Pretty Little Failures
By Jillian
(Disclaimer: I do not own the Gundam Wing characters. But, all original characters I guess I do have to take the blame for… This piece of fiction was written with much love as a gift for Alithea who does inspire my writing to explore the dimensions of female friends to all degrees.)
She had her index finger and thumb pressed together in order to pull open the ribbon on the box, but she never did. Relena was that way about the proper timing of opening presents. Some things were just not done until the right time. That being the time that tradition and etiquette demanded. Mastering her own impatience, she believed, was what would make her a stronger person. A responsible person.
The box was wrapped in paper that would shine in the right light as it came in from the shuttle windows. It was a present from Heero, and, most likely, another bear. She'd come to have quite a collection. Brown, light tan, and black were the traditional choices. Then he had purchased her a ceramic bear. Then, she received one that would fix on top of a Christmas tree. She wondered who had started giving him ideas. Certainly, the change was welcome. Nonetheless, it wouldn't have been proper to ask him not to give her bears anymore.
She was going to space. Eighteen and electing to take courses at the new Colony University, simply and efficiently named. Of course, she couldn't escape the celebrity and attention that her enrollment was causing. She decided it was all for the best. Several professors with exceptional reputations had agreed to teach there upon hearing the news of the last Peacecraft daughter going to space.
"Relena?"
She wasn't unfamiliar with being recognized. Once, she had craved attention and had quite a thrill from taking the spotlight for a cause. She might still.
"Yes?" She looked up, and took in the modest smile of a young woman who stood in the aisle, hand resting along the back of the empty chair between them.
"I wouldn't be surprised if you'd forgotten me. A lot has happened since the months we spent at the same junior high. I'm Sylvia Noventa," She offered her hand, which was small, smooth, and bare of decoration.
"Noventa," Relena repeated, a disciplined study of Federation politics coming into her foremost thoughts. The conversations and energy she continually used to defend Heero Yuy's actions when he took down the craft of pacifist diplomats, "Sylvia, yes. I do recall. I'm afraid that I was juggled between schools so much that I made few real friends, but I do remember."
"And I recall that by my transportation arriving late to your birthday party, I missed your famous exit," Sylvia's eyes were narrow and smiling while she spoke, her eyelashes almost white. Relena noted that Sylvia had to be much older than she appeared, with her doll like lips and rounded pale cheeks. Her hair was the sort of true blond that made Relena think of the color of a sunflower field with each blossom fixed on the greater light of their mother sun.
Relena tilted her head, not sure what she wanted to say. Sylvia's expression changed, pulling wider into the perfect lines of her smile.
"I've always wondered if we might understand each other," Sylvia said, "Did you know that I met Heero Yuy?" She took the empty seat then, sitting sideways on the end so that her knees were folded in front of the armrest. Her skirt was subtle lavender, and Relena pieced together a picture that with just the right jacket would match the Colony University uniform.
"Heero?" Relena repeated, her thoughts felt as if they remained under the surface of a dream. The hour in the shuttle so far had let her indulge in seldom-achieved solitude.
Sylvia leaned back, her eyes opening a little, "He didn't tell you?"
"Should he have?" She was wearied of the assumptions.
"It's not important," Sylvia's chin tilted and she smiled easily again. Relena half smiled before she felt her face fall lax again, "I suppose I was surprised to see you here. Not taking a private shuttle."
"I don't feel the need to take all the honors offered to me," Relena explained simply, "Besides, with the emphasis on conservation of resources that have been put into place this past year, what would it look like if I weren't setting a good example?"
"What indeed," Sylvia shifted her hips to face the front of the craft, "We can never escape the details, can we?"
Relena waited, but the conversation had flickered out like the end of a briefly lit candle.
Her performances were flawless. Her presentations were well reasoned and researched. Interactions with the faculty were illuminating and inspirational. Relena's smile was mobile and believable. Her posture, attentive and attractive.
Sylvia fought the urge to chew the end of her pencil.
She had seen Relena on the shuttle when she no longer could resist the urge to stretch her legs. And in those moments, she had seen someone else: a young woman who lived not unlike a sleepwalker. Sylvia pondered her theories, that Relena was someone who rehearsed and knew the answers to life so smoothly that her perspective was dulled. They had been classmates, and almost equals in status. But, while Relena had always had the imagination to project a future, Sylvia had been quite content to embrace the present.
"What are you doing after class?" Warm breath stirred the hair around Sylvia's ears and the blonde girl waved her hand as if shooing away a summer insect.
"Charlie," Sylvia indulged in a childish tone, "How did you ever get accepted to the U if your mind is never on class."
"Oh, I have a mind for anatomy, chemistry, physics…" Charlotte leaned her arm against the front of Sylvia's desk as the rest of the class gathered their belongings and those that weren't lingering for an audience with the instructor were escaping into the hall. Her chin length dark hair was clipped back in a pair of Sylvia's barrette's which the other girl noticed with a gasp and pointing finger.
"Theft!"
Charlie frowned, "Please, I took these years ago and you've only now noticed?"
Sylvia sighed, better using her hands to collect her papers and put them into her textbook to mark the chapter. Her fingers were always cold when she stayed any length of time in the colonies as if the gravity rotation directly impacted her body's ability to circulate warmth. She rubbed them together, blowing gently.
"Oh," Charlie said deep in her throat, leaning into Sylvia's near shoulder, "Please tell me you're not busy."
"You're awful," Sylvie laughed with practiced indifference.
"And if I wasn't, what fun would we have?" Charlie stood back as Sylvia lifted her satchel and standing put it over her shoulder and swept away her hair with her other hand to keep it from being caught, "Can you believe these uniforms?" Charlie plucked at her blouse.
"I don't know, Charlie. I like wearing them," Sylvia teased.
What the colonies did have to their favor were abandoned parks. Part of the colony restoration movement had involved relocating the street class and vagabonds. Once the prostitutes and urchins were accounted for, their neighborhoods and haunts had been torn down and replaced with imitation forests, city parks, fishing ponds and recreation facilities.
Sylvia had coerced Charlie to one of the parks that was kept hidden from the neighboring city buildings and shops by a fortified wall of pine trees and strategically planted mums. Charlie had expressed her aesthetic dismay at the obvious limits to the colony renovation, "Couldn't they have chipped in to afford something better? Even tulips!"
She'd used the solitude and the timing of the pun to her advantage, wrapped herself around Sylvia and kissed her. Sylvia indulged Charlie's affections with her own genuine love. Charlie had no doubts Sylvia loved her when the other girls fingers reached up to put fingertips on Charlie's chin. The way that Sylvia's lips opened to hers. But, she did still hesitated from approaching the day that lines might be drawn. The day that Sylvia wouldn't put aside the text book and recline against the deep green backdrop of enriched grasses and imported clover.
"I wish I had sunglasses," Sylvia spoke, her eyes closed and her arms crossed over her chest in a strikingly somber fashion.
Charlie had shifted over her so that a shadow came between them, "Better?"
"Oh yes, now I can see well enough to count your freckles," Sylvia had laughed, her mouth open so that at the angle her chin threatened to dissolve into her neck.
For Charlie, it was a perfectly happy afternoon and worth the effort it had taken to come to the Colony University. She'd been the youngest daughter of a minor official in a country that no longer existed. Through the generosity of an unlikely scholarship, Charlie had been able to attend schools with Sylvia and knew her like a sister. Better than she knew her elder sisters who had used the advantage of their early education to make marriages with the sons of other minor officials from countries that no longer existed.
"Maybe she's lonely," Sylvia said, eyes closed and lost in thought as time had passed and Charlie's shadow had slipped to one side.
"Who?" Charlie asked.
Relena came up for air and reached out of the pool for a handhold while she adjusted her goggles against her swimming cap. Her legs kept moving, but she wasn't quite ready to make another lap just yet. The chlorine was sharp in her nose and shocked into her muddled thoughts moments of clear focus. Otherwise, pushing herself through the water was no different than the internal slowness that she felt daily.
None of the others would suspect her sluggish inclination. She carried her tiredness inside her and only let it out in the oblivion of her pillows.
The indoor pool was available to the students at the U and the related courses offered by the campus. The showers were at the far end, and nearer her was a tinted wall of glass that allowed in the artificial light to provide additional natural heat. An effort to conserve. She knew that outside the wall was a sidewalk that went between the conservatory of music and the art studio. Her first encounter with intergalactic reporters had been arranged on that sidewalk. She had talked about the opportunities available at the campus and spoke briefly about her desire to participate in promoting continued education beyond high school.
One of the women with a microphone had asked her if she saw four year colleges as a simple postponement of stepping out into the arena of adult politics.
Relena had never felt herself a child among the politicians. But she refrained from the comments that had immerged from her lone footsteps as she went back to her dorm room, "At least, my youthful introduction into politics encourage a spirit to adapt to the times rather than try to keep the times from moving ahead of me."
She didn't know how long it took for her to decipher what she was presently looking at while her thoughts were divided between her future and her past. Then she recognized Sylvia, walking briskly to keep up with a taller girl's stride and eventually passing the other girl. Turning with a recognizably broad laugh, as the taller girl passed her by and then catching up again to take the other girl's hand.
Relena adjusted her goggles. Took a deep breath, and flipped to start her laps again.
Sylvia recognized the straight walnut-colored hair and pink ribbons of the girl walking ahead of her on the way to the U cafeteria, "Not going home for the holidays?"
"No," Relena answered. Sylvia took walking by Relena's side, noticing how the other girl's stride was evenly paced and almost as if she were constantly and still wearing the crown of the Queen she had been. It took some effort as Sylvia tried to even out her learned bounce that was the only way she could keep up with Charlie.
"I accepted a project with Dr. Schultz," Sylvia found herself again making all the efforts for a conversation, "Studying the impact on sociology that the Colony restoration has caused so far."
"I suppose that would be rather interesting," Relena said politely.
"Quite, in both positive and disturbing aspects," Sylvia hinted, but even as they could start to smell the evening meal, Relena did not adopt the conversation. The stern placement of Relena's lips had become a natural expectation but did not seem authentic. In a memory, Sylvia remembered observing such an expression as a young man had offered her his life and the means by which to end it. Relena wasn't verbally offering anything, only Sylvia wondered if the purpose was of the same intent.
"I swear," Sylvia tried, "You must be comfortable with an old school chum such as myself. I don't think the public has ever seen this solitary side of Relena."
That got her attention.
"What do you mean?" Relena asked, sharp but without threat.
"It's as if you've been withdrawing or tying yourself up tight, staying wrapped," Sylvia lifted a hand to her chin, considering, "Cautious. Which is by no means a bad thing for those of us elevated to the status of role models!" She added the last hastily, wondering if she'd only transposed her own experiences onto the other girl.
"So what happens when we grow up?" Relena asked, the weight of the question coming at a cost, as she seemed surprised at it herself.
'Better question," Sylvia said, intrigued by the concept, "How do we find opportunity grow up?"
Of all the girls attending the Colony University, Charlie's parents probably were the least able to afford the shuttle costs. But their simple stature in society brought with it simple homespun expectations that family would be together on the holidays. Charlie had spent the better part of the two weeks trying to learn the names of her nieces and nephews that sprouted like mums: a collection of inexpensive quantity. For her part, Charlie did enjoy the idea of family, but reserved her eagerness for reuniting with Sylvia.
"I missed me, did you?" Charlie had spun Sylvia around in a hug at the station. Her luggage was waiting to be carried to the campus bus that had been another effort to streamline colony travel.
"The most peculiar thing happened while you were gone," Sylvia tried to reach for the largest suitcase only to have her hand slapped away. Charlie hefted it herself, knowing that the contents might be mishandled otherwise.
Distracted, Charlie mumbled, "Hmm, what?"
"We're not that much different, after all. I think I understand where she's coming from. Or, I've come to understand myself a little better from watch her coping on a completely different level," Sylvia continued talking, rapidly as if the thoughts had been trapped like a hive of bees waiting to escape into summer.
"Who?" Charlie settled the suitcase in the lower compartment, then followed Sylvia up into the bus while the driver nodded uniformly to each girl as they made their way through the line.
"Relena." Sylvia stopped her floodgate of thoughts with that one word.
"Relena?"
"Relena," and Sylvia started again, "She's rather intriguing, once you realize how unusual her life has been. Trapped, more or less, by expectations of her own making and those of others."
"Seems like quite the subject," Charlie reached for Sylvia's hand, "How were your holidays?"
Sylvia's smile then was one to which Charlie had no definition. And a claw raked against Charlie's heart until she wasn't sure it hadn't been broken.
"Lovely."
Relena wanted to try. She felt a gap in their conversations when Sylvia talked about her childhood mostly spent with her grandparents and a few summers with an uncle's family. She clung to their shared jokes brought from living as children during the era of the Federation. It did lighten her heart and the simplicity took away from her constant conflict with the complex.
"I wanted you to meet Charlie. Wait for me after class," Sylvia had said conspiratorially rapping her knuckles on the desk just in front of the book that Relena was skimming again for refreshment. The situations that Sylvia put Relena in felt like real friendship making her emotions pull out against the barriers she sensed all the more strongly.
"Sure," Relena had tried the smile that imitated the appeal of Sylvia's, and she tried to diminish the doubt that she simply was indulging the time to absorb another girl's tactics to dealing with unchangeable limits. She glanced over her shoulder to watch Sylvia take her seat pulling back her chair and talking to the girl to her left. Without needing to inquire, Relena knew that was the childhood friend, Charlie. She was the sort of girl that was all legs and elbows in the lower grades. Mistaken for being older with her lean face and extra height.
Their eyes met, and Relena took in a breath of something unexpected.
Sylvia had not anticipated the cloud of unease as she took Relena and Charlie to the park she most often chose to frequent. But identifying the conflict was as elusive as grasping a fistful of the ocean depths. Charlie still bobbed her head from side to side when she talked as if in the rhythm of some song repeating behind her conscious thoughts. Relena didn't change the pace of her walk for them, but the set of her shoulders seemed more disciplined than during the past few weeks of vacation from classes.
The birds on the pond were squawking inelegantly to each other protesting each other's presence. A strange rustle pushed through the branches of the pine tree, and Sylvia looked up half expecting to see a sudden development of storm clouds. Instead, she had the dizzying effect of seeing the rounded depth of the opposite side of the colony.
"Whoa," Charlie reached out to stop Sylvia's reflexive sway, and the dark haired girl laughed, "You know that isn't really an advised view for those of us Earth-born."
"I thought it might rain," Sylvia ran her fingers through her loosed bangs, having decided that perhaps she might try not wearing her clips just that day. She felt a bit unlike herself because of it.
"The colonists have an odd fascination for unpredictable weather," Relena said. Hearing Relena's voice for the first time participating without being pulled, Sylvia chewed in on her lips to keep from the goofy smile of success she felt. Relena continued, "They have people to control every degree of heat and drop of humidity, but they chose to have weathermen and almanacs and try to predict the schedule rather than documenting it."
"Lightens up the feeling of being controlled," Charlie offered, then pulled in the fingers of her extended hand as if surprised she'd spoken.
Sylvia sat in the grass and started to pull out her class work, "Well, if you feel rain, let me know. Otherwise, I need to finish up my works cited."
Charlie knew enough that she told herself not to be surprised when Sylvia introduced Relena into their friendship. She told herself to not swallow her words, but to keep talking as if nothing was amiss. That adding a third, adding Relena, had not offset the balance between them.
As much as Sylvia worked to foster the connection between herself and the pretty child of politics, Charlie saw the diminished light in Relena's eyes when Sylvia turned away. Relena had chosen to play some sort of game, and Charlie knew that Sylvia's personality was charismatic and the sort to draw old moths looking for a flame in which to burn away.
The Relena that Charlie saw was profoundly different than the girl on the cover of Colony Woman. The observations of their Relena were less optimistic and forward looking than the transcribed interviews. Charlie took a new interest in politics, particularly the shifting loyalties of their Sank Kingdom princess.
The landscape from the dorm window was blanketed in snow, late by Earth standards and there was some speculation as to a mild winter that year for that colony. The students meandered with the dozy sensation of the lessened hours of light.
Wanting to shake out of her mental slumber, Charlie grabbed her bag for the pool and went to the locker rooms to put on her suit. She passed one section of lockers to see the girl that had been greatly occupying her thoughts.
"Charlie," Relena greeted, hair slicked back and her pink towel tossed onto the bench behind her.
Charlie paused, then felt an odd opportunity that she reached for on impulse, "Strange, what's missing?"
"What do you mean?" Relena asked, standing awkwardly. Perhaps she was uncomfortable in her suit, a simple blue one-piece, balancing on bare feet with her toes curled up against the rough texture of the tiles.
Charlie felt a strange twist in her stomach, "Seeing you, without Sylvia around to mediate."
Relena's face went white colorless even for her lack of make-up, "I thought we all got along well."
"Oh, I think you get along well with Sylvia," Charlie felt an upper hand being fully dressed. Relena had crossed her arms over her chest, holding her elbows in the guise of a casual shift in posture and pulling her feet together. Charlie continued, "I think you like how she sees the world. I know I do." On whim, Charlie pulled her shirt over her head, shaking out her hair and taking a step forward to open one of the lockers. Back to back with Relena now.
She undid the button of her jeans and slid down the zipper letting her fingers sit just under the material as she added, "You don't know what you're missing. Holding her down and trying to taste all of her sweetness. It makes me forget I'm nothing." She slid her feet from her sandals letting them flop in front of her. The roughness under her long feet was a pleasurable sensation. She'd always been growing into her feet.
"Relena, I think you use Sylvia to itch at your limitations. As if you absorb enough of her, that you can shrug off whatever it is that holds you back from what's coming next." Charlie shrugged the jeans down her hips and stepped out of the pooled legs.
"I suppose you have a different idea for where Sylvia should invest her interests?" From the sound of her accusation, Relena must have turned.
Charlie lowered her head smiling at the ground, then turned to let Relena see her expression, "Not exactly," the taller girl moved forward, the bench between them and she could feel Relena's towel just below her knees, "This is about you. Details are tying you up, whether they're of your own construction or those of others. I've seen them. I've worn them in lesser degrees. What you need isn't an itch." Charlie surprised herself and crossed over the bench moving into Relena, hoping to intimidate. Hoping for something as she really looked into the unblinking eyes of the person she thought she didn't like, "What you need is someone to rip those limitations from you."
She knew how she enjoyed kissing Sylvia or holding her. Charlie hadn't expected the intense yearning to act on her words as she urgently resisted every response that those angered eyes triggered.
"How is that done?" Relena felt her limbs trembling as Charlie stood over her. She kept her eyes fixed trying not to let other thoughts distract her from this argument. She had thought of Charlie as a condition on her socializing with Sylvia. Relena had even thought she understood the intimacies of the relationship Sylvia and Charlie kept. However, alone with Charlie, Relena was keenly aware of her skin. How the humid warmth that drifted from the pool wasn't enough to keep her from feeling a tingle of chill.
Charlie breathed a laugh, and Relena felt it across her cheekbones and the tops of her ears they were so close. Charlie laughed again, this time putting her head back and Relena found herself looking at the girl's throat and then Relena stepped back, feeling too close to Charlie's body.
"How is it done? If I knew that… then I wouldn't feel this," Charlie, quicker than Relena could refuse, grabbed her hand and pressed Relena's fingers over her left breast, "The chaotic pulse there, feel it? That's me struggling to stay alive, and what control do I have over this muscle, really?" Charlie's hands both lay on top of Relena's, and she stared. Her free hand balanced just over her stomach not sure what to do, "But it's the knowledge of the struggle which is something more than most folks realize."
"You're saying there is no escape?" Relena dismantled the logic, not that it had ever worked to explain her emotions before. Every logical approach had told her that she had been destined to be Queen, destined to be a diplomat, destined to be an ambassador. She had known in some part she needed to be a student. But what she needed to be schooled in had been beyond her.
"I'm saying," Charlie whispered, a furrow in her brow, "Is that you need to experience," And Relena wasn't surprised, "This."
Charlie's hands had dropped to Relena's waist and slipped against the still moist suit to her hips touching skin. Relena found her arm trapped, palm still pressed against Charlie's heart as the taller girl leaned in gradually waiting for Relena to lift her face.
Relena felt a part of her aghast that her first kiss was going to be with a woman in a pool locker room while wearing her swim suit. Then she felt. The fingertips pressed into her skin and the softness of moving lips against her frozen ones. Warming her.
Relena lost herself until a crack and painful snap along her back startled her.
"Ha," Charlie said imitating a laugh, "Snapped one of those strings, didn't I?"
Relena licked her lips and rubbed the shoulder of her wounded side, "Unexpected."
Charlie had crossed back and bent over to pull her own suit from the bag she'd come with. Relena felt curious about how she might appeal to another woman. And if she did find Charlie appealing, or if she'd simply realized what it was she was missing. What she'd forgotten.
The same foolish thing that had driven a little girl to impulsively run from her birthday party and push herself into the politics of a battlefield. Faith. Hope.
Love.