October 21, 2000
For Cat, even though it's not Pokemon... *twiddles thumbs*
Well, I thought it was time one of your lovely ideas that you've
shared with us came to be fleshed out a bit, though this is only a
skeleton...
Song by Metallica, "Nothing Else Matters"
Views expressed herein (such as anti-choice sentiments) are not the views of the authors.
It was a horrid day for rain.
Angling for a seat near the door, hoping to flag them down as soon as their faces graced the windowpane, she folded her hands around her coffee and blinked at the waitress.
How she could be so cheerful was beyond Relena's grasp; outside, the sharp staccato of sky tears indicated that the city was again being bathed clean of the rust and loose change floating in the streets. It was fitting, she thought, that the city most responsible for bringing bloodshed to the Earth should be so cleansed.
Her mood was less than dreary, more than glum; she tapped her long fingernails against the cold Formica, but her summons went unheeded. A man across the tile ocean winked at her; she sneered at his audacity. No, no one had better cross her path today, oh no. She was a tiger let loose, a prowling predator with fangs bared...
Then suddenly, in the heartbeat Relena had taken her eyes from the door, they slid into the seat across from her, one, two. She could smell the rain rolling off their jackets, off skin that, no matter how long they stood under a scalding shower, would always carry the scent of sweat and metal. So alike.
"Lena!" Those soft blue eyes, the faint mariposa brush of his lips against hers in a friendly kiss. For a moment, she wished that it meant more.
"Duo," she smiled, finding that the wrinkles around her light blue eyes had forgotten how to smile, how to crinkle just so, "you're such a little flirt." The self-appointed Yankee grinned, flashing two rows of flawless white teeth. "How *does* Heero put up with you?" She could almost see the italics of her voice in the air.
"I more than make up for it in recreational ways," said Duo airily, lifting his chin haughtily. That pointy cleft dared Heero to disagree, a challenge the Japanese man ignored. But she didn't miss the slow way Heero's eyelids sank, eyelashes brushing against his cheeks, an almost calculated move.
"You wanted to talk," said Relena abruptly, hating the way her voice sounded harsh and chopped in comparison to the two ex-pilot's languid drawls, perfectly accented syllables, long 'a's. Heero nodded, eyes smiling.
"We--" He suddenly stopped, turning to look at Duo, though his lover had said nothing. She felt that she could almost reach out and touch the thread connecting them. "We want to have a baby."
Relena drew in a quick breath, her throat clenching. She had known, had accepted Heero, even helped him as he pursued the braided American. But somehow, a child, a CHILD, made it so real. She could taste blood in her mouth; she had bitten her tongue. The snake lay bleeding against her teeth. "Adopt?" Hope, hope that her precious boys, her friends, her almost-sons with their child-like faces, would not bleed under a cold knife.
They shook their heads in unison, wooden Dutch doll copies.
"I refuse to let you undergo an experimental operation, especially not one so dangerous as implantation of a fetus! Are you insane?! Have you lost your minds? Have you no care for people who might enjoy having you healthy and still in possession of all of your male faculties?!" she demanded, impassioned. Duo and Heero stared, heads tilted slightly.
Cold. She felt cold as Heero's eyes caught her, unblinking, cold shards of blue shifting and reflecting under the fluorescent light. She rubbed her arms, trying to steal some warmth back into her body.
"We want you to have our baby," said Heero.
Relena stared. Her mind was awhirl; and outside, the tiny heart-stained blossoms on dogwood trees lining the dirty streets were unfurling, swirling to the ground as tiny helicopters.
"A baby," she whispered, her hands falling to her stomach.
Duo nodded.
He was nearly smiling. It was nearly dusk.
**So close, no matter how far**
"Me. Have a baby." Her heart was beating faster and she could feel a flush spreading across the bridge of her nose. Something inside her was opening and trembling. It was wet with the first dew of newness, petals spreading and stretching in ecstasy.
"The doctors said it would be dangerous to try to change our physiology, especially since the doctors apparently did a little gene-enhancing we didn't know about. But..." Heero's voice faded off; Relena was mesmerized by the slight tremor in his low alto. "You know I love you."
*As a friend,* Relena scolded herself, but even that slight reminder was not enough to pull her from the soft warmth surrounding her body. "You want me to have your baby?" It was a dim light, a glossy white string pulling from her stomach, unraveling by the second...
"They could combine genes from both of us...but they'd still need to borrow from your..." Duo hesitated, then smiled. "Not just ours."
"My child too."
She slumped back against the seat, eyes wide. Her hands, so pale, seemed like marble as they reached out blindly. *Help me. I need to touch...to feel.*
"I can't believe..." After all the loneliness. After all the nights spent in a cold bed, envying Duo the flesh tangled in his and hating herself for it.
A piece of her with Heero, forever. The idea was intoxicating. She could see herself, sitting on a plush white carpet, playing with a little baby girl, putting ribbons in her hair, tickling her sides. In that single moment, she wanted to have Heero's child more than she wanted to breathe.
But it would be Duo's child also. Death marked him all over; his skin was unearthly pale, almost fluorescent against the warm earth tones of Heero. He looked ripped straight from a horror movie. Relena's teeth clenched together. Would she be able to handle having the nurse press a chestnut-haired bundle, still a bit bloody, into her arms?
Her mind churned with images, of a tiny, sobbing form, ripped from the cradle of her arms by strange hands.
Of unlearning tiny hands and feet, all with perfect fingers and long toes.
Darkness, her heart ripped out of her uterus, her body bleeding, the child miscarried. Here lies Elizabeth Maxwell-Yuy, gone before we knew her.
About to refuse, the former Princess looked up and met Heero's intent gaze.
Could she look into the same stone eyes set in an innocent visage and then just as easily let the child be taken away? Would the world be so cruel?
"...we'll understand if you need time..."
"Yes," she said softly, "I need time." She hated the oblique way Heero seemed disappointed, those soft lips she had dreamed of many nights pressed thin. He *really* wanted this. She knew enough of childish whims to recognize sincerity. "I'm sorry."
Duo tried to grin, but it was only half-hearted, with not nearly so much of the dazzle as before. "Hey, it's a big decision. Take as much time as you need." Heero nodded in agreement.
Their fingers twined together, a strange interlocking of white and bronze. She could not make her mouth move to form the words of goodbye. In a way, everything she could ever say was encased in the two hands, disconnected, cut off from their bodies.
**Couldn't be much more from the heart**
She had a dream that night, freezing and alone in a bed wide enough for four. Heero was there; he was always there in some form, the spectral mist around her head, the moonlight filtering into her open mouth, the hands playing over her body like a carnival calliope. For her, the sound of his name, the smell of gunpowder and leather, would always remind her of innocence.
But this time, Duo was there, kneeling before her, long hair unbound and falling in wavy lines to his slightly red knees. Her Japanese love worshipped his body with kisses of ownership, the marks invisible. They were touching, making love, and she stood on the outside of a thick glass wall, pressing her breasts, her stomach flat to the slick surface, unable to do more than look.
She woke up and buried her face in her arms, sobbing until she felt the salt of her tears slide onto her lower lip. The tip of Relena's tongue darted out to taste it; her waters were like the ocean. She had only been to the beach twice, the first time after a hurricane. Relena swam out into the waves, and saw them cresting over her head, about to come tumbling down. Her father said she looked like a shipwrecked maiden, arms crossed solemnly over her flat chest, face golden in the summerlights.
She walked through her desk job the next day as if in a giant pool of cotton candy. Every time she tried to taste, to grasp what was happening to her, it melted in her mouth and the warmth spread again, between her thighs, up to her face and down to the very tips of her fingers.
Her.
A mother. Someone's mother. There was a large distinction between the two. She should call Mrs. Darlian.
Relena laughed. What could her fake mother, in all senses of the word, with her fashionable tin-cup pearls and her large silver hoop earrings, possibly have to say about motherhood? She turned the smiling photo of 'the familial unit' face-down on her desk, ignoring the displeased cackle of her father's voice in her head. Dead. All the dead were children of someone.
By the end of the day, she had finished none of her required work reports. The minutes seemed like molasses, falling quickly in stretchy streams one moment, moving so unbearably slow from the mouth of the jar the next.
Relena dialed with shaking fingers.
"Hello?" The sound of her voice was the breakaway cup in a jump off and all the railings came tumbling on top of her head. "Who is this?"
Relena held the tan phone in one hand as she rummaged through her desk for a tissue. God, she probably looked a mess...
"Relena? Relena, why are you calling me? It's 3 o'clock in the morning here, I really need my rest--"
"I'm having a baby." The words came tumbling out in a rush before she could catch herself. Fingers clutching torn tissue abruptly relaxed, lightness filling her arms and her hands until Relena felt ready to float away.
Relena could almost see the change of facial expression. "Who's the father? That's wonderful, Lena. And you didn't invite me to the wedding."
Where to start? Her pulse was pounding in her forehead like a piece of iron beneath a blacksmith's hammer. Relena thought she would go mad. "I'm not pregnant yet. But Mother, don't say anything until I'm done, all right?"
Silence indicated acquiescence. "You remember Heero?"
Her mother could not help cutting in. She should not have been surprised. "I thought he was a fag."
"MOTHER!"
"Well, he's married to that other Gundam pilot. Or was." The woman on the other end of the line inhaled softly. 'Are you afraid, Mother?' Relena whispered silently. 'Is your little girl leaving you?' "Did he leave him? Is he with you now?"
'I was never yours.'
Relena lifted the photo so her mother was staring at her, eyes wide, doe-like, caught in the headlights of a world that would soon strip her of her husband. It wasn't right to leave her lying in the dust.
"They've asked me to be the mother of their child," she explained carefully. "Heero and Duo, that is." After a long moment, she added, "I'm not sure what I'm going to do." The waiting was killing her. She could smell roses blooming in the small box garden outside her window. Her senses seemed to caress every surface, every petal. Life was blooming around her, and maybe even inside her.
"Relena..." That same condescending tone; suddenly, she was thirteen in blue hair ribbons and short Catholic school girl skirts, thirteen and in love with a rock star, thirteen with hopes outside of time's short leash. The next year she would start her bleeding; she would fragment into thousands of small chrysalises, pods waiting, sleeping. She would know.
Then, as softly as it had come, it was gone. Relena wanted to mourn the loss of it, but there was no time.
"As cliched as it sounds, I can't tell you the answer. Don't let your feelings for Heero sway your decision."
**Forever trusting who we are**
"So that's your motherly advice?" laughed Relena bitterly. "Follow your heart? Mother, I *want* this." She looked down and saw her hand outstretched, imploring a silent ghost.
"There's your answer then." She sounded rushed, as if she had been putting on her elaborate costume jewelry on the way to a luncheon. 'You never had time for me.' Relena's fingers skimmed her abdomen, and though no life grew there, she felt something so terrifyingly marvelous, something extraordinary, all beginning with her. Soon.
"I'm afraid."
Her voice was low and colored with shame.
"So many things could go wrong..." She was clutching the phone tightly, her hand was beginning to cramp up. "I could miscarry. What if I want to keep the baby? I don't think Heero would be able to go through that..."
"What if you give birth to a beautiful Japanese boy with exotic blue eyes and Heero loves you unconditionally for the rest of your life? Isn't that what you want? To be the mother of his child?"
Relena felt like crying.
'You don't understand.'
She sighed at the phone, ignoring the small tinny voice that still spilled out of it, and stared out the window. The clouds were moving swiftly, speckling the lazy blue with perpetual purpose.
Heero called later that night, sounding slightly feverish. Relena nearly dropped her soup spoon as the phone rang. "I'm sorry to be bothering you so late at night--"
"It's 11:30!" she scolded teasingly. "What, do you think I have no social life?" He chuckled politely. She paused to collect her thoughts, and barely noticed when Heero began to speak again. He was always so soft around *her*.
"Duo and I were talking, and realized that we just sprung it on you. I guess...we both wanted you to say yes and...I want to apologize."
"No apology necessary."
"Are you sure?" he asked doubtfully. She could almost see those thick, dark eyebrows twisting in confusion.
"Positive." She paused. On television, child pornography star Britiney Bettino did a sexy birthday dance for a late night talk show host, her prepubescent fat jiggling unattractively. "Let me ask you something, Heero: Whose idea was it to have a baby?"
She heard an enthusiastic "Mine!" in the background and smirked.
"Am I on speakerphone?"
"You are. Duo, no, don't touch that--"
It was almost disgusting how well they complemented each other. "Hi Relena," purred Duo in his bedroom voice. "What're you wearing?"
"You nut! Put Heero back on," she commanded. The American gave a little sigh; obviously, talent like his was unappreciated.
She heard a soft noise that meant Heero had regained control of the phone from his sugar-high husband. "About the whole pregnancy thing," she said, feeling embarrassed for using the word 'pregnancy' and ashamed for using 'thing', as if it were something casual she did every day, "I want to. Well, I want to."
"...Okay," said Heero slowly. "You don't sound very convinced."
"I'm..." *I'm afraid you'll hate me if something goes wrong. I'm afraid I'll fall in love with you and you'll hate me anyway.* There were no words put to paper that described how she felt.
"Relena, I just want you to know...whatever happens...if something happens...I still have faith. In you, I mean." Relena allowed a tiny smile to grace her face, eyes slipping shut. Duo was teasing Heero, calling him a sap.
"That's good to know." She hung up the phone several minutes later, feeling no more confident than she had when she'd first heard Heero's voice. Strange, that his voice was no longer a lullaby that could soothe her to a dreamless, desired sleep.
**and nothing else matters**
She saw Dorothy the next day in the supermarket as she paused to stare at the geriatrics aisle. Babies needed so much; on impulse, she reached down and plucked a pink-covered pregnancy guide from the rows of help books. Relena felt heavy eyes on her back and turned to find her, watching her. Dorothy's eyes were darker, somehow.
"You too, Miss Relena?" asked Dorothy. Relena suddenly felt foolish and shook her head, shoving the book back onto the shelf. The pages crinkled in protest, the author's face marred in the corner.
"Who's the lucky man?" she asked, still transfixed by those splintered eyebrows. Like life had stepped on her face one too many times. Lucky man, yes, one whose scrotum would probably be skewered on a fencing foil if she ever caught his arms around another.
Dorothy frowned. "What? Aren't you...?"
Relena opened her mouth to argue and roses dripped off her tongue. "I'm actually not pregnant. Just curious. You know."
"Oh. *Oh*." She nodded, as if the clouds in the heavens had suddenly parted and she had a clear view straight to God, regal on the silver toilet. "Don't forget to watch television tomorrow," said the blonde, smiling simply. "Primetime seems awfully interesting these days."
With that, Dorothy Catalonia scooped up three dozen copies of the same rose colored pregnancy book Relena had pretended to read, and was about to walk away. Relena saw the copy she had wrinkled, saw her wide thumbprints on the glossy cover, and snatched it from the plastic basket around the taller girl's arm.
Dorothy looked at her and laughed, one hand perched on a slim hip.
"Remember, Miss Relena. Tomorrow, television. It would not do for you to miss my grand performance."
Relena bought the book and hurried home. She didn't feel like being out alone at night anyway.
**Never opened myself this way**
"We will fight for our rights!" Her face was grainy and green-tinted, her eyes narrowed and expressionless. The satellite feed blinked in and out, pulsating like a strobe light, the shot from far away. The trees form a lurching vault overhead, giving the small space the appearance of a grand medieval cathedral.
"Fight for our rights! Pro-choice! Pro-choice!" Eyes widening in horror, Relena gasped as she saw the people rush into the tiny white building and pull out a magistrate, carrying him along the crest of the wave, shoving him, punching him. So, so angry. They lit a bonfire of baby books, the pink pigment turning the smoke colors, and threw him on top of it.
The small blonde reached out with a shaking hand and turned the television off.
**Life is ours, we live it our way**
It was really quite funny that watching a rally that supported ending a life had convinced her to begin another.
Relena lifted the phone with sweaty fingers. She couldn't remember anything of their conversation; all she knew was she was going to have a baby within a year. And it would be hers, and Duo's, and Heero's, something more than all three of them.
She rocked back and forth in her bed, watching the passing cars tint her ceiling with their blinkers. Relena couldn't sleep--there was a feeling inside her, one that was growing and growing, like she had just shoved a snowball down the hill and it was becoming an avalanche.
End Part One
Feedback welcome, but not necessary.
Ariana and Bianca
Please send comments to: weirdsisters@hotmail.com