Disclaimer: Sigh...the usual;)

Author's Notes: I can't think of any more ways to thank everyone for their continued support of this story, as well as all the sweet birthday wishes. You are a fabulous audience;) PS: I apologize for this chapter being so short.

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To Dance Beneath the Diamond Sky
by Kristen Elizabeth

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"I danced from the moment I could stand." -Anna Pavlova

"Thousands of emotions well up inside of me throughout the day. They are released when I dance." -Unknown

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Duo had just finished rinsing out his waist-long hair when he heard his name being shouted over the noise of the shower. He turned off the water and stepped out. After securing one towel around his waist and another around his hair, he poked his head out of the bathroom.

His mother stood in the hallway, holding out the phone. "It's a girl named Relena."

Smiling weakly, Duo took the phone and retreated into his bedroom. Making sure that his blinds were pulled, he let the towel around his waist fall. "Hello?" he said into the phone.

"Duo, hi." Relena's voice was high and breathless. "I'm sorry to bother you."

"Not a bother, princess." Balancing the phone between his shoulder and ear, Duo reached into a drawer for a pair of faded plaid boxers. "Didja miss me in class?"

"You and Hilde." There was a pause. "How is she?"

Duo sat down on the edge of his bed with a sigh. "They told her earlier...she won't ever dance again, princess."

"Oh god!" Relena cried. "Oh god...I was hoping...that she would be all right."

"She will be. Just not right enough to ever dance." Duo unwound the towel on his head; a damp chestnut mass spilled onto his bare back. "Don't ask me how she's taking it; she hasn't spoken since they told her."

Relena sniffed, an audible attempt to keep her tears at bay. "I wish there was something I could do for her. I know she doesn't like me, but..."

"Hilde doesn't dislike you, princess. She's just..." He started dragging a comb through his wet locks. "You gotta understand. Hilde grew up in Brooklyn. Her dad died when she was eight and left nothing. Her mom's been working two jobs, sometimes three ever since. Hilde started working to help with the bills when she was fourteen. The only thing good thing in her life has been her dancing; she's been doing it since she was five at a community center. I met her when we both got into the Conservatory." Duo took a breath. "The rest of us....you, me, Yuy....we have things to fall back on. Hilde doesn't. Dancing is...was her way out."

"There's no way she'll be able to do it again?"

"That's what they're saying," he replied. "I'm heading back to the hospital for a few hours. Even if she isn't up to talking about it, I have a feeling she'll need something to cry against." Duo attempted a smile. "I intend to offer her my shoulder."

Relena made a soft sound of amusement. "You know, Hilde might not realize it, but dancing isn't the only good thing she has in her life. She has you."

Duo shook his head. "Shucks, little swan lady...." After a moment, he frowned. "Say, what's going on with the workshop? They're not canceling it, are they?"

There was hesitation on the other end. "No. They want to re-cast Odette, though."

"Ah, good." Duo tossed his comb aside. "Who'd they pick?"

Relena delicately cleared her throat. "You'll probably want to sit down for this one."

****

The sun streaming through the window of the hospital and playing across the narrow bed and the girl curled up in it was mocking. It should have been raining, snowing, hailing...anything but the annoying warmth and cheerfulness of the afternoon sunlight.

Hilde closed her eyes to block out the rays. There was no one there at the moment to close the blinds; she would have to endure it for now. Her left leg throbbed, just one small part of her overall misery. She reached for the button to call a nurse, but let her hand fall before it could do so. The pain reminded her that she was still alive.

There was a knock on the door. Hilde turned her head; perhaps whoever it was would just leave. She would have no such luck. A moment later, the door opened and Duo burst in carrying a huge arrangement of daises and lilies.

"Hi, babe!" His voice was overly energetic, as though he were trying to make up for the melancholy that saturated the room. Approaching her bed, he bent down and kissed her forehead. "Picked these up on my way over here. Do you like?"

Hilde said nothing.

"Okay." Duo set the flowers down on the little tray beside her bed and shrugged out of his leather jacket. "Next time...roses." There was a moment's pause. "How are you feeling, baby?" She lifted her shoulders. "Better, eh?" Duo winked. "Good! At this rate, you'll be out of this place in no time."

When she still didn't acknowledge him, he walked to the window, seeming to revel in the sunlight that Hilde despised. "It's so gorgeous outside. I wonder how much I'd have to give the nurses before they'd let me take you out there...." He turned back around. "Interested?" Hilde shook her head.

Duo hesitated, but only for a half-second. "Do you need anything? I could turn the TV on...I could get you more Jello....more kisses...." He sighed. "Perform an Irish jig? Just talk to me, Hilde. Please."

She closed her eyes again. "There's nothing you can do for me," she finally said. "There's nothing anyone can do for me."

"Baby..." Duo crossed back over to the bed and sat on the edge, taking her hand in his despite her efforts to pull away. "If I could, I'd bargain with God and get him to rip up *my* ankle so you could dance forever. But I can't. The only things I've got are daisies and kisses and that Irish jig. If you don't want any of that, just tell me and I'll get out of your hair."

Hilde's cornflower eyes flooded with hot tears. Her hand tightened around his. "Why was it me, Duo? I have tried so hard...I've done everything right when my whole life has been so wrong... So, what did I do to deserve this? That's what you can do for me. Tell me why this is happening to me!!"

"Maybe..." He looked down at their joined hands. "Maybe there's something else in your life that you're supposed to do...that you never would have if everything had gone to plan."

She wasn't quite ready to accept that yet. After looking away for a long time, she turned her gaze back onto him. "What are they doing about the workshop?"

Duo cleared his throat. "Do you like the flowers here, by your bed? Or maybe they'd do better in the sun. I could drag the tray thing over there and..."

Hilde frowned. "Duo, I asked you a question."

"I wonder if they have green Jello again; I could get you some. Have I ever shown you my Jurassic Park Jello trick? It's basically just that thing the girl did to make her spoon jiggle when she saw that raptor coming towards the..."

"Duo!" Hilde raised the back of her bed up a bit more. "The workshop?"

He sighed before rubbing his eyes. "Hilde-baby...I'm torn. I'm afraid that if I tell you, it'll just make it all the worse for you to..."

"Please, Duo." Her eyes were wet. "I need to know."

After a second's contemplation, Duo brought her hand up to his lips, as though the gesture would cushion the shock of the news. "They want to re-cast Odette." Hilde's fingers tightened around his hand. "And they want Relena."

The minutes of silence that followed were unbearable. Rather than wait for her reaction, whatever it might have been, Duo plunged on. "It's your part, babe. No one's denying that, especially not Relena." He paused. "It could be worse. They could want Cata-lonely-a. I mean, at least it's someone we like." Duo tried one more time with a simple, "I'm so sorry, baby."

He was about to try again when Hilde spoke in a soft, wounded voice. "Am I that easily replaced?"

"No one could ever replace you," he immediately replied.

Hilde bit her lip, digging down into the flesh until she nearly broke the skin. "How am I supposed to react to this? What would be the graceful way to accept it? Is there one? Because all I want to do right now is grab something and..." Her fingers squeezed his; he winced slightly. "Not only have I lost everything that I've tried for my whole life, I've lost it to someone who couldn't dance her way out of a paper bag! "

"That's a little..."

"A little what, Duo?" Her teary eyes narrowed. "A little harsh? A little unfair? What do you want from me? I'm not just going to shrug my shoulders and say 'that's life'." She released his hand with more force than necessary. "I hate her!!" she cried. "She took it from me...when she already has so much..."

Duo reached to embrace her, grabbing her wrists when she struggled against his arms. "You can hate the situation. You can hate Treize. You can hate Millardo. Hell....you can hate me if it makes you feel any better. But Relena is just as shocked and just as upset as you are about all of this. Do you think she wanted this?"

"Of course she wanted this!" Hilde gave him the look she generally reserved for drunk people on the subways and fundamentalist Christians. "Are you an idiot? Every single girl in that class *loved* watching me fall, thinking they'd be the one picked to take my place. Relena's no different! In fact, she's worse, because she never would have gotten it if she weren't the director's sainted little..."

"Stop it!" Duo's violet eyes flashed. "You have no idea what you're talking about! You're hurt and you have every right to be angry. But taking it out on Relena....there's no point in doing that. She doesn't deserve your hate."

Hilde's leg throbbed, distracting her momentarily. The enormity of the day caught up with her in the space of a second. Her anger melted into the stream of her sorrow and self-pity. Tears came faster; her shoulders sagged under the weight of too much feeling. "It's not fair!" she screamed, sobbing. "It's all gone...everything!! My whole life is over!"

Duo climbed into her bed to pull her further into his arms. She protested but only for a second; after a moment, she collapsed against him, her sobs muffled by his chest. He stroked her short curls, rocking her gently as she continued to cry. "It's going to be okay," he whispered, dropping a kiss onto the top of her head. "I'm here."

She shook her head against the warmth of his body. At the moment, it wasn't enough.

****

Relena had her foot propped up on the low bench that ran between the rows of lockers in the girls changing room and was adjusting her pink tights when she heard the voices. Three girls changing into their leotards in the next row over; she had seen them when she had arrived.

Apparently, they hadn't seen her.

"I just don't get it. Why her?" One girl whom she didn't recognize asked out loud.

The second girl was recognizable beyond a shadow of doubt. "Isn't it obvious? She had to have fucked Treize," Dorothy Catalonia replied.

"Oh, that is so tacky!" The third girl slammed a locker door. "What a slut."

"It is pretty sad. I mean, her own brother didn't cast her in anything better than the corps....I guess she figured she had to go that extra mile." Dorothy laughed. "She probably jumped Treize as soon as class was over after Hilde fell."

The third girl giggled. "If she hadn't done it earlier. How do you think she got into the class in the first place? It certainly couldn't have been her technique."

"What really makes me mad is that now she gets to dance with Heero." The first girl sighed dramatically. "I have done everything to get him to notice me and all I've ever gotten was a vague nod."

"We're sure he's straight, right?" the third girl laughed.

"Oh...he's straight," Dorothy said with confidence in her voice. "Believe me..." From her place leaning against the lockers, Relena froze.

The first girl gasped. "Have you and Heero...?"

Dorothy pounded her toe shoes against the wooden bench. "It was just this little summer thing in the Hamptons last year."

"Oh my god, you have to tell me *everything*!" the first girl squealed. "Is he as good a kisser as you'd think?"

"Sweetie..." Dorothy's voice was low and experienced. "He's good at it all." There was a pause. "I ran into him at a this huge bonfire on the beach one weekend. Did you know that his dad has this amazing house...well, that's not really important. We started talking dance, but pretty soon he was all over me. Well, I wasn't about to say no; you've seen the bulge in his tights."

The third girl snorted. "Why do you think I keep coming to class every day?"

Relena looked down at her hands; they were shaking. For once, her brain and heart had the same thought....she needed to get out of there. But she found she couldn't move as Dorothy continued her story.

"He's one of those guys who just knows what to do," she went on. "I can't even remember how many times I came; it was that damn good." She gave a content sigh.

"What happened once you got back to the city?" the first girl asked.

Dorothy zipped up her bag. "That, darling, is private."

The third girl grumbled. "So unfair..." There was a second's pause before, "Shit! We're going to be late!! Treize'll freak!"

Relena held her breath as the girls scrambled out of the locker room. When she thought the coast was clear, she slumped down to the concrete floor. The new information about Heero had yet to completely sink into her mind. The sound of a voice over her snapped her to full attention.

"Did you like my story?" Dorothy asked, her arms smugly crossed over her black leotard.

"Was it just that? A story?" Relena licked her dry lips.

Dorothy shook a manicured finger at her. "If I wanted to lie about having fucked someone, I'd pick a more important, influential partner. Your brother, for instance. I could totally ride that..."

Relena put her hands over her ears. "Please go away."

The other girl smiled wickedly. "You know you don't deserve all of this, don't you? You're a second rate dancer trying to fill shoes that are way too big for you. How are you going to look trying to dance him? I'll tell you." She bent over slightly. "Ridiculous." Relena closed her eyes and turned her head. Dorothy straightened back up. "Think about that before you step into the studio today."

Relena listened to the wooden clap of her toe shoes and the sound of the locker room door slamming shut. A single tear slipped down her cheek. She wasn't quite sure why though. Dorothy wasn't lying....about any of it. She was an inferior dancer and she would look ridiculous trying to dance with Heero.

And as for Heero...it wasn't as if he owed her anything. They had only shared one full moon.

She wiped the evidence of the tear away from her smooth cheek and stood back up. After slinging her bag over her back, she followed the path Dorothy had taken out of the changing area. When she emerged into the main hallway that led to the studios, Heero was waiting for her. Leaning against the wall beside the door to the girls dressing room, he looked like a rebel without a cause.

Relena refused to meet his eyes. "Why aren't you in class warming up, Heero?"

He unfolded his arms and pushed off the wall. "I wanted to talk to you before we got in there."

"About what?" She bit her tongue. **Do you think I'm a bad choice for the role, too?**

Heero looked down at his scuffed rehearsal shoes. "Well...because of all of this...we're going to have spend more time together. You have so much catching up to do....I was thinking we should ask Mr..."

She cut him off. "Listen, Heero. You don't have to bother Treize."

He frowned. "Treize? What does he have to do with our science..."

But Relena had stopped listening to him. "And you don't have to worry about being embarrassed by me during the workshop," she continued. "I don't know why my brother and Mr. Treize decided to cast me, but it was obviously the biggest mistake they've ever made."

"Relena..."

She shook her head. "You don't have to apologize to me, Heero. I know my limitations. So, like I said, you don't have to worry about anything."

"I don't?" Heero raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking..."

"You don't have to worry..." Relena repeated. "...because I have no intention of dragging you down with me." She took a breath. "I'm not going to play Odette. They can just find someone else."

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To Be Continued