Authoress Note: Thanks for reading! In response to a thoughtful review: I wish! I've tried to draw, but I'm not that good at it. Maybe that's why I have a bad habit of getting carried away with imagery when I write, to compensate...well, I haven't done that with this story that much. Anyway, in the earlier chapters especially, many of the characters were OC because they weren't Gundam Wing characters, but a fictional story that my friend asked me to write. She actually made up the character I morphed into Relena, and since she was obsessed with drawing and a recluse, I made her obsessed with one image to demonstrate her reclusiveness. I thought a woman over a piano was eerily poignant, thus the reoccurence and the story's title!
Chapter Six of The Woman's Piano: Sleeping Beauty
They didn't spend their entire time kissing, although it was an enjoyable activity. Relena and Heero shared something valuable and special, especially when considering romance: friendship. They talked about everything, mostly by discussing a whole lot of nothing – and they fed the ducks in the park, got ice cream and found an arcade.
Relena had never touched a pinball game before, a fact Heero was astonished to hear. He was no connoisseur of the game himself, but his grandfather had been, and, a manifestation of his grandfather's eccentric aspect, had kept one in the corner of his bedroom. He tried to show her how to play, but lost almost immediately, and they both had an innocent, good laugh when Relena played the game for the first time and broke all the records.
"Thanks for buying the ice cream. I'll pay you back tomorrow; I insist." She fought to balance on the cobblestone wall that separated sidewalk from a rich neighbor's upraised lawn.
"Hn. You're crushing my attempts to be a gentleman."
"I would like to feel a sort of dignified lady, who can take care of herself." countered Relena. "But if you insist, I won't pay you back."
Heero smirked, chuckling cheerfully. "That's what I thought. The gentleman's lady is predictable." He looked down, feeling something cold on his wrist.
Indeed, a glistening raindrop lay there. Quickly darting his gaze upward, he could see that the skies were overcast and gray. It was going to rain soon. Why did it rain so often now? For a month prior, the sun had been shining obnoxiously, telling the whole world of a fake happiness.
"Are you going to walk me home?" asked Relena suddenly.
He paused before looking at her, meaning really looking at her, analytically trying to understand the problems that still waited for them, held off only by this momentary peace within a hurricane of mystery and bloodshed. He had to look up to see her, and so some of the more complicated nuances of her facial expression was lost to him, but he could tell things were strained by the determined way she kept her gaze forward, her body rigid. "Relena..."
"Don't worry. I just wanted to explain that where you were before is not where I live. I can show you my house for real this time, okay?" That should detour him from making any extra visits to Treize, landing like a mouse on a serpent's lethal door.
As the thought entered her brain, and she felt a little happier for the obvious wit of it, the rain came down, pummeling them full force. They were on the same street where they had first met, and both of them knew it. As they looked at each, a slow, shy, mutual smile warmed both faces.
Relena chucked. "I guess there's no hurry, huh?"
"Are you cold?" asked Heero, pushing the teddy bear under his jacket for protection.
"No..."
"Then...rain is good." He paused. "Everyone else runs when it rains."
"Yeah..." murmured Relena. The rain felt so cool and beautiful, running down her back in stemming streams, plastering her hair to her head. "But...this is better."
Heero blinked. "What's better?"
Silence stretched between them. When Relena spoke, there was obvious shyness, a hesitance, but nonetheless, a solid conviction lay behind her words:
"Finding someone...to stand in the rain...with."
Kneeling, she attempted to make it down easily to the ground, but Heero's one free arm was there before her, guiding her to the ground, allowing for an even smoother landing. "Thanks," she said, leaning against the wall.
This had been an eventful day.
They'd met in the dusty art room, and she'd decided to live life rather than fear it; they'd kissed lovingly by the age-old weeping willow in the park, had fun in the arcade, and come full circle back to that moment in the rain when they'd first met, when an ill wind had brought fate to Heero's knee in the form of a soggy, half-formed drawing.
But none could compare to a moment in the rain. Heero reached out his hand, and gently traced her jaw line.
"I would stand anywhere to see your smile."
Powerfully, she could hear the rain's lullaby. When it rained, the entire Earth was a drum, and the different sounds that emanated from the sidewalk, the gravel road, and the leafy plants seemed like a cooling song of life. Most prominent, she could hear her heartbeat, drumming against her chest wildly and uncontrollably.
Perhaps heaven is crying now...after all, what else can rain be metaphorically? But I could not care if heaven itself fell down on me now. If it did...I would ask to compare angels.
The overly sentimental thought clung over her head like the damp, dark rain cloud that follows the unlucky until she said goodbye on Heero's porch. He saw Noin's outline in the doorway, understood a waiting guardian, and shoved a last token into her hands.
"You already gave me the bear, Heero," she said, confused, unwrapping the crumpled paper.
"Yeah, but," he pointed at it. "It's the picture you were drawing before Sylvia...yes, I heard about it. No, I won't do anything unless she threatens you again."
"Just a piano," she said, not adding the whole woman had been there until Sylvia's 'renovations'. "Thanks, Heero. I guess I can just say you were returning this, huh?" She nodded in the direction of the imposing shadow that was Noin. Heero nodded, and then, after a pause, bent down to kiss her on the cheek, just in case a real kiss would warrant trouble.
They waved goodbye until the shadows and distance took her angel away from her.
When Relena entered her new home, she expected to deal with a disapproving look from Noin. Instead, Noin, who wasn't knowledgeable about the Wing Zero project barring Zech's obsessive involvement, presented her with cake.
"I got this from a lady in the office today. It was some girl's birthday, but she's on a diet or something. Wanna celebrate with me?"
Relena did.
"So, what are we celebrating?" asked Relena, a little guiltily plowing her fork into the vanilla cake (ice cream and then cake? – her naturally nice figure could be in danger, spoke her vanity).
They had sat down at the small table in the kitchen constituting as a dining hall. Relena was not used to cramped quarters, but instead of being outraged as one typically of her breeding (breeding, particularly meaning, mansions for homes); she was pleased not to be overwhelmed by gaudy, ambitious decorating. It helped that the cake was very good, of course.
"Well, your smile, for one thing. I haven't seen a pure smile from you ever since you got here. You skulking about the house like that weren't healthy; I see that now. It must be that boy... Even with Treize breathing down our necks, and...well, life moves on, you know? I'm happy for you, Reli."
The nickname hadn't been used since the days Zechs used to tease her, an annoyingly arrogant young man who seem impartial to their mother's death. Relena knew better now, positive he had been trying to resurrect their mother with the failed Wing Zero project. Yet, even though she knew it should be okay for Noin, who she loved like an older sister, to use the name, it felt like Sylvia had just dealt her that surprisingly strong kick and winded her completely. Except, of course, that Sylvia, no matter how hard the poor girl tried, could only deal wounds that would, as Heero put it, "Heal", so the owner could "smile again". This was like a haunting, a ghost rattling chains about her wrists and ankles.
Noin knew she had been tactically fallible when Relena's smile stayed screwed on eerily, her eyes deadening with every passing half-second. "Relena, I'm sorry..."
"It's okay. It's okay. At least I know he's alive now, Noin." She tried to put on a real smile and failed horribly, so instead frowned into her cake. "That means there's hope, right?"
Noin leaned back in her seat and lit a cigarette, a practice she had picked up recently. If Relena could recall, before the...disappearance...Noin had never smoked, calling it the disease that killed her uncle.
But Relena could understand. Losing her brother was unbearable, for he was her aggravating sibling, her secretly loved and admired older brother. Relena also knew Noin and Zechs had been steadfast childhood friends. When Relena had been younger, she'd even been jealous, because her short years with him couldn't replace love that had so far lasted a lifetime (and would hopefully continue to do so).
Without Zechs, Noin didn't have as much care to protect her life in every single little aspect.
"Would you like to see him, Relena?"
That night, as darkness fell and the rain slowly died away, Relena drew madly.
This was her survival, her way of breathing again, to keep the emotions from crushing her. Her loss over her mother and Zechs, her confused relationship with Treize, her sinful, potentially damaging love for Heero – it was all so stressful, so inhuman to bear, and so she had to rid herself of it. To do this, she drew, and threw chaotic life into chaotic fabrication.
She felt like she had come a long way since the drawings of the woman by the piano, so still and melancholy. Although there was still a pure loveliness about that scene, the walk in the park had proved too inspirational for her to continue the drawing Sylvia had tampered with. So instead, she drew ducks in motion, a red lake below them, painted by the sunset. Angry colors could be inserted into this lake, but they were stringed and taut under a lavender sky, stilled beneath the surface.
The ducks, suspended in motion throughout, were stuck between the water and sky, not sure if they were River-Gods or Sky-Angels. I'd imagine we're all a bit of both, thought Relena.
Relena's small room in Noin's apartment house was already full of papers: on the floor, on the easel, on the desk in the corner. The papers on her desk exemplified her personality, especially when compared to a desk nearly halfway across town – where Lady Une pored over scientific diagrams, mathematical scribbling, written reports. It was a stark contrast to the poetic visuals on Relena's desk, though both obsessions revolved around similarity: death, and the Wing Zero machine.
Lady Une pushed her chair back, throwing a report halfway across the room to flap in the onslaught of the fan. She rubbed her aching temples with a deep sigh, and thought several deeper thoughts.
I can't make any better sense of how those five created that machine than either Treize or his scientists. Why would they mention Heero Yuy before they died, though? It doesn't make any sense. He wasn't even born during the time that they were making a lot of headway with the technology.
And now Treize is trying to kill Heero, assuming that would be the solution...would it be? It would make it work, he seems to think, and I cannot allow that. I promised those five crazy scientists before they died...Too many glitches. Too many problems even if the glitches don't surface. Some doorways were just not meant to be opened.
Like the one between life and death.
Even if that means...
The thought haunted her, and the Wing Zero's design glared up at her, until she frankly couldn't take it anymore. She needed to get out of here, away from this suffocating room with its suffocating reality, so as the rain died away and the stars lay bright and white in the sky, she gathered up her autumn coat and took to the streets. But she'd barely gotten out her front door before she found him there, smiling as if they were not fierce enemies in a desparate war, as if it was only yesterday and they'd promised to have a quiet evening dinner together. He even had a bouquet of red roses, brandishing it towards her in a kind fashion.
But it's deadly. It might as well have blades or poison. At least then it wouldn't be misleading.
"Treize." She couldn't help but sneer at the flowers. "What are you doing here?"
"As usual, you're an affectionate woman." Treize closed his eyes sagely. "Relax. I'm not extending the hand of friendship, or even romance."
"But you found my address."
When his eyes opened to gaze at her, there was no playfullness, but an eerily direct seriousness. "I've come to warn you."
"You mean threaten."
"I'm not as in control as either you or I wish, Une. The Bartons will be making their move against the Winners soon. Since you're aligned with the Winners, I suggest...caution." Curtly, he threw the roses at her, and she caught them quickly. Even down to the smallest detail, the two seemed to feel a deep need to compete. In these affairs, we have no right to play chess, admitted Lady Une introspectively."Of course, I helped feed the conflict, but surely you didn't expect me not to make a move?"
Without saying a word, Une bent down to sniff the flower's sweet aroma. It was beautiful, of course, somehow deceptively so. "A rose by any other name...I wonder, if a bastard was a nobleman, what would they call him?"
Treize just laughed.
They went to visit Zechs the next morning.
Particularly, Relena had always loathed hospitals. What good can come of a place where the injured and the dying are stored together? Sometimes, she knew, there was healing, but since this was balanced with death and pain, she couldn't bring herself to see it in even the smallest ray of possible positive light. Luckily, most of the deaths in her family had been random and not foreseeable, so they had not wasted away slowly in a white hospital bed.
That was another question entirely, actually, the overall whiteness of hospitals. It was blinding, and so opposite to the colors and detail that she tried to derive from life in her art, that she always left the place feeling a peculiar numbness in her fingers and heart.
Also, the candy striper delegated to show them to Zech's room was altogether too sympathetic, making Relena fear the worst about her brother's condition. The pretty, caramel-haired vixen nodded deeply and gave them both a sad, almost understanding smile. But the girl couldn't understand. If Relena wasn't so caught up in her annoyance, she would've noted how much the girl resembled Trowa, in all the angles of the face, but mostly in the poignant, hazel eyes.
And deep inside, she was also furious at Noin, keeping such a secret.
But honestly, if she'd told me this story a year ago, I wouldn't have understood it. I wouldn't have believed her. And I would have been horrified that Treize and Zechs could even tamper with such a thing. I would have thought it out of character, except that now I see, especially due to Treize's recent actions, they were a more arrogant and trigger-happy pair than previously perceived.
The female Trowa stopped down the white corridor suddenly, and gently opened a white door, stepping back to grant Noin and Relena passage.
"Thank you, Catherine," said Noin, stepping inside.
Relena followed, and immediately had to fight to choke back the emotion that overcame her next.
Her brother was on a cursed white hospital bed, so unchanged, as if it were yesterday. Indeed, Relena could've just discovered him taking an afternoon nap on the couch. In an hour he would get up and chastise her for being behind on her schoolwork, and then he would order Chinese, since neither he, Treize, or Noin were very adept at cooking. When he seemed so peaceful like that, eyes closed serenely, even smiling at some private joke, it was hard not to imagine or fantasize that better world.
She was brought back to the harsher world as she felt Noin's warm, assuring hand on her shoulder. Relena glanced at Noin, and then went to him, hugging him gently, careful not to damage the hospital's white machinery that kept him an inch from death. It felt wonderful to embrace him again. On the ride here, she had promised herself: Even if half his body is missing, I won't cry. I've shed too many tears over this.
Seeing him so normal, however, his mind the only penance, was more difficult than she could ever imagine, and eventually, she would find that she had lied to herself, as unbidden tears flowed without regret.
"Zechs..."