Warnings: angst, 1xR, 2xR,
Rx?, either Heero or Relena may be bastardized, but I can't tell which
one is anymore. Maybe they both are?? Oh well. Light
lime in later chapters. 4+3/4+3 implied.
Disclaimers: The song is Fiona's, the boys
belong to some production company somewhere, I'm not making any money from
this, you know the routine.
Spoilers: none
Notes: This entire chapter is a flashback
to the night Relena spent at Quatre's. Normally, I'd italicize to
mark it as a flashback, but since the entire chapter is a flashback, I
didn't bother because the italics got hard on my eyes.
AN: First, thank you all so much for the
feedback on previous chapters. ^_^ It's wonderful motivation
to keep working on this story, which has taken on a life of its own.
(My muse is cracking her whip.) Chapter 3 was short, but it was because
I was working on chapter 4. I wanted to get all the flashback in
one chapter, so 3 was shorter because 4 is longer. Okay, enough with
my schpiel, go read and review.
Feedback: Pretty please? With little chibis
on top? (You pick which ones ~_^) Post here, or you can e-mail
me at quelirain@yahoo.com.
Never Let You Go
Chapter 4
by quelirain
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feeling like a criminal
--Fiona Apple, "Criminal"
|
//Quatre sat on the couch next to her, his blue
eyes registering surprise. "Who have you been seeing?"
"Does it matter?" Relena said bitterly. "I have
to face Heero, no matter who it is, and I don't want to risk someone else
because of what I've done."
"Heero will want to know who--"
"No." Relena shook her head. "Heero will have
to just live without that knowledge."
Quatre paused. "Everything I've heard from you
two suggested that things were going well." Relena curled up into a small
ball on one end of the couch. Quatre watched her steadily. "Has he been
mistreating you?"
Relena 's head shot up. "No! Absolutely
not! He loves me."
"Do you love Heero?"
She rested her head on her knees before answering.
"I don't know."
"And the other? Do you love him?"
She buried her nails into her jeans. "I don't
know."
"What do you feel?"
"I'm scared," she whispered after a long pause.
"Of Heero?"
She closed her eyes. "Of telling him."
"Heero wouldn't hurt you."
"Does a child try to hurt its favorite toy in
a tug-of-war?" She sighed. "I'm not afraid of Heero. I'm afraid of being
pulled apart."
Quatre frowned. "So you do care about this other
man."
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly,
holding his gaze. "Yes."
"And he cares for you."
"Yes." Quatre looked away from Relena, but said
nothing. "I didn't intend for this to happen."
"I know." The blond studied his hands. "I just...
he's my friend, too, Relena."
The silence seemed interminable.
"Did he tell you Milliardo and I promoted him?"
Relena finally asked. Quatre shook his head. "He was one of my personal
bodyguards. We made him head of security because I was ready to kill him
myself."
Quatre chuckled. "Really."
"He went everywhere with me, and since he was
doing that all day, he couldn't manage the rest of the team during the
day, so he did it all at night, on that laptop of his." Her smile was painful.
"Of course, since he put my safety over our relationship, actual conversation
was out of the question. So we promoted him to get him off my security
detail. Yet, though he personally rehired and retrained every last one
of them, he still didn't trust them to do the job right. So he did the
next best thing."
"Which was?"
"Limit my movements."
Confused blue eyes sought hers. "What do you mean?"
"No eating out in unapproved restaurants. No window
shopping. No more lounging around with Sally or the girls, unless it was
at my place. No wandering the grounds alone. Things like that. It started
right after some wacko tried to shoot me at that lecture I gave at Harvard.
I was afraid too. And I knew he knew what was best, at least in this area."
Quatre cocked his head to the side, considering
her words. "If he was keeping such a tight watch over you; how could you
manage to-- well..."
She didn't even flinch. "Escape? Milliardo. He
was very helpful with that."
"But doesn't your security report to Heero?"
"Technically." She smiled wanly. "But Heero makes
sure they're loyal to me."
Quatre snorted. "I see."
She turned away from Quatre's gaze, studying the
tops of her shoes. Her guards weren't her friends; they couldn't be and
still do their jobs. But they knew her well, and they'd helped her... and
she'd abandoned them. Unconsciously, she began to rock back and forth,
resting her head on her knees and struggling not to cry.
He brushed her bangs back from her face. "You
need to rest. You're safe here. Stay the night, and we'll figure out what
to do in the morning."
"Quatre--"
"Shhh." Holding her carefully, he stood and carried
her to the bedroom, where he lay her down on his bed. He pulled off her
shoes and swung her legs under the covers. "Get some rest, Relena. Things
will look clearer in the morning."
"Quatre?"
He paused. "Yes?"
There was a desperate edge to her voice. "Stay
with me."
Obediently, Quatre slipped in next to her and
wrapped her in his arms. Soon, they both fell asleep.
"Relena."
The gentle voice woke her. She looked up at the
blond figure standing next to the bed, his gun raised and pointed at what
seemed to be a wall. A wall with prussian-blue eyes.
She sat up. "Oh my god." Heero's gaze flicked
to her for a moment, taking in her rumpled clothing and disheveled hair,
before returning to the gun pointed at him. "Heero, this isn't what it
looks like, please, just leave, we can talk about this--"
"He's not going anywhere, Relena. In fact, he's
going to stay right where he is and not move a muscle. Aren't you, Heero?"
Heero was silent.
"Take my wallet. It's in the back pocket of my
pants," Quatre ordered calmly. "There's enough money in that wallet to
get you away from here." Neither Quatre's eyes nor his gun moved from the
prussian-eyed shadow across the room.
Her panicked eyes looked at Quatre, then Heero.
"God, Quatre! Please, I can't do this! I can't!"
"You can, Relena. And you will. Now come over
here and take the wallet from my pocket." Shaking, Relena did as she was
told. "Now go put on your shoes."
The commands sounded as if they were meant for
a child, but Relena couldn't handle anything more complicated. Obediently,
she put on her shoes.
"Call a cab." Relena reached for the phone on
the nightstand. "Look in the desk drawer; there's a phone there. It's a
secure line."
Relena nodded. It couldn't hurt to be paranoid.
She called a cab.
"Now go, Relena."
"Quatre, I can't leave you here like this!"
"Leave, Relena. Now."
"Quatre... please..."
"Go!"
His sharp tone, so different from his usual voice,
was enough to startle her into moving. She backed out of the room, looking
at them both, standing there, blue eyes fixed on prussian, and prussian
eyes fixed on her. "I'm so sorry..." she whispered, then she ran to the
elevator.//
~owari chapter 4~
