"…And in other news, the Ex-Vice Foreign Minister Relena Dorlain seems to have
become even more of a recluse this season. She has reportedly refused all invitations to
the join in the Spring Social Calendar. Has the responsibility placed on the former queen
of the world coupled with the tragic deaths of her childhood friends pushed Relena
Dorlain over the edge of sanity? More on the story at 11."
The television screen went blank. "Blasted reporters. Must have been a slow news day."
The woman stood slowly from her high backed chair. She looked older than her 28 years
with sliver streaked honey gold hair and age lines around her eyes. The years of politics
hadn't been good to her.
"I could care less about their debutants…Stupid, catty women, all of them."
She murmured to herself as she walked to the window. The sun gleaming off her garden
had once been a
beautiful sight, but it had fallen into disarray in recent
years.
~*~*~ Flashback
~*~*~
The sun was bright, hurting Relena's eyes. She stood at the window in her study, looking
down upon her garden. She could almost smell the roses. Time seemed to stop for Relena
as she gazed down at the peaceful scenery. In this small sliver of time the world again
seemed pure to Relena, untouched by human corruption, untouched by death...
Relena's gaze was pulled back toward her desk and the neat, ordered piles of paperwork
waiting for her. She needed to get back to the Harsons Aid Proposal.
"I just don't understand why every one is fighting this proposal so much." She stretched
out cramped limbs and massaged her tight back muscles caused by too many late nights
bent over a computer screen. She longed to go down to the garden and get lost in it's
wonderful array of plants and flowers, but security had been so tight recently that she
wasn't allowed to go anywhere alone.
"One threading letter. That's all it was. So, it described my death in great gory detail,
but really, all this security from one letter."
A movement down among the roses caught and held her attention. She watched a figure
kneel and began to tend to the roses she so adored.
"Trowa's down there. Surly no one would dare try to assassinate me with an ex-Gundam
pilot right there. Plus, this is my own garden and my own home..." She reasoned. Relena
grabbed a light jacket and headed downstairs toward the garden.
"Trowa!" Relena called out to him. The tall ex-pilot looked up and smiled at her. He had
been expecting her to come out at any moment.
"Paper work too much?" He asked her in a quiet voice.
"Yes, for some reason people think that giving aid to those countries that are still
struggling economically after the Eve Wars is bad politics. When will they learn that we
all have to take care of each other?" Relena brought her hands up to scrub wearily at
her face. When she opened her eyes again Trowa was standing right in front of her. She
gave a little start at finding him so close.
"Here." Trowa shoved a small gardening spade into her hands. "Don't think about it."
Relena stared down at the tool for a long moment after Trowa walked away. Then slowly
she walked over to where he had gone back to tending the roses. Relena's tension seemed
to just melt away as Trowa showed her the proper way to work with the flowers. The day
seemed to be going to well until David, a junior officer with the Preventers, and one of
her day guards nervously walked out into the garden. Trowa noticed him first and stood
up.
"Can I help you Officer Daler?" Trowa asked.
The young man fidgeted nervously with the front of his uniform. When he lifted his head
to look at them.
"I'm...s-sorry" He said. Relena barley heard him and stood up.
"What do you mean, David?" she asked him kindly, "If something's broken in the house
you don't have to worry. Wufei and Duo break things all the it-" She had been walking
forward while talking to the young man, but Trowa grasp her arm and pulled her back.
"Don't move."
Relena looked at him strangely.
"What do you mean? Do you think David's going to hurt me? No, Trowa, he's just
upset." Relena walked forward just a little more, but didn't get too far ahead.
"They made me do it. I don't want to but..."David was almost in tears by this point.
"Who made you do wha-"
"GET DOWN!" Trowa yelled just as Relena saw David raise his gun. The next few
minutes were a blur of motion that seemed like eons stretching out forever and at the
same time like seconds. Relena heard the gunshot and felt Trowa's weight land on top of
her. She could fell the tail tale wetness of blood between their bodies. In a daze she heard
another gunshot but she couldn't think of it then. All she could think of was the weigh
pressing down on
her and the fact that Trowa wasn't answering her calls...
~*~*~ End Flashback ~*~*~
"No one has cared for the roses since you died 4 years ago, Trowa." she said aloud to
herself. "You made a much better gardener than bodyguard. But then that was only the
part you played, wasn't it?"
~*~*~*~*~
Pagan watched his young mistress wander through the mansion aimlessly. His heart was
heavily. In all the years he had been with Ms. Relena she had become more of a surrogate
daughter to him than an employer. He had been a trusted bodyguard to her father, King
Peacecraft. Pagan had carried her out of the castle during the desperate race to save the
children when the kingdom fell. He had aided and taken care of her during the Eve Wars,
shielding her as best as he could.
Seeing her like this, watching her become a recluse from the world of the living, made
him feel as if he had failed her and her great father. Relena was forsaking the land of the
present for the shadow world of the past. Pagan knew his Miss Relena was sinking deeper
into insanity by the day. Pagan knew in his heart that the mistress he had once served was
never coming back. Why let the world see her as less than she had been? Why let cruel
people take away her dignity?
"Indeed, why?" Pagan whispered to himself. "I can't… no, I won't let this injustice to her
go any farther…"
~*~*~*~*~
Rain pelted the window. Lightening streaked across the sky in bright, white flashes over
the ominous gray blue expanse. Relena sat on her bed and watched the sea waves crash
and roll over the sharp rocks that jutted out towards the sea. A sea gull got caught in the
terrible swirling wind and suddenly whirled in the direction of the rocks. She watched
with a blank face as its body was violently hurled against the rocky cliffs. Lighting
flashed and the power flickered out. Relena sat in the darkness without moving a muscle
from her current position. She didn't seem to notice the darkness of her room or the
raging storm that threatened to break her large windows blow into her room.
"Heero, why did you have to die?" The only reply she got was the harsh rattle of the
windows and her French doors that led to her balcony. She knew no answer would come.
In the years since his death he had never answered her.
"I was standing at the altar, you know. Waiting for you. But you never came. Later,
Milliardo told me you had died the night before. Not in a mission, but in a car accident. A
car accident. You could pilot that monster of a machine, but you couldn't steer around a
drunk." She stared deeply into the blank eyes of her teddy bear, the last one he had given
her, and laughed bitterly, her hands trembling. "The great Heero Yuy, defeated by a
person with no military training. Doesn't that hurt your pride?" She demanded. "Speak to
me, dammit!" She shook the bear; it's head flopping wildly from side to side.
No answer came. The storm grew worse, and the wind finally succeeded in blowing one
of her French doors open. Relena shivered slightly as a chilling wind rushed into her
bedroom, cutting through the thin material of her nightgown. Drops of icy rain came with
the wind, spraying the bed and carpet.
"S-so cold…" She whispered with chilled lips.
Pagan came rushing in with a lit candle, wrapped in a dressing gown. He had come
running as soon as he heard the bang of her French door being blown open. The wind
from the open door blew out the struggling candle and the room was again bathed in
darkness, save for the occasional flashes of lightening. Pagan began to fight with the
wind to close the door.
"Oh dear! Ms. Relena are you alright?" He asked at last when he had won the hard fought
battle, securing the doors with a chair shoved under the knobs. Relena didn't answer the
butler. She was still staring out to sea.
~*~*~*~*~
The next day, Relena sat in the drawing room as if she was expecting someone. She was
dressed nicely in a burgundy silk suit that hung slightly on her frame. Her hands were
folded neatly in her lap; she sat as still as a broken statue. Pagan entered the room from
the door at her right.
"Ms. Relena, your visitors have arrived." He announced. Relena stood to greet her few
remaining friends. For years now, her friends had come every Thursday to visit her, rain,
shine, or snow. She moved towards the door in lieu of greeting them.
"Sally, Noin, Hilde, Dorothy, how have you been?" Relena always felt a small seed of
guilt whenever she saw these women. She was, after all, the reason that their lovers were
dead today instead of here with them.
"We're fine…and how are you doing?" Noin asked politely. In recent years, their visits
had become a set routine, formal mannerisms and niceties in place. They only came
because of promises made to dying men. Something inside of Relena begged to shout out
the truth, 'I'm going mad…can't you see? The ghosts of your lovers haunt me…' but she
stayed quiet. Who was she to break years of tradition, after all? This little weekly
ceremony was all she had left of normal life with friends and family. The last memory on
sanity….
"I am fine, as always," Her smile was slightly twisted, "I've been keeping up with each
of you in the news. Sally, I congratulate you. The head of the Preventers after Une
retires!" Sally dipped a nod. "And Dorothy, how is the job of Vice Foreign Minister
suiting you? I trust the diplomats are giving you hell?" Polite but nervous laughter
followed her question.
"Yes Relena, they haven't changed much since you left." Dorothy tried to hide the pity in
her eyes. The Relena of former years was just a ghost of memory in this woman's face.
She really didn't know why she still made these weekly visits. They depressed her so
much that her therapist had forbid her to come, but still she couldn't stay away.
Relena nodded in acknowledgement. Then she turned to Hilde.
"And you, Hilde, I think I saw that your firm just got the contract to built the next two
space colonies?" Relena offered her first real smile of the afternoon to the young woman
before her. Hilde was the only one who hadn't blamed her for her lover's death. After all,
Duo really hadn't died protecting her…just because of her.
Relena took in a deep breath then turned to her sister-in-law. There wasn't any love
between them like in the old days. 'Noin you still can't forgive me for the way Milliardo
died, can you?' Relena asked her silently. 'Good, never forget… I certainly never
will…'
~*~*~*~ Flash
back ~*~*~*~
Relena was sitting with Milliardo in the waiting room of the hospital. Well, she was
sitting, he was pacing.
"Calm down brother! She's going to be okay. The doctors said the baby was almost
here." A man caught Relena's eye. He was staring at her like she had something on her
face. She cautiously put her hand to her cheek. The man seemed to blink out of whatever
trance he was in and turn away. Relena noticed him reach into his coat pocket and felt a
moments fear. She looked around for Heero but stopped herself.
'It's been a year, but still I look for you…' Relena turned back to her brother and tried to
forget about the man in the corner.
"Milli calm down! She'll be fi-"
"LOOK…that man's got a gun!!"
Relena swung around. The black hole of the barrel was looming in her face. The man she
had seen earlier was frowning at her from over the barrel of the gun.
"I'm going to have to kill you Relena. I didn't want to...but you have been unfaithful for
the last time." His voice was pathetic and he did indeed look sad. Relena was confused;
she had never seen this man in her life before today.
"What do you mean unfaithful, sir? I haven't even met you before. If you could just put
the gun down, we can talk about this in a better manner," She tried to use a soft voice to
calm him down.
"I loved you! And you deny that you know me?" He shook his head and a tear slipped out
from his eye. Some part of Relena felt sorry for this man.
"You're going to have to die now. I told you I wouldn't share you with anybody!"
Although his hand was shaking he managed to pull the trigger. Relena was shoved
violently to the floor. A heavy weight fell on top of her, warm liquid covered her back,
and from that moment she knew her brother was dead.
~*~*~*~End of Flashback ~*~*~*~
"Relena dear, you've fazed out again." Noin spoke gently to the woman before her. Her
feelings for Relena were mixed and hard to understand. At times she resented her for
being the reason her husband died on the night their first child was born. Other times, like
now, she felt a swell of compassion for her sister-in-law. Relena seemed so lost.
"Oh, forgive me Noin…I was just thinking about…the past." Relena sighed and changed
the subject to something more neutral.
"How is M.J. doing? He's about 5 now, right?" Relena asked. She knew his birthday had
been three days ago; it was just something to say.
"Yes, and he enjoyed the toys you sent him." Silence stretched out between the women.
"I have an appointment at 1 today. So I must be going." Dorothy pointed out as she stood.
"It's been nice seeing you again Relena dear." She bent and kissed Relena's cheek,
noticing the how much more hollow her face had become.
Relena smiled as all the women prepared to leave her, but it didn't reach her eyes. She
listened to the sound of their retreating footsteps as Pagan showed them to the door.
"Did you all enjoy seeing them again?" she asked the silent room.
~*~*~*~*~ *~
Pagan was walking by the music room when he heard voices…well…really it was one
voice. Miss Relena was talking to herself in a most disturbing fashion again.
"I used to love sitting in here with you Quatre. Your music always soothed me when I
had bad dreams." She seemed to be focused on a corner of the room. Pagan hated it when
she got like this.
~*~*~*~ Flashback ~*~*~*~
Relena tossed and turned in her bed. Her dreams were filled with images of death. She
cried out and sat up. Relena was breathing heavily and cold sweat dripped off her brow.
The door opened and Quatre stepped in; he was her bodyguard for the night.
"Relena, are you okay?" His voice was soft, but Relena could see the moonlight from the
open window flash off the gun in his hand.
"Yes, it was just a nightmare." She placed a shaking hand to her face. Relena was once
again lost in the memory of her dream. It was filled with blood and crying. She felt the
bed dip to her right as Quatre sat down. He placed a hand over hers and patted it
comfortingly.
"Come Relena, you'll feel better if you get up and move around." He gathered up the
light throw blanket at the end of her bed to wrap around her shoulders...
They had walked in the garden for an hour at the most, just until Relena felt like trying to
sleep again. Quatre had left her at her door just as the sun was beginning to lighten the
sky.
"I'm going to go get some tea, I'll be right outside the door if you need me." He had
smiled the reassuring smile of his and Relena had felt as peace for a moment. Sleep, for
the first time in ages, had been dreamless and deep for her. Relena woke up feeling quite
refreshed, but that feeling didn't last long. Duo knocked on her door soon after she was
dressed.
"P-Princess? Are you awake?" His voice had a trembling note to it but Relena didn't
notice.
"Yes, you can come in, I'm just braiding my hair." She called out cheerfully. She
watched the reflection of the door opening from her mirror. Duo's long face was her first
clue that something was wrong.
"Duo? Duo what happened?"
"Quatre...he-he's..." Duo couldn't bring himself to say dead, it was all to soon.
"He's...gone." The sound of Relena's vanity chair hitting the hard wood floor echoed in
the silence.
"But...But I just saw him. He was just here!! You're lying to ME!" Relena went at Duo
with her fist, banging them into his chest. Duo just held her up and cried with her. After
what seemed like hours Relena pulled away. Her eyes were beyond red and puffy, but she
didn't care.
"How did it happen?" She asked in a dead voice. Duo's lips formed a straight line. The
hardness in his eyes would have scared Relena if she hadn't been beyond caring.
"Someone slipped poison into his tea."
~*~*~*~ End of Flash Back ~*~*~*~
Pagan coughed to get her attention, though he knew that her focus would remain where it
was. "Miss Relena, why don't you come with me? We can go sit in the sun where it's
nice and warm." He reached for her arm. She jerked away from him.
"No! I don't want to talk to Trowa. I'm talking to Quatre." She turned back toward the
music cabinets in the corner. Relena threw an angry look at Pagan. "Don't you see him?
It's very rude to interrupt a conversation Pagan. Don't do it again." She gestured to the
butler to leave her. Pagan stood there hopelessly as Relena turned back to the music
cabinets and began to speak again.
"I'm terribly sorry, Quatre." Her voice was soft, with apologetic tones. "Pagan won't
interrupt us again. We can go back to talking." Her face clouded for a moment. "Even
though you never talk…"
Pagan shut the door on the scene. He was going to have to speed up his plans. Relena was
getting much worse.
"Don't worry Miss Relena. I won't let them see you like this. They will remember you in
all your greatness. I promise."
~*~*~*~*~
Relena sat in the dining room pushing the food around in her plate. She could see the
concerned look on Pagan's face. She knew he was worried about the amount of weight
she had lost recently.
"I'm just not hungry Pagan. Please, take it way." She pushed her plate way.
"Miss Relena, please eat a little more!" he pleaded with her. Relena hated the look in his
eyes. The concern and pity for her. She hated him for it.
Her mind suddenly switched to other thoughts. "I'm going to go see Wufei…." Her voice
drifted airily away. She was already forgetting about hating Pagan.
"Miss Relena you can't see him! He's dead! Don't you remember that?" Pagan shook her
gently, desperately trying to make her snap out of her stupor.
"Of course he's dead Pagan. He died in the bombing of the Brussels Embassy. I was
there!" She laughed at his foolishness.
"Then why do you insist on this fantasy? If you know he's dead then why do you insist
on talking to him?" he asked gently.
"But he's in the library." Her face crumpled and a tear seeped from the corner of her eye.
"He won't talk back. He just sits there and reads. Maybe one day…" She just turned and
left the room.
~*~*~*~*~
Relena was in the library reading a book, but she found it hard to concentrate on the
words. She heard the door open and looked up.
"Oh, hello Duo. I was waiting on Wufei. Have you seen him today?" The braided youth
didn't speak. He just made his way over to the window as she watched his steps closely.
He had still had a limp from his days as a Preventer when on one of his missions a bullet
had ripped through his leg, crippling him forever. That had been before he had died from
a fall out of a window.
~*~*~*~ Flash Back ~*~*~*~
Relena was in her office on the 24th floor of the Preventers building in Brussels. The
darkened remains of the Embassy were dark against the bright blue of the sky outside
Relena's window. Her mind drifted back to the day it happened... Wufei had been her
bodyguard for the conference. He had been nervous all morning. Relena had been too
preoccupied to notice though. It had been her last Peace Conference as the Vice Foreign
Minister. That night she was going to officially turn the job over to Dorothy. Then she
planed to never leave her mansion.
'Yes, finally time alone. Then maybe all these hallucinations will go away. Because I
can't really be seeing people that have been long dead. No, It's just stress.'
The screaming from outside the conference room pulled her out of her daydream.
"There's a bomb! Some one put a bomb in the building!" Wufei looked grim as he pulled
Relena up from her chair.
"I have to get you out of here." He told her when she started toward the front of the
room.
"No, I can't leave. Someone has to direct these people. I have to help them or they'll
panic." Relena was determined to get to the platform were the stunned Speaker of the
House had just fainted.
"I can't let you do that, Relena." Wufei said as he began to pull her at a run out of the
building. Relena tried to look behind her but it was impossible with Wufei pulling her
along. When they were a few blocks away from the Embassy Wufei slowed down to a trot.
Relena bent over at the waist trying to get some air into her lungs. She felt cool hands
touch her arm.
"Relena, I have to go back in and try to help. Just stay here with Catherine." Relena
looked up, confused.
"Cathy?" Why was Cathy here?
"Your in front of your office Relena." Cathy told her confused friend. Relena was
shocked. They had run five blocks. It hadn't seemed like that long. Relena looked up for
Wufei but he wasn't there.
"Where's Wufei!" She demanded of Cathy.
"He said he was going back. What happened Relena? You were supposed to be there all
day."
"He went back! No...!" Relena stood up as if to run after Wufei but a horrible explosion
ripped through the air. Cathy dropped the bad of dounuts she was carrying and covered
Relena's body with her own. Although Cathy was just Relena's secretary she had been
trained as a substitute bodyguard for such a time as this. The last thing Relena saw were
flames leaping into the sky where the Brussels Embassy should have been.
"Why Wufei? You and Duo are all I have left!" Relena walked over to one of the
windows along the wall, the one facing the burned out shell. She struggled to lift it all the
way. She wanted to feel the wind on her face while she was working. It helped calm her
nerves.
"Hi Princess! What's up?" Duo came into the room and sat on the ledge of the open
window. Relena frowned at his position.
"Duo that's dangerous. Get out of the window!" She scolded. Duo had been one of her
most constant friends after Heero's death.
"I heard about Wufei. I'm the only one of us left, I guess." Duo shook his head, "I don't
know if I can take it anymore Relena...This loneliness.... They were the only thing
standing between me and insanity." For the first time Relena realized just how old Duo
looked. He was only supposed to be 26, yet there was more grey in his braid than brown,
and the crows' feet at his eyes seemed to suddenly stand out.
"I'm just tired. Hilde doesn't understand...she thinks I should move on. That I should
mourn then let them go...but I can't Relena..." His voice faded away as be rocked back
and forth on the windowsill. Relena felt her eyes fill with tears when she realized what he
was saying.
"Duo..." she whispered.
"Tell Hilde I said I loved her, please?" His eyes pleaded with her to understand, to give
him just this last thing. Relena slowly nodded her head tears sticking in her throat. Duo
smiled, and for a moment he seemed 15 again. Then he was falling. Relena rushed to the
window as Duo's frail human body fell 24 stories to the ground below.
"Good-bye Duo."
~*~*~*~ End of Flash Back ~*~*~*~
She could still remember the look in his eyes as he fell. Relena had believed he was
finally at peace…. That was until she started seeing him again. Now he just wondered the
halls of the mansion never saying anything.
"I wish you would speak to me Duo. You always made me laugh." She leaned forward as
if this was one of the late night conversations she used to have with Duo before his
death. "Can I tell you a secret?"
"People think I'm crazy," she whispered with a giggle. "And I think Pagan is beginning
to believe it too. But I can't stop talking to all of you. That would be cruel of me. To
ignore my friends… my family…." She seemed to become confused for a moment.
"But my friends aren't talking to me. How cruel of you all. Maybe you are punishing me
for letting you die when I should have been the one." Bitterness and sadness crept into
her voice.
Duo turned around, and for a moment Relena thought he would speak but he blinked out
of sight.
~*~*~*~*~
Pagan was downstairs cooking lunch for Relena. Beside the pot of soup sat a little vial.
He picked up the vial of clear liquid, steeling himself for his next actions. "Miss Relena
please don't hate me for what I'm about to do." He shed a single tear as he poured the
whole contents of the vial into the bubbling soup.
"I just want you to be free again. Like when you were a little girl and you would beg me
to push you in the swing…." Pagan was over come by memories again. He hated himself
for doing this. But Relena needed him to free her spirit from the world that had treated
her so badly.
~*~*~*~*~
Relena looked up from her bed. She hadn't felt like getting up today. She gasped in
surprise. All around her bed stood the phantoms. Quatre, Trowa, Duo, Wufei, Milliardo
and Heero. They stood stiffly, silent as always, watching her room door. Relena turned to
see Pagan enter the room.
"Miss R-Re-" He cleared his throat to get rid of the shakiness in his voice. "Miss Relena
I've brought you some soup. Please try to eat as much of it as you can." He placed it
gently on the bed. Then he kissed her on the forehead.
"Miss Relena, you do know I've always loved you like a daughter. And I've always been
proud of you." He said fervently.
"Why Pagan, your feeling reminiscent today, aren't you?" She asked in a child like
voice. She suddenly looked around at unseen things around her bed. To Pagan's surprise,
she broke out in a bright grin. He smiled back, unsure of the reason she had done so, then
headed towards the door.
"I think they want me to eat your soup too!" She called out happily as he opened the
door.
Pagan closed the door behind himself. He leaned into it and finally gave in to the tears
that had been building all morning.
"Good-bye Relena."
~*~*~*~*~
Relena was feeling sleepy and her eyelids felt heavy. Breathing was becoming harder and
harder.
"I bet…Pagan…will…be happy. I…ate…all…of…h…his…soup." Her arms fell slack
on the bed from their position on the tray. She closed here eyes to sleep for just a minute.
After all, it was rude to sleep when you had guests.
~*~*~*~*~
Relena opened her eyes when she felt a tug on her hand. Heero was standing over her,
smiling. Relena sat up and looked down at the bed. Her body was still lying there
peacefully.
"I don't understand, Heero…am I dead?" He didn't say anything, just pulled her upright.
She could see all of her closest friends standing around her bed. She could feel the
warmth of the smiles on their faces. She felt complete for the first time in years.
"Relena, welcome home."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"...And in other news, the former Queen of the World and Vice Foreign Minister, Ms.
Relena Dorlain, has died today at the age of 28. There is no word on what may have
caused her death other than a long illness. Some of her most memorable acts as the Vice
Foreign Minister are the Anti-Armaments Act of 199 and the Harsons Aid Proposal of
202. Ms. Relena retired from the political arena at the age of 26 after the deaths of two
close childhood friends. The President has requested that a National Day of Morning be
declared for Ms. Dorlain. Further coverage of this story at eleven…."
I don't own Gundam Wing.