A Christmas Miracle
Relena leaned against Heero, her soft curves just barely touching him. The feel of her chest, hips and thighs against him as they danced was maddening. She looked beautiful in her dress-a low cut form fitting affair of forest green crushed velvet with matching gloves. Her aquamarine eyes sparkled as she tilted her face upwards. Slowly he leaned down, filling his nose with her feminine scent of roses and baby powder. Closer...closer...his lips barely brushed hers-
BEEPBEEPBEEP! Heero's alarm clock cut into the dream, jarring him back to harsh reality. Muttering a light curse under his breath, he turned it off. Just when it was getting good... Relena.
With a sigh, he reached for the scrap of paper he kept in his desk. It was a sketch of Relena, drawn for him by Quatre (not only was the Arabian musically inclined, he was a gifted artist), who had figured out Heero's secret love long before anyone else, even Heero himself. Duo was the only other person privy to that information.
Heero folded the paper in half and went to go take his shower.
Relena stared out the car window, bored. Tree after tree flashed by, monotonously identical until Relena was forced into staring at her own reflection in the side mirror. She wondered if she was pretty, as girls often do. Relena decided if she wasn't, she couldn't do much about it, and if she was, well...the one person whose opinion of her mattered didn't care.
Heero. For some reason, the Christmas season always made her think of him. Foolish, she knew. Heero didn't even believe in God, let alone Christ. Perhaps it was because Christmas was a time for thinking of those you loved, and Heero was certainly high on that list.
Automatically her hand went down her shirt, fumbling for a gold cross with an inately sculpted Jesus on it, strung on a delicate matching chain. A present for her seventeenth birthday.
The thought of Heero and herself as a couple was laughable. First there was the problem of distance. She knew if she quit her job and moved to the colonies, Earth would once again war with space, and what would be the point of that? Not only would the peace they had all worked so hard to achieve vanish like a house key, but she and Heero would be torn apart. And asking Heero to leave the colony he would've died to protect was cruel.
Besides, what kind of couple would they make? The pacifist queen and the perfect soldier. Unthinkable. Ludicrous. Wonderful.
But even if these problems didn't exist, there was Heero's obviousy apathy towards her. It was as if God was trying to think of as many obstacles as possible to keep her from the person she wanted to be with most.
Relena dragged her mind off Heero. She had other, more immediate things to think about. She was going to the colony on Christmas Eve (briefly she pondered if it was the same colony Heero lived on before remembering she was trying to stop thinking about him).
"You should give her a present." Duo said. Heero turned away from his computer to stare at his roomate.
"Give who a present? Heero asked feigning ignorance.
"You know exactly who. C'mon, do it, I'm the one who has to listen to your sick fantasy dreams about her at night." Heero sent his death glare; the fact that he had dreamed about Relena the previous night fueling his anger. Grabbing a pillow off his bed, he threw it straight at Duo, who ducked. It soared through the open door, and another across the hall to crash through Duo's bedroom window and land harmlessly in the bushes outside.
"I hope you can take a hint."
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving," Duo said as he made his exit, ponytail swishing.
Christmas. Bah-humbug. Christ and God weren't real. What kind of God left him to kill and kill and kill until all that were left were he and the corpses of his victims, and finally he died too, drowning in their blood?
Christmas was for Christians, and Heero Yuy was atheistic. Still...he had heard Relena would be coming to this colony for Christmas...
Relena stepped off the shuttle, drawing her coat close around her to protect her from the artificial snow. Natural or not, it was cold.
Time for some Christmas shopping, she thought, taking out a long list. Four of the gundam pilots, her brother, Miss Noin, Lady Une, Sally Po, Dorothy Catelonia and Hilde Schbeiker were all covered. Only Heero was absent from her list of people to buy presents for. She wasn't going to see him, anyway. He had probably forgotten her already, reduced her to nothing but a date on a calendar that was a dim reminder to buy a present for some girl...long since considered unimportant. The birthday presents were probably only out of courtesy, no doubt they would soon stop all together.
Walking up the steps, between two large pillars, Heero rang the doorbell. To his surprise, Relena herself answered.
"Hello?" she opened the door the rest of the way. "Heero..." she said, biting her lower lip. I shouldn't have come I shouldn't have come I shouldn't have come... Wordlessly, he handed her a box. Relena took of the top smiling her thanks. She pulled out a tiny grey and white kitten with an oversized red ribbon around its neck. "Oh, it's adorable!" she raised to kitten over her head. "You're a sweet little thing, aren't you?" Heero used this moment to analyze her. A short, lowcut red tube dress with fluffy write trim accentuated her perfect figure. Her small feet were in short green boots, and a green Santa hat was on top of her head. Suddenly she stopped cooing over the kitten, her eyes drifting beyond it to the top of the door frame. Heero glanced up. Mistletoe hung there, and he could almost hear Duo's voice and see his wicked grin.
"Musn't break Christmas tradition," he would say if he was present, and push him into Relena.
Blushing slightly, Relena put the kitten back in the box. "Meow?" She slid her arms around Heero's neck, and closed her eyes. As he pulled her close, Heero wondered if she could feel the frantic beating of his heart as his lips covered hers, warm and real, not a dream.
"Merry Christmas," she whispered softly into his ear, pulling away. The day had produced the kind of miracle only Christmas could.
Note: Everyone on Relena's "people to buy presents for" list was present, spying on them and cheering slightly. And yes, Duo was grinning wickedly and thinking just that.