Disclaimer: Not mine, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Author's Notes: Aww...thank yall so much for caring about this story. Your support has absolutely amazed and totally touched me. I hope you continue to read all the way to the end...and that it's worth your time;)

Dedication: To Angel and her lovely, lovely pictures. Thank you so much.

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To Dance Beneath the Diamond Sky
by Kristen Elizabeth

****

"How long until I can retire?"

Sally Po laughed as she came up behind her lover and wrapped her long, slender arms around his chest. "What...and give all of this up?" She laid her cheek on his back, but not before indicating the empty expanse of seats that stretched out around them.

Wufei covered her hands with his, reveling in the scent of her perfume. "Hawaii sounds good. You could hula dance."

"You've been working on that sense of humor thing, haven't you?" She moved around in front of him and looked up into his dark-in-dark irises. "Keep it up."

Raising one eyebrow as high as it would go, he ducked his head for a kiss. But his lips never made it to the ballerina's. They were interrupted by a sudden shout from the darkness of the wings.

"Hey!! Stop, you fucker!!" The sounds of heavy footsteps on wood echoed off the acoustically sound theatre. "I said stop!!"

Wufei stepped in front of Sally. "Damn it. I hate playing babysitter to these kids." After receiving a sympathetic squeeze on his arm, he started for the wings to calm whichever two young dancers were messing around on his stage.

He had barely made it halfway to the teaser curtains when a man, who upon a second take looked vaguely familiar, emerged onto the stage at break-neck speed. But what really caught Wufei's attention was not the man's face, or even his undone belt and untucked shirt. It was the seven-inch chopping knife in his hand that was covered with a fine sheen of blood.

Another figure burst out from the curtains a half-second later. This person Wufei recognized immediately. The braided dancer and supreme teenage wise-ass, Duo Maxwell. Only this Duo Maxwell wasn't a happy-go-lucky boy running after one of his goof-ball friends; this was a young man on a serious mission.

One that had already wounded him.

Duo clutched his left bicep with one hand as he ran; blood coursed down his knuckles. The cut wasn't deep, but it hurt like hell, a reminder that the next time he managed to corner a crazy stranger with a knife, he should be much quicker on his toes.

"Grab him!!" he yelled to the technical director. Duo stopped, the pain suddenly catching up with him. Gritting his teeth, he dropped to his knees on the hard wood floor he had been dancing upon only hours earlier.

Pushing Sally out of harm's way, Wufei made a tackling jump for the disheveled man. "Wufei!!" she cried out as her lover and the psychotic hit the ground in a heap. "Oh my god! Be careful!!!"

He didn't reply; he was too busy trying to keep a seven-inch weapon away from his face. Fortunately for him, the struggling man was losing most of his energy, although his eyes still burned brightly with panic, desperation and...general insanity.

"Drop it," Wufei ordered, his voice low and deadly. When his order was disobeyed, he quickly flipped the man over onto his back, pinning him down with relative ease. Since both of his hands were occupied, he jerked his head at Sally. "The knife, woman."

She rushed forward and pried the knife away from the man. It clattered to the floor well out of range.

Breathing hard, Duo released his wound. The bleeding had slowed considerably. "Caught the fuckhead running outta the girls locker room. He got someone." He swallowed. "I think it might be..."

"Duo!!" Hilde burst onto the stage, limp-running as fast as she could and clutching a cell-phone in her hand. She stopped to take in the sight that lay before her. "Is that him?" Her blue eyes flew open. "You're hurt!!!"

Her boyfriend nodded as she kneeled next to him to examine his wound. "Who did he..." His words trailed off.

"Heero," Hilde said quietly. She lifted the phone back to her ear. "I think we're going to need another ambulance."

"I'm fine." Duo ran a bloody hand through his bangs. "Is Heero...okay? What about Relena?"

"Excuse me," Wufei said, calling their attention to the fact that he was still straddling and pinning a writhing lunatic. On his theatre's new multi-million dollar floor. "Just what the fuck is going..."

"...the easiest entrance is back this way. But I'd still like to know what the hell is going on. Who called you..." The sudden voices from the far end of the house cut off Wufei's question. Everyone onstage, with the exception of the knife-wiedling madman, turned to see Millardo Peacecraft, leading an EMS team down towards them. He froze halfway down the aisle, although the medical professionals kept going, rolling their stretcher and the supplies on it down the velvet path. "What is..."

He didn't get to finish his question either. A team of police officers followed him. They quickly covered all areas of the house, several of them running towards the stage. The woman who seemed to be in charge addressed everyone in a loud, clear voice. "Nobody move until I know what's going on."

Ignoring her, Hilde gestured wildly to the paramedics. "Get up here!!! Heero's bleeding to death!!"

"Heero?" Millardo moved closer to the stage. "What happened? Who..." He stopped. "Chevalier?"

The man pinned below Wufei spoke for the first time. Unfortunately, the words were in French. The female cop put a hand to her head as the man continued to scream in his own language. "All right, let's take this one step at a time. Get to the wounded; everyone else, don't move and don't talk unless it's some kind of explanation!!"

With a little help from some of the cops, the EMS team managed to get onto the stage. Hilde quickly led them back into the wings. As Duo began to talk, Millardo quietly made his way onto the stage as well.

"Hold it!" the cop pointed to him. "Just where the hell do you think you're going?"

"To find my sister," he replied, narrowing his eyes.

"What makes you think she's back there?"

He shook his head; worry took a deep seed within his chest. "If Heero Yuy is back there...." He hesitated. "She's there, too." He continued walking, paying no more attention to anyone else who tried to stop him.

If Heero was wounded....in what state was he going to find his sister?

Millardo didn't even make it to the teaser curtains before his cell-phone rang.

"What?" he answered.

"Millardo Peacecraft?"

"Yeah. What?"

"Mr. Peacecraft, I'm with the police department. We got a call from your housekeeper about an hour ago."

He sighed in impatience. "Yes? And?"

"Well...I'm afraid I have some bad news. It's about your mother."

****

"Lucy." Anne Une discreetly slipped though the crowd and approached the company's choreographer. "Everyone is a little shaken up."

The other woman sighed as she surveyed the crowds of New York's finest. "Can you blame them? Not many social events get stormed by the NYPD." She unconsciously rubbed her lower stomach. "God...what could be going on?"

"Maybe you should make a statement," Treize suggested, coming up behind Anne.

"Saying what?"

He lifted his shoulders. "Would you like me to make it?" Lucrezia nodded vaguely. Before she could possibly change her mind, Treize headed for the jazz band who had been hired to play for the gala. Taking their microphone, he addressed the crowd.

"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, there is a slight situation backstage. However, there is no danger at the present time, so we hope you'll kindly stay and enjoy the food and wine." He smiled, showing off his brilliantly white teeth. "The Ballet Conservatory thanks all of you for your support and patience."

Across the room, Quatre squinted at the tall man with ginger curls. "I cannot understand him," he told Trowa a moment later. "He is speaking too fast."

"I am sure it is all shit, whatever it is," Trowa replied, reaching into his coat for a cigarette. "See that look on his face?"

Quatre looked and dissolved into quiet giggles a moment later. "Yes."

Trowa lit up, ignoring the fact that it was not permitted in the lobby. "Pure shit."

"Perhaps it is shit about whatever it is that is going on?"

"That would be my guess." His boyfriend exhaled. "He is most likely, as they say, saving face."

"So, if he is saving face..." Quatre bit his lip. "Then perhaps something truly bad has happened."

Trowa lowered his cigarette, studying his lovers beautiful, worried face. "Little One..."

"I did not see Jean-Paul this night. And neither Relena nor her Heero have come out yet." He paused. "Yet their other dancers have. Perhaps..."

"Perhaps Chevalier has decided to leave our Relena alone. And perhaps she and her Heero are spending time together..." With his free hand, Trowa stroked Quatre's soft cheek.

Quatre closed his eyes. "I cannot think when you touch me, mon cher..."

"Then..." Trowa moved in closer and gave him a long, slow kiss. "Do not plan on thinking for the rest of the night."

But even the sexy tang of tobacco on his lover's tongue couldn't erase the ache in Quatre's chest. Something was very, very wrong.

****

"Miss. Miss!"

Relena lifted her head from the crook of Heero's shoulder. "Oh!" She sat up, blinking away tears. "Heero..." She gently shook him. "They're here, Heero."

His eyelids fluttered, the most response he had been able to give since Hilde had left the locker room, some five minutes earlier. Relena looked up at the paramedics, fresh tears sliding down her cheeks. "Please help him."

One man moved Relena out of the way, yanking her bloody fingers away from his wound. "We'll take care of him, miss. Just stand back and give us some space." Another medic joined him at Heero's side. "Are any organs exposed? Get the IV kit out...shit...the kid's lost about two and a half pints looks like..."

"Miss." The third paramedic stepped in front of Relena, blocking her view of Heero. "Are you all right?" He indicated her torn dress.

"I'm okay," she whispered. "Please...I can't lose Heero..."

The man nodded. "We're going to do everything possible to help your friend. But first we need to know what happened exactly."

"He...he was stabbed. From behind." Relena covered her mouth with one hand. "I tried to stop the bleeding..."

"Has he lost consciousness?"

Her shoulders lifted. "There were moments...he wouldn't open his eyes."

"Does he have any existing medical conditions we should know about?"

She blinked as she thought. "Heero...he's in perfect health. He's a dancer...the best dancer."

The paramedic put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. You've done good..."

"Relena," she listlessly supplied.

"Relena, why don't you sit down and let me examine you. Just to make sure you're all right."

She let him guide her to the bench, her back still turned towards Heero and the paramedics. Unfortunately, the well-meaning man couldn't close her ears.

"...pretty damn deep. Call ahead and let them know...." A pause. "...doesn't look good..."

Relena looked down at her lap as the medic examined her. She winced when he touched her knee, the joint she had landed on when Jean-Paul had made his attack. "Does that hurt?" he asked. She said nothing. "When we get to the hospital, we'll have them x-ray...."

"All right." The medics working with Heero gestured to their partner. "Let's get him on the stretcher." Working together, the men lifted Heero's pale body onto the collapsible device. One held a clear bag of IV fluid over her boyfriend's head while the other two checked his pulse and blood pressure and kept a close watch on his still-bleeding wound.

"Can I....I want to stay with Heero," Relena whispered.

The men exchanged a look. "Come on then," one of them said, smiling sadly. "He'll need to see a friendly face when he comes around."

What the man didn't say, but what he and his colleagues were thinking was not "when", but "if".

****

Hilde walked back onto the stage after pointing the paramedics into the locker rooms with a grave face. What she walked into was nothing short of chaos. Everyone was talking at once. A female paramedic was checking out Duo's arm. The police were fitting handcuffs onto a man screaming French curses and what sounded like Relena's name. Another cop was carefully placing the bloody knife into an evidence bag.

And Millardo Peacecraft was sitting on the edge of his stage, his feet hanging into the orchestra pit. His cell phone lay next to him, but he was staring out at the rows of empty chairs.

She approached him as quietly as her cast would let her, as not to startle him. "Mr. Peacecraft..."

Blinking, he turned his head up to look at her. "Hilde. Yes. Good to...see you here."

"Thank you." Hilde swallowed. "Mr. Peacecraft...I just wanted to tell you...Heero's been hurt. Relena's with him, but she's okay."

Millardo looked back down. "That's..." He stopped short. "They'll take them to St. Luke's. It's...closest." With a sudden burst of energy, he grabbed his phone and stood up. "Can you go there? Tell Relena...I had something to take care of."

Hilde blinked. "Um...of course. But..." He was already gone, heading off the stage. She sighed. A second later, a hand touched her shoulder, making her jump the proverbial mile. "Oh, god!!"

"Hey...babe! I'm sorry." Duo turned her around to face him. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"Duo..." She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him with every bit of strength she had. "Are you okay?"

"It was just a scratch. The nice lady gave me a band-aid." Hilde pulled back, wary of his casual attitude. "Okay...she said I needed probably some stitches." Duo pointed to the temporary gauze bandaged wrapped around his arm. "But...enough about me. What's going on back..."

Hilde's eyes brimmed over with tears. "Look behind you," she whispered.

He did so, a ball of nausea sitting at the pit of his stomach. His fist curled up as the paramedic team rushed past them, heading out the nearest emergency exit. Seeing Heero laid out on a stretcher...Relena walking beside him, holding his hand and covered in his blood...

"That guy did this," Duo said a moment after they disappeared through the double doors. He turned his glare back to the far end of the stage where the police were leading the suspect away. "Who the fuck is he? Some psycho off the streets?"

"His name is Jean-Paul Chevalier." Sally approached the couple, her arm securely intertwined with Wufei's. "He's a well-respected ballet instructor and scout for Theatre Ballet of Paris."

Hilde frowned. "Paris..."

"Relena took classes there before she came here," Duo supplied. "I don't understand..."

"I don't think anyone does." The older dancer sighed and laid her cheek on her lover's shoulder. "Except maybe..." She made a vague gesture to the doors through which Heero had just been taken.

Duo looked towards the back of the theatre suddenly. Two men entered on the Mezzanine level. A tall, lanky youth and his delicate blonde companion; they stared down at the stage in disbelief. "I can think of another couple who might."

****

Heero's heart stopped beating halfway between Lincoln Center and St. Luke's Hospital. By the time the doors opened into the medical center's ambulance bay, the paramedics had gotten it started again and claimed that everything was going to be all right.

But Relena was already in a state of shock that no words of comfort seemed able to relieve. She couldn't hold his hand while they were shocking his heart back to life; all she could do was watch his beloved body jerk and wait for the lines on the temporary monitor to spike back from flatline.

They rolled him into the emergency room, the paramedics shouting vital signs to the doctors, the doctors shouting orders to the nurses and the nurses gently, but with firm resolve, pushing Relena towards the waiting area.

"We'll tell you the moment we know anything for sure," they repeated, completely un-reassuringly. But Relena sank into a hard, plastic chair at their prompting without any protest. It was in this exact spot, this exact position that Hilde, Duo, Trowa and Quatre found her a half-hour later.

"Princess!" Duo spotted her first and ran over. He dropped into the chair on her right side. "Princess..."

Relena blinked out of a trance-like state. "Duo." She looked over at him. "Hi." Her voice was lower than a whisper.

"Are you all right, princess?"

Her eyes closed, pushing hot tears down her pale cheeks. "Heero..." She opened her eyes. "He's so hurt, Duo..."

"But he's going to be all right," Hilde spoke up. Tentatively, she took the empty seat on her left. "Heero's really, really strong. He's going to make it, no question."

The blonde girl lowered her chin to look down at her stained hands. "There was so much blood," she stated. After a moment, she realized the rip in her dress was nearly exposing her breasts once again. With half-hearted movements, she tugged at the cloth.

"Here..." Hilde instinctively reached to help her.

Relena met her eyes for a brief second. "Thank you."

Standing a few feet away, leaning back against Trowa's chest for solidity, a tear escaped Quatre's eye. This was where secrets had brought them to. If only he had reported Jean-Paul months earlier, they would not be here right now. He closed his eyes in self-disgust.

"Do not do that," Trowa murmured into his ear. "Do not go blaming yourself, Little One."

"I could have done something to stop all of this," Quatre replied. "I should have taken care of our Relena."

"You have always taken care of me, my friend." Relena's sudden switch to French caught Duo and Hilde off-guard. "No one is to blame for all of this but me." She repeated the phrase in English.

Duo frowned. "Don't even think that. You're not the psycho with the knife."

Relena shook her head. "You don't understand, Duo."

"I think it's starting to come together, princess." He glanced at the French couple. "Bits and pieces from them...things you've said...ways you've reacted to certain things..."

"You might get it, but you still don't understand." She tucked her hands underneath her arms for warmth. "If I had been stronger...fought back..." Her chin turned towards the direction the medical professionals had wheeled Heero away. "He wouldn't be hurt." Relena looked back at Duo. "I did this to him, just as much as if I'd been the one to stab him. And you can't make that go away just by saying it isn't true."

There wasn't anything else to say; she wouldn't have listened to any of it, anyway. Duo simply pulled at her arm until he could hold her hand. Hilde took her other one. Quatre and Trowa stood watch over them all. Twenty minutes later, Relena realized just how much she needed all four people around her when a doctor, wearing green scrubs with several suspicious patters of dark stains on them, approached the waiting area.

"Relena Dorlian." He called out the name she had given to the EMT in the ambulance. Once she stood up on weak knees, the doctor continued. "We've taken your friend, Heero, up to emergency surgery. I don't have to tell you that he's lost a tremendous amount of blood and that's mostly due to the fact that the knife has probably pierced his spleen. Surgery will hopefully repair that damage, although there is the possibility that the surgeon may have to remove the organ entirely to save him. Of course, the possibility of damage to other organs is also very high; we just don't know for sure right now." The doctor paused. "The paramedics told me that you said he has no family in the city."

"His father..." She swallowed. "...is in Hong Kong. His mother is dead." Relena stared up at the doctor. "Is Heero going to die?"

"The best surgeons are with him right now and they'll do everything in their power to..."

"Please just answer my question."

The man looked down at the chart in his hand. "I won't lie to you, Miss Dorlian. He might not make it through surgery." He glanced back up. "I'm sorry."

Because Relena could not talk, Duo asked the ER doctor, "Can we go to surgery and wait for him?"

"A nurse will show you the way." The doctor gave them all a sympathetic look. "Again...I'm sorry."

As the man walked away, Duo pulled a shaking Relena against his chest. "Princess...Heero's gonna beat this. You know that right?"

Hilde bit her lip. "He will. I just know it."

Their words, while well-meant and appreciated, failed to impact Relena's guilt. She pulled away from Duo a moment later to seek the comfort of Quatre and Trowa. "I can't live without him," she cried in French. Her words became muffled by Quatre's tuxedo jacket. "I can't....I just can't..." She clutched to his lapels; they, as well as the French couple's arms, were the only things keeping her from crumpling into a pile on the floor.

*It's all my fault* a voice inside her head screamed to the higher powers who dictated such things. *It's all my fault, but please!! Please don't take him away from me!*

****

Across the city, Millardo Peacecraft stood in the open parlor door of his Park Avenue penthouse, watching a NYPD medical examiner tuck his mother into a black body bag.

The evening's events became too much to bear in those few moments. As they carried Helen out of the apartment, leaving only a white tape outline of her on his Oriental carpet, Millardo escaped into the hall bathroom.

When his stomach was empty, he sat back against the cold, tiled wall and pulled his cell-phone out of his coat. He dialed from memory and waited with numb patience until the person on the other end picked up. '

"Lu," he began in a low tone. "No...I'm fine. Yes. I know about Heero." There was a long pause. "My mother is dead." Another pause followed, broken only by the soft, shocked sobs on the other end. "Lu...go ahead and tell the class. The company for next year will include Susanna Holmes, Patrick Keating, Rika Yoshikawa, Duo Maxwell..." He took a breath. "Relena Dorlian and Heero Yuy." He smiled halfway. "What....were you expecting differently?"

****

To Be Continued