long loop of her private driveway. Heero had put a stop to it when she had done a doughnut on her lawn by accident, ripping up grass and risking her life in inappropriate ways. Then he had glared menacingly at Duo and she was too pleased in that smug feminine way she got over his concern and machismo and told him that none of it had been an accident.

Relena gunned the gas, grinning uninhibited for what seemed like the first time in a while. Behind her, she should feel Heero shift around in his seat, and she held the bike steady the best she could as he turned his body right around to face the traffic behind them. Heero knew what he was doing, she reminded herself. The best answer for his actions she could think of was that he didn't want to disrupt the bike every time he looked over his shoulder to shoot, and now his target would be within his aim easier. It made her feel on her own, and that if she made any driving mistakes he couldn't fix them. It also, rather blatantly, put his life in her hands and she could feel her palms dampen at the thought.

What if she failed? They would both crash and burn in so many ways.

She couldn't tell when Heero started to shoot, as his body didn't jerk with the recoil of the gun like she was sure hers would have. She did notice the rather large crash, metal screeching, behind her, and risked a quick look in the rear-view mirror at the three cars in pursuit. There were only two, the last wrapped around a tree and becoming a smoking dot further in the distance with ever second they drove.

Relena hoped no one was hurt. It might be self-defense, but she wanted no part in harming another person. She was Relena Peacecraft Dorlian, for God's sake, and her morals and beliefs would not be sacrificed just because her life was on the line. They hadn't been before, and they wouldn't be now. There was no greater good here, nor were there innocents to protect. She knew she could never take back anything that happened tonight, and could only hope the damage was minimal. If not, well she wouldn't be able to do her job anymore, for one.

She'd worry about that later. Right now, with the adrenaline rushing through her system more intoxicating than any synthetic drug and the air curving over the fairing, dragging over her skin in paces, she felt free. It frightened her to think that right now she was the one in power, and she wanted nothing more than to exploit it. Her father had always told her that somewhere within her prim exterior he saw a fighter and a risk-taker. She had always taken it to be an asset in the political arena, but who knew? Maybe those different twists and turns she continuously wondered where her life could have taken her would have brought her into a life where racing down the highway, a lethal weapon of a man at her back, with a top secret stolen chip stuck to her body was a norm instead of an exception.

They sped passed acres of forest, the trees thinning until the private rural community slowly amalgamated with the bustle of the city. That was one thing Relena loved about Earth – the raw natural and still observable sociological growth patterns surrounding a city. That and the fact that the air might not be the cleanest, but at least she didn't have to rely on a machine to produce it. On a colony, a high-speed chase such as this one wouldn't quite work out, as there weren't many roads which didn't lead directly though a city, and there was no way Relena would ever risk disobeying traffic laws if she thought it was possible for her to run over a pedestrian.

Lights from houses and street lamps now aided her sight, and Relena stepped on the gas. The motorcycle leapt ahead, the engine humming and vibrating between her legs. Oh yes, she definitely liked this. Glancing in her rearview mirror again, she saw that another one of the cars had disappeared somewhere, in the few moments since the last time she had checked. She watched as Heero made sure he had her attention, then stood, the small foot braces the only thing keeping him on the bike. The vehicle wobbled from the movement, and Relena adjusted her weight accordingly. She could feel the drag the air dynamics was having on Heero's body, as it had a barely noticeable affect on the bike, moreover, she could hear the change in wind currents surrounding them. She couldn't imagine the pressure being forced against Heero and the strength it was taking him just to keep upright.

If it had been her, she could have fallen off already, Relena knew. She kept her eye on the tiny rear-view mirror far more than she should, watching through the narrow reflection as he tucked the guns into the waistband of his pants – one in front and another in the back – and with a perfect view of his bottom, it wasn't surprising that she wasn't keeping her eyes on the road. Just as Heero was bending at some improbable angle in order to turn back around in his seat, the bright headlights of an oncoming car flashed in her eyes.

"Turn your brights off, jerkwad," Relena mutter, fingers finding the button for her own lights and flicking them. It probably worked better in a two-headlight vehicle, she mused as the other car didn't adjust the brightness. She was still blinded, squinting through her visor. The bright lights flared across her retina, creating the ghost image burned into the back of her eyes of the lights. She tried to blink it away, but even as the other car passed she still didn't have her complete vision back to normal. She wanted to rub her eyes, but not only would that put them at a disadvantage, but she also couldn't get through the visor without lifting it or taking the helmet off.

Just as Heero settled behind her, the bike bumped over something on the road. Relena bounced, Heero's arms immediately going around her. The front of the bike quivered then jerked out of her grip. Heero's grasp on her tightened and she thought he was trying to regain control of the bike, but in the next moment the flat front tire crashed into the metal barrier of a highway overpass. She was airborn, screaming with what was surely her last breath as momentum took her over the handlebars, the barrier, and down, falling towards the perpendicular highway below.

©RelenaFanel.Jan08.2007

Yes, it did take me a while to post this chapter. I can only offer my apologies and a promise that it won't happen again. The latter, I probably won't keep, though my intentions are in the right place.

So… Finally, Heero shows up to save the day in that perfect soldier of hawtness way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Edge of the Chase**

_Chapter 5_

* * *

Relena screeched her fright as she flew off the overpass on the highway. Uselessly, she flailed her arms, wishing she would miraculously start to fly. She was barely aware that with each movement of her limbs she hit Heero or how his arms were a protective force field around her. She couldn't see any possible way she could survive this accident, and in her last living moments all she felt was fear. There was none of the clichéd regret people who walked away from the edge of death speak about, nor did her life flash before her eyes.

They landed quickly, Heero's body thumping harshly against the surface first, then Relena landing on top of him a quarter of a second later. She felt him exhale from the blow with the oomph of someone who just got the wind knocked out of him, but she didn't feel anything else. There was relatively no pain except from where her head had smacked against his chin, no wetness of his blood oozing beneath her, and if it weren't for the fact that the starlit sky above her was still moving, Relena may have thought they passed right through the painful dying phase and were just dead.

"Eugh," Heero grunted, rolling them over so that his body was on top of hers. Slowly, Relena became aware of the wind snapping at her dress, pulling her hair into his face, and the extreme pressure it was exerting on the top of her head.

"We landed on a truck?" She asked incredulously, knowing that the words were taken out of her mouth and left behind on the highway. What were the odds? She wasn't sure how it was possible, but if they had gone over that railing a second earlier or later they would have been creamed by the oncoming traffic. They stayed in the same position for a while, Heero protecting her from the bite of the forceful wind current. Finally, after waiting what she assumed to be what Heero judged as a safe amount of time, he leaned his head closer to hers and yelled in her ear.

"Don't move."

Despite the volume of his voice, she could barely discern the words emerging from his mouth. She could see his hands braced on the white roof, level with her head, and his forearms strained as he pushed himself into a crouching position. The airstream flowed between their bodies, pulling him up and away from her, and Heero rolled off her, disappearing over the side of the truck. "Heero!" Relena screamed, inching her way over to the corner where he had disappeared, even though he had told her not to move. She knew he had probably done that on purpose. There was no way he would just tumble off a truck like that, but it didn't stop her from worrying needlessly about him. The wind pushing against her reminded her of some of the rollercoasters her father used to allow her on once her mother's back was turned, and the feeling of the G-force pushing against her in some of the older spacecraft as they took off.

Relena could see the dark form of Heero's tuxedo-clad body clinging to the side of the white vehicle. Every movement he made, inch by inch, seemed to be taking far more effort than she realized it would. Heero was pulling himself along the truck by sheer strength. Relena might not have an engineering degree from a reputable university like he did, but she was aware that if the wind pressure was so great on his body, there was no way she should be able to just lie there with a minimal amount of discomfort and drag, and taking into consideration Heero's plight, there was no way she shouldn't be physically hauled off the roof. She looked up, saw where the cab of the truck was elevated from her level, and realized what was happening. Though it had taken her a minute to notice that the air was going over her more than it was through her, she knew Heero had tabulated it into his original calculations before moving without her.

Sighing as he edged out of view, Relena didn't bother leaning further over to watch him. She made sure to keep her head tucked in, not relishing the idea of snapping her neck like a cheetos if she leaned too far over. She could just make him out now as he moved closer to the cab, fingers clawing to anything he could grasp. Relena couldn't help but wonder which of his tricks he was going to pull. From Heero it could go anywhere from breaking the window with his feet and taking over the truck like he did that ambulance eons ago to plastering himself on the windshield to – knocking politely on the glass and gesturing the driver to pull over?

Knocking politely? Heero? Now she'd seen it all, Relena thought as the truck acquiesced to his demand, slowing so that with every second, she was able to move a bit more freely. From her vantage point, she could see Heero open the passenger side door, leaning in to converse with the truck driver. Relena couldn't hear what was being said, but she imagined it had something to do with procuring the vehicle in the matter of National Security or something like that. Since she couldn't actually hear what was going on, she stood, her unsteady legs threatening to give out on her for all the abuse she had put them through this evening. She wasn't sure if they were out of the woods yet, so to speak, but things were looking up. Relena glanced around her, trying to find the ladder she usually saw on the back of trucks like this while she was driving behind them.

Once she found it, she stuck her leg over the side and groped for one of the rungs with her toes. The high-heels on her feet had next to no grips on them, so the hard plastic against the metal was slippery enough that she was starting to think her self-reliance might just get her killed, or at least put her life in jeopardy again. Her next hope was that no one driving by saw the fancy-dressed girl scaling down the back of a truck and decided to take a picture. Once Relena's feet were secure on the ground, or at least as secure as they were going to get in the shoes she was wearing combined with the loose gravel incline underfoot, she flexed her fingers to try to get rid of the stiffness caused by death-gripping the sides of the ladder and inched her way along the side of the truck towards Heero.

His eyes didn't even flicker towards her as she approached, but she was making enough noise that the truck driver probably heard the way her feet were scrambling and sliding on the loose rocks below her feet. Once she was close enough to Heero that she could hear what he was saying, he held his hand up, signaling her to stop. Relena shifted on her feet, worried that Heero might decide that this guy was more of a danger to her life and then they'd have to walk. Moreover, she had no idea what kind of cover story Heero had told him. What could possibly be believable to explain how he had just happened to be hanging on to the side of a moving truck? The truth wasn't even all that realistic.

Slightly impatiently, Relena waited for Heero to procure the truck. Usually, it didn't take this long. Heero just said something like 'I need to use your truck' and either showed them his Preventor badge or his gun, but usually the latter. It worked like a charm every time. No one said no to Heero's gun. Heero's gun was huuuge and dangerous looking.

Relena smirked at the direction her musings had taken her, raising an eyebrow as she looked at him, very likely leering. He broke his cover for a moment to glance at her, which was Heero's equivalent to an alarmed look. Relena just smiled.

"So lemme get this straight," the truck driver said from within the cab, startling them both and bringing attention back to the task at hand. "You expect me to believe that you're part of the Foreign Minister's security and that the two of you are on the run from someone trying to kill her? And you need my help? Yuh Right."

"You would be doing a great service and will probably be rewarded greatly."

Relena's eyebrows winged up and she stared at Heero. This was… wrong. Off. Heero didn't ask. Heero demanded.

"I got that part already," the truck driver responded, voice surly. "I don't see the girl."

Heero gestured for her to reveal herself with a jerk of his head.

Relena shook her head no, the loose tendrils of her hair fluttering around her delicate face.

"Relena.." Heero warned, nodding for her to join him.

She just stared at him, her eyes weary. This was not the Heero she knew. There wasn't really anything specific she could put her finger on, but like the rest of her evening, he seemed off. Stubbornly, she refused to move, causing him to glare at her. Unwittingly, her lips quirked when she imagined what the truck driver was seeing. Basically, there was just Heero standing there, twitching and insisting he was with the Foreign Minister. She wanted to taunt him, but couldn't see any way to do so without giving away her position.

"If you'll step away from my truck, sir, I'll just be moseying alon…"

Relena stuck her tongue out.

"Relena!" Heero growled, his strong fingers encircling her wrist as he yanked her into view. Relena scowled at him, ripping her arm out of his grasp and rubbing the skin, offended. Likely he hadn't left a bruise, but she wasn't going to let him get away with manhandling her without making sure he at least felt guilty for it. Then she looked up and smiled at the truck driver.

"Holy…" He murmured, gawking at her like a love-striken teenager. "I can't believe its really you. I mean, I love… I mean, my son loves the heck out of you. He really idolizes the ground you walk on."

"Thank you," Relena demurred. "Please, I implore you, will you help my guard and I escape? I know it sounds like something out of a bad action movie, but I'm afraid we really do need your help." Before the man could answer, Heero was already picking her up and placing her in the cab. Relena would have kicked him for presuming she couldn't climb up on her own, but in truth, with her heel and dress, it was rather unlikely that she could. Even if she tried, she risked bending over too far and giving the nice redneck truck driver a glimpse of her cleavage.

"You can sit beside me," the driver said eagerly, picking up a mesh cap and tossing it into the back.

"Sure," Relena responded, waiting for Heero to insist on buffering her from the stranger. When he didn't say any, she gave the seat a cursory glance for stray chips, ketchup smears, and unidentifiable stains which could either be old food or bodily fluid. Not really finding anything which offended her princess sensibilities, she really had no choice but to sit beside him on the hump.

And they were off. At least the interior of the cab was warm and she stopped feeling as though she were going to cut through the material of her dress – or what was left of it, in any case – any time soon.

The truck driver slanted a glance at her from the corner of his eye. "My son's got a picture of you on his wall. You weren't wearing that much clothing there neither."

Relena's eyes opened in alarm as she tried to inch closer to Heero without being obvious about it. Heero was going to KILL this redneck.

"The one where she's wearing this little red number? I have that one too. Very popular among young men," Heero replied with an incline of his head. Relena almost choked on the air she was breathing. What happened to being offended at the smear to her honour as she expected Heero to reacted? More importantly, what was up with him being FRIENDLY?

"I'm right here!"

"You sure are prettier in person," the diver agreed. Out of the corner of her eye, Relena thought she saw Heero's lip twitch in amusment.

"Thank you."

"Can I have your autograph?" The driver asked, not taking his eyes off the road in front of them. He was a conscientious driver; she gave him that, at least. "For my son, I mean. There's paper and a pen in the glove compartment."

Heero was already handing it to her. Suspiciously, Relena darted her eyes between the two of them. Strange.

"Who do I make it out to?"

"Uh… Bobby."

_Dear Bobby,_ Relena wrote as they pulled off the highway and into the city. The passing lights illuminated the paper, but the jostling of the ride did not improve her usually impeccable calligraphy. _Your father is truly a hero. You should be very proud of him for risking his life to save mine. With all my regards and gratefulness, Relena Peacecraft Dorlain_.

"Do you pass any hotels on your route?" Heero asked as Relena was signing her full name with a flourish.

"No. It pretty much takes me into the warehouse district pretty. I'm gonna have to let you off soon if you want to stay in the safe part of town."

Relena didn't really think the unsafe part of town would bother Heero. Of course, with her along, he was more likely to sign in at the Wyatt using his own name than he was to bring her into the so-called slums.

"I'm going to have to procure your gun." Heero pulled the weapon out from under the seat. Relena's eyes widened. She had no idea that was even there. The gun was a nine mill, and Heero checked the cartridge for bullets before slamming it back into place. "Glock. Decent gun. Do you have more ammo?"

"Glove compartment. Am I gunna get that back?" The truckdriver put his blinker on to turn, but was stopped at the intersection, looking at Heero with interest. Relena expected him to refuse Heero, but instead he just looked resigned to the fact that everything was out of his hands now. Relena admired that. Sometimes she forgot that there were kind people in the world who were willing to help.

"Likely not," Heero responded honestly, holding a card across her body so the driver could take it. On it, Relena could just make out Duo's name and Preventor office information. "Go see this guy, and he'll reimburse you in any way you see fit. Tell him Heero sent you."

What Heero meant was that if this guy wanted a new, better gun, it was his. If he wanted a money rewards, he'd probably be given a few thou. If he pushed the issue and threatened to go public with his story, he'd be given a few thousand more in hush money.

Relena could see this impromptu "trip" costing a lot more than expected.

"Well, I dunno about that," the driver hedged, scratching his chin.

"He'll also set you up with a license. Retroactively." For someone so obtuse about some things, Heero was one of the most observant people. Ever. It never would have even crossed Relena's mind that the gun might be unregistered and illegal.

"A cop?" The driver didn't look convinced, probably smelling a trap.

"Duo's not really concerned with what he calls 'the trivial stuff'," Relena explained. "He's part of a team which specializes in…" Here, Heero nudged her with his foot. The hard sole of his shoe crushed her open baby toe. Relena made a mental note to stomp on his foot in her heels at some point this evening, but also realized she had to keep some things in check - like the covert anti-terrorist section of the Preventors which was basically made up of former Gundam Pilots, an MI-6, and some woman Relena suspected Une had found off the streets. "… finding the unfindables," she finally finished, hoping it was vague enough to please Heero. Since he didn't mangle her little toe again, she figured it was good enough.

Heero tucked the gun into the back of his pants and said, "Pull over here." Relena wondered what happened to the two guns he had. Probably, she reasoned, being creamed by big-wheelers. The truck pulled over to the side of the road. As far as Relena could tell, there was nothing outside but an empty parking-lot and some incredibly questionable buildings. There wasn't another soul in sight.

"Here?" The truck driver asked, idling the engine as Heero opened the door. His questioned mirrored the thoughts going through Relena's head. Apparently, Heero wasn't above taking her into the slums. She couldn't really see anything of benefit here. Were they going to try to blend in with the locals and hope whoever was chasing them wouldn't notice them in the midst of their sleazy brethren. Relena didn't really think she'd be able to pull that off in an evening gown. Heero swung down from the cab and the driver shrugged, "suit yourself."

Relena got up from her seat and started to make her way towards Heero, knowing that they only reason he was still standing at the open door was to see her out.

"Good luck, my dear," the driver said to her, honest worry infused in his tone.

Relena threw a reassuring smile over her should. "Don't worry. I have Heero to protect me." Basically, it was her motto.

"That guy?" he snorted.

Relena braced herself on the edge of the cab, looking down into the wonderful and indifferent eyes of 'that guy'. He grabbed her around the waist, pulling her down and keeping his arm around her as he slammed the door shut. With a loud vroom, the truck pulled away, continuing down the street and Heero let her go. It wasn't until the taillights were turning out of view that Relena turned on him, hands on her hips and stubbornness set on her features. "What was that all about?" she demanded.

Heero raised an eyebrow. Or, at least she thought she saw it move in the dim lighting of the parking lot they were standing in.

"You know what I'm talking about! All that 'please help us' bullshit. Since when do you ask?"

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, Relena." Heero turned and began walking across the wide expanse. Off to his left was the dark building of a closed mall, and for a second Relena let her girly side yearn for different clothing. Then she realized what he said.

"Since when?" She gawked, scurrying to catch up with him.

"Some situations call for tact rather than force."

"Let me guess. Next you're going to tell me that we need to learn to trust other people?"

"No. People can't be trusted." His eyes flickered away from her.

Relena reached out and grabbed Heero's wrist. "Ok, that's it. What's going on? You aren't acting like yourself. You didn't immediately come to my rescue. You brought me into the ghetto…"

"A mid-middle-class mall is not 'ghetto'."

"…you haven't once showed concern for… anything. And," Relena drilled her finger at his chest, "this whole situation is messed up. Seriously, Heero, tell me. What's HAPPENING?" Relena crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. "What did you get us caught up in?"

©RelenaFanel.jan19.2007


	6. Chapter 6

**Edge of the Chase**

_Chapter 6_

* * *

_Last Time:_

"…_you haven't once showed concern for… anything. And," Relena drilled her finger at his chest, "this whole situation is messed up. Seriously, Heero, tell me. What's HAPPENING?" Relena crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. "What did you get us caught up in?"_

* * *

"What did_ I_ get us caught up in?" Heero reproached, emphasizing the reference to himself. "I didn't get us caught up in anything. What did YOU get us caught up in?"

"Okay," Relena said, realizing she wasn't going to get anywhere using this approach with Heero. "Let's take this one step at a time. First explain why… crap," she broke off as the strap holding her foot to her insanely expensive and four-inch high shoe broke. Her heel slipped off the side and she had to grab his arm for support. "I can't walk like this," she gestured. "And I'm not going barefoot."

"Agreed." Heero knelt before her, grabbing the ragged hem of her tattered dress and yanking off a strip. Her body jerked towards him due to the force and her thigh pressed against his shoulder. Relena tried to hide the grin brushing across her lips as he wrapped the strip of cloth around the arch of the shoe and her foot. She had him right where she wanted him, and she couldn't have planned it any better if she tried. Heero in helpful-mode was more likely to answer her questions than Heero in escape-mode.

"Why were you nice to that truck driver?"

"I can hold perfectly pleasant conversations with strangers." He answered, wrist brushing against her ankle.

"You can't even hold pleasant conversations with your friends," she pointed out. "You bonded with him over that poster of me in the slinky red dress. You hate that poster. You '_accidentally_' shot the man who produced it."

"I never accidentally shoot anyone." Heero said with a smirk.

"Exactly!" Relena cried, starting to get exasperated. He tied a knot around the make-shift strap, pulling her off kilter so she had to clutch at his shoulders for support.

"If I had just stolen the truck, the driver would have reported it immediately. By this time, it would have been necessary for us to change vehicles and still be on the run." He got to his feet at continued across the parking lot. Relena teetered after him, her other shoe the one which was now too loose.

"Not if he had reported it to the police."

Heero shot her an exasperated look.

"What?" Relena looked stunned. "Wattmeter couldn't have ties with the police, could he?"

"Rel-E-na," Heero growled. "This goes beyond one dirty politician."

She paused, letting that sink in. She had a million questions to ask him, and it seemed like each partial answer he gave only open up a million more. "That still doesn't explain why you're being nice."

"Because when they speak to the truck driver, he'll talk about you but he won't recall much about who you're with other than he's a nice guy. Real friendly."

"What good will that do?" Relena asked. Honestly, she was usually better at figuring him out than this. It was easy to see that the reason she was floundering with his explanation was that he hadn't shared the pertinent information with her – she didn't have all the facts that had to do with Wattmeter and the disc except for the fact that she was now on the run from this new villainy.

"Heero Yuy is infamous for not being a nice guy." He shot her a cold look out of the corner of his eye and she grinned at him as if to say 'that's part of your charm.'

"So, misdirection, then? They hear the term 'nice guy' and start wondering who, other than Heero, I could be with?" If she were looking for someone and heard proof that Heero was not with them, she'd feel relief. Then she'd underestimate. It was all about questionable doubt. If the 'bad guys' started to wonder whether Relena was with Heero or some other miscellany Preventor, they wouldn't know what course of action to take. Obviously, they would have a far more difficult time tracking down Heero than anyone else. Not much was known about the true exploits of the former Gundam Pilot, but it was obvious that he wasn't just a simple threat. No one in their rightful mind would want to go against Heero. "One question, though. Cops don't know squat about Heero Yuy, and Wattmeter knows even less."

"Relena," he impatiently sighed her name once again, and Relena started to feel like the naïve girl she once was. "The corruption comes from within the Preventors."

She paused, stunned. "Are you sure?"

"No."

Relena opened her mouth to ask another question.

"Not now," he hushed her. They turned a corner of the mall building and were suddenly bathed in the blue light of a Walmart sign. "You have ten minutes to gather everything you need."

"Is it even open?" Relena eyed the store-front suspicious. A huge sign saying 'Open 24 Hours' was splayed in front of her, lights helpfully illuminating the words. "Oh. But I don't have any money."

Heero opened the door for her, and she stepped in, standing between the outer and inner door with a distinct feeling of culture shock. Heero headed over to the banking machine and started entering numbers. Relena wandered after him, staring at the bright store piled with goods.

"Nine minutes," Heero reminded her.

"Won't that lead them to us?" She asked, gesturing to the bank machine. He put his palm on the dash and let it read his print.

"Yes."

"Do you need anything?"

Heero quickly typed in numbers on the pad, not answering her.

"Should I get food?"

"You should get going," he responded. Relena sighed, picking up her courage and walking into the store. There were a few other stragglers shopping in the middle of the night. A few were obviously in their night clothing, running to the store for some milk or antihistamines. In her state of dishabille, she would probably be categorized as one of them. Relena felt sorry for the workers. They all looked like they were going to keel over, and she was sure that the night crew was at least halved by the amount of staff working day. She grabbed a cart and went straight towards the back, not bothering to read the helpful signs hanging from the ceiling. Luckily enough, she came across the shoe department first. She grabbed the first pair of sneakers in her size, and they were pretty unattractive looking.

She might understand the concept of dressing for a reality on the run, but that didn't mean her fashionable side had to like it.

After taking a wrong turn at electronics, the next section she hit was the underwear. She grabbed a serviceable sport's bra off the shelf, hoping she didn't get spandex poisoning or something from the inferior material. Turning around, she came face to face with the panty section. Congratulating herself on wise-shopping, she grabbed a package of three and looked around for the socks.

The next thing on her list was actual clothing. This is where Heero found her, frowning in confusion over a pair of jeans. "Are the ten minutes up already?" She asked.

"Fifteen minutes ago," he affirmed, dropping an armful of supplies into her cart. "Do you need all this?" He asked, picking up her package of undies.

Relena grabbed them from him and tossed them back into the cart. "Yes."

Heero narrowed his eyes disbelievingly.

"There is a reason you can't see any underwear lines under this dress, Heero."

The corner of his lips twitched unbiddenly, and he smirked at her.

Relena grinned at him, feeling like a flirtation teenager who just shared a naughty secret. She looked back down at the jeans grasped in her hands. "What size do you think I am?"

Heero didn't reply.

"I mean, it isn't like my usual tailored clothing comes with a size label."

Heero reached over and grabbed a pair of jeans off the shelf and tossed them in the cart. End of discussion. Relena overtly looked at the tag. "Size nine!" she squawked indignantly, grabbing them out of the cart and replacing them with the size four in her hands. By the time she was done, Heero had grabbed a t-shirt and a hooded sweater off the shelves.

Relena stared at him levelly. "They're size small, right?" Shopping with Heero was never fun. One would be appalled by the almost sacrilegious things he did the last time she went into Bloomingdales and he trundled behind her in the name of national security.

"They'll do," he grunted, grabbing the cart and steering it towards the check-out counter.

"Wait," Relena balked as they neared the front. The cashier looked like a zombie as she scanned an emergency diaper purchase and didn't appear to be completely observant of her surroundings, but behind her was a camera mounted on the wall. "Aren't we conspicuous?" She asked Heero, fingering the silky material of her dress.

"Yes." Heero answered, narrowing his eyes at her as if to say '_you're only thinking about this now?_' "I want you to call me something the cashier will remember. I want her to recognize you."

"I know what I'd like to call you," Relena gritted her teeth. "And believe me, she'll remember it."

"Think of what the tabloids would say," Heero admonished, and Relena wasn't sure if he was verbally sparring with her or completely serious.

"I think my reputation is completely shot after tonight, regardless of what I call you in front of witnesses." Relena sighed, letting her bangs fall in a natural defense over her eyes. Heero ignored her pity-party and scooped everything out of their cart and threw it on the conveyor belt. Sweater sleeves got caught in electrical tape and Relena realized her new wardrobe was going to have wrinkles before she even managed to get it on.

"Hn."

"Hi," Relena smiled at the poor exhausted cashier, only to get a grimace in return. "Long shift?"

"You've got no idea." The poor woman replied, dragging Relena's new bra over the scanner. "Say, ain't you that princess?" The cashier pointed to a magazine beside her, displaying Relena's smiling face along with the byline of 'quiz: are you a princess or a politician?' as though either role was exclusive. For a moment Relena considered buying the magazine to see which category she fell under.

"Yeah," Relena responded, leaning forward as though she were about to share a secret. "See that guy over there?" Relena hooked her thumb towards Heero. "He's my bodyguard. Usually I have this incredibly smart and sexy guy following me around and taking bullets for me, but this guy? He's almost gotten me killed twice due to negligence." Out of the corner of her eye she could see Heero's jaw clench. "The good thing is that I told him I needed new clothing and he agreed." She raised her hand and twirled her pinky, miming that she had him wrapped around her baby finger.

"He don't seem too bad," the cashier responded, eyeing Heero as though he were one of the candybars in the display next to the cash and she hadn't eaten since breakfast.

"Well, I guess one out of two isn't that bad," Relena said, trying to hide the smirk as she insulted Heero's intelligence again.

"That's $105.67, yer majesty."

"Call me Relena," she said, turning to her companion. "Raoul! Pay the lady!"

Heero glared at her and forked over the money. Relena had to press her lips together to keep from laughing. Once they were outside, Heero carrying all the bags like a true gentleman – or servant – she was able to start giggling.

"Oh! The look on your face," Relena chortled, pursing her lips into a pout and pulling a mock frown. She looked more like a pouty model than she did an irate Preventor. Blue Steel had nothing on Relena. After she finished laughing at him, she paused suspiciously. "Why was I supposed to hide your identity if they had surveillance?"

Heero didn't respond; he just kept walking towards the parking lot.

"And even if those security cameras were only there for show, you took money out of the machine on your own account."

"I used yours."

"What?" Relena squawked. "How did you. . ." she broke off with a rueful shake of her head. No wonder he was so unconcerned with how much she spent on new clothing. "I'm glad you're on the right side of the law."

Heero paused from rummaging through one of the plastic bags hanging from his wrists. "You might want to turn around, then."

"Why?"

"I'm about to steal this car." He nodded towards the heap of old American-made junk.

"That car?" Relena questioned, crossing her arms over her chest. She started to feel like the spoiled princess, turning her nose up at the rust-bucket parked in the middle of the lot. "It doesn't even look like it would run. Someone probably abandoned it here."

Heero had the car door open and was leaning under the steering wheel. Relena wondered how he was able to see in the dim light, and more importantly, she was noticing the way his rear looked in the black dress pants. Completely and utterly yum. She was paying so much attention to his backside that she jumped when the engine groaned, spitting as it tried to decide whether to turn over or not. Finally, it whined to life. Relena guiltily glanced around the deserted area, looking for someone about to jump out of shadows and incriminate them for theft.

Though Relena didn't know who would want to stop them from taking this bag-of-bolts. "Heero," she hissed. "What if we're stealing the only means of transportation from someone who can't afford better?"

Heero raised an eyebrow. Relena didn't know whether he was wondering why she would care of why she hadn't thought of it sooner. Like, say, before he hotwired the vehicle.

"We can't just DO that," she argued with him. "What if it belongs to that nice cashier? Her life is hard enough."

Heero didn't say anything as he piled their purchases into the back seat.

"Won't it be obvious that we took it? If we're on the run the same night that a car goes missing from the parking lot – well, that doesn't seem like a coincidence, now does it?"

"Things get stolen all the time."

"I thought you said we were in a middle-class neighbourhood!"

"Get in," Heero said, ignoring her accusations as he stalked by her, heading back towards the store.

"Where are you going?" Relena called after him, trailing like a besotted puppy.

Heero picked up the phone in an outdoor booth. Relena thought it strange to see someone using a land-line instead of a cell-phone and she was amazed that the relic was still in use. She understood why Heero wasn't using his own phone, barring the fact that he might not even have it on him, but wondered if a public phone would be just as traceable. She was about to ask who he was calling, but then decided that she would sound a bit too much like the curious child or the controlling wife for comfort. She was already coming perilously close to nagging him. Instead she hovered just within ear-range, keeping one eye on the procured vehicle and the other on Heero.

"We have a code 5," Heero said as greeting, in his usual friendly manner.

He listened.

"No. Trust no one, no matter the clearance. Put Maxwell on it."

He listened again.

"Trace the call. We need an identity clean-up here." A few more seconds went by as the person on the other side of the line spoke. "She's safe. I'll question her." Here his eyes bore into hers and Relena felt indignant ire rise at the idea of him 'questioning' her. She curled her lip to show her displeasure.

"No," Heero said. Then he grunted a few times. "Partner him with Chang, then!" He put the phone back on the hook, and then picked it up again. Relena thought he was going to make another call, but instead he wiped it down with the hem of his shirt, giving her a nice view of his stomach in the process.

Once he moved away from the phone booth, she confronted him. "Heero, we can't steal this car."

He merely brushed by her, walking towards said vehicle as though she hadn't even spoken.

"I'm serious!" She turned on her heel, noticing for one teetering second that she was still in the high-heel shoes. "Ok, if you won't listen to me about that, at least tell me what you have to question me about."

Heero pulled open the car door, slamming it behind him after he slid in. Relena hurried around the front of the vehicle, body bathed in the bright headlights so she couldn't see into the car, but knew her gossamer dress was probably revealing more than even the silk was meant to. She didn't know which desire was more urgent – the one to change into the new clothing she had just purchased or the one to sit in the scummy car with Heero and finally get some answers. For Relena, it was practically a no-brainer, and she opened to door and slid down into the car as gracefully as she would getting into her limousine.

Heero drove out of the parting lot. It wasn't until they were back on the road, traveling roughly in the same direct that they had started the evening off in, did Relena finally sigh wearily and turn towards him. "What do you have to ask me?"

He remained quiet for a moment, fingers flexed around the steering wheel. Just when she was convinced he wouldn't answer, he opened his mouth. "I thought I had taught you better than that."

"Than what?" Relena asked, a frown flitting along her delicate features. "You're going to have to give me a reference point."

"The situation with Wattmeter."

"What was I supposed to do? You left me there!"

"You should have been perfectly safe."

"You're so sure of yourself," Relena glared at him, arms crossed over her chest. "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have had to protect myself."

Heero snorted. "Is that what you call that slap? I've seen babies defend themselves better."

"Yeah, but I had dropped the disc. I wanted him to push me down so I could grab it without –" Relena cut off as he turned and looked at her sharply, taking his complete attention off the road.

"What disc?" Heero asked.

* * *

©RelenaFanel.Feb9.2007

Review!


	7. Chapter 7

**Edge of the Chase**

_Chapter 7_

* * *

"What disc?" Heero repeated in response to her stunned silence, his voice slightly more impatient. It wasn't obvious, but hummed beneath the surface so that only those who knew him best could pick it out.

Relena stared at him, her brows knitted in confusion and her mind racing to find an answer. What did he mean, 'what disc?' "What do you mean, 'what disc'?" She practically shrieked at him, her shrill voice unfettered by a need to restrain her emotions.

"I mean," Heero responded to her in his calm, masculine-rational way. "What disc?"

"I MEAN the disc you wanted me to smuggle out of the party. I MEAN the disc I risked my career for," Relena's movements were jerky as she furiously ripped the disc from her skin, the tearing noise sounding far more painful than it was, and tossed it in his lap. "I mean THE DISC I risked my LIFE for." She paused, a disconcerting sense of enlightenment bursting through her tirade. "You didn't know anything about it, did you?"

Heero gingerly picked the small piece of plastic and wiring from his lap and Relena couldn't even appreciate the sight of him picking at his crotch. "Calm down. Now tell me what happened."

"I was set up," Relena said hollowly, her eyes staring blankly at the windshield as she stared beyond it and into a piece of her mind where she placed the people she trusted. There were only a handful of people there, and she was loathed to remove any of them. Maybe she should just trust no one. "She tricked me and I fell for it because of who she was," Relena frowned, swinging her head to the side to stare sharply at Heero. "Was he part of it?" She asked.

"Who?"

"Quatre."

Heero didn't respond, but for once it was not the silence of someone who didn't want to reply but the silence of someone who didn't know how to reply. He was searching for words or explanations and Relena didn't take it as a good sign, particularly since it probably meant he was trying to censor something from her again. He placed the disc in the cupholder between them and the plastic vibrated against plastic. "Start at the beginning."

"An indeterminate amount of time ago, some jerk decided to make me part of a mission without informing me of any of the particularities, especially the part that I was there to be a diversion while he stole some data from an opponent of mine."

"You're blaming me?"

"You said it, not I," Relena taunted almost waspishly. "If this mule-headed dumbnut had just told me what was happening, I wouldn't have later been duped by someone I thought was a friend."

"That," Heero told her, referring to her cattiness, "is not helpful."

"No it isn't," Relena conceded. She sighed heavily, and then started to tell him the real story in detail. "After I made the speech I had assumed you left with whatever it was you needed to steal, but then Helen approached. Quatre's sister," Relena reminded Heero, not sure if he, like herself, knew them all by name. "She took me into a secluded corner and gave me the disc, telling me it was the second thing you needed me to do tonight."

"What was?"

"You know what was," Relena said suspiciously, eyeing him as she stubbornly kept her focus on the road in front of them.

"Say it," Heero demanded.

"Are you RECORDING this?" She frowned, her mouth pursed as she turned her head to glare at him. "Thanks for the warning."

Heero didn't say anything. For once she didn't quite blame him.

Relena sighed again, dispelling her irritation. She had a feeling she was going to be unpleasant to be around until she could get over the shame she felt at being tricked. Heero would never be fooled like that. "Helen came up to me, and gave me the disc. She said something like: 'Heero intentionally set off the alarms in the middle of your speech so you could get this out of here undetected.'"

"You believed her?"

Relena had to bite her tongue from snapping back with something like 'well, I'm here, aren't I?' She didn't think it would serve either of them if she kept up with this venomous trend. "She was very convincing at the time, and no one had told me any different. It didn't seem unfeasible to me that you would slip the disc to Quatre and then he would pass it to me. I was the only one they could truly account for during the time the alarm went off, wasn't I?"

"It was a trap."

"It was Helen," Relena reminded him. "The only mistake I probably made was sticking around inside the party. I thought it would be damning if I ran off immediately."

"The only mistake you made," Heero reiterated. "Was falling into the trap in the first place."

"True," Relena conceded. "But it didn't end badly, all things considered."

"It hasn't ended."

"Sometimes you take things too literally," she said, matter of fact. "You must realize the implications being caught with that disc would have had on my political campaign. The people wouldn't be able to trust me anymore."

"Wattmeter would have killed you."

"But you rescued me," Relena turned her head to look at him, giving a slight smile. "I was kind of surprised to see you. I thought you would have fled the scene of the crime long before."

Heero didn't respond.

"That was an implied question," she told him.

"Which I chose not to answer," he responded with a smirk.

Relena's gaze landed on the disc still rattling in the cupholder between them. "Do you think it has a tracer on it?"

"It's a distinct possibility." He didn't seem surprised by her question, which reaffirmed her belief that he was always at least a thought and a half ahead of her.

"And you aren't going to throw it out the window or something?" Relena couldn't take her eyes of the seemingly innocent piece of plastic. It made her nervous to think that everything could be ruined by such an innocuous item.

"I want to see what's on it first."

"Why? Don't you have the real one?"

"If they were planning to bring you up on charges, there has to be something incriminating on here."

Relena didn't point out that he was contradicting his assumption that Wattmeter would have offed her. "Yeah, but it would be incriminating for me, wouldn't it? They wouldn't put anything on a planted disc which would point a finger at themselves." She thought she was pretty clever until he responded.

"There would probably be something on there that would make it worth the effort for someone like you to steal."

"I get the feeling you've set people up before."

This time Heero did smile, and it wasn't one which rainbows are made of. "It's usually below my talents."

"Mmmmhmmm," Relena grunted, holding on to the armrest as Heero swerved off the road. At first she thought something had happened to the car, like the entire engine falling out, but instead he pulled into the lot of a clean-looking gas station. Pure white lights can make all the difference sometimes. Relena turned towards him, eyebrow raised.

"You need to change," Heero said. "And I would like to look at that disc before disposing of it."

"Fine," Relena responded, sounding blasé about the idea of changing but scrambling out of the car almost before he had it parked. She wrenched the bag holding her new clothing out of the back seat and started towards the front entrance of the convenience store.

"Out here." Heero's voice halted her in her tracks. Relena scowled at him and his order, but obeyed with minimal protest. As she was scootching a pair of panties up under her dress he was setting up a portable computer, using the front hood of the car as a make-shift desk.

"Where'd you get that?" Relena asked as she put on a bra under the cover of the dress.

"Wal-mart," Heero grunted.

"I didn't pay for that," she remarked with confusion.

"Neither did I," he responded with a slight quirk of his lips. He set up a bunch of cords and wires Relena couldn't see any feasible need for, so instead of paying attention she hopped into the jeans, finding the fifty percent spandex in them did wonders to keep the material tight against her ass. Then, with more talent than finesse, she wriggled into the t-shirt Heero had picked out, finding that it was one of those baby-tees young girls liked to wear. Quickly, she slipped off her gown and tugged the sweater over her head. It was so huge she was swimming in it, but she liked the way the hood draped over her face. No one would recognize her like that. For now, she slipped it off her head and used a torn strip of the dress to tie her hair up in a high pony-tail.

Relena stepped behind him, staring over his shoulder as he looked at the information contained on the troublesome disc. "There!" She said as the screen scrolled down. "I would have risked my career for that." She braced a hand on his shoulder so she could lean over him for a better look. Her sweater pooled forward, brushing against his back.

"A list of politicians?"

Relena nodded, and then realized he probably couldn't see her. "A list of politicians Wattmeter has converted, bribed, or blackmailed over to his side since the last vote on the…" Relena paused then, realizing that like his job, hers also had secrets she couldn't share. Unlike her, however, Heero took this in stride. She wouldn't be surprised if he already knew what she was talking about.

Heero's fingers flew nimbly over the keyboard, a blur of motion she could barely follow. She was immensely interested in this action. She always loved watching him as his fingers were in the process of doing the impossible. It was magic, and it was sexy as hell.

"What are you doing?" She breathed against his neck. She didn't know if her pressure against his side was distracting him or hindering his movements in any way, but if it was he didn't show it.

"The data is encrypted with fail-safes so that tracker bots transfer with the information if it's copied."

Relena didn't bother insulting his intelligence by asking if he could crack it.

"Done." Heero stood suddenly, forcing her to take a step backwards. He turned, looking down at her and a slight smile brushed across his lips.

"What?" Relena asked.

Heero's hand reached out, skimming along the tendrils of hair already falling out of her pony-tail. He used his index finger to lift her chin upwards so her face was directly facing his. For a second, she thought he might kiss her and her heart thudded audibly in her chest. The smile left his eyes and he became contemplative. "Sometimes I forget how young you really are."

"We are," she reminded him. "We're the same age."

"I was never young." He let go of her chin and side-stepped away from her. The moment was over, but she couldn't help but wonder what it was about her appearance that had brought on the first smile. She knew she looked like a teenage girl, but had he thought it looked stupid or was he oddly charmed by her baggy sweater, makeup-less features, and child-like hairstyle? She thought Heero probably didn't know why he had smiled, but it wasn't something she would forget. His look had been unusually fond.

"What are you going to do with the disc now?" She asked, taking a step backwards to give him room.

"Plant it."

"On what? Another car?"

Heero shot her a level look. "Preferably on one travelling in the opposite direction from us."

"Okay," Relena said. "Watch this." She grabbed his hand and started walking towards a car which had just pulled into the front of the gas-station. A middle-aged couple started to get out as she approached. "Excuse me," Relena said in a timid voice. "We're lost."

"Relena," Heero growled a warning. She knew he was cautioning her about talking with strangers, but he added authenticity to her claim of being lost, sounding exactly like a disgruntled male who refused to ask for directions.

"My boyfriend," Relena continued, jabbing at Heero, "thinks we continue along this route to get to Riverside, but I thought we should check."

"Which way are you going, dear?"

"That way," Relena pointed in the direction they came from.

"Then you're heading in the right direction." The husband visibly rolled his eyes at his wife as she helpfully stopped to aid the young, innocuous looking couple on their trip. "I have a map in the car and can show you if you want."

"Would you?" Relena asked hopefully. "I just can't get over this idea that we somehow passed the turnoff. We're heading into town for my aunt's funeral." Like a true master, Relena allowed her voice to go slightly sad, making sure to infuse the proper amount of grief into it, the amount people feel for relatives they hardly know. The older women made a sympathetic cooing noise. "I remember visiting once as a child and I thought we were off the highway by now."

"I know the area well. My husband and I are on our way in that direction."

"Marlene," said husband muttered with impatience.

"Just go," Marlene dismissed with a wave of her hand. "If you hurry you can buy one of those package cake things you like so much and finish eating it before I can scold you for breaking your diet." The man took a moment to scowl at her ruining his bad intentions before he could actually act upon them and walked into the gas station, probably to do just that. "Men," Marlene huffed.

"I'd like to see that map, if I may." Relena smiled charmingly. As Marlene opened the passenger door and rummaged through the glove compartment, Heero stuck the disc to the undercarriage of the car. Since it seemed to stay there with no problem, Relena figured the body adhesive was coming to the rescue again. Helen might have been a sneak, but at least she knew how to be useful. Heero stepped back from the car, almost a ghostly shadow with his movements. If Relena hadn't been watching for him to make a move, she would have thought he was the bored boyfriend impatiently waiting for his girlfriend to quit emasculating him so they could get on their way. Sometimes, she thought that if they two of them didn't make it at their respective jobs, they should go on the grift. They were half-way there already.

"So we're here," Relena said pointing to a spot on the map. "Where is Riverside?"

Marlene pointed to a spot to the south of their position.

"Ok," Relena said, staring at the map. "So if we go along this highway – honey, see! I told you we were going in the right direction – we should be there in two hours? Three at the most?"

"About that," Marlene agreed. "We're only driving for another hour, but you're free to follow us out of town if you like."

"Thank you. That's very kind. But you see," Relena broke off, looking abashed. "We were going to find a hotel before joining my family tomorrow."

Marlene laughed, eyes zoning in on her husband walking out the door of the gas station. He had his flaky caky in his hand and was flaunting it in front of his wife. Marlene narrowed her eyes. "Enjoy it while you can."

"I really need to use the bathroom," Relena said earnestly. "Would you mind doing the girly thing and accompanying me?"

The trip to and from the bathroom was uneventful; Marlene talked about how her bladder didn't seem as large as it used to be, and Relena regaled her with false tales about how her boyfriend refused to stop until she threatened to go in his car. On returning, they found the men standing around in the harsh white light of the parking lot, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the company of strangers they refused to converse with.

"Men!" Relena ended the conversation with a laugh as Heero moved away from where he was leaning against a white-washed wall. "Thank you so much for your help. You're good people." She waved to Marlene as Heero slid his hand around her elbow and subtly hauled her towards their rustmobile. Once they were out of earshot, she crowed, "and that's how you do it."

"That's how you let people notice you for more than a minute." Heero's voice was cold, and she could hear his displeasure. It took the ready smile off her face. "That's how you enter a building with security cameras and put your face on video. That's how you undo the steps we've taken."

Relena shook her head at him, rounding the car and looking at him over the hood. "That's how you get away with planting a tracer without skulking." She opened her door angrily, not even worrying about the old material on the seats anymore. She was dressed for the part of slumming. She slid in, slamming the door behind her. A second later Heero joined her. "That's how you find a kind, mother-like figure to go to the bathroom with so that it appears as though you're family. No one will look twice at a video of a girl in jeans and a sweater chatting amicably with her mom."

Heero said nothing.

"Besides," Relena pointed out with just a hint of superiority. "You were the one who slipped up and used my real name."

* * *

©RelenaFanel.april10.2007 

Hey. I'm so sorry it took me AGES to update this chapter. Hopefully it won't happen again for a looooong time, especially since my summer break is about to begin. I'll have a lot more time for writing, and maybe this trend towards writing Heero and Relena will continue. I tend to go through obsessions and intense concentration towards the couple I'm focusing on. For the past month it has been Michel/Kerry, so maybe now it's Heero/Relena's turn.

Love me! (or hate me, but please review anyway).


	8. Chapter 8

**Edge of the Chase**

_Chapter 8_

* * *

.x.

* * *

Relena awoke, not quite with a start but with the feeling that some external force had changed enough so that her unconscious mind noticed it. Her knees were up to her chest and the large sweater covered her legs and brushed against her toes. Subtly she wiped drool off the side of her face and wondered why the gods of gross sleeping habits always smote her when she was sleeping sitting up, which usually happened to be whenever she fell asleep with Heero sitting next to her. If Relena fell asleep sitting up, she drooled. It was a natural law, and she could count off the number of places it happened – cars, the back of her limo, theatres, space shuttles, and one memorable time at a peace conference where Heero had to pretend she had been drugged in order not to insult the foreign dignitaries. 

Relena groaned. The sky was turning a dawn-hued pink and she blinked in the dim light. "Was I snoring this time?" she asked, unwinding herself from fetal position.

"Like a drunken sailor," Heero responded, surprising Relena with his use of the old axiom. He had his usual intent focus on the road, but Relena knew he was keeping track of her movements through his excellent peripheral vision. She toned down the level of vigorous rubbing to her chin as she attempted to erase the creases left by the seat belt. As it was, the right side of her cheek appeared to have a hideous scar.

"Charming," Relena muttered with irony, half in response to Heero and half at her own reflection. She caught the time displayed on the dashboard and groaned, moving her fingers up her face in order to swipe at the sleep gathered in the corner of her eye. "I thought you were going to wake me up a few hours ago and allow me to take a shift driving."

Heero didn't respond. Since she was only just waking up now, Relena knew that he didn't really need to speak a word. The truth spoke for itself.

"Well, will you pull over and allow me to drive now?"

"No," Heero grunted, putting on his blinker and sliding the vehicle into an offramp. The old car they were in was now making a strange rattling sound. Relena thought it might be coming from the engine, but she couldn't be sure. Heero turned the blinker on again and wrestled with the steering wheel so the car would turn right into a semi-packed mall parking lot. He pulled in between a van and a small compact car. The engine gurgled when he turned it off.

"Are we changing cars?"

"After a small rest." Heero nodded to one of those chain hotels which catered to families on vacation and middle-class businessmen. Relena had never stayed in something under a four and a half stars, and she could tell just by looking at the garish red sign designed to attract tired tourists from the highway that this was the type of place where they never washed the large fancy comforter over the bed. She could already feel the germs brushing against her chin. She supposed it was better than staying at one of those hotels which charged by the hour and didn't have hot water like she had always pictured Heero staying in during his missions. "Pack up. We're abandoning the car now."

"What about fingerprints?"

"In order to ensure they're all wiped off takes time and effort, not to mention is rather conspicuous. You know most of this, Relena."

"I know a lot about how to track and evade, Heero," Relena snapped back. "What I don't understand is why you're only making a minimal effort. It's like you want to get caught."

"You know nothing of what I'm doing," Heero responded, slamming the door on his side of the car. Relena scrambled out of her seat, staring at him over the roof. She thought it was a testament to her willpower not to point out that he had just told her that she knew most of it and then said exactly the opposite a few seconds later.

Relena opened her mouth to respond, and then closed it. She repeated this action twice before she realized she looked more like a fish than an intelligent politician, and settled for huffing and slamming her car door as well. She wasn't used to questioning Heero's tactics; as far back as she could remember, he was beyond reproach, and it felt strange to look at him and see someone who may not be a hundred percent in control. Wisely, Relena kept her mouth shut and followed him between the tight spaces between the parked vehicles as they made their way across the lot. She made sure not to touch anything, because no matter what Heero said, it wouldn't do for some sweeper to find a stray print and determine which way they were headed from it.

"Megalomaniac," she muttered beneath her breath, hoping he DID hear her. If he did, Heero gave no indication. His pace was quick, and he easily dodged rearview mirrors with a grace that belied how difficult it was to squeeze through sometimes at the clip they were walking. Relena knew this for a fact and had the forming bruises on her back and hips to prove it. They circled the parking lot until they were on the other side of the mall, finally exiting the rows of cars and walking over a cement divider in order to get into yet another parking lot, this one belong to the hotel he had gestured to when they had first arrived. "Is it safe for us to be seen in there?"

"Yuy Security does business with this company. They have a minimal package with cameras in the lobby and the elevators. Each floor has two real cameras and three decoys, so there are blind spots where you won't be in the frame at all." Heero pulled out his acquired laptop, the wireless internet connecting automatically. He sat at a picnic table set up for families trying to eat in the great outdoors. There was some noxious substance on the plastic surface, and though Relena assumed it was a spilt milkshake from the local McDo's, she couldn't be a hundred percent sure it wasn't bloody vomit. Instead of risking it, she hovered beside Heero with her arms crossed, watching as an intense look of concentration flickered over his narrowed eyes. It caused a shiver to go down her spine.

Heero's face took on a satisfied glint as the live feed from the security popped on screen. He nodded once, a gesture Relena assumed meant he was right about the cameras, and then his long fingers flew across the keyboard as he cued up the guest registry and arranged a room for them.

"Won't we need a key?" Relena asked as she watched him manipulate the roster so that a couple who just checked out were billed for another night. Heero ignored her, which Relena figured was tantamount to him shooting her one of his infamous glares. Hotels had been using smart-cards for years now, but were slowly getting back into the trend of using old-fashioned metal keys. Any thirteen year old with a basic understanding of wiring could figure out how to break into a room using technology, but actual lock picking was an art long since lost. It figured that Heero wouldn't have a problem.

Heero closed his computer with a final click, holding it under his arm as he stood up.

"Should I put my hood up?" Relena asked, fingers pulling at the material at her neck so she could slide the hood into place if he said yes.

"No."

"But what about the cameras?"

Heero started to walk towards a side entrance of the hotel. "Follow my exact footsteps and they won't pick you up on frame."

She did as she was told for once, not making an issue out of his order. She tried not to when what he said made perfect sense to her, but attempting not to argue with him was not the same as actually doing it. She found that she liked to question him, just because traditionally his answers were the most he ever spoke to her. It wasn't always the same anymore, but old habits were tricky to break, especially when Heero was being difficult.

They made it up to the room in short order, neither of them winded from the two floor climb up the stairs. Relena assumed they had also managed to stay out of sight of anyone who might recognize them as well as any machinery which could record their presence. The fact that no one was chasing them was a good sign, but it got on her nerves that she could never be a hundred percent positive that they had gotten in unnoticed. Because it was Heero with her and not someone else she wasn't worried enough to be constantly on edge. She'd leave the quick-draw trigger up to him.

Heero bent over the door, taking a moment to stare at the keyhole. Relena looked up and down the hallway nervously. "I hope you don't need a hairpin from me, because I don't have any."

Heero snorted, pulling two fine wires out of the back of his laptop. "You've been watching too many detective movies. Hairpins are too thick for something this delicate."

She watched as he inserted one of the wires into the top of the hole and one in the bottom. He then slowly twisted the lower one until the lock moved. Heero turned the doorknob and it swung open. "Wow," she breathed, wondering how long this trend of keys would last before people realized how ridiculously easy it was to pick one. There was a reason behind heavy security. Of course, Heero could manipulate that with his crazy-talented fingers too. "You can pick my lock any time," she teased with a slight smile.

"I usually enjoy more of a challenge," Heero said, walking into the hotel room. Relena jerked back, eyes widening at his casual insult. He paused with the door held open for her, and she could see his brain computing her reaction. "I was referring to this lock mechanism," he told her. "I wasn't listening to you."

Somehow, Relena thought, that dug deeper. She frowned at him, brushing past and almost missing the quick smirk he sent over her head. Heero always would be a difficult bastard to read. The room was small, only fitting a double bed, a tiny table/dresser mutation, a chair, and of course the mandatory television of indeterminable make. She cast her eye over the questionable looking bed, knowing this was one of those places her mother had warned her about - the kind that didn't clean all the sheets.

Knowing Heero, it could probably be a lot worse. "I need to use the washroom," she trailed off with an implied question tacked on the end. She turned towards him as he closed the door to their room, and suddenly the walls seemed to confine her in this miniscule space with this man who took up room just by being there. He pushed open a door by his side, and Relena craned her neck to see what was inside. What she had taken to be a closet was actually a – supposedly – fully functional bathroom. It could be worse, she reminded herself again. It wouldn't do for her to suddenly go all princess on his ass.

Relena emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, now educated to the ways of pull-taps. She slipped off her sneakers, but left her socks on because she didn't trust the beige carpet no matter how clean it looked. She walked into the bedroom, hauling off the large sweater which engulfed her tiny frame. She stopped once she slid it over her head, stunned at the sight of Heero sprawled on his back over his side of the bed. One of his hands was cushioning his head like a pillow while the other was draped bonelessly across his stomach. He looked relaxed, only the gun readied on the bedside table testament to his dangerous nature.

She smiled, resisting the urge to creep to his side and brush his hair out of his face. It was getting on the long side again, but she loathed to mention it for he had a habit of cutting it too short in order to lengthen the times between cuts. Somehow, while he was awake and moving, it was low on the scale of things you noticed about Heero, but while he was sleeping his hair brushed against his shoulders, curling slightly over the collar of his blue shirt. His bangs were out of his face, and though there was still a stubborn set to his jaw, the corners of his eyes were relaxed. He reminded her slightly of the fifteen year old boy she had met on the beach.

It took her a few moments to shake off the fascination she had with his sleeping form. Relena moved towards the bed, noticing how small it looked, like everything else in this room, when faced with actually having to share it. She made a mental note to appreciate her queen sized bed more often. Hesitantly, she lied down on her side, facing away from Heero. She knew that if she turned towards him, she'd end up watching him for hours with love in her eyes instead of sleeping like she needed to.

A few hours later she awoke to a bluish light coming from the table. It bathed Heero's face in a disquieting alien glow. "Don't you ever sleep?" She moaned, curling around the pillow clutched in her arms. She was in the middle of the bed, and she couldn't help but wonder if he had woken up and moved out when and if she had tried to cuddle with him in her sleep. When he didn't answer, she sat up, conscious of the way her bra straps dug into her back and shoulders. If this little 'vacation' taught her anything, it was that paying the extra money for well-made products was actually worth it. "What time is it?"

"Noon," Heero muttered, not sparing her a glance. She could see from the patterns of light on his face that the screen was scrolling fowards in front of his eyes as quickly as it could go. Relena knew that he was somehow processing all the information in front of him, skimming through pages in a minute which would take her hours.

She rubbed the side of her face, attempting to discern whether there was a crease in it from the cotton pillowcases. "I'm supposed to be in a conference call with the ambassadors of Austrasia right now."

Heero ignored her.

"The universe can't go on hold just because someone is trying to kill me. I have a job to do, responsibilities. Do you know how many people depend on me to be a mediator during their conferences? If Wattmeter can't kill me, then I guess he may as well make me unreliable. It's a win/win situation for him."

"Wattmeter's in jail for attempted murder. There is a search for you underway as we speak."

"Then why are we still here?" Relena frowned at him. "Doesn't that mean that this is over?"

"No. The disc I stole contains a list of all the corrupt Preventors. It is more extensive than I thought it would be, including a few upper management."

"They wouldn't dare touch me," Relena sneered with more confidence than she felt.

Heero stared at her with his omniscient eyes. "Wattmeter tried. I wouldn't trust that it was a one-time event. For all we know every one of the people on this list might be gunning for you."

"Why?" Relena asked, thinking about the last assassination attempt. They came less frequently than a lot of people would think for someone in her position, but it wasn't impossible.

Heero shrugged slightly. "To prevent you from doing something. Or maybe you know something you shouldn't." He stood, shutting his computer and walking towards the bathroom. He hesitated at the door, one hand against the wall. "You'll be fine."

As far as promises for her safety went, it lacked a sense of comfort, but Relena didn't need Heero's assurances that he would get her through this. She waited until the shower started before jumping up from the bed and hurrying over to the chair he had been sitting in. She opened the computer, hoping he didn't have the equipment with him to put his usual level of security on this new computer. Instead, she found the spot on the power button where she had accidentally gotten nail polish on his computer last week. Frowning in confusion, Relena stared at the closed door to the bathroom and wondered how Heero had come across his own laptop. She knew he didn't have it on him right after the attack, especially since the motorcycle had gone off the bridge and the only thing which had survived that crash was the two of them.

Putting it down to Heero being Heero, Relena smiled as the familiar password screen flashed before her. She quickly typed in his first code, waiting for the computer to accept the first part of his sign-in. She had figured out how to bypass his system months ago, and she knew in the back of her mind that he had to know. There was no way she could have even turned his computer on without his knowledge, and Relena was pretty sure he had subtly guided her through the process so that she thought it had been her own skills which had cracked it. Quickly, she put in his second password, deliberately misspelling the word, backspacing, then entering the correct one. The page Heero had last been looking at filled the screen, and Relena scrolled down the list of names. She was curious to see who was on Wattmeter's payroll.

She recognized a few of the names. Her eyebrows winged up as she found one of her personal assistants receiving one of the highest bribes. Relena made a mental note to fire her. As she neared the end of the list, she was surprised to see Wattmeter's name in print. Remembering what Heero said about this going beyond one dirty polititian, she wondered who it was paying these bills. The running shower turned off in the bathroom, and Relena's heartbeat accelerated at the idea of being caught by Heero, but she didn't want to leave the list until she saw every name. Pressing the scroll down button, she kept her eye on the screen as she listened for any noises in the bathroom.

The list finished, and Relena stared at the last name in shock. She could feel bile rise from her stomach as it churned, and for the first time since escaping Wattmeter, she was terrified. Quickly, she shut the computer as quietly as she could and got back on the bed, her eyes still seeing the neat typing on the list. The last name still buzzed through her head. Heero made a slight noise in the bathroom, and she jumped. It couldn't be, her rational mind told her, but she had seen the name for herself. If it was true, she knew she was dead.

Heero Yuy was not her ally.

* * *

©RelenaFanel.july18.2007

Heero a baddie? OMGWTF! Please tell me what you think of this new development. Should Heero be evil, or should I give him a reason for being on that list? What do you think?


	9. Chapter 9

**Edge of the Chase**

_Chapter 9_

* * *

Last time on EotC: _ The list finished, and Relena stared at the last name in shock. She could feel bile rise from her stomach as it churned, and for the first time since escaping Wattmeter, she was terrified. Quickly, she shut the computer as quietly as she could and got back on the bed, her eyes still seeing the neat typing on the list. The last name still buzzed through her head. Heero made a slight noise in the bathroom, and she jumped. It couldn't be, her rational mind told her, but she had seen the name for herself. If it was true, she knew she was dead. _

_Heero Yuy was not her ally._

* * *

Heero entered the bedroom of the hotel with a towel tucked around his shower-dampened hips. His hair was flat against his head, dripping with water, and looked even longer than it had the night before. A strand curved around his cheek, and she ducked her head so she wouldn't have to look at him. She knew that he would assume it was modesty instead of alarm that had her looking away, and he wouldn't be thinking that there was a coiled snake of fear inside her, just waiting to strike. Relena had spent ten years of her life trusting Heero and she didn't know how to see him any other way, but she was learning that it wasn't impossible. Most of the time she looked at the things he could do and joked that she wouldn't want him as her enemy, but she never thought the day would come when she would think of him using all his elite skills against her. 

She TRUSTED him, dammit. Heero was the only one in her life she was sure of.

Now she just didn't know.

Relena kept her eyes glued to the hideously unoriginal flowered comforter over the bed, making sure not to allow her eyes to wander to his laptop guiltily. She made a demure image, the angelic blond staring down and away from the half naked man, but her hands were clenched tightly in the blanket, and it was a struggle to keep the worry and fear off her face. She didn't want to obsess about it, she really didn't, and she was sure Heero had some explanation for being on that list, but –

Well, it was just that he had been acting so strange since they left Wattmeter's. He didn't care about fingerprints, he had his own laptop, and just a bunch of other small things she'd been noticing that she hadn't though to really mean anything. Now, it made her reluctant to completely dismiss her fears.

"Have you seen my pants?" Heero asked, eyes on the floor as he stared at the spot he had left them. It was such a foolishly normal thing for him to say that it drew Relena's gaze to him. He was glaring at the floor, so perplexed by the idea that his pants weren't where he dropped them that he hadn't even thought to look at the chair where she draped them after tripping on her way to the bathroom the night before.

"They're on the chair." Her words were stiff, and if he noticed that she wasn't teasing him like she usually did in cases like this, he didn't say anything. Relena smiled, her cheeks feeling as if they were making a foreign expression. Her voice, however, sounded normal and gently amused when she said: "You're such a bachelor sometimes, Heero." In that moment she decided that even if it was difficult for her, she would pretend and she would act until she knew for sure whether Heero was a traitor. She also knew that no matter what happened, she would never be able to get the sight of his name on that screen out of her head.

Heero turned his back on her, rummaging through the bag of their purchases. His towel slipped lower on his hips as Relena eyed his back suspiciously; he paused for a second, glancing at his computer. She turned red and bolted for the bathroom, shutting the door quickly behind her as her heart pounded rapidly in her chest, and it wasn't all due to fear. She brought her hand up, not sure whether her nerves wanted it to clutch at her chest or cover her mouth. "Oh God," she muttered, leaning her head back against the wall. The mirror was still covered in condensation from Heero's shower, and the obscured girl in it looked exactly how she felt – as though there was a thick opaque film covering the truth from her. Heero was a dangerous man, she thought as she stepped into the shower herself. Did she have that much faith in him that she could still put her life in his hands?

"Do you think I should dye my hair?" She asked as she emerged from the bathroom. It had taken her fifteen minutes in the shower to calm down enough so that she could think of a question to ask that wasn't along the lines of _'are you evil now?'. _

Heero looked up at her from in front of his laptop. She almost lost her nerve as he slowly and deliberately shut the screen. Her heart rate accelerated again as he stood, eyes on her. She had to battle with her flight instincts as every sensible part of her screamed to run away. She had never been this scared of him, even when he had explicitly stated that he would kill her. "We need to leave," he told her, not answering the question.

Relena grabbed a pair of fresh underwear from the Walmart bag and shimmied into them under her towel. "How soon?" She asked, looking around for her cheap, torture device of a bra. Heero covertly looked out the window as though he expected someone to be waiting for them outside.

"Five at the most."

"Then help me find my bra," she told him, peering under the bed. Instead of a boxspring and bedframe, the floor had been built into a platform and a mattress thrown on top. Relena didn't think she had seen anything as gauche in her life. Heero raised an eyebrow at her request, but looked behind the chair like a good little soldier. Relena knew where it was, of course. She had accidentally broken the strap twenty minutes ago when she tried to take it off, and then in a pique of anger and desperation she had tried to flush it down the toilet. She needed a new one, but more importantly, she needed to learn how to fool Heero into-

"Is this it in the toilet?"

Darn the man! "Yeah, I think that's mine."

"How'd it get in there," Heero asked from the bathroom. Relena glanced around to corner, not sure if she wanted to keep an eye on him or if she just wanted to see his face. She had kind of hoped he'd be trying to pull it out, and discover like she did that one of the straps was stuck in the pipes. Instead, he was looking at her standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. If this was the way he interrogated suspects, Relena had been more intimidated by Duo's puppy.

"Ghetto gnomes." She maintained eye contact and raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for him even suggest she was lying. Instead he shook his head and brushed past her, opening the door to the hotel room. It wasn't until they were back in the lobby that Relena realized that they hadn't taken the same way as they came in. She wasn't sure, but she thought that at least one camera had picked up her image. Heero seemed as oblivious now as the time she had tried to seduce him wearing a pair of thigh-highs and a smile.

Instead of pointing this out to him, or even worrying about it, she filed it away under damning things he had done in the last fourteen hours. A chill went through her at how much evidence there was against him. "I'm hungry," she said instead. "Can we eat?"

Heero deviated off his path towards the parking lot and led her into a sandwich shop with a hand at the small of her back. Relena smiled at him, stepping away from his touch and towards the girl at the counter. She wasn't sure if it boded well for the sandwich she was about to eat that there was no one in line in front of her. She had always been of the opinion that if a restaurant wasn't busy around lunch time, then it probably sucked. A glimpse at the clock on the wall told her why. It was almost three in the afternoon. Her shower must have lasted longer than she realized.

"Hi-" Relena said with a friendly smile, glancing at the girl's nametag. "-Stephani. I'll take the Extreme Supreme, please." She'd give this restaurant credit though, that had to be one of the most boring names for a sandwich she had ever heard.

"Oh, the UBERWICH!" Stephani said with glee. "I love those things." She took one of the largest pieces of bread Relena had ever seen, cut it in half and toasted it. Then she spread butter, mayo, and mustard over the bread, slapping almost every conceivable topping available over it. Relena saw so much deli meat it would give Heero a fun for his money.

"Wow," she muttered in awe.

"Yeah. These things are like an orgasm for your tastebuds. You'll never have so much meat in your mouth."

They both glanced sideways at Heero.

If Heero could look disturbed, his face would look exactly as it did in that moment.

"Anything else?" The sandwich artist asked, rolling her creation up in waxed paper. It looked like a dismembered arm when she was finished.

"Two cans of Pepsi," Relena said, eyeing the double chocolate cookies in the dessert cabinet. "And a bottle of water," she added, remembering that Heero usually wasn't one for carbonated drinks. Of course, without his morning coffee, he might just drink one anyway. Stephani filled their order with a cheery smile and an "enjoy" as Relena thanked her and left Heero with the bill. By the time he joined her, she was already trying to wrap her mouth around the sandwich in order to take a bite which consisted of both pieces of bread. Heero stared at her without touching his half.

Relena smiled around the sandwich, viciously tearing off a piece. Heero averted his gaze and opened his can of soda.

"This is the best sandwich ever," Relena moaned. "When we aren't on the lam, we need to come back here."

"Shh," Heero hushed her, looking over to the sandwich girl to see if she heard Relena's careless comment.

"Oh, calm down and take a bite. For Mr. Monotonous, this thing is probably sensory heaven. You might overload." Relena smirked at him, using all her strength to smush the bread so she could eat.

Heero glared.

"Glad we could have this talk." Relena rolled her eyes.

"You wanna talk? I'll talk to you when you stop being irresponsible."

"Irresponsible?" Relena asked, reining in the urge to stick her tongue out at him.

"Childish," he continued, reading her mind.

"I'm behaving perfectly normally. Especially compared –" Relena broke off, not wanting to bring attention to the way he was acting lately. She didn't want him to know that she suspected him, but now that she thought of it, wouldn't he get suspicious if she stopped nagging him now? She also realized that they probably shouldn't be seen together in a restaurant so close to the hotel, especially since less than half an hour ago he had insisted they needed to leave immediately. Relena eyed him guardedly.

"You are not acting normally. You flushed your bra!"

"It deserved it! You've killed people who have caused me less pain than that thing. I'm pretty sure if I had to wear it for another day, I would be permanently disfigured."

Heero didn't even bother responding to her melodrama. Instead, he took a bite of his sandwich. He didn't seem to have the same mouth/sandwich ratio problem going on as she did.

"That's a good reason to be a gay man."

"What?"

"Oh, forget it. I can't do amusing banter with you." Relena gulped her Pepsi, almost shivering in pleasure as the cold, caffeinated beverage hit her taste buds. She exhaled, keeping her eyes closed. When she opened them again, Heero had devoured almost half his sandwich. With the caffeine and sugar in her system, she was starting to think she could do anything. Like pee in a very public washroom.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she said, getting up from her seat and giving Stephani a friendly fingerwave. She headed towards the restroom in the back and continued straight out the backdoor without glancing behind her to see if she was being followed.

Almost as soon as she evaded Heero, Relena realized it probably wasn't the smartest thing she had ever done. The words "run" and "braless" didn't really go well together. Plus there was the whole issue with Heero actually being one of the best people in the universe at tracking. She almost turned around in defeat and reentered the restaurant. Of course, if Heero Yuy was a synonym for superior assassin-like skills, then the name Relena Dorlian meant someone who wouldn't give up when faced with them.

©RelenaFanel.Aug17.2007

Review, please. What do you think about Relena running away from Heero? Do you think she can make it more than five feet? And what about Heero; what do you think about _his_ actions?


	10. Chapter 10

Edge of the Chase

Chapter 10

Though Relena had not given much thought to the idea of slipping away from Heero, it had been a common fantasy of hers over the years and she didn't have to give much thought to what the best course of action was. She rushed into the mall next door, running with her head down and darting behind as many larger vehicles as she could. The first thing she did upon entering the building was call a taxi to pick her up at the entrance on the other side of the shopping center in ten minutes. Next, she pulled her Visa out of her back pocket and slipped it into a debit machine. Nervous, Relena settled for mentally tapping her foot instead of showing agitation to the outside world. She had learned the skill during her many political delegations, but she knew that it would serve her well here, too.

People were more likely to notice a jumpy young lady at a cash machine than they were to see one acting normally.

After entering her PIN, she carefully looked over her shoulder to make sure Heero wasn't barreling down on her. She then relooked when she realized that Heero wouldn't barrel, he would sneak. Upon finding no one behind her, she got the largest cash advance on her card as was possible. Diverting him on that bra search had given her just enough time to slip it out of his wallet, but Relena knew that once Heero realized it was missing he would be able to track her easily if she had to use it again. Getting the necessary funds for her survival on had been the whole point of her detour into the mall. Heero knew she was in the area, so she didn't see why she shouldn't use that to the best of her advantage.

With any luck, he'd think she had already fled instead of circling back to where they started.

Once she pocketed her money, Relena waved to the hidden camera mounted on the ceiling and mouthed "bye Heero." Then she disappeared into the crowd. On her way through the mall, she grabbed a white cardigan off a sidewalk sale rack and quickly moved off-course to enter a beauty salon. She would like nothing better than to get a beautician give her an entire makeover so even her own mother wouldn't recognize her, but Relena thought that wouldn't fool Heero, even if she did have the time.

"I'm looking for a wig," Relena said, gesturing towards the display on a shelf above the cash. This time, she did look over her shoulder nervously. "Make it dark, and unflattering," she added. The woman looked startled. "If you have a security camera," Relena continued, "could you please make sure this purchase isn't picked up on it." She forced tears to her eyes. "My ex-boyfriend – he's not going to stop searching for me. I have to disappear."

"Oh, my dear," the cashier said kindly, "you need to go to the police."

"I have people who can help me," Relena smiled wanly. "If I can get to them without being spotted." Relena handed over five hundred of her hard-earned money. "I'm sorry, but he'll probably come in here and harass you. Try not to mention the wig if you can. If not, tell him I bought a blond one."

"Blond?" The woman gave her startled eyes again.

"Tell him I thought it was clever." Relena grabbed the bag and looked pointedly at the only camera she could see in the vicinity. She didn't see the point in hiding when she knew that someone would be sorting through the footage looking for her anyway, and they would be far better at picking up a person on a screen than she was at blending in.

Almost exactly ten minutes after entering the mall, Relena exited the other side. Her eyes slid back and forth looking for Heero, but she couldn't see him. Her taxi pulled up in front of her, and she entered it, making no attempt to disguise herself. This, too, could be traced easily.

"Airport please," she said with a friendly smile, hiding her bag from the driver's inquisitive gaze. In the few taxis she had ever been unfortunate enough to ride in, the system had always been automatic and computerized. She was slightly unnerved to find a fellow person in the car with her. As far as Relena had been aware, taxis only had drivers in the movies. She didn't know what the added witness meant to Heero's ability to find her. Either the driver would be a horrible observer, or he'd be able to give information to Heero that a robot might not be able to.

Relena was tense, sitting upright in the backseat with her spine no where near touching the squalid, linty material of the seat. She stayed like that until the vehicle continued moving out of the area without being stopped, and then she relaxed slightly. She wondered where Heero was, and what he thought of her walking off. Was he frantically searching for her? Did he think she was kidnapped? Or was he responding by calling up 'some people' and letting them know he had lost the target. She just couldn't take the pressure anymore. Sitting in that diner and staring at his intense blue eyes and the handsome face she had always thought of as honest, she couldn't continue lying to him about everything. She had thought it would be easy, especially in the face of his potential betrayal, but Heero was still Heero, and Relena still felt the same way about him as she always did.

Even though she was away from him, she still didn't know what to do. All her assumptions were turning out to be incorrect. Relena had thought it would be easier to be on her own, but instead it seemed a million times harder without him calling all of the shots. For a second, she considered going back for him – to him –but her pride prevented her. She had gotten away from him with moderate success, and she was damned if she would go skulking back just because she was frightened without him.

Instead, Relena decided, she would clear his name first, or prove his betrayal. Once she achieved that, then surely she would feel accomplished enough that pride wouldn't be an issue. It never even occurred to Relena as she hatched her plan that she was a hundred percent sure she would find him innocent. She had learned to be far too suspicious by nature and she couldn't turn it off.

The taxi pulled up outside the busy terminal, and she handed the driver the more of her hard-earned cash. Navigating between exhausted travelers who trailed luggage behind them with sluggish movements, and the impatient ones who pushed back in an attempt to get out the door and on with their lives after an extensive amount of time on-flight was far more difficult than Relena remembered it being. It had been a long time since she was in a crowd of tempered citizens without a guard attaché. If she wasn't flying out of a private airfield these days, she was always the first one on and off the plane.

She reveled in the humanity, even as she cursed the fool who ran over her foot with his wheeled suitcase.

Relena knew she had a plan because she had grown up with the idea that flying by the seat of your pants was not the way successful people got things done. However, she was reluctant to actually say what her plan was, since it was simplistic in its entirety. Relena's plan: run away and don't get caught. Her father would be proud. She also knew that she would have to contact someone on the inside to find out if Heero had gone darkside on her. At first, she had thought Une would be the ideal candidate, but even a planless Relena would have to realize that Une wouldn't be able to diverge that type of information to her, especially over the publicomm she would be forced to use. Relena then thought that Duo would be the next best contact, but she knew that Duo's loyalty was divided, and in the end he would be on Heero's side. Duo proclaimed himself Heero's best friend, and as such would probably try to talk to Heero about any suspicions she had before doing any real investigating. Relena didn't really blame him for that. She hoped her best friend would do the same for her.

Out of the people she trusted to both take her seriously and not overreact, only Trowa and Noin were left, and Noin was currently out of easy communication range. But could she trust Trowa? He was usually the one willing to go undercover in instances like this, and she couldn't be sure he didn't also have a stake in this Wattmeter business. She couldn't remember his name from the roster, but that didn't mean there weren't ties that didn't involve money, or perhaps he was even listed under a pseudonym.

In her speed-walking haste, Relena practically stumbled across the communication bank along the side wall on the way to the bathroom. The machines were universally equipped and had a wide-range of contact choices, including email, vidcomm and image blockers, as well as a small fax machine.

Trowa would know whether Heero was undercover or not, Relena decided, and he was the most likely to give her an honest answer without saying anything to the man in question. With a deep breath, Relena fit her credit card into the slot provided, wanting this call to be traceable and dialed the number from memory. She keyed in the code to have the image on her side blocked, but allowed for the possibility to see her contact depending on his personal settings.

Trowa's personal wrist unit rang, and then clicked to signify a transfer of numbers.

"Trowa's desk! He's out on a top priority mission. How may I help you?"

"You're in the habit of giving out that type of information?" Relena couldn't help but ask, glad the surprised look on her face hadn't been sent along with her words.

"Relena?" Duo questioned.

She nodded before remembering he couldn't see her like she saw him. "Yes."

"Holy shit! There is a code Alpha out on you right now. Wait just a second. Wufei! Wuf—."

"Shut up, you idiot," Relena hissed.

"Harsh language, 'jousan." Duo looked over his shoulder. "Don't worry. He's ignoring me. It might have something to do with the dancing hula girl I glued to his desk this morning."

"Duo!" Relena chided. "Concentrate for a moment. Is there anyone currently undercover with the Wattmeter group?"

"Yeah, and let me tell you, getting someone assigned in there was not a cakewalk. Getting those people to trust you is harder than a porn star's—" Duo trailed off.

"So Heero IS on assignment then?"

"Heero?" Duo exclaimed. "No -- Quatre."

"Quatre's the one undercover?"

"That's what I said."

Relena frowned. "I need you to listen carefully to me," she said, rushing on before he could get a word in. "There's a list of all the people on the payroll for this organization. Heero's name is on it, and his pay almost tripled the going Preventor salary."

"Heero doesn't need the money," Duo argued. "He's been rolling in dough since Yuy Security went public."

"Would you focus! Heero's name was on the list. If he's not on a mission, then he's a traitor."

"No WAY!" Duo practically reeled back in shock, and Relena was satisfied by the fact she wasn't the only one who reacted with disbelief.

"That's what I said. Is it possible that you just haven't been read in on this?"

"Yeah, of course," Duo said with a snap of his fingers and a point in her direction, jumping at the idea of Heero's innocence. "It's probably top secret and above my rank. Only—"

"What?"

"Why would we have needed Quatre?"

Relena sighed.

"I know you're worried. Let me speak to Heero and I'll clear this all up. I'm sure there's a rational explanation."

"There probably is, but Heero's not here."

"Don't give me that. I know the two of you are together. Who do you think has been supplying Heero with his laptop and money?"

Well, that explained one of her questions. Relena took a deep breath. "I left him."

"You WHAT!" Duo leaned forward into the vidcomm screen. "How are we supposed to keep tabs on him if we don't know where he is?"

"He's probably right behind me," Relena muttered with dark humour. "Look, you don't know how suspicious he's been acting. I'm better off on my own, even if it's just so I don't kill myself with suspicion."

"I bet Heero's going crazy."

"If Heero betrayed me, he is crazy," Relena snarled. "I should have never hacked into his computer."

"Hold the Boat!" Duo yelled. "There is no way you hacked his state-of-the-art passwords."

"Beyond your skill level?" she asked nastily, and then repented. "You know Heero. I'm pretty sure he let me figure them out. It's easier for him to let me look at his case files instead of telling me, sometimes. You know that even though I have been sworn into top-level clearance, there is always something someone doesn't want me to know."

"This is stupid. Heero isn't a spy."

"I don't know about that," Relena replied, staring at the numbers of the growing length of time she had been on the phone. Talking with Duo was never a simple matter of explaining things. She glanced over her shoulder with worry. "Are you in town?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember Amanda Day? One of my personal assistants?"

"The cute blond?"

"The redhead."

"Oh, she's okay too."

Relena exhaled, trying not to show her impatience. "She was on the list. Someone should see if she knows anything which will exonerate Heero."

"I'll find her."

Relena deliberately didn't mention that she was probably still at the hotel her political contingent was spending the weekend at. "I'll be in touch." Before Duo could protest Relena hung up the phone, slipping her hood over her head as she stepped out of the privacy booth. She casually walked over to one of the teller machines and purchased a one-way shuttle ticket to the capital city of the Sank kingdom with her credit card. She looked directly at the security camera as she entered the female washroom, smiling slightly to herself.

©RelenaFanel.Nov5.2007

Yay. An update. How do you think Relena's doing so far?


	11. Chapter 11

**Edge of the Chase**

_Chapter 11_

* * *

Relena exited the bathroom with her hood still firmly covering her head. She sent another glance towards the camera, allowing it to see her face, and then lost herself in a crowd of people coming off two consecutively arriving shuttles. She had first timed this part of the plan assuming she would be talking with Trowa, and Duo's loquaciousness almost put her behind schedule. Lost in the crowd, she waited until reaching the blind spot in the security cameras Heero had showed her when they arrived from off-planet the day before, and then she removed the hooded sweater quickly, dropping it in the garbage. The brunette in the white camisole cut a very different image than the blond in the large pullover, and she walked back on screen with confidence that she was disguised the best she could. In the crowd, she could only hope her familiar jeans and sneakers weren't visible.

Like everything else she had done, she knew it would only buy her a few minutes at most before someone's sharp eyes noticed that the woman with brown hair seemed to appear out of thin air. Before talking to Duo, she had thought this possible reprieve would give her added moments to get away from Heero, but now she was just hoping that it kept the padding of separation the same. In the beginning Relena had no doubt that Heero would be right on her tail, but now that she had successfully been away from him for more than an hour, she was beginning to wonder if he had even given chase.

It would be just her luck if she had gone through all this trouble for nothing – on the same scale as the Antarctic fiasco where she had travelled all that way to support Heero, only to find his opponent was her own brother. Relena exited the airport with a group of business people all heading towards the airport metro. She ignored the entrance into the subway, instead focusing her attention on a slightly worn and dingy bus well off the cameras.

Glancing behind her nervously, she bolted up the step and onto the white and green transport bus which would take her back into the city. "Ticket," the electronic voice reminded her. Relena fed the machine some of the cash she had on her. It whirred as it tried to take the bill, making unhealthy grinding sounds. Relena wasn't sure if that was normal, and she hoped it hadn't just destroyed one of her remaining hundred dollar bills. These days, no one dealt in cash except for those who were suspicious of big brother watching each credit transfer, whether they be hiding from the authorities or simply paranoid. She wasn't sure which category she fit into yet. "Thank you," the metallic voice said, allowing the door into the bus to open with a hiss, but not returning any of her money. She sent the machine a hostile glare as she entered through the automatic doors and took a seat on the worn padded seats of the half-full bus.

Relena glanced around her again, adjusting her shirt but deliberately not checking her wig, and mentally reminding herself not to get cocky. Just because she had expected to see him behind her at least once already did not mean Heero wasn't there. She wished she had a better disguise than changing her hair color and shirt. Heero was a highly trained soldier, trained to see through even the most complex, gender changed camouflage in the blink of an eye. She had seen him sort out the similarities in photos of suspects sooner than a face recognition program, and here she was trying to out maneuver him with a wig. It made her feel foolish.

In fact, if Heero was also disguised, she would never recognize him in time. He could be sitting right beside her and she wouldn't even notice. Relena glanced around, looking nervously at the other occupants of the bus. Was he the old woman two rows forward giving her the evil eye? Was he the cyberpunk drawing on his roll-R-ockets?

As Relena sat, doing her best to slouch in a way that was completely against her well-postured character, she realized that remaining idle did not help her mission. When she was in motion, she was constantly thinking one step ahead, but these two times when she was in transit and had to sit and wait as a passenger in a moving vehicle made her worry and it made her more paranoid. Nervousness was an unattractive look on her.

When the bus reached her stop, however, she was pleased to find it was worth the exorbitant fee to take. She disembarked carefully, trying to give a natural swing and hitch to her stride without overdoing it, or drawing unwanted male attention to her bottom. The bus moved away from the curb behind her, and she glanced upward at the tall metal hotel above her. It had seemed far more elegant upon her arrival the afternoon before, with the burning sun reflecting a fiery hue of orange against the glass front. Today, it reflected the dreary grey clouds, making her see industrial steel instead of gold. Part of the difference probably had to do with the fact that yesterday she had stepped into the softly carpeted lobby knowing that the political work she had on her weekend itinerary was sparse, most of it fun in nature, and that she would likely be able to catch a few necessary moments to relax – something which was an infrequent treat in her line of work. Today, she stepped into the hotel with the knowledge that at least one of the guests who arrived with her yesterday had betrayed her, and to find out whether another one was innocent, she was going to have to go against her pacifist ideals again.

She moved towards the elevators at the back of the lobby with confidence, knowing that the employees behind the desk or watching the security feed did not know the face of every guest. They were trained to look for people acting strangely and to remove those who obviously were not staying at the hotel or could possibly disrupt the high-paying guests. One girl who looked like she belonged and knew where she was going was not going to be noticed. As she stood waiting for an elevator, a middle aged man joined her, staring at his watch and then at the decreasing floor numbers of the elevator which would likely reach them first with a disapproving glare.

Heero? Relena wondered, trying to be subtle about studying him to find out. The elevator dinged open, and the man chivalrously gestured for her to enter before him. Relena softly smiled her thanks, hesitating for a moment as she wondered which floor to press. She remembered that all her employees were on the twentieth floor, but she didn't know whether she should go to the twenty-first and walk down a flight of stairs or just take the elevator directly. Relena pressed the 20 button, knowing that sneaking would bring more attention to herself than being direct. She was sure the hotel was running on high security since her disappearance, just like she was confident that the Preventors now had her people under constant guard.

"Did you hear that that princess was staying here before she was kidnapped?" the man asked conversationally.

"Really?" Relena responded, trying not to wince at being called a princess instead of a politician. She had been instrumental in achieving peace during the wars a decade before, and since then she had helped negotiate for the continuation of harmony among the Universal Nations, and yet all she was remembered for was being born to one of the last remaining sovereigns on earth. At least, Relena mused, he hadn't called her Queen.

"Yeah, poor girl. Her brother is offering millions for her safe return. They say in these kidnap cases that the victim isn't found within the first twenty-four hours—"

"Tragic," Relena agreed. "She seemed a lot nicer than all those celebrities you usually see on television." The elevator doors opened to her floor. "Have a nice day," she called out, walking into the hallway. The officer posted on guard was young and barely looked up from his post as she turned down the hallway. Relena made a mental note to fire him. She used to be softer and more understanding to the slipups of the protection officers when Heero tried to dismiss them for inconsequential mistakes, but she was beginning to see Heero's line of reasoning. She wondered if this guard was merely incompetent, or if his name was on the list.

She bypassed the room she was supposed to stay in, the bed unslept in by her, but she was sure that it didn't miss her. It was probably grateful for a night off. A police seal was over the lock, restricting access to the room, and Relena knew from experience that it wouldn't deter those most ambitious to gain entry. It was the next room over she stopped at, knocking rapidly and urgently. The rooms were soundproofed, so she couldn't hear footsteps approaching the door, but she could hear the locks disengaging.

"May I help you? I've been warned against speaking to the press."

Relena realized she had made her first mistake. She had forgotten about her 'clever' disguise, and now that she was about to admit her real identity, the camouflage would be ruined. "Amanda! I'm so scared. They're after me." Relena reached out, clinging to the traitorous bitch as though her life depended on it.

"Miss Dorlian?"

Relena started to sob on the lapel of her assistant's shirt, and most the tears weren't because she knew how the woman felt about stains on silk.

"Shh." Amanda said, awkwardly patting Relena on the back. "Why don't you come in and sit down?"

Relena nodded, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "Someone's trying to kill me. I lost my security guard and no one knows where I am." Relena paused for effect, grabbing a tissue from the open box on the nightstand. "Could you call the Preventors? They'll know what to do."

"Of course," the other woman said kindly, sitting down and pressing a button on her wrist communicator. "Just give me a moment. Hello? Yes, this is Amanda Day. I have Miss Dorlian with me in my hotel room. Yes, she is safe. She's asking for Preventor protection. Yes. Yes, I'll tell her." Amanda looked up. "They're sending someone right up."

"Really?" Relena asked, suddenly changing her tone to skepticism, standing up and looming over her assistant. "Who is? The Preventors? Or whoever it is you work for?"

"What are you—?" Amanda questioned, breaking eye contact with a sideways shift.

"You look nervous, Amanda," Relena pointed out. "Do you have something to hide?"

"No."

"I've seen the list," Relena said, noticing as Amanda's eyes widened. "Yes, that list. I saw your name. I saw how much you get paid."

The redhead moved, shifting forward to stand.

"Sit down!" Relena forced, pushing her back into the seat with a move which was a lot more forceful than usually associated with the pacifist politician.

"Or you'll what? Talk me to death?" Amanda screeched. "You lose the ability to be intimidating when you refuse to see the benefits of the dirtier side of life."

"No," Relena said, leaning forward and crowding the woman back into her seat. "I see peace as the only option on a wide scale. I live cleanly because any discrepancies between my daily habits and my ideals would make me seem like a hypocrite. That doesn't mean I'm a pushover and it doesn't mean I will run away from a confrontation."

"You won't touch me," the turncoat insisted, standing and pushing Relena backwards.

"She won't," Duo said, his Preventor issued stun gun clasped in one hand, aimed at the redhead, "but I don't hesitate."

"It's about time you got here," Relena said in a relieved half-sigh. "I didn't know how long I could hold her off."

"Well, excuse me. I'm sorry I wasn't on time for amateur hour at Club Relena. Next time I'll make a reservation." Duo moved forward, cuffing Amanda's hands behind her back with the electronic tag-cuffs, and handing her over to the group of officers gathered behind him. "Amanda Day. You are under arrest for treason to the United Alliance, conspiracy for murder, and whatever else I can stick on you by the time we book your sorry, but well-toned ass in jail."

Relena crossed her arms over her chest. "Don't flirt with the criminal."

"And you don't try to take matters into your own hands. Good job getting a confession, but I swear all I could think of was how badly Heero was going to hurt me if the two of you got into a slap-fight."

"Duo," Relena reminded gently. "I don't slap. Anymore. The urge has been trained out of me."

"Well, I doubt any of those simulated fights had a hundred and sixteen pound female with talons for nails going for your eyes. I've seen even the most hardened soldiers resort to chick-fights."

"Personal experience?" Relena stepped aside as a group of people with field kits entered the room.

"I like to think of it as fighting dirty," Duo nodded to one of the newcomers. "The crime scene sweepers are going to sweep the place. If there is anything that implicated your former assistant in here, they'll find it."

"She made a phone call on her wrist unit right before you arrived," Relena said, addressing her sentence to the man Duo had identified as in charge of the scene. Relena turned back to Duo. "I goaded her into it, saying I needed protection from the Preventors. I'm not sure if she actually contacted you, or if she called someone who is in with her."

Duo nodded, turning to one of the officers with him. "If anyone shows up who wasn't on the initial taskforce, detain them for questioning. It's easier to apologize than it is to face the consequences of losing a suspect." He turned back towards her. "Let's go."

"Duo," Relena hedged, eyes flicking towards the door.

"I know that look," Duo said. "Forget about it. You wanted me to back you up on this, or you never would have led me here. I want you alive. Quid pro quo."

"I wasn't going to run," Relena lied.

"I'm keeping an eye on you anyway." Duo's hand was light against her back as he ushered her from the room, once they were around the officers he had backing him up, he leaned forward, ensuring that his next words were for her ears only. "Heero has not checked in since this morning. I want you with me when we interrogate the prisoner, but I have to know that you'll allow me to call the shots. The methods I use might not be to your liking."

"No, I won't stand by as you torture someone," Relena said slowly, realizing that if she was in on the interrogation, she'd need to go to the interview room in the local Preventor headquarters. She could see how he tricked her through flattery and mention of Heero.

"Fair enough," Duo grinned, leading her onto the elevator.

"When we get back to the Preventor base, promise me you won't trust any of your coworkers with my life. I saw a lot of names on that list that looked familiar, and I'm sure some of them were even your superiors. If I can't trust Heero, I can't trust anyone."

"No can do, 'jousan. You see," Duo explained, stepping off the elevator on the third floor, "I called in a few favours. We aren't going back to base."

"You can't have a sanctioned interrogation anywhere but Preventor owned property." Relena pointed out.

"I know the rules," Duo said with a smile. "I also can't have a sanctioned interrogation that mentions Heero as a suspect or he'll have to be officially taken off duty and it will leave a permanent black smear on his record. That's why this unsanctioned." Duo held the door opened for her to enter first. Relena bulked, froze between her instincts to do what was right and her instinct to uphold the law.

"For the record, I really hate this."

"For the record, I do too. But since this entire thing is off record, how do you feel about it?" Duo asked, looking at her intently.

"Let's go find out."

©RelenaFanel.Dec14.2007


	12. Chapter 12

**Edge of the Chase**

_Chapter 12_

* * *

_Summary: After almost being murdered at the Wattmeter estate, Relena and Heero had been on the run for approximately seventeen hours, during that time Relena found proof that Heero was actually on the payroll of her enemies'. Not knowing what to do, she slipped away from Heero's protection/surveillance, attempting to clear his name as well as solve the mystery surrounding the political intrigue of the situation. Relena arranged for Duo to meet her as she attempted a confrontation with her personal assistant Amanda Day, and the interrogation is about to begin…_

* * *

Relena had not hired Amanda for her recommendations, her academic history, or even her efficient looks, but because she was part of a minority which would appeal to the Foreign Minister's public relations. She realized now that it was a mistake to hire someone from one of the countries she was trying to aid in a position so close to her and allow them access to most of the office's secrets. What she knew wasn't a mistake was the fact that this woman had passed the Preventor's diligent vetting process. At least she could be sure of one point: Heero was not part of it. At the time he had been deep undercover in a completely unrelated area. She could remember that, specifically, because he had come back with a broken collarbone, took one look at Amanda and pronounced "don't trust your new secretary."

She had said, "they're called personal assistants in this century. And if it was up to you, I wouldn't trust anyone. What happened to your shoulder?"

That had been the end of that conversation. She knew better than to ask a personal question of him deeper than 'what do you want on your pizza?', especially when he had just got back from six months of being someone other than Heero Yuy. She used to joke that it took him a few days to reacclimatize himself with the old character he played after being someone new for so long, but now it was looking like something closer to the truth than she had assumed. What if he had found another life that suited him more?

Relena entered the bedroom before Duo, barely faltering at the sight of her secretary tied to a metal chair that obviously didn't belong in the room. Her principles were telling her to demand Amanda be released immediately, but she was far too tired to do more than give Duo a warning look, even as she felt her strict morals flushing down the toilet and spiraling out of sight.

Duo set up a small camera facing their suspect, setting it up to record body heat and heart rate as well as the surface image. She had seen the device a few times before, and it always surprised her that such a small machine could be both a polygraph and a video recorder. She didn't know why, as she'd seen bombs the size of a fingernail, but sometimes her expectations of technology worked like that. She was sure the common public had even more misconceptions than she did.

"I am recording our conversation," Duo said, switching on the camera. "You are Amanda Rachel Day, born April 26th, 174 AC on the L3 colony, is that correct?" When she didn't answer, Duo continued. "It doesn't matter; we have a DNA print confirming that the suspect is Amanda Rachel Day. Who do you work for?"

"Foreign Minister Relena Dorlian."

"Wrong answer," Duo told her. "Who else do you work for?"

"No one," Amanda answered.

Duo looked at the image read-out. "You're lying. Do you want to try this again?"

"No. I want my lawyer."

"You want your lawyer?" Duo asked, turning to Relena and nodding his head towards the woman bound in the chair. "Did'ya hear that? She wants her lawyer," he jeered. "I'm sorry to inform you, darlin', but I'd only be obligated to allow you legal representation if this were a real interrogation. What you don't seem to get is that all this is a conversation between the two of us."

Relena felt sick.

"If that were true," Amanda said with a taunt, "goodie, goodie over there wouldn't be here. She doesn't get caught up in grey-area politics."

"You'd be surprised," Duo said mysteriously, looking at Relena. "But she's not here to ask questions, that's my job. She's here to make sure I don't overstep my bounds. Our suspect turning up dead wouldn't go over too well at the precinct. Everyone knows that Relena wouldn't stand around and watch someone being tortured, and that works to my advantage." Duo leaned closer. "If I was you, I'd thank her before she decides you aren't worth her protection. Now, who do you work for?"

Rachel's eyes betrayed her fright for one second, before she schooled her expression. "I don't know. I just get paid to pass information on."

"Who pays you? Wattmeter?"

"That little puissant?" Amanda asked with a smirk. "That man isn't any better than a figurehead to promote our ideals to the public."

"Your ideals?" Duo asked. "Come on Amanda, every group has a name. What do you call yourselves?"

"Fuck you."

"That's very original," Duo congratulated. "No wonder you need a man like Wattmeter to bring up your image. I know you're a member of W.A.R. War Against Relena. That's pretty damn personal, don't you think? I've heard of anti-peace groups called things like People Against Pacifism, but to target one individual is extreme."

"We're War Against Referendum Proposal 3.d."

"That's W.A.R.P.3.D.," Duo pointed out with a dry chuckle, when he didn't elicit so much of a smile for his sense of humour, he continued speaking. "Besides the fact they need to fire their acronymist, what can you tell me about the higher-ups of this group."

"Nothing," Amanda said.

"Nothing? And here I thought we were making headway."

Amanda sighed. "I want to make a deal. I'll tell you everything I know, and in exchange I want to be exonerated and given protection."

"We don't make deals—" Duo responded.

"We haven't charged you yet, so we can't exonerate you, but what we can do is set you up in a house somewhere out of the way, give you a new identity, and keep an eye on your every movement. You'll be free to live out the rest of your life out of a jail." Relena glared back at Duo as he gave her dramatic gestures to stop talking.

"But under constant surveillance," Amanda mused.

"Think of it as a security measure to make sure you don't try to join any other terrorist groups."

Amanda nodded, her thoughtful expression turning into a cocky grin. "I knew I could count on you to be soft hearted." She turned and address Duo, "but that doesn't mean I won't tell you what you want. Bees and honey and all that. I don't know much about the organization. I was recruited from the bottom, and my job was to pass on intel about Relena to my handler, who would in turn pass it up the chain. I know a few other personal assistants who have the same job as I do, as well as one or two other Preventors."

"How do you know them?" Duo questioned, leaning back against the wall so he could keep one eye on the readout from the polygraph, and the rest of his attention on the suspect.

"During this year's Peace Accord, we were all given this kit with invisible ink and contact lenses. We were told to put our thumb print on our identification card using the ink, and to wear the contacts in order to see who we should be sharing information with."

"What information?" Duo moved away from the wall quickly, tapping buttons on his wrist-unit.

Amanda shrugged. "I don't know. He told me that I wasn't to share anything I know with anyone, though believe me, people tried. I knew all the details about your secret speech," she told Relena. "You'd think someone would want to know. I figured at the time he didn't want me to tell because he wanted all the glory to himself."

"Who is he?"

"Erik Styven, the man who recruited me." Amanda's coral-red lips turned up in a smirk. "I think the two of you know him as Heero Yuy."

Relena physically jerked, turning to look at Duo with horrified eyes. Duo's reaction was more concerned, and his hand hovered uncertainly over the off button to the recording device. Finally, after an obvious internal debate, he left it on.

"Imagine my surprise," Amanda continued, "that when I was finally placed in my cover that the man who was so passionate against the foreign minister's policies turned out to be one of her most trusted 'friends'."

"Get her out of here," Relena said quietly to Duo, completely missing the smug look Amanda shot her.

"I'm not finished," Duo argued, but he was reluctant to ask any further questions. The two of them looked at Amanda. "I'll bring her down to headquarters. Maybe one of the guys will have more stomach for this than I do."

"Keep her away from everyone you don't trust. Even if you have to go back on my promise for a few weeks. But Duo, I expect for you to keep word eventually and let her go." Relena wanted to warn him not to let her brother near the investigation, knowing that Milliardo would automatically believe whatever implications Amanda threw at him, and would do everything in his power to bring Heero down for fun. Relena kept her tongue, knowing that Duo was close enough to being family that he would understand without being told. When it came right down to it, she and Duo were Heero's best bet.

"Let's get her out of here," Duo said finally with a sigh, putting the small recording device in his pocket as he knocked on the bedroom door. Three lower-level Preventers came in the room, prepared to transfer the suspect.

Relena wondered how Duo managed to get so many people to turn the other way for him; he wasn't the type of man you automatically assumed would garner respect, and yet he had it in spades. As she was walking out the door behind the three men hauling Amanda between them, intent on making sure she didn't 'accidentally' trip or other such brutality, Duo looped his arm through hers.

"We'll take the next elevator," he told the senior officer, deliberately hanging back. "That wasn't too bad, was it? I didn't even have to hit her."

"I'm not foolish, Duo. I might believe that war does not beget peace, but I'm also aware of that grey area in the maintenance of a peaceful state that doesn't really fit into my ideals. I know it's there, but I hope to never have to see it in its entirety."

"That's strange," Duo mused, his face serious. "I never expected a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy coming from you."

"Did you think that Une was acting without the government's knowledge? Especially when she developed Operation Serenity and started sending you boys on black ops?"

Duo's eyes widened, looking around the hotel hallway for possible listeners. "I didn't know you knew about that."

Relena smiled sadly. "Officially, I don't."

"But?"

"Where do you think some of your inside information comes from?" Relena asked him as the elevator doors sprung open. Duo was tense as they parted, ready to draw his weapon, but the elevator was clear. "Now that I think of it," Relena said, getting into the box, "where do you think the funding is coming from? It's all off the books."

"You?" Duo asked, eyebrows winged up. "I was under the impression most of your funds are tied in with your job and various peace organizations.

"No, Heero."

Duo fell silent, fingering his braid as they both stood still while the elevator descended to the basement. "That's worrying."

"Hmm," Relena agreed. "He also invested in my reelection. He's making more money than all of us combined with his security system."

"Oh DAMN," Duo exclaimed sharply. "I hadn't thought of that. He programmed practically 80 of the governmental and upper class security systems when Yuy Security went on the market. None of us thought to question the fact that one man held the key to all that, because it was HEERO."

"I know," Relena said quietly. The elevator doors opened, the Preventor car idling in wait for them.

"You'll have to go without me, boys." Duo said with regret, leaning over to speak into the window of the vehicle. "I have to make sure Ms. Dorlian is safe."

The car moved away with ease. Relena waited until it was a few car spans away before continuing. "We both know he has his DNA coded in as a safety precaution. Just like we both know the real reason was so you guys could have an easier time breaking and entering on missions."

Duo chewed on his bottom lip. "Did we just hand the universe over to --." He started, tackling her to the ground as a large explosion rocked the air and searing heat washing over Relena's body. Her body jarred as it impacted on the pavement, knocking the wind out of her as Duo slammed on top of her a fraction of a second later. The noise was deafening, and Duo was screaming into his communicator but she couldn't tell what he was saying. Relena's body ached as she gasped for breath. Slowly, she looked beneath the car she was lying next to, her gaze able to travel in a tunnel beneath vehicles. Something burned just within her line of sight.

"It's our car," Duo was yelling into his wrist unit, jumping to his feet and pacing a few steps towards the burning wreck. "Car N456J just exploded, three Preventors and a witness inside. I am attempting visual confirmation."

Relena could hear the dampened sound of sirens from where she laid on the ground. Her ears were blocked like she was underwater and as she stumbled to her feet, the world swayed. She thought she might have hit her head against something – possibly Duo's hard head, or if she was lucky the pavement – on her way down. Wordlessly, she watched as the metal shell, all that remained of the vehicle, burned, the metal twisting in the heat. There was a small crater in the pavement, as if an asteroid had hit earth. "Was it a missile?" she asked, her question sounding far away to her ears, but she was sure she was screaming.

"Visual confirmation confirmed," Duo was saying. "Possible missile attack. Get bomb squad in here."

She stumbled forward, catching herself against Duo's arm. "Survivors?"

Duo shook his head. "Get the crime scene sweepers down here," he spoke into his communicator then hung up. He turned, grabbing both her arms to keep her steady and looked into her eyes in a medical observational manner. "Are you alright?"

Relena gave a quick nod, her sight swimming with the sharp movement of her head. She hid it and smiled weakly at him. "I'm fine," she promised.

Duo looked like he wanted to argue, but he let it go. "There isn't much we can do at this point," he informed her. "We'll have to wait until the scene is processed."

"It was deliberate, wasn't it?" Relena asked, watching as the fire quickly died with nothing else to burn. Cars didn't explode frequently these days, due to the lack of combustible fuels, and she hadn't quite seen something as horrifying since the war. There were live people in there, her mind screamed at her. Or they had been alive, moments ago.

"Looks that way," Duo agreed.

"Do you think—" Relena started, pausing for a moment to gather her thoughts. "—this was targeted?"

"I think someone was trying to keep Amanda from talking."

"Someone," Relena mused, the words flowing from her mouth. "Like W.A.R. or—" she trailed off, a horrified expression crossing her face.

"No!" Duo said sharply and automatically at her implication. "Heero wouldn't do this."

Relena stared at the wreckage and wondered if it was time to stop protecting him and take the blinders off. People were dead, and it didn't seem like a game anymore. "I think he has the ability to," she responded neutrally.

"Yeah," Duo said with annoyance, "but I also have the ability to snap your neck where we stand, but that doesn't mean I'm going to."

"With a little effort," Relena pointed out, "I could probably snap your neck too. This is on a larger scale. The people who have access to equipment like this, and the accuracy to hit a single moving target narrows the list considerably."

"Not really," Duo argued. "A lot of former soldiers were trained to do this kind of thing. We're looking at thousands of people. Preventors is made up of officers like that." He paused, realization causing his face to go blank. "Even if it isn't Heero, it's still not looking good."

"No, it's not." Relena frowned, the smell of smoke making her nauseated. She knew that someone of Heero's skill could have programmed that explosion from anywhere, but even people with little knowledge could have managed it with the right equipment. She stared suspiciously at the growing crowd, wondering if any of them were checking up on their handiwork. "I was supposed to be in that car, wasn't I?"

"I doubt they were aiming for you," Duo told her, unconvincingly as he drew her back deeper into the garage. "I was supposed to be in it as well. We're both just fortunate. I guess you could say Heero saved us."

"Could you? I wonder if you would also say it wasn't an accident we were spared."

"Relena—"

"No," Relena said, pulling away from him. "I know it in here that Heero wasn't behind this," she placed her hand over her heart, not aware that with the tears welling in her eyes she looked like an emotional woman in love. "But," she said making a fist with the same hand, "it's difficult not to wonder. Does he hate me that much? I WAS supposed to be in that car."

Duo jerked in shock. "Hate you? Heero doesn't hate you."

"Don't you get it," Relena questioned, leaning against the front bumper of a parked car. "He spends half his year undercover in places where I'm the enemy. How can he convince them without convincing himself?"

"Ahhh," Duo said sagely. "That's what this is about. Amanda got under your skin with that little comment of hers." Duo crouched in front of her, taking her hand in his for comfort and to emphasize his sincerity. "Heero doesn't hate you because he knows you. Why do you think he comes back from his missions, and you're the only one he visits? He needs you to keep him grounded. You forget that I've been on these missions myself, and I don't come out of them thinking you're my enemy, and if my opinion has been swayed I just have to spend five minutes in your company again before I remember who you are and why I'm on the side I am. Heero's far more driven than I am for the cause, and he wears his emotions on his sleeve."

Relena snorted softly, and then sniffed.

"It's true," Duo defended himself. "If he hated you, you'd know."

"I don't know. You still haven't caught on." Relena joked, offering him a watery smile and wiping tears from her eyes. It was from the heavy smoke on the air, she told herself, and not because she had lost faith in the man she loved for a minute.

"That's my girl," Duo exclaimed, patting her hand. He moved away from her, looking over at the twisted wreck. Professionals with the official Preventor jacket were arriving, some of them needed at the scene and others drawn by the death of their colleagues. Relena knew that the entire group would suddenly take more interest in solving this new terrorist threat, banding together now that there was a death of three of their own. It didn't look promising for keeping Heero's possible involvement a secret.

But then again, the only people left who knew about it were her and Duo.

"I have to go take care of this," Duo said, as the ranking officer on the scene. "But listen, we have the hotel room upstairs booked for the rest of the evening, so why don't I meet you there in an hour—"

"Duo!" Relena interrupted, giving him a scandalized expression.

"No, no," he said sheepishly. "You just look tired and I don't want you running around on your own again."

Relena pretended to give his offer consideration. "Ok," she said finally.

Duo gave her a grateful smile and she immediately felt guilty for deceiving him. Relena waited until he was immersed in work before she made her way over to the periphery of the scene. She was a familiar enough face that none of the Preventors questioned her presence, though she was sure most of them were aware she was currently categorized as missing. They would assume that Duo had found her, and this bomb was a result of her disappearance. Relena used her ability to belong to sidle up to one of the vehicles at the scene and pick up a discarded Preventor jacket and cap, sliding them on over her clothing. Once again, there was nothing she could do about her pants and shoes, and Heero had always taught her to look there first when following a suspect. Most people didn't think to change their footwear.

No one questioned the cop walking away from the crime scene, and once she was on street-level, Relena easily blended in with the crowd. Those who noticed her perceived status gave her deference on the sidewalk, walking around her instead of making her shift to the side for them. Respect was automatically given by the people in this middle-class neighbourhood to the police, though she knew if she could read their minds, not all of them would be thinking good thoughts about the Preventors.

Relena wasn't certain where it was she was going, exactly, but she felt it was time for her to move on. There was something about the way Duo wanted her to stay with him that made her think he had called Heero to let him know where she was. Part of Relena couldn't reconcile the concerned image Duo was presenting her with an action such as that, but a greater part of her recognized the brothership between all of the gundam pilots. Sometimes she thought they considered her part of their subgroup, as someone 'in the know', and other times she recognized that she didn't belong, even on the outside. She just wasn't sure which instance this was.

Five minutes later Relena stood at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, and realized that she was completely and woefully out of her depth and without a plan. She looked back towards the hotel, able to see the top of the tall building from where she was standing. The sun reflected off the glass, blinding her with the intense light. Wincing, Relena looked away, knowing that she couldn't go back now, even if she was starting to think staying with Duo was her best bet. There was just something about relying on the protection of someone else that struck her as trading one situation for another one with the same underlying issues. The crowd of working business people in their powersuits surged around her, each anxious to get home after a long day at the office. It was as she was turning around to walk forward with the crowd that she noticed the man watching her from across the street.

Her heart kicked in fear as her mind screamed for her to run. It's not Heero, she realized, even as she continued turning in an attempt not to show her reaction. He was too short and too thin, two things that even the most detailed disguises couldn't replicate. Someone could change their face, give themselves extra weight, height, and even a gender change, but they couldn't become thinner in only a few hours, and shorter was an impossibility. Relena realized that Heero chasing her was still a game in her mind, and she never really believed he would harm her when he caught her, but now that there was someone else in the equation, she feared for her safety. Relena's heart raced as she struggled against her instincts to bolt. It was equally as difficult not to glance behind her to make sure that whoever it was who was watching her was still there. She didn't want to panic just because someone happened to be looking in her direction, or even checking out her ass from across the street.

The crush of people tapered down a flight of cement stairs, and she followed them without any outward hesitation. Keep walking normally, her brain screamed at her, even as she realized the dangers of getting cornered like a small animal in a subway station. The voice in her head sounded remarkably like Heero's, and she knew it was because of all the emergency drills he had forced her to remember over the years.

"In case of fire," he would say, "exit through this door. Do not hesitate. Do not worry about the safety of others." He had similar lists for 'in case of terrorist attack', 'in case of your guard's death', and 'in case of paparazzi' to name a few. Relena used to respond 'in case of paranoia, see a psychiatrist.' It could, very possibly be reasons such as that which caused Heero to turn on her.

Finally making it down the stairs, Relena wondered which way she should turn. It would be easy to just grab a train and get off at the next stop, but she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't be followed and the idea of getting even more lost didn't appeal to her. She could also duck herself into some dark corner and hope that anyone looking for her passed her by, but that was equally as chancy as there was a possibility that he would notice the blond woman looking out of place amid the squalor of the homeless people escaping the elements in the covering of the underground station.

She ducked towards the security sensors, wondering if she could sneak her way into the inner platform where there were more people, more lights, and more places to hide. As she approached, they stubbornly stayed red, and she patted down her pockets for any loose credits to pay for entrance. At the last second, the lights flickered green, allowing her to pass without trouble. Confused, she glanced at the make of the security system, becoming even more bewildered once she realized it was not a Yuy product. Relena didn't have time to wonder why she had been allowed through, as one of the trains was boarding the last of its passengers. A timed countdown read fifteen seconds and counting until departure. She increased her pace across the platform, slipping into one of the cars just as the doors began to close.

©RelenaFanel.Jan18.2008


	13. Chapter 13

**Edge of the Chase**

_Chapter 13_

* * *

A/N: Didn't really betaread this, so please excuse any typos etcetera. I'm not really expecting any huge, glaring errors, but you never know. Even I can have an off day. I figured you'd waited long enough for this chapter.

No Heero + this chapter pretty boring. It'll pick up again, so don't worry.

* * *

Relena let out a sigh of relief, taking a seat on one of the slightly padded benches of the subway car she had just managed to sneak on. There was no way anyone had gotten on behind her, as she had almost caught the sleeve of her jacket in the door as it was. Her second reaction was a moment of panic. She had gotten on this moving transportation without knowing it's destination, and to make matters worse the car she was in was only half-full, which meant it wasn't heading to any of the more popular stops, especially since this was rush hour. She was screwed, she thought with misery, placing her head in her hands and resting her elbows against her knees. She remained like this for only a few moments, not allowing herself more than a minute of self-pity before straightening and observing the people around her with detached interest.

A few of the travelers had risen as she sat, moving to another car, and most of the rest wouldn't meet her eye. She wondered if she had stepped in dog poo and couldn't smell it, or something equally as repugnant. An old lady was the only one who openly observed her, and when she rose from her seat and moved back towards Relena, she had a moment of panic that someone had recognized her.

"Excuse me, officer?" the woman asked, boldly sitting beside Relena so that she was boxed in.

Relena couldn't hide the startled expression on her face at the greeting. She glanced down at the Preventor jacket she had stolen and realized it explained everything from why the automated security had passed her through – the identification microchip in the jacket's collar so the officer didn't get stopped up during a chase – to why everyone around her was adverse to her presence. Whoever she had stolen the jacket from should be more careful about where they put it; it was a powerful tool that would serve any lowlife far better than a weapon would. "Yes?" Relena asked, realizing there was no way she could deny her position in the Preventors without bringing up unanswerable questions. She wasn't quite lying, as she had been sworn in as an auxiliary and honorary member long ago. "Can I help you?"

"I hope so, young lady. You're such a pretty young thing. In my day, girls like you on the police force weren't all that rare, but there's been a strange reversal back to traditional norms, don't you think?"

"Uh," Relena answered, not thinking that at all. "I suppose after the war, some people just had enough of military-like organizations."

"Back then, you all had to be so well educated. You couldn't walk into a police station without tripping over someone with a PhD in something. These days, all anyone is educated in is war."

"That's not quite true," Relena said uncomfortably, wondering what point this woman had. "I'm very well educated, and I know a lot of people in the Preventors who went back to school to earn their degrees."

"My dear," the woman exclaimed, "I didn't mean to insult you. You're just too young to see how everything has changed."

"I suppose I am," Relena said with suppressed annoyance. "Was there something I could do for you?"

"Well, yes. My Mr. BonBon is being harassed by other dogs in the neighbourhood up to the point where they poop beneath his favourite tree. You need to do something about it before he becomes so frazzled he bites someone."

As friendly and helpful Relena's nature was – she had been raised to be a lady, after all, not to mention her royal bloodline – she still wanted to laugh at this woman's request. She didn't for two reasons: one, because she knew that many lonely elderly people had small pets as their only companionship and to mock that would be tantamount to insulting someone's child, and secondly because she knew that the image of the police officer relied on public service and every request needed to be handled respectfully. She had taken a course on it once, even if she had no experience with it personally. Promising this old lady something couldn't be any different than some of the conversations she had in politics over the years, Relena rationalized, wondering if she needed to go back to etiquette school. She was becoming more and more like Heero, Duo, et co. by the day. "I'll see what I can do," Relena promised, "but I have to inform you that I'm with the Terrorist Tactical Team of the Preventors, and I'm not really sure how to deal with situations like this. You might be better off asking one of the municipal departments to help you."

The lady patted her knee. "You'll do, dear."

Relena watched in confusion as the woman walked away without giving her address. Strange, Relena thought, very strange. She was just glad no one had heard her mention terrorists and assume she was there to stop a bomb attack, or something, and completely freak out. She was pretty sure that would blow her cover. In fact, now that she thought about subway systems and terrorists, she was sure that there were cameras all over the place. She was probably being watched by someone looking for her at that very moment, as she sat twiddling her thumbs. It wouldn't take long for someone to figure out she had the jacket and to trace the personnel number to this train. She needed to get off – now— and hope it wasn't too late.

The train jarred to a halt, throwing everyone forward. Relena disembarked in a hurry, keeping her head down as much as possible and hoping the cap on her head hid her features enough. She used the free pass embedded in the weave of the Preventor collar to allow her through the doors of another train where stuffed the jacket and cap under one of the seats. The irony, she realized was that if she really was part of the 3T, this was the exact kind of suspicious activity she'd be on the lookout for. Relena didn't bother glancing around to see if anyone noticed her, as it would make her seem guilty of something and the witnesses would then be more apt to remember her face. She left the compartment before it departed the subway, stepping back onto the platform and hoping that if the jacket had been traced it would seem as though she were still on the train. She hated to dispose of her disguise, but there was a good chance that the owner had noticed it missing by now. If she was lucky, it would be Duo tracing her steps and not someone else.

Quickly, Relena moved through the crowded platform and up the stairs, exiting the underground. During the time she had been travelling, the sun had set, leaving her back in the dark. It had been almost twenty-four hours since Wattmeter's party, and she was exhausted despite the sleep she had managed to snatch right before her life had gone to hell. There was something far more exhausting about the emotional turmoil Heero was putting her through than the physical exhaustion of running, almost being blown up, and almost cracking her skull open on Duo's forehead.

That didn't even account for her fear or constant worrying that someone other than Heero would find her.

What she needed was a hotel. Relena looked around, pleased to see she was in an urban city center, with fast food restaurants, bars, and chain stores surrounded by swatches of fertile grass and trees. It was the same as millions of other shopping districts universe wide, and there was something about the familiarity that made Relena feel more comfortable. She knew she'd be able to find a hotel around here somewhere, and for a moment she considered asking one of the people coming out of the restaurant on her right if they knew where one was. After a moment of reflection, she decided that being sociable would be foolhardy at the moment, and she had a second of sympathy for Heero putting up with her asking for directions the night before.

Maybe driving him nutso was the reason he turned on her.

Relena decided that she would simply continue walking and hope to come across a hotel. She knew areas like this, and you practically couldn't walk a block without tripping over some hotel chain or other. She turned a corner, bypassing a McDonalds, and came face to face with exactly what she was looking for, and by the way the garish red sign gleamed at her mockingly, she knew she was in trouble.

"Oh hell," Relena muttered, sitting down on a bench outside of the McDonalds, shell shocked. She glanced around her, mouth gaping slightly and wondered how she didn't notice. Of course the streets looked familiar, she thought a bit hysterically, it wasn't because of their generic nature, but because she had ALREADY BEEN THERE. This morning. When she had ran away from Heero. "I'm screwed," she moaned.

Well, she realized, after giving herself a sympathetic ten seconds to freak out, he probably wouldn't think to look for her here. And, she recalled with a growing sense of dread, the hotel room was already paid through the night, courtesy of whoever the last visitor had been.

But, she couldn't. Really. It would be monumentally stupid, and Relena considered herself one of the smarter people she knew. Maybe that would also work to her advantage. Everyone would be overestimating her skills, when really she was doing what every five year old would do in her situation.

Not convinced in the least, Relena headed towards the side entrance of the hotel, entering through the busy restaurant doors.

"May I help you?" the hostess asked with a wide smile.

"I'm meeting my father for supper," Relena told her as she walked by, fully aware of what she looked like and adapting the lie accordingly. The hostess glared at her from the corner of her eye, but this wasn't the type of classy restaurant which took reservations and even if it was Relena wasn't planning on eating there. She exited the restaurant through the doors into the hotel lobby, finding herself conveniently close to the stairway she had taken earlier that day with Heero. She tried to retrace their steps the best she could to ensure that she wasn't picked up by the security cameras, but she couldn't be sure that the restaurant hadn't recorded her image regardless of what she did now.

Finally, Relena found herself outside the door on the second floor. She stopped and took a breath, having a sense of surreal. She couldn't remember Heero locking the door after them, and slowly her hand reached out and tested the knob. It turned under her hand slowly, meeting no resistance of a lock. Relena pushed the door open, staying still on the threshold as she observed the interior of the room. It looked the same, the bed still messy from her nap in it, but there was no way for her to tell if anyone had been inside since they left. She reasoned that Heero probably came back to check if she was there, but if that was the case then she couldn't understand why he hadn't locked the door.

_It's a trap_, her mind screamed at her. The door had been left open on purpose, so she'd be able to get inside if she needed to, and then effectively be cornered like a small animal. Relena's heart rate accelerated as she took a step into the hotel room. She hadn't quite made up her mind yet, but her bladder was making the decision for her.

After using the washroom, Relena decided she may as well stay. No SWAT teams, or one very pissed off Gundam soldier had broken down the door while her pants were down, so she figured her luck was probably holding up. She checked to make sure that the door was still locked behind her, and then used one of the still damp towels to cover the seam under the door so no light would leak through into the hallway. Though, it would also serve to stop her from hearing if anyone approached.

Relena hesitated for a moment, and then decided she would rather be aware of her surroundings and figuratively in the dark, than literally in the dark, but able to hear things going on in the hallway. The towel stayed.

Having one of her moments of brilliance, Relena remembered a scene in an old movie she had seen and she hurried into the bathroom and came back with a glass, which she carefully balanced on the door knob. And because though she wasn't stupid, Heero was practically brain trust compared to her, she also stacked the remainder of the glasses behind the door, where they would be impossible to see without x-ray vision.

Relena was ninety-eight percent sure that was something Heero didn't have, though it would account for the time he knew she was sneaking a twinkie snack in the bathroom, or for the time she offhandedly mentioned she would love a shirt to match her current underwear, trying out junior-highesque flirting with him, and he pulled the exact shade of red off the rack and she was almost positive he _hadn't seen her lingerie_.

She smiled, remembering how he just grunted at her, not uncomfortable, embarrassed, or seeing anything wrong with what he had done as she gaped at him. It probably had been the perfect shirt, but she had been too weirded out to purchase it.

Relena shook her head, bringing her attention back to the matter at hand. She didn't think she could ever outfit a small hotel room with any means of security that would work against Heero, but with anyone else she might have a chance. Though, a chance at what she wasn't sure yet. What could she possibly do if she woke up in the middle of the night to glass shattering?

Hide under the covers? Behind the bathroom door with a lamp? Pass out and just let them take her?

Without a weapon of any sort – which she still wouldn't use, she reminded herself stubbornly, even if her own personal morals had become lax in recent days – there wasn't much she could do to protect herself. Sure, she had some self defense training, but the unspoken thing about self defense was how useless it was if the attacker was both bigger than you and holding a gun.

Relena opened the heavy curtains hanging over the window, moving the material only a fraction so she could see outside. The two story drop didn't look high compared to the twentieth floor, but she was sure only a cyborg (or Heero) could make the jump without some kind of leg injury. Relena knew for a fact that she wouldn't be hobbling anywhere with a broken tibia (unlike Heero, who could probably win a biathlon while dragging a half-severed foot).

Really, this was useless, she reflected with growing paranoia. She was trapped in a small room, where the enemy could burst in at any time and she would be helpless to defend herself. Why had she left Heero behind again? The idea of him possibly being her enemy was slowly giving way to a realization that it didn't matter. HE would know how to secure a room like this, and even if it wasn't foolproof, she'd still believe in him enough to feel safe. Plus, he had some sort of innate talent to sense approaching danger before it struck. He'd know if there was a group of men with guns walking through the lobby at this very moment ready to kill her, or abduct her, or –

Relena sat heavily on the bed, putting her head in her hands. She really needed to calm down. Her heart rate had accelerated to the point of a panic attack, not that she really knew what one of those felt like. Put her in the midst of a battle, and she remained cool under pressure, put her under a collapsing building and she had faith that the boy threatening to kill her would save her life instead, pit her against a group of politicians each out for personal gain, and she'd make them see the error of their self-centered ways, but this small enclosed space was getting the best of her.

If Heero were here, it would all be different. He'd make her confident that she'd live through the night, even if he didn't sleep in the process. He'd tell her she was being weak and foolish if she had the nerve to hyperventilate out of fear in front of him. He'd know how to get her a sandwich so her stomach would stop growling louder than the air conditioning unit.

Relena let her back fall onto the bed, lying on the mattress and staring at the ceiling as she working on taking calm, even breaths. She had been so confident she could survive on her own, when in truth she had never been truly alone in her life. No matter what, she always knew that her father was there to protect her, and after his death Heero took the position of protector in some weird way. It unnerved her to see how fractured her life was becoming without him.

How could he do this to her?

She thought maybe sleep would give her a new perspective, one not as self-pitying and frightened, so that in the morning she would be back to her confident self. The problem was, she was sure she'd never actually get to sleep. Every noise from outside her door, or even from the still-busy street below made her start, eyes jumping open as she listened in the dark for signs of trouble.

But nothing ever came.

Finally, she drifted into an uneasy sleep, lulled in by the stress of her day finally making her too exhausted to stay awake any longer. Relena emerged from sleep to the sensation of lips rough against her own. Her eyes flew open and she awoke in terror as something tightened over her mouth, her heart racing as a scream burbled in her throat. Her lips wouldn't move to allow the sound to emerge, and she recognized the tight, pulling sensation as tape. It was black as pitch, and she couldn't see anything but a vague, menacing shape. Relena panted through her nose, unable to hear any noises in the room. She attempted to sit up, only to have a hand come out of the dark and slam her shoulder back onto the bed.

Relena yelped, whimpering behind the tape. She could see the looming form of a person sitting on the bed beside her and feel the heat from his body press against her side. She slapped out with both her hands, struggling against his grasp, but he grabbed both her arms, pinning her wrists to her sides as he leaned over her body.

This was it, Relena thought. She was _going to die_ in a horrible, painful, and disturbing manner.

"You've been very foolish," he told her coldly, staring down at her in the dark.

Relena made a strangled, furious noise through her nose.

Roughly, he pulled her hands together, the heavy tape making a ripping noise as it was jerked off the roll and bound around her wrists. She used both of her hands to strike at him, but he pushed her back onto the bed.

"You should have stayed with Duo."

"Fuck you," Relena said emphatically, emphasizing the two words so that they came out sounding like 'Uhn uoo'.

He grunted an acknowledgement that he understood her. Of course, it might have had something to do with the fact she managed to give him the finger, despite the binds around her wrists cutting off circulation. That he could see it in the dark wasn't surprising, considering. "You have no concept of the danger you put us in."

Relena scowled at him, giving her best glare. He merely cocked his head to the side and turned slightly towards the door, listening. "Shh," he warned, grabbing her and flinging her over his shoulder like a sack of wheat. She struggled minimally to show she wasn't pleased with the situation, but her attention had turned towards her doorknob, where even in the dark she couldn't miss the sound of the glass she had balanced topple to the floor, where it bounced with a hollow plastic sound.

Her eyes widened as the safety latch began to scrape slowly in its catch. The door burst open just as Heero reached the window, placing one foot on the sill and diving out. Men stormed into the room while he was in motion, armed with guns aimed directly at them. Relena could see the weapons firing in the light spilling from the hallway as she fell with Heero, the bullets striking the glass behind them so that it sprayed outwards. Shards rained over her skin as Heero landed heavily on the ground and her stomach impacted painfully with his shoulder so that all the breath was struck from her lungs and _she could not breath_e.

©RelenaFanel.April18.2008

HEERO!!


	14. Chapter 14

_**Edge of the Chase**_

_Chapter 14_

A/N: This is the final chapter. Edge of the Chase is officially COMPLETED. I'm working on something new which should be out by the end of the month at the latest.

* * *

Relena jarred against Heero's back as he ran across the parking lot, using the building corners to cover them from fire. His shoulder dug brutally into her stomach, making it extremely difficult for her to take a breath without feeling as though it was going to be knocked out of her. Heero didn't seem to care, and Relena really couldn't blame him for wanting to put as much space between them and the hotel window as possible. She didn't exactly want to get shot. Her nose bounced against his muscular rear, and she'd have been horrifyingly embarrassed if she wasn't so furious at him for hogtying her up.

She tried her best to hold still despite the fact she wanted to wriggle into a more comfortable position and more importantly boot Heero in the face. Her survival instincts kicked in and warned her not to do anything which could possibly compromise both of them getting out of this with their lives. If Heero went down because she managed to knock him out with her heel – a highly unlikely occurrence in any case – she would still be bound and unable to run. She could now feel that he had also tied up her ankles while she slept, though she hadn't noticed back in the hotel room.

She'd dwell on how he had even entered the room later. Right now she was trying her best just to live, which was exceedingly difficult because she had absolutely no control over the situation, and Relena was a person who liked to be in control, at least nominally.

Heero took a sharp corner, causing her forehead to smack sharply against his butt. "Heero!" she protested through her gag.

He didn't pay any attention to her.

Seconds later, Relena heard a van door open, and then she was rolling across carpet, her bones jarring sharply as he tossed her to the floor with no care to her person. Relena's shoulder smacked against the opposite side of the van as the door slid closed. The interior was dark and empty, and smelled like molding material and old cheese. She could hear a front door open and close. The engine started and the vehicle jerked forward.

Slowly and methodically, Relena rolled onto her stomach, her tied hands digging painfully into her body as her weight rested on top of them. Her arms tingled and her fingers had gone numb from the tight binds. It took her three tries to push herself into a sitting position on her knees, her ankles folded beneath her.

She should be more scared, she reasoned. Heero had kidnapped her against her will and had thrown her in the back of a van, still tied like a criminal or a prisoner. Anyone else and she'd be worried that she was on her way to cemented feet and a watery grave, but a part of her still trusted him implicitly, despite everything of the past few days. This was reinforced by the fact that everything else aside, he had still just saved her life.

Of course, that didn't mean she wasn't going to try to escape.

Relena took stock of her surroundings, noting that the only light coming into the cabin was from thickly grimed windows in the back and through a heavy metal mesh wall separating her from the front compartment. For a moment she debated whether she should try to open the back doors first, or the sliding one to her right, or if she should get closer to webbed separator between herself and Heero in an attempt to see where they were going and perhaps communicate how displeased she was with the current situation.

The van drove through a well-lit area, and even in the dim she was able to see that both sets of doors had no internal opening mechanisms. Relena sighed, dejected, willing back the frustrated tears gathering under her eyelids.

Heero braked suddenly, unbalancing her and causing her to stumble forward sharply. Her tied hands caught her before she completely fell back to the itchy wool carpet, and she pushed herself back into a kneeling position, suddenly furious.

It took her far longer than she could have imagined to move her way closer to the front. Each inch gained was through a shuffling motion with her knees as she rubbed her legs together, the ties around her ankles making it impossible to move more than a fraction. Relena wasn't often an impatient person, but she found this to be incredibly trying and exasperating. By the time her fingers brushed against the mesh, her knees were screaming in pain and blood was seeping out of friction burns on her bare ankles.

Through the thick, welded wires she could see the open expanse of road and the shadow of Heero's head. He was staring intently at the highway in front of him, his eyes darting towards the rearview mirrors. For a moment he met her eyes through the dark, her own reflected like a caged animal.

"Mmmfh," she told him, brushing hair out of her face. For a moment, the movement didn't occur to her, but then suddenly she realized the stupidity of her actions. With only a tad of humiliation – more embarrassing things had happened to her in the past hour, so she couldn't really dredge up much of the feeling – she ripped the tape off her mouth, biting back a groan of pain as half the skin from her lips came with it.

Her eyes shot quickly to Heero, not entirely immune to hoping he didn't notice her idiocy. He hadn't. In the past when she had what she defined as blond moments, and so long as they weren't during life and death situations, his eyes would always show a hint of amusement, and she couldn't see any sign of that now. Possibly, he was still considering this a life-and-death situation, but it was far more likely that he had gone cold on her.

Maybe Duo was wrong. Maybe Heero really did hate her.

No, Relena reminded herself, she was just trying to focus her attention on something besides the fact she had just gotten shot at. Obsessing about Heero was a common pastime for her, after all. Having men burst into her room like the SWAT team from hell was not.

"Who were those people?" Relena asked, using her teeth to bite at the tape around her wrists.

"The enemy."

The tape was particularly sticky, and he had wound it around on itself a few times so that biting through it was like trying to gnaw through hemp. For a moment his response didn't even register, and when it did her eyes narrowed as she observed him. If she didn't know any better, she would say they had somehow been transported back to 195.

"The enemy, Heero?" Relena reiterated cuttingly. "Your enemy or my enemy? You know what, don't answer that. I don't even want to know right now. If I asked you why it was necessary to tie me up like some kind of wild animal you tracked and captured would you answer me?"

Heero remained silent.

"Are YOU my enemy? You can at least tell me that, right? Are you saving my life or are you transporting me to an empty field like some serial killer psycho?"

"Stop talking," Heero said tersely.

"Stop talking!" Relena responded shrilly. "Is that the polite way to say shut up these days? I can't believe you!" Relena fell silent, not out of any desire to obey him but because she had nothing left to say.

"If you say another word," Heero warned, not finishing the thought.

You'll what? Relena wanted to ask, but she didn't want to dignify his threat with a response. It would be childish at this point to say something back just for the sake of getting in the last word. The silence was terse. "Can I at least sit in the front with you?" she asked with a sigh, suddenly exhausted of life. The past few days had been a rollercoaster of highs and lows, and she just wanted it all to be over.

In ways, she got her wish.

Heero slammed on the brakes, bouncing the van along the side of the highway until it coasted to a stop. The jarring motion flung her forward, and Relena's face smashed against the divider, her forehead and the bridge of her nose taking the brunt of the fall. Relena toppled to her side with a groan of pain, blinking at the dim overhead light as the door slid open at her feet and Heero stood on the side of the road looking in at her, his tense shoulders a dark shadow against the backdrop of night.

Relena glared hatefully at him for a moment, confused as to why he would be angry enough at her to do her harm. She didn't even consider the notion that it could have been an accident. Heero never misjudged the force of a moving vehicle.

His hand shot out, wrapping his long, cold fingers around her tied ankles and jerked her towards him.

Relena kicked out with her bound feet, unable to dislodge his grasp. She was finally and truly frightened, realizing that this man was not the benevolent character she had attributed to Heero in the past ten years of quasi-friendship. She had never had any reason to be afraid of him or distrust him, but in a decade of observing him, she had seen that he was never a man to take lightly. She struggled against him now, instinctively knowing that it was a hopeless battle.

He had taught her any edges she might have in a fight.

Relena jerked as the needle punctured her thigh, giving him a look of the deepest betrayal before her eyelids grew heavy and she plummeted into unconsciousness.

She awoke sharply, quicker than she usually did even on the best mornings. It was as if her senses were suddenly online, and she could feel everything. Her heart hurt, and though medically it was probably from a combination of the drugs Heero gave her and adrenalin causing the organ to beat harder than usual, psychologically the reasoning was far more obvious. There were wet tears on her eyelashes, but her eyes were curiously dry.

So was her mouth, feeling as though she had swallowed cotton and chased it with sandpaper.

Her cheek was against a cold, smooth surface, and light was shining from both the clear evening sky and strategically placed lights. Relena managed to push herself to her knees again, knowing from the moment she awoke that she was no longer in the back of a van. She could tell from the architecture of pillars and marble that she was on the parameter – possibly the front entrance – of a large, official building that could range from anything between a museum and a bank. Relena thought that it looked a lot like the parliamentary building she was supposed to hold a press conference in front of the day before.

For a moment she felt relief at being somewhere so familiar to her, but her hands and feet were still bound, and though parts of the structure were shrouded in shadows, she could still feel the prickle of being watched by unseen eyes.

Then she saw him. He didn't move or make himself known in any way, but it was as though the shadows opened up and revealed him surveying her. She knew it was Heero through shape alone. Relena stared at him silently, knowing he was returning the gaze. There were a million things she wanted to say to him – yell at him – but she remained stubbornly quiet.

She thought it might have to do with the gun in his hand.

As though realizing she could see it, Heero stepped towards her into the light, the gun extended before him. For one irrational moment, Relena thought that he was pushing it closer to her so she could see it. It was a nice delusion for the fraction of a second it lasted, but she knew that the weapon was aimed and that he meant to kill her.

Who knew Heero had a flair for the dramatic?

Relena's heart raced and she gasped, wanting to cringe backwards in fear. Instead, she forced herself to stay still and look at his face with the mildly defiant gaze she had given him years ago the first time he had aimed a gun at her, back when she had reason to doubt her instincts that he wouldn't kill her.

Relena searched Heero's countenance for a sign of remorse, a sliver of doubt, or anything that would convince her that he didn't mean it. She found it in his eyes, in the way they crinkled at the corners with a hint of pinched grief she never thought to see on his features. A wave of cold despair went through her.

He meant it. Oh God, he really did.

When they had been fifteen and he had threatened to kill her, she had convinced herself that he wouldn't so long as his face remained impassive. She knew Heero, she thought, and beneath the shell was a boy with empathy and principles. She had been naïve then, but faced with the facts now she thought there may have been an inkling of truth to it. That mask had broken to show that he really would regret firing the gun, but he would do it.

Relena raised her chin, allowing him to see the knowledge in her eyes. She had never been so terrified in her life: kidnappings, bombings, and death threats were nothing compared to the sheer nightmare at realizing that in the end it would be Heero. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. She was a princess, dammit, and she was never meant to look down the barrel of a gun at her prince charming. "Will you answer some questions first?" she asked calmly, belying the cold fury and fear turning her thoughts to crystalline clarity.

Heero nodded curtly, the gun not wavering from the middle of her forehead.

They were a tableau of death.

"If you were planning to kill me, why did you just save me?" she asked. Of the millions of questions she had for him, that one was the least important and yet integral to her understanding of the situation.

"I wanted this to be done properly."

"Don't," she responded stiffly at his limited response. "I think I deserve a more in-depth explanation than that. I want to understand why I'm going to die."

For a moment, she thought he was going to argue, or in true Heero fashion, remain silent. "It's not personal. You were never meant to rule for any length of time. You were set up to be a figurehead for the new peace, but you've become too powerful in your own right to continue with your flawed political ideals. The same people who gave you your position are taking it back now."

"And I have to be dead for that?" Relena asked with a raised brow. She didn't argue that she had earned her spot as the Foreign Minister under her own power, nor did she correct him in saying that her ideals were flawed. She'd be the first to admit that there were holes in her philosophies, but she truly did believe that they were superior – and more importantly, possible – overall. What she didn't understand is why these "people" didn't just remove her in other ways if they wanted her gone.

At this question, the shape of Heero's eyes changed, flickering perceptively with some reaction she couldn't read. "No," he responded curtly. Relena finally identified his response as anger from the tone of his voice. "You didn't have to die. You forced their hand when you ran away from me. Their plan wasn't going accordingly to begin with. The scandal of you running away from the Wattmeter estate didn't completely discredit you as they intended. The people love you, Relena."

"Yes, they do," she responded sharply. "So what makes you think that they won't love me after death? I'll be a martyr."

Heero looked down at the gun, taking his eyes off her face for the first time. "Because I'll be the one who kills you. They've thought it out."

"So what?" she asked, feeling a bit hysterical. Why weren't any guards checking the grounds, or pedestrians cutting through? Where was Duo? She thought that a time like this needed a hero or at least someone to distract Heero's trigger-finger. He was the one who was supposed to keep armed crazies from killing her, so who was there to protect her from him? The answer, Relena supposed, was herself. "This is some kind of lover's quarrel scandal that they hope completely ruins my character so that all my politics are questioned? You know what, Heero? You might create a scandal, and oh look, I just caught on to the irony of you murdering me in front of the parliament building, but you won't ever defame me. I'm more than just a figurehead: I am peace, and the reason I haven't resigned yet, after everything I've been through, is because my idea of peace might be flawed, but the universe would be so much worse without it."

Relena took a moment to breathe. Heero was observing her evenly, but remained silent.

"I think," Relena said slowly as she thought through what she was trying to say, "that I'd like to know who '_they' _are. Who could possibly convince you that this is a good idea?"

Heero didn't respond. Relena wanted to know who could have infused so much loyalty into him. It was starting to dawn on her that he wouldn't do this for just anyone. She couldn't be mistaken about him. She just couldn't.

"Do you love me?" Relena asked softly, cursing herself for sounding so naïve – like such a sentimental fool. She couldn't take her eyes off his face, frightened that she would miss the answer, but also equally as terrified that she wouldn't. She thought that dying might not be so bad.

"This isn't about us as individuals. What I feel for you has no bearing. It's above me."

"You won't be able to live without me," she told him with sudden certainty. "The world won't get better. It'll get so much worse."

They stared at each other for a moment. Relena closed her eyes, tears clinging to her lashes but not tumbling down her cheeks. She could feel the strength in her dissipate.

"I'm ready," she told him, meeting his eyes and feeling everything in the world fall away until there was only the two of them. There were no unknown world leaders playing them like puppets, no symbolism of her dying on the front stairs of the parliament building, and no gun.

Heero's eyes narrowed and he went as cold and still as ice. The gun was steady in his hand as his finger tightened on the trigger, and then it wavered.

"We'll go away," she told him steadily, reading his uncertainty and giving him another option. "Just you and me. We'll go into hiding and I'll give up peace, and we'll do our best not to be threatening so that if they find us they might leave us alone because I'll no longer be Relena and you'll no longer be Heero. We'll just disappear."

"I am… unable to complete my mission." Heero responded coolly, disengaging the gun and putting it away in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, it was just gone and Relena felt free for the first time in her life.

"Australia?" she asked as he pulled out a pocket knife and freed her wrists. Her heart was still beating from the risk she had taken in not fighting him. Even if it hadn't been apparent, Relena had been trying to maneuver him into not killing her, first by attempting to waver his convictions through time, and secondly by reconnecting with him as the person he knew and not the figurehead politician he was sent to assassinate. Relena thought, if she knew Heero at all, that he wouldn't be able to kill her.

Who, though, would have so much hold over him that he would even try to kill _her_?

"No," she exclaimed with a gasp as he pulled a syringe out of his pocket. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she couldn't breathe through resumed fear and uncertainty. Heero deftly slipped the protective cover off the needle, plunging it into the side of her neck and holding her upright with his spare arm. His face was shadowed, dark pools under his eyes masking his expression.

Relena coughed once, her eyes widened in terror. She clawed at his arm with her fingers, trying to get him to release her, but Heero's hold was firm. Blackness started to edge in on her vision, her hands going numb and falling limply to her side. His cruel visage was the last thing she saw as she slipped away.

Completed©RelenaFanel.June11.2008

A/N: For those of you who think Heero could never be _talked out_ of a mission, even if it is Relena, you're absolutely right. For those of you who are thinking _'wait... how did we get here?'_ well, I would like to know that too. You see, it started with this dream I had last week and escalated...

But you'll have to wait for the **sequel** for those questions to be answered (and probably so many more). Feel free to ask if there is anything you want to know, but if it's currently classified I won't be answering back.

Please **review**! It's always much loved.


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