Disclaimer - It's not mine. Never was. I'm not making any money off of this, just enjoyment. The songs are the property of whomever they belong to. I'm not stealing them, just borrowing.

A/N - Hey everyone! How's it going? Well, I'm back, and with quite a long little snippet here of my take on another facet of Relena's personality that's not always shown. Hope you enjoy.

Release

Chapter 1

It's All In The Planning

She was tired of it.

Absolutely, positively, undeniably tired of it.

Three months it had been. Three months since the last time she had been anywhere that was not an office, a board room or a speech hall.

Relena fell onto her couch with the grace of a dying jellyfish, kicking her shoes off and letting them land where they would.

She had finished up her work for the day, and was glad to see that her schedule for the next two days had been cleared by her secretary. She needed a few days off, some time for herself that she'd been neglecting the past few months. And it was about to start tonight. She'd been planning this evening for a few weeks now, making sure everything was ready, and that her cohort could make sure she was given a few hours on her own before having to come and get her.

Relena rummaged through the things in her room, trying to formulate a decent plan of attack. She knew getting away from her guard detail wouldn't be that hard because neither Duo or Heero had the night shift with her. She just had to find a way to not be found once she did get out of there.

Relena smirked to herself, knowing good and well that she wouldn't be recognized in the disguise she had planned. After a half hour of fighting, her light brown hair was pulled underneath a black wig of hair that was upswept in a sophisticated looking knot of ringlets that fell past her shoulders. A pair of contacts took care of her blue eyes, turning them a deep, forest green. Both the wig and the contacts were remnants of her gypsy Halloween costume from the year before.

The Vice Foreign Minister searched out her closet for one box in particular that had been given to her on her birthday only a few weeks before. Hilde and Duo's birthday present had been a sleeveless red dress that fell above her knees. The material was stretchy, and hugged her body tightly. It wasn't something she would normally wear, but it was exactly what she needed tonight. She grabbed a long coat from her closer and hurried on her way out.

Twenty minutes and one tripped fire alarm later, Relena was sitting inside a yellow taxi cab headed for the city, suddenly doubting her wild idea to head out on her own. She banished the thoughts quickly, telling herself that she had deserved some time off after working nonstop for so long.

Ballroom dancing had been part of her upbringing, long before the first war had broken out. Rumba. Tango. Waltz. Quick step. Samba. She knew all of them perfectly, or at least had at one time. After all, any proper young lady in the upper class she had grown up in had to know how to dance. And that was exactly where she was headed. Hilde had told her about a new club that opened up in the city. It was no different than any other club in town, except for the small fact that the owners were Latin, and therefore the feeling of the building was tinged greatly with the flair and spice of the Latin nightlife.

Granted, most of the political balls she had ever attended up until now, there had never really been a need to know the more risqué dances of the ballroom world. You couldn't exactly do the rumba or samba with an aging ambassador from this colony or that one. So Relena figured it was time to see if she still remembered her lessons at all. She had enjoyed dancing as a teenager. That was one passion that had followed her as she had gotten older. And it was time to indulge a little in something she wanted to do.

The taxi turned into the traffic common on the streets for a Friday night and she sat back in her seat, thinking about how her entire life seemed to be spinning in a never ending downwards circle…especially if it had something to do with one stoic ex-Gundam pilot named Heero Yuy.

It had been five years. Five years since she'd caught a fleeting glimpse of him in the balcony of the speech hall she'd given a recitation in now even two weeks after Mariemaia's coup.

He had left without a word of warning to anyone, even the other pilots. Disappeared off the face of the Earth entirely, which really wasn't all that hard to believe. He had probably holed up somewhere in one of the colonies in space doing only heaven knew what.

She hadn't tried tracking him down despite the fact that she had wanted to. Duo had even offered to find him, but she had denied his friendly assistance, thinking that if Heero wanted to come back to her, then he would do it on his own.

And come back he had. Four years after she had last seen him, she got word from Duo that Heero had shown up in the Preventor's headquarters one morning. Une had given him a job with the security team for Relena's added protection. At first, she had thought it would be wonderful to see him day after day, even if it was in an office setting. Anything was better than nothing, or so she had told herself.

But now, she was beginning to wish he had never come back and she was back down to nothing again. At least then she wouldn't have to deal with knowing he was so near her, yet so far away. He wouldn't speak to her, wouldn't look at her. Nothing. He'd said more words to her during the few times she'd tracked him down before and during the war and Mariemaia's coup than he had since he'd started working at the Preventors.

She had done nothing different at first, thinking maybe he had to get used to being around people again before he would say anything. But her own patience began wearing thin after a few months.

She had never hid her feelings about him, never tried to shy away from what she knew in her heart. What had started out as a simple crush during the events leading up to the war had turned into full blown love by the time he had passed out in her arms in the Brussels' presidential mansion during the coup.

Heero, however, seemed to keep everything bottled up inside of him. He had yet to show the slightest amount of interest in her, even after all those years. His single minded focus on her protection was endearing, but she'd had enough of it. She had offered her friendship, and he had point blank refused her.

That had hurt.

So, she started treating him the same way he was doing her. She wouldn't speak to him, and pretty much completely ignored he was even there. It had been easy at first since her anger at his attitude had fueled her own attempt at retribution. But after a few weeks, her anger had cooled down. And the hurt of Heero blatantly ignoring her had set in again, leaving her in the state she was currently in.

A few minutes later, Relena climbed out of the cab, paid the driver, and got in line to get into the club. It was early in the evening, so there wasn't much of a line. But she knew that as the darkness fell, more and more patrons would begin flowing into the new hotspot. Half an hour later, Relena was walking into the doors. She headed straight for the bar. Of course, she wasn't much of a drinker, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Everything would have been fine then, she realized. She could have kept up her little façade of indifference indefinitely if she'd had to. Could have ignored the Japanese bastard for the rest of her life after she realized he could have cared less about her attempted friendship; it wouldn't have been any different than what he was doing to her day in and day out. But it all changed one day about three months ago. And her cold attitude to him turned into an icy glacier of utter hate.

The day had started out normally, just like all the others. She had been picked up at her home and brought to work, only to find Heero already standing in his customary spot not far from her desk, his face shrouded in the waning shadows of the morning. Her greeting had went unanswered, which was nothing new. An hour before lunchtime, Relena's secretary buzzed in to say that Senator Myles was there for their scheduled meeting.

Relena should have known something was happening when Heero looked up at her with a surprised expression on his face.

"Myles?" he asked. "Emily Myles?"

"Yes." she had answered, wondering at his sudden interest in her meetings. Heero had simply nodded and fell back into the shadows without another word, a frown on his face.

Relena welcomed both the Senator and her assistant into the room warmly. Emily Myles was a very well known political figure in her country, and Relena had been waiting patiently for their meeting for weeks. The elder woman had a motherly look to her, but her steel gray eyes showed that she knew her stuff, and was willing to argue you into the ground to get her point across if she needed to.

"Minister, I'd like you to meet Sylvia Noventa, my personal assistant." Senator Myles said. Relena offered her hand and smiled, shaking the other young woman's hand welcomingly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Noventa." she said. "Please have a seat. I'm sorry for the intrusion, but my bodyguard will be standing by during our meeting. The Preventors organizer seems to think every person I talk to is going to attempt to assassinate me." Senator Myles laughed it off, only to stop and stare when she seen who was standing off to the side of Relena's desk. At her side, Sylvia stood up and shook her head, a small smile on her face.

"Heero?" the young woman asked, stepping forward and embracing the stoic young man. "Where have you been? You left without saying a word to me."

Relena felt her heart drop somewhere in the vicinity of the seventh circle of hell, watching as Sylvia hugged the ex-pilot and smiled up at him. Heero, per usual, said nothing, but none-to-gently ushered Sylvia out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

"Ah, young love." Ambassador Myles said, grinning and shaking her head. Relena forced herself to sit down in her chair. It felt like someone had just dropped an anvil on her, and she couldn't move. "It seems my assistant will be a while in getting back. I hope you don't mind, Ms. Dorlian."

"Excuse me?" Relena asked, not quite sure she was still on the planet.

"That young man threw Sylvia for a ringer when he left last year." the lady clarified, smiling like the cat that caught the canary at being able to gossip with the Vice-Foreign Minister. "They had been together for a few months before I took office. Always together, they were. He was quiet, though, but Sylvia didn't seem to mind at all. She told me that she thought she was in love; asked me what she should do. I told her to follow her feelings and see where they would lead her."

"I didn't even know they knew each other." Relena said, feeling like her head and her heart was about to explode. "What happened?"

"Well, I never got the whole story, dear, but from what I can understand, she told him."

"How'd he react."

"Must not have been too bad." the lady said with a smirk. "She comes into my office the next morning with a smile and a glow about her that I had never seen before. Only one thing can make a woman look like that, if you know what I mean."

"Well, I'm glad they found each other again." Relena had said, forcing a smile.

Needless to say, she used all the tricks of diplomacy she had to get the meeting concluded as quickly as possible.

After she had seen the visiting Senator out, Heero returned a few minutes later, resuming his spot a little away from her desk.

"Sylvia Noventa?" she asked, looking over at him for some sort of conformation.

"Yeah."

It was the only answer he gave her, but it was enough to make her madder than she ever had been. She had decided right then and there that it was time to get over him, even if it killed her in the process.

Relena shook her head, downing the last of the heavily laced alcoholic drink and putting the tumbler back on the bar. It was clichéd, and she knew it. She gave herself a grim smile and turned around to watch the couples on the dance floor, watching as they moved to the heavy Latin beats pumping from the numerous speakers set around the large room.

Getting rid of Heero had proven to be a bit more difficult than she had imagined. She had tried to have him reassigned to another unit within Preventors, even going as far as contacting Une herself to personally request it.

Hadn't worked.

So she tried getting Milliardo to talk Une into shipping him out on the next shuttle leaving for the Mars Terraformation project, saying his knowledge of mechanical engineering would prove more useful there than on Earth.

Hadn't worked.

She had tried another tactic then. She called Une and told her that she didn't want him as her personal bodyguard, and would feel better having Duo or one of the other Preventors there instead. That had almost worked, until Heero came into her office the next morning and told her that Duo was in the hospital with a broke leg, two cracked ribs, and a concussion.

She was fuming by then, but still bound and determined to get rid of the 'perfect soldier'.

In retaliation, Relena started ditching her guard detail anytime she could. Granted, the first few times she attempted it, she had been caught and returned back to her office. Heero never said anything to her, never scolded her, just turned her around and marched her back to wherever it was she was supposed to be. But she had managed to slip away from him over half a dozen times. It had finally gotten to the point where Milliardo had stepped in and scolded her. She had delivered her ultimatum then, causing her elder brother to almost have a heart attack at her request.

Either he got rid of Heero, or she was going to keep ditching the Preventors any chance she could.

He hadn't relented and gotten rid of the ex-pilot, so she continued to be uncooperative. And then that asshole Yuy had walked into her office a few days later, demanding to know what her problem was and why she was trying so adamantly to get rid of him.

She left him standing in front of her desk rubbing his very red, very sore face.

Hence the reason she was now sitting in a club that neither Heero nor Milliardo would ever consent to her going to. And she didn't particularly give a damn what either of them thought.

Of course, everyone else had seen fit to give her their opinion on the matter as it stood.

Hilde said she needed to get laid.

Sally said she needed some time off.

Noin said she needed to get out more.

Trowa told her she needed to relax a little.

Relena just thought they all needed to go jump off a cliff.

She knew what she needed, and it wasn't time off from work or a relaxing day at the spa. She just needed a friend, someone to talk to when things got stressful.

Well, tonight was going to be different. She was damned sure of that much at least. Heero might not think of her as an adult woman with needs of her own, but that was his oversight.

"You okay there, pretty lady?" a voice asked, breaking Relena out of her self induced zone. She looked to her left, finding a slightly grinning man who couldn't be any older than her with jet black hair and a dark complexion.

"I'm fine, thanks." she said. "Kind of drifted off for a minute there."

"I got ya'." he said, grinning. "But I doubt that water bottle would be so understanding." Relena looked down at the bottle she had been drinking out of, only to find she had inadvertently crushed it in her hands while thinking of Heero. She frowned and placed the bottle on the bar.

"Oops." she muttered. "Didn't mean to do that."

"Happens all the time when you're thinking about someone you'd rather be choking." he said with a grin, causing Relena to start. Was she that transparent? He laughed and shook his head, taking another long drink out of the bottle he had. "Don't worry, I've seen that look on my sister's face when her boyfriend's done something stupid and she's ready to kill him."

"That's about right." Relena nodded.

"Name's Marco." he said, holding out his hand to her. Relena took it and smiled.

"Lena." she said easily. "Nice to meet you."

"You as well." he said. "So what did he do?"

"It's more along the lines of what he didn't do." she said, shaking her head. "But I really don't want to talk about it."

"Understandable." he said, finishing off the beer and tossing the empty bottle in a trash can behind the bar.

"Thanks."

"Wanna dance?" he asked, holding out his hand to her. Relena contemplated a split second, more than just a little surprised at this man's audacity to ask her such a question. She didn't know this guy from the next, and had one of her bodyguards been nearby he probably would have been thrown against the wall and frisked for weapons. "You've been watching the dance floor for the past five minutes, figured you might want to go out there and join them."

She had wanted to feel loved, needed, desired, that was the reason she had come there. Even if it was only temporary, only on that crowded dance floor with a complete stranger. It was still better than nothing. Was it so wrong, to want to feel the physical closeness of someone near her? Just to know that there was someone who was willing to get that close to her, if only for a little while. Just a reassurance that she was still human, that's all she wanted.

Damn it all to hell! If Heero didn't want her, then fine. But she would be damned if she was going to mope around waiting for him to figure out what he did want.

'Then again, he doesn't know who I am, so it won't matter.' she thought, sliding her hand into his own.

"Sure." she nodded, letting him lead her out onto the dance floor.

A/N - Hey! How's everyone doing? I hope you are enjoying the newest story added to my collection.. Please remember to review, and I will send thee great tidings of cookies and candy.

I know you're probably thinking Relena is horribly out of character, and she is…to a certain extent.

However, I shall justify her actions as such:

She undoubtedly had some type of ballroom dancing lessons, considering her upper class upbringing. Ballroom dancing includes dances such as the samba, cha-cha, and rumba, dances that were originally thought to be to provocative for 'genteel' company.

And as for her motivations to run off and go dancing. Well, all I can say is that any woman walking this planet who has a stressful job, and an ignorant paramour who refuses to see blatant reason, needs a night of self indulgence. (Trust me, I'm an expert on that!)

Most women go to a spa.

Relena goes dancing.

See? It evens out. ;)