It's My Life
Okay, as promised, here's Lena's side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.
Yeah, I'm four days late. Better than last time but I need to get back on track. But I think I compensated for the waiting by making this a fairly long chapter, longer than my average chapters. Hopefully my next update will be August 11th or 12th, but I have marching band starting soon so that'll be taking up some more of my time. I'll still try though.
Sitting at the dinner table after the mini practice in the den, Relena twisted her pasta into her spoon while stealing side glances at Draca and Lynn. She was waiting for one of them, or Sylvia, to bring up the fact that Heero was going to be arriving the next day. However, Draca and Lynn were avoiding her little glances and stared right at their food or glasses of tang.
However, Ms. Noventa, in her everlasting goodness, was the person to get the ball rolling on the subject, indirectly. She began by saying how there was a message for Sylvia about an emergency meeting with a Mr. Jesermen, counselor to the Italian representative. Apparently Mr. Jesermen was passing into town and had received report of Sylvia being in Verona and wished to have an informal meeting with her.
"What?" Sylvia coughed after having momentarily choked on her cup of tea. "Sorry but I thought you said the time was at 3 pm, meaning that I wouldn't get back until about 5 pm." Mrs. Noventa nodded. "I can't do that."
"Why?"
Everyone, in one way or another, stopped to hear what the Noventa daughter had to say. 'Everyone' included Relena, her friends, and Mrs. Noventa, to the disappointment of Relena the other college students renting rooms were out that evening, studying with friends or on a date.
Picking at her food, Sylvia bit her lower lip and glanced down at the 'For Rel' members, obviously conflicted in whether she should say anything about Heero coming or not.
Biting one corner of her mouth to keep from smiling, Relena quickly put a forkful of vegetables into her mouth and chewed it quietly, pretending to be indifferent to the mother-daughter conversation.
Let's see how she's going to solve this. There's a real simple solution to this, Relena thought.
Swallowing hard, Sylvia answered, "I have a friend coming here tomorrow and I'm supposed to meet my friend at the airport at four. It's something that I can't miss."
The band members continued to eat in silence, pretending not to eavesdrop on the conversation. Well, most of the band was pretending not to eavesdrop while Adam openly showed his interest in the discussion. Until Lynn gave him a swift kick in the shin underneath the table, causing the bass player to hiss his pain.
"Oh, surely you can send a cab to pick up your friend and then greet your friend when you get back," suggested Mrs. Noventa, causing Relena grin behind her glass of tang that she was sipping from. "After all, your work as Vice Foreign Minister is far more important than anything else. I am certain that was where Ms. Darlian had gone wrong, she had let her selfish desires blind her from her duties to the people."
Clamping her mouth down on her fork, Relena felt her body begin to stiffen at the words and the food inside her mouth remained on the fork until she composed herself to slip the eating utensil out of her mouth.
Selfish? Her duties to the people? Had she failed the people once again by running away, for the second time? She had run away in the Sanc Kingdom, and now she had run away from her obligations as Vice Foreign Minister.
Damn it! I am still that fifteen year old girl who can't fight out her battles only run from those stronger under the belief of protecting others, or in this case grasping my 'last chance' at a normal life, Relena thought angrily. Idiot, I should have thought this through more thoroughly! I am selfish for doing this. I am…
A foot tapped against her shin under the table causing her to look up to see Adam watching her with concern. Relena hated that look of concern her friend would give her as it made her feel guilty for making him worry when she should be the one to worry for him.
Forcing a smile, Relena resumed eating as though nothing had been said.
It's not her fault, she is entitled to her opinions like everyone else, Relena told herself as the feeling of self-disappointment and failure crept into her. Five more minutes then I can go to my room to do some homework.
Those five minutes were like a never-ending hell to her as she sat at the table silently, engaging into no conversation with anyone but listened to the others as the subject changed from politics to the prospect of Sylvia and Heero's wedding. The subject only proceeded to make Relena distance herself from any conversing.
It's only natural that they would marry, eventually, but that doesn't sound at all like Heero. Heero hates to juggle priorities and right now, finding me is his priority, not deciding what color his tuxedo should be! If he even should decide to wear a tuxedo instead of his jeans and t-shirt. Imaging Heero standing at a church alter in jeans and a dark green t-shirt while the other former gundam pilots were in elegant tuxedos caused Relena to silently giggle and smile.
Looking up Relena realized that Adam was watching her again, this time with a questioning expression as he wiped at his face. Giggling some more, Relena shook her head to reassure him that there wasn't any food on his face that had caused her to smile.
Once dinner was over, Relena excused herself to the girls' room using the fact that she had to study for her reasoning. Mrs. Noventa accepted that as a good reason and Sylvia didn't question her or send a suspicious glance.
Making it to the room with her dignity intact, Relena went to her bed which was closest to the window, pulled off her wig and tossed it aside without a care to the piece of hair. Sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs drawn up close to her while she stared out into the darkened sky.
"Selfish…" she muttered the word into the empty room. "I'm so selfish!"
Gripping the fabric of her jeans, Relena felt her face begin to twist into one of distorted, ugly pain that accompanied crying. She didn't want to cry, she never wished to cry yet she couldn't help the two tears that were leaving a trail of salt moisture down her cheeks. It wasn't until a droplet fell onto her hand that Relena let out a soft, broken cry.
An arm wrapped around her back and another came around in front of her, as though inviting her to cry onto one of her friends' shoulders. It was an invitation that Relena was going to refuse.
Letting go of her pants to grip the arm in front of her, Relena leaned into her friend's shoulder and continued to weep as quietly as she could while another set of hands rubbed her back in a circular motion to sooth her. It was comforting and no one said anything, just waited for the former politician to vent out all her suppressed emotions from dinner.
"It's okay, Relena, we're the only one's here," Draca's voice whispered.
"Yeah, just us girls who can still watch something like 'Seven Reasons' and cry hysterically at the end," Lynn's voice added, accompanied by a forehead being pressed against the back of Relena's shoulder.
There was a moment of silence before Lynn let out an ironic laugh. "You know what? We probably look like we're ready to have a threesome sexual experience," she pointed out, causing Relena to momentarily choke on her tears as she laughed aloud with Draca. "What? It's true."
"Only you could think of that at a time like this," Draca chuckled as Relena pulled away to wipe away traces of tears. "See what you did? You made Relena start to cry out of laughter."
Another fit of laughter hit Relena making her side hurt each time her body shook from the laughter. "Ow…" she groaned, clutching her side.
"Whoa, you okay there? You're not just suddenly dying on us, are you?" Draca inquired, pleased to know that Relena was no longer tearing. "Lynn, you killed her!"
"Oh well, I'll just say it was you," shrugged Lynn, backing up a bit as Relena fell off the bed. "Oh my giddy aunt! Lena, are you alright!"
Collecting herself on the floor, Relena nodded. "Thanks a lot you guys," she smiled before her lightened demeanor evaporated into serious contemplation. "It's true, what Mrs. Noventa said, I am really selfish. I abandoned my duties to the people for selfish reasons."
Sliding off the bed, Draca grabbed one of Relena's wrists and gave it a comforting squeeze. "Under normal circumstances I would disagree and try to persuade you to think otherwise while you just nodded blankly as my persuasion skills would have no affect on you. However, this time I will agree with you; you were selfish this time." Relena flinched a bit at the words. "As are we."
"Huh?" Relena looked up, bewildered. "What are you talking about?"
"We are just as, if not more, selfish than you. We had every opportunity known to take you home, return you to the life of politics, Adam could have refused to take you that night, we could have turned you away in France," she listed, "but we didn't. We kept you around not only because you wanted to stay here, but because we didn't want you to leave. You're our friend and we wanted you to stay with us, like when we were younger."
Lynn crawled off the bed and plopped onto the floor. "Besides, Mrs. Noventa was only the wife of a fantastic politician slash general. She, herself, isn't a politician, so although she might be able to comprehend the kind of work her husband did she doesn't understand the pressure a teenaged girl like yourself is put under in the political arena. You are being constantly judged, sized-up, and everyone looked to you for advice instead of coming to possible resolutions themselves. That dependability is something that the public doesn't get to see or hear about through the news, so no one can fully understand why you ran away," Lynn explained.
With another amused snort, Lynn added, "Although, what caused you to finally break was a bit clichéd and selfish in its very teenaged, school-girl heartbreak way."
With her free hand, Relena gave her friend a bit of a shove. "You're a fine one to talk. What about Justin Schneider? Or did you forget about that fiasco at the St. Gabriel Institution?"
The blond girl's face twisted into something of shock and horror. "You promised to never bring that up again!"
Suddenly Draca was in on the teasing until Lynn decided to point out the black haired girl's obvious attraction to Sage. It was fantastic for Relena as it made her put her self-hate, doubt, and recent realizations into the back of her mind for her to bring forth later in life; when she had time to reflect upon it.
What would I ever do without them as friends? Relena thought with a grin while Lynn grabbed a nearby pillow to throw at Draca.
Some people can get work done with others hovering over their shoulder but Relena just couldn't, especially when that person doing the hovering was either Adam or Heero. As Heero normally didn't hover and wasn't around, Adam was the only person who made her quite incapable of working.
"Are you done yet?" he pouted again, continuing to pace behind Relena, stopping only to see her progress with the corrections she was making to the bass part.
"I would be if you stopped hovering over me and quit asking me if I was done," she sighed, erasing another mistake caused by Adam. Any mistakes that she had made within the last five minutes were all blamed on Adam for making her nervous and self-conscious.
"That means back off," translated Sage, grabbing his brother's collar and pulling him away from Relena to play a few rounds of sheep's head with him.
With a few moments of silence, that Relena took advantage of, the song and corrections were completed. "Done!" she announced, handing the sheet music back to Adam. "Let's try it again, from the top."
Everyone settled by their instruments, Sage at the drums clicking off the count down.
Not really paying too much attention to her part as much as she was listening intently to how the music sounded altogether, Relena almost missed her vocal entrance. It was sounding good, the bass line was fixed and was no longer sounding like a never-ending series of diminished or clashing chords.
Everything was sounding exactly as she had heard it in her head, perhaps a bit unpolished by everything was there. Every note, every chord, every crescendo or decrescendo; it was all there and it was unbelievable.
Sage had the improvised drum part down to an art, he could easily sense when the percussion was supposed to come out and when to go soft. Lynn had her guitar solo that she had co-written with Relena and the bass was no longer clashing with the piano anymore.
"Ai no subete ni deau made..." Relena sang as she ended the song with a little piano solo of her own and Draca accompanying her with a little wind chimes. "Well…?"
"Let's record it!" Adam grinned.
Sage rolled his eyes. "Hey genius, our recording gear is at the college, in case you forgot."
"Oh right…well, why don't we go through it one more time and fix any little glitches we might have?" the twin suggested, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. A few groaned. "Come on, it's only one more time. One more!"
There was a beeping from Lynn's watch to signal that it was 5:30 pm and that it was dinner time. "We're going to be late for dinner, let's back up and tomorrow we can hopefully get an hour or, at the very least, an half hour to record the song," she stated. "Cool with everyone?"
"Yeah," the group nodded as everyone began to put their instruments away.
The only rules Mrs. Noventa had for the band when they practiced in the basement were: they practice softly, practice between the hours of 3 pm and 8 pm, that they put their instruments away when not in use, and weren't late for dinner.
Collecting the music, Relena put each sheet into her folder of music. "You guys go on up, I'll clean up down here and be a bit late," she offered.
"But…" Draca began to protest.
"Go, it's best if only one of us gets into any trouble for being late. So, get going, and save me a seat somewhere," she commanded gently. No one moved. "Get going, or I'll get mad."
Without waiting to be told a third time, the group escaped upstairs to the dinning room and Relena was left alone with a basement full of amps and chords that needed to be put away. Moving the amps up against the wall, Relena rolled up the cords and placed them on top of each amp. Going over the room with her eyes, she found that Adam's bass case was lying wide open.
"Adam…what am I going to do with you?" she muttered, closing the case and locking it up. "Well, that's about it. At least Lynn can put away her guitar and case without supervision."
Shaking her head, Relena jogged up the stairs, shut off the lights, and made her way to the dinning room. Stopping in front of a mirror in the hallway, she adjusted her wig a bit, checked her contacts to make certain that there was no trace of her blue eyes to be seen, and did a once over of her clothes to make certain that her underwear was peeking out of her jeans.
With a satisfied grin she continued to the dinning room, hearing Draca cheer, "Are we!"
Must be talking about my song, sighed Relena.
"Really, we must hear it after dinner," Relena heard stated by Mrs. Noventa.
Sliding into the room, Relena apologized for her tardiness. "Sorry I'm late." As Mrs. Noventa sent her no scolding looks, Relena assumed that the landlady wasn't bothered by her lateness, much to Relena's relief.
Assessing the sitting situation, Relena took the only open seat that she found, right next to Lynn and someone else. She didn't really take notice who that someone else was as she really didn't care, as long as it wasn't Heero.
"We were just about to start without you dear, I knew you would not mind if we did so," explained Mrs. Noventa in her sweet, mirthless tone.
"Of course I wouldn't mind, who am I to keep others from eating their greens?" shrugged Relena, gently placing the napkin on her lap while glancing about the table for any sight of Heero. Where is he? she wondered. Oh no… With as much composure as she could summon, Relena turned to the person to her right. I'm going to kill Lynn for this, later of course.
Despite the lump in her throat, Relena was able to greet the Preventer. "Uh…'ello there-Heero right?-when did you turn up here?" I hope my smile doesn't seem too forced, she thought absently.
"He just arrived tonight," Sylvia answered.
Wow, I never knew, Relena thought while her mouth opened to mouth an "Oh…".
"Everyone, may I have your attention?" Mrs. Noventa commanded, silencing the table and halting everyone in his or hers eating. "I have an announcement to make."
No…don't announce it. Please don't say anything, please. Let's keep it quiet tonight about our song, I really don't want to sing while Heero's right here next to me, Relena implored mentally.
"I would like you all to meet my daughter, Sylvia, and her fiancée, Heero Yuy."
Huh? Uh? Relena tried not to let her bewilderment to show. Normally after finishing a song that they had been working on for a long time, Mrs. Noventa would have the band just sing it or a verse for the dinner company.
"Oh my God!" shrieked Cascata, jumping to her feet. "You're getting married! How exciting! When's the big day? Where do you plan on having it? Is it going to be a big wedding or a small wedding? Traditional or more modern? Oh my aunt is a wedding planner…"
Having been around many girls with a variety of personalities, Relena was still impressed by Cascata's ability to gradually, but unconsciously, start talking faster and louder when she got really excited or hyper.
Still, her fascination with Cascata's mannerisms couldn't compare to Relena's internal struggles with the second announcement of Heero and Sylvia's engagement, but this time it was stated officially and in front of everyone staying in the house. It was a shock to Relena's system still and she felt herself become ill at the thought of Heero being able to commit himself to someone he had been dating for…she didn't know how long.
He could have been seeing her for years and I wouldn't have known it. He could have been in love with her the entire time that I have known him and I would never have thought of it. Perhaps they have been dating for years and he believes this to be the best next step…
"Come on Cascata," Lynn assured, breaking into Relena's thoughts, "leave the couple alone for now. I'm certain that they will tell us all as soon as they are ready." She held out the silver cup of French dressing for someone to take. "Anyone for French?"
"Yeah, pass it here," nodded Joseph.
Joseph Bartelle was another man who Relena could find herself becoming close friends with, if she could find time when they could just hang out and get to know each other. He was intelligent, laidback, and very open-minded, although he had a tendency to get into debates about any little thing just because he knew that Cascata would argue back even if she knew she was going to lose.
"But the shin is below the belt," Joseph pointed out.
"Yes, but the phrase 'below the belt' is usually not interoperated as anything below the belt is fair game to being kicked. People take the phrase as meaning that…that…" she blushed while trying to gesture with her hands what she was trying to say. "That…that…"
Joseph sat back, thoroughly enjoying the girl's embarrassment.
"That part of the male antonym," Draca offered out of the corner of her mouth.
"Yes, thank you," agreed Cascata.
"So what," shrugged Joseph, "that doesn't mean that a person couldn't have meant the shin, the foot, or the thigh."
Laughing in between bits of food, Relena calmed down enough to catch a bit of the conversation at the other end of the table.
"I know, but it has just been so much more fun with these students here and each of them speaking to me, as well as each other, about their day. Thus far it has worked out perfectly for the meals that we have together," Mrs. Noventa giggled to her daughter. "You and Heero should join in the conversations, they are quite animated, I can assure you of that."
Relena lifted her napkin to her face to cover up her soft snort of doubt. Heero willingly getting involved in a conversation with college students? Not likely, Relena thought, laying her napkin on her lap again.
Glancing at Heero out of the corner of her eye, Relena saw that he wore an expression of deep contemplation. Whatever he was pondering it must have been important to him as he didn't seem to realize that 'Salimar' was eyeing him at all.
Cocking her head to the side, Relena wondered, Did he really propose to Sylvia? If he had, where is the ring? Is he even ready to commit his life to another person right now? I guess I'll find out sooner or later.
Turning to her salad with a sigh, Relena frowned for a moment. Why couldn't it have been me that he was willing to open up to? To propose to?
Thank you to: Paws.on.scroll (thank you so much for reviewing every chapter in a row! Wow!), Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, darkfairy88, and DogDemonK9.
Yes, the next chapter is the one that a lot of people are looking forward to, the late night discussion between Heero and Relena (Salimar).