Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of its characters.

AN: I'm sorry this took so long to get out. I am studying frantically for midterms and doing college applications, so I am a total nervous wreck and couldn't work on my fic that much. Oh, by the way, I really didn't mean to leave you all with a cliffhanger last time. Sorry >_< ! Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback! I love you all!!!!

Part Two

~ Gold. Everything was gold as the softness of the autumn day surrounded him. Heero ran through the park and heard the wonderful sound of dry leaves crunching under his feet. He felt light and happy, those precious feelings which he experienced so rarely. He ran and ran and finally he saw her. Relena smiled at him with that warm smile of hers and he took her in his arms. As the leaves began to fall, they clasped their hands together and twirled around. The leaves twirled, too, and the world seemed right in every way. But then something came. A blackness came and they were twirling too fast and he couldn't hold on. "Relena!" he screamed as she slipped out of his hands and fell into the blackness. Heero was left all alone under a stormy sky. A black figure arose from funneling winds, clad in dark robes, and held out its shadowed arm in the young man's direction. "If you touch her, she will die," it hissed in a frozen voice, "stay away, stay away...." And during all of this time, Heero was weeping. He was weeping. ~

"No!" Heero lunged up from the bed in which he had been lying. The bare whiteness of the walls around him hurt his eyes and he squinted, shaking his head. Still breathing heavily from what he had seen in his sleep, he let out a deep sigh when he realized those horrible events had been only a dream. Heero immediately recognized that he was in a hospital room from the immaculate brightness of everything around him.

"Shhh. It's alright. I'm here, Heero. You're alright," a soothing voice told him.

Heero looked to his side to see Relena gazing at him with comforting eyes. He fell back onto his pillow and wiped away his bangs, which had been plastered to his forehead with sweat.

"I knew you would come out of it, I knew you would," Relena murmured gently to the boy before her. "It was predicted you might be in a coma for a week or even longer. But here you are, only two days since--" she faltered. "Here you are."

Heero closed his eyes. He began to remember what had happened. He had been shot, but he had done his job and protected Relena. She was alive and that was all that really mattered.

"I'll go tell the others you're awake," Relena told him.

Heero grunted a response. As she moved to leave, Relena placed a warm hand upon his. Heero immediately pulled his hand away, his eyes full of concern and worry. He looked up and saw a look of shock cross Relena's face at his sudden reaction. He had never flinched like that under her touch.

"I'll go now," the princess whispered as she quickly moved out the door.

Heero was baffled at what he had done. "It must have been that dream," he told himself as he recalled the voice telling him Relena would die at his touch. He breathed another long sigh of relief, "At least it was only a dream." But what a dream it was. Of course he was often plagued with nightmares of the wars and of his blurry past, but never before had anything been so touching and so real. Heero was greatly discomforted by the whole thing, but tried to push the dream out of his mind as familiar faces entered into his room.

Dr. Sally Po came in wearing her white lab coat, clutching a clipboard. "Hello Heero! Have a good sleep?" she asked him cheerily.

"Hn," Heero mumbled.

Expecting such a response, Sally just rolled her eyes and began checking his stats, poking him here and there and asking if it hurt.

Noin came in the room after Sally, followed by Relena, who looked timidly at Heero because of the earlier awkward incident. Relena cleared her throat, "Heero, Quatre and Duo have come to see you. May I send for them?"

Heero nodded as Sally unwrapped the bandages from his wound. He had been hit in the chest, fairly close to the heart, but the shot had luckily missed any major organs.

Examining the wound, Sally spoke lightly, "Cutting it pretty close there, aren't we, Heero?"

"Nothing I can't handle," the young man told her gruffly.

"Hey Heero!" Duo bounded into the room. "I came as soon as I heard what happened. Are you alright?"

"Fine," Heero replied nonchalantly.

"Oh, that's right, I forgot. You're a pro at these near-death experiences, aren't ya?" Duo mumbled.

"Hi Heero. I'm glad you're okay," Quatre told him. "You had me quite worried. I felt it, you know, when you had been hit. My heart hurt for you," he said sadly.

Heero just sighed.

"Don't worry, buddy. We'll find out who did this, won't we, you guys?" Duo looked to the rest of the group.

"We're already working on it," Noin responded gently. "Now, Duo, Quatre, Relena, if you wouldn't mind, I need to ask Heero a few questions regarding this case."

Taking the hint, they filed out of the room, Duo giving Heero two thumbs up and a wink before bouncing away, and left Heero, Noin and Sally to themselves.

"This is all very sudden," Noin started out, shaking her head with a frown. "We've been monitoring every possible threat so closely, I don't know how this could have happened."

"But it did and there's nothing we can do about it now," Sally said with a sigh, taking off her lab coat to reveal a Preventers' uniform.

"We have barely any leads to the situation," Noin told him, "but one thing is for certain. From investigating eyewitness accounts and watching video security tapes of the event, it became increasingly clear that whoever made that shot was never aiming for Relena. Heero, they meant to kill you."

Heero was stunned. "Who would want to kill me?" he whispered to himself.

"It's clear you made many enemies during the war, Heero," Sally told him, "but you also saved the lives of millions. You're a national hero, for God's sake! Besides, many people don't even know you exist. I mean, everyone knows about the Gundams, but few actually know who the pilots were. And there doesn't seem to be any hostile groups anywhere. People are finally getting used to the idea of Peace."

It was a mystery. Heero had always been the nameless shadow, watching and waiting to strike his victims before the poor souls even realized they were being hunted. Now the tables were turned. Someone was after him. And that someone was an experienced hunter.

"You must think Heero, do you know of anyone who would want you dead? Was there anything suspicious you remember before the incident?" Sally asked him.

Heero recalled the position of the attacker and the end of a black cape, but he could remember nothing else, and couldn't possibly think of anyone who wanted him dead.

"Alright then, we'll let you get some rest. Lady Une sends her regards and apologizes she couldn't come to see you personally. She's back at Headquarters right now going over those video tapes like a maniac. She still can't find any trace of your attacker. It's like he disappeared into thin air."

"We'll come and get you in the morning, Heero. I think it will be alright to take you back to the Palace by then," Sally told him as she put her hand on his head. "You still have a fever, though. I'll have to keep an eye on that," she said with concern.

"Oh, and by the way," Noin said as she tossed him a bag. "Try and figure out what to make of this. Your attacker sure didn't use the standard bullet when he shot you."

The women left Heero alone with the bag labeled "Evidence". Curious, Heero opened it to reveal the most intricately decorated arrow he had ever seen.

"I was shot with an arrow!?!" Heero thought in disbelief. But what a shot! Looking back down at his wound, the arrow had apparently entered through his back, right underneath his shoulder blade, and come out clear on the other side of his chest. Heero now realized it was a true miracle that the deadly weapon hadn't hit anything important along the way, unless...unless the archer had so perfect an aim that the arrow was directed along its path with the desired intent of not killing its victim. Had it been a warning shot? It was a scary thought, a very real and scary thought.

Heero directed his attention back to the arrow. Its silver point glimmered and on its back end was attached fine ivory feathers. He noticed the feathers were stained red in some places in which all of the blood--his blood--that had covered the arrow couldn't quite be cleaned off. The shaft of the arrow was decorated with ornate silver patterns and markings. It seemed unusually thick, but also felt very light for its width. "It could be hollow," Heero thought as he analyzed it. "There's something to this...something I'm missing."

Heero took a closer look. He was amazed at what he saw. There, intricately intertwined into a delicate pattern, was a series of infinities. And then it hit him. The infinity! That was the symbol which had flashed from the direction of the attacker before Heero had passed out. Somehow, Heero was sure that the stone from Europa with the infinity marking was related to what had happened to him, and he was determined to find out how.

Heero lay back thinking. He twirled the shaft of the arrow with his fingertips absent-mindedly, but stopped suddenly when he heard a click. He looked to a set of infinities, which were a little larger than the others, located right below the arrowhead. When he applied pressure to one, he heard a click. Suddenly realizing what he had done, Heero pushed down on the pair of infinities at the same time. He heard a sound of something unlocking, and grew wide-eyed as the arrowhead slid out of position, revealing the hollow inside of the arrow's shaft. Heero took off the point and looked in the shaft. There was something inside! Heero took the thing out and found that it was a piece of finely rolled up paper. He quickly unrolled it and read its message, written beautifully in an old-style font:

I've been watching you for a long, long time.

Soon, I will come. It is time.

Do not be alarmed. This is the only way.

But do not disregard your dreams.

If you stay near the girl, you will only bring harm to her.

You must get away so you may face your future.

Heero crumpled the note in his hand. This was definitely meant for him. Whoever wrote the note knew that he would be the one to find it. Someone knew him way too well. Heero decided he would show the note to no one, it would only cause too many questions to which he did not know the answers.

Time crept by slowly for Heero during the days he was bedridden at the Peacecraft Palace. Plagued by dreams and nightmares, fever and pain, he stayed alone in his room, requesting no one enter, except either the servants who attended to him or Noin and Sally, who often checked up on him and reported updates of the investigation.

Heero had become lost in his thoughts and in his dreams, which were becoming more and more vivid as each day passed. In each of his dreams, the figure in black appeared and the voice reminded him to stay away from Relena. He was in a torturous cycle of dreams and depression. And sadly, he was almost positive Relena was just as upset as well. More than once a week, deep into the lonely hours of the night, he would watch his door slowly open and reveal her silhouette. She would debate whether or not to come in, take a step into his room, hesitate, then turn and whirl away. Each time she appeared, he recognized the silver lines of tears upon her cheeks, reflected from the starlight that was cast in from his window. Each time, he cursed himself for having to be so cruel to her without giving her a reason. He had to ignore her, to be isolated from herhe just had to. It was the only option he had to keep her alive. He never realized that the emptiness was slowly killing both of them.

More to come as soon as my exam week is over! Yay! Please e-mail me with comments!

(Hey, that kinda got like Sailor Moon with the whole dream boy-can't-see-girl-or-something-bad-will-happen thing. HmmmI just noticed thatok, I'll be quiet nowStressturningbraintomush). See yaz!