Lady Une gazed out the blast proof window of her office at the peaceful landscape below.

“This was not totally unexpected.”

“No.”  Heero Yuy occupied a chair facing her desk.  Beside him sat Sally Po, Chang Wufei and Duo Maxwell.  No one else spoke as they waited for Lady Une’s decision.

After his call to Duo the night before, Heero spoke to Lady Une about upping Relena’s security, promising an explanation first thing in the morning.  Then he went to bed and slept for eight hours straight.

When Duo arrived from the colony in L2, Heero showed him, Sally, Wufei and Lady Une all the information he’d found.  Duo was surprised, but no one else was.

“I didn’t realize they’d gotten this close though.”  Lady Une turned back to make eye contact with Heero.

“Neither did I until last night.”  Not a flicker of emotion crossed his features. 

“Have you identified anyone?”

“One.  Curtis Barton, Dekim Barton’s nephew, but there is at least one other whose identity remains unknown.  It’s the only explanation for the data.”

“I agree, but about this plan.”  She shook her head.  “I can’t allow you to…”

“Relena will not be in danger,” Heero’s voice no longer sounded calm.  “I’ll make sure of that.”

Lady Une raised an eyebrow at his tone.  Duo, Sally and Wufei stared at him in surprise.

“Let me be certain I understand.  You want to kill the Vice-Foreign Minister in order to keep her alive.”

“Yes.”

She looked at the others in the room.  They all nodded their agreement to the plan, but Lady Une didn’t appear convinced.

“Why don’t we ask the Vice-Foreign Minister?”  Heero suggested, sounding like his normal impassive self again.  “We’ll need her cooperation for this to work.”

“An excellent idea.”  Lady Une picked up her phone and made the call.

**********

Vice-Foreign Minister of Earth Relena Darlian stared in shock at the Chief of Preventers Lady Une.

“What?”

“I’m sorry to inform you of this Minister Darlian, but evidence has surfaced indicating that these people are ready to move against you.  Your life is in danger”

“Who is trying to kill me this time?”  Relena was sorry she sounded so exasperated, but the threats on her life were becoming tedious.

“Curtis Barton.”  Lady Une paused for a moment.  “This isn’t like the last few attempts.  Those were easy to stop, since they were from established terrorist groups.  But this time is different.  We can’t find him for one thing and for another, we have reason to believe he’s got someone on your staff working with him.”

“That I cannot believe.”

“Believe it.”  A cold male voice said from somewhere behind her.

Relena turned to see Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell standing in the open doorway of a connecting office.

“Heero?  Duo?  Are you involved with this as well?”

“Up to our necks.”  Duo said with a grin.

Relena’s gaze wavered between the two young men.  Duo still had a smile on his face, but that didn’t hide the serious expression in his eyes.  Heero’s face gave nothing away.  That alone told her things were serious.

“I see.”  She nodded at them and faced Lady Une.  “What do you recommend?”

But it wasn’t lady Une who answered her, it was Heero.

“We’re going to have to kill you Relena.”  He said without inflection.  “Before he does.”

Relena whipped around to stare at him.  His eyes were filled with emotion and that reassured her.

She slowly nodded.  “When?”

“Tonight.”  Lady Une answered, but Relena’s gaze didn’t move from Heero’s face.

“How?”

“I’m going to shoot you.”  Heero said.  This time everyone in the room could hear the pain in his voice.  He’d swore never to kill anyone ever again.

“Heero, you don’t…”  Relena began, she knew how he felt and she knew how difficult this would be for him.

“Yes I do.”  He interrupted her.  “I don’t trust anyone else to do it.”

Relena knew better than to argue with him.

“Very well.  What should I do?”

“Duo will go with you and tell you what to do.”

“Okay.”

“There are only six of us who know what’s going to happen.”  Lady Une told Relena.  “The four of us in this room, Sally Po and Chang Wufei.  No one else is to know.  We want to see people’s reaction to your…assassination.”

“Yes, I understand.  What about after?  What will happen to me?”

“Don’t worry Relena.”  Duo wore his trademark grin again.  “Heero’s going to take good care of you.”  Duo put an arm around his friend’s shoulders.  “Aren’t ya good buddy.”

Heero glared at Duo for a moment.

“Hn.”

Relena only nodded.  She knew better than to react to Duo’s teasing.

“The Preventers will wrap this up as soon as possible Minister Darlian.”  Lady Une said.  “But until we’ve caught everyone involved in this plot you’ll have to stay in protective custody.”  She smiled at Relena.  “Consider it a sort of vacation.”

Relena allowed the corners of her mouth to turn upward.  “Vacation?  What’s that?”

********

Heero moved effortlessly across the lawn of the Peacecraft mansion, blending into shadows, becoming one of them.  He stood under her balcony listening to Relena talk to someone.  Lucrezia Noin.  He waited until he heard the soft thud of the door closing before climbing up the side of the building and onto her balcony.

Through the glass he could see Relena standing in front of a full-length mirror, checking to see if her dress needed any last minute adjustments.  As far as Heero could tell, it didn’t.

He waited patiently for her to look up and see his reflection behind hers in the mirror.

Their eyes met in the glass, but for a moment all she did was stare at him questioningly.  She looked at him often like that, but he had no answers for her.  Tonight was no exception.

She opened the glass doors and let him into her bedroom.

“Heero.”

He nodded in greeting and took exactly three steps inside.  He swept the room, looking for anything that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Relena took a step or two away from him toward her dresser, but he stopped her by wrapping his left hand around her wrist.  He made deliberate eye contact. 

“You understand what you have to do?”

“I think so.”  Relena cocked her head.  “When you shoot me, I’m supposed to play dead, right?”

“Yes.”  Heero felt his features harden at the thought of actually pulling the trigger.  “Make sure you do exactly what Duo tells you to.”

“I will.”

Heero tore his eyes from hers.  He couldn’t stand the questions he saw there.  He wanted to give her the answers, but he couldn’t, not yet.  Every time he came here, her eyes asked the same questions.

It started a month after he joined the Preventers.  Lady Une was glad to have his skills at ferreting out information, and his skill at tactics and strategy.  His ability to blend in to any environment made him a superlative spy and the Preventers needed those skills badly.

He came across a haphazard plan to shoot Relena while making a public speech.  The only problem was the speech was to take place in an hour’s time.  No other Preventers were available, so Lady Une sent Heero in to diffuse the situation.  He’d almost arrived too late.

The shooter had made it past the regular security checkpoints and was already in the crowd.  Heero was forced to join the silent on stage team of bodyguards placed around Relena.  The only problem was, he was the only one who knew what the shooter looked like.

He waited, patient and calm, until the assassin raised his gun, then Heero pushed Relena down and shielded her with his own body as the other guards and the terrorist exchanged fire.

Relena looked shocked to find herself face to face with him.  After a few tense seconds the shooting stopped and they were swarmed by security.

“Go with them.”  He’d told her.

“Heero!” she yelled, struggling with the men assigned to protect her. 

He understood.  She trusted him, she always had, but he needed to go and catch that assassin before he tried again.

“Go with them.”  He’d told her again and then promised, “I’ll find you later.”  That seemed to relieve her fears and she stopped fighting her guards.  They carried her off and he found the assassin.  Even without a gun, it wasn’t hard to bring him in.

He arrived, as promised on her balcony later that night.

She threw open the glass doors as soon as she saw him, launching herself at him.  He caught her, staggering in surprise at the fierceness of her attack, his arms wrapping around her reflexively.  He would have let her go except that her whole body was shaking and deep sobs were coming from her throat.  

Heero cautiously kept his arms around her.

For several minutes they stood there like that, neither moving except for closer together.  Heero finally decided to get her back inside before someone spotted the two of them embracing in the dark.

He guided her back into her room with one arm firmly around her shoulders, closing the French doors with the other.  Then he brought her over to her bed and gently pushed her down to sit on it, only she wouldn’t let go of him and he ended up sitting on the bed with her.

He wasn’t sure how to comfort her, but that’s what she obviously needed.  Holding her seemed to work so he wrapped his other arm around her again and brought her closer to him.  She immediately relaxed her hold on his neck.

Good this is effective, he thought.

“Relena, are you injured?”

“No.”  Her hold tightened again.

Wrong question.  He decided to try the direct approach.

“What’s wrong?”

“I thought I was done with that.”  She whispered brokenly.  “Why did he…?”  She couldn’t finish her won question.

“I don’t know, Relena.”  Heero sighed.  “Why do evil men do anything?”

They were both silent for a few moments after that.

“Are you all right, Heero?”

“Yes.”

“Did you…kill him?”  She sounded afraid.  Was it for him?

“No.  I brought him to Lady Une for questioning.”

Relena lifted her head and looked at him for the first time that night.  Her face was red and puffy from crying, her eyes still glistening with tears.

“Good.”

Heero realized then that at least some of those tears were for him, and that she was very beautiful.

She reached up slowly, stroking the side of his face with one hand in a way that left him breathless.  He’d never felt that kind of kindness from anyone and didn’t know how to deal with it.

“Relena?”

“I’m sorry Heero.”

“For what?”

“For bringing you back into a situation I know you didn’t want to be in.”

“I joined the Preventers a month ago, Relena.  I’m not the same kind of field agent that Sally and Wufei are.  Lady Une needed someone to find out things.  Someone no one knows about sneaking around in the dark.”  He wasn’t sure why he was telling her all this, but it seemed right.  “I wouldn’t have been there this afternoon except that I only uncovered this plot on your life an hour before it was supposed to happen and no one else was available.”  He felt like he was drowning in her eyes.  “I don’t carry a gun anymore.”

“Good.”

That put a smile on her face, and Heero suddenly realized that his hands were far too warm.  His whole body was reacting to hers in ways he was unable to understand.  She knew it too.  Her eyes changed from sad to something else, something Heero knew he should run from, but he couldn’t move, his body was frozen in indecision.

Relena stretched up and kissed the corner of his mouth.

It only lasted a second, but it was enough to imprint the texture and taste of her lips on his brain.  Both were exquisite.

Heero was a soldier.  He’d had no training on what to do with a woman in his arms kissing him, but his body was willing to try a few things.  Unfortunately, it never got the chance.

A knock at the door interrupted anything else that might have happened and Heero escaped out over the balcony.

He stayed away for a couple of weeks, trying to analyze what had happened in Relena’s bedroom.  But the incident wouldn’t fit into any scenario he knew how to handle.  He’d finally gone to the only person he knew of who was successful at dealing with women. 

Duo Maxwell.

He sat in Duo’s living room and told him the whole story.  Waiting for the inevitable laughter and teasing he was sure to come. 

But Duo didn’t laugh.  He kept silent for several seconds after Heero was done talking, staring at the ceiling, thinking so hard Heero could almost hear it.

Finally, he met Heero’s impassive gaze.  “This is serious, man.”

“I know.”

“She loves you.”

Heero allowed himself to portray the confusion he felt.  “Duo, I don’t know what that means.”

Duo took a deep breath.  “Okay, let me try to put this in terms you do understand.  She trusts you, you get that right?”

“Yes.”

“She probably trusts you more than any other person alive.”

“Hn.”

“You said she kissed you.”

Heero felt his face get hot at the thought of it. 

“Yes.”

“Okay, so how did that make you feel.”

“Strange.  I found it difficult to breathe and my body temperature rose at an alarming rate.  My sense of touch, smell and taste all seemed enhanced.  She felt…”  Heero ran out of words to describe it accurately.

Duo stared at him.

“Buddy, you’ve got it bad.”

That got Heero’s attention.  “What?”

But Duo wasn’t done with his questions yet.  “Do you still want to protect her?”

“Yes.  I promised.”

“But you swore you wouldn’t kill again.”

“I won’t.”

“Would you?  To save her?”

Heero knew the answer to that long before he could say it out loud, but he couldn’t face Duo and say it.

He turned his head away.  “Yes.”

Duo leaned forward and speaking to him in a low harsh voice.  “If a man had her by the throat.  Would you kill him with your bare hands to protect her?”

Heero’s reaction was immediate.  He stood up violently, clenching his fists at his sides at the thought of some man touching her, hurting her.

“Yes!”

Duo waited until Heero turned to face him.

“You’re in love with her.”

Heero shook his head, protesting.  “I don’t know what that is.”

“This is not something you can analyze, Heero.  You either are, or you aren’t, and you definitely are.”

“What should I do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.  She’s the Vice-Foreign Minister and I’m just..”

“The man who saved the world.  Twice.  Why not talk about it with her.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

Duo’s grin came back with a vengeance.  “On second thought why talk at all.  I’m sure there are other ways to find out what she wants.”

Heero gave him a dirty look.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Duo laughed and went into Hilde’s room, coming back with a paper back novel.

“Here, read this.  It oughtta give you a few pointers.”

Heero looked at it.  It was a romance novel with a man and a woman entwined together on the front cover with only a few articles of clothing covering them in strategic areas.

He tossed it to Duo, who threw it right back.

“Read it.  Trust me, women want stuff like in that book.”

Heero kept the book.

A few days later, Relena had a bad session with several ambassadors.  Sally Po seemed to make a special effort to tell him how upset Relena was afterward.  He tried not to react, but as soon as darkness fell he found himself standing on her balcony again.

She let him in, raging at the idiocy of all those old men and their antiquated ideas.  He sat on the bed, arms at his sides and let her rant. 

Eventually, she calmed down and sat next to him, putting her head on his shoulder.  That surprised him, but he was careful not to jostle her.

She kept talking to him, telling him things he would never have guessed about her job.  He made a suggestion or two, little things he thought, that might improve the situation.  Her grateful reaction made him wonder why no one else had thought to suggest any changes.

“Because they don’t care about me, Heero.”  Was her answer.

“But you’re the Vice-Foreign Minister, of course they care.”

“That I’m the Vice-Foreign Minister.”  Relena snorted.  “They don’t care about Relena, lonely sixteen year old girl.”

“Woman.”  Heero corrected, and then wished he hadn’t.

Relena took her head off his shoulder and looked at him.  Her expression was serious.

“Heero, why are you here?”

“I heard you had a rough time at your meeting today.  I came to make sure you’re all right.”

“Who told you about my meeting.”

“Sally.”

“I see.”

She got off the bed and walked a few steps away, wrapping her arms around herself, as if in protection.

“I have no one to talk to, you know.”

“That can’t be true.  There’s Dorothy and Noin.”

But she was shaking her head.  “You don’t understand.  The second I say anything to one, the other knows and then even more people know.  I’m this important person, I’m not allowed to be angry or sad or anything!”  She threw her hands up in the air in a frustrated gesture.

“I understand.” 

Heero got up and stood next to her putting an awkward hand on her shoulder.

“You can talk to me.”

Relena sighed.  “That’s nice of you to offer, but this is only the second time I’ve seen you in months.”

“How often do you need me to come?”

“What?”

“How often, Relena?”

“I..I don’t know.”  She looked at the floor.

“The Preventers office isn’t very far away.”  Heero told her.  “I’ll come again in a couple of days.”

She raised her head.  There were tears in her eyes.

“You’d do that for me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I..can’t tell you that yet.”

She accepted that answer, but the questions in her eyes had never gone away since.

He’d gone to see her just like he promised, never staying away for any set length of time.  Sometimes he visited her every day when things were going wrong, sometimes a week would go by and he wouldn’t see her.

People noticed a difference in her right away.  She was calmer, even more so than before.  Some of her suggestions and ideas sounded more thought out, and her detractors found less and less to say about her. 

People like Dorothy and Noin smiled in relief.  They knew all about her nocturnal visitor.  Their security wasn’t that bad and they knew he was doing something for her none of them could.  Vice-Foreign Minister Relena Darlian needed a confidant.  Heero Yuy was it.

Heero still hadn’t told her his feelings.  He’d told her about a lot of other stuff.  His life before Operation Meteor, the training Dr. J put him through, and they both got stronger.

Now he had to take a gun and kill her.