A Promise Made
Fic by: Icicle Raindream
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to me in no way, therefore I make no profit off this. I do it to keep myself and hopefully others entertained.
Notes: I have no idea where this idea came from…if it's a little strange you'll have to forgive me because it kind of sat in my head and fermented all day …I finally got up enough courage to sit down at the computer and write, and I think this is the best rendition of my fic I could possibly get. Tell me if you liked it! Enjoy!
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A figure suddenly pulled the chair out next to me.
"Having a good time, I hope, Miss Relena?"
Dorothy Catalonia's voice sang high and clear over the string quartet playing in the corner of the ballroom. It was sickeningly sweet as the smile spread across her face, and she turned to me eagerly, her hands clasped together and resting on the table.
I managed to answer her somewhat civilly. "Yes, Dorothy," I replied, dead-pan, "the party is wonderful."
She grinned harder, only making it more obvious that she was enjoying putting on this little show of happiness, this fake act of caring. She almost looked sarcastic as she got up and strode away, her long dress swishing behind her. A flip of her hand through her hair made my teeth clench in annoyance. Boy, that was an ugly gown she had on. The thought almost made me smile. At least I knew I looked better than she did tonight, even though I didn't want to be here.
The mass herd of people that had gathered earlier tonight had somewhat thinned out, bodies all spread out and across the huge expanse of the ballroom at the St. Gabriel Institution, my school. Dancing couples still graced the dance floor, and the rough chatter and voices talking and laughing still filled the air around me. The lighting was dim, the large shimmery crystal chandeliers hanging over our heads emitting a low yellow glow on the party, and thick oak tables had been placed strategically around the room for people to sit and rest at, as well as have a bite to eat. The long, white table cloth covered the catering table, and dishes of food were still set out and steaming, awaiting their fate as hungry dancers twirled by and snagged a plate of their own.
Now me, I felt no hunger whatsoever. I think what I felt was mostly revulsion. I sat at a table in the corner of the room, away from the dance floor and catering table, resting my elbow lightly on the maroon tablecloth, my chin in my hand. I merely sat and watched as people talked happily with each other, danced, ate, and even conversed with the string players from time to time. I felt no urge at all to leave where I was, even though I was sporting this snazzy new pants suit than I'd never worn before. I just observed the jovial scene around me and offered an occasional friendly smile when one of my associates stopped or passed by.
And Dorothy Catalonia irked me. Terribly. She stood with this commanding posture, gesturing and looking condescendingly down on her schoolmates with this attitude that made my teeth itch. How come nobody saw through her like I did?
This was all her idea, all her fault.
*
I had been sitting in front of the room, talking with my friends in class, when suddenly she stood up and spread her arms, addressing the whole room.
"I think," Dorothy began loudly, a sparkle in her eye, "that we, as the students of the St. Gabriel Institution, should throw an honorary party for our kind and caring Miss Relena, this Saturday night, for all she has done for us, and all we know she will continue to do." She slowly spun in a circle, taking in the reactions of our classmates. "Anybody else agree?" she asked then, and I thought she sounded sort of demanding.
I jumped to my feet quickly. "Now, Dorothy," I said sensibly, "I couldn't possibly host another party here, not right now. There's this war going on right now and--"
"Oh, silly, silly, silly Miss Relena," she interrupted me, forcing out that laugh of hers. "See how hard she works for us?" She turned back to the class. "I think we all need to take a break from all this war news and celebrate. We need to commend Miss Relena for what she has done."
The class applauded loudly, a few girls here and there standing up and nodding their heads enthusiastically. I suddenly found myself and my vote against partying quickly overruled, and drowned in the sea of female classmates around me as the number of them standing increased dramatically. Dorothy had managed to sway them all, and I had no say in any of it.
*
So there I was, enjoying myself so much I could spit, watching as my classmates greeted each other and laughed and had a carefree good time for hours. I can't say that I was really angry at the whole situation, because I loved my friends and if they were happy, then I was happy, but the fact behind the matter was that Dorothy had set this all up and I didn't like that. That girl is more slippery than ice, and something that I figured just had to be up that horrible ruffly pink sleeve of hers bothered me.
"Oh, Miss Relena…still sitting here like a bump on a log?"
I turned my face up to her as she stood next to me and forced a small smile. "I'm just taking a break," I lied smoothly.
"Well, then, at least let me get you a drink of punch," Dorothy said, returning my fake smile. "You look like you might need one, sitting here by yourself."
"I'm fine alone," I assured her, "but that drink offer sounds really tempting. I heard the punch is excellent."
"That it is indeed," Dorothy agreed with me, which was a first in the whole time I'd known her. "I'll go fetch you a glass."
"Thank you," I replied politely, watching her shuffle away. My stomach turned. She even sounded like one of those high-class, overly rich and snobby people. But if she was doing something for me that I wanted done, I wasn't going to stop her. Not at all.
I smiled thankfully as she plunked the crystal wineglass down in front of me, filled to the brim with sparkly red juice.
"Drink it all now," she advised. "Otherwise the caterers might get insulted." I watched for the third time as she stalked away and rejoined a group of girls to seemed to tolerate her. Then I picked up my glass and sipped it.
I hate to admit it, but she was right. The punch was excellent. So excellent, in fact, that I found myself gulping the rest of my first glass down, then actually getting up and walking over to the countertop to retrieve another, on the little tray that was marked "Miss Relena Peacecraft", set aside specifically for me. I replaced the empty glass with the full one and leaned against the wall casually, folding my left arm across my body. Now my pants suit was in full view, and I noticed a few male friends of mine grinning in my direction. Ha! Dorothy hadn't gotten any looks from them, not with that puffy pink thing she adorned tonight.
I can't believe I downed my second glass and reached for a third, plucking it right off my tray next to me. This punch…it was so addicting for some reason. It sparkled and fizzed and you inhaled the tiny bubbles as you sipped, and when the red juice hit your mouth, it was like a kick in the face. Something was in this stuff, something rowdy that made you want to reach for more. And it wasn't alcohol, I can tell you that much. Alcohol tastes nasty, at least to me. There was something else in this punch, a secret ingredient that kept the customers coming back for more. Although as I scanned the room I noticed that not too many people were drinking punch as they sauntered around, but that didn't stop me. I was on my fourth glass as it was.
I tore myself away from the counter then, realizing that I only had two glasses left on my tray, and I needed to save something for the toast at the end of the night. Dorothy had pleaded and begged and finally made me give in to saying a few words to my school. I didn't even have anything prepared. I was going to give a speech cold turkey. But I figured, with the way Dorothy had manipulated the crowd of students, that they would applaud me no matter what I said, because she would be supporting me all the way and they would follow her example. I could probably tell them that I recently discovered that chickens had lips and pigs flew to the moon each night and everyone would just stand and clap their hands off with nods of encouragement and glee. Yeah, I know…pretty sick, isn't it.
When I sat back down at my table, my stomach started doing weird things. I had drained my fourth glass of punch, and it had begun to grumble loudly. I wasn't hungry, though…I had no inclination to get up and eat. After the grumbling, it started moving, flip-flopping and rolling inside, making my sitting position very uncomfortable. I clenched it, slumping over the table trying to look nonchalant, and that made everything worse. My stomach began ice-skating through me and forced my body to my feet. I turned and began to walk.
That's when my x-ray vision kicked in. Trust me, it wasn't a good thing…seeing all those tuxes and gowns with their colors turned inside out, looking like negative photographs as they swirled and shifted in my sight. They swayed to one side, then the other, as I commanded my feet to keep walking towards the heavy open doors I knew were in front of me, the ones that led to the garden. My stomach was rocking the boat, making the room bob and sway from one side to the next, my walking feeling very jerky and unsure beneath me. I think I saw some wide eyes at my appearance as I passed couples on the dance floor, but my will was strong and it kept me going. My head began to pound in steady rhythm with my heart as I finally reached the outside garden, and I cursed myself for drinking so much. Perhaps this was the side effect of the juice everyone had known about but me, and that had been why they weren't drinking so much.
I took a few more tentative steps, my arms out for balance, my head throbbing and eyesight swirling and stomach doing jumping jacks, trying to reach for something to steady myself, something to lean on and rest for a minute. Maybe this would pass…if only I had something to catch on to…
That's when my hand felt something as it stretched out in front of me, groping blindly. I blinked through the mass of glumpy colors and snagged something in my fingers, tightly, not readily willing to let go as of yet. Roughly, I either yanked the object closer to me or fell onto it, and then suddenly I took an involuntary sharp breath.
The object in my hand…it was clothing material…black, and being squeezed within my grasp. The black cloth was attached to a body slightly larger than mine, a body that was so close it pressed up against me and made me realize that my nose was buried onto a shoulder, both of my hands now clenching onto the front of the tux. I closed my eyes as a pain shot through my head.
"Relena?"
The voice was soft and low and a bit shocked as it whispered in my ear, and I felt two arms come around me, holding me to the body. Probably holding me up, too. I don't think my legs were functioning properly, and so I sagged against the figure, grateful for who it was.
"My…head…hurts," I stumbled out. "Going…to be sick, I think…too much…red…"
"Don't talk," the voice quickly ordered. "Let's get you upstairs right now."
He tried to move, tried to pull me with him and support my lagging frame, but I was rooted to the ground where I stood as my stomach took a screaming skydive and forced its contents up and back out of my mouth.
I could only stand and watch in horror as I threw up my recently consumed sparkly punch all over the figure standing in front of me, the figure of Heero Yuy.
Blackness.
*
"Here, drink this." An unfamiliar familiar voice tried to prod me awake.
Through my hazy dream I could feel the rim of something cold being pushed against my lips, and I shook my head roughly and brought a hand up to shove it away. "No more…" I murmured.
"Relena, open your eyes," Heero's voice commanded.
I did as I was told and looked up into a face I recognized but hadn't seen often, blinking a few times to clear my head of fuzzy faintness, wondering what he was doing here. He propped me up, crouching in front of me as I sat up on the floor, holding a small glass in his hand. "It's only water," Trowa said lowly, and reached the cup back out to me. "It'll make you feel better."
Oh, lord…I almost forgot about what happened earlier…my cheeks turned beet red as I took the glass from him and sipped the cool water, still not brave enough to look up behind him at Heero. He stood with his side facing me, glaring out the window, his black jacket flung on the bed and his…once-white shirt unbuttoned at the top. Suddenly he put a hand up to his ear and jerked to attention. The small bedroom I recognized as one of the dorms located upstairs in my school was filled with another voice, higher in pitch and sounding somewhat frantic.
"Heero, we've got to start an immediate evacuation. This place is going to blow in a matter of minutes!"
"Can you disable the bomb, Quatre?" he responded back, remaining cool-headed.
"There's no way. They really rigged this thing up," he replied through Heero's headset. "By the time Duo and I figure out how to disarm it, it'll have blown by then. We just need to get all the students out of here."
"Understood. Get yourselves out of there now." Heero turned back to us and stepped closer as he kneeled next to Trowa, looking at me. I studied the lap of my new pants suit and willed my cheeks to simmer down, although I was curious as to what was going on with the pilots.
"Are you still nauseous, Relena?" Heero asked.
I shook my head, even though it was a lie. "I'm okay," I said to my legs.
"Good. We're getting out of here right now." Heero stood up and Trowa followed him, stepping away from me.
"Wait a minute!" I called from my position on the floor, lifting my eyes to them. "Why? What are you talking about?"
Heero and Trowa turned as one and faced me.
"Didn't you hear Quatre?" Heero asked sternly. "This building is about to be blown to pieces."
"No!" I shouted in disbelief. "He was talking about my school?"
"Yes, now move!" Heero reached down and hauled me to my feet, making the empty glass fall to the carpet and my stomach lurch. He must have seen me wince because he let go immediately and turned to Trowa. "Get her out of here," he ordered. "I'm going down to the main ballroom to see if I can't catch Dorothy Catalonia before she escapes."
Dorothy Catalonia…?
Trowa simply nodded and told me to stay close. I shook off the remaining wave of nausea and tried to keep up as we raced out of the room and down the hall steps, trying not to think about what might happen to Heero if he stayed too long.
He could handle himself, I knew.
*
We ran, our legs pumping unrelentlessly through the bushes in the garden, my eyesight connected with Trowa's form in front of me, sometimes jumping and leaping with effortless grace over the brush. He even turned once and offered me his hand quickly, yanking me over a particularly huge tree root I couldn't get over by myself, and swiftly kept me on my feet when my dress shoes slipped on the rocky path leading out of the garden. I hadn't expected him to be so nimble, and he took me by pleasant surprise. I had no time to say anything to him, though, as Duo and Quatre quickly caught up with us. I suspected this was the Gundam pilots' preplanned meeting place--the sidewalk that met the rocky path leading out of the garden area right next to the street.
"Where are my students?" I practically shouted at Quatre, as soon as he stepped close to us.
"They've been evacuated," he replied breathlessly. "Don't worry…I wouldn't have left if they weren't all out."
"Where's Heero?" Duo interrupted before I could respond.
"He's after Dorothy," Trowa replied. "Although it's probably too late."
"It is, she's gone," came the deep voice from the bushes.
"Heero?" I cried.
He stepped out of the garden and walked to us, joining our little group on the sidewalk. "The ballroom was empty."
"Damn!" Duo punched his thigh with his fist. "We were so close."
"Apparently not close enough!"
That haughty voice…I could've picked it out from anywhere.
"Dorothy," I growled. I turned around and faced her, faced the direction her voice had come from…the street.
"Oh, my dear Miss Relena," she quipped, her voice high and excited with sarcasm, "you look like you've had a bit too much to drink. Did you enjoy the special punch I made for you?"
Lightning struck my brain as I stared at her, standing there in the street still shamelessly clad in that god-awful pink gown. "You…spiked my punch?" I exclaimed.
"Oh, not with alcohol," she replied, waving it off. "With something better. I thought I could bring a little humor to our celebration tonight when the leader of this posh private school stood up to make her speech and spewed all over everyone instead. Although I didn't expect you to have such a high tolerance for the drug. Most people would have been passed out by now."
"You're pathetic," I shot back. "What was your meaning behind all this?"
"Why, it was to blow our little pacifist here to tiny smithereens," she told me, grinning sweetly. "But you!" She suddenly whipped her eyes in the direction of the Gundam pilots. "I didn't count on you being here!"
"Well, you better count on it from now on," Duo threatened.
"Oh, yes," she said lightly, "I'll keep that in mind. Till next time, Gundam pilots. And you, Miss Relena…hope you enjoyed the celebration."
Before any of us could react, a limo suddenly screeched to a halt next to her and she climbed in and closed the door. The car sped away, but not after we all caught a glance of Duke Dermail sitting inside the car next to Dorothy.
"No! She can't--!" I started to go after her, but a sudden strong hand held me from behind. I glanced at the hand, then looked up to the person's face. "Heero!" I yelled. "Do something! Stop her!"
"It's over, Relena," he told me calmly.
"No!" I shouted. "It can't be! You have to do something!"
"There's nothing we can do," he replied, and suddenly he wrenched me around to face the school. I watched in shock and terror as the ballroom exploded into flames and began falling apart. Pieces of the stone walls fell and smashed into the garden below, approximately at the same point I had crashed into Heero and gotten sick earlier. The green of the garden closest to the school was now ablaze with flames, and the thunder of the explosion rocketed through my ears, rattling my brain.
I clenched my stomach, the queasy feeling coming back as my eyesight went a bit blurry. "No," I moaned. "She can't do this to me…to my school…"
"Don't let her win, Relena," Heero told me as he released my arm.
I looked at him in confusion, trying to ignore the big red stain across his shirt while pushing my stomach away. "What are you saying?" I asked him.
"Your goals can still be achieved, even after this," he explained. "Don't let this one attack tear you apart."
"How did you guys know about this?" I asked, but before Heero responded, Trowa interrupted.
"Heero, one hour."
They all began to leave as Heero gave him a short nod. The two of us we left alone in the dark on the stone path, just outside the garden.
"We were sent on a mission," Heero said, looking away. "I was supposed to stop Dorothy from succeeding. I failed."
"So all of you knew what she was up to?" I cried.
He shook his head. "Not until the last minute. Noin sent me in as a decoy, as one of the students, so I could stop Dermail from planting the bomb and making his escape with Dorothy." That explained the tuxedo he was in.
I looked away, too, my chin over my shoulder. I wasn't angry with Heero because he didn't stop the bombing of my school. I was angry at myself for letting that conniving little vixen manipulate me and stage this whole ridiculous party, and what was worse, she tried to take the students down with me! No doubt she knew Duke Dermail would be waiting for her after the bomb was set and she would get out of here, while her drugged up friend Relena Peacecraft would spend the last moments of her life spilling her guts and then being blown apart by explosion. The whole thing was so maddening and frustrating, and yet I couldn't seem to help feeling like such a little girl. Especially with Heero standing in front of me.
Oh, no…my eyes caught another glance at that shirt…I would have to face it some time or another, I suppose…
I gestured to his front. "Heero…about earlier…"
He looked back at me sharply and held his hand up. "Don't," he said, shaking his head. "You were drugged."
I closed my mouth. If that was good enough for him, it was good enough for me. I didn't want to talk about it any more than I had to.
Then there was an odd silence between us as we stood there, unmoving, looking at one another, the snapping and popping of the still-burning trees behind us the only noise in the night. I looked at him, letting my eyes travel over his tousled hair, his unbuttoned and stained shirt, the way the black slacks fit snugly around his hips…I took a step closer to him, suddenly remembering the fact that I was still wearing my snappy outfit that fortunately hadn't been stained by my little…accident…
His eyes were locked into mine…I could see the blue penetrating from them as he stepped a little closer to me…how was it that he could just up and do things like chase after someone with the intent of killing them and then suddenly find himself in positions like these where everything was so incredibly mellow…change gears so quickly like that without even thinking about it…it made me want to get to know him a little… better…His face was closing in on the inches between us, my face was instinctively raising towards his…
And suddenly the familiar screeee of car tires sounded behind me and I jumped six miles into the air. I swung around, eyes flashing at whoever had interrupted such a…moment, and folded my arms across my chest. The car door opened.
"Are you all right, Relena?" Miss Noin asked hurriedly.
I sighed, not daring to turn and look back at Heero. "I'm fine, Miss Noin," I replied, giving her a tiny smile. At least it was sincere, though.
She stepped onto the path with us and took a look at the school behind us. "What happened?" she exclaimed.
Heero spoke up. "I failed," he admitted lowly.
Oh, Miss Noin! I can't believe she made him say that! How insensitive!
"No, you didn't fail, Heero," Miss Noin disagreed nicely, taking me by surprise.
"What are you talking about?" he asked her, eyes averting mine.
"You saved Relena…that's all that really matters."
He grunted. "Hm." He walked around us and started to leave. I didn't know what to say to him, and so my voice faltered and I didn't even bother to try.
"Remember what I said, Relena," he called as he walked away. "She hasn't won yet."
Hmm…I knew he was right. Miss Noin and I watched him disappear around the corner into the night, then we turned to the car, where Pagan was waiting inside at the steering wheel.
"We've got to get back on our feet," I told her as we climbed in together.
"What do you mean, Relena?" she asked as we pulled away from the garden.
"There is still a chance for pacifism," I stated. "And no more parties."
Miss Noin nodded to me in agreement.
And there's still a chance for other things, I told myself as the car drove down the street. One being for Heero and I to finish what we…almost started.
And through all that happened, what with Trowa and I running our legs off, and our confrontation with Dorothy, and the little…episode with Heero…I realized that I was still feeling majorly seasick and my head still pounded. I asked if we could stop the car at least seven more times that night as we drove away from the Institution.
What was Dorothy talking about…a high tolerance for the drug!
I don't think so. I swore up and down to never…ever…ever… drink red sparkly punch again.