Disclaimer: Too tired to be either repetitive or clever. They're not mine.

Author's Notes: A short chapter, but hopefully a good one. Sorry for all the delys on all the stories, but school kind of sucks right now. Thanks for all the kind words; they make the pursuit of a degree easier to survive.

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To Dance Beneath the Diamond Sky
by Kristen Elizabeth

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Duo licked his suddenly dry lips. "Hilde. What the hell are you doing here?" Instantly, he shook his head. "Wait...that didn't come out right." A second zipped by as he thought. "Actually, maybe it did. 'Cause you're just about the last person I expected to see tonight."

She delicately cleared her throat. "I know. I probably shouldn't be here. I just..." Hilde stopped, looking up towards the flys to keep her tears at bay. "I have no idea how to say everything I need to say."

Moments passed as Hilde struggled with her thoughts and Duo studied the woman he still loved. "You look...beautiful," he said, quietly.

Her gaze shot down to the cast on her leg. "Duo, you don't have to....I mean, after everything that's happened..." Her tears spilled over. "Damnit! Why are you so good to me?!"

"I knew you'd be up and about way before they said you would be," he continued. "Nothing keeps my Hilde down."

"Please stop," she whispered. "I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you anymore."

Before Duo had a chance to reply, the company's tech director approached them from the wings. "Hey!" Wufei Chang's face was set in a scowl. "Can you two take it somewhere else? My crew's got work to do."

"C'mon." Duo reached out to grasp Hilde's arm. It was something he had done a million times in the past. Only now, when his fingers made contact with her flesh, he immediately took a step back. It was too intimate, too soon. "Um...let's..." He pointed to the wings.

Hilde followed him, trying her hardest to walk as straight and normally as possible, despite her cast. When they were off the stage, she licked her lips. "Duo...before this goes any further, I have to tell you something."

"What's that?" he asked, scratching the back of his perspiration-soaked head.

"I'm sorry." Her simple statement hung in the air for a moment. "For everything I put you through since...since my accident." She paused. "Before it even." Her lower lip trembled. "I was a bitch. And you never left my side in spite of it."

"Until you switched hospitals without telling me."

Hilde crossed her arms, holding onto her stomach as though it would fall apart. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "At the time...I was a mess. I was blaming everyone else for my lot in life. Especially Relena. And you, to a certain extent. I just wanted to get away from everything. Everyone."

Duo looked down at his black ballet shoes. "So...what's changed?"

"I have." Hilde took a step forward. "After some intense physical therapy and even more intense amateur counseling, courtesy of my physical therapist. I mean...I still have a long way to go." She hesitated for a moment. "Tonight was really hard, Duo. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the second act."

"But you did," he reminded her. "And don't you think tonight was just as hard for me? Not the dancing...the not having you part. The being alone."

She shook her head. "I've hurt you so much, I know. I'm so sorry."

After a heavy minute of silence, Duo pointed to her cast. "So, if you're walking now...does that mean you'll get to dance someday, too?"

"I don't know," Hilde whispered. "But do you know what? It doesn't matter."

He frowned. "What?"

Hilde unfolded her arms. "Everything's changed for me, Duo. And for awhile, I thought those changes were going to be too much to bear. You know that dancing was my whole life."

"Yeah." Duo glanced away. "Just dancing. I remember."

"But I was wrong." Hilde moved even closer to him, still maintaining the space he seemed to need. "I never even looked around and realized what my whole life should have been about. All I saw was dance. I didn't see it, Duo, but I do now."

"See what?"

She smiled the smile that had haunted his dreams for weeks. "You. Just you."

Duo stared at her. "Me?"

"You." Her voice cracked as she began to cry. "I've missed you so much, Duo."

"Babe..." The familiar wrenching pain in his heart that plagued him whenever she was upset hit him instantly. "Babe...please don't cry. You know that just turns me into pudding."

Hilde wiped tears off her cheeks. "I don't expect you to just forgive me. And maybe I messed up things too much and they'll never be repaired, but..." She took a breath. "I just needed to let you know...how much I love you. How much I've always loved you."

He watched her for a moment. The slender shoulders that he had loved to massage shook ever so slightly. Her eyes were wet with blue tears; her lips almost ruby from her nervous nibbles on them. It had taken so much for her to be where she was. Accelerated physical therapy and the pain that went with it, personal revelations, the ultimate realization that her life could go on, even if it would never be the way she had planned it.

Having never closed off his heart to her, Duo decided not to waste another moment. So many of them had already been lost. He couldn't get those back, but he could make sure that not another passed without her knowing that he felt, had always felt, and would always feel exactly the same way.

The sudden warmth and pressure of two strong, still slightly sweaty arms around her snapped Hilde out of her quiet sobs. Her eyes flew open only to look up into Duo's warm violet stare. "You're forgiven," he said, his voice husky with emotion. "'Cause I love you, babe."

"Duo..." Her eyes closed again as more hot tears spilled over. Her own arms wrapped around his muscled torso and she buried her face in his black feathered costume. "How could I have ever put ballet over you?"

His reply was muffled by her curls. "You loved it, too, babe."

"I did." She sniffed. "I know it's not what I was meant to do now though. You told me that once....that maybe this all happened to show me what I'm really meant to do with my life." Hilde's throat closed up. "I guess I just wasn't meant to be a dancer."

Duo lifted his head up. With only a moment's consideration, he bent and gently scooped her up into his arms.

"Duo!" Hilde clung to his neck. "What are you doing?"

Without replying, he carried her out onto the stage. The curtain had been lifted once again; thousands of empty, velvet seats stared back at them. "Duo," she said again. "Tell me what..."

"The first time I met you, I fell in love with you," he cut her off. "And it wasn't because you could jump high, or twirl just right, or even that you looked so damn cute in a leotard. It was because you had this huge spirit and energy. I didn't have a name for it when I was thirteen; I just felt drawn to it."

Hilde relaxed into his arms. "Oh Duo..."

His lips suddenly met hers. The much-missed feeling of their mouths melding made her whimper and him nearly drop her. But he held on and long before he had gotten his fill, pulled back. "You have the soul of someone who can't help but soar, no matter what she does." Duo tightened his grip on her and without any warning, spun around.

Hilde shrieked. "Oh my god!" Laughter lit up her eyes. He turned again and she laughed. "Duo!"

Duo grinned, loving the feeling of spinning with her in his arms. "You'll always be a dancer in your heart, babe. And I'll always be here to help you twirl."

Before she could break down, Hilde kissed him again. A few minutes later, their lips were still locked, making up for lost time. So engrossed in each were they, that neither of them noticed a tall, dark man in formal clothes walking through the wings, heading for the girls dressing rooms. If they had, perhaps they would have noticed the blank look of detached confusion on his face.

Or the one word he muttered under his breath as he moved in slow motion. "Relena...."

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To Be Continued