Top of the World Falls on You Part 2
The problem had started out, as all "problems" at economic summits do, with a "peaceful protest". Why someone had scheduled this particular summit location for any of the colonies in the L2 cluster was completely beyond Wufei's comprehension. L2 had no natural resources of note, no industry of note, no intellectuals of note, and it was still, even after seven years, trying to recover from the ravages of the Eve Wars. What had started out as a middling colony with a lot of "character" had somehow ended up wallowing below the poverty line and very angry about it. Everyone knew that hosting an economic summit anywhere near L2 was going to be like walking into a powder keg with a lit match, but the Governor of the colony had made a convincing argument that, if nothing else, it would bring in a bit of revenue and help the people of L2 see that the Earth Sphere government did care about their plight and they would be appropriately appreciative.
It became rapidly apparent after the second day that the citizens of L2 liked to show their appreciation in big ways. Like with Molotov cocktails. And the odd home-grown bomb.
Giant posters of Relena when she had been "Queen of the World" were hoisted up next to posters of L2's orphaned and hungry children. Banners denouncing the Earth Sphere's Minister of Finance were plastered across every building facing the convention centre and hotel. Picketers shouted horrible, demeaning epithets at all hours, creating an unceasing, unrelenting, wall of dissent and misery.
Heero had foreseen this mess.
He'd warned them all.
But Commander Une, the only non-government official who had the power to veto a location, had been so sure that the L2 Governor was a good judge of character with "a real finger on the pulse of his society"...
Right around the moment the first tomato was lobbed over the police line, Wufei began to suspect that Une was sleeping with the guy.
There was no way anyone in full possession of their rational mental faculties could have thought this was a good idea.
Heero, who had been to L2 many times due to his relationship with Duo, was the only one who'd been truly prepared. He'd packed bulletproof vests, panic buttons, flash bombs, smoke bombs... live ammunition.
He'd also lied to Duo, his boyfriend of seven years now, as to his whereabouts.
When Wufei had learned of Heero's deception, he tried to argue that Duo had kept pace with Heero through two wars, two years of training, and five years at the Preventers as an active agent. There was no reason to hide a bodyguard job at a stupid economic summit like Duo wouldn't be able to "handle it".
But upon seeing the rally of disillusioned, disenfranchised, and disheartened L2 citizens lined up in the streets of L2-1X10 to watch with baleful gazes the procession of limousines and utility vehicles carting the diplomats and their Preventer entourage from the shuttleport to the hotel, Wufei could understand why Heero hadn't told Duo. It wasn't going L2 that had been the secret; it was the nature of the meeting taking place there.
The reason that Heero had accompanied Duo so many times to visit the troubled colony cluster was because Duo volunteered much of his time and money to help the needy there, to assuage his guilt for surviving, for escaping. It weighed heavily on him and Wufei knew that Duo would not have been pleased to know that a meeting of the ESUN's top level financiers, who had shown a reckless disregard for L2's welfare to date, was taking place in the one place towards which they had never given two pennies or even two thoughts.
Wufei also knew that being on L2 in this charged political and emotional climate, regardless of what Duo knew or did not know about their location, was taking its toll on Heero himself. He had to be seeing Duo everywhere, in every hopeless gaze, in every lined face, in every one of those hideous posters with the bleak, empty-eyed children. Duo could so easily have been one of them... had been one of them, actually. It made Wufei uncomfortable to think about it and he could only guess how it made Heero feel.
It came as no surprise to Wufei, then, that when things escalated and the shooting actually started, Heero made no move to protect the L2 Governor. And neither did he. Wufei would later report their hesitation as resulting from lack of sleep due to the incessant noise from the protestors twenty-four hours a day.
But when Relena, eager to help the wounded, stood up from behind the concrete planter where Wufei had deposited her at the start of the melee, there was no hesitation and Heero dove to cover her.
Three shots to the chest and abdomen knocked Heero very solidly back into the concrete planter, on the corner of which he cracked his head rather soundly.
Relena was frozen, hands clasped over her mouth, eyes wide with horror. Wufei got to Heero not a second later and pulled both his inert body and Relena to safety.
The Governor died.
Une was furious.
Wufei frantically radioed for an ambulance.
And Relena knelt on floor, with Heero's head cradled in her lap, crying softly.
In the end, the skirmish lasted a mere thirty minutes. All the Very Important Persons were evacuated off the colony altogether as soon as the helipad and emergency shuttle docks were cleared and locked down. Those who didn't make the cut were shuffled off to special, interior, high security rooms in their hotel. Wufei had to stay and help organize, or rather re-organize, what was left of the Preventers security detail and L2's police force. Relena rode in the ambulance with Heero to Our Lady of Mercy General Hospital.
It took the remaining Preventers and almost the entire L2 police force on the colony close to two hours to round up the last of the militant protesters and clear the streets of any stragglers.
Heero was not the only injured and Une, as Commander of the Preventers and the official head of security for the entire summit, had a lot to account for.
Wufei managed to slip away as the wounded were reporting in.
He hitched a ride with an ambulance carrying one of L2's finest and awkwardly reassured the man that he was going to be fine, that two bullet wounds didn't mean anything, and that even if he couldn't feel his legs right now, there was a chance that it was just shock.
Inside the emergency waiting room, Wufei found Relena sitting on a hard plastic chair, head down, and fists clenched in her skirt. She was stained with Heero's blood and he had the perverse thought that she had never looked more beautiful. He wanted to run up to her and sweep her into a huge hug, to reassure himself that she was alive and well, but that was not his way and neither was it really hers.
He approached her slowly, as befitted his current position as a law enforcement officer. He said her name before laying a hand on her shoulder to steady her trembling.
"Wufei!" she cried out, so uncharacteristically. "I didn't mean it! I didn't!"
He hugged her then and held her tightly, forgetting all his personal rules about clearly defined roles and which behaviours belonged with which role.
"Of course you didn't mean it!" he whispered vehemently. "Heero will be fine. He had a vest on so--"
Relena pulled away to look down at herself.
"They say stomach wounds are the worst bleeders..." she said in a soft voice.
Wufei forced her chin up so that he could make direct eye contact with her.
"Heero will be fine."
But there was something else in her eyes, now that he was looking, and suddenly he was worried.
"Did the EMT say something to you, Relena?"
It came out harsher than he intended it to.
"I--no, it's not..." She started crying. "Wufei, I didn't... I just-- for a minute... It wasn't like I meant anything by it!"
"What happened? Relena, tell me what happened!"
"There was-- I just wanted to... brush the hair out of his face..."
Wufei nodded, for what other reaction could he give to encourage her to tell what she had to tell?
"He woke up."
It was barely audible and he had to lean closer to hear her. Relena had dropped her gaze again, her chin almost resting on her chest.
"He caught my hand and he smiled at me... He told me not to worry... And he said that he loved me."
TBC...
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