Disclaimer: Standard, the usual, same old, same old.

Author's Notes: Thank you all very much for your amazing support. This chapter is a little short, but I wanted to get it out for yall because I'm not sure how updating is going to go now that classes have started. I'm taking two advanced writing workshops and two heavy literature classes so I can graduate in December, and finding time to spend on my fan fic might become difficult. I won't give up on any story by any means, but I refuse to sacrifice quality just to get something out. Updates might lag, but the story won't. You have my word. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

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To Dance Beneath the Diamond Sky
by Kristen Elizabeth

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"Does this stuff ever come off?"

Heero's question bounced off the cement blocks that surrounded him. There was no one sharing the cramped holding cell who could answer it for him. With a sigh, he lowered his hands with their ink-stained fingers down to his sides. It had to come off. In less than twenty-four hours he was set to dance in front of a couple thousand people. Prince Siegfried could not bear any traces of having been arrested, booked and finger-printed by the NYPD.

He leaned back against one cold wall. It was all worth it to protect her. Having a criminal record, jeopardizing his career...he hadn't been lying when he had said he'd do it all again. Alerting the world to the French bastard's treatment of Relena was enough of a reward to make up for any punishment. Seeing the look on his face upon being hit had just been icing on the cake.

The problem now was that he couldn't protect Relena from behind bars. And if the man got it in his head to take his anger at Heero out on her... He balled up his fist. "Please be safe," he said out loud. "Don't let him..."

"Heero Yuy." Heero's fingers relaxed as the guard who had put him in the cell an hour earlier approached his cell. Producing a ring of keys, he unlocked the door. "Come on. Your bail's been made."

"Who..." Heero blinked as a very familiar face appeared behind the guard. "Relena." He moved for the door.

The guard shook his head as the two teenagers embraced. "Take it somewhere else," he told them, closing the door of the now-empty cell. "You can get your things back from the front desk, Yuy, and then get going."

As the sour man moved off, Relena pulled back slightly. "Heero, what happened?"

"I hit him," he told her with great simplicity.

"Oh Heero..." The faintest strains of worry and exasperation flittered across her pretty features. "I know that. Millardo told me that much. I just don't understand why you're here."

Heero lifted his shoulders. "I guess he didn't like it."

"Please don't joke. This could affect your entire future!"

"I really can't worry about that right now," Heero replied, nonchalantly. "I'm much more occupied keeping you safe from him."

Relena looked up into the stormy eyes she had fallen so in love with. "You can't protect me from everything, Heero."

"I can try."

A moment passed. "I love you." Her cool hand cupped his cheek as her lips brushed across his. "How's your hand feeling, slugger?"

He held one up. "Stained."

Relena smiled softly. "A little water and...um...turpentine should take care of that."

"Both things I have at my place." Heero hesitated. "Do you have a problem sleeping with a man who has a criminal record?"

"Are you kidding?" Her hand drifted down to settle on his muscled chest. "Girls can't resist a bad boy." The light tone left her voice. "And I can't go home. I'm not sure what I might do if I saw him now. But it wouldn't be good."

He covered her fingers with his inky ones. "Stay away from him, Relena. He'll be there tomorrow..." A quick glance at the clock told him it was a good while past twelve a.m. "....tonight and he'll try to intimidate us. We can't let him. I don't care what he tries to do to me. I couldn't give a damn. But if I ever see him near you...he'll be lucky to get away with a just broken nose."

A little shiver ran down her spine. There was so much intensity in his words. "Let's get out of here," she whispered. "I think we both need sleep."

But sleep was the last thing on either of their minds when they made it back to Heero's empty apartment half an hour later. Relena couldn't remember many of the details; the minutes ran together, molding into one long moment of ecstasy. Being in Heero's arms, feeling the warm pressure of his body over hers, his breath warm against her throat, his body hard between her thighs...it was pleasure beyond comprehension.

She ran her hands up and down his sweat-kissed body as he regained control over himself. Her own chest still rose and fell underneath him. Unwrapping her legs from around his waist, Relena looked up at the ceiling of Heero's bedroom. She wanted to stay in the moment; it only seemed right that she be able to, seeing as how their bodies were still joined.

But reality hung in the background of her thoughts. Now that her defenses were down, she couldn't help but think back over the evening's events. And worry about what was yet to come.

Millardo had, at first, refused to tell Relena what was going on upstairs in the company's offices...or why there was a police car arriving at the stage door as he ushered her into the limousine. It was only when they arrived back at the apartment and she had threatened to scream that he let everything slip.

Then he had asked the question she had not been able to answer. *Where do you fit into it all, Relena?* As Heero's breathing slowed back to normal, Relena bit her lip in frustration and anger. She was caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. Coming out against Jean-Paul could help Heero's case. At the same time, she had no more proof to back up her claims than she had before.

Heero lifted his head from the gentle curve of her neck. "I love you, Relena," he whispered, his eyes hooded with lingering pleasure.

Tears spilled down her temples, wetting her tangled hair and his pillow. After he gently withdrew from her body, Heero kissed her softly and got up to dispose of the obligatory condom. When he returned from his bathroom a moment later, he slid back into bed and reached for her. Relena wrapped her arms around her lover, hugging him with a sudden urgency. No words were necessary

A smile on his gorgeous face, Heero slipped into sleep a few minutes later. Relena let her fingers play along the smooth flesh of his inner arm. He was so strong; he could lift her above his head without breaking a sweat. His hands had punched two men in a single day for her. Yet, when the same arms and hands held her, they were nothing but gentle and loving.

Protecting her was first on his agenda. What he didn't realize was that protecting him was at the top of hers.

Just as she had the first time they made love, Relena pulled herself away from the warmth of his bed as he slept and headed back home.

****

Millardo paced back and forth across the thick oriental rug that stretched underneath the four-poster bed he shared with Lucrezia. She was curled up within its burgandy sheets, one hand propping up her head, the other covering her flat belly. "What are you going to do?" she asked in her gentle way.

He shook his head. "I don't really have a choice. The idiot knows too many people. And those people are the ones who keep the company in financial security. If he wants to...and I think he wants to...Chevalier could destroy Heero Yuy. And if he's dancing for us, we'd go down, too."

"What if you got him into another company?"

"It'd be the same story. And it would take a hell of a lot of strings being pulled to get him into another company, having a criminal record against Jean-Paul Chevalier." Millardo stopped short. "The kid deserves to make the company, Lu. But I can't run the risk of endangering it just for him. Is that wrong?"

She licked her lower lip, thinking it over. "You always have the company's best interest at heart, baby. But in this case...I think you should throw caution to the wind. Heero does deserve this. He's worked so hard for so long to get it. I don't think that something this...this trivial should end it all."

"If I only I could figure out what it was all about!" His jaw grew tight. "Yuy wouldn't say anything. Relena wouldn't say anything. Chevalier was too busy calling the French embassy. All I know is that something really big is going on and if no one talks about it, I'll lose a future cavalier for my company and he'll lose his entire career before it even gets started."

She lowered her head to the pillow that bore the wonderful scent of her fiancee's cologne. "If it's meant to, it will all come out."

Millardo sighed. "I wish I could just leave it at that, Lu, but it's obviously too big to do that. I have to get to the bottom of it all. I have to..."

"Millardo!" Lucrezia cried out his name, her voice heavy with sudden pain and fright. The hand that had simply rested on her belly now clutched it. "Something's wrong. The baby..." She tried to sit up, but the hot cramping made her shrivel back up underneath the covers. "It hurts."

****

Relena let herself into the apartment with slow, deliberate motions. Inserting the key, turning the lock, pushing the door open. Simple movements, dampened by her solemn mood. She was not there to sleep, or bathe or even to grab a few things before rushing back to her lover's bed. She was there for one purpose and one purpose only.

Fortunately, the one purpose was sitting in the parlor, staring at a fire that seemed out of place in mid-spring, sipping a glass of wine and waiting for her.

"Where have you been, ma cher?"

Relena walked into the room and set down her bag onto the Victorian love seat. Her back was ram-rod straight, her chin level as she replied in French without answering at all. "What do you want from me?"

Jean-Paul stood up and turned around to face her. The larger couch stood between them like a little wall, but Relena felt no protection from it. He studied her for a moment before looking back at his half-full glass. "The best wine in the world cannot hope to taste better than your lips." With one fluid motion, he threw his drink into the fireplace, creating a surge of heat and light. "And you give them to another."

"They've never been for you." Relena bit the inside of her cheek to combat her tears of fright. He was truly and completely insane. "And they never will be." Jean-Paul made a motion towards her, but she held up one hand. "Come any nearer, and I'll scream for my brother."

"Do it until your throat is raw, cher." The French man smiled wickedly. "He is not here."

Cold fear pooled around her heart, seizing it in blind panic. "Where is he?" Relena demanded. Where was her only lifeline?

Jean-Paul sidestepped the question as gracefully as he bypassed the couch between them. "The one who hit me, yes? He is the man you prefer to me?" He snorted. "Hardly a man. Only a boy. A boy with too hot a temper." Reaching out, his fingers brushed her stony cheek. "I will take care of him."

"Leave him alone," Relena said, barely able to keep her voice steady. "I'm asking you....to drop the charges against him."

"Why would I do that, ma cher?"

"Because I asked you to?" Her eyes darted to the right, towards the rest of the house. "Where is Millardo?"

"If I were to let the boy go free..." Jean-Paul let his slick gaze take a long stroll down the length of her slender body. "...would you come to me with open arms?"

Relena swallowed. "I'm not sure I under..."

"Do not play games, cherie," he snapped. Quickly, he regained composure. "I will forget all about my poor face that your Heero hurt, if you will let me have you. All of you."

Long minutes of silence passed, but in her mind, a memory surfaced unbidden. The image of Heero on her first day in the ballet class. So focused...cold...distant. So unlike the Heero whose arms she had just left. The many sides of him...she would protect them all no matter what. Finally, Relena made her choice.

"Deal."

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To Be Continued