It's My Life
Okay, as promised, here's Lena's side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.
It was about eight in the morning and Relena was sitting on one of the many campus benches typing on her laptop. She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before since her mind was reeling with possible games she could play on Heero. This just happened to be one of them.
"What're you writing?" Draca inquired, leaning over Relena's shoulder to read.
"'Dear Heero,
I suppose that what I pulled that night wasn't the brightest idea of mine but it worked, that's all that matters to me. May I suggest that you give up in your search for me, for I know that you are most likely exhausted from it and need time to rest? Besides, it is in your best interest to stop now before you get yourself frustrated and in trouble with Lady Une. Remember that I'm not the little 15 year old girl that you knew from a few years back, I've grown up a bit. Wishing you the best,
Relena Darlian-Peacecraft'
"Aw…" Draca cooed after reading the letter out loud, "that's so sweet, is the translation 'I love you but I can't stand the fact that you're dating Sylvia Noventa?'"
Rolling her eyes a bit, Relena sighed in exasperation, "No, I just know that by sending him this letter it's going to make him search even harder for me."
"What if he finds you?" Draca suggested, sitting on the opposite end of the bench.
"Trust me, he's not; at least not unless I want him to. I'm getting help from you guys already, Shun-li, Jackson, and even Jo-jo Alley," Relena explained, pushing up her glasses a bit. She had her contacts in her bag but she didn't want to put them in yet.
Draca's eyebrows rose, signaling the she was impressed. "Even good old Jo-jo is in on this, that's very good. I have one question though, how is Shun-li helping you out?" she questioned.
Relena hit the send button after typing instructions for Shun-li to copy and paste the letter, print, and delete the e-mail afterwards. "That's right, you guys don't know. Well, I helped get Shun-li a job as a secretary for Lady Une, Head of the Department of Prevention. So, Heero'll get the letter from her whenever he checks in with Lady Une."
Nodding in understanding, a twinkle began to gleam in Draca's eyes but it soon vanished when the Can-Can jingle began to shrill through the air.
Jumping from the unexpected noise, Relena pulled out her cell phone from her bag and flipped it open.
"What?" she asked.
"Gave him the information, Lena, now what?" replied Jackson's voice and it made Relena smile. So one of the Preventers did return to London and now everything was set in motion.
"Nothing," she answered with a huge grin, "but lay low for a while, okay?" Turning to Draca, Relena gave her a thumb's up while trying to keep herself from bouncing in her seat. "Thank you so much Jack, I owe you big time for this!"
"Hey, it's your game, I'm just providing some of the clues," smiled Jackson. "Take care, you hear, Lena!"
"Aye-ai, captain!" mocked Relena before hanging up and giving Draca a high five. "This is great; everything is going according to plan right now."
Glancing at her watch, Draca got up and slammed Relena's laptop closed. "Come on, we got to go catch up with Lynn then get to class," she announced as Relena began to put her things in her bag.
Rising to her feet, Relena let Draca link arms with her, an action between friends that had disappeared several centuries ago but Draca felt the need to somehow be connected with the person she walks with. It gave her a sense that her companion was paying attention to her, something Relena could appreciate.
"So does he still treat you like a fifteen year old, high school girl?" Draca spoke up out of the blue.
"Who?" Relena replied, trying to dodge the issue of Heero. She really wasn't in the mood to talk about her love-interest, especially not after seeing him the night before with Sylvia Noventa, and introduced as Sylvia's boyfriend.
Getting the distinct sense that Relena wanted to change the subject Draca was willing to leave the issue of Heero alone except she wanted answers. "Lena, we've been friends for years, and I know you really don't want to talk about him but you've got to open up to me and the others sooner or later hon. Otherwise, it'll tear at you on the inside and we won't be able to know what to do to help you," Draca reasoned gently.
Seeing Lynn approaching them, Relena turned to Draca with an imploring expression. "Please, let me explain later and not out in public where someone might overhear," she pleaded and Draca complied.
"Hey girls, ready to sit through some lectures about music theory?" Lynn teased, leading the way to the door. "You know how they say that if you know at least one of the romantic languages the others will be a bit easier to grasp? Well, I can assure you that it's a lie, at least for me. I can't understand Spanish at all!"
While Lynn was complaining about her inability to grasp the Spanish language, Draca opened the door and promptly hit someone with it.
"Oh my God!" she exclaimed when she saw one of Relena's friends, Hilde, on the floor holding a hand to her forehead. "I am so sorry about that I wasn't looking where I was going."
Noticing that there were three vanilla folders on the ground with papers sticking out of them, Lynn bent down and picked them up while Relena took care of the gawking students.
"Everyone's alright here, we're all alive and unharmed except for maybe a bruise or two," Relena told the curious students.
Kneeling in front of Relena's friend, Draca began to coax Hilde to removing her hand from her forehead to see the damage. Not needing to be told twice, Hilde removed her hand and the shock was written plainly in her eyes.
Relena hoped that Draca and Lynn had remembered not to refer to Relena by her real name or any variant of it, being discovered was the last thing Relena needed.
"Oh hey, you're one of the girls we met last night at the bar!" pointed out Lynn after Draca was done poking at Hilde's head.
Oh no…please don't let them call me 'Relena'. Please let them remember to call me 'Salimar', pleaded Relena as she returned her attention to Hilde.
"Yes I am," Hilde replied, confirming Lynn's earlier comment.
"Was your name like Hildra or Hildre?" Relena asked, pretending not to know Hilde's name. She was acting the role of 'Salimar' after all, so she couldn't act like she knew or remembered too much about her friends from the war.
"Hilde actually," she corrected. To Relena, the underlining tone of irritation was very noticeable but to the casual listener Hilde's tone could have been categorized as polite.
"Sorry, it's just we met so many people last night that we just can't keep the names straight except for Quatre Winner and Duo Maxwell, your boyfriend right?" explained Relena, feeling a blush coming to her cheeks despite the fact that she had gotten her friend's name wrong on purpose.
"I guess I can buy that," smiled Hilde, her voice was now sympathetic.
Good old Hilde, she can be so understanding in the right situations, Relena thought, fighting back a smile.
"Way to go Salimar, just go and get her name all messed up!" commented Draca, throwing Relena a playful glare. One of the corners of Draca's mouth was ever so slightly twitching upward into a smirk.
More than willing to duel with words, Relena retorted in a good-natured manner, "Oh and you would have gotten her name correct! Hn, I think you would have probably guessed something more along the lines of Sally or something."
Relena knew how horrible Draca was with names. When Draca first introduced herself to Relena she had called Relena 'Renee,' so, of course, Draca would have gotten Hilde's name wrong too.
"Actually…yeah I would've, but you saved me the trouble," grinned Draca; she wasn't going to deny her inability to put names with faces.
Lynn stepped forward and handed Hilde three vanilla folders, which Hilde took back but not without some resistance from Lynn's grasp. The resistance on Lynn's half didn't go unnoticed by Relena; there was something in those folders that had caught Lynn's interest.
"Thank you Lynn," Hilde said. Apparently Relena wasn't the only person to have noted Lynn's reluctance.
"What are you doing looking up information on us when all you have to do is ask us?" questioned Lynn.
Information about us…our files! Relena realized. She could have groaned at her stupidity, of course Heero would have had someone check into the 'For Rel' band's background.
For the most part Relena was confident about her forged files but there was always the possibility that Heero would dig deeper into their histories, like to go the school listed in the 'Salimar Reigns' file only to find that no such girl every went to school in Korea.
"This is for official business dealing with a missing person that, the agency I work for, is trying to find," claimed Hilde.
Relena's eyes narrowed as Lynn's turned cold. There was no mistaking who that "missing person" was. Draca, being herself, was the only one out of the three girls to be completely confident that Hilde wasn't going to find anything in those files.
"Quite fascinating really, eh girls?" teased Draca with a playful smile as she turned to face Relena and Lynn. She gave them a conspiratorial wink that made both girls relax.
"Very," nodded Lynn, joining in the discussion. "What kind of person?" It was more a rhetorical question but Hilde would never have known that.
"A very special individual that happened to run away about five months back, with the help of someone from the outside," answered Hilde.
This time Relena recalled herself to her role as 'Salimar' was remained unaffected by the information. Instead she proceeded to probe a little bit more information out of Hilde.
"Special…how? Was he, or she, a Princess or perhaps some billionaire of some sort, like your friend Quatre? A political person or even a former terrorist from the war?" interrogated Salimar with a hint of humor in her voice. It was all of the above except for the last option; Relena knew she was no terrorist, unless she had an evil twin running about somewhere that she was unaware of.
"A politician actually, and it was a woman. She is 18 years old, blond hair that is waist length, blue eyes, and in great shape," described Hilde glancing over at Lynn.
As assumed the night before, the preventers were assuming that Lynn was Relena. Taking offense to the indirect accusation, Lynn took a step back and stared wide-eyed at Hilde.
"That description sounds vaguely familiar," muttered Draca, pretending to ponder where she knew that description from.
"It should, that's the description of Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian," proclaimed Hilde getting a unison gasp from all three of the girls.
"No!" breathed Relena, it was really hard to act like she was surprised.
"Why, did any of you know her by any chance?"
Turning to Draca and Lynn, Relena exchanged glances with them before turning back to Hilde to somewhat answer the question without having to go into too much detail, yet. They needed to plan out a history to explain to Hilde otherwise this little game would be come to a conclusion all too soon.
"Hey girls," yelled Adam, poking his head out of one of the lecture halls, "have you checked the time recently? You're going to be late for class!"
Draca glanced at her watch and realized that Adam was right, they were going to be late if they stood around chit-chatting much longer.
"We've got to go, we'll come talk to you later, just stay on campus," Draca instructed Hilde before jogging down the hallway with Lynn and Relena. They weaved their way through the masses of students to their Music Theory class.
Taking notes during Music Theory, Relena was talking with Shun-li through instant messenger. It was an ancient tool and there were several advancements made to the messaging industry, but the old instant messenger was the only way to talk with someone without having to use your real name or seeing the person.
"So, what did your Grandfather, the Marquis, say about you guys playing for that fundraiser?" Shun-li wrote.
"He said it was a great idea as long as we didn't do anything too drastic like come in as 'women or men who worked the streets'," Relena replied.
"Hold on, I have to go. He's here," Shun-li announced.
Looking up from her laptop, Relena took notes that were on the white screen and listened to what the professor was explaining.
Lynn, Draca, and her had arrived in class in time for the lecture to start, so they didn't have time to start planning on a history to tell Hilde. The planning was going to have to wait until after class as neither Draca nor Lynn had sent an instant message to Relena.
"I gave him the letter that you sent to him," Shun-Li informed Relena, appearing out of nowhere.
"Thank you so much, I promise to repay you somehow," promised Relena. She didn't know quite how she was going to repay any of her friends back but she was going to, sooner or later.
"No problem, anyways you got me this job with that anonymous phone call," winked Shun-Li, sending a little animated picture of an eye winking. "Give my regards to Adam, Sage, and the girls."
"I will," assured Relena, logging off so that she could listen to the rest of the class and not get Shun-li in trouble with Lady Une. Relena didn't want to lose her only ally in the preventers.
When class ended, Lynn was the first to speak up, "May I suggest a history to tell?"
"Please do," Draca replied, packing up her laptop.
"We tell our history with Relena but this time we just add in an extra person. Can you do that Lena? Just kind of insert your new person into our past with some added little stories that the rest of us elaborate on?" Lynn suggested, looking at Relena to see if she could handle such a responsibility.
"Yeah," Relena nodded. "Yeah, that I can do."
"Okay, then," Draca declared, clapping her hands once, "it's settled. We stick with our pasts, Relena adds in her little snippets, we confirm it, and Hildra…"
"Hilde," Relena corrected.
Draca rolled her eyes before finishing, "Hilde will be none the wiser. Now, let's go get some coffee before we go tell our tale of you to Hilde."
With an uneasy smile, Relena followed Draca out of the row of chairs and down the stairs until Lynn caught up with her, placing a hand on Relena's shoulder. "Lena, are you alright about all of this? I mean we can always just tell your friend that truth and not even bother with the lying scheme," Lynn assured.
Licking her lips, Relena shook her head. "I've come this far, Lynn, I'm not turning back now. We'll play this and the preventers will disappear, never to bother us again after this," Relena answered in a more confident tone then what she felt.
"If you say so," shrugged Lynn with a smile. "Let's go get your friend some coffee; she's going to need it with what we're going to put her through."
"That she will," Relena agreed as Lynn draped an arm about her shoulder.
Thank you to: Ulitheal, DogDemonK9, Lil Dev G, Lynn-Minmay, darkfairy88, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Briar Noir, and Friends1004.