Chapter Seven
The night of Lucrezia and Milliardo's arrival, Relena found out that Catherine had been organising a surprise for her. It had occurred to her that Trowa and Relena had not announced their engagement publicly so she had decided to throw an engagement party.
She decided to invite everyone that would be coming to the wedding as well since most of them were already in Hanoi. She warned everyone that the party would be taking place the following night. Lucrezia and Dorothy, that was there in one of her frequent visits, were delighted. Sally was observing Relena's expression. Although it was trying to appear as cheerful as possible, she could tell that the younger woman was having more trouble accepting the whole thing than she was prepared to admit.
Everyone decided to go to bed just before nine pm. They wanted to be well rested for the party. Relena was heading to her bedroom when she heard Trowa's voice calling her.
"Is something the matter?" she asked turning around.
"No…I just wanted to talk to you a little bit…, would you mind joining me for a drink?" Trowa asked.
Relena wanted badly to refuse. She had managed so far not to be left alone with him, she was afraid that he would ask her too many questions. Question she didn't have the answers for.
In any case, he was to be her husband so, she could hardly refuse.
"Of course…it'll be a pleasure…" Relena was forced to reply.
She followed him to the terrace where Catherine had found her the previous night. Trowa asked a servant to bring them some iced lemonade and a lamp. Soon they were left alone, the oil lamp creating an atmosphere that, Relena could almost define as romantic.
"Relena…I know you don't love me now…" he started saying.
"Trowa I…" Relena said interrupting him.
"No…please let me finish…I want to be honest with you…I don't love you either. As you probably know, I've been forced into this marriage as much as you…the difference is that, I am actually hoping that this marriage will work…so, I would like to ask you if you would be prepared to work for it as hard as I will…" Trowa with such honesty that Relena felt compelled to do something that she herself found unbelievable.
She got up from her chair and knelt next to Trowa's not caring about her new light blue dress. She took both his hands with hers and, looking at him in the eye, said:
"Trowa, I know that you're giving things up you wish you weren't…I …I mean, we will make this work…we have to…it's the only chance we're given…".
"What do you mean?" Trowa said almost whispering.
"Well, I've given up all romantic notions regarding marriage but one. I only want to get married once in my life…" Relena said with a conviction she hadn't felt in a long time.
"Thank you Relena…" Trowa said. Then Relena realised that, from her position she could take a very close look at him. Lucrezia was right, Trowa was a really handsome man…almost as handsome as…'NO! STOP THINKING OF HIM!' Relena shouted at herself mentally.
She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't realise she was still kneeling next to Trowa and still had his hands pressed between hers. Especially, she did not notice that Trowa was lowering his head towards hers and was about to kiss her. He would have had it not been because he said:
"You are beautiful…I'm lucky…".
Relena woke up like if it had been a dream and got up so abruptly that she startled Trowa in the process.
"Oh…je suis vraiment désolé…I thought that you wanted a kiss…" Trowa said getting up as well.
Relena stood there not knowing what to say nor do. She felt like in these kind of situations where one knows that, no matter what it's said or done, there is no way to get out of it painlessly.
"I…I'm tired…I should go to bed…" Relena said knowing that she had sounded as stupid as she felt.
"Of course…" said Trowa feeling pretty embarrassed.
Relena had to make an effort not to run back to her room. She collapsed on her bed as soon as she had got there. How was she going to honour her promise to make this marriage work, she still had to figure it out. But she would. No matter how much she would have to endure. With this determination, Relena fell asleep.
The party was as enjoyable as Catherine had hoped. Even Relena managed to have fun. Right now, she was dancing with her brother. It was kind of difficult because her brother was a lot taller than she was and they kept missing steps. At first she had been tense but, hearing his laughter, made her relax herself and laugh as well.
She was taking a break when she saw Sally's face brighten up. She had been quite down for the entire evening and had refused to say why not even to Lucrezia. Now Relena understood why.
Soon Sally was dancing with Wu Fei and Relena was commenting with Lucrezia the recent news about the couple's engagement when she heard a very familiar monotone next to her.
"Do you want to dance?".
Relena turned to face the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. Not being able to speak, she accepted with a light nod.
As soon as they started dancing, Relena realised that he was not used to it. Probably because he didn't get to do it very often. Honestly speaking, Heero did look a bit out of place against la crème de la crème of French Indochina's high society.
"Let's go outside…" the words came out her mouth without her permission.
"Why?" Heero asked.
"I need some fresh air…" Relena replied knowing that there was no way back so, a few seconds later, she found herself sitting on a stone bench by the small lake that the house's garden had.
"Do you love him?" Heero asked suddenly surprising Relena.
"What?" she said almost scandalised.
"You heard me, do you love him?" Heero insisted.
"I don't have to answer this question to you…" Relena said getting up from the bench only to find herself towered by Heero's height.
"Then I take it that this is another of those high society weddings where feelings are an optional…" Heero said with an almost insulting tone.
"That is none of your business…" Relena started to say.
"As a matter of fact it is…" Heero said and then, suddenly, passed one of his hands around Relena's waist and pulling her close to him, kissed her on her lips almost violently.
Relena felt that she could have easily pulled away from that kiss but, something prevented her from doing it. The kiss started deepening and Relena thought she was about to faint when she heard a voice calling her. It was Milliardo's. At once, Heero let go of her.
Relena looked at him briefly before running away to her brother, leaving him standing by the bench. That was the last she saw of him for that night.
The blond girl felt like crying but she knew that, of all moments, that probably was the worst. In fact, they were about to announce her engagement to Trowa so, just seconds before she reached her brother, she put her best smile on and, seeing her brother, said:
"I'm sorry, I felt a bit hot and I went to get some fresh air…".
While she spoke, she felt her lips still tingling so, unconsciously, brought a hand up to her mouth and touched them.
That night, she never got to sleep. If before was not confused enough, now her mind was just sheer chaos. It was only the beginning for, after that night, many more sleepless nights would come.
Going through the final week before her wedding was a living nightmare. The dress had been finished, although the dressmaker complained that she had to take in a couple of centimetres and said to Lucrezia to order Relena to eat more or else she would faint in her own wedding.
She didn't say anything because she knew that during the past weeks her normally healthy appetite had almost disappeared.
Although she had tried to avoid seeing Heero, she seemed to find him everywhere. She couldn't understand the panic she felt when she saw him but, nonetheless she had managed to get away from him each time.
The truth was that she was terrified. She had tried to give a name to what she had felt when he had kissed her. It had been her very first kiss and…she had felt more alive than never before in her whole life. That scared the heck out of her.
She had not pulled away from him. She could have but she had stayed there in his arms. She remembered when Trowa had tried to kiss her. She had almost jumped two metres vertically and had literally ran away from him.
If she wanted to make it to her wedding sane, she had to stay away from Heero as much as possible. She just hoped she would have the strength to do it.
Of course, with Lucrezia, Sally, Dorothy and Catherine so excited about the whole thing, it was difficult to have a minute to think about it and Relena asked God to bless the four girls for that.
The night before the wedding, Relena told everybody she wanted to have an early night and everyone understood.
Lucrezia followed her to her room and gave her a sisterly speech about wedding nights.
"Darling, you shouldn't be afraid…it will hurt only a little bit and if you relax you'll be fine…you will even enjoy it after a while…".
Relena couldn't believe that Lucrezia was talking about sex with her. In any case, she paid attention to what her sister in law was saying, half because she didn't want her to notice anything odd, half because she was genuinely afraid of what was going to happen the following night.
"Don't worry…you'll be very happy…you'll see" Lucrezia said and, giving her a motherly hug, the short haired girl left Relena alone in her room.
Putting her nightgown on, Relena forced herself to sleep and, oddly, she managed to do so pretty quickly. Probably out of sheer exhaustion.
A few hours later, everyone in the house was sleeping, well, not everyone. A silent figure snuck in Relena's bedroom.
Sitting on the girl's bed, with a hand, started shaking Relena lighly. Just enough so she would wake up.
"Heero…" Relena mumbled on her way to consciousness.
"I don't know who Heero is but…I want to talk to you…" an irritated voice with a distinctive French accent said making Relena wake up instantly.
"How did you…" Relena started asking till the person sitting by her side illuminated herself with the faint light of a candle.
Relena's heart skipped a beat. That was…
"My mother used to work here, I have a copy of the house's master key…" replied the girl standing up like if being near Relena disgusted her too much.
"You're Midii Une…aren't you?" asked Relena just to get confirmation of what she already knew.
"I'm surprised you know about me…then you probably know what I am…to Trowa…know this, you may be marrying him and, by law, he will be yours from tomorrow to the day you die…but, you will never own his heart. It belongs to me just like mine will belong to him…forever. He has told me tonight, as I was leaving his bed, that it was the last time we could see each other…he has explained to me the reasons why he's marrying you…and I understand him…I've always have…I am giving him up without a fight because I respect and love him too much not to do what he's begging me to do…but, that does not change the fact that I love him and I will love him forever…I wanted you to know this and…I wanted to tell you that…if you ever make him unhappy or he suffers because of you, I hope you burn in hell…".
Having said this, she left the room leaving Relena feeling awfully ill.
She had found the words she had been looking for.
END OF CHAPTER SEVEN
A/N: mdj has made me notice that the moment where Heero kisses Relena in this chapter was almost identical to the Titanic scene where Jack speaks to Rose. I would like to say that I did not have that scene in mind when I wrote it but, just in case some malicious minds think I had, I have decided to change the words quite significantly. I really would hate if people thought I was quoting things directly from other fics/films when I'm not. I also would like to thank 'mdj' for pointing it out to me and I hope she or he finds this story quite different from Titanic or any other film for that matter.
