Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, any of its characters, or Mt. Holyoke College. I also do not own the concept of Gracious Living (Yes it was real at one time, I think.) I have been inspired to write about thanks to Wendy Wasserstien's amazing play "Uncommon Women" which I obviously also do not own. So don't sue me, it's a waste of your time I do however own Emma, Veronica, Miriam, Georgia and all the the other girls in the house.

Gracious Living: Prologue

Relena looked up at the old brick building that towered over her. Suitcase in hand she took a deep breath and stepped up onto the porch. Placing her parcels down she reached out and gently pressed on the doorbell. For some reason it's ring started her, perhaps she wasn't ready for something to interupt the silence that had filled her journey to Mt. Holyoke.

The heavy oak door creaked softly as a girl with golden hair and chocolate eyes opened "Oh hi!" She exclaimed cheerily "You must be Relena! All the other freshmen are here already. Welcome to Gracious Living, I'm Georgia. Well don't just stand there come in." She reached out and snatched one of Relena's suitcases "Here let me help you, I bet you're exhausted it's a long ride from the airport."

Relena smiled as the tension drained from her body "Thank you." She replied politley "I need to get the rest of my things from the car, excuse me for a minute."

Georgia flashed another Hollywood smile "Alright, just drag 'em thing the doors unlocked. Some of the other girls will help you get them upstairs, you'll be staying in the Dickenson Room. When you go upstairs it's the third door on your left, you might want to freshen up all the girls are required to attend Gracious Tea at four."

Relena nodded in acknowledgement. She didn't want to stay in a house while she was in college, she had prefered to stay in a dorm. Yet her brother insisted that a house was a far neater and more selective enviorment. Gracious Living was quiet expensive so only the wealthy could afford it. It was reestablished about ten years ago, after being shut down in 1960's during the femminist revolution. Gracious maintained a traditional attmosphere of Victorian elegance while still being conducive to the modern sensibilities of the educated woman. Still Relena was hesitant about living in a house full of heiresses.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* With the help of several other girls Relena was able to get all her things upstairs in a relatively short period of time. As she set down the last box before the door of the Dickenson room she heaved a sigh. Collecting herself, she gingerly opened the door to her new room.

It was very pretty, white wallpaper decorated with small pink rosebuds covered the room. Across from her was a window neatly draped with white curtains. There was a white bed on each side of the window with a matching nightstand next to it and a chest at it's foot. One of the beds was already made. On it sat a girl who looked to be about Relena's age. She was a tiny whisp of a girl, with ash brown hair cut in a neat bob and blue eyes which focused on the book on her lap. She was dressed in a neat style, reminisant of the 1920s. She wore a white shirt with a dainty collar and short puffed sleeves and a gray tweed pencil skirt that fell to her knees. A pair of Mary-Janes stood beside her bed.

The girl looked up at Relena with wide blue eyes and then spoke softly "Hello, I'm Emma Rothschilde, you must be Relena."

Relena smiled at the mild-mannered girl "Nice to meet you."

"You might want to unpack later we are expected to be in the parlor in half an hour for tea." Emma noted.

"I'll just wash up and unpack something to change into then." Relena mused.

Emma nodded and went back to her book. Relena took a moment to look around the room, there was a dresser and an armour as well as two small desks. On the wall over each bed where several bookshelves, the ones above Emma's bed had already been filled to maximum capacity. On Relena's side of the room there was a door that presumably led to the bathroom.

Relena picked up a turquoise suitcase from the hallway and dragged it up onto her bed. She opened it and began to take out some clean clothing.

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At four o'clock Relena followed Emma downstairs to the parlor room where they and the other ten girls in the house where expected for tea. The girls sat down on the sofas and chairs as well as the window seat and looked attentively at their housemother Ms. Prince. The elderly woman dressed in a long violet dress with a ivory brooch on her neck made sure everyone was seated before she began.

"Ladies," She said "It is both my honor and priveledge to welcome you to a new year here at Gracious Living. I am thrilled to see some new faces as well as some old ones. I know that we will have a wonderful year. For those of you who are new here my name is Ms. Prince and I will be your housemother. I have been here since Mt. Holyoke has reopened Gracious....."

She continued on and on about rules, traditions and procedures as the girls drank their tea and nibled on delicate finger sandwitches and cookies. "....And now we shall sing our anthem which dates back to the original gracious house!" Ms. Prince declared. Relena watched as all the girls stood up and sang:

"Tired of books and boring classes? Drop your books pick up your glasses! Drink to the girls who think Of mixing Greek and Latin with a cool Manhatten! Smith may have its ice tea hours We prefer our whiskey sours! Drink to the girls who think....."

As they sang the last note the girls all sat down in a flurry of rustling skirts. The girls took the remainder of tea time to mingle with new girls and old friends. The girl on Relena's left turned to her. She held out her hand and introduced herself "Hi, my name is Miriam. What's your's?"

Relena shook her hand "Relena."

The girl smiled "Junior, History major, pre-law, and you?"

"Freshman, political sciences major." Relena replied.

Miriam pushed a loose strand of hair that fell from her bun from her face and continued "Who's your roommate?"

"Emma Rothschilde." Relena answered.

Miriam chuckled "Lucky. Emma's a real sweetheart, and a genius too. She skipped a grade and came here last year, she's really your age. I'm rooming with Veronica Green, she's completely nuts! She's totally set on being the next Virginia Woolf."

"Oh. I haven't talked to Emma that much, she's seems really nice but really shy." Relena commented.

"Yea she is." Miriam agreed. "Hey!" She exclaimed and changed the topic "A couple of us are driving up to Boston this weekend, there's some circus in town with a fantastic knife throwing act. Do you want to come?"

Relena hesitated "Ok, I guess. As long as I don't have to much homework."

"Great!" Miriam jumped up "I have to go and catch up with a couple of people. Meet me Saturday at nine A.M. in the lobby. Oh yea! And invite Emma for me if you have a chance! Ciao!" With that Miriam hopped off to the other side of the room to join Georgia and two other girls.

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When Relena returned to her room, she was a bit surprised to find Emma already in there with a girl sitting on her bed. The girl was incredibly beautiful with long hair the color of expresso tied back in a ponytail and huge dark eyes. She and Emma where giggling secretively about something.

Emma cocked her head up,"Oh hi Relena! Veronica, this is Relena. Relena, this Veronica." She introduced them.

Relena smiled "You must be Miriam's roommate."

Veronica nodded "Unfortunately, yes."

"She seems nice." Relena said without much conviction.

"That's because you don't know her," Veronica answered "She's a rich bitch who thinks she's better than everyone else because her dad owns a building on Wall Street. Not to mention she has no imagination whatsoever."

"Oh." Relena replied, unable to come up with anything better. She looked at Emma who now stared out the window completely losted in a daydream. "I'll see you later." Relena said and slipped out of the room.

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When Relena returned to her room Veronica was gone and Emma was curled up on her bed with a book in hand. She didn't raise her eyes from the book but she spoke to Relena in her usual quiet fashion "Don't mind Veronica, people find her to be a bit abrasive but she's really a nice person once you get to know her. I find her free spirtit to be very refreshing. She and Miriam don't get along very well, they're total opposites. Don't think you have to like one or the other, you can appreciate them for being different but equal."

Relena smiled gently, somehow Emma managed to ease her inner tention "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. By the way, Miriam wants to know if you wanted to go to the circus with us on Saturday."

"I would love to go but I am afraid of clowns." Emma replied with a humorous frankness to her tone.

Relena laughed a little, and started to unpack her things. Her mind however was not content with just trying to figure out where to put things, and against her will it began to wander. It wandered to a particular topic it seemed to gravitate to each time it was given the oppertunity to do so. It began to wonder about a pair of blue eyes, and their deadly stare, the hard yet beautiful face that they filled, and the soul beneath them.....'Heero' Relena let the name slip through her though it never seemed to reach her lips. Her heart started to crack slowly as she wondered 'Where are you now?...'

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Something woke Relena in the middle of the night, someone was crying. She looked through a haze of lashes trying to see what was the matter. In the moonlight she could see the body of her roommate tremble as it wracked with each sob. Trails of tears sparkled on her cheeks. Relena could vaguely make out the words Emma was mumbling in her sleep "No....Stop it.....Please.....Don't touch me....Stop it....Don't touch me....No....Please...." Relena desperately wanted to do something, yet she couldn't sleep's tempting embrace claimed her and Emma's painful cries melted away as Relena was engulfed by a velvet silence.

The second time Relena awoke, she wasn't tired anymore. The first signs of the sun had begun to streak the black sky. She could here Emma whimpering in her sleep. Relena stepped out of bed, she was thirtsy, she needed a glass of water. Silently she crept downstairs into the kitchen.

Much to her surprise the kitchen light was already on. Veronica was sitting on the counter, with her knees gently hugged to her chest as she stared at the sunrise. A cat like grin spread across her features as she turned to Relena "Good morning, early bird. I guess I'll be sharing the sunrise with someone from now on eh?"

Relena rubbed her eyes as they adjusted to the light "No, just this once. I couldn't sleep." She paused for a moment as she tried to explain herself "I was-I mean, Emma-I heard her, she was crying in her sleep...." Her words trailed off.

Veronica sighed heavily "Yea, she does that once in a while."

Relena looked up at her "Why?"

Veronica drew a deep breath "It's a long story." She began, "And I guess you'll find out sooner or later so I might as well tell you. Last year Emma had this boyfriend, a pre-law from Harvard, Richie Kietel. Everyone thought they were the perfect couple, he just seemed like prince charming. Rich, smart, ambitious-you know, the works. Anyways he was real coke fiend, he would get high off his ass and beat the shit out of her."

Relena gasped "Oh my god!"

"Yea, I know. It gets worse." Veronica continued "Anyways Emma never told any of us. We had no idea. Well this one time we were all going out and he came over, and he tried to rape her. Holly forgot her car keys inside and went to get them, she came into the house and heard Emma screaming so she ran upstairs. She bursts open the door and finds Richie ripping Emma's clothes off. She pulls him off of her, and after some very colorful language beats him with her umbrella and calls the cops. Emma's parents found out and sent her to a shrink. Nothing happened for a while and then she had a crack-up in his office and she refused to come back. Her dad ships her to Paris for the summer, and now she's back."

Relena was at a loss for words "That's unbelievable," she stumbled "Oh my god, it's terrible. Poor Emma..."

"There's a lot of scars under that doll face." Veronica mused "A lot of scars...."

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Relena watched Emma very carefully at breakfast, she watched as she stared vacantly into her tea cup. Her fingers carefully tearing a piece of toast that never quiet reached her mouth. Relena noticed how incredibly thin Emma was, it was past the point of being fashionable, she was the size of a twelve year old!

Relena's mind began to wander. Never in her life had she been so close to something like this. She had read about it in books, sometimes in the paper but never had she been sitting by the victim of such a heinous crime.

She thought about the Gundam pilots, the miniature soldiers. They had seen their share of horrors yet somehow in this moment they pailed in comparisson. They were soldiers trained to see death and think nothing of it. But no one could be trained to see rape, violent abuse without rhyme or reason. Even the coldest of people would feel sick to their stomachs to be near something this wreached.

'Heero' She thought 'What would you do?' She stopped herself 'No Relena, forget it! Don't even start with this, you know where this will end up, and it won't be pretty. Focus! Focus Relena! New life, new problems, forget about the past and move on!'

"Relena," Emma spoke in a distant tone.

"Yes?" Relena replied.

"Do you feel like we're being watched?"

Relena paused at such an odd question, her first reaction was to say no but it didn't feel right. Now that Emma did mention it she did feel as though a pair of eyes where on her. "I don't know," she replied "I don't know."

"Oh, ok." Emma whispered timidly.

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A pair of colbalt blue eyes peered through the hedges. Their gaze penetrated a window of the house to see a main of golden hair. "My mission is to protect you." Heero whispered "I will not fail."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ A wee bit long for a prologue eh? Don't worry the whole story won't be as boring as this, I promise. I just needed to get some stuff out of the way. PLEASE Review, the only way I know that you have read this story and I should continue writing it is if you do so. I am open to suggestions for plot, writing style, character developement ect ect....And I am open for contructive critisizm "You suck" and "I hate Relena" do not qualify. If you wish for me to email you when the next part of the story is done please leave your email in the review. Thank you ever so much. ~Will O' The Wisp

PS Gee I wonder who could be in that incredible knife throwing act *nudge nudge wink wink*