Between Love and Hate

Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own Gundam Wing, please, you can stop asking, you know I'm never gonna.

A/N – Hello little, prettiful rays of sunshine. Looky what we got here… A very long chapter, my treat! But pretty-pretty please, just for me, a few long reviews. It would be so great; you know to reward me for my strenuous hard work at this arduous chapter!

Chapter eleven: Haunted

"What?" Relena exclaimed; the tone of her voice, indicating her annoyance. She glared at Quatre beneath the blanket of darkness that encircled them all, her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Relena," Quatre started carefully, shaking his head of blond hair gently and fully cautious of her current mood, "There's no other way, unless of course, you would prefer to walk, which I highly doubt that you would, because the hotel is approximately thirty miles from here."

"But- but…" Relena struggled with her words as the rain pelted down, rashly, upon her light hair, soaking it and plastering loose strands to her pale face, "Share a car with Heero and Nikki? That is preposterous. You can't do this to me Quatre; I would rather choose walking, over stepping into a car with that couple, any day!"

"Relena I must do this to you, I'm awfully sorry. Nevertheless, as I said earlier, there is no other way around this. All of the other cars are full. Cathy will be there to accompany you and the idea could not possibly be so bad for you to act, so uncharacteristically, like this." He shifted uncomfortably, on the pebble pathway, in front of the stunned honey-blond girl.

"Quatre," Dorothy piped, having appeared at his side and now tugging on his arm, trying to haul him in the opposite direction. "Come on, Duo's waiting on you; so that he can start the car."

Quatre stared at Relena for a few more minutes, "I'm sorry Relena, but honestly, I don't see why you and Heero have to act so childishly towards each other. What's in the past should stay in the past and be forgotten. There's no use crying over spilt milk. I just wish the both of you could hurry up and get on with it, and realise, that the both of you are holding all of us back with your grudges," and with that, he surrendered himself to his platinum haired wife who, without hesitation, dragged him to their car.

Relena turned to gaze up at the great foreboding mansion behind her, taking in all of her surroundings attentively. She noted how the forest in the distance seemed much more chilling and forbidding; in complete darkness, how the intricately designed mansion now appeared to have a somewhat sinister, threatening appeal to it and how the dark trees encompassing her all bent assertively under the aggressive force of the violent, howling wind.

Their only true light source, being the moon, had been cast over, hidden by menacingly callous, black clouds that hung low amongst the atmosphere and shed every inch of the winner grounds into a tremendous amount of fear, that spread through the inhabitants far more hastily than a deadly contaminating disease.

She could sense it. The daunting, overwhelming yet mysterious premonition that ached in her chest, that froze her blood in its veins, halted her heart in its thundering pulsation and congealed her breath with a steady twist of ice. Something was very wrong here, her intuition was screaming at her to do something quickly, but so loudly that even she could not understand its directions. Goosebumps popped up all over her chilled skin, causing Relena to shudder unwillingly, wrapping her thin arms around her body in order to feel some form of security.

She almost half expected to hear a lonesome moan from a carnivorous wolf, up upon the silent hills in the distance, but after straining her ears for a few moments, she could only here the faint plod of feet, walking slowly in her direction. Sighing, Relena turned around and let her eyes roam to her opponent's.

"I heard that I was the fortunate being, who was allowed to escort the beautiful queen, ceremoniously, to her awaiting castle." Heero strolled towards her, his dark eyes, gleaming wildly in the dark and an unrecognizable smirk graced his handsome features.

Relena glared back at him, her cold eyes never departing from his. Even though she had blushed profusely when he had used the word 'beautiful' when describing her; she still felt rather compelled to believe that there was a cynic tone to his deep voice when he had said this, and chose to ignore him, callously.

Heero frowned at her, before shrugging, rolling his eyes and sauntering, leisurely over to his car.

Relena, who had turned stubbornly in the opposite direction, preferring to stand around doing nothing, rather than stepping into a car with Heero… alone. Who knew what sorts of questions he could throw-up, and Relena for one, sure didn't want to find out. Not willingly, anyway.

When she realized seconds later, that the car had not started up nor roared to life, as it would have done - had Heero actually put the keys into the ignition and twisted them slightly – she glanced back, and to her dismay realised that he wasn't even inside the car. No. Instead he was leaning, casually against his car, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets and looking like he was shooting a pose for a GQ magazine.

He looked irresistible and dangerous at the same time; the dark look across his face strangled her heart and choked her breath in her lungs as she stared at him. In the obscurity of the darkness, Relena was almost positive that she could see him leering back at her, an attractive smirk adorning his masculine face, and his dark, unruly hair casting his face even further into shadows.

"Heero," Nikki's voice called out behind her, and Relena spun around to look at her. In her reverie, she hadn't even noticed the fact that Nikki's feet were pattering lightly down the pebbled path and swiftly carrying her towards the car. Relena scowled deeply. It was just her luck to be stuck with her two least favourite lovebirds.

"Are you ready?" Heero asked Relena, ignoring his girlfriend and turning in the opposite direction. Relena chanced a sidelong view at Nikki, and noticed, to her strange delight, that she was looking rather disappointed.

"Yes, I guess so." Relena answered, walking slowly towards the car. She realised that she would have to ride with Catherine in the back seat, as Nikki was undoubtedly riding in the front with Heero. "Where's Cathy?"

"I'm here!" Cathy called whilst running towards them, a few bags dangled from her thin delicate arms, shaking and their straps threatening to snap. "I was just…" she stopped to lean over, placing her hands upon her knees and hanging her head loosely, as she caught up to them. She gulped, gasping for fresh air to flow through her lungs, "saying goodbye to Trowa." As she raised her head, Relena realised that her eyes were still considerably red from her consistent moping and that the glamorous twinkle that usually held so much vibrancy in her eye, had still not revived.

"Goodbye?" Relena asked, her eyes widening in alarm, "What's wrong with him, what happened Cathy?"

"Nothing's changed from the last time you seen him, Relena. But it's just so hard with me to part from him after having sat at his bedside with him… the whole time." Her voice broke, but she forced herself to continue, "Oh, I do hope that he gets better soon. I miss him so much…"

'I know what you mean,' Relena thought, silently.

"…He's being taken to the hospital now. We all agreed that it was the best thing for him." Cathy continued.

'But… I never even got to say goodbye…'

"They've taken him in Zechs' car. There wasn't enough room for me to tag along. So I guess that's why I'm coming with you guys." Cathy said, finishing her speech.

"Okay, are you ready to go then?" Heero asked, not paying much attention to Cathy's story.

"Umm, is there any chance that I can get a bus instead?" Relena asked, glowering at Heero, who glared icily back at her.

"Relena," he started, his smirk was lost amidst the callous glare that had now adorned his face, "Just get in the damned car."

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The car ride there was somewhat uneventful. Relena and Cathy were crammed into the back of the silver BMW along with quite a few hand luggage, which Relena reckoned belonged to Nikki and her 'glamorous' sense of fashion.

Nikki and Heero talked frequently in the front of the car; discussing the places they had been, the movies they had seen, basically all of the things Relena hadn't done and the places that she hadn't been.

Staring out of the window, Relena noticed that it had stopped raining but the dark sky still loomed overhead with a threatening appearance. It was too dark for her to see anything out of the windows; everything that they passed appeared blurred and unfocused in shades of dark greys and blacks.

Relena glanced quickly over to Cathy, only to find that the young red haired girl was lost in a deep slumber, her head lolling on her shoulders at every sharp bend that Heero hit.

"No, I can't, Heero," Nikki's voice rose by a few decibels, stirring Relena from her thoughts. She shot her head up from leaning against the window and stared at the couple in front of her.

"Nicola, I'm serious, it's not good for you-" Heero growled. Relena noticed that he kept shooting intimidating glares at Nikki in between focusing his eyes on the dark winding road ahead of him. Nikki, however, appeared unthreatened by the looks and returned them with a scrutinizing glare of her own.

"I've got a Prada shoot coming up soon-" she argued vigorously.

"I don't give a damn about your shoot, Nicola. You're going to whether you like it or not-" Heero responded, the volume of his voice causing Cathy to stir in her sleep. Relena tore her eyes away from the bickering couple, and instead stared into the darkness outside of her window, still listening.

"Are you threatening me?" Nikki asked loudly, her pretty face twisted into a scowl and her Spanish dialogue heavily accented due to her intense anger.

"If that's what you want to call it. Nicola, I care about you, and what you're doing is extremely harmful, do you really think that I am going to stand by and watch you damage yourself?"

"If you really love me, Heero, yes you will…" Relena noticed, in her peripheral vision that Nikki had turned her head away from Heero and was now staring out of her windowpane.

Heero growled angrily. "That's bullshit."

"What? The fact that you love me is bullshit?" Nikki asked brazenly.

"No, you know exactly what I mean, Nicola… just don't do it." He replied in a matter that stated that the conversation was over.

"Hmph." Nikki countered with, before settling into the silence and laying back, deeply into her chair.

The silence that ensued amongst the car was unnerving for Relena. A thick tension hung heavily in the atmosphere and she could tell that the argument, which Nikki and Heero had shared, regarded a very serious matter. Both seemed unwilling to back-down on the matter, resulting in a tense friction filling the silent gaps.

A sudden flow of weariness drowned Relena's body, and even though she fought to remain conscious, she found that her eyelids suddenly felt as heavy as lead. She closed them slowly, and soon, the deafening silence of the car disappeared as she was sucked into a deep sleep.

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Relena jerked awake as the car came to a sudden halt, she pried her eyes open and gazed through the bleariness to see that they were now parked outside a large luxurious hotel. The building was not too tall, but had approximately five storeys.

The area surrounding them was dense in forestry and beautiful, multicoloured flowers, which rose in numbers from their flowerbeds. Bright spotlights shone up upon the great building from their spots between the floras, highlighting the hotel with a cheery glow amidst the dark skies.

"What time is it?" She asked croakily.

Heero spun his head around and grabbing the back of Nikki's chair, smirked at Relena lazily.

"So you finally decided to grace us with your conscious presence," he told her, then glancing down at his watch, he added, "Twelve thirty."

"Hmm…" Relena groaned, stretching herself as much as she could inside the cramped backseat. Glancing around her again, she noticed that Cathy and Nikki were no longer in the car. "One minute? Why are we the only two here?"

"You really do have a phobia of being alone with me, don't you? I swear I won't eat you. Cathy and Nikki are getting us checked in. We took your passport from your bag; we needed a form of identification." He said, turning around in his chair to face the front again, but adjusting the rear-view mirror so that he could see her reflection.

"Huh, okay," Relena answered wearily, leaning her head back against the rest and avoiding Heero's eyes.

"Nice photo, by the way." Heero told her in his monotonous voice, a smirk tugging at his lips.

"You - what?" Relena asked, any drowsiness remaining in her system vanished in an instant, "Oh my god, you didn't have to look at it."

Before Heero could reply, however, the front passenger door swung open and Nikki's thin body slid into her chair, her hand slamming the door behind her.

Cathy mocked her actions and slid into the backseat beside Relena, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

"Okay, so," Nikki started, swinging her long dark curled locks onto her shoulders, "I got us all rooms booked, but Catherine and Relene will-"

"Relena," Relena snapped with an icy tone.

"I'm sorry, what?" Nikki asked, turning half around in her seat to stare at Relena and raise her perfect eyebrows expectantly.

"My name… its Relena… or even Lena, but not Relene; Relena: R-E-L-E-N-A, got it?" She explained, smiling sardonically.

"Right," Nikki replied, scowling slightly, "Relena and Catherine will have to have single bedrooms. But that should be okay."

"Right okay." Heero answered before pulling the car door handle and stepping out into the unpolluted atmosphere of the hotel gardens.

Relena followed his actions and stepped out into the gardens, relishing the fresh floral and airy scents that she was inhaling.

Whilst inspecting the area, she noticed the faint watery shimmer coming from behind a large group of trees. She started to walk towards it to investigate when she felt a thin hand, grip around her upper arm, tugging her to a stop.

"Here's your room key," Relena spun around to see Nikki, standing with her hand upon her hip and her other holding a thin card out for her to grasp. "Are you going to take it?" Nikki asked in a strangely pleasant voice.

Relena took the key from her and walked past her to the car, ignoring her patronising glares.

Pulling her luggage from the open boot, Relena then hauled it into the reception area of the hotel where she was greeted by her friends.

"Lena!" Hilde exclaimed, rushing towards her friend elatedly, "Isn't this place so amazing?"

"Err, yeah, look Hilde, could you let go of my arm, I think you're cutting off the blood supply to my hand." Relena replied, staring down at her friend's death-tight grip on her arm.

"Oh," Hilde gasped, letting go of Relena's arm quickly, "I'm sorry, I was just excited."

"Hey, Hilde!" Duo called, looking for once, less energized than any of the others. He sauntered towards the pair with his head clasped between his hands.

"What's wrong with you, Duo?" Hilde asked; wrapping an arm around Duo's back.

"Urgh, killer headache, is all." Duo replied, massaging his temples with his fingers.

"Is that Hilde's fault by any chance?" Relena enquired with a laugh.

"Hah, no, she might have added to the effect, but it wasn't my babe, nah. My wife here," He hugged Hilde close to his chest and Hilde let out a girlish giggle, "was half-dead an hour ago. But we stopped at a garage to get some essentials and she's been hyped up on about five cups of coffee since."

"Oh, I see," Relena said, "I could do with some coffee just about now."

"Ditto that, Lena!" Duo answered before groaning again and digging his fingers further into the sides of head in frustration. "Well, our room is ready, babe." He told Hilde, "G'night Lena, cya in the mornin'."

"Bye, Lena." Hilde said, shrugging out of Duo's grasp and hugging Relena tightly, "Sleep well."

"Okay, you too."

Relena watched her smitten friends disappear into the elevator before scanning the reception around her.

A large chandelier hung over her head, intricately decorated with small crystals and casting a dull yellow glow on the room. The area was garnished with cream leather sofas and glass coffee tables, sparsely scattered around the centre.

Relena fished for the slim, plastic card that Nikki had handed her earlier, and after finding it in her handbag, she examined it for her room number.

"Five-oh-three," A deep, masculine voice told her. Relena spun around to be face-to-face with the perfect soldier, "Looks like you'll be on the same floor as me." He told her. Relena brought her gaze up to his eyes and noticed that they were slightly blood-shot and his face was pale and serious.

"Lucky me!" She said derisively, shaking her head slightly and causing her blonde hair to fall across her shoulders, "Looks like you're eventually back to your usual self."

Heero frowned at her, his eyebrows furrowing deeply in confusion, "And you mean… what, by that?"

"You've adopted your old stolid expression again. You know… that emotionless, cold look you used to always have." Relena clarified.

"Hn." Heero said, uninterested, he ran a large muscular hand tiredly through his chaotic hair, ruffling it even more and glared daggers at her with cold Prussian blue eyes.

Nikki strolled up to him, looking not in the least tired, and cuddled up to him, "Hey, honey, can we go to bed soon? I'm really tired." She said, running her tanned hand up and down Heero's broad chest.

"Sure," Heero replied blandly, and shooting Relena one last glare, he walked away, leaving Relena standing in the middle of the reception, staring after his retreating form.

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Relena stepped into the light foggy mist, swathed across the ground and rising, slowly around her ankles. As her foot hit the concealed ground beneath her, it clicked loudly, echoing piercingly through the silence, along the dark oblivion surrounding her.

Relena glanced nervously around her, her anxious blue eyes trying to pry between the blankets of blackness. However, she couldn't see anything… only a cold, dark, blackness that seeped into her very core, chilling her to the bone.

Glancing back down to her feet, she was amazed to see that the hazy mist was still emerging from the black ground. It climbed gradually, up her ankles and along her long legs, wrapping and twisting like smoky vines, trapping her and planting her firmly to the floor.

Beginning to panic, Relena struggled to loosen herself from the seizure, but eventually realized that her battle was useless. Climbing, at a much faster pace now, the cloudy vines wrapped around her mouth like hands, suffocating her breaths and stifling her muffled screams and pleas.

Twisting her head violently back and forth, trying to gain release, she spotted - to her surprise - a faded grey light emerging from amidst the dark and creeping silently towards her.

She stopped moving suddenly, allowing the vines to constrict her whole body in a tight hold and watched, curiously, as the ethereal radiance grew stronger and closer. Until it was shining its light rays upon her and letting her distinguish, amongst the dark, a long corridor. Along it, the glow illuminated hundreds of doors, each one the same as the next, and running down the full length of the hall, which looked to Relena, like it didn't end.

A dark figure stepped out from, seemingly nowhere, and walked slowly towards her; with each step the figure took, its blurriness merged, outlining the shape into a tall, masculine build, which strode at a gentle, serene pace with a somewhat confident stature.

Relena, feeling fearful, tried to pull back and away from the slow, shadowy form approaching her, but found that she was now completely incapable of motion in any form.

The figure took one more step forward out of the shadows, and that was all that Relena needed to recognize his tall, broad physique and his hauntingly blank, emerald green eyes.

Trowa. Trowa was standing in front of her, his expressions obscured by the dark shadows that covered all of his facial features but his eyes. His bright green eyes held a sombre hue as he gazed at her, his eyes never faltering from her fragile form.

"Trowa!" She wanted to scream, but the restraints around her mouth muted her voice and strained, painfully against her chest as she breathed in.

Another step forward and Relena wanted to scream again, only this time it wasn't because she was somewhat glad to see her friend, but because of the bloody chains bound to his hands and legs, dangling heavily to the ground. Thick, black chains that he dragged behind him and that looked as though they were excruciatingly heavy to bear.

Relena thrashed about forcefully, rebelling against her misty restraints, tears flowing freely from her eyes as she cried at the sight of her best friend. She wanted to escape… escape and run away, the display of Trowa was too much for her to cope with; if he moved any closer, she knew that her heart wouldn't be able to tolerate it any more.

Trowa bowed his head down slightly, staring at her ominously from the tops of his eyes and between his thick, curtained hair. He slowly lifted a hand, letting it gradually approach Relena's petrified face in a zombie-like manner.

Relena breathed in sharply through her nose – the only place she was capable of breathing from – as she watched his pale, bloody, scratched hand near her. She shook her head violently and pleaded him with her eyes, begging him to stop.

"No Trowa, please no…" She tried to shriek, but to no avail. Tears dripped relentlessly from her eyes as she sobbed at the merciless Trowa standing in front of her.

As soon as Trowa's hand grazed her cheek, Relena shut her eyes, trying to block out the icy chill that coursed through her body at his aloof touch.

'This is a dream,' Relena assured herself, 'This isn't real,' but the coldness seeping from his hand, the callused touch of him, it all seemed too real for it to be her imagination.

"Be careful…" Trowa told her in a gentle yet warning whisper. His voice was faded and so low that Relena could barely make it out. But she did, and her azure blue eyes snapped open quickly at his words, "Promise me… sweetheart,"

Relena released a shaky breath, staring into his serious green orbs.

"It's dangerous…" His voice faded even more until Relena lost the rest of his sentence to the placid breeze, flowing down the corridor. She shook her head fervently as his muscular form started to disappear back into the obscuring shadows.

"Don't leave…" She cried, but once again, not a sound left her voice.

Before she was given a chance to reflect on the events that had just occurred, a new figure was emerging from the shadows, this one, this time, approaching at a much faster rate and walking with an assertive, cocky stride.

A spark of dread filled Relena's body the instant he stepped into the light. His body, his shape, his posture, it was all too terrifyingly familiar.

"Hello Princess," It called. This figure, unlike Trowa's had no chains bound to his limbs, therefore it was able to walk at an alarmingly fast speed towards her, causing her blood to run cold. "Miss me?" The callous, mocking voice called out to her before laughing cruelly.

A head of blonde hair fell into slate grey eyes. Grey eyes that stared at her hauntingly, making her squirm in her restraints.

'Matthew…'

His hands reached out to abrade her face with strangely warm hands. "Are you ready for me yet?" He asked icily, his eyes illuminated with a malicious laughter and Relena could tell that he was getting a kick out of seeing her so scared. Scared of him.

"Still fighting against me I see," He told her whilst staring at her struggling form that was kicking and thrashing, trying with all her might to get away from her nightmare. "Give up, Relena, you can't win. I own you." His eyes glittered unsympathetically as he suddenly held his hands up.

Relena watched, mesmerised, as red silky ribbons appeared from thin air. Snaking their way through the air and wrapping themselves tightly around her wrists, then moving to her waist and binding themselves tightly around there.

Relena tore her gaze from the ribbons and back to Matthew, who was standing, looking smugly down at her, his hands still up in the air and this was when Relena noticed that the ribbons, too, had bound themselves around his wrists.

"See doll?" Matthew asked rhetorically, tugging at the ribbons and causing all the wispy binds from earlier to snap. Relena gasped for air as her throat was released before gazing back down at the new, stronger binds capturing her delicate body.

With another tug at the binds, Matthew hauled Relena's body towards him, so quickly that their bodies collided, sending her chest into his.

Matthew swung an arm around her waist and pulled it closely against his before placing a chaste kiss on her lips. Relena, horrified, threw her body backwards so that her back was nearly horizontal to the floor, but Matthew merely smirked at her arrogantly, as if he had just won a very valuable prize with little effort.

"You're all mine." He told her with a gluttonous and callous glint in his slate grey eyes.


'All's fair in love and war' -- American Proverb

Hehe, did you like? I really hope so 'cause... god, did it take me forever to think it up. Honestly. But all-in-all, i'm quite proud of the finished product! If you're confused... don't worry, you're meant to be, all will be explained when the time is right, but for now, review my pretties!

Ooh yeah, and don't forget... LONG REVIEWS! Love em... Love you!

Love y'all

Allura