Untitled

"To Forgive Divine"
By: Keito
AN: GW does not belong to me. Not even a little. ;-;

"Forgive me, O Father, for I have sinned...." The young girls gentle voice echoed on the walls and relics of the darkend cathedral. Her green eyes were cast fervently to the floor as she knelt in front of the alter. From the rear of the sanctuary, the priest could watch her clearly. He had seen her in this position time and time again, confessing, but never naming, her sin. Tonight she seemed to be especially distressed, staying though the moon had long since risen in the huge glass windows of the church. It's brightness caused a
shadow from the marble virgin to fall over her like a protective geis.

"Syliva..." The priest approached her carefully, smiling benevolantly. She was shocked at first to be so interrupted, but when she realized how long she had stayed, her shock quickly turned to embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, Father Thomas..."Her cheeks flushed pink and she nervously toyed with a strand of her silvery blonde hair. "It's quite all right. Would you like to tell me what's wrong?" Moving slowly he settled himself down beside her, his joints creaking with age. He had known the Noventa family for many years, and known Sylvia since she was an infant. Such a strange girl, he mused, looking at the reverent figure who sat
awkwardly before him. Sylvia never seemed to come to him with the usual problems of boyfriends and dances and such. It surprised him. She was pretty in a down-home kind of way, though, he had to admit, far from a striking beauty. She also was a little too flippant, a little too given to speaking her mind, and quite forceful when the occasion arose...Perhaps that was what set the boys off. He wondered what she could possibly be doing to cause such guilt. It was only then he noticed the pale shadow of a bruise on her cheek.

"Sylvia?" Gently the priest reached over and tapped her shoulder. She gave him a look of slight annoyance, and noticed him looking at her face. Surprised, her hand flew up to her cheek and touched the darkened skin. "Is that still there?" She chuckled uncomfortably. "No, father, before you ask that isn't the reason I'm here." She paused, recanting. "Or at least, it's really only part of it." He nodded for her to go on, and she let out a quiet sigh, loosing herself in her thoughts. "I think it started three months ago...no before that...it
really started two years ago, when I first met him."

"Met who, my child?"

Sylvia blinked, she had almost forgotten she was no longer alone. But the question did deserve an answer. "Heero Yuy." Three months before he had shown up on her doorstep in the dead of night, looking as worn as any stray she had seen. She let him in with less protest than she would have imagined possible, only a quiet "What are you doing here?" He hadn't answered. She remembered how he had stared at her as
she opened the door for him, those cold prussian blue eyes watching in disbelief.

"Almost..."She thought out loud. "Almost as if he was expecting me to slam the door..to condemn him again..."

But she hadn't. And by letting him into her home and her life, she had possibly made her biggest mistake.

"Not at first," She was quick to point out before Father Thomas could accuse her of forgetting her morality in the face of such a handsome temptation. "At first we were more like, well we were, total strangers. I mean, what did I know about him...except that he kills...."

Her voice choked, and the preist could barely contain his expression of shock. What had Sylvia gotten involved in? He vaugly noticed the path of the moon across the sky. It was getting so very late...

"He needed me." Sylvia's voice held the simple ring of conviction as she spoke, more to herself than her companion. Her green eyes gazed up at the elder man, perfectly calm. "I eventually realized why he came to me, of all people. He wanted someone to be able to see him, denounce him, tell him what he really is. The thing his princess could never do. That's what I did to him that day in the graveyard..." Her eyes filled with cold tears that threatened to spill onto her cheeks. Brusquly she shook them away. "But that wasn't why he really came to me." She paused and took a shaky breath. "I'm one of the few people on this planet that has the right to forgive him."

He had told her as much. He had asked her once, almost in awe, how she could forgive him.

"And, Father, I couldn't give him my answer. This," She managed to choke out, jabbing her finger against her cheek,"proves it."

The priest's brow furrowed as he patted her shoulder comfortingly. "Sylvia, child, you're not making any sense...." She bit her lip, looking down at the tiled floor.

"No, I supose I'm not..." Thoughtfully she stroked the bruised skin. "And this really was all my fault. Really father," She started, a sparkle of her humor coming back to her eyes, "It's not the most intellegent thing to try and surprise the perfect soldier with a sudden display of affection."

"So the problem is...?" He was still having trouble peicing this disjointed confession together. If what she said was true, and she was living with not only a man, but a soldier and murderer, surely this could not be a good thing. Yet she didn't seem upset about the fact that he was a killer...or that he had hit her.

"The problem is..." She paused, unwilling to say it. "The..the problem is me."

"You?" How can the problem be you? He wanted to tell her. You, who have always been so caring, so selfless..In fact, the utter sense of failure he could hear in her voice made him want to shake her.

"Yes, me!" She squeezed herself tightly, the tears that had only been hinted at before flowing freely down her cheeks. "Tell me father, what kind of woman...what kind of woman can love the man who murdered her...her..." She couldn't even bring herself to complete the thought.

She was answered with silence. It was coming back to Father Thomas, slowly. The death of Marshal Noventa, the tearful service where the town had gathered to mourn, and Sylvia's solemn assurance in the sanctity of the chapel that she had no ill will toward the instrument of destruction, only those who had made it nessecery. He looked down at the girl, biting the inside of his cheek. Presently Sylvia regained her composure, and turned her dark emerald eyes onto him, waiting for his pronouncment. The preist rose to his feet, and helped Sylvia to hers. It was now almost certainly past midnight.

"My child, I thought you had long ago forgiven Mr. Yuy...." Her violent nod assured him that she had, indeed.

"But you see, Father Thomas, in the eyes of my family, of everyone....."

Gently the man took her by the shoulders and turned her to him. "Sylvia, I think that if you have the strength to forgive Heero Yuy after what he did to you no one should have the right to deny you forgivness for falling in love. And do you think your grandmother would really object?"

"I...I suppose not..." She pulled her coat on "and I suppose it's silly to worry about all this seeing how he doesn't care for me anyway...Not that way."

"You know, my child, I think you might be wrong about that..." But before Sylvia could question him, he had already escorted her out the door.

AN: WOW! Not 2xR for once! Okay, this story ended up being longer, more disjointed, and more rushed than I had planned. And I'm not expecting anyone else to like it, seeing as most people hate the coupling. And since I just wrote this for my own self, and then decided to share it, I get to say "Flames Welcome!" Writing for myself means I'm also lazy about the proofreading..."Grammer flames not welcome!" ^_^ Ja ne.