24 Aug 2000
Category: Angst/romance
Pairings: 2+R
Disclaimers: I don't own these delightful people (Sunrise and the
Sotsu Agency do, and Bandai has a license to pass them around), nor
do I intend to infringe upon the rights of their owners.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Reckless use of ballroom dancing. Horsies! Oblique references to shounen-ai. Several trees' worth of sap.
The gala had been interesting for all of ten minutes, and now Duo was bored. Vigilant, sure, but bored silly. And the room was crawling with security (his own staff, he thought with no small amount of pride) so he wasn't sure why she needed him there anyway.
On the ballroom floor, the Old Europe Coalition's top brass twirled elegantly under the Peacecraft chateau's crystal chandeliers. The champagne was flowing, the politicos were circling, and he was bored.
This kind of shindig was impressive, he conceded, munching on his twentieth mini shrimp kabob--Relena certainly knew how to throw a party--but he was still far from feeling at home amid the glitter of the diplomatic set.
Relena's secretary spotted him holding up the wall and wormed her way through the crowd. Nina knew boredom when she saw it, and this was a serious case. "Wanna dance?"
"You're kidding, right?" he snorted. "Besides, I've got to keep an eye on Queenie."
Nina was pretty sure those alert eyes would be keeping track of everything in the room no matter which direction he happened to be facing, but decided to take issue with something else he'd said, instead. "Better never let her hear you call her that." She tapped a warning finger on his chest as she said it, trying to look menacing.
"Sorry, sweetie, your death glare needs some work. You're kidding, right?" She was shaking her head. "Serious? Why?"
"'Queen of the World.' It's what they called her, after they took everything away. A colossal, nasty joke."
"I see, I guess. Well, she's certainly rebounded nicely, hasn't she?"
Nina looked at him narrowly. "I guess it could look that way. Anyhow, that's why I wanted to talk to you about. She's been, well, with the summit, and now this bunch of fogies--she's exhausted. About five minutes away from total collapse, I'd say. You're the old friend on staff--can you--would you talk her into considering getting away for a while?"
He looked across the ballroom to where she stood in a circle of epaulets and tiaras. Slim and straight-backed in her white gown, she seemed elegantly collected--unless you happened to be looking when the bevy of politicians moved on, and the façade dropped briefly. The golden head bowed, its intricately-piled braids looking too heavy for the white neck curving under its weight. Eyes closed, she took two breaths before visibly gathering herself to move back into the crowd.
"I see what you mean. What's your plan?"
"The Darlian villa, down by the sea," Nina explained. "It's remote enough to get her away from the crowds, but defensible; perfect for a forced rest cure. And I can clear her schedule, I think. All you have to do is talk her into it--or drag her, if all else fails."
Flashing her the smile that had half the staff swooning over him, he tweaked the end of her nose. "You've got it, Nina m'girl. I'll go start the dragging now--she's down to a waltz and a half, by my count." And he was off, moving through the knots of people with confident ease.
Relena looked up as he tapped her escort's arm to cut in. <Nina's right--she does look terrible. How can these idiots not notice? You didn't, Maxwell, until Nina whacked you over the head with it.> Artfully-applied makeup almost hid the deep circles under her eyes, and gave a girlish flush to her pale cheeks, but it couldn't make her face look less drawn. And she was almost stumbling--which could be blamed on the spindly heels of her ridiculous dancing shoes, but was probably more than that.
The ambassador of New Prussia bowed and moved away, and Duo assumed a proper dancing position: one arm up, the other bent. For about a second, until she proved she wasn't too exhausted to laugh. "You've got to be kidding. Since when do you waltz?"
He waved in dramatic indignation. "You wound me! Well, maybe not. I'm on a mission. You're to be kidnapped and dragged bodily off to a vacation."
"Oh, great. Over Nina's dead body!"
"Actually, it was her idea. Seriously, you look beat. One more dance and you call it quits, okay?"
"You think they'll let me get away that easily? The Iberian contingent's already circling like piranha, since they've noticed me standing still."
"Guess I'd better learn how to waltz, ne? Seriously, I do know how to do this."
Too tired to argue, glad to have an excuse to avoid them, she put one hand on his shoulder, laid the fingers of the other hand in his, and let him turn them into the dance. It was a relief not to have to talk, or smile, or pretend to listen--with a sigh, she closed her eyes and let her head droop against his shoulder. <Gotcha,> he thought triumphantly, gathering her a little closer so that he was supporting more of her weight.
Nina nodded approvingly, smiling in spite of herself at the picture they made. He had even dressed up, albeit with considerable grumbling, and Relena's gown looked even whiter against his dark jacket. Some of the delegates were turning to look, observing to one another that the Minister looked more at home with this partner than she had all night.
Lulled by the music, feet on autopilot, she didn't even notice when it ended, only coming out if her reverie when he deposited her in an armchair some distance from the floor. The room suddenly felt chilly, and she blinked owlishly as Duo and Nina exchanged a few conspiratorial whispers before making her farewells and bundling her unceremoniously back to her room.
The next day, protesting only weakly, she pulled herself into jeans and a sweater and let herself be packed onto the plane. Only a skeleton staff was going with her--this was a semi-covert operation, after all. Nina would be staying, to handle any new business, but Duo and a small cadre of security were coming along, as well as an administrative assistant or two. It was a much smaller entourage than she was used to having to lug around, and felt refreshingly manageable.
When they finally arrived, the whole crew scattered to settle in. The place was as lovely as Relena remembered: gardens sloping to the sea-cliffs, ivy rambling over everything. It looked just as it had during those long-ago vacations with her parents. With the people she had thought were her parents. It had been so long since any place had felt like home--even this familiar house was strange, for all its lingering nostalgia. She was too far away from the little girl who used to run through these rooms with an armload of dolls.
Duo prowled the halls, taking in the slightly shabby (but undeniably valuable) carpets, the heavy wooden furniture, the damp just-swept smell of a hastily-opened house. Pictures hung in the salon--a brown-haired woman, smiling sadly, sometimes joined by a bearded man. And a younger Relena, eyes wide and happy, clutching some small furry animal (live or stuffed, he couldn't tell), posing in a gown and corsage at some school dance. The images caught at him, somehow. <Funny,> he thought, <Heero actually got to see her like this. Close to this, anyway. Before her life was shot to hell.>
He looked out the window to see the girl herself padding barefoot across the tiled terrace, hair in a loose braid down the back of a white shirt. <Nice hair, princess. You call that a braid?>
She reached the edge of the lawn and disappeared; her chief of security shook his head at the impulsiveness of princesses and followed. She should be safe enough here, but who knew? Now, where had she gone? Not on the cliff path, not in the rose garden, not in the orchard--
"Ow!" An apple had donked him on the head.
"Hey!"
He saw one narrow foot scrabble for purchase on the bark before she made it the rest of the way into the apple tree.
"Not very ladylike, bijin,"[1] he warned, but he was laughing. If those fogies could see her now, halfway up a decrepit apple tree, winging fruit at her innocent bodyguard--"Ow!"
Another apple connected, and now he was serious. "Why, you--" He grabbed the bottom branch, which promptly snapped off in his hands with a rotten *thonk*. He stumbled backward--his whole weight had been on that branch--and sat down hard. Still laughing, but apologetically trying to stifle it, she swung down and landed gracefully by his splayed feet.
"You are having entirely too much fun already, oujo-san. I have a very bad feeling about this vacation...."
Hands in pockets, whistling tunelessly, Duo swung down the path toward the stables. When he had gone looking for Relena that morning, her eager assistant had said she went riding every morning, sometimes for hours. It seemed like the quintessential patrician hobby, and he saw no reason for worry. What harm could she come to, placidly cantering over the well-manicured grounds of her own estate?
So he was whistling as he came into the stableyard, still whistling as he looked around the empty barns. One of the grooms pointed him toward the high meadow, and the whistling turned to cursing as he shoved past the brush and the branches on his way up the hill. What the hell was she doing up here? The briefing could wait--this was ridiculous. He stumbled through the last clinging twigs and stopped, struck still by the sunlight blazing on the green bowl of the high meadow, on the sparkle of a rocky creek between its high banks.
And then he saw her. At first, he saw only the horse--a chestnut streak against the far grass. But then he identified the small figure clinging to Valada's back, hair spread behind her in a bright banner.
She's going way too fast, he realized; Valada's hooves were barely touching the ground as she flew over the uneven ground. This was no dignified canter--the wild gallop seemed entirely uncontrolled, at least until they hurdled a fallen tree with practiced grace. Controlled, then. Or, at least, Valada wasn't running away. But Relena--as horse and rider flashed past him, he realized that her eyes were closed, face set in something between detachment and agony.
Then they were gone, off the smooth grass and onto the rougher ground at the edge of the meadow. Valada gathered herself to jump the creek --too far, they'll never make it, he realized. Finally, his paralysis broke and he managed a strangled cry of warning.
It was the worst thing he could have done. Valada checked herself almost in mid-air, coming down sideways on the far bank. Her twisting landing sent Relena flying from the saddle, arcing through the air to land in a crumpled heap in the bracken.
He made it to her side faster than he had known he could move, gingerly feeling for broken bones. Her face was pale, crossed by dry tear-tracks and the red lines of new scratches. Her eyes, when they opened, went quickly from disorientation straight to anger. She scrambled unsteadily to her feet, hastily checking Valada over.
"What were you thinking? You don't just pop up and yell at a horse like that!"
He dusted off his knees and stood, spreading his hands in awkward apology. "Hey, I thought you were already in trouble."
"That's ridiculous. Valada's made that jump a hundred times."
"With your eyes closed? And you ask what I was thinking? That wasn't a ride, it was a suicide attempt."
"Look who's talking." She bit out the words, stooping to gather up Valada's trailing reins. He sagged against the nearest tree, suddenly weary as the adrenaline drained away.
"I'm fine," she continued a little less angrily. "Falling off is part of riding. It happens all the time."
He knew it was true, but he couldn't erase the image of her tortured face. She had seemed all right, mostly, since he had come to work for her--so collected that he hadn't been able to believe she cared much at all. Heero had gone away, and Relena remained just the same. A china-doll princess, cool and remote and unfeeling. Except that she wasn't--wasn't unfeeling, wasn't even in a serene state of denial waiting for him to come back. The look he had seen on her face was despair, the same horrible emptiness that clawed at him magnified and multiplied by her inability--or refusal--to articulate it. Was she refusing to give in to the grief to spare the rest of them, or was she afraid that once she started crying she wouldn't be able to stop?
"Lena." He went to stand behind her, gently untangling twigs and bits of fern from her hair. [2] When she didn't speak, he stood there at a loss for a long moment before his hands began automatically to separate the long hair into sections, to cross and gather it into a braid. The repetitive motion soothed them both with its familiarity, and she didn't pull away when at last he dug in his pocket for a spare hair band. He began again. "Lena, I know why you do this. At least, I think so. If I had a plane, anything with wings--heck, a hang-glider--I'd be running flat-out, too. So I won't tell you to stop. Just--tell me when you go? Maybe let me come with you?" She was silent, head bowed. "I'll be quiet, I promise."
Her shoulders shook for a moment before he heard the actual laughter. "Oh, sure. That's likely."
He couldn't help laughing with her, then, but shook his head. "So little faith, Minister Peacecraft." He pulled her into a quick hug, surprising them both. "Hell, Lena. This place needs you. No more canyon-jumping, okay?"
"Okay." Clucking to the ever-patient Valada, she headed back toward the stable lane.
Shaking his head again, he rubbed his branch-battered arms and followed. <There would be a nice clear path leading up here. There just would be.>
End of Part 2.
(1) A website that lists "the 100 most essential words in anime" [www.yale.edu/anime/glossary.html ] defines this as "a beautiful woman," adding that "In terms of frequency and usage, it's best likened to 'babe.' However, it's still acceptable in formal speech registers, so is not inherently disrespectful." I figure it's a polite version of "good-lookin'," which is how the English dub translates "oujo-san." Anyway, it's going to be Duo's favorite endearment for Relena--sort of like Heero's infamous "baka."
(2) Where's her riding helmet, you ask? She doesn't seem to have one on in this scene--don't try this at home, kids. Only you can prevent head injuries!
(:./lilias/complicated2)
