It's My Life
Okay, as promised, here's Lena's side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.
For those who may not remember 'For Rel', I don't suggest rereading it but I do suggest that you look over some parts from that fic so that you can understanding my reasoning behind some of these scenes. That's just my advise, but you're the readers so do what you like.
"You're squinting again," Adam pointed out, observing Relena as they studied for their Classical Music History class.
Relena grunted as she reached up to playfully hit her friend, but he caught her hand. This had been going on since they got to Italy and settled into Mrs. Noventa's available rooms, whenever Relena was reading something Adam would watch her closely and the moment she squinted he would let her know.
"Would you just drop it, Adam?" Relena sighed, retracting her hand. "I don't need glasses."
Rolling his eyes, Adam slammed his book shut and pointed to a random paragraph in Relena's book. "Read that for me then," he commanded.
"As one of the greatest composers in history, Amadeus Mozart…" Relena read but her vision blurred a bit and she began to lean forward to read it more clearly. Adam held her back though. "Mozart…"
Adam grinned, "Come on, Lena, wearing glasses is not that horrible."
"No, they're just a pain to take care of," she retorted.
"Is that your only objection?" Relena just gave him a sheepish smile. "Lame reason, tomorrow we're going to go get you some eyewear because, honey, your eyes are just too beautiful to abuse in such a way," Adam stated causing Relena to blush a bit.
"If you say so," she agreed.
"I do say so and while we're at it," Adam paused to look over Relena's business pants and blouse, "perhaps we should let Lynn and Draca take you shopping for some new clothes so that you don't have to borrow theirs."
Relena looked down at her clothes. "What's wrong with my clothes?" she inquired. "I wore these for work all the time…"
"That's the thing Lena, you wore them for work, this is school and you don't need to be so…professionally dressed," explained Adam but he saw the defiant look in his friend's eyes. "I'm not saying to completely change your sense of fashion but rather…modify it to suit your life as an average college student in Italy who happens to play in a band."
Examining Adam's clothing and comparing it with her own, it dawned upon Relena that she looked as though she worked at an office instead of a student going to college whereas Adam looked more comfortably dressed in casual clothes that gave the impression that he had a job but he was at college to learn, not to teach or do paperwork.
"I see your point," Relena stated. "Fine, we can make a big shopping trip out of it."
"Fantastic!"
Relena shook her head in disgust at the short skirt Draca held up. There was nothing wrong with the skirt except that it was too short, if Relena had been 15 again she would wear it with a large shirt overlapping it but she didn't want to do that.
"Come on," Draca pouted, "it's such a cute skirt Relena."
"It's just so short," Relena pointed out.
Lynn grinned, "I told you so. She needs something like jeans and nice, classy, non-slut skirts with some good shirts that show her figure but not too much."
Draca put her hands on her hips as she turned to Lynn. "This skirt is classy, it does not look like something a slut would wear," she argued, and Relena would have begged to differ but Relena didn't exactly want Draca's wrath upon her.
"Ladies," Sage interjected, "there is a simple, peaceful way to solve all of this. Lynn, you go pick out clothes you think Relena will like and Draca you go pick out the clothes you think she will like. Relena will give us a fashion show and tell us what she likes and does not like. Are we in agreement?"
"That's fine with me," Lynn nodded.
"Perfectly alright with me," Draca grinned, smugly.
Pleased, Sage rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "On my mark…" he paused for dramatic effect, "go!"
It amazed Relena so much to see the girls just take off so quickly leaving Relena and the boys in the dust. Relena stood in place with her mouth flopping up and down until Adam pulled her toward a chair and sat her down.
"And now we wait for your glasses and clothes," Adam grinned. "Some fashion show this is going to be. How're your contacts? Do they feel alright?"
"A bit odd, especially since I'm not quite certain how brown eyes suites me," replied Relena, rubbing her eyes a bit. "I'm just lucky that they even had my prescription available to begin with."
Sage nodded, "Yeah, I've heard that those things take some time to get used to, especially since you have to touch your eye to put them in and take them out. How is it that your bodyguards never noticed that you need glasses?"
The thought never really occurred to Relena before, so she had to think a little bit on it. "Well, that's not completely true," she stated after a while, "Hilde and Duo had mentioned it a couple of times but I always told them that I was too busy to see the eye doctor and I also told them that I didn't really need glasses."
"Didn't they give you some sort of miniature eye test or something?" Adam inquired. "It seems like the Preventer thing to do…"
Laughing, Relena assured them that Duo especially tried to give her an eye examine numerous times. "Of course, I had by that time memorized the eye chart and I fooled them into thinking I had 20/20 vision. Not even Heero knew about my eye problem since he was a bit distracted."
"Is he even cute?" Adam asked out of the blue.
Sage and Relena looked at each other and laughed. "Only my brother could say that one," laughed Sage, slapping his knee as he bent over with laughter.
"What?" Adam demanded. "I think that is a legitimate question. So come on, is he or isn't he cute?"
"Yes, he's very handsome, but I don't think he's quite your type…"
"Hey," interjected Sage, looking up from a newspaper he found on a table, "is this him in the picture?"
Relena snatched the paper from Sage's hands and examined that photo and article. "That is him," Relena nodded. "'Preventer Heero Yuy has been in charge with the task of searching for the still missing Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian. Over the past five months the Preventers have been following every lead possible but they have found no sign of Ms. Darlian.
"'Consequently, rumors within the political world have been that Ms. Darlian's disappearance is linked to her fear of losing the election for Vice Foreign Minister that was to take place next year. Supposedly, Ms. Darlian's rival was to be none of than Sylvia Noventa,'" Relena read.
"Bull shit!" Adam cried out, snatching the newspaper from Relena. "The little fu…"
"Adam…" warned Sage.
"Sons of guns, that is complete bull shit and they know it!" Adam continued, poking angrily at the newspaper. "Oh, he is cute." Examining the picture more carefully, Adam questioned, "Does he always wear such a scowl on his face?"
Relena nodded, "He hates having his picture taken for any reason. Trust me; it took some major convincing and some pre-planning to get a picture of him taken." She shook her head a bit as she recalled some past instance of having her picture taken with Heero. "He was always stubborn about having his picture taken."
"Well, lately he seems to have been quite photogenic. His picture has been in every tabloid I've seen," Adam mentioned, noticing how Relena's head lowered a bit. "I wonder why…"
"Journalist are probably trying to dig up some dirt about how my disappearance is a set-up or how he was having an unprofessional relationship with me," Relena explained with a false smile.
It was really a lie and both of the guys could see right through it but they didn't have the chance to say anything as Lynn and Draca returned with armfuls of clothes for Relena to try on.
It didn't take long to realize that Relena preferred Lynn's style of clothing but Draca did pick out some shirts that weren't too revealing while showing a little bit of skin. While Relena was wearing an off-the-shoulder top with light pants, Draca was struck with a thought.
"Hey Relena, how do you feel about a hair cut?" she suggested.
"Do you think it is wise cut a wig?" Relena questioned, twirling a bit of her moss green wig around her fingers. Draca had taken Relena shopping for wigs in Paris, there they had bought three wigs for Relena to wear for disguises and one of the wigs happened to have a lovely dark moss green color that Draca adored. So, Relena had decided to wear the green wig to go with her new life as Salimar Reigns.
Draca shook her head, "I mean your real hair. How do you feel about cut some of your real hair? You know, so that it's not so much of a hassle to fit under that wig."
Biting her lower lip, Relena thought about it. She hadn't cut her hair since after the Eves' War and she had hated it so much to have such short hair. Still, her hair was already quite lengthy and it was becoming a bother, especially since it was becoming so difficult to brush.
"Sure, as long as you don't cut it too short," agreed Relena.
"No," Draca assured standing up and approaching her friend. "Only to about here." Draca demonstrated by placing her hand just a little below Relena's shoulder and moving it upwards as Draca moved her hand to the back of Relena's head. "To about here, you know, on a diagonal. It's just an idea of course."
"Oh, that would be awesome!" Lynn exclaimed with a smile, jumping up and joining the other two girls. "Lena that would look great on you! Hair longer in the front and shorter in the back, I can just see it now."
Relena smiled. Who was she to dampen her friend's high spirits? Besides, what was a haircut to her, her hair would grow back eventually if she didn't like the new look. So, there was nothing really to be lost by Relena having her friends cut her hair.
"Go ahead then, cut my hair."
"Giorgio!" Draca greeted, the bartender as the 'For Rel' band entered the quaint bar while carrying in their instruments.
"Signora Draca, welcome! The stage is all yours for tonight, as usual," Giorgio returned with a smile as he watched each of the band members scurrying about, setting up the drum set and keyboard. "Signora Salimar, you have new clothes!"
Relena stopped and turned to Giorgio with a bashful smile, she was pleased that someone noticed the difference. "All three of us girls have the same outfit tonight, Giorgio," she explained.
Glancing at Lynn and Draca's clothing, Giorgio nodded but commented, "It suites you."
"Grazie," Relena blushed, heading outside to get the stand for the keyboard.
"She does look nice, doesn't she?" Sage remarked to the bartender, taking a seat at the bar for a moment with the bass drum resting on his lap.
"Sí."
Sage didn't have time to rest before Draca came up to him and, with one hand on her hip in an intimidating manner, pointed towards the stage. "Get moving Sage, your drum set doesn't get set up on its own."
"You never know about that one," grinned Sage as he got up and winked at Draca.
On the stage Relena watched her two friends interact with Adam at her side.
"You'd think they would have hooked up by now," Adam noted as he set up the stand. "Is that too wide?"
"No, that's right," answered Relena, unzipping the keyboard case. "Why haven't Draca and Sage gotten together yet?"
Done with the stand, Adam came over to help Relena lift the keyboard out of the case and onto the stand. "Well," he began, bending down and picking up one side of the instrument, "those two are too stubborn and have one too many misunderstandings that they completely don't see that they like each other."
Setting the keyboard on the stand, Relena pulled out the cords she need and rolled her amp over to the side.
"That's really sad," she stated.
"Tell me about it," Adam snorted, picking up his bass guitar and hooking it up to his amp. Early on, the band had found out that hooking two guitars or the keyboard and a guitar to the same amp was not a good idea. "Hey, give me a G."
"Tuning already?" Sage noted as he set up his collection of cymbals.
"You bet," nodded Adam, focused on his tuning. "That sounds about right, eh?"
Relena nodded as she adjusted the volume. "Hey Giorgio, how does this sound?" She hit a C chord and Giorgio gave her a thumb's up. "Good, then I'll have to keep it there."
Draca adjusted her mic stand and spoke gently into the microphone. "Testing, testing, one, two," she said and found that the microphone worked to her satisfaction and turned it off. "Good, everyone set?"
"No," Lynn declared as she tuned her Vantage t218 electric guitar.
Diddling a bit on the keyboards at low volume Relena watched as the door of the bar opened. It was habit for her to watch the door and see who came into the bar to relax, drink, or listen to the band.
Normally, Relena would have glanced at the door then look away but this time she found that she couldn't quite look away.
"Relena…?" Adam whispered, waving a hand in front of Relena's face.
"Don't call me that," Relena told him in an urgent voice as she spun around so that her back was to the door. "Please don't refer to me as Relena, at all, tonight."
Adam was bewildered. What was it that got Relena so worried that he wasn't even allowed to address her by her real name…? Looking up at the door, Adam realized why. There by the door was a herd of people and at the front of the herd was the new Vice Foreign Minister, Sylvia Noventa, and next to her, Heero Yuy.
"Oh shit…"
"Exactly," groaned Relena, brushing some of her green hair behind an ear. "Tell Sage and I'll tell the other girls as we go get drinks. This is going to be one hell of a night."
Thank you to: DogDemonK9, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Elly, andLynn-Minmay. Thank you guys for your support.