Disclaimer: Standard. As usual;)

Author's Notes: I can't tell you how much your sweet reviews and general interest in the story means to me. I'm verclempt. That's the only way to describe it.

One more note: I have given Duo parents in this fic. They're sweet and wonderful and probably very out of the usual Duo family life sync. But I couldn't help it. The boy deserves some goodness for once;)

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To Dance Beneath the Diamond Sky
by Kristen Elizabeth

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"Hey!" Duo burst into his parent's Chelsea loft and dropped his school and dance bags onto the wood floor. "I'm home!!"

His mom, Sara, bolted in from the living room, spattered head to toe with paint from her latest series of modern art. "Well?!" She wrung her hands, smearing the colors together. "Did you get it?!"

He grinned at her. "Where's Dad?"

Robert Maxwell appeared from the same direction as his wife, tying the sash on his terrycloth robe. "So, are we looking at a Baron von Rothbart or not?"

Duo made a face. "Tell me you weren't just posing for Mom in the buff."

His parents exchanged a look. "Sure, son. Whatever helps you sleep at night," his dad replied.

Their only child shuddered. "Moving on..." His grin returned. "You're not just looking at a Baron von Rothbart....you're looking a particularly evil Baron von Rothbart with a hell of a lot of hair!"

"Oh sweetie..." Sara enveloped him in a huge hug, forever ruining his shirt and sweat pants. "I am so proud of you!!"

His dad clapped him on the shoulder. "Good work, kid. And what about that cute little girlfriend of yours?"

****

As soon as Hilde got home from her five hour shift at the dance store, she started dinner and set two places at the table. For once, the chores didn't bother her. In fact, she didn't think anything would bother her ever again. Cloud nine was a nice place to be.

Katja Schbeiker arrived home just as Hilde took the lasagna out of the oven. She threw her mother a bright smile. "Hi! Dinner just needs to cool for about ten minutes, so I hope you're hungry."

"Thanks, precious." The older woman peeled off her coat, revealing her pink and white waitress uniform, and dragged herself over to the couch.

Hilde searched through the fridge for salad fixings. "So...we had class today."

The reply she got was muffled by the couch cushions. "Good one?"

"Very." Hilde examined the head of lettuce she found and decided the meal could do without a salad. "You know that workshop? Swan Lake?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well...." She filled two glasses with ice and water and carried them to the table. "Just guess who landed the lead role of Odette?" There was a pause. "Mom?" Hilde glanced over at the couch. Her mother was fast asleep. After double shifts at a second rate diner, it was hard to blame her. With a sad smile, she went over to the couch, picked up a plaid blanket thrown over the back and tucked it around her mother's exhausted body.

Hilde served herself a helping of lasagna and sat down to eat. She lifted her water glass. "Here's to me."

****

Ethan was already passed out for the night when Heero arrived home from ballet class. He was hanging out of his wheelchair, a thin line of alcoholic drool leaking out of the corner of his mouth. Heero set down his stuff, turned on a few lights, drank a glass of water and ordered pizza for dinner before he went to help his father.

After he had dragged the crippled man into his room and deposited him onto his bed with much disgust, Heero went back into the living room and started on his homework. When his pizza arrived, he ate quickly, finished his work and took a shower.

Heero stacked his pillows in the usual arrangement and climbed into bed. Lifting the photo on his night stand, he spoke to his mother's picture. "I got it, Mother. Prince Siegfried. Are you proud?"

She smiled back at him, her face frozen in time. Heero turned the frame down and stared at the ceiling. Lost in his thoughts, he reached for the portable phone. He wasn't quite sure why he had memorized Relena Dorlian's home phone number from the school directory, but he dialed it without hesitation.

It rang several times before a voice answered. A man; her brother, presumably. "Hello?"

Heero pressed the talk button to end the call. After another few minutes, he set the phone aside, turned off the light and closed his eyes to sleep.

****

Millardo hung up the phone and returned to the dining room. Lucrezia looked up from her crepes suzette. "Who was it?" she asked.

"They hung up." He sat back down at the head of the table. "Where were we?"

"You were about to offer your *sister* a justly deserved explanation as to just why in God's name you allowed her to be cast in the corps de ballet!" His mother took an angry sip of wine.

At the other end of the table, Relena's hand trembled as she lifted a bite of dessert to her lips. "Mom, please. It's okay."

Millardo sighed. "Mother, when I cast the show today, I put on blinders to anything but the dancer's raw talent. The girls I chose for solo roles were best suited for those parts. It's as simple as that. But Relena is a good dancer and she'll do very well in the corps."

"It takes a dancer far above average to make the corps, Helen," Lucrezia reminded her future mother-in-law. "So much more work goes into a role like Relena's because she has to be absolutely in sync with the other girls."

"No one will see her!" Helen set her wineglass down with a bang. "She'll just be one of the swans, no different from any other swan!! How could you do this to your sister?!!"

"Mom!" Relena set down her fork without eating. "It's all right! I'm not good enough to play Odette and if Millardo had cast me, it wouldn't have been fair to the girl who *is* good enough! Okay? So, can you please just drop it?!"

Silence followed her outburst. "How dare you raise your voice to me, young lady," Helen whispered. "I am trying to think about the rest of your career. Do you think that the Paris Ballet is going to take someone who was just in the corps?"

"Since I'm not planning on returning to Paris, I suppose it really doesn't matter, does it?"

Lucrezia cleared her throat. "I thought you had your heart set on it, Relena."

"Yeah, well..." Relena blinked back hot tears. "That was then; this is now. Actually, I'm thinking about just putting in some college applications for the fall."

Helen threw up her hands. "I don't know what's gotten into you, Relena, but I don't like it. You are a dancer; you were born to be one. It's in your blood. How can you just throw away twelve years of hard work on a lark?"

"It's not a lark!" Relena stood up. "I'm not good enough! You can close your eyes and pretend, Mom, but I can't. I have to think about my *real* future. The one that doesn't include dance." She pushed away from the table. "I'm excusing myself for the evening. If anyone calls, which they won't, I'm already asleep."

She slammed every door in her path until she was back in her room. It was one of those moments when a girl just needs to throw herself onto her bed and sob. Heero's rejection, Duo's fights with Hilde that she knew had something to do with her, only being cast in the corps...it was all a bit too much to take at once. She was tempted to call Quatre, but then remembered that it was his two year anniversary with Trowa. A smile peeked through her tears. At least someone would be getting lucky that night.

****

"Ladies. Ladies of the corps, can I have your attention, please!" The corps master clapped her hands, silencing the twenty ballerinas in the rehearsal studio. "We're going to begin now, as we're all nicely warmed up." The older woman began pacing in front of the dancers. "You'll have three weeks with me to learn the swan dances before you join the rest of the cast to rehearse the entire ballet. Miss Schbeiker will be joining us occasionally in these next weeks, when the schedule calls for Odette to dance with the swans."

She stopped and looked down at her notes, as though she had forgotten something. "What I'll be teaching you in the time we have together will be fairly simple. The choreography for *Swan Lake* is far older than you...far older than me, in fact. I'm sure many of you are already familiar with it, but it's an entirely different thing to learn it by heart. The first thing we'll do today is arrange you all in lines according to height. Our most important task is synchronicity. In many ways, the corps of *Swan Lake* is the hardest part of all. In the next three weeks, you will all learn to move as one unit. You are no longer just a single dancer. You are a swan in a corps of swans. If you don't like that..." The woman pointed to the studio door. "Leave now. There are no prima donnas in my corps. Understood?"

There were murmurs of consent from the dancers. Relena added her voice to the group with a quiet, "Yes ma'am."

"All right. Line up." The corps master clapped her hands again; she was even worse about the motion than Treize. As Relena stood up and formed the requested line with her fellow dancers, she had a sudden longing to be back in Treize's ballet class with Duo and Hilde. And Heero.

But that wouldn't happen for another two weeks. Her friends were soloists; she was part of the corps. She accepted that with a fair amount of grace, believing herself to be only good enough to be a swan. *Although,* she thought to herself, gritting her teeth when Dorothy Catalonia pushed her way in front of her. *It certainly wasn't easy.*

****

"And one...two...three...four...five...six...seven....head up, Hilde!!" Lucrezia Noin lifted her own chin to demonstrate. "Two...three...four...lift!!! Five...six...seven...eight...."

Duo watched Heero lift his girlfriend into the air without any visible effort. He set her down again and she spun away in the choreographed pirouettes. Heero backed up and waited; in just a moment, Hilde turned and gracefully ran back to him. He lifted her again, this time higher. In mid-air, he twisted her body to hold onto her lower back instead of her stomach. Her spine curved until she was draped over his shoulder. He turned and turned, slowly lowering her to the ground with each rotation.

It amazed Duo how, after only two weeks of daily three and a half hour rehearsals, Heero and Hilde already managed to have most of their pas de deux pieces memorized, although far from perfected. As if to prove this, Lucrezia held a hand up to the pianist.

"Heero, that was very good, only try to get her even higher. You started lowering her too fast because she wasn't up high enough and it threw you off the music." Lucrezia smiled at Hilde. "You can help him out by running to him with even more speed, only don't lose the swan quality. Flutter, but with force."

Hilde nodded. "All right."

"Also, your pirouettes were technically perfect, although I would like a little more power behind them, too," the choreographer continued. "All in all, you're both doing wonderfully and we still have a week until the whole cast joins together." Lucrezia turned to the other soloists. "I'd like to go back and rework Rothbart's entrance at the ball; I'm going to deviate from the standard choreography a bit to give you some more to do, Duo."

He shot to his feet. "Really?" The evil Baron might have been a wonderful way for him to dance and keep his hair, but the part was very small.

"Really." She motioned him over. "Let's take it back to the ball. Hilde, you're Odile now. Remember, she might be impersonating Odette, but she's not her. They're two characters that require two styles. You're trying to fool the Prince, but you're still a different person. It's a fine line you're going to dance, but I'm confidant that you'll manage it."

Hilde smiled. While everyone started for their ball scene places, Duo came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her tiny body. "Looking good, babe."

"You'd say that even if I had fallen on my face." She looked across the studio to where Lucrezia was consulting with her fiancee. Hilde was almost positive that they were discussing her. "What's important is that they think it looks good."

"Yeah, well..." Duo frowned. "I guess I'll just have to find my own company to run." His girlfriend tweaked his nose before moving off to join some of the other girls. "Then maybe you'll give a damn about my opinion again," he finished, scowling.

He looked around the room of soloists, some of the best, most promising young dancers in the world. But there was something missing. Relena, he realized. She should be here with them. Not stuck in the corps, learning how to blend in.

Heero approached him, readjusting the strap on his soft shoe. "Good for you. Getting more to dance."

The congratulations caught Duo off guard, considering the source. He blinked. "Thanks, Yuy." The thought of Relena persisted as he suddenly remembered his vow. His full lips curved up into a mischievous grin. "Bet you can't wait to join up with the corps, eh?"

"A full cast won't afford us the one-on-one rehearsal time..." The other boy stretched his arms over his head. "But it'll be good for us to know where we stand with everyone together."

Duo had to stifle a sigh. The guy didn't get it at all. "No...no, I meant it'll be fun to be with the rest of our class again. Don't you feel like something's missing?" He gestured around the room. "Someone, maybe?"

Heero lowered his arms and debated whether to answer or ignore the braided dancer. The truth was, Duo had hit upon a truth. Something had been missing from his life for just over a week. True, he still saw her in class and around school, but there was a distance between him and Relena now that they no longer shared a ballet class.

Until Duo pointed it out so plainly, Heero had been ready to accept it as a blessing, rather than confront the fact that seeing less of Relena Dorlian on a daily basis had created a hole in his entire life.

"If you have something to say, say it," Heero said. "I don't have a lot of time."

Duo cracked his knuckles to loosen his joints. "You should ask her out sometime. Take her to a movie or out dancing again. Or just a walk in the park...she's not one of those high maintenance society chicks you've known your whole life."

"How do you know who I've..."

"Hey." Duo shot him a look. "My dad's a Wall Street investment banker. My mother's a highly respected artist. They might have been the hippies from hell at one time, but they still move in the upper circle. You don't think I spent summers in the Hamptons and Christmases in Aspen like everyone else on your block just because I decided to go to public school?"

Heero shrugged. "I guess I hadn't thought about it." He flexed his foot. "And I've never been to Aspen."

"All I'm saying...and you're making it damn difficult...is that Relena doesn't buy into all that crap, even though she lives it. The same goes for you, so you already have a lot in common. She's not cute like my Hilde, but she's more than a little pretty," Duo took a breath and prayed for Relena's eventual forgiveness for what he was about to do. "And.....she told me she has dreams about you."

"Dreams about me," Heero repeated. He regretted his next question before it even left his mouth. "What kind of dreams?"

Duo lifted both his eyebrows. "Wouldn't you like to know..."

Heero's eyes grew darker just as Lucrezia called for places a second time. He simply shot a cold look at his braided companion. "Maybe you should just keep stuff like that to yourself."

"Maybe," Duo said, once Heero had walked away. "But I won't. You are going to sweep Relena off her feet if I have to lie, cheat *and* steal. As god is my witness...you will make her happy, Heero Yuy, even if it kills all of us."

****

To Be Continued