It's Not a Date

this sequel just popped into my head and begged to be written, so here it is ready or not.

You thought you could run, you thought you could hide, you were wrong! It *gasps and screams heard round the world* The Disclaimer! Run for your lives, run for your lives dammit! The charactors in this fic belong to a bunch of other (probably richer) people. You know who you are, unfortuneately I don't.

On with the show.

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Relena's limo.
3:05 pm

<Well, that meeting was pointless,> she thought as Pagan drove her back to the dorms at school. <They certainly didn't need me to tell them what they seemingly could all agree on, I wonder why they insisted that I come? They all seemed to have everything well in hand. Oh well, maybe it's a status thing. Men.>

Then she got to thinking about the stunt she'd pulled in English class. Poor Duo, the whole class had been laughing at him.

"Pagan?" she called up into the front.

"Yes Miss Relena?" asked the kindly old gentleman.

"You could you stop off at a flower shop? I want to get some flowers."

"Of course," he said. Being the discrete butler that he was, he never asked who they were for or for what, he simply found the nearest flower shop and waited outside while she went in to purchase her flowers.

"Hello," said the store owner, a round asian woman with her hair done up in a bun on top of her head. "How I can help you?"

"I'd like to purchase a bouquet of apology flowers for a friend. A nice collection of daisies would do the trick."

"Okay, I be right back."

The lady with the accent disappeared into the back and then emerged with a little boquet of thirteen daisies and some babies breath. Relena paid the woman, thanked her, and signed the little card 'my apologies for English class ~Relena.' She walked out to meet Pagan who drove her back to her dorms at school.

Once there Relena asked the first person she met, where she might find a Duo Maxwell, and got directions to his dorm room. Not one to procrastinate, Relena set out to deliver the flowers and her apology at once.

When she found the room number she was looking forshe knocked twice before she could loose her nerve. To her complete surprise, Heero opened the door. They must be room mates, unlikely as it sounded.

"Um, excuse me but...Does Duo live here? I need to talk to him," she said simply. Heero nodded. then disappeared from the doorway. There was no force on Earth or anywhere else that was going to make her go in there. It was a supreme effort of will not to simplt bolt as it was.

"Yeah?" asked Duo, poking his head out the door. "Whad'ja want? Look if its about that clas thing I-"

Relena shoved the daiseis at him.

"Here. These are for you," she said. I would like to apologize for my earlier behavior. I made you a laughing stock and that was very rude of me. Please, accept my daisies as a peace offering."

"Aw that's okay. If anything I should be apologizing to you. I shouldn't have been making those comments about you in class. They were uncalled for. I was way out of line," he said.

"But I certainly didn't have to respond in kind, I should be above such pettiness," said Relena remorsefully.

"Hey, you're human too. You have the right to get angry and to defend yourself just like everyone else does."

Suddenly Relena laughed.

"Listen to the two of us! Neither one of us willing to let the other take the blame. But if you feel that terribly about it, I'll let you make it up to me," she informed him cheerfully. "You can take me out to lunch. I know this great little Mexican resteraunt nearby that serves the most wonderful chicken fajitas! I'm hungry and...you're buying."

And with that she grabbed his arm and dragged him along with her to go on a food run.

"Hoist by my own petard," he muttered following along behind her.

Relena herself drove a cherry red mustang convertable with black interior. Duo whistled when he saw it.

"Nice," he commented.

"It's my baby," said Relena grinning proudly. "She does zero to sixty in ten and gives a ride so smooth I can put on lipstick."

Duo chuckled, she sounded exactly like one of the guys bragging about the capabilities of their Gundams. They hopped inside and she drove off to wherever her little restraunt was. She wasn't too bad a driver, but you could tell she wasn't used to it.

To Duo's surprise, the place she drove to wasn't some classy upscale hub, but a tiny little hole-in-the-wall resteraunt. It looked like one of those places where Duo himself would care to hang out with his friends. It certainly had no feeling of "date" about it, the atmosphere was too relaxed for that. When they walked into the little resteraunt (calling itself Taco Maria's) Relena was immediately hailed by the nearest waiter.

"Hola Senorita Relena! You want your usual place?"

"Yeah, Alejandro, and this is my buddy Duo," she jerked her head in Duo's direction. This was a real eye-opener, Relena was acting like a normal person. Even her tone and posture were relaxed and casual. Usually she was so formal and proper, like a starched napkin.

They were shown to a table near a tiny little indoor garden of potted plans and a litle tiny fountain. The table looked kinda rickety, but the chairs all matched.

Alejandro appeared a few minutes later with a menu and said to Relena

"Will you be wanting your usual?"

"Yeah, that'll be fine thanks. Just put the whole meal on my tab."

Duo raised two eyebrow at that. For one thing, she'd said that he would be paying and for another thing, by all appearances, she ate here all the time but it hardly seemed the place for a classy girl like Relena.

"I thought you said that I was paying for this," said Duo in confusion.

"What, can't a girl take her own friend out to lunch? We are friends aren't we?" she looked at him so piteously that he simply had to reassure her.

"Of course we are. We can grab lunch together anytime if you want."

"Great! I knew you wouldn't stay mad at me," she said cheerfully.

"Eh, I'm not one to hold grudges."

"Let me guess," she said, smiling impishly. "You have no surviving enemies...at all."

Duo chuckled, and the food was brought to them. There were two plates filled with bean paste, curry rice, lettuce, tomatoes, chicken peices fried with green peppers and two small separate bowls of sour cream and guacamole dip. off to one side was a small round covered dish filled with round, flat soft taco shells.

Relena laid out one of the shells and began expertly to spread it with bean paste, which was followed by curry rice, then lettuce and tomato after that went the chicken peices, on top of that went the guacomole and finally the sour cream. She folded up the end, then roled the sides over that and took a big bite. One would not normally associate delicate little Relena with big bites, but she certainly had a healthy appetite. She was making fast work of her little taco, fajita, whatever.

When she was halfway through it, she slowed down. The edge had been taken from her hunger and she began to eat and talk at leisure. Duo mimiced hir proceduere with the taco fillings, and could barely get his closed. Relena found his predicament very amusing when he began to eat his taco and half of it fell out the back end onto his plate. After he was left with a mostly empty shell, he began to get frustrated.

"You should see the look on your face," she told him, laughing helplessly. He glared at her which only made her laugh harder. "oh man, this reminds me of the time I tried to go rappeling."

"Rappeling? You?" Said Duo, raising an eyebrow. "This I gotta hear."

"Well, it was in Rotc (<pronounced rot-see>) and-and I had signed up for their summer camp."

"Rotsy?"

"R-O-T-C," she explained.

"Isn't that military?"

"Yeah, it was a junior ROTC, part of middle school. I needed the credits for gym. Father never really approved if it, but... I never really liked gym, all that teamwork an' stuff. I made it all the way to Captain of supply before I resigned in protest. Anyways, at this point I was still a lowly LET-1, a private no less, when I signed up for the camp."

She was telling the story in between bites of her meal. It was a real funny story.

"...the top of the rappel tower in my BDU's and the atomic wedgie harness they gave us, all ready to go rappeling, and I leaned off the edge and looked down. I paniced. This sent me over the brink of the tower. Well, I did manage to catch myself like they showed me three yards from the top. There was another four stories to go to the ground. I was hanging off the end of this rope dangling from the overhang of the tower upside down like a trapeize artist and the instucter was calling up, 'Dorlian! Let GO!" I was like 'Nuh-uh!' There was /no way/, I was letting go of that stopper!"

By now they were both laughing so hard they had tears running out of their eyes.

"Finally, the rappeling intructor First Sergent Joshua, had to rappel down next to me and talk me down. I was fine after I got a hold of myself, but dangling upside down like some spider's lunch at the top of the tower screaming bloody murder (I was in a blind panic at this point) had earned me the nickname... Oh, man, it's too embarassing!"

"What? I won't tell anyone," said Duo.

"You'd better not. If you do ya better know how to sleep with one eye open!" she warned him. "Anyways, for the rest of that summer camp I was known as 'Dangling Darlian.'

Both of them burst out laughing. It was hilarious, the thought of the very prim and proper Vice Foreign Minister ever having had an embarrasing nickname. It just tickled him pink.

"Dangling Darlian?" he said when he finnaly got his laughter under control.

Relena flushed in embarrasment. "Yeah. All through the rest of the summer camp they never let me live it down."

"I can see why...I'd never imagined that you would ever be tagged with a nickname like that!"

"Well, it happened. Don't die of shock or anything but...I'm actually human and i've been in my share of embarrasing situations. I'm hardly perfect, but everyone seems to think I am. That's why I really want to be your friend Duo," She said honestly. "Something tells me that you won't expect me to deliver the sun moon and stars wrapped in my hairtie. I think you may actually treat me like a genuine person."

Duo was a little taken aback by her sudden stark and unvarnished honesty. It was like a splash of cold water, she was certainly not what he had expected.

"Uhh...okay," he said grinning at her. "We're friends now. You seem harmless enough."

"Oh I do huh," she said smiling gamely. "I see you've already forgotten the lesson you've supposedly learned from English class. I'm only /mostly/ harmless."

Well at least you're not violent," he said. "Man, living with Heero is definately bad for my life expectancy. I'm never sure if he's going to just glare at me or pull out that gun of his."

Relena chuckled. "Between you and me, I feel the same way sometimes."

Duo raised his eyebrows in surprise. This was news to him.

"Then why on Earth do you keep seeking him out if you're never quite certain he won't kill you?"

"Simple. There's an old saying that goes, "claim victory in your heart and the universe will follow." I have to walk into every encounter with him assuming that I've already come out alive and will do so again. This really is the secret to my success. I walk into every meeting, every council session, every diplomatic function and every press conference assuming that I've already won. Claim victory in your heart and the universe will follow. I have to believe this because for me...Failure is not an option. Failure is never an option."

"But you're still never entirely sure he won't just decide you aren't neccessary anymore and blow you away?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Exciting. isn't it?" she said grinning consirationally. "So how about you?"

"How about me what?"

Yeah, I mean, you're his friend; probably his best friend, why do you hang out with him if your never quite sure that he won't just decide the terminate your friendship permanently?"

"Ummmmmm...Deathwish?" Duo chuckled.

"I was being serious silly."

"Truthfully. I like the guy. It's marvelous fun just yanking his chain. I like to see how far I can push the line before he does something about it."

Relena gave him a look compounded of mirth and a what-am-I-gonna-do-with-this-guy expression.

"I think you and I sensed the same thing about him," continued Duo with unaccustomed sombereness. "Even if he never overtly shows any sign of affection or emotion, somewhere down in there...he cares."

Relena nodded. It was true, and nothing more really needed to be said.

"Well, I'm finished with dinner and it's getting late so let's head back. I'll drop you off at your dorm," said Relena.

"Actually, do you think I could drive your car back?" he asked hopefully.

"I don't see why not," she said agreeably.

She climbed into the passenger side and fastened her seat belt. Duo climbed into the drivers side next to her, grin in place. Relena took one look at his face and immediately regretted her decision to let him drive her home. There was this glint in his eye that really worried her.

He started the car and revved the engine.

"Duo," she said hesitantly. "Maybe you should go- slooooooow!"

Her last word was lost in the squealing of tires. He took off.

Relena was thrown back in her seat and then pushed sideways by the G-forces as he took sharp turns at full throttle. He accelorated through the streets as if he were being chased by the devil. Relena was clutching the door handle for dear life as he turned onto the road that led to the school and the bumps and hills sent her flying up off her seat. She landed each time with a little squeak of fear.

"Relax babe, I wouldn't let anything happen to ya," Duo reassured her.

"Oh thank you, I feel so much better now. Remind me to /kill/ you when I get out!" she retorted.

Duo laughed then turned sharply with a squeal of tire into the parking lot of The school. The car stopped in her reserved parking space with a bump. Duo looked over at her and bust up laughing.

"You should see the look on your face."

Relena's eyes were wide and she was trembling slightly in reaction. She did not look amused.

"I'm never letting you drive me anywhere ever again," she informed him, her voice sounding remakably composed.

"Well thanks for the grub anyways," he said, deciding to ignore he comment. "We'll have to do this again sometime!"

"All except for the driving part," she told him. "I'll see you in class tomorrow."

"Sure thing Lena," he said clibing out.

"Lena?" she queired.

"Yeah, it's your new nickname."

"Oh so now I have a nickname huh."

"Well if you would preffer me to call you Dangling-"

"Don't you /dare/!" She told him sharply. "Lena will do fine."

"Alright then. See ya 'round, Lena."

She watched him retreat into his dorm wondering what she'd gotten herself into.

Duo found the inside of his dorm room exactly as it allways was...all except for the vase of daises decorating the table. Heero didn't so much as glance up when he entered, which was also typical. What wasn't typical was that Heero asked

"Where did you go?" The question was toneless, comepletely devoid of emotion, but it was the first time that Heero had ever inquired as to his whereabouts in the entire time they had been friends. Did this possibly mean that he might be feeling a little bit of jealousy for the time Duo spent with Relena? It certainly sounded like it. Duo grinned.

"Lena and me snagged some food at her favorite mexican place. We're friends now."

"Hn."

"Ya know. I gotta say something about the girl. She's really something else. Not quite what I was expecting, but still...I think we can be good friends. I bet Hilde'd like her. I wonder what she's doing now.Hilde, I mean"

"Why don't you call her?" suggested Heero, apparently tired of the chatter now that he had recieved the neccessary information to answer his quiry.

"Because there's a big time difference between here and L2. There, it's three in the morning."

"Hn."

"But you're right. I'd like to talk to her, I've been gone a whole week. She could be lonely up there all by herself. Maybe I could convince her to come down here for a visit. I bet she'd like the Earth, I don't think she's ever been here. I'll call her tomorrow and..." the chatter continued along that vein for a few minutes. Heero tuned it out.

<And he's off again,> thought Heero. <If anyone so much as breathes the word Hilde around him, he starts babbling like an idiot. I truly wonder just exactly how the two of them can miss what's right under their noses. Oh, well. It's not my problem. It's not even any of my concern that he and Relena have gone of on a date and->

"Oh and Heero, in case you're wondering," said Duo, breaking into his thoughts. "It wasn't a date."

<Uncanny. It sounds like he read my mind. Well then what was it?>

"It wasn't a date. She just wanted to apologise to me for the thing in english class earlier today. We both now share a love of mexican food, there's this great resturaunt..." and he was off again, describing the place to him. Strange, not the kind of place he would associate with Relena.

<Hn. Must file away for later referencing.>

Duo didn't really say what they'd talked about and after a few minutes of silence he flipped on the tv and watched some idiotic cartoons about the mishaps of a rabbit and "martian." Heero would never understand the appeal.

End.