Disclaimer: Everyone, all together now...
Author's Notes: Sorry if this chapter is a bit short. I hope it's
still good. For those of you worried about Hilde, don't;) I like
her; I'll take care of her. Thank you for your continued support.
****
To Dance Beneath the Diamond Sky
by Kristen Elizabeth
****
People strolling New York's Park Avenue just after sunset weren't
particularly shocked to witness a young girl, running along the
sidewalk, stumbling occasionally under the weight of her sobs,
which really said something about the city in which they lived.
Relena wouldn't have noticed the people she passed even if they
had paid any attention to her. She just kept running, as she had
from the moment she slipped out of her brother's apartment. It
really didn't matter what anyone, especially her mother, thought;
Relena just knew that no force on earth could keep her in the
parlor for cocktails and small talk with Jean-Paul.
Seeing him again was her worst nightmare come to life. Her brain
hadn't even paused to consider how it was he had come to be a
guest in the house....or more specifically, who had invited him.
Blind panic had prevented those important questions from being
asked. She wasn't exactly thinking straight as she ran uptown
for five entire blocks.
Gasping for air and ignoring her mascara streaked cheeks, Relena
stopped in front of his building. The doorman on duty recognized
her, and held the gold and glass lobby door open. He seemed concerned
by her distress, but kept his mouth shut.
Relena took the elevator to his floor. On the way up, she tried
to wipe at her cheeks, but the tears just kept coming. She gave
up when the doors slid apart. Knees weak, shoulders trembling,
she knocked on Heero's door.
Several long minutes later, she heard the lock turn. The door
opened to the end of the metal chain. Relena frowned, then lowered
her gaze. A section of Ethan Yuy's face peered up at her through
the crack. "Um...is Heero here?"
His father regarded her with a lecherous eye. "I haven't
seen the little faggot all day."
Relena flinched at his words. "All right. By the way, Mr.
Yuy. You're a truly disgusting excuse for a human being."
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and headed for the elevator.
She stepped back onto the dark street a few minutes later; what
she had said to Heero's father had only made her feel better for
a brief moment. She was still completely lost. There wasn't much
doubt in her mind where Heero was, and it would be very easy to
hail a cab and find him in his special place in the Park.
But if she did that, what would she say to him, anyway? "Heero,
you were the first man who's ever wanted me, no matter what you've
been led to believe...the only other was a forty year old Frenchman
who tried to rape me after ballet class"? Somehow, Relena
couldn't see herself actually saying the words out loud to him.
Even as she was telling herself all of that, she was standing
on the curb, waving her arm to flag down a passing taxi. When
one stopped and she slipped into the backseat, the first words
out of her mouth were, "Central Park."
When they arrived, Relena pulled a crumpled five dollar bill from
the pocket of her jeans and handed it to the driver as she hastily
climbed out. She had only taken the path to Heero's spot once,
but it wasn't something she could ever forget. Heero had shared
such a huge part of himself with her that night; she had felt
honored, touched...she had fallen in love.
Relena tripled her speed as she came into the clearing from the
wooded path. Heero's "boys" were there, playing a haunting
tune she didn't recognize. Seated on the stone lip of the fountain
was Heero...and a young girl with shoulder length dirty blond
hair.
Heero was saying something to her which prompted the girl to smile
and put a hand on his shoulder. It was all Relena needed to see.
She had always thought that if she were presented with a situation
like this, she would stick around to see if there might be a logical
explanation. But she was beyond logic. All she saw was Heero with
another girl at his favorite place in the world.
She walked back to her brother's apartment, not caring if she
were mugged, raped or shot along the way.
****
"It's a really nice night, isn't it?"
Heero tore his eyes away from his jazz quartet long enough to
locate the person speaking. A strange girl was sitting next to
him, staring at the sky with a dreamy expression. He hadn't even
felt her presence until then, his mind was so clouded. "I
guess," he managed to say.
The girl glanced his way. "I'm Sylvia. You seemed like you
could use some company."
"I don't," Heero replied.
"Are you sure?"
"Look, I'd really just like to be alone right now."
Sylvia smiled and placed a soft hand on his muscled shoulder.
"I've seen you here before, you know." She gestured
to their surroundings. "I come here a lot...looking for company."
Heero sighed. "I get it. Well, I'm not in the market for
small talk, and I'm sure not in the market for a hooker."
She pulled her hand back, her eyes furious. "Excuse me?!
You think that I'm propositioning you?!"
"Aren't you?"
"I was hoping to find someone to talk to!" Sylvia stood
up, hands on her hips. "And I end up being more insulted
than I ever have been before!"
Heero held up his hands. "It's not like I said something
way out there. You approached me after dark in Central Park, asking
for company. You started touching me..."
"I'm a very friendly person," she scowled. "Do
you have a girlfriend?" When Heero didn't reply, she continued,
"I'm not surprised, if you're this horribly judgmental with
everyone."
"Judgmental," Heero repeated.
Sylvia shook her head. "Quick to jump to conclusions without
all the facts. Egotistical." She started walking away. "Just
generally a jerk. No wonder you're in the Park all alone."
Heero didn't blink for a long minute after she had stalked away.
A perfect stranger had written him off as judgmental, and all
he had done was draw a logical conclusion based on...
He stopped. Relena. But that was different, he told himself. In
her case, he had hard testimony from her own mother...the same
mother Relena had once described as an egg-donor, temporary shelter
for nine months, and not much else.
It took a lot of willpower to keep from running straight to her
building and scaling her fire escape. It was going to take a lot
more to wait until Monday morning when he could confront her...and
hopefully find out that he was just an egotistical jerk.
****
"What are you watching?"
Duo didn't turn his glazed stare from the television screen. "Saturday
Night Live," he replied to his father's question.
Robert Maxwell eased back into his padded armchair. "Did
I ever tell you about time I watched it being taped?" He
continued when Duo shook his head. "1983. Your mom was pregnant
with you and I simply had to get out of the house for the night.
I was still adjusting the idea of impending parenthood. Carrie
Fisher was hosting. And they did this skit about a baby. Halfway
though, I realized..." He chuckled. "I realized that
Princess Leia was sending me a cosmic message that I was ready
to be a father."
"Isn't this the story where you tried acid?" Duo folded
his arms over his bare chest. "I thought it was sounding
familiar."
"Please...I dropped that stuff for the first time in the
basement of my cousin's house ten years before I even met your
mother." His father picked up the remote control and muted
Jimmy Fallon. "She didn't go to the prom with you."
"It's not even that simple."
"Care to elaborate?" Duo shook his head. "Okay.
Well, I wish I had something brilliant and parental to say."
Robert glanced over at his son. "I don't. But I can tell
you that you're young. You have your whole life ahead of you.
When you look back on all of this in twenty years..." He
sighed. "Hell, I don't know. I just have to wonder if she's
really worth all the torment she's putting you through."
Duo shifted until he was lying across the couch on his side, a
soft throw pillow stuffed under his cheek. "She is, Dad.
I don't even need a cosmic message from George Lucas."
"But it would help, right?" Robert winked at his only
son.
Smiling despite himself, Duo raised his arm to the ceiling. "Guide
me, George! Tell me which path to choose!"
"Go for the Dark Side," his father advised. "Chicks
dig the Dark Side."
Duo let his arm flop back against his side. "As long as I
get a light saber, it's all good." There was a long pause
as both father and son watched the silent SNL cast. "I really
love her, Dad."
"I know, son," Robert said a minute later. "I know."
****
Relena's sleep was fitful that night. Although she had been spared
seeing Jean-Paul when she returned to the penthouse as the rest
of the household had gone out for dinner, he was, to her, still
a powerful presence in the house. She tossed and turned for hours,
knowing the guest room in which he slept was only two doors down
from her own.
She woke late, and much to her relief, Helen had already whisked
her guest off for a day of sight-seeing. Over a breakfast of strawberries
and croissants, Lucrezia drew a sickening picture for her. As
her brother's fiancee saw it, her mother simply had to be sleeping
with Jean-Paul.
The very thought, not to mention mental picture, so disgusted
Relena that she promptly lost the contents of her stomach in the
hall bathroom. Even though she felt better almost instantly, she
refused to eat another bite when she rejoined her brother and
his fiancee at the table.
"I'm the one who's supposed to be throwing up in the mornings,"
Lucrezia said, popping a strawberry into her mouth.
Millardo quietly sipped his coffee. "Right. I forgot about
that fun part of pregnancy."
Relena cleared her throat delicately. "So...neither of you
like Mother's guest?"
"He's not....bad," her brother replied, diplomatically.
Lucrezia gave her a lover a look. "Be honest. Five minutes
around him and you feel like you need to take a shower to be clean
again."
"Well, Mother seems to like him," he tossed back.
"I told you." She speared another piece of fruit. "She's
sleeping with him."
"Please...I don't want to throw up again." In spite
of herself, Relena managed to smile. "Besides...he doesn't
like women." **Only girls. Young ones.**
Lucrezia lifted her eyebrow. "I should have guessed. He is
a French ballet instructor, after all."
"I'll try not to take offense to that." Millardo grinned
over the rim of his coffee cup.
"Good, because you're not French." Lucrezia watched
him stand up. "Where are you going?"
Millardo pulled on his jacket which had been draped over his chair.
"To the office."
"It's Sunday," Relena reminded him.
He leaned down to kiss Lucrezia's forehead. "It's the 29th.
Pay checks go out tomorrow for the company members."
Lucrezia smiled. "Let him go. That's a worthy cause."
Relena blinked several times. "Today is the 29th?" When
they both nodded, she abruptly stood up. "Excuse me."
Bursting into her room a moment later, Relena made a beeline for
her day planner. She tore into it, turning pages with the speed
of light until she reached April. Her finger traced the blocks
devoted to each day, searching. But it wasn't there. Between rehearsals,
haircuts and costume fittings, she had missed one very important
appointment.
Her period.
Panic started in the center of her chest and quickly radiated
out to the tips of her fingers. After what seemed like years,
but was really only twenty minutes, Relena sat back against the
ruffled bedskirt, her breasts rising and falling as she struggled
for breath. It was impossible. Impossible. She found herself repeating
the word over and over again, a life preserver to which she desperately
clung.
When someone knocked on her door, Relena reached her boiling point.
"What?!" she screamed, slamming her fists into the carpet.
"Miss Relena." The housekeeper, Magda. "There's
someone at the door to see you."
She had no desire to see anyone, but out of habit, took the old
woman's cue and started through the apartment. Millardo and Lucrezia
were gone; the rooms were eerie in their silence. Rounding the
corner into the front hallway, Relena felt the familiar pressure
of hot, rising tears.
When she saw Quatre Winner and Trowa Barton standing in the hallway,
surrounded by luggage, she completely broke down.
Quatre wasted no time gathering her into his arms. "What
is it, Relena?" he murmured in French as he gently rocked
her. "These are not tears for our unexpected visit, are they?"
"They're not," Relena replied, in French as well, in
case the housekeeper was listening. "Oh, Quatre..."
She lifted her head from his shoulder. "Trowa..." Taking
the hand Quatre's boyfriend offered her, Relena let it all pour
out. "Jean-Paul is staying with us for a week at my mother's
invitation. I'm going to fail Biology and make a fool out of myself
in front of New York on Friday night. The man I love can't stand
to be around me and has already moved on with other girls."
She sniffed. "And I might be pregnant with his baby."
Trowa looked at his blond companion. "I think we did not
arrive in the nick of time, Little One."
****
To Be Continued