Behold, I have returned!
(Absolute silence)
I've been gone that long? Damn! Anyhow, sorry for the disappearing act; no computer, no internet and no money. I'm good now, so on with the fanfictions!
Shotgun Wedding
By goingdownhillagain
Hero couldn't figure out where Relena acquired a sawed-off shot gun. He didn't even know how she was able to use it, but from the way she was handling the weapon and the presence of a concussion vest over her bump, Relena was not to be underestimated. Heero was certain that this was a carefully thought out plan.
A plan that seemed to include him getting shot.
"Relena, you really should be the gun down." Heero was proud of the soothing tone he had perfected over the years. Duo had warned him continuously that his voice who make children cry. Even Heero knew that a crying Relena with a gun was a bad thing.
"Relena, why don't we just talk this ov-"
"Shut up Heero. There is nothing to discuss."
Her voice was calm, as soothing as a summer brook dancing along the river bend. Relena was relaxed. Her grip firm and stance steady; the only thing that gave away her emotional state was the slightly crazed sheen in her eyes.
"You promised Heero. That's why I'm angry with you. You promised!" Relena paused to regain control of her voice, "I waited to long for this. So long, Heero! And this is what you do? You said you would wait. You said you would not forget me."
"Relena, I didn't! It's just Duo and I-"
"DUO!" Relena's face broke out into a snarl, "The little bastard! And you just had to listen to him. Well, no matter, He's going to regret interferring…He's being dealt with as we speak."
As if on cue, Duo's shout of alarm rang though the halls and permiated the room they were in. Even the piles of robes and curtains, which got Heero into this situation in the first place, could not muffle the panic in his boy-friend's voice.
"Relena, you need to calm down. I told you that we were not set in stone. Come on we both have lives to live and other responsibilities."
"We were both there for this!" Relena growled as she nugged her stomach forward, "you had no problem with me being there for it. But you have a problem with the consequences! Heero, you of all people should know that there is a method to this. I will not let you undo years of planning."
Heero began to get annoyed
"Relena, we didn'y know it was going to happen, we're sorry! But you can't hold it against us! Look whose talking about planning. You were the one who wanted the baby, and here you are putting it in danger! Beside, it's not like you control every damn thing throwing a temper tantrum-"
Heero's subconscious knew he had just said the wrong thing. Relena's flushed with anger as her hand gripped the trigger tighter.
"Shut Up Heero!"
Heero made his move. Ducking below Relena's estimated line of fire, he dove to her right, knowing from the teeth chattering blast that her right hand would take a while to readjust to him as a moving target. He moved quickly, using the piles of curtaines and boxes of cloth to cover his progress. The door was infront of him. If he could only get there befor her he could-
Heero's body and mind stopped in midrun as a fist sized hole materialized by the door. Instinctively he ducked, sparing his hair from a twin hole. Still in shock, he barely registered the sound of Relena engaging the pump action on the gun and the tinkling of the discarded shells.
"Heerooooo," Relena's voice was hard as it was sweet, "I'm tired of playing games. You are going to get up and you are going to behave. The priest is waiting."
Heero got up slowly. There wasn't anything more to say.
"Okay Relena. Let's go."
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The chapel was quaint in a pre-Colony sort of way. The stain-glass windows which had been maintained in the traditional manner, brightly depicted the last inglorious moments of the patron saint of the long gone monastery that used to reside on the plot of land that was now a shopping center. The priest at the altar fit in quite well with the red carpet with ran the center aisle passed the stately yet weathered wooden pews. This little chapel had seen many meetings, impromptu court hearings and the occasional funeral. It had also seen many a wedding, most quick and desperate as the vibration of laser cannon shifted the dirt from the rafters. Once again it was fulfilling its role as the sealer of unions, in both an unorthodox yet acceptable manner.
"Princess, are out of your fucking mind?"
Duo's screech echoed through the rafters as Heero walked steadily but slowly up the aisle to meet the others. The mood was tense. The presiding priest watched with strained smile as the pair approached the altar. The smile could not hide the apprehension in his eyes, which darted from Heero to Relena to the rest of the small congregation. Heero saw that Duo was there at the altar, with a shot-gun pressed firmly between the shoulder blades of the young pilot. Hilde, her own swollen floral patterned stomach protruding outward from her body, jabbed him into silence.
"Shut up Duo. This is much your fault as pretty boy there. The least you could do is own up to your promise to Relena."
"I promised her nothing. Besides she was warned that it might not work out. And throwing a hissy fit because things don't work out in your favor is not the sign of a rational person!"
Duo's screamed the last part as Hilde rammed the gun into his back with force.
"I can shoot you and trust me you don't want to be on a honeymoon with a gunshot wound. I refuse to bring a child into a world surrounded by questionable morality as authority figures."
"When da hell you turned so God-damned pretentious, Miss I-was-part-of-a-terriorist-organization-that-tried -to-take-over-the-world?"
"That was then, now we have no excuses. Besides you have to keep a promise."
"Damnit Wufei, you're the sub-Commander, put a fuckin' end to this!"
Wufei Chang spared Duo a quick glance before turning back to watch Relena.
"I'm sorry Maxwell; I'm commanded to not get involved in this."
"What?! Une sanctioned this shit? Brilliant! Fuckin brilliant! That woman's completely batshi-!"
Wufei was sitting on the far side of the first pew, staring intently at Relena. He was aware that Relena was on the edge of a dangerous precipice, but he had his orders. Besides, although he was in Preventer uniform, the power of the symbol of his authority was undone by two factors; the fact that Relena outranked him and the confiscation of his weapon by Hilde.
Heero made one final attempt at reason.
"Relena, you know I wasn't trying to avoid you on purpose. It's just with the missions that have been coming and Lady Une needing us-"
"Your commander said you volunteered for the missions, at Duo's behest," Both Heero and Duo cringed, "You blew off the last date even when I told you about it a month in advance…"
Heero heard the crack in her voice and knew he and Duo had gone too far. She had suffered too many shocks during the last year and promising this was probably not one of their better decisions, especially with Relena's delicate condition. Heero looked at Duo who returned his gaze with an air of resignation and a hint of concern.
"Okay Relena, fine, fine…we'll do this your way."
Heero released the breath he was holding as he felt the tension ease out of Relena. Recognizing he no longer ran the danger of being accidently shot, the trip up the chapel aisle was easy to complete. When he joined Duo at the altar, the priest, who had quietly and a bit nervously had waiting, cleared his throat.
"Gentlemen, are we ready?"
Two firm but grim nods.
"Good. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join these men in holy and legal union. Before we begin, who gives away these men?"
Relena collapsed into a crying heap as Hilde and Wufei rushed to her side.
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The ceremony was extremely short, the important part of pledging to love and honor each other taking precedence over a long-ass traditional homily on the sacredness of marriage. Besides, both grooms were too busy trying to calm down the main instigator of the entire situation as she blubbered violently over her husband's shirt.
"Wufei, why didn't you tell us it was this bad?" Duo was trying to get Relena to take a sip of cold water from a glass provided by the priest. Wufei was on the floor in front of the altar, rocking Relena on his lap and he tried to sooth her down from the emotional high that she had been riding for the whole day.
"She was fine, right up to two month ago when you two began playing this dumbass games of we're-on-we're-off. Sally warned us all that Relena wasn't completely over the shock of this damn year!"
It had amazed both Duo and Heero the extent to Relena's strength when, on the last day of January of that year Relena received the first of series of shocks.
It started off with a video of a young girl engaging in sexual contact with an unknown gentleman. The gentlemen would later turn out to be Relena's natural uncle, a Duke of the Peacecraft royal line, who had disappeared right before the coup which wiped out the Peacecraft line. As the investigation continued, it was revealed that the Duke was a pedophile of the highest order, being responsible for the abuse of 125 children and it was alleged that the King and Queen of Sanc may have hushed up his crimes in the name of maintaining "prestige". As soon as the information leaked into the media, the backlash began. Relena, who was only a baby when he was engaging in these activities, was suddenly attacked for being associated with the worst form of military abuse. There were calls for her resignation, different law organizations were demanding that the Peacecraft estate pay restitution for the crimes against the victims, Councilors, who once supported Relena and some of her policies began to pull out. A sad consequence of this abandonment was the collapse of the War Orphans Bill which was to protect former child soldiers. When Italy condemned 20 young people to death, all younger than seventeen, Relena collapsed.
It got worse form there. While Relena had to bear the unwarranted brunt of the Peacecraft Shame, as it was later called, her brother Millardo, under the "guidance" of the ESUN, had his name officially changed to Zechs Marquise. The logic behind the action made sense; his old name would threaten his position as head of the Mars Initiative, but still the apparent abandonment shook her confidence to the core. His quick marriage to Noin, without notifying Relena was another blow.
Then Pagan died of a massive heart attack.
Wufei remembered the unholy wail of despair that ripped its way out of Relena's throat when the news arrived from her step-mother. It seemed that he was just as hurt at the accusations leveled against his former charge and, as they all found out later, he felt guilt at knowing about the abuse but doing nothing. One afternoon, he went to his room, lay down for a nap and never woke up. For the first time, in her life, Relena was truly alone. Even when the Peacecraft Scandal had been resolved with the emergence of files which proved that the royal family attempted to have the Duke prosecuted, the damage was done to Relena's psyche. Her paranoia was all encompassing; she was reluctant to trust anyone other than Lady Une and the former Gundam pilots. When her brother came later and gently tried to recommend that she be submitted for 'professional' therapy, Relena finally broke.
"We should have lit his damn blond hair on fire."
Duo's growl echoed the surge of rage in Wufei as he remembered Zechs standing in Relena's apartment, trying to gently convince the sister, whose life he was no part of, yet whose eventual political prison he engineered, to give up her freedom for a life of quiet, 'restful' containment. Zechs' arrogance was so shocking that even his wife, Noin was frozen in horror.
This was the opening Wufei needed to go after Zechs' face.
The beat down lasted all of two minutes, and Wufei didn't have the time to use his extensive martial arts techniques. But the results were the same; by the time Quatre and Trowa dragged Wufei's rabid body off Zechs, he had a broken nose, busted lip, two black eyes and one broken tooth. Needless to say the couple left soon after, with Heero snarling at Zechs to never show his fuckin' face in Relena's vicinity anytime soon.
All Relena could do is cry.
"Not possible, under the Preventers' Constitution we can't do anything to him. Besides he…trying."
"Awww! How conveniently fortunate."
Wufei smirked at the sarcasm. He looked up to find Hilde consoling her husband, a former army chaplain, who was one of many to retain his power of state rights to conduct weddings. He was extremely reluctant to do this; it went against his ideas of free choice and the sanctity of the marriage vows. Still when Hilde wanted something, especially for those she considered her friends; no church was going to stop her. Besides her husband was in agreement about one thing, Duo and Heero were taking too long to get married. And that Relena needed to have some stability.
"Wufei?"
Relena's voice was very soft, muffled against Wufei's shirt.
"Yes Peacecraft?"
Relena smiled carefully at his 'pet name'.
"Where's Heero and Duo…I need…to-to apologize," she paused to clear her throat, "I shouldn't have done that. I had no right to force them to get married to make me feel better-"
"Don't worry 'bout it Leenie-chan", Wufei rolled his eyes when Duo popped up behind him, smiling at Relena, "this was exciting and you an' I know damn well that we could've never stand a traditional wedding. Although Heero would have looked quite fetching in a lovely ivory lace wedding- oww ya bastard! I was giving you a compliment!"
"Baka."
"Anyhow…we forgot that this was really important to you and we did promise that you would be there for our wedding. It's the least we could do. Besides now we can have an ass-kicking partaay!"
"Can I invite Zechs?"
The question was soft but everyone around her tensed.
"I-I know no one is in the mood to forgive them yet…I'm not sure I am but…Noin said…he's trying-he wants to get to know me again…I really want to trust him…I understand if-"
Heero suddenly appeared in front of her, his face wiped of all emotion.
"Relena, if you wish to invite him I have no problems with it. He is your brother."
"Though if he decides to be a prick, hubby here can have first dibs, ain't that right Fei-kins?"
"Oh shut up Maxwell."
Wufei wasn't as disturbed by the idea of Zechs being near Relena. After the 'beat down' Wufei was put on suspension for a month, but he had a feeling it was only a formality. As far as the world knew there was no disagreement within the Preventers' ranks. The lack of communication between Lady Une and Lieutenant Zechs Marquise was seen as nothing more as issue with inter-space communication glitches. But Heero was right, at the end of the day, Relena needed her brother. If it meant that Wufei had to spend most of the time avoiding him like the plague, he would do so.
But only for his wife.
"Thank you." Relena smiled.
Hilde suddenly appeared in front of them.
"Gentlemen? We have to go. There is supposed to be a christening in here."
"Oh! Well let's go. Fei-cutie, need some help?"
"Maxwell, stop with nicknames."
"Why Feifalafel? They suit you so well!"
Wufei groaned as he got up from the floor, Relena still in his arms. It said a lot for her emotional stability when she didn't attempt to walk out the chapel on her own. As they walked out into the sunshine, Hilde's husband stopped to lock the doors the adjacent office building. It was then he saw the holes.
"Hilde dear?"
"Yes Derrick?"
"Who's paying for the shot gun holes in the walls?"
This was supposed to be more humor than drama…but it didn't work that way. Meh.