Symbol of Honor
Chapter 8
By: Lady Saffir
Disclaimer: me no own...
Thought for the day:

"Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear. "

Author's Notes: First, I have to thank everyone that e-mailed me and told me to hurry up with this chapter. This is actually only half of what I had planned to be chapter 8 - I hope to have the second part out in two weeks.

I also have to thank Fatima for reading and telling me what sucked, and everybody at ProRelena (hi guys!) for doing the same.

*IMPORTANT* If I have given you permission to post this story at your website, could you please e-mail me your site address again? My computer went on a cleaning spree...


************************************

Heero frowned, glaring at the computer screen. In two days he and Relena, along with friends and family, would leave for Japan. For his wedding. For their wedding.

Oh god.

He wouldn't quite call it cold feet...no, Heero knew that he wanted to marry Relena. He wouldn't even be having these self-doubts if it weren't for this unknown attacker. Of course, if he was completely honest with himself, (and honesty, though at times harsh, was what he dealt in) the main problem was that he kept hearing one tiny little line from the traditional wedding vows.

To honor and protect.

'Well', Heero mused, 'the honoring won't be the hard part, seeing that I've never even LOOKED at another girl. It the protecting part that I'm worried about. I can't even find this psycho - what's to say that this person won't succeed where other's have failed...'

The office door suddenly flew open, disrupting Heero's train of thought. Duo poured through the door, dragging a reluctant Wufei with him. Trailing along, laughing at the expression on Wufei's face came Trowa and Quatra.

"Heya, Heero! Ready to go?"

Heero blinked, sure that he had missed something.

"What are you talking about, Duo? You know I have a ton of paperwork to do before we leave."

Duo sighed theatrically, planting his hands on Heero's desk. Leaning forward until he was eye-level with his friend, he spoke two words.

"Bachelor party."

Disbelief was the only word that could describe the expression on Heero's face. Looking between his four friends, he noted the gleam in each of their eyes.

"Oh hell no."
******************************


Those, as it turned out, were famous last words. Which explained why Heero was sitting in Duo's living room, trying to find some way out of this mess. While he occasionally enjoyed the stunts that Duo pulled, he had heard Duo whispering something about a stripper to an unknown person on the vidphone.

Heero was NOT sticking around for that.

Or so he thought.

Black cloth was suddenly draped over his face, obscuring his vision completely. Fighting to remove the material, he finally gave up when he heard Relena's voice whispering in his ear.

"Heero, I promise you that nothing bad is going to happen. So just relax. Besides, I made the guys clear everything through me first."

Nodding, Heero sunk back into his chair, awaiting whatever form of torture Relena and Duo had come up with. However, hands pulled him up, turning him to face in another direction. The blindfold was pulled off, leaving Heero to face Relena, who was wearing a trenchcoat and a smile.

Upon opening the coat, Heero was only dimly able to note that Relena was wearing something black and feathery, before his eyes rolled upwards and he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

Relena closed the coat and turned to face her astonished friends.

"I guess he did like it."

**********************************

When Heero came to, the first thing he did was take a flying leap at Duo. Easily grabbing hold of the startled man, Heero reached into a nearby cup, scooping out a handful of ice. Grinning at the look on Duo's face, Heero fully intended to enjoy his revenge.

"Hope you don't mind sub-arctic temperatures," Heero said, before stuffing the multiple ice cubes down the front of Duo's pants.

Giving a high pitched 'Eeee!' that made people for three miles around cover their ears, Duo jumped to his feet, dumping the laughing Heero in the floor. Frantically shaking the ice out of his pants, he gave a large sigh of relief when he felt the last of the cubes slide down his leg.

"Erm, Duo, don't you think it's about time that you were potty trained?" Trowa deadpanned.

Confused, Duo looked down to see a large water stain covering a large portion of his jeans. He looked up to see his friends howling with laughter.

"That is not funny," he said, calmly walking out of the room.



When Duo had finally returned, the fun began in earnest. The party consisted only of the five Gundam pilots. The food, the fun, the wine, the women...

OK, not the women, but everything else was true. After all, Duo Maxwell had quickly become known for his parties. Even Wufei got into the spirit, unable to resist watching his friends make fools of themselves playing Twister.

"Left hand red."

"Damnit, Wufei, I swear you're doing this on purpose! I am NOT some doll that can flex any which way!"

"I'm not having any trouble."

"That's because you're a damn acrobat Trowa!"

Losing his balance, which was precarious to begin with, Duo toppled, taking Heero, and Quatra down with him. It was an amused Trowa that smile down at his fallen comrades.

"Looks like I won."

Yes, folks, drunken Twister at its best.

The final game for the evening was an all-time classic, even outranking Twister.

Pin the tale on the Gundam.

Heero looked at the strip of cloth in his hand, then at the board with a picture of Wing on it. Swaying slightly, Heero turned to face a blurred Duo.

"And what do I win?"

Duo giggled, flinging an exuberant arm about his friend's shoulders.

"Why, the right to sit next to Relena on the plane."

Heero thought for a moment, then nodded his head.

"Fair enough."

Using the same strip of cloth that had covered Heero's eyes earlier, Duo made sure to tie the knot snugly. Walking his friend to stand in front of the board, Duo was about to begin spinning Heero when a thought crossed his drunken mind.

"Say, Heero, how much have you had to drink?"

"Um...I don't know..."

Shrugging philosophically, Duo began the spinning in earnest.

"You clean the mess up."

After what felt like five minutes of spinning, Heero realized that Duo had stopped quite a while ago. Now if he could only remember why he was spinning in the first place...

Oh yeah, so he could sit next to...to Relena.

Filled with determination, Heero boldly stepped forward, determined to show everyone that he was still the best after a few drinks.

Too bad that wall was there.

With an oath, Heero rubbed his swollen nose, turning towards the direction of Duo's laughing.

"Dammit Duo, why'd you move the wall?"

Trying to ignore the laughter that was floating around him, Heero once more to a cautious step towards the wall. Finding it with his hand, he took a deep breath, then stabbed forward.

**********************************


Heero was still grumbling the next afternoon about his 'party', still unable to believe that Relena had actually gone along with Duo's insane plan.

Not that he minded her outfit in the least, though.

He also wasn't too happy about losing the game to Trowa. Not only had he missed the target entirely, he had also managed to stab his own hand in the process.

As Wufei would say, Injustice. With a capital 'I'.

Pulling the car to a stop in front of the Peacecraft mansion, both he and Relena carried the multiple packages into the house. Each box contained the traditional kimonos that everyone would be wearing to the Shinto wedding.

Laughing at the picture of Heero trying to balance the bulky packages in one hand, while fumbling for the keys with his other, Relena didn't hear the sound at first. When she did hear it though, all blood drained from her face.

Growing steadily louder, the sound reminded Relena of a child crying out from pain. The high pitched squeals alternated with the quieter whimpering, the short gasps for breath breaking the still air.

Relena turned to see Heero go into 'Soldier Mode', the blankness settling over his face, eyes masked behind a wall of blue ice. Dropping the packages swiftly, Heero fluidly pulled his gun, checking the chamber to make sure it was loaded.

"Stay close," he ordered, before pulling her to his side.

They traced the sound to the edge of the property, to the middle of a small grove of trees. The sweet tree scent of summer, warm sunlight filtering through the branches, the barely audible buzz of insects - all seemed to conflict with the fear and hurt that floated about the air.

Heero sucked in a breath at the sight that met his eyes. Belatedly, he tried to block Relena's view of the grizzly sight. After all that had happened, and with the wedding in two days, she didn't need this.

Unfortunately for both of them, she saw.

With a cry, Relena turned her head into Heero's shoulder, trying to block the image from her mind. The...dog, the animal, the...thing, whatever it was, had been skinned, with the pelt left to dry next to the suffering animal.

Heero dropped to a crouch, pulling Relena with him. Whoever had done this was still nearby; the blood was still slowly oozing out of the animal's body.

Relena whimpered, trying to find her inner-balance. She was stronger than this, she could control her stomach, she mustn't let whoever had done this get the better of her. That alone was enough to steel her resolve.

"Heero, please."

Not having to speak any further, Heero nodded in silent agreement. Standing, he edged closer to the animal, Relena still huddled against his side.

"I'm sorry," Heero said, placing his gun point-blank at the animal's head. He held Relena's head close with his left hand, turning her head into his shoulder before squeezing the trigger.

The whimpering stopped.


**********************************************